Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The thought flashed through Cam’s mind as he started to fall that it was ironic after everything he’d done, that it wasn’t a battle injury or an accident flying that was going to end his career in the Air Force, he wasn’t sacrificing himself to save the planet or even to rescue a friend. It was a stupid little mud puddle covered by rotting leaves on the path on the way back to the gate after a successful milk run mission to help out one of their allies. His foot had slipped and before he could regain his balance, he’d fallen down a ravine. His last thought before he lost consciousness was that John would be upset with him for being so careless.
-o0o-
It was not surprising that even unconscious, he dreamed of the last time he’d seen John, when the Atlantis Expedition had returned to Earth.
The Alarm Klaxon rang out for an unscheduled incoming wormhole as he and his team were preparing to leave for a science mission to M38265 after one of the trade teams had heard a rumour of ruins that sounded vaguely ancient with a strange power supply. He was trying not to get his hopes up that the ruins would contain a ZPM with enough charge to make contact with Atlantis more frequently and perhaps even allow for officers and marines to be rotated through the Pegasus site so he could see John more than once every couple of years.
“It’s Atlantis, Dr Elizabeth Weir’s access code,” Major Sergeant Harriman reported to Cam as the senior officer in the room.
“Good morning, Dr Wier, this is Colonel Mitchell,” Cam said trying to sound calm in spite of his heart racing in fear and anticipation. Unless they’d finally found a cache of ZPMs, the Atlantis expedition didn’t have enough power to open a wormhole to Earth unless the situation was dire
“I wish I could agree that it’s a good afternoon. The Ancients have returned to Atlantis and given us two hours to evacuate the city before they start ‘exterminating the intruders in their home’ to use a direct quote.
"Are you ready to begin the evacuation?” Cam asked.
“Yes, we don’t have the time to allow people to pack up their work or their personal belongings they’ve grabbed whatever was in the room they’re in and assembled in the gate room. We have wounded,” Elizabeth rambled a bit, revealing how truly upset and frightened she was.
“Open the Iris,” Cam ordered.
The Iris opened. “Send your people through. We’re ready to receive you Dr Weir,” Cam announced before calling a medical team to the gate room and notifying the infirmary to call in their off duty staff for the deluge of expedition members who would require medical clearance as soon as possible.
“We have several severely injured marines, I’m sending them through first,” Elizabeth announced as men carrying stretchers began coming through the gate.
“Copy that, medical is on their way to meet them. We will look after your people,” Cam replied, relaying the message to the infirmary to expect an unknown number of severely wounded gate travellers from Atlantis.
Cam fought to keep breathing and his expression as calm as he could, as he identified the occupant of each stretcher as not being the man he loved. He knew that John would have been in the thick of the battle to protect the expedition, but Cam also knew he wouldn’t agree to be evacuated unless he was totally incapacitated. Did that mean he’d been extremely lucky to escape major injury or would his body be on one of the last supply crates. It was nearly the entire 38 minutes before John stepped through the wormhole the last one through, obviously injured but at least still moving under his own steam. “Close the Iris” John said resolutely, with his eyes full of heartbreaking sadness.
It had been hard to keep an accurate count in the chaos of the arrival of injured and traumatised military and civilians, but Cam thought that the expedition seemed to be quite a bit smaller than expected. The grimly professional look on John’s face spoke of mental anguish as much as of physical pain, telling Cam that he was blaming himself for the losses.
Cam had moved over to greet him and try to help. His mission had been cancelled in the chaos, but he still barely had a moment before duty pulled them both in different directions. Only just long enough to give John his new address and tell him the super would have instructions to let him into his apartment any time John was able to leave the mountain and that the key he’d had cut for him was waiting for him in the cutlery drawer.
John had arrived home two days later, still in his black Atlantis expedition BDUs shaking with exhaustion. Cam had taken one look at him and helped him into the shower before warming up some of his mother’s casserole for him and encouraging him to eat before shooing him into bed, holding him when he eventually broke down and cried for the people he’d failed to bring home safely, admitting that he also felt a profound sense of loss for the connection that he had with the Ancient city, and that he hadn’t been able to sleep without the feeling of the city in his head.
Cam had soothed him the best he could.
-o0o-
Cam fluttered to consciousness with John’s name on his lips and the sun full in his face, surprised to find himself still alone at the bottom of the ravine. He ached all over but he didn’t think that he was hurt that badly that his team would be hesitant to retrieve him, even if they’d had to dial Earth for extra support it shouldn’t have taken as long as the movement of the sun indicated had passed. Had they been injured as well or taken captive? He lay still and took a stocktake of his injuries the way he’d been trained years ago before joining the SGC.
He had a bit of a headache but his vision was clear and opening his eyes didn’t make it worse. He didn’t think he was having trouble thinking clearly or concentrating but it was difficult to tell since nothing seemed to be going on around him. He wondered again where his team were. He forced himself to stop worrying about them and go back to checking himself over to see if he could safely move to get himself out of the ravine and find out what was going on. Vision check, no photosensitivity, diplopia, nystagmus or obvious field loss.
His head was a bit tender on the left where he was lying but it wasn’t throbbing in time with his heartbeat, his ears weren’t ringing and he could hear the wind rustling in the trees above him.
His back hurt like the devil. It felt every bit as bad as it had hurt after the battle of Antarctica though he reminded himself that pain could be a good sign when it came to back injuries and didn’t necessarily mean a similar injury level of injury.
His left leg didn’t hurt at all which was a concern though he could see his boot moving when he tried to wiggle his ankle though he couldn’t feel that either, so there was some sensation loss which meant his back injury was serious but at least he knew he wasn’t paralysed. The other leg was broken he could feel the pain and the angle of his boot was all wrong so he didn’t try to move it.
He lifted his arms, and was almost relieved that they both hurt. The left wrist was definitely broken but he still had full control over his hand though it hurt like the devil to move and wouldn’t be much use in trying to defend himself if it was required, the right shoulder wasn’t working properly and he couldn’t bring his hand up in front of his face but it felt like several of his fingers on that hand were broken too.
He tried to remember what had happened, from the look of the trees he could see, he was off world somewhere so that meant on a mission with his team. Where were they? He couldn’t hear them, on the plus side he couldn’t hear shooting or signs of fighting either but his team wouldn’t have left him alone if they’d had a choice. He knew enough from his training as a pilot not to try and turn his head to look for them. His back was injured enough that he was going to need a medi-evac and there was no point making things worse than they were until he knew for sure that help wasn’t on its way. He’d come back from worse than this before, though he wasn’t looking forward to another long stint in rehab that he thought he was going to need. Maybe it was time to retire. He just had to hang on and lay still until help arrived. At least the rain had stopped.
Just as he thought that it started again, not pouring heavily but what the farmers in his family called good soaking rain, ideal for a young crop, but definitely not good news for an Air Force officer stuck lying out in the open, who couldn’t even move his face out of the rain. He was soon soaked through and starting to shiver as twilight fell. He couldn’t see a moon from his current position and with the rainclouds it was likely that it soon would be too dark for a search party to find him. He didn’t call out, there was no point letting the enemy know that he was alive. When he and his team missed check in they’d send reinforcements and use his locator chip to find him if they needed to. It worried him that he couldn’t remember the mission they’d been on. Retrograde amnesia wasn’t necessarily a sign of severe head injury but it was a cause for concern.
He moved his hand slightly to feel his clothing. He recognised the feel of his BDUs and they still felt relatively fresh where they’d been protected from the rain, so he probably hadn’t been unconscious for very long, it had been hours since he fell then, not days.
Cam continued to shiver as he tried to stay awake through the night. He didn’t know if he should be more worried about the concussion he definitely had or developing hypothermia but something was telling him that it would be a really bad idea to fall asleep.
He thought about what John would do when he found out Cam had been injured. They tried to keep the knowledge of injuries from each other, at least until the person injured was healed up enough for the other not to worry too much, or at least until they could email in person to let the other know they had survived and were going to be alright but he had a feeling that this time it wasn’t going to work out that way. It was hard not being able to drop everything and go when the person you loved needed you but they had to keep their relationship hidden or they could both end up in Leavenworth, and with John on Atlantis every email and video message went through the censors if he used a personal email and if he used his SGC internal email there was still a chance that the message would be seen and read by whoever unpacked the data burst. Cam didn’t think that General O’Neill would prosecute them but he doubted that he could prevent them both from being discharged from the Air Force if their relationship was reported to him officially and while they tried to screen out homophobia from the SGC because General Hammond and General O’Neill both said, a tendency towards bigotry or any kind did not indicate a personality that was likely to make the ability to build good relationships off world where beliefs and lifestyles could be very different to what was considered normal in the USA, there was always some by the book arsehole willing to report relationships that broke the fraternisation rules, or someone that thought the easiest way to a promotion would be to have John and/or Cam removed from their positions above him or her. It would kill John to have to give up Atlantis, and it would destroy Cam to be the cause of John losing the one place in the universe that he truly belonged.
He let memories of John distract him from his current misery. Thinking back to when they’d first met.
—-
Cam was less than impressed when he arrived at his billet for flight school and met his roommate for the next 48 weeks. John had been lounging on the top bunk with his longer than Air Force regulation hair and his designer clothing, Stanford sweatshirts, brand label underwear and all were all over the bottom bed with absolutely nothing put away. He’d immediately dismissed him as a lazy rich boy who got by on his looks and his parent’s money and he’d hoped that rooming together didn’t mean they’d be paired together in training as well.
It turned out he was judging John unfairly, John had unpacked his stuff onto the bed ready to put away, before realising that both the wardrobes and dressers had been pranked and he’d scrubbed both sets of them out and was waiting for them to dry before being able to put things in them. Cam thanked him for scrubbing his wardrobe and dresser as well and John admitted that he’d done it because he didn’t want Cam to think he’d been in on the prank.
Cam just nodded in acknowledgement, he would have done the same and Sheppard was right he would’ve been suspicious if his drawers and cupboard appeared the only ones pranked.
Even though they got along well enough for strangers suddenly sharing a room for several months, neither of them had been impressed when they found out that they were the only roommates who’d been paired together in training because of their ‘similar accents’ when most roommates were paired with other people. It was obvious to both of them that John’s southern West Virginian drawl and Cameron’s Kansas farmboy twang didn’t sound at all alike and even if they had been from the same area, an accent wasn’t an indication of a similar upbringing or anything else in common. In spite of that they found that they worked well together and each had strengths that complemented the other, making them a very competitive pairing.
They teamed up on all assignments even when they had a choice after that, pitting the two of them against those who judged the sharpness of their minds and their speed of thought by the slow gentle cadence of their accents. Cam soon realised that John’s laid back irreverent attitude was a protective mechanism, hiding a fierce intellect and a desire to fly and to serve his country as strong as his own.
After a tough week training, they headed into town for some beers. Though they knew it might make life in the barracks easier if they did, they hadn’t wanted to join the others at the base’s main drinking hole and had gone looking for an alternative bar that didn’t look too rough. The first one looked okay at first glance so they’d headed to the bar before realising that they’d accidentally walked into a gay bar. The bartender took one look at them. “You don’t want the front bar, the back room is for you ‘don’t ask’ types,” he said cheerfully, gesturing at the doorway beside the bar.
Cam couldn’t help glancing longingly at the door to the back and then remembered exactly who he was with and looked at John hoping he hadn’t noticed only to see the same expression on his friend’s face too.
“Shouldn’t you check we’re not the MPs here to cause trouble before you tell us that?” Cam asked.
The barman’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I assumed you were together, and looking for a safe place to have a night out,” He stammered.
“We’re just friends,” John said.
“But the rest is true. We’re not looking to tell tales or cause anyone any trouble,” Cam added. He turned to John who was now looking everywhere but at Cam or the bartender and gestured to the back door. “I’m okay with it if you want to try it.”
John looked panicked for a moment.
“Or we can ask the Bartender for a recommendation of somewhere quiet that we’re not likely to get into a fight because we look like we’re military,” Cam said gently. “I hope that my being bisexual doesn’t make you uncomfortable with our friendship. I don’t hit on my friends unless I’m sure it’s welcome.”
John looked at the floor for a moment then squared his shoulders and met Cam’s eyes. “You’d be welcome,” he said determinedly. He spoke softly but there was no doubt or hesitation in his voice.
“Then can I buy you a drink? Or would you like to go back to base?” Cam asked.
“I think we should have a drink. Check out whether the back room is worth the risk of coming back,” John suggested.
“You realise that if that’s the room for military personnel then there might be people who we know in there. People in our chain of command, one of the instructors or in charge of the room allocations who might want to separate us for fraternization even if they have reason not to report us. It was different before when we could have said we were just curious and they wouldn’t be able to find anything that proved any different. And the bartender doesn’t seem to have any understanding of the need for discretion but maybe that’s an act to scare off anyone other than those who have a genuine need for a safe place to be themselves.”
“We aren’t in each other’s chain of command so I don’t think that they’d care. They aren’t going to be able to change the room allocations without giving a reason and the chance of us being posted to the same base after flight school is 1/69 anyway, unless we both qualify on the best fighter jets out there and even then, we probably aren’t going to be on the same arena let alone the same base unless they’re putting a new squadron together, and there’s no rumours of that,” John replied.
“They could stop pairing us on assignments and flight training times, shunt one of us into transport, or rotor which I know neither of us wants, just to make sure we’re never together,” Cam replied.
“We can go back to base if you want,” John said quietly. Cam found out later that John had thought that Cam’s concerns were really expressing reluctance to have a drink or socialise in public and he’d been disappointed that now sex was on the table, Cam no longer wanted to have a drink with him. John later confessed that he’d always thought that fuck buddies or ‘friends with benefits’ were actually friends as well as having regular casual sex and that he wouldn’t have offered sex no matter how much he wanted it if he’d thought he’d be giving up the friendship they were building to have it. When they eventually talked about it, John had been surprised to hear that Cam had had all the same thoughts and feelings about their relationship.
Cam nodded and they left the bar and headed back to John’s car. They didn’t talk as they drove, Cam had been thrilled that the friend he’d admired and he was able to admit it to himself now, had been crushing on, was attracted to him too. He didn’t realise that John was trying to hide his sadness that the friendship he thought he had found had just been based on sexual attraction again and perhaps the ability to help Cam stick it to those who thought a Kansas farm boy belonged on the ground in the dirt. Disappointed that even here where he’d finally gotten away from being known as the multi-millionaire Patrick Sheppard’s son, he hadn’t been able to make a genuine friend. He resolved to not let himself get too emotionally involved.
They decided to separate and head back to their room from different directions so they weren’t seen together. Cam tried not to read too much into John not wanting to be seen with him on base, it was only sensible though perhaps a little too paranoid and stupidly obvious, they were friends after all and if they’d had the friendly drinks they’d originally gone into town for they wouldn’t have thought twice about walking back to their room together. Cam headed to the mess to pick up some snacks while John used the vending machines near the entrance to grab them some sodas.
They both stripped off without embarrassment, years of high school sports and the Air Force basic training had trained all body shyness they might have had out of them, not that either had anything to be shy about, they both knew they were in top physical condition. Flying a fighter jet was a lot more physical than most people thought it would be.
Cam made the first move wrapping his arms around John and kissing him passionately. John met him half way and they fought for dominance of the kiss before Cam let John take control and gave himself over to the sheer pleasure of kissing John.
John had more experience with sex with boys than Cam, and he efficiently showed Cam how he prepared himself before positioning himself on his knees with his head down in a position that wouldn’t give his feelings away. Cam would have preferred a more intimate position but he knew this was supposed to be the easiest for first timers and supposed that might also be true being penetrated by someone who didn’t really know what they were doing too but he would have liked to be able to see John’s face and to kiss him. He’d wanted to feel more of a connection between them.
In spite of that sliding into John was the best thing he’d ever felt, so tight and hot that he had to concentrate on maintaining control and not shooting his load immediately like a sixteen year old kid. He must have given himself away because John reached down and started jacking himself off. Cam tried to think about embarrassing things to hold off long enough not to humiliate himself totally and somehow, thank heavens, John managed to orgasm as Cam exploded filling the condom.
Cam had been disappointed when after getting up to clean himself up, John had thrown a clean rag at him before climbing up to his own bunk but he figured that the beds were too small for two grown men to sleep comfortably and they both took training far too seriously to want to hamper themselves or each other with the stiffness that comes from sleeping in awkward positions. He did wish that John had spent a little more time cuddling before leaving him though. He had hoped that John would want to cuddle up and enjoy the afterglow together, perhaps exchange some gentle kisses now that they weren’t feeling so frantic.
He didn’t notice how hard it was for John to force himself not to hesitate at the bottom of the ladder on the hope Cam would ask him to stay down with him no matter how difficult it would be to squeeze in together. Cam lay awake feeling a lot like he’d gotten a one-night stand in a toilet cubicle and a casual goodbye, when he’d been trying to ask the person on a date and wondering what went wrong why John had only wanted sex and not a relationship with him, not knowing that John was lying on the top bunk wondering exactly the same thing about him.