FIC: The Human Body IV: Getting Into Your Genes (S/B, PG-13)
Title: The Human Body IV: Getting into Your Genes
Author: Waldo. [info]kwaldo12
Rating: PG-13
Words: 7226
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Featured Players: Teyla, Zelenka
Spoilers: "Runner".
Summary: Carson and John develop independent theories about why some people have better control with the gene than others. Carson spills blood to prove his. John just plays games.
A/N :arric_dream cut her beta teeth on this piece. Thanks, Dream! Any remaining errors or confusions are mine alone. The term of the episode (the one I seem to have to explain) is dumb-cane. It's the common name for the plant Diffenbachia that purportedly causes anyone who chews it to temporarily lose their voice. The game in the story is based on a real video game, ironically (or, you know, not) called Atlantis.
The Human Body IV: Getting into Your Genes
By: Waldo.
John let his forward momentum carry him as he grabbed the door jam straight-armed and swung into Carson’s lab. “Hey Carson!”
He wasn’t ready for the strangled scream and string of curses that his greeting was returned with.
When Carson seemed to be wrapping up the long stream of words John hadn’t realized Carson even knew, let alone used, John noticed that the doctor’s finger was bleeding rather profusely. He scrunched up his face in sympathy and guilt. “Uh-oh… Did I do that?”
Carson took a small pipette and drew some of the blood up before walking over to the small sink in the corner. “It’s nothing,” he finally said as he rinsed off the offended digit, grabbed a paper towel and put pressure on the wound.
Still feeling guilty, but not sure why, John slowly moved closer. “Did I do that?” he asked again.
“It’s nothing. I was drawing a little blood, and you startled me and I drove the lancet in a little deeper than was really necessary.”
“Can I get you a band-aid or something?” John offered, not sure what else to do.
Carson nodded to a first aid kit on the back wall. “Thanks.”
John couldn’t figure out why he found a packed first aid kit in a medical lab funny. It was like having MREs in a full kitchen he supposed. He found one of the funky butterfly-shaped fingertip bandages and peeled the wrapper off. He took a couple of tissues off the box on Carson’s workbench and took hold of Carson’s hand. He wiped the blood off and put the bandage on, all the while feeling somewhat ridiculous for trying to render medical aid to the Chief Medical Officer. “Sorry about this,” he said as he tossed the tissues.
“I’ll live; I promise,” Carson said with a smile.
John leaned back against the counter. “What the hell were you sticking yourself for, anyway? Don’t you have people to do that?”
“I had an idea about the Ancient gene that I wanted to check out. You’ll be next, by the way.”
John rolled his eyes. “Fabulous.”
“Yes, well, as long as no one goes around trying to scare the life out of me while I’m getting your sample, it’ll be a little less traumatic.” He smiled to show he wasn’t really holding a grudge.
“Sorry,” John muttered again. “So,” he started, desperately wanting to change the subject, “What’s the new break through?”
“Oh, I don’t know if you can call it that. Right now it’s just a theory.” Carson picked up the pipette and began prepping the blood for… something. John couldn’t tell what.
“Okay, what’s the theory?” he pressed. He was surprised when he had to ask twice. In his experience, asking an Atlantis scientist what he or she was working on was good for a lecture of at least an hour.
“You’ll stop me when I get boring?” Carson asked, still working.
“Fine,” John agreed.
“I’ve been wondering why we’re seeing such varying degrees of ability to control the Ancient technology. You don’t even have to try. I can make most anything work, but it takes a more than a bit of concentration. Rodney can only get about half of the things to activate that you and I can.” He glanced up to see if John was following.
“Right,” John said just to show that he was paying attention.
“Well here’s the thing. I started wondering if what made the ATA gene work at different levels was along the same lines as what makes some people have green eyes.”
John crossed his eyes, as if trying to see his own irises. “So you think I can handle the technology better because I have green eyes?” That sounded ridiculous.
“No,” Carson laughed. “But here’s the thing - and I’m simplifying a lot - the gene for blue eyes is recessive. The gene for brown eyes is dominant. But it’s not always a complete dominance. If both your parents have blue eyes, all you can have is blue eyes. But if your parents both have brown eyes, there’s a chance you can have blue eyes. If they each have a gene for brown and gene for blue and you get the blue gene from each of them.”
“So where does the green come in?”
“The brown-eye gene isn’t always completely dominant. If you get one blue-eye gene and one brown-eye gene, they can mix and give you green eyes.” Carson explained.
“And this has what to do with Ancient technology?”
“Well, with genes moving in pairs as they do, what if, in your case you got two ATA genes that were coded ‘on’ for lack of a better term? What if I have one that’s ‘on’ and one that’s ‘off’? People without the gene… it’s not so much that they don’t have it - everyone has the same number of genes - it’s just that theirs are both coded for ‘off.’ What the gene therapy does, somewhat incompletely, is to get one or both of them to switch to ‘on.’ Basically it forces a very specific mutation.”
John crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “I think what frightens me the most about all this is that I understood exactly what you were saying.”
Carson smiled. “You asked,” he reminded John.
“I did,” John conceded. He had his own theories about the ability to control Ancient technology that had nothing to do with blood or microscopes or whatever it was Carson was playing with now, but he decided to wait to share his ideas. “I think the part I liked best was the part about Rodney being a mutant,” John added.
“There are those who thought that long before I found the ATA gene or developed the gene therapy.” Carson looked up from his work and caught John’s eye. They both grinned at each other, and Carson could feel his cheeks warm just a little, like they always did when John smiled at him like that.
Carson looked back down at the blood sample. “So anyway, I doubt you came down here for a discussion on genetics. Did you need something?”
“Yeah. Dinner. You gonna be out of here any time soon?”
Carson wondered if the slightly giddy feeling the invitation left him with showed on his face. “I need about an hour to get this going. I really don’t want to have to stick myself again tomorrow morning.”
John thought about apologizing again, but decided it was time to let it go. “Okay. I’ll come back in an hour.” He pushed himself away from the counter and headed for the door. He had one hour to badger a certain Czech scientist into signing off on that piece of tech John had found a few days ago during one of the scheduled sweeps of the still-unexplored parts of the city.
~~~
John entered another lab and waited quietly while Zelenka finished whatever he was doing that had his head most of the way in a rather large box-shaped piece of ancient technology. He liked to consider himself a smart enough person to learn from his mistakes the first time. He didn’t want to be the cause of damage for yet another one of Atlantis’ crew, so he didn’t come in hollering.
It was about five minutes before Radek started dragging his head out of the box and turned to see Sheppard standing not three feet away, waiting for him.
“Do prdele!” He jumped back, his head not having completely cleared the housing on the device, and cracking his skull on it.
John rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Proboha, Colonel. You should not go around sneaking up on people.” Radek rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head.
“Sorry, Dr. Z.” John was getting that ‘can’t win for losing’ feeling. “I announced myself to the last person I dropped in on and he damn near drove a needle through his hand.”
Radek was looking at him oddly through his glasses.
“Nevermind,” John said, “Are you done with it?”
“Yes. I am. And yes, I managed to keep Rodney from knowing what it is. If we are right he would insist that he be the supervisor of it now that he has the gene as well.” Zelenka pulled open the top drawer of the workbench he had claimed as his own and handed over a device about the size and shape of a life-signs detector. “If it does anything else, you will bring it back, yes?”
“Promise,” Sheppard said as he pocketed it. “Where is McKay, anyway?”
“I think he is still trying to get Miko to run giegercounter over him. Again. He is convinced that the radiation on that planet has done irreparable harm . I try to tell him that if he does not stop complaining, that it is not radiation that he needs to fear doing that.”
“I have never met someone more prone to complaining,” John commiserated. He’d threatened Rodney for it a few times himself. He could hardly blame Zelenka and the rest of the science staff.
Zelenka leaned in conspiratorially “I heard he went to Dr. Beckett asking for sperm count. If rumors are true, Carson handed him specimen cup and pointed to a microscope and told him to count them himself.”
John snorted. “You know I would have paid to have see that.”
“As would have I,” Radek agreed. “Carson certainly has a way of dealing with Rodney that I envy.”
“Carson has long needles and ‘bend over and cough’ to put the fear of god into people like Rodney,” John added.
Radek laughed. “Very true. Now, if I am to get any sleep tonight without waking up and running down here to try ‘just one more thing’, I should get back to this,” Radek said, gesturing to the box, never once alluding to it’s purpose. John supposed he’d find out soon enough. Despite having had to pull the genetics lecture out of Carson earlier, he still stood by his assertion that when the scientists had something to say, a case of dumb-cane wouldn’t stop them.
“Alright. Thanks, Dr. Z.!” he called over his shoulder as he fairly skipped out of the engineering lab.
~~~
Carson had his blood sample ready to go and had the computer set up to record the results in forty minutes. He thought about calling Colonel Sheppard and telling he’d meet him in the mess, but then thought better of it. John had said he’d come back to pick Carson up for dinner. Now, dinner in the mess hall wasn’t exactly a formal date, but the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t find reasons to think it wasn’t an informal one. The thought made him a little giddy inside. He still had an unholy dread that he was misreading the colonel’s general gregariousness , but more and more he was having a hard time convincing himself of that.
Precisely an hour after he left, John Sheppard was back in his doorway. He didn’t risk swinging around the doorway again; instead, he stopped just inside the threshold and leaned against the storage cabinet near the door. “Ready?”
Carson pulled off his white coat and hung it on the peg on the near the door. “Yes. Sorry to make you wait.” Secretly he was kind of excited that John would bother to wait for him.
John shrugged. “Sorry I damn near made you amputate your finger. I wouldn’t want you to have to risk that again.”
Carson held up his bandaged finger. “This is nothing. During my casualty rotation I was bitten by a two year old who really didn’t want me looking down her throat. Took eight stitches.”
John looked at him askew. “Damn, and I thought I had a dangerous job.”
~~~
They chatted about their day and other mundane topics as they grabbed trays and decided what food looked the least lethal. Once they had what they needed John steered them to a table near the windows, looking over the rest of the city and the ocean.
Teyla asked to join them shortly after they sat down. Carson slid his chair a little closer to the window, “Of course, have a seat.”
Teyla set her tray down. She sat and turned to Carson then looked at John, “I wanted to apologize for misspeaking the other day. I had no idea what the phrase ‘sleeping together’ meant to your people at the time. Doctor Weir has since explained why Doctor McKay suddenly turned red and lost his ability to form full sentences for a short while. My apologies if I have embarrassed anyone.”
John snickered, still amused by the whole thing.
Carson smiled at Teyla. “No problem, love. It’s just a bit of a misunderstanding. Honestly, I’m surprised we haven’t had more of them. Idiomatic language can be problematic for English speakers of one world who come from different cultures.”
John poked at the congealed carrots on his plate. “I once heard someone say that England and America were two countries separated by a common language.”
“That we are, sometimes,” Carson agreed.
“But you are not from England,” Teyla inquired. “Peter Grodin was from England. You are from Scotland, correct?”
“Well, I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that. Properly, I’m from the United Kingdom, which is one country comprised of England proper, Scotland and several other nations. Most Americans tend to simplify and call it all England. I’ve learned that it’s too much bother to correct them.”
John looked slightly abashed, knowing he was guilty of that, but not knowing that it struck a nerve with anyone.
Realizing that John was looking a little sheepish Carson steered the conversation back to language. “At any rate, idioms tend to crop in the oddest ways amongst different groups of people who share a language. When we were at McMurdo we were waiting for Rodney to show up and start a meeting. It was an early meeting, and Rodney has a tendency to work late, so when I got up, I stopped by his quarters and pounded on the door until he answered it, so at least I’d know he’d gotten out of bed. So I get down to the conference room and Radek asked me if I’d seen McKay and I told him that I’d stopped by his room and knocked him up to be sure got out of bed.”
John couldn’t react fast enough to keep from spitting his milk out.
Carson smiled. “Aye. I knew immediately where every American in the room was. And most of the Canadians for that matter.”
Teyla looked confused. “I do not understand.”
“Where I come from,” Carson explained, “to ‘knock someone up’ is to knock on the door, to visit them.”
John finished wiping up the milk. “Where I come from ‘knocking someone up’ means getting them pregnant.”
Teyla turned to him in confusion. She looked back at Carson. “Your people’s interpretation of the phrase makes much more sense.”
Carson nodded, “I thought so too. Since then I’ve just decided that it’s safer not to use it at all.”
John was still laughing. “You told a room full of geeks that you knocked up Rodney McKay. That’s priceless.”
Carson looked a little abashed. “The fun part came when Rodney finally showed up and everyone was asking him if he expected a boy or a girl and if he’d started picking out names. Of course he had no idea what anyone was on about.”
John filed that away as fodder for the next time McKay started getting under his skin.
They spent the rest of dinner discussing the oddities of the English language. Why flammable and inflammable meant the same thing. Why no one ever got the phrase ‘I couldn’t care less’ right and other inane things that absolutely no one at that table was really qualified to answer. But it was a light conversation and it was fun. John decided that there was far too little light conversation and fun on Atlantis.
When they were done they cleared up their trays and headed for the exit. There, Teyla took her leave of them, saying something about being invited to girls’ poker night. John could see Carson getting ready to excuse himself as well, so he interrupted before Carson could say anything. “You busy now?”
Carson looked up and down the hall as if John might have been talking to someone else. “Not really, no.”
“Cool. I want to show you something.”
Carson was suddenly very nervous, but he followed John down the hall.
They stopped in front of John’s door. John waved it open, but Carson stood rooted in front of him. “Your quarters? In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve seen your quarters before. In fact I’ve slept here before, remember?” Carson glanced up to see one of the new Marines that had just transferred in from the Daedalus passing by. He couldn’t think of her name - Laura something, he thought - and he realized she’d probably heard the last part of that. He waved at her sheepishly, “Hi,” he said, blushing and wondering what she’d make of him and what he’d just said.
She just smiled, waved back and kept on walking, shaking her head.
John shoved him forward through the doorway. “You’re not going to need Teyla starting rumors. You’re doing fine on your own.”
Carson turned to apologize, but the big grin on John’s face stopped him. “Hey, you’re the one who said there are worse things people could be saying about you.”
“Have a seat,” John said waving Carson into the room. He’d forgotten that his clean laundry was on the couch in a heap, waiting to be folded. “Um… here, sit on the bed. I forgot about the clothes.” He grinned sheepishly.
Carson sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at John apprehensively.
“What?” John asked as he grabbed the device he’d retrieved from Zelenka and sat next to Carson.
“I didn’t say anything,” Carson said, sounding more defensive than he’d meant to.
“Well, no, but you’re looking at me like you think I’m up to something,” John confessed.
“You look like you’re up to something; what’s that you’ve got there?” Warning bells were going off in Carson’s head. John had that half-grin that said he was going to propose something that would be at least nominally unpopular and he knew it.
“Consider it proof for the ‘nurture’ side of the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate on the gene.” John held it out to Carson.
“The gene is clearly natural. Your genes don’t change because of your environment and we’ve conclusively proven that the ATA gene is responsible for a person’s ability to activate Ancient technology. There’s no nurture element.”
John sat down next to him put a hand between Carson’s shoulderblades. Carson was getting way too worked up. He’d intended to mess with his head a little, but not make him nervous. Not like this at any rate. “Right, like you were saying earlier, you have the gene or not - or I guess you were saying the gene is ‘on’ or not. But I was thinking maybe it’s more like this - some people are born with musical talent. Others have to practice, like, a thousand hours a day to get good, right? But at the end of the day both of them can play the same piece no matter if they were born with an innate ability to it or if they had to work at it.”
Carson nodded starting to see where John was heading.
“And I think that maybe I found proof that I’m right.” He tapped the device that was now glowing softly under Carson’s fingers. “This is a ten-thousand year old Gameboy.”
“A what?” Carson asked, studying it carefully. The edges were glowing a soft white, but the center remained dark.
“It’s a videogame. Zelenka and I found it when we went up into that southern spire last week. He checked it out, and we can’t figure out what else it could be.”
“You think people who invented Stargates and cities that rise and sink had time to sit and play videogames?” Carson asked indignantly.
“No,” John said with a smile.
Carson glared at him.
“Which means it actually served another purpose. It only responds to people with the gene. Zelenka couldn’t get it to do squat. I spent about six hours the other night playing this damn game. It’s addictive as hell. Every play Tetris?”
Carson nodded, “Actually yes.”
“Okay, so you get it. Anyway, we determined that when the Ancients started to work this whole telepathy thing into the city, they had to learn how to control it. This, we figured, was a training tool.” John tapped the edge of the device. “Turn it on.”
Carson flipped it over and then around on it’s edge, sliding his fingers around looking for a hidden button.
John took it, reoriented it and handed it back. “Turn it on.”
The emphasis on the last word wasn’t lost on Carson. He blushed a little. John had just gotten done telling him that it was a gene-controlled device. He spared John a little glare and sighed before thinking the device to life.
John’s hand came down over the screen just as he did. “Is this a bad idea?”
Carson glanced up, “What?”
“Me foisting this thing on you. I know you get nervous using the gene. I thought maybe it you had a way to fine-tune your control… But if you really don’t want to…” John shrugged.
“Can I shoot anything with it?” Carson asked, feeling somewhat badly that he’d crashed John’s good mood.
“No. It’s a game. Perfectly safe.”
“As far as we know,” Carson added knowing that Atlantis was always full of surprises and nothing was ever guaranteed.
John rolled his head back and forth, “As far as we know,” he echoed. “But seriously. I played for six hours the other night and nothing blew up.”
Carson smiled a little, finally willing to joke about what had remained unsaid between them for over a year, “Yes, but you were able to sit in the chair in Antarctica without blowing things up either. I didn’t do as well with that one.”
“Yeah, but I got the benefit of your experience. I knew better than to think about launching any glowing squids at anything passing by,” John squeezed Carson’s shoulder, glad Carson was finally able to joke about that day.
“Well it’s not like that was what I was thinking exactly, you know!” He swatted John on the chest. “I have no idea how I launched that damn thing.”
“Want my guess?” John asked.
“Sure.”
“No one knew what the chair could do, exactly. You knew General O’Neill got it to launch the drones, but beyond that no one knew what it could do. Including its potential to hurt someone. You were thinking about keeping yourself safe. The chair interpreted that as ‘defense’.”
“So it launched a drone,” Carson concluded, “Could be. Could be that all I knew about the damn thing was that Colonel O’Neill launched all those weapons from there. I guess I was thinking about the drones.” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I am sorry about that whole mess.”
“I know. But I’m not. If you hadn’t almost shot us down, I never would have been let into the base, I never would have sat in the chair and I wouldn’t be here now. So all in all, it ended up being a good thing.” John scooted back on the bed, crossing his legs.
Carson tilted his head, thinking about that. “Well, when you put it like that…”
John smiled and nodded at the game. “Alright, so let’s see if we can fine tune your gene-skills.” He noticed that the game had dimmed again as they talked. “Turn it back on.”
Carson took a deep breath and thought the unit back on.
The screen showed something that looked like a cross between a fruit bat and a boomerang and it appeared to be holding a teal tennis ball. Carson idly wondered about the Ancients’ fascination with the color teal. There was also the image of a shallow rounded track that snaked back and forth a few times from the top right corner of the screen to the bottom left.
“Okay, see the round thing at the top?” John asked, leaning back to try and see the screen. Now that he wasn’t the one playing he realized that he couldn’t see the screen if he wasn’t looking at it dead-on. He was going to be calling these plays from memory if he couldn’t find a better angle.
Carson nodded.
“Okay, when you tell it to start, a chain of colored balls is going to come out of it. There are about 5 different colors. You need to move the ball from the bottom to the chain in order to make groups of the same color that are three or longer. When you do, they’ll disappear and you’ll get a different ball at the bottom. If you can’t get rid of the chain before they get to the bottom, you have to start over. If you get through a level, it does these progressively cool little light shows as a reward and then you get a harder level.” John was now twisting around to look over Carson’s shoulder, but still wasn’t able to discern the shapes on the screen.
“What are you doing?” Carson asked as John tried yet a different approach.
“Trying to see the screen. I guess you’re not supposed to eavesdrop on someone else’s game or something.” Giving up, John kicked off his shoes and moved up on the bed behind Carson, one foot tucked in, the other leg sliding along Carson’s. “This okay?” he asked.
“Oh, aye. Fine,” Carson said, hoping he didn’t let on how ‘fine’ it was.
John put one hand on Carson’s shoulder to steady himself and reached around him with the other to point at the screen, showing him different helps and hints to get through the level. “Okay, ready?”
Carson shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Tell it to start,” John said quietly, moving his other hand to Carson’s other shoulder.
After a few spectacularly wild shots, Carson got a red ball to link up with two others and they popped like soap bubbles and disappeared. He sat up straighter, a little grin appearing as he gave his full attention to the game. It took three tries before he could clear the first level, and that was only with John leaning over and pointing out some combinations Carson would have missed.
On level two, the game started adding twists. When a chain of one color was vaporized leaving exposed ends of the same color, the game would jerk the two ends together, causing a number of misfires as Carson lost track of where the balls were and where they were going. After hitting a series of green balls that made a chain reaction of five explosions, Carson turned around to smile at John and found that they were nose-to-nose with the way John was leaning over him.
John smiled at him and their eyes locked. Carson grew self-conscious and broke their gaze, glancing down. He wanted to say he was surprised when John took his chin and tipped his head up before kissing him. But he really wasn’t.
It was awkward and tentative at first. Carson realized that neither of them wanted to seem pushy, but neither did either of them want to give the impression that this was a bad idea.
After a few minutes, John let go of his chin and pulled back, eyebrows raised.
Carson smiled shyly. He wanted to make the kind of joke John would have made at that juncture but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything witty. In fact he really couldn’t think of much of anything other than how to get John to kiss him again.
John was looking at him a little sideways when he looked back up. “Bad idea?” John asked timidly.
Carson’s eyes grew big as he tried to figure out what in his body language was sending off the most incredibly wrong signals in the world. “No… no, not at all.” He wondered if he’d misinterpreted. If John was trying to back away from what he’d done. “Unless you think it was -“
“No,” John interrupted. “No, I don’t think it was a bad idea. In fact, I kind of thought it was a pretty good idea.”
Feeling a little bolder, now that he knew John felt the same. “Would it be a good idea to do it again?”
“Let’s find out.”
Carson smiled into their second kiss. After only a few seconds his back chose the worst moment to decide that it really couldn’t take being twisted around any more. He pulled back with a grimace.
John looked at him questioningly.
“Sorry, my back doesn’t seem to like twisting like that for very long,” Carson apologized.
“I can fix that,” John announced scooting back until he was propped against his pillows. “Come here.”
Carson untied his boots and toed them off, sliding back until he was sitting next to John, now feeling incredibly self-conscious and intensely curious about where John intended this to go.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Carson denied automatically.
John sized up the situation pretty quickly. He situated himself on his side, facing Carson. He pulled on one of Carson’s hands. “Lie down,” he told him. Carson did so, setting his head on the edge of the pillow and letting John continue to hold his hand. He realized, belatedly that he still had the game in his other hand. John took it and reached back to set it on the bedside table.
John had a thought that he hoped would help break some of the tension that had sprung up. “Your back still hurt?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just twisted around for too long.”
“Where?” John asked sliding his free hand over Carson’s waist around to see if he could feel the bunched muscles under Carson’s shirt. He thought he had it, but couldn’t be sure, so he pressed a little. Carson stiffened and bit back a yelp. “Come on, on your front,” John said in a voice that said he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He pulled Carson over until he was flat against the blankets, his head on his arm on the pillow.
After finding the sore spot again, John tugged Carson’s shirt down over it so that it wouldn’t bunch as he rubbed the heel of his hand over the tense muscles. “Next time we do that, we should really try it face to face. I’m thinking it would work better.”
Carson smiled; a next time would be good. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
John found himself extraordinarily pleased that Carson was amenable to kissing him again. He focused on the knot in Carson’s back. He pushed gently with his fingertips to map out the edges of the rigid muscles. “This is an awfully big knot for just having been twisted funny for a few minutes,” he observed.
“It’s not just from that. Actually, the muscles have been stiff since we got back from that planet - the one where you picked up that Mr. Dex character. Operating standing up on a patient who’s still conscious and upright is not conducive to good back health.” He glanced up at John’s clock. “I guess I’m due for some more Motrin.” He shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
“I’ve got aspirin or Advil or something around here if you want it,” John offered, still carefully kneading the muscles with the heels and palms of his hands, careful not to poke with his fingers.
“You keep up like that,” Carson said quietly, “and I really don’t think I’ll need any more meds tonight.”
“Cool,” John said, sitting up to get better leverage and to make it easier use both hands.
Carson just moaned appreciatively.
“So what do you think of Ronon?” John asked conversationally.
“Well, now that he’s not holding a gun on me or any of my friends, I suppose he’s alright. He was a wee bit more friendly with me when he came in this morning for me to take his stitches out of his back. I asked one of the nurses to do it, but he growled at her.” Carson glanced up to see if John believed him.
“Growled?”
“I’m not joking. He made it pretty clear that since I put them in I was taking them out.” Carson settled his head back on his arm.
“You’re saying that to be flip,” John observed, “but I think you’re more right than you know. I knew some pilots like that in Afghanistan. Once you had their trust it was damn near impossible to blow it, but earning it was a bitch. Ronon trusts you. You got that thing out of him. I’m really not that surprised he reacted like that.” John applied steady, hard pressure to a particularly stubborn muscle. “You should be pleased. I’m not sure he trusts me that much yet.”
“He thinks it’s his responsibility to find Lieutenant Ford now,” Carson told him.
“How does he figure that?”
Carson shifted so that he could see John out of the corner of his eye. “He said that you had an agreement that if I got the transmitter out of his back, he’d get Ford for you.”
John sighed and stretched out next to Carson, one hand still moving slowly over the sore spot on his back. “That’s not his job. It’s mine. I’ve lost him twice now.”
The melancholy in John’s voice caught Carson’s attention. He shifted to his side so he could see John properly. “You’ll find him. And you’ll bring him back,” he said firmly. Carson wanted to promise that he’d get Ford back to normal once he did, but after all this time he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to keep that promise.
John sighed and shifted onto his back, he wanted the chance to talk to someone about what had happened almost a week ago back on that planet, but it had spoiled what was starting out to be a remarkable evening. He lay still debating whether or not to try and drop the subject or to take the opportunity he’d been presented with.
He was startled out of his contemplation when Carson took his hand and held it lightly. “Have you had a chance to talk to anyone about what happened back there?”
John felt the wall slam up. Felt his ‘soldier face’ go on. He tried shed them both, but his training was too well ingrained and he found himself talking without consciously choosing his words. “What’s to talk about? He got away. He’s in enemy hands now with a drug addiction that makes him dangerous as hell to both us and them. I have to get him back before he tells them what they want to know.”
Carson’s hand slid up from John’s hand to his elbow and then up to his shoulder. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not worried about a friend with me. Maybe Colonel Caldwell only sees him as a security risk, but you don’t,” Carson scolded quietly. “He was your second in command and your friend. And you’re very much afraid that the next time you go home you’re going to have to see his family and tell them that he’s gone.”
John sighed and closed his eyes, wondering when he’d become so transparent. “I can’t decide which will be worse - knowing that he’s gone or knowing that he’s back and that he’ll never be able to go home again. What if he can’t break this addiction?”
Carson had been worrying about the same thing himself. “We’ll do everything we can for him.”
John nodded, knowing that that was all Carson could promise. “What are his chances?” He took Carson’s hand from his shoulder and held it close to his chest.
“I’m not sure. He was physiologically addicted when he left and it’s the sort of condition where he’s going to require more and more of the enzyme to get the same effect. Weaning him off of it will be dangerous and,” Carson took a deep breath and squeezed John’s hand, “And he’s going to be bloody miserable throughout the process. Depending on his condition when we retrieve him, I may try and do some of the detoxing with him in a drug-induced coma just so he’s not in so much pain. But with what that enzyme is doing to his system, he may end up just metabolizing the drugs. We’ll have to see.”
John nodded. It wasn’t much good news, but he’d been cursed with a vivid imagination and therefore always preferred to have as much information as possible to keep himself from coming up with a thousand scenarios that were even worse than the truth. “McKay says he’s completely nuts.”
“We could see that even when we first got him out of the water that it made him somewhat paranoid. I’m afraid I didn’t help that much by trying to keep him sedated and keeping armed guards at the door.”
“But that’s what drugs like that do, right? Isn’t one of the symptoms of drug use paranoia? Not that he’s ‘doing drugs’ like we usually think of it, but…”
Carson nodded against the pillow. “Aye. He acts a little shifty, so we get nervous, so he thinks we’re afraid of him, so he acts a little shifty… It’s a vicious cycle.”
John flipped onto his back, still holding Carson’s hand. They were silent for several minutes before John finally sighed and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to have you come over just so I could dump on you.”
Carson looked down at their joined hands. It wasn’t the best of conversations, but he wasn’t complaining. “I don’t mind. Besides, talking to you is easy. Comfortable.”
John looked over at him at that, until Carson elaborated, “A lot of people come to talk to me when something’s bothering them. It’s part of the job and I don’t mind it at all. But sometimes that means it can be difficult for me to find someone to talk to when I have a bad day, you know? I don’t want to unload on people who have come to tell me about their bad days. I don’t feel that… detachment from you. It’s nice.”
John knew he was blushing, but he wasn’t sure why. He worked hard to maintain his laid back attitude and easy-going demeanor. He wasn’t sure why it was so shocking that it was paying off in exactly the ways he hoped it would. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he just rolled over and kissed Carson again, hoping that would convey what he was feeling.
All discussion stopped as they explored this new dimension of their relationship. John found it infinitely more enjoyable than discussing missing men and drug addictions. He slid one hand around Carson’s back and tugged him closer until they were touching head to toe. Despite the newness and the obvious interest on both their parts, neither seemed in a hurry to rush things along. John couldn’t remember the last time he’d indulged in a simple ‘make out’ session without feeling pressure to either move things along or back off. It was simple and unhurried and amazingly enjoyable.
John had a good sense of time. Usually. He rarely needed an alarm clock to wake up and liked to annoy Rodney by knowing the time without actually having to look at his watch. But he had no idea how long they’d been lying there making out like teenagers until he caught his clock out of the corner of his eye as he shifted to get comfortable.
“Oh damn,” he whispered breathily.
Carson looked up, alarmed, “What?”
“It’s later than I thought. And time doesn’t usually get away from me like that.” He raised an eyebrow at Carson.
Carson glanced behind him to John’s bedside table, equally surprised by how late it was.
John made a face, not wanting to be the one to say the words that would send them on their separate ways.
“You have an early briefing tomorrow,” Carson finally said.
“We,” John corrected.
“What? We?” Carson said, pulling back a just enough to be able to focus on John’s face.
“Teyla thinks we may find some survivors on that planet Halling and the others were on the other day. I told Elizabeth that I wanted you and a few marines on the ground with my team. You in case we actually got lucky and found someone. The marines in case we get unlucky and find someone else.” John pulled Carson back in by the hip, leaving his hand there until Carson stopped resisting.
“I see.” He wanted to ask John exactly when he planned on tell him that he was being ‘volunteered’ again, but couldn’t find it in himself to get cross. “From what I hear, Halling and the other Athosians were lucky to make it back to the gate before the Wraith hit the village,” Carson said leaning in for another short kiss.
“Yeah. Teyla wants to get an early start tomorrow looking for survivors.”
“So I suppose we should get some sleep. Seeing as we both have to get up early now,” he managed to let just a little of his annoyance slip out without actually sounding pissed.
“I suppose we should,” John agreed, kissing him again and not making the slightest move to get up.
Carson leaned his head against John’s for a minute while he attempted to recover his composure. He was relatively certain that if anyone saw him in the hall looking as dazed as he felt, they’d instantly know what he’d been up to.
He took a couple of steadying breaths and then rolled to sit up on the edge of the bed. “Alright then.”
John rolled up to sit next to him. “Pick this up tomorrow?”
Carson knew he was blushing now. “Oh, aye. Long as things go well on that planet.”
John smiled as he rose, offering a hand to pull Carson to his feet. “Yes, well. Our lives are rather dictated by the vagueries of the Wraith, aren’t they?”
Carson nodded. “That they are.”
John walked him to the door and kissed him thoroughly once more before commanding the door to open. “Tomorrow. Or whenever,” he said with a smile.
Carson just blushed and averted his eyes, hoping no one would need to stop and talk to him in the halls. He was sure he was broadcasting what he’d just been up to all over the place.
He ducked out and had gotten a few feet down the hall when he heard John call his name. He turned back to see what was wrong. He barely caught the video game John tossed to him. “Practice. Let’s see what level you can take it to next time.”
Carson stammered at the blatant double entandre. He just raised his eyebrows before turning away and sauntering down the hall to his room.
~~~***~~~ end ~~~***~~~
Science checked on-line via ‘genetics for dummies’-type sites, but I make no claims to be 100% accurate.
Czeck translations done from on-line translator.
Do prdele! - fuck!
Proboha - my god!