FIC: You Flew Pretty Good (part 1)
Title: You Flew Pretty Good
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Humour, Crossover
Characters/Pairing: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, some Gabriel. Most of Atlantis crew.
Spoilers: Mid Season 5 for Supernatural (Hammer of the Gods), none for Atlantis (basically).
Rating: G
Word Count: 17K (4 parts)
Summary: Gabriel has the perfect idea to put the apocalypse on full stop. Really, it's absolutely brilliant. And with a click of his fingers, the idea is set to roll. And no, he won't take Dean and Sam's ungratefulness to heart - he's used to it by now. AKA that time Gabriel clicked his fingers and Dean and Sam ended up in different puddlejumpers far away in a galaxy unknown. Being shot at. By the Wraith. (Plus, for some unknown, innate, reason - everyone mentally insults Dean.)
A/N: Oh no, don't mind me, I'm just a newbie trying to get in with the big shots. Just ignore my fumbling with livejournal, my not-first and or second-language English, and bad, bad, humour. This, is written for spn_in_space. That is all.
YOU FLEW PRETTY GOOD
"I'm not going to stay here until Lucifer comes!" Gabriel hissed, staring wide eyed at the Winchester's. “He'll tear me apart, he'll tear me a new one, he'll- he'll- he'll- father, the things he'll do to me, are you idiots forgetting he's the devil? There's a reason why he's the devil.”
The older Winchester bristled at him like a cat with it's fur ruffled. “This is your family, Gabriel.” He said, voice grating on the Archangel's nerves with it's self imposed righteousness. “This is your responsibility! Deal with it! He's your brother!”
"Exactly!" Why the hell couldn't they understand? “He's my older brother, he's the one that taught me everything I know! So if you came out of Hell all demonic and everything, do you think you'd be stupid enough to get ganked by your little brother?”
The wince that accompanied his words didn't bother him at all - hello, trickster? - but the way the idiots completely pushed that aside and flung it out the proverbial window without even bothering to try and understand it was irritating. Mister Righteous Man (and seriously, was this a joke? The guy was a slob with a raging libido and little brain cells) flung his arms in the air, and apparently that rolled the ball into Earnest Puppy Dog Eyed Sammy's court. The full effect of those large dark eyes was intimidating - but Gabriel had seen the kid at his lowest (i.e. those six months he'd killed off Dean), he knew the younger Winchester was a little devil himself, the perfect host for Lucifer, so the effect was heavily dampened.
"Gabriel,” The younger Winchester tried anyway. “Thousands of people will get hurt if Lucifer gets away with this, if the apocalypse actually happens. All those innocent people. Millions.”
Gabriel scoffed, unrepentant. Damn apes procreated like rabbits anyway.
"Yeah well what the hell will you be doing when the Earth is empty and screwed?” Dean gritted out, glaring death at him. “Nobody for you to be all trickster on - meaning no more slow dancing aliens - nobody for you to even bother getting Smite McSmitey on - hell, no one to freaking make candies. So what the hell will you get out of it? You think they'll let you swagger back in Heaven after the big fight?”
... Damn, kid had a point.
Faced with this new conundrum, Gabriel held a finger up before either of the brothers could continue, feeling a small bit of childish amusement when they tried talking anyway and found their voice boxes completely locked. Tapping his chin with said finger, he hummed thoughtfully, eyeing the red walls of the room they were in in the hotel housing a whole gathering of gods and goddesses.
Now that he thought about it, yeah, Michael (and definitely Raphael) wouldn't quite just let him walk back in, but he could easily swing some crap and play them into letting him in, so that was a mute point. Heaven was boring, though - it's why he'd never bothered keeping track of it after finally getting out - and he couldn't stomach the idea of spending the rest of eternity up there until the humans finally got themselves back up to the point they were in now. Knowing how apocalypse's went, three quarters of the world would be inhabitable, it'd take a few hundred centuries or so for them to be liveable again, and even longer for the humans to find a way to populate said places. Then give it a few more boring as hell centuries until they finally popped out enough babies, and only then would they even attempt to build up on technology and culture and everything else.
Dear Hades in the Underworld, it would take ages until they finally made candy.
Damn, even worse, sure, he could swindle his way back into Heaven - it wouldn't be too hard, Raphael was his little brother and a pussy, and Michael was all about the wrongful crawling back home repentant and shit - there'd be no way the brother's little rebellious angel would be allowed. Not after being the very reason why the apocalypse wasn't happening already. Did the two idiots even think about that? Did Castiel even think about that? Probably not. Idiots hung around idiots, after all.
Heaving a despondent sigh, Gabriel's shoulders slump as he finally came to a conclusion. The brothers idiot were right, he couldn't just let Lucifer and Michael take their vessels and go-a battling with their fancy swords. Great, freaking great, he had to take part in the family drama all over again - as if the last time wasn't bad enough; he'd never get over the sheer idiocy of his brothers, Lucifer throwing a hissy fit over the creation of humans, Michael acting like a caveman all “Lo, it is so. Stop whining.” and Raphael's whiny ass voice in the background going on and on and on about father knew what.
But no way in creation was he hanging around for Lucifer to come.
"Alright knuckle heads, I'll help. I was gonna help anyway,” Gabriel pressed quickly at the look of relief on the Winchester's faces. “But I'm sticking to my first plan, aka no way in hell am I sticking 'round for Lucy to come-a calling.”
Before Dean could open his big mouth (read: luscious big mouth, Gabe wasn't exactly blind, y'know), what the older of the humans said suddenly made a comeback to his brain.
No more slow dancing aliens.
For a minute, he grinned fondly at the memory, remembering how simple everything had been back then, how frisky Kali was - hell, even how he'd been looking forward to grabbing a few drinks with Thor after the big lug came back from Egypt - but then the full context of it morphed into something else. An idea.
Holy mother of Hades, an idea.
And it was a great idea.
It was a great idea.
Lips spreading into a large grin, he stared appraisingly at each brother's chests, at the Enochian sigils Castiel had carved into their ribs. It was beautiful work, great control not seen much around most of the other brothers and sisters the two had, and in any other life, Gabe would've been so impressed he'd have taken Castiel under his wings and trained him up into a Cherubim, at the very least. But that was besides the point. Grin turning more sharp, he realised the sheer incredibleness of his plan.
All he had to do was hide the vessels. Indefinitely. At least, until Lucifer and Michael got bored like fuck and returned to whence they freaking came from. And thanks to Castiel's carving, the boys would be under the radar anyway, all he had to do was hide them so Lucy couldn't go peeping like an old Tom into Sammy-boy's dreams. And there was only so far an angel's radar could get to enter someone's dreams. Even less for a fallen angel like Lucy. So all he had to do was thrust the gigantic human very, very, far away. And then Dean too just to make sure Lucifer didn't go bat shit ape and decide to rip his brothers vessel apart - that, and to make sure Sam didn't do something too freaking stupid like he seemed to always do without Dean around.
Yeah. That made perfect sense. And Gabe knew just the place that was as far away as possible to keep them both out of the woods. About damn time he called up on the little dude for his favour, anyway.
The boys were starting to wise up, Dean was starting to clue in - boy might be stupid, but he had damn good tastes and a mean streak of common sense - and Sam was reading the atmosphere and Dean's growing panic.
"Boys,” The Archangel drawled with glee. “I have just the idea.”
Then Gabriel, flashing far too much teeth, did something both Winchester's cringed at.
He snapped his fingers.
. . .
John Sheppard was on the verge of passing out, he really was, because of the blood pooling around him from the wound on his left shoulder and the unbearable pain it took to stay focused to navigate his Jumper. A lance of pain shot up his arm as he urged the ship to move left, just in time to barely dodge a shot but not wide enough to instil any sense of confidence. The ship was barely holding it together - at best - moving shakily like a newborn colt because of his damn lack of focus and how everything was fading in and out, but he couldn't just sleep, no matter how badly he wanted too, because otherwise he'd be as good as dead, shot away to explode soundlessly in outer space, where nobody would even be able to retrieve his body to give him an actual burial.
Morbid thoughts aside, John needed to either toughen up and deal with this, or a miracle.
The Jumper shook as a shot blind sided him from the back, jarring him hard enough that he barely kept from crying out in pain by biting his tongue. It did, however, throw him backwards, away from the navigation panel, smacking him up against the far wall. The ship began spiralling out of control without it's pilot, he could see statistics and a ton load of other numbers that made no sense to his dazed self flash up on his holographic HUD, but more pressingly, he could see a Wraith Dart ship heading right towards him, could hear someone screaming through the MIC to dodge, dodge, dodge!
That's when the miracle happened. Or, truthfully, that's when things just took a turn for the worse and John figured he'd either passed out and was dreaming this up, or was dead and his Heaven was apparently dreaming this up.
The guy appeared out of nowhere, popping into existence right in front of John like he was coming to visit for tea and jolly good morning, chum and dear lord John was suffering from a concussion now too, which was just great. He belatedly took note of the rumpled clothes, the worn jeans, the heavy looking boots, the broad shoulders and short buzz hair. Immediately though, he took note of the Jumper's insides lighting up like a Christmas tree - and he certainly wasn't doing that, nosiree, John was on the verge of passing out and could barely think on, so that meant the guy in front of him had the ATA gene, meaning he could pilot the ship, meaning he could try and save both their asses before that Wraith ship decided to finally shoot and blow them to smithereens.
Quiet smithereens. Space apparently liked its quiet.
But the guy was panicking, dear god the guy was panicking, going on about some Sammy, and what the hell is this, and Oh my God this is worst then planes, and Gabriel, when I get my hands on you---
"Dude, shit, you're bleeding. What the hell, put some pressure on that.”
Oh, so the guy was speaking to him now, great, that was good, because of course it didn't matter that the Jumper was barely holding it together and none of them were at the navigation panel driving the damn thing and they were going to die in five minutes top. Go ahead, let's hold a damn conversation, in fact, how about some biscuits to go with that, Pennyworth?
The Jumper began quaking once more, signalling another hit to its hull, and John's HUD was telling him another shot like that would have them exploding so prettily. To his surprise, the guy kept his footing, showing he didn't just look fit but that he apparently was, and started panicking anew. But rather then rant about some people only he knew, he made it very clear he was in a spaceship. In space. With another spaceship shooting at him. And that the pilot for the spaceship was apparently bleeding out and unable to drive the ship. As if John didn't already know, hell, John was the pilot bleeding out and unable to drive the damn ship!
But that was here nor there, John just got an idea. Obviously, he can't pilot (you don't drive planes, you pilot them) the Jumper, obviously the Jumper needs an ATA gene to be piloted (or at least, it needed the gene to be piloted with any sense of actual skill), and obviously the guy in front of him now quietly freaking out and hyperventilating had the ATA gene - and apparently in spades by the freaking light show going on in here - so why not have him drive them to relative safety?
That was a great idea. Where John came up with such an idea while concussed to his eyeballs and suffering from major blood loss was beyond him. Maybe that was the miracle.
Or maybe he was in Hell.
Both were completely plausible, Rodney would have some scientific sounding statistic and thesis and hypothesis and statistic to back it up and come up with the most likely one, but if John didn't get himself to safety he'd never hear it and right now he'd pay with all of his chocolate stash to even hear the scientist's non-stop insults to everybody around him and their intelligence.
"The panel.” He croaked out finally, mustering whatever little energy he had to point at it with his right hand. “Go to the panel.”
The guy paused in his breathing exercise (deep breaths, breath in, breath out, don't think about being in hyperspace in a star wars rendition of the battle against the Sith - oh god, just breath in, dude, breath out--) and stared at John incredulously before turning to the panel, then turned back to stare at John incredulously again. “And?”
The hell do you mean and? John thought angrily. “Use it.” He hissed out, anger giving him more energy to wave at the damn place. “Use it and freaking get us out of here!”
The bark of laughter was biting and completely not pleasant. “No way dude,” the guy said, shaking his head back and forth wildly. “I can't pilot this shit, it's a freaking spaceship.”
Great, give the boy a Blue Peter Badge, absolutely wonderful. “If you don't pilot us out of here, we will die. Silently.” He bit out in reply, glaring at the man scathingly. “Silently.”
The guy flailed his hands in panic, head whipping back and forth between the panel and John, then shook his head again but in desperation. “I don't know how to pilot this thing!”
John studied him for a split second before coming to the easiest conclusion he could think of. “You drive?”
The guy blanched, but nodded.
“It's like driving, except a lot more mental then anything else. Go to the damn panel, put your hand on the glowey bit, and think the ship to do what you want. Don't bark orders at her, just gentle ease her into going left and right and whatever.”
Blondie (and John could see it now, the short buzz hair looked like a horrific mixture between blonde and brown) stared incredulously at him - probably for his use of the female gender rather then the whole mind-drive this thing - but showed he had some brain cells by going to the navigation panel and hesitantly placing his hand on it. Immediately, the Jumper shook, going haywire and struggling to go in one direction, and John screamed “one direction! Think of one direction!” at the guy before he heeded his words and finally levelled the ship out into simply zooming forwards.
They zipped past some enemy ships and friendlies at a moderate pace, not really fast at all but not slow enough to get hit, and the guy craned his neck backwards and stared at John wordlessly with wide eyes for directions. John nodded at him in a vain hope of trying to be reassuring - hell, he didn't know what the hell was going on, was he hallucinating? He hoped he was - and told him to ease her to the left and back around to face where they came from.
The scrunched up expression of concentration would've been absolutely hilarious if John was in tip top condition - really, it would have - but the Jumper refused to move, refused to acknowledge whatever message the guy was giving her and simply continued going forwards. The wide eyed look of fear shot at him afterwards was message enough, but before John could say anything, a new communication link opened up on his HUD from another puddlejumper, heralding the voice of some guy screaming Dean!
Somewhere along the panic, John's Jumper must have activated the speaker phone, because the name reverberated around the whole ship rather then just vibrating painfully between John's ears. Turned out Blondie was actually called Dean, and the guy was stupid enough to yank his hand off the navigation panel and stare around widely at the ship going Sammy? Sam? Is that you? Where are you!?
"Dean!” The voice said again, and what the hell was this strange voice doing on Roberts' ship? “Dean! Are you OK? What's going on? Are you hurt?”
"I'm in a freaking goddamn ship being shot at by other ships in space, Sam! And the pilot's freaking hurt!”
A curse, actually two curses, John recognised William Robert's voice in the background taking over. “Lieutenant Colonel! Are you injured? Who's piloting your jumper?”
"Impaled myself on some crap the techs left behind, Captain. I'm trying to get this guy to pilot it, he's got the ATA gene, but it's not working out so well.”
Robert gave a rather colourful curse, but the comm was passed over to the other man - Sammy.
"Dean, he's injured, you're not. You need to pilot it!”
The named Dean didn't look convinced and adamantly shook his head wildly as his friend continued.
"Think of it like the Impala! Except with no steering wheel, just imagine we're kids and you're pretending to be a space pirate or something - we need to take down the ships that look different then us before we can go anywhere safe.”
An Impala? So this Sammy and Dean were at the very least childhood friends, if not related. Huh, that was good to know, if nothing else, it would help a little when he did everything he could to court marshal the idiot as soon as they got back on Atlantis.
"But Saaaaaammmm,” the guy whined, bouncing from one foot to the other like he needed the toilet. Badly.
"You have too, Dean. Otherwise they'll shoot us out of the hemisphere and then we'll end up back in Heaven and the angels will just resurrect us.”
Whatever the hell that meant seemed to break through to Blondie. The guy scowled heavily up at the ceiling as if Sam was speaking from there, then stalked to the navigation panel and jabbed his hands onto the glowing surface. Rather then lose further control of the ship, the Jumper came to a soothing stop, almost as if professionally piloted, and the lights around dimmed somewhat into a more controlled environment. Without preamble, Dean steered the Jumper around to face back at the ensuing chaos of them VS the Wraith, his shoulders moving slightly as if physically willing the Jumper to follow his bidding, and with two deep breaths and a muttered god knew what, the ship suddenly gunned it forward towards the attacking ships.
"How do you shoot?” Dean asked him.
Realising his mouth was open and he was gaping as the Jumper ate up the distance between itself and the action, John shut it with a click and replayed the question in his head. “Just- Just think it. Go on, think.”
One nod was his answer, and John started wondering whether the guy was military trained or not with how focused he looked - just moments before he was panicking for god's sake, and John only knew military men to switch off their emotions like that when the situation called for it. As soon as they were in range, two shots escaped the puddlejumper, looking for all the world like they were just test shots with how wide they went, but John realised almost immediately they were perfect.
As in, really perfect.
Really, really, perfect.
"Holy shit, Colonel! Great shot!”
Yeah, Robert. Because he was the one doing the shooting.
Dean grinned at that, eyes twinkling slightly as he shifted to stand into a more comfortable position, completely bypassing the chair. Two enemy ships exploded from the shots, leaving only a few more that were easily picked out by the rest of the puddlejumpers deployed from Atlantis. Without even wasting a blink, the battlefield was soon cleared, leaving only them alive, thankfully with no loses, and the other Jumpers began turning towards home. Dean's eyes darted around thoughtfully, before turning to look at John, deferring to his more experienced knowledge with a grace John hadn't thought the other adult had.
Slowly, John nodded, and Dean began steering the Jumper to glide along with the other ships.
"You flew pretty good,” the lieutenant colonel was surprised to hear himself say. “For a guy with aerophobia.”
Dean just answered that with an embarrassed look, scratching at the hair on his nape. “Yeah, uh, about that. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it. At all.” A pause, then a knowing grin was shot at him. “And I won't mention your concussion-induced ramblings. Seriously dude, Pennyworth? Didn't take you for a Batman fan.”
Yeah whatever, John thought snidely, relief flooding through him as the ocean heralded Atlantis coming into view, least I'm not afraid of flying.
[Next Part]
Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Humour, Crossover
Characters/Pairing: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, some Gabriel. Most of Atlantis crew.
Spoilers: Mid Season 5 for Supernatural (Hammer of the Gods), none for Atlantis (basically).
Rating: G
Word Count: 17K (4 parts)
Summary: Gabriel has the perfect idea to put the apocalypse on full stop. Really, it's absolutely brilliant. And with a click of his fingers, the idea is set to roll. And no, he won't take Dean and Sam's ungratefulness to heart - he's used to it by now. AKA that time Gabriel clicked his fingers and Dean and Sam ended up in different puddlejumpers far away in a galaxy unknown. Being shot at. By the Wraith. (Plus, for some unknown, innate, reason - everyone mentally insults Dean.)
A/N: Oh no, don't mind me, I'm just a newbie trying to get in with the big shots. Just ignore my fumbling with livejournal, my not-first and or second-language English, and bad, bad, humour. This, is written for spn_in_space. That is all.
YOU FLEW PRETTY GOOD
"I'm not going to stay here until Lucifer comes!" Gabriel hissed, staring wide eyed at the Winchester's. “He'll tear me apart, he'll tear me a new one, he'll- he'll- he'll- father, the things he'll do to me, are you idiots forgetting he's the devil? There's a reason why he's the devil.”
The older Winchester bristled at him like a cat with it's fur ruffled. “This is your family, Gabriel.” He said, voice grating on the Archangel's nerves with it's self imposed righteousness. “This is your responsibility! Deal with it! He's your brother!”
"Exactly!" Why the hell couldn't they understand? “He's my older brother, he's the one that taught me everything I know! So if you came out of Hell all demonic and everything, do you think you'd be stupid enough to get ganked by your little brother?”
The wince that accompanied his words didn't bother him at all - hello, trickster? - but the way the idiots completely pushed that aside and flung it out the proverbial window without even bothering to try and understand it was irritating. Mister Righteous Man (and seriously, was this a joke? The guy was a slob with a raging libido and little brain cells) flung his arms in the air, and apparently that rolled the ball into Earnest Puppy Dog Eyed Sammy's court. The full effect of those large dark eyes was intimidating - but Gabriel had seen the kid at his lowest (i.e. those six months he'd killed off Dean), he knew the younger Winchester was a little devil himself, the perfect host for Lucifer, so the effect was heavily dampened.
"Gabriel,” The younger Winchester tried anyway. “Thousands of people will get hurt if Lucifer gets away with this, if the apocalypse actually happens. All those innocent people. Millions.”
Gabriel scoffed, unrepentant. Damn apes procreated like rabbits anyway.
"Yeah well what the hell will you be doing when the Earth is empty and screwed?” Dean gritted out, glaring death at him. “Nobody for you to be all trickster on - meaning no more slow dancing aliens - nobody for you to even bother getting Smite McSmitey on - hell, no one to freaking make candies. So what the hell will you get out of it? You think they'll let you swagger back in Heaven after the big fight?”
... Damn, kid had a point.
Faced with this new conundrum, Gabriel held a finger up before either of the brothers could continue, feeling a small bit of childish amusement when they tried talking anyway and found their voice boxes completely locked. Tapping his chin with said finger, he hummed thoughtfully, eyeing the red walls of the room they were in in the hotel housing a whole gathering of gods and goddesses.
Now that he thought about it, yeah, Michael (and definitely Raphael) wouldn't quite just let him walk back in, but he could easily swing some crap and play them into letting him in, so that was a mute point. Heaven was boring, though - it's why he'd never bothered keeping track of it after finally getting out - and he couldn't stomach the idea of spending the rest of eternity up there until the humans finally got themselves back up to the point they were in now. Knowing how apocalypse's went, three quarters of the world would be inhabitable, it'd take a few hundred centuries or so for them to be liveable again, and even longer for the humans to find a way to populate said places. Then give it a few more boring as hell centuries until they finally popped out enough babies, and only then would they even attempt to build up on technology and culture and everything else.
Dear Hades in the Underworld, it would take ages until they finally made candy.
Damn, even worse, sure, he could swindle his way back into Heaven - it wouldn't be too hard, Raphael was his little brother and a pussy, and Michael was all about the wrongful crawling back home repentant and shit - there'd be no way the brother's little rebellious angel would be allowed. Not after being the very reason why the apocalypse wasn't happening already. Did the two idiots even think about that? Did Castiel even think about that? Probably not. Idiots hung around idiots, after all.
Heaving a despondent sigh, Gabriel's shoulders slump as he finally came to a conclusion. The brothers idiot were right, he couldn't just let Lucifer and Michael take their vessels and go-a battling with their fancy swords. Great, freaking great, he had to take part in the family drama all over again - as if the last time wasn't bad enough; he'd never get over the sheer idiocy of his brothers, Lucifer throwing a hissy fit over the creation of humans, Michael acting like a caveman all “Lo, it is so. Stop whining.” and Raphael's whiny ass voice in the background going on and on and on about father knew what.
But no way in creation was he hanging around for Lucifer to come.
"Alright knuckle heads, I'll help. I was gonna help anyway,” Gabriel pressed quickly at the look of relief on the Winchester's faces. “But I'm sticking to my first plan, aka no way in hell am I sticking 'round for Lucy to come-a calling.”
Before Dean could open his big mouth (read: luscious big mouth, Gabe wasn't exactly blind, y'know), what the older of the humans said suddenly made a comeback to his brain.
No more slow dancing aliens.
For a minute, he grinned fondly at the memory, remembering how simple everything had been back then, how frisky Kali was - hell, even how he'd been looking forward to grabbing a few drinks with Thor after the big lug came back from Egypt - but then the full context of it morphed into something else. An idea.
Holy mother of Hades, an idea.
And it was a great idea.
It was a great idea.
Lips spreading into a large grin, he stared appraisingly at each brother's chests, at the Enochian sigils Castiel had carved into their ribs. It was beautiful work, great control not seen much around most of the other brothers and sisters the two had, and in any other life, Gabe would've been so impressed he'd have taken Castiel under his wings and trained him up into a Cherubim, at the very least. But that was besides the point. Grin turning more sharp, he realised the sheer incredibleness of his plan.
All he had to do was hide the vessels. Indefinitely. At least, until Lucifer and Michael got bored like fuck and returned to whence they freaking came from. And thanks to Castiel's carving, the boys would be under the radar anyway, all he had to do was hide them so Lucy couldn't go peeping like an old Tom into Sammy-boy's dreams. And there was only so far an angel's radar could get to enter someone's dreams. Even less for a fallen angel like Lucy. So all he had to do was thrust the gigantic human very, very, far away. And then Dean too just to make sure Lucifer didn't go bat shit ape and decide to rip his brothers vessel apart - that, and to make sure Sam didn't do something too freaking stupid like he seemed to always do without Dean around.
Yeah. That made perfect sense. And Gabe knew just the place that was as far away as possible to keep them both out of the woods. About damn time he called up on the little dude for his favour, anyway.
The boys were starting to wise up, Dean was starting to clue in - boy might be stupid, but he had damn good tastes and a mean streak of common sense - and Sam was reading the atmosphere and Dean's growing panic.
"Boys,” The Archangel drawled with glee. “I have just the idea.”
Then Gabriel, flashing far too much teeth, did something both Winchester's cringed at.
He snapped his fingers.
. . .
John Sheppard was on the verge of passing out, he really was, because of the blood pooling around him from the wound on his left shoulder and the unbearable pain it took to stay focused to navigate his Jumper. A lance of pain shot up his arm as he urged the ship to move left, just in time to barely dodge a shot but not wide enough to instil any sense of confidence. The ship was barely holding it together - at best - moving shakily like a newborn colt because of his damn lack of focus and how everything was fading in and out, but he couldn't just sleep, no matter how badly he wanted too, because otherwise he'd be as good as dead, shot away to explode soundlessly in outer space, where nobody would even be able to retrieve his body to give him an actual burial.
Morbid thoughts aside, John needed to either toughen up and deal with this, or a miracle.
The Jumper shook as a shot blind sided him from the back, jarring him hard enough that he barely kept from crying out in pain by biting his tongue. It did, however, throw him backwards, away from the navigation panel, smacking him up against the far wall. The ship began spiralling out of control without it's pilot, he could see statistics and a ton load of other numbers that made no sense to his dazed self flash up on his holographic HUD, but more pressingly, he could see a Wraith Dart ship heading right towards him, could hear someone screaming through the MIC to dodge, dodge, dodge!
That's when the miracle happened. Or, truthfully, that's when things just took a turn for the worse and John figured he'd either passed out and was dreaming this up, or was dead and his Heaven was apparently dreaming this up.
The guy appeared out of nowhere, popping into existence right in front of John like he was coming to visit for tea and jolly good morning, chum and dear lord John was suffering from a concussion now too, which was just great. He belatedly took note of the rumpled clothes, the worn jeans, the heavy looking boots, the broad shoulders and short buzz hair. Immediately though, he took note of the Jumper's insides lighting up like a Christmas tree - and he certainly wasn't doing that, nosiree, John was on the verge of passing out and could barely think on, so that meant the guy in front of him had the ATA gene, meaning he could pilot the ship, meaning he could try and save both their asses before that Wraith ship decided to finally shoot and blow them to smithereens.
Quiet smithereens. Space apparently liked its quiet.
But the guy was panicking, dear god the guy was panicking, going on about some Sammy, and what the hell is this, and Oh my God this is worst then planes, and Gabriel, when I get my hands on you---
"Dude, shit, you're bleeding. What the hell, put some pressure on that.”
Oh, so the guy was speaking to him now, great, that was good, because of course it didn't matter that the Jumper was barely holding it together and none of them were at the navigation panel driving the damn thing and they were going to die in five minutes top. Go ahead, let's hold a damn conversation, in fact, how about some biscuits to go with that, Pennyworth?
The Jumper began quaking once more, signalling another hit to its hull, and John's HUD was telling him another shot like that would have them exploding so prettily. To his surprise, the guy kept his footing, showing he didn't just look fit but that he apparently was, and started panicking anew. But rather then rant about some people only he knew, he made it very clear he was in a spaceship. In space. With another spaceship shooting at him. And that the pilot for the spaceship was apparently bleeding out and unable to drive the ship. As if John didn't already know, hell, John was the pilot bleeding out and unable to drive the damn ship!
But that was here nor there, John just got an idea. Obviously, he can't pilot (you don't drive planes, you pilot them) the Jumper, obviously the Jumper needs an ATA gene to be piloted (or at least, it needed the gene to be piloted with any sense of actual skill), and obviously the guy in front of him now quietly freaking out and hyperventilating had the ATA gene - and apparently in spades by the freaking light show going on in here - so why not have him drive them to relative safety?
That was a great idea. Where John came up with such an idea while concussed to his eyeballs and suffering from major blood loss was beyond him. Maybe that was the miracle.
Or maybe he was in Hell.
Both were completely plausible, Rodney would have some scientific sounding statistic and thesis and hypothesis and statistic to back it up and come up with the most likely one, but if John didn't get himself to safety he'd never hear it and right now he'd pay with all of his chocolate stash to even hear the scientist's non-stop insults to everybody around him and their intelligence.
"The panel.” He croaked out finally, mustering whatever little energy he had to point at it with his right hand. “Go to the panel.”
The guy paused in his breathing exercise (deep breaths, breath in, breath out, don't think about being in hyperspace in a star wars rendition of the battle against the Sith - oh god, just breath in, dude, breath out--) and stared at John incredulously before turning to the panel, then turned back to stare at John incredulously again. “And?”
The hell do you mean and? John thought angrily. “Use it.” He hissed out, anger giving him more energy to wave at the damn place. “Use it and freaking get us out of here!”
The bark of laughter was biting and completely not pleasant. “No way dude,” the guy said, shaking his head back and forth wildly. “I can't pilot this shit, it's a freaking spaceship.”
Great, give the boy a Blue Peter Badge, absolutely wonderful. “If you don't pilot us out of here, we will die. Silently.” He bit out in reply, glaring at the man scathingly. “Silently.”
The guy flailed his hands in panic, head whipping back and forth between the panel and John, then shook his head again but in desperation. “I don't know how to pilot this thing!”
John studied him for a split second before coming to the easiest conclusion he could think of. “You drive?”
The guy blanched, but nodded.
“It's like driving, except a lot more mental then anything else. Go to the damn panel, put your hand on the glowey bit, and think the ship to do what you want. Don't bark orders at her, just gentle ease her into going left and right and whatever.”
Blondie (and John could see it now, the short buzz hair looked like a horrific mixture between blonde and brown) stared incredulously at him - probably for his use of the female gender rather then the whole mind-drive this thing - but showed he had some brain cells by going to the navigation panel and hesitantly placing his hand on it. Immediately, the Jumper shook, going haywire and struggling to go in one direction, and John screamed “one direction! Think of one direction!” at the guy before he heeded his words and finally levelled the ship out into simply zooming forwards.
They zipped past some enemy ships and friendlies at a moderate pace, not really fast at all but not slow enough to get hit, and the guy craned his neck backwards and stared at John wordlessly with wide eyes for directions. John nodded at him in a vain hope of trying to be reassuring - hell, he didn't know what the hell was going on, was he hallucinating? He hoped he was - and told him to ease her to the left and back around to face where they came from.
The scrunched up expression of concentration would've been absolutely hilarious if John was in tip top condition - really, it would have - but the Jumper refused to move, refused to acknowledge whatever message the guy was giving her and simply continued going forwards. The wide eyed look of fear shot at him afterwards was message enough, but before John could say anything, a new communication link opened up on his HUD from another puddlejumper, heralding the voice of some guy screaming Dean!
Somewhere along the panic, John's Jumper must have activated the speaker phone, because the name reverberated around the whole ship rather then just vibrating painfully between John's ears. Turned out Blondie was actually called Dean, and the guy was stupid enough to yank his hand off the navigation panel and stare around widely at the ship going Sammy? Sam? Is that you? Where are you!?
"Dean!” The voice said again, and what the hell was this strange voice doing on Roberts' ship? “Dean! Are you OK? What's going on? Are you hurt?”
"I'm in a freaking goddamn ship being shot at by other ships in space, Sam! And the pilot's freaking hurt!”
A curse, actually two curses, John recognised William Robert's voice in the background taking over. “Lieutenant Colonel! Are you injured? Who's piloting your jumper?”
"Impaled myself on some crap the techs left behind, Captain. I'm trying to get this guy to pilot it, he's got the ATA gene, but it's not working out so well.”
Robert gave a rather colourful curse, but the comm was passed over to the other man - Sammy.
"Dean, he's injured, you're not. You need to pilot it!”
The named Dean didn't look convinced and adamantly shook his head wildly as his friend continued.
"Think of it like the Impala! Except with no steering wheel, just imagine we're kids and you're pretending to be a space pirate or something - we need to take down the ships that look different then us before we can go anywhere safe.”
An Impala? So this Sammy and Dean were at the very least childhood friends, if not related. Huh, that was good to know, if nothing else, it would help a little when he did everything he could to court marshal the idiot as soon as they got back on Atlantis.
"But Saaaaaammmm,” the guy whined, bouncing from one foot to the other like he needed the toilet. Badly.
"You have too, Dean. Otherwise they'll shoot us out of the hemisphere and then we'll end up back in Heaven and the angels will just resurrect us.”
Whatever the hell that meant seemed to break through to Blondie. The guy scowled heavily up at the ceiling as if Sam was speaking from there, then stalked to the navigation panel and jabbed his hands onto the glowing surface. Rather then lose further control of the ship, the Jumper came to a soothing stop, almost as if professionally piloted, and the lights around dimmed somewhat into a more controlled environment. Without preamble, Dean steered the Jumper around to face back at the ensuing chaos of them VS the Wraith, his shoulders moving slightly as if physically willing the Jumper to follow his bidding, and with two deep breaths and a muttered god knew what, the ship suddenly gunned it forward towards the attacking ships.
"How do you shoot?” Dean asked him.
Realising his mouth was open and he was gaping as the Jumper ate up the distance between itself and the action, John shut it with a click and replayed the question in his head. “Just- Just think it. Go on, think.”
One nod was his answer, and John started wondering whether the guy was military trained or not with how focused he looked - just moments before he was panicking for god's sake, and John only knew military men to switch off their emotions like that when the situation called for it. As soon as they were in range, two shots escaped the puddlejumper, looking for all the world like they were just test shots with how wide they went, but John realised almost immediately they were perfect.
As in, really perfect.
Really, really, perfect.
"Holy shit, Colonel! Great shot!”
Yeah, Robert. Because he was the one doing the shooting.
Dean grinned at that, eyes twinkling slightly as he shifted to stand into a more comfortable position, completely bypassing the chair. Two enemy ships exploded from the shots, leaving only a few more that were easily picked out by the rest of the puddlejumpers deployed from Atlantis. Without even wasting a blink, the battlefield was soon cleared, leaving only them alive, thankfully with no loses, and the other Jumpers began turning towards home. Dean's eyes darted around thoughtfully, before turning to look at John, deferring to his more experienced knowledge with a grace John hadn't thought the other adult had.
Slowly, John nodded, and Dean began steering the Jumper to glide along with the other ships.
"You flew pretty good,” the lieutenant colonel was surprised to hear himself say. “For a guy with aerophobia.”
Dean just answered that with an embarrassed look, scratching at the hair on his nape. “Yeah, uh, about that. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it. At all.” A pause, then a knowing grin was shot at him. “And I won't mention your concussion-induced ramblings. Seriously dude, Pennyworth? Didn't take you for a Batman fan.”
Yeah whatever, John thought snidely, relief flooding through him as the ocean heralded Atlantis coming into view, least I'm not afraid of flying.
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