Enclosed spaces: Beneath the Roses, by Julad
Challenge: Enclosed spaces
Title: Beneath the Roses
Author: julad
Summary: Some of it is behind closed doors. Some of it is locked away.
Notes: Thanks to the usual suspects plus sinbrat for various acts of canon-checking and fact-finding and encouragement.
The mission to M3Y-828 was only supposed to take a few hours, but what with the blizzard, and the orange slime monster, and rafting all the way down the mountain to escape it, and hiking all the way back up to the Stargate, they were a little late getting back. Not that it wasn't nice to get out and see the galaxy, John thought, shoulder still spasming after getting dislocated as they rafted right over a waterfall, but in future, Stackhouse was doing all of the recon missions.
Once Beckett was done soothing ice-burns and binding up bruised ribs, Bates accompanied them up to the conference room, looking relieved. Well, relieved under his usual dour-and-grim, anyway. Maybe he was too tired to think straight, but John found it almost touching.
"It's good to see you all," Elizabeth said, face tight, as they got seated. "We were quite worried."
"We were worried too," Teyla said, black and blue down one side of her face. "But all is well."
"Not that it isn't lovely to see you too," Rodney said, half slumped onto the conference table, "but what I really want to see right now is coffee, followed by more coffee, followed by food and my bed. The planet sucked, end of debriefing."
"Actually, that's not why you're here." Elizabeth pushed a cup of coffee over to Rodney. "We have another situation. Radek Zelenka is missing."
Uh oh, John thought, and brought himself back up to full alert. He glanced over at Bates, who was back to looking dour and grim. So he'd been relieved in the sense that he was no longer responsible, John thought wryly. So much for the warm fuzzy feelings.
Rodney was frozen with the mug halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean, he's missing?"
"I mean, nobody has seen him since before you left, and we haven't been able to locate him. I was hoping you might know something that could help."
The coffee mug clunked back down. "No, I, what? What do you mean, he's missing? You misplaced him?"
"Rodney, drink," John ordered. "Bates, talk."
It turned out they'd been having fun on M3Y-828 for nearly two days, and Zelenka hadn't been seen since before they'd left. Nobody else had used the gate, none of the jumpers were missing, and scanning the city showed no life signs unaccounted for. He wasn't answering any radio or city-wide hails, and search teams hadn't found him in the occupied sections of the city.
"That's ridiculous," Rodney snapped. "I saw him right before we left. Obviously you've made a mistake. He's asleep under a console somewhere."
"Anything you can think of to find--" Elizabeth began, and stood back as Rodney stormed down the stairs into the control room, shoving people out of his way. John followed him out of the room, leaned on the railing and watched as Rodney checked laptops and fiddled with consoles. The rest of the team came out to stand beside him.
"Okay, what idiot configured these scanners?" Rodney shouted, and then started yelling orders in a voice already hoarse from the previous two days worth of yelling.
"I was hoping he'd say that," Elizabeth said beside him, sotto voce. "For the first time in my life, I've wanted the problem to be that we were all utterly incompetent."
"Zelenka's really missing?" John said, not liking the implications of this one bit.
"This city is large," Teyla suggested. "Maybe he is simply lost in it."
Bates shook his head. "If we're not getting a life sign for him, we have to assume the worst."
"Oh, of course it's not significant!" Rodney yelled below. "That is, if you have the brain of a flea. If you were even remotely intelligent, however, you'd have looked into it two days ago!"
"There you have it," John said. "Incompetence galore."
"Here's hoping," Elizabeth replied.
* * * * *
From what John was able to understand of Rodney's extensive ranting, a small section of the city in the eastern precinct was blacked out, and something about how the city was powered meant the blackout had to be deliberate.
"So... you think that's where Zelenka is?" he repeated, just to be sure.
"I just said that; didn't I just say that?" Rodney snapped. "The blackout is centred on the transporter. It's either an SOS or he's had to cut the power for a reason; either way, he's in trouble. Can we go now, or do you want me to keep talking?"
"No, we can go," John said, and shouldered a fresh pack. "Bates, assemble a team. I want six Marines and we'll need--" he gestured to Rodney.
"Bring Miko and Simpson, they'll know what equipment to bring. It's too far on foot, so take a jumper over. You'll have to land it on this rooftop here," he pointed to the city layout on the screen, "and I've unlocked these doors here. The blackout starts twelve floors down."
"Radio might not work in the affected area," John added, "so we'll rendezvous one floor above in an hour."
"Got it," Bates said, and left.
Teyla and Ford needed to rest, but Ford shook his head. "This is our team, Sir," he said.
"If one of Dr McKay's people is in danger," Teyla said, tilting her chin up, "then I will not rest until he is safe."
They went.
* * * * *
Once they got to the blacked out area, McKay headed straight for the transporter, following the beeps on his GameBoy Ancient. Teyla and Ford took point; John followed behind in case McKay tripped over anything.
"Major," Teyla called softly, "I see a light, coming from that direction."
McKay started running, and John barked at them all to halt. "We go slow and steady, okay? It's half an hour before we've got backup."
All his caution turned out to be wasted. The light was a portable flourescent, and Zelenka was sitting under it, surrounded by bits of Ancient technology, poking them with other bits of Ancient technology, and talking to himself in Czech. He looked up at their approach, and blinked.
"Is everything all right?" Ford asked, stepping into position beside him, P90 ready. Teyla moved to his other side.
Zelenka got to his feet. "Yes, yes, I am fine. What is happening?"
John swept the area with his torch. Bedroll, gas burner, laptop, pens, and a crate of supplies.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Rodney yelled. "The whole city is looking for you!"
Zelenka blinked again. "They are? I have been right here."
"Yes, that much is obvious. Doing what, exactly? You've blacked out all of grid 235!"
"Yes," Zelenka said, nodding carefully. "I had to make sure no power could get into transporter conduits. I have fear of electrocution, you know, especially at several thousand gigawatts."
Rodney looked down at the mess around them. "You're taking apart a transporter?"
"Yes, I am," Zelenka said, very slowly. "I have been taking apart a transporter for two days now. Why is this suddenly a problem?"
"Oh, maybe because you didn't tell anyone where you were going?"
"Rodney." Zelenka frowned. "When is the last time you actually read my emails?"
Rodney opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Oh."
Teyla and Ford looked at one another, and dropped their P90s. John felt his face twist into an expression that probably matched theirs exactly.
Zelenka was glaring straight at Rodney. "I sent you at least three messages; you said yes, you read them." He started counting off on his fingers. "I talked about it at lunch, the day with the little blue beans in the stew. Two days in advance I file the project proposal as per mission protocol, and I told you before you went offworld, probably I am not here when you get back!"
Rodney waved his hands at him. "Okay, you can shut up now."
"Oh, no, not even close to shutting up! Obviously you do not listen to me when I talk about the importance of circuitry analysis. Just because you think--"
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, circuitry analysis again! It's slow, it's inefficient, it's--"
"It's boring!" Zelenka yelled over the top of him. "It is dull, it is mind numbing, but it is vital to the maintenance of the city so I have to do all of it and now I find you don't even read--"
John gestured to the others to fall back-- it just wasn't polite to watch a teammate get dressed down by a short, angry Czech. "You two, go rendezvous with Bates, tell him we found our lost sheep and the sheep is chewing out McKay for losing him in the first place."
Ford was grinning. "Yes, Sir."
"You might as well head back with his team, get some sleep. I'll stay here and keep an eye on things."
Teyla put a hand on his arm. "Should you not be resting also? Your shoulder caused you a great deal of pain, Major."
It sure as fuck had. John was so damn tired, in fact, that he'd rather sleep on the floor here than face the twelve flights of stairs between here and his bed. He waved in the general direction of the yelling. "It sounds just like home, but with better accents. I'll sleep like a baby."
"If you're sure," Ford said, looking at him dubiously. "Have fun."
He waved them off and then sat down heavily, taking off his boots with a huge sigh of relief. Now he knew it wasn't another emergency, he had the luxury of being grateful that it wasn't another fucking emergency. It had probably taken them eight hours just to hike back up that stupid mountain.
A few yards away, Rodney was trying to take the offensive.
"That's completely beside the point! On what planet did you have permission to take apart one of the transporters? One mistake and you could have cut off our access to an entire precinct of the city!"
Zelenka was waving his hands around like they were looking for a neck to strangle. "I have permission on this planet, where I said, 'Rodney, I think I need to dismantle a transporter, take a look at circuitry,' and you said, 'yes, yes, fine.'"
"I did not!" Rodney said indignantly.
"Or maybe it was 'fine, fine, yes,'" Zelenka said, and crossed his arms. "Point is, I had permission."
Rodney was shaking his finger at Zelenka. "Okay, no, here's the thing; the thing is, no, you did not. If I had said 'yes, yes, fine', you would have had permission to take apart one of the transporters, but clearly I said no such thing, because firstly, under no circumstance would I give you permission to take apart one of the transporters, secondly, 'fine, fine, yes' in this context obviously means, 'I am not listening but the answer is no,' and thirdly, what? Stop laughing at me!"
"Am not laughing," Zelenka said, and it was really only a smirk.
"And thirdly, I can't believe you took apart one of the transporters without me! What did you find?"
Pushing up the glasses on his nose, Zelenka grinned. "It is very interesting."
After that, it was nothing but technobabble, so John took off his vest and weapons, and got comfortable on the floor.
* * * * *
When he woke again, it was just getting light, sunrise creeping in through the windows. His back hurt, his shoulder was stiff, and his legs were aching, payment in full for yesterday's hike. He took a brief walk around their perimeter to loosen himself up, checking outside the windows and in empty rooms for any signs of trouble. There was no sign of McKay and Zelenka, who were the main trouble he had to be concerned with, but Zelenka's bedroll had been moved, replaced by even more wires and bits of metal, some labelled and annotated in McKay's handwriting. John headed up to the next floor and phoned home to the control room, then did a few careful stretches and jogged up and down the stairs a couple of times to get his blood moving.
Back down in the blacked out area, he found a bathroom, put his uniform into one of the Ancient Laundry Things, and got into the shower. Christ, he loved Ancient plumbing. Hot, hard water, washing away the sweat and fatigue, easing the kinks out of his neck and shoulders. He stayed in there until the Ancient Laundry Thing chimed happily, and put on a warm, clean uniform when he got out.
Back at Zelenka's makeshift camp, he looked around a bit more for the other two, refusing to be concerned that he hadn't seen them yet. The doors to the transporter were shut, and, with a little trepidation of being dragged into an argument, or worse, sent to fetch McKay coffee, he palmed them open. Amid hundreds of wires and exposed panels, McKay and Zelenka were curled up together like puppies, snoring loudly. Oh, for a camera, John thought. Boys and their toys, all tired out.
He was about to step back and leave them in peace when he noticed bruises blooming all along Rodney's side where his shirt had ridden up, standing out harshly beneath Beckett's tape on his ribcage. It looked bad, but when he leaned closer he saw that Zelenka's hand was under Rodney's shirt, fingers spread out along his spine. Okay, maybe an accident, but Rodney's thumb was hooked into the waistband of Zelenka's pants.
John stepped back hurriedly, and doors slid quietly shut in front of him.
No point jumping to conclusions, he told himself firmly, and went rummaging through McKay's pack for the coffee he knew would be stashed there.
* * * * *
An hour later, the sun was up properly, but McKay and Zelenka still hadn't emerged. He wasn't angry, but he'd cleaned all his guns and sharpened all his knives, and he was starting to get bored. All this fuss because Rodney wouldn't read his email, because Zelenka hadn't told anybody else where he was going, because nobody had noticed the blackout and thought maybe it was important. It was no way to run a mission, even a civilian one. He paced the floor, outlining procedures in his head for this kind of situation, and then spun around and punched a wall.
Okay, he was angry. He threw himself on the floor and did fifty pushups, ignoring the flaring pain in his shoulder, until he wasn't thinking about it. A minute later, he was thinking about it again, so he did a hundred situps, and then ran up the twelve flights to the jumper, turned around and headed back down again. He wasn't thinking about what he'd seen. He wasn't thinking about why he was angry about it. He was just, he just. He needed the exercise.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs again, he sat down heavily, gasping, and ordered himself to stop it. It was fucking stupid, to punish his body like this over nothing. It was nothing. He might not like it, and he might not think it was fair, and it might fill him with bitterness, but it was nothing. He had a little box inside his ribcage for nothings like this, so he put it in there with all the other nothings - his parents screaming at each other, and the jocks at high school, and the transfer to Antarctica, and the sound of a wraith dart, echoing with a thousand screams. He took the memory of Rodney's thumb in Zelenka's waistband, shoved it in the box as well, and slammed the lid shut.
He was thirsty, so he drained a bottle of water, and then noticed he was laughing softly to himself. Christ, it really was nothing, and he'd just spent an hour being mad about nothing. Shaking his head, he stood up and started stretching the muscles he'd just abused, warming down before he started cramping. He should have known better than to get worked up like that, but from time to time he forgot what was important, and what wasn't.
McKay and Zelenka, wow, he hadn't seen that coming. He'd seen how Ancient technology got Rodney all hot and bothered, though, so it was probably inevitable. It was kind of cute, actually, in a deeply uncool sort of way.
He tidied up their camp, moving everything well away from the multiplying wires and cables, then dug through the supplies Zelenka had brought and started assembling breakfast. From the looks of it, it would take at least a day to put the transporter back together, and if Rodney stayed to help (it was nothing, it was nothing) they'd need a lot more to eat. Once they emerged, John decided, he'd fly back, stock up the jumper, bring back fresh food to last a couple more days. Rodney geeking out was fun to watch, so John figured he'd hang around until they finished. He could do the fetching and carrying, soak up the technobabble, hike through this part of the city a bit, and call it R&R.
The sun was high above the horizon when McKay emerged from the transporter like a bear from his cave, hair sticking up sideways and eyes half shut. There were livid bruises peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt, and another one on his throat that might not have been a bruise at all. Something about him like that made John's heart sink sadly, but he didn't pay any attention to that. Zelenka followed a minute later, looking neater but also grumpier, like he'd been awake long enough to realise the whole city had been searching for him and he'd never hear the end of it.
"Rise and shine, kids," John drawled at them, pointing at the coffee and handing McKay the painkillers the man would need. "It's going to be another beautiful day."
* * * * *
Title: Beneath the Roses
Author: julad
Summary: Some of it is behind closed doors. Some of it is locked away.
Notes: Thanks to the usual suspects plus sinbrat for various acts of canon-checking and fact-finding and encouragement.
The mission to M3Y-828 was only supposed to take a few hours, but what with the blizzard, and the orange slime monster, and rafting all the way down the mountain to escape it, and hiking all the way back up to the Stargate, they were a little late getting back. Not that it wasn't nice to get out and see the galaxy, John thought, shoulder still spasming after getting dislocated as they rafted right over a waterfall, but in future, Stackhouse was doing all of the recon missions.
Once Beckett was done soothing ice-burns and binding up bruised ribs, Bates accompanied them up to the conference room, looking relieved. Well, relieved under his usual dour-and-grim, anyway. Maybe he was too tired to think straight, but John found it almost touching.
"It's good to see you all," Elizabeth said, face tight, as they got seated. "We were quite worried."
"We were worried too," Teyla said, black and blue down one side of her face. "But all is well."
"Not that it isn't lovely to see you too," Rodney said, half slumped onto the conference table, "but what I really want to see right now is coffee, followed by more coffee, followed by food and my bed. The planet sucked, end of debriefing."
"Actually, that's not why you're here." Elizabeth pushed a cup of coffee over to Rodney. "We have another situation. Radek Zelenka is missing."
Uh oh, John thought, and brought himself back up to full alert. He glanced over at Bates, who was back to looking dour and grim. So he'd been relieved in the sense that he was no longer responsible, John thought wryly. So much for the warm fuzzy feelings.
Rodney was frozen with the mug halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean, he's missing?"
"I mean, nobody has seen him since before you left, and we haven't been able to locate him. I was hoping you might know something that could help."
The coffee mug clunked back down. "No, I, what? What do you mean, he's missing? You misplaced him?"
"Rodney, drink," John ordered. "Bates, talk."
It turned out they'd been having fun on M3Y-828 for nearly two days, and Zelenka hadn't been seen since before they'd left. Nobody else had used the gate, none of the jumpers were missing, and scanning the city showed no life signs unaccounted for. He wasn't answering any radio or city-wide hails, and search teams hadn't found him in the occupied sections of the city.
"That's ridiculous," Rodney snapped. "I saw him right before we left. Obviously you've made a mistake. He's asleep under a console somewhere."
"Anything you can think of to find--" Elizabeth began, and stood back as Rodney stormed down the stairs into the control room, shoving people out of his way. John followed him out of the room, leaned on the railing and watched as Rodney checked laptops and fiddled with consoles. The rest of the team came out to stand beside him.
"Okay, what idiot configured these scanners?" Rodney shouted, and then started yelling orders in a voice already hoarse from the previous two days worth of yelling.
"I was hoping he'd say that," Elizabeth said beside him, sotto voce. "For the first time in my life, I've wanted the problem to be that we were all utterly incompetent."
"Zelenka's really missing?" John said, not liking the implications of this one bit.
"This city is large," Teyla suggested. "Maybe he is simply lost in it."
Bates shook his head. "If we're not getting a life sign for him, we have to assume the worst."
"Oh, of course it's not significant!" Rodney yelled below. "That is, if you have the brain of a flea. If you were even remotely intelligent, however, you'd have looked into it two days ago!"
"There you have it," John said. "Incompetence galore."
"Here's hoping," Elizabeth replied.
* * * * *
From what John was able to understand of Rodney's extensive ranting, a small section of the city in the eastern precinct was blacked out, and something about how the city was powered meant the blackout had to be deliberate.
"So... you think that's where Zelenka is?" he repeated, just to be sure.
"I just said that; didn't I just say that?" Rodney snapped. "The blackout is centred on the transporter. It's either an SOS or he's had to cut the power for a reason; either way, he's in trouble. Can we go now, or do you want me to keep talking?"
"No, we can go," John said, and shouldered a fresh pack. "Bates, assemble a team. I want six Marines and we'll need--" he gestured to Rodney.
"Bring Miko and Simpson, they'll know what equipment to bring. It's too far on foot, so take a jumper over. You'll have to land it on this rooftop here," he pointed to the city layout on the screen, "and I've unlocked these doors here. The blackout starts twelve floors down."
"Radio might not work in the affected area," John added, "so we'll rendezvous one floor above in an hour."
"Got it," Bates said, and left.
Teyla and Ford needed to rest, but Ford shook his head. "This is our team, Sir," he said.
"If one of Dr McKay's people is in danger," Teyla said, tilting her chin up, "then I will not rest until he is safe."
They went.
* * * * *
Once they got to the blacked out area, McKay headed straight for the transporter, following the beeps on his GameBoy Ancient. Teyla and Ford took point; John followed behind in case McKay tripped over anything.
"Major," Teyla called softly, "I see a light, coming from that direction."
McKay started running, and John barked at them all to halt. "We go slow and steady, okay? It's half an hour before we've got backup."
All his caution turned out to be wasted. The light was a portable flourescent, and Zelenka was sitting under it, surrounded by bits of Ancient technology, poking them with other bits of Ancient technology, and talking to himself in Czech. He looked up at their approach, and blinked.
"Is everything all right?" Ford asked, stepping into position beside him, P90 ready. Teyla moved to his other side.
Zelenka got to his feet. "Yes, yes, I am fine. What is happening?"
John swept the area with his torch. Bedroll, gas burner, laptop, pens, and a crate of supplies.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Rodney yelled. "The whole city is looking for you!"
Zelenka blinked again. "They are? I have been right here."
"Yes, that much is obvious. Doing what, exactly? You've blacked out all of grid 235!"
"Yes," Zelenka said, nodding carefully. "I had to make sure no power could get into transporter conduits. I have fear of electrocution, you know, especially at several thousand gigawatts."
Rodney looked down at the mess around them. "You're taking apart a transporter?"
"Yes, I am," Zelenka said, very slowly. "I have been taking apart a transporter for two days now. Why is this suddenly a problem?"
"Oh, maybe because you didn't tell anyone where you were going?"
"Rodney." Zelenka frowned. "When is the last time you actually read my emails?"
Rodney opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Oh."
Teyla and Ford looked at one another, and dropped their P90s. John felt his face twist into an expression that probably matched theirs exactly.
Zelenka was glaring straight at Rodney. "I sent you at least three messages; you said yes, you read them." He started counting off on his fingers. "I talked about it at lunch, the day with the little blue beans in the stew. Two days in advance I file the project proposal as per mission protocol, and I told you before you went offworld, probably I am not here when you get back!"
Rodney waved his hands at him. "Okay, you can shut up now."
"Oh, no, not even close to shutting up! Obviously you do not listen to me when I talk about the importance of circuitry analysis. Just because you think--"
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, circuitry analysis again! It's slow, it's inefficient, it's--"
"It's boring!" Zelenka yelled over the top of him. "It is dull, it is mind numbing, but it is vital to the maintenance of the city so I have to do all of it and now I find you don't even read--"
John gestured to the others to fall back-- it just wasn't polite to watch a teammate get dressed down by a short, angry Czech. "You two, go rendezvous with Bates, tell him we found our lost sheep and the sheep is chewing out McKay for losing him in the first place."
Ford was grinning. "Yes, Sir."
"You might as well head back with his team, get some sleep. I'll stay here and keep an eye on things."
Teyla put a hand on his arm. "Should you not be resting also? Your shoulder caused you a great deal of pain, Major."
It sure as fuck had. John was so damn tired, in fact, that he'd rather sleep on the floor here than face the twelve flights of stairs between here and his bed. He waved in the general direction of the yelling. "It sounds just like home, but with better accents. I'll sleep like a baby."
"If you're sure," Ford said, looking at him dubiously. "Have fun."
He waved them off and then sat down heavily, taking off his boots with a huge sigh of relief. Now he knew it wasn't another emergency, he had the luxury of being grateful that it wasn't another fucking emergency. It had probably taken them eight hours just to hike back up that stupid mountain.
A few yards away, Rodney was trying to take the offensive.
"That's completely beside the point! On what planet did you have permission to take apart one of the transporters? One mistake and you could have cut off our access to an entire precinct of the city!"
Zelenka was waving his hands around like they were looking for a neck to strangle. "I have permission on this planet, where I said, 'Rodney, I think I need to dismantle a transporter, take a look at circuitry,' and you said, 'yes, yes, fine.'"
"I did not!" Rodney said indignantly.
"Or maybe it was 'fine, fine, yes,'" Zelenka said, and crossed his arms. "Point is, I had permission."
Rodney was shaking his finger at Zelenka. "Okay, no, here's the thing; the thing is, no, you did not. If I had said 'yes, yes, fine', you would have had permission to take apart one of the transporters, but clearly I said no such thing, because firstly, under no circumstance would I give you permission to take apart one of the transporters, secondly, 'fine, fine, yes' in this context obviously means, 'I am not listening but the answer is no,' and thirdly, what? Stop laughing at me!"
"Am not laughing," Zelenka said, and it was really only a smirk.
"And thirdly, I can't believe you took apart one of the transporters without me! What did you find?"
Pushing up the glasses on his nose, Zelenka grinned. "It is very interesting."
After that, it was nothing but technobabble, so John took off his vest and weapons, and got comfortable on the floor.
* * * * *
When he woke again, it was just getting light, sunrise creeping in through the windows. His back hurt, his shoulder was stiff, and his legs were aching, payment in full for yesterday's hike. He took a brief walk around their perimeter to loosen himself up, checking outside the windows and in empty rooms for any signs of trouble. There was no sign of McKay and Zelenka, who were the main trouble he had to be concerned with, but Zelenka's bedroll had been moved, replaced by even more wires and bits of metal, some labelled and annotated in McKay's handwriting. John headed up to the next floor and phoned home to the control room, then did a few careful stretches and jogged up and down the stairs a couple of times to get his blood moving.
Back down in the blacked out area, he found a bathroom, put his uniform into one of the Ancient Laundry Things, and got into the shower. Christ, he loved Ancient plumbing. Hot, hard water, washing away the sweat and fatigue, easing the kinks out of his neck and shoulders. He stayed in there until the Ancient Laundry Thing chimed happily, and put on a warm, clean uniform when he got out.
Back at Zelenka's makeshift camp, he looked around a bit more for the other two, refusing to be concerned that he hadn't seen them yet. The doors to the transporter were shut, and, with a little trepidation of being dragged into an argument, or worse, sent to fetch McKay coffee, he palmed them open. Amid hundreds of wires and exposed panels, McKay and Zelenka were curled up together like puppies, snoring loudly. Oh, for a camera, John thought. Boys and their toys, all tired out.
He was about to step back and leave them in peace when he noticed bruises blooming all along Rodney's side where his shirt had ridden up, standing out harshly beneath Beckett's tape on his ribcage. It looked bad, but when he leaned closer he saw that Zelenka's hand was under Rodney's shirt, fingers spread out along his spine. Okay, maybe an accident, but Rodney's thumb was hooked into the waistband of Zelenka's pants.
John stepped back hurriedly, and doors slid quietly shut in front of him.
No point jumping to conclusions, he told himself firmly, and went rummaging through McKay's pack for the coffee he knew would be stashed there.
* * * * *
An hour later, the sun was up properly, but McKay and Zelenka still hadn't emerged. He wasn't angry, but he'd cleaned all his guns and sharpened all his knives, and he was starting to get bored. All this fuss because Rodney wouldn't read his email, because Zelenka hadn't told anybody else where he was going, because nobody had noticed the blackout and thought maybe it was important. It was no way to run a mission, even a civilian one. He paced the floor, outlining procedures in his head for this kind of situation, and then spun around and punched a wall.
Okay, he was angry. He threw himself on the floor and did fifty pushups, ignoring the flaring pain in his shoulder, until he wasn't thinking about it. A minute later, he was thinking about it again, so he did a hundred situps, and then ran up the twelve flights to the jumper, turned around and headed back down again. He wasn't thinking about what he'd seen. He wasn't thinking about why he was angry about it. He was just, he just. He needed the exercise.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs again, he sat down heavily, gasping, and ordered himself to stop it. It was fucking stupid, to punish his body like this over nothing. It was nothing. He might not like it, and he might not think it was fair, and it might fill him with bitterness, but it was nothing. He had a little box inside his ribcage for nothings like this, so he put it in there with all the other nothings - his parents screaming at each other, and the jocks at high school, and the transfer to Antarctica, and the sound of a wraith dart, echoing with a thousand screams. He took the memory of Rodney's thumb in Zelenka's waistband, shoved it in the box as well, and slammed the lid shut.
He was thirsty, so he drained a bottle of water, and then noticed he was laughing softly to himself. Christ, it really was nothing, and he'd just spent an hour being mad about nothing. Shaking his head, he stood up and started stretching the muscles he'd just abused, warming down before he started cramping. He should have known better than to get worked up like that, but from time to time he forgot what was important, and what wasn't.
McKay and Zelenka, wow, he hadn't seen that coming. He'd seen how Ancient technology got Rodney all hot and bothered, though, so it was probably inevitable. It was kind of cute, actually, in a deeply uncool sort of way.
He tidied up their camp, moving everything well away from the multiplying wires and cables, then dug through the supplies Zelenka had brought and started assembling breakfast. From the looks of it, it would take at least a day to put the transporter back together, and if Rodney stayed to help (it was nothing, it was nothing) they'd need a lot more to eat. Once they emerged, John decided, he'd fly back, stock up the jumper, bring back fresh food to last a couple more days. Rodney geeking out was fun to watch, so John figured he'd hang around until they finished. He could do the fetching and carrying, soak up the technobabble, hike through this part of the city a bit, and call it R&R.
The sun was high above the horizon when McKay emerged from the transporter like a bear from his cave, hair sticking up sideways and eyes half shut. There were livid bruises peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt, and another one on his throat that might not have been a bruise at all. Something about him like that made John's heart sink sadly, but he didn't pay any attention to that. Zelenka followed a minute later, looking neater but also grumpier, like he'd been awake long enough to realise the whole city had been searching for him and he'd never hear the end of it.
"Rise and shine, kids," John drawled at them, pointing at the coffee and handing McKay the painkillers the man would need. "It's going to be another beautiful day."
* * * * *