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Title: Hegira - Part Six
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: Adult Themes
Word Count: 2,351
Spoilers: None
Category: AU
Notes: Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter borrowed from SG-1.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine
Summary: “No one’s ever accused me of doing the smart thing,” John sighed and Jack snorted despite himself.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
Rodney’s mind clawed its way out of sleep to the fact that there was something out of place. For a moment he couldn’t resolve the bad feeling with his surroundings. He was in the hotel room with John. He could see him lying on the bed opposite his.
Their bags were packed.
That was when it hit him what was wrong. His arms and legs were completely asleep. He tried to move and got no response from them. Then he felt pins and needles flare into life the length of his body. He tried to move again and couldn’t. He looked down at himself, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes and when his blurry vision resolved, he wished he could un-see what he was seeing.
His hands and feet were bound to the four corners of his bed. Handcuffs pinned his hands to the bed head and his feet were tied with what looked like rags. It would take some time but he knew he could work his way out of the feet ties but his hands were another matter. His sleep addled brain tried desperately to come to terms with what the implications of his current predicament were.
He looked over at John again. Per usual, during the daylight hours he was dead to the world. Rodney could have set off a bomb in this room but while the sun was up, John would pay it no heed. John had one arm thrown over his eyes and the other lay over his stomach. His feet were splayed and there was a blanket tossed lightly over him, courtesy of Rodney even though he knew it probably wasn’t necessary. There was no way John could have been the one to tie him to the bed because when he went to sleep, completely untethered, John was already unconscious.
He scanned the room. Their suitcases were where they had been, still packed. The curtains were drawn on the windows and the door was closed but the security chain that had been engaged when they had both gone to sleep was now lying on the floor amidst a smattering of splintered wood. His gaze kept travelling the room, and nearly missed the man sitting in a chair in the corner, almost, but not quite concealed in shadow. Rodney started, jostling against his cuffed wrists painfully and almost cried out. He choked off the verbal exclamation when he noticed the man had a weapon, and it was pointed at John.
The man had his legs crossed casually and the weapon, what he thought was a gun but looked somehow bigger and slicker than any hand gun he had ever seen, was resting on one knee, his finger laced casually in the trigger. His face was still in shadow and his clothes were black so Rodney couldn’t make out much more.
The man finally stood and came further into the room, his weapon still trained on the comatose John. He was tall with greying hair and looked lean and wiry and with a start Rodney recognised him. Rodney opened his mouth to speak and the man held up a hand. “The trigger on this gun is pressed the second your voice is raised above the level of quiet talking, understand?” the man said. Rodney nodded numbly.
“What do you want?” Rodney asked, his voice barely above the required tempo.
“Ah, I seem to hear that question a lot lately,” the man grinned and the furrows and folds in his skin got deeper. The expression disappeared as soon as it had surfaced, his face relaxing back to carefully constructed blandness. He crossed the room and sat lightly on the corner of John’s bed. Rodney clenched his fists and his nails dug into his palms painfully.
“Don’t worry. I have absolutely no interest in you. It’s the freak I want. I just want to find out a few things first. Make my job easier if you will,” he explained, almost conversationally. The hand not holding the weapon clapped John on the thigh. Rodney bit his lip to keep from screaming. “For one thing, I came in here expecting all out hell. I’d heard scary things about this guy. I come in and you’re snoring and he’s out cold. Literally. He’s cold to the touch, no pulse, no breathing. Yet during the night he walks and talks. Interesting huh?”
Jack took a second to grin wryly. "I mean, c'mon. As crazy as it sounds, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think the 'V' word here am I?" he prompted. Rodney couldn’t tear his eyes off the man’s hand on John as he drummed his fingers, waiting for some kind of response. When he decided it wasn’t forthcoming his hand clenched, pinching the skin on John’s thigh. “Interesting. I’ve never seen this before,” he said and stood from the bed finally.
Rodney looked out at the bright sky beyond the motel room window. The sun wouldn’t be setting for another hour or more. Rodney wondered if he could keep this man talking for that long. He seriously doubted it “Well, better get this one stashed and hog-tied before he becomes active,” he said almost jovially. He slung his weapon over his back. He then plucked the blanket that was lying on the end of John’s bed and threw it over him before he scooped him up.
Rodney could see one pale hand trailing out of the bottom of the blanket. This man looked for all the world like he was carrying a dead body.
“Aren’t you going to let me go?” Rodney tried to inject pleading into his tone. The man cocked an eyebrow at him, hefting the dead weight in his arms.
“You’ll be found by housekeeping tomorrow morning. Either that or you can start yelling your lungs out but make sure to wait until I’m out of earshot,” he said and treated Rodney to one last cold smile. He then made his way to the motel room door and opened it, awkwardly juggling John all the while. He kicked the door shut behind him.
~~~
“Just until I get the call where to drop him.”
Sam was standing in the doorway of her lounge room, arms crossed and teeth worrying her bottom lip. She looked from Jack to the younger man who was now chained to her gas heater which was bolted to the floor.
“This is it then, I don’t want to ever see you again after this,” Sam grated, rubbing a tired hand over her eyes and leaving the room. Jack went back to scrutinising the bound man before him, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and putting it on Sam’s coffee table so it would be in easy reach.
John seemed to realise the pretence of sleep wasn’t lulling Jack into a false sense of security and opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and menacing.
“What do you want with me?” His voice was almost a growl and dripped with hate. He was well and truly caught and he had obviously figured that out. His eyes had done a quick once-over of the room before he had deigned to speak, weighing his options. He had obviously decided there were none.
“What makes you think I’m going to answer any of your questions? As soon as I get a phone call there will be people on their way here to pick you up. The less I hear your voice the better,” Jack snapped. The younger man’s eyes narrowed and he sneered at him, his gaze baleful. John was chained so his knees were beneath him with his head on the floor. It was the most awkward position Jack could think of which would render him immobile. Jack wanted him neither comfortable nor able to gain any leverage to worry the chains that bound him. Jack watched with interest as John scanned the room again from his awkward position, seeming to have ideas and discard them, getting more and more disgusted and resigned by the moment.
“At least tell me Rodney’s okay?” he prodded.
The question surprised Jack and he hated that. He didn’t like the chitchat he was being forced into. The question and the plaintive look John was now giving him bothered him more than he could say. He was a creature of habit and his whole life had been about taking orders. He feared one thing more than death.
Lack of direction.
“Last I saw of him,” Jack admitted and shrugged. John nodded as best as he could with his face pressed to the floor.
“How did you find me anyhow?”
Jack sighed. He was going to get talked at and it was in his nature to be accommodating. Driven by an automatic politeness that was deeply embedded in his psyche, he answered him. “I was tracking you both for a while but I knew your friend would be looking for answers or some kind of leverage. I pushed him in the right direction, for me anyhow. I found him, I found you. It’s funny but the smart thing would’ve have been to have separated after the bus thing.”
“No one’s ever accused me of doing the smart thing,” John sighed and Jack snorted despite himself.
“Few people surprise me these days,” Jack shrugged. “You kinda all blend together after a while.” He sighed. “The last person to surprise me was-”
Just then Jack’s phone bleated. He picked it up and listened for a moment and then grimaced. “I thought this was a retrieval… Okay, fine. Yes, I understand.” Jack snapped his cell shut and dropped it back onto the table. Jack pulled his gun out of his jacket pocket and put the muzzle to John’s temple.
“Nothing personal,” he said.
~~~
John has asked him why a couple of times.
Why rescue him, why give up any chance at a normal life, why, why, why?
Rodney had always looked at him with a small half-smile and had said, “I’m not too sure. I’d never been brave before in my life. I guess I was just due.”
This is what ran through John’s head as he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. No anger at the man holding him or frustration at the circumstance, just the small half-smile Rodney got when he said something self-deprecating. That, and a glimmer of curiosity as to whether there was a split second of actually feeling the shot when someone pulled the trigger, or whether you just heard the click and then nothing.
There was a meaty thump and a curse and John opened his eyes and looked sideways. He frowned because what he was seeing didn’t really make any sense. His captor was flat out on the floor and the woman with the too-bright red hair was standing over him, breathing raggedly and with one of those large champagne bottles held in both hands.
The woman’s face was firm as she took a step towards him but a window smashed to her right and something came rolling across the floor, trailing smoke. John’s eyes started watering immediately and he cursed.
“Get out!” he cried, trying to push himself upward, chains digging into his forearms and biting across his back.
The woman made an abortive move toward him and then doubled over, coughing raggedly. “What about you?” she managed as there was another smashing sound and a second canister rolled to a stop by her couch, spewing smoke.
“Don’t worry about me. Get out now! Go out the back!” John watched the woman disappear through the smoke, taking note of the direction she headed and then he heaved himself upwards.
There was a loud groaning noise and a separating feeling which John was pretty sure was his left shoulder pulling free of the socket and then he was free, large gas heater crashing sideways and chains pooling around his feet. John heard the hiss of gas escaping into the room just as the first shots were fired.
“Ah hell,” John groaned, stepping forward and tripping over the prone form of his captor. He took a beat to look at the other man before he leant down and pulled him up, slinging him over his right shoulder and making his way towards the back of the house.
John could now vaguely hear the sounds of people yelling and vehicles screaming to a halt outside. Fortunately, the women’s small house backed onto forest so it seemed no one had made their way around properly yet. He figured his captor’s cold-cocking had prompted the people waiting outside into action abortively and not everyone was in position. John wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Only feeling the tiniest moment of guilt, John heaved the older man up and off his shoulders, tossing him unceremoniously into the thickening brush. He saw the man roll through bushes and disappear and figured he had given him a fighting chance at least. John turned, about to make his way in the opposite direction when he saw a flash of red through the trees and then a group of men moving behind fast.
John clenched his fists for a second, knowing that if he moved now he could make it away clean, but then the woman had saved his life. It wasn’t really much of a debate.
John ran, low and silent through the trees to where three men dressed in dark green camouflage gear had the woman pinned to the ground. He came at the men head on, all focused on the struggling woman underneath them.
“Get off her,” John snarled, not recognising the feral timbre of his own voice. The voice was cold and murderous, the voice of the thing John became when he slept, when all the life leeched out of him, leaving a hollow husk.
This was a voice John was terrified of, but for now, his heart leapt at the sound of it, feeling strength course through his limbs, feeling one with the night.
Part Seven
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: Adult Themes
Word Count: 2,351
Spoilers: None
Category: AU
Notes: Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter borrowed from SG-1.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine
Summary: “No one’s ever accused me of doing the smart thing,” John sighed and Jack snorted despite himself.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
Rodney’s mind clawed its way out of sleep to the fact that there was something out of place. For a moment he couldn’t resolve the bad feeling with his surroundings. He was in the hotel room with John. He could see him lying on the bed opposite his.
Their bags were packed.
That was when it hit him what was wrong. His arms and legs were completely asleep. He tried to move and got no response from them. Then he felt pins and needles flare into life the length of his body. He tried to move again and couldn’t. He looked down at himself, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes and when his blurry vision resolved, he wished he could un-see what he was seeing.
His hands and feet were bound to the four corners of his bed. Handcuffs pinned his hands to the bed head and his feet were tied with what looked like rags. It would take some time but he knew he could work his way out of the feet ties but his hands were another matter. His sleep addled brain tried desperately to come to terms with what the implications of his current predicament were.
He looked over at John again. Per usual, during the daylight hours he was dead to the world. Rodney could have set off a bomb in this room but while the sun was up, John would pay it no heed. John had one arm thrown over his eyes and the other lay over his stomach. His feet were splayed and there was a blanket tossed lightly over him, courtesy of Rodney even though he knew it probably wasn’t necessary. There was no way John could have been the one to tie him to the bed because when he went to sleep, completely untethered, John was already unconscious.
He scanned the room. Their suitcases were where they had been, still packed. The curtains were drawn on the windows and the door was closed but the security chain that had been engaged when they had both gone to sleep was now lying on the floor amidst a smattering of splintered wood. His gaze kept travelling the room, and nearly missed the man sitting in a chair in the corner, almost, but not quite concealed in shadow. Rodney started, jostling against his cuffed wrists painfully and almost cried out. He choked off the verbal exclamation when he noticed the man had a weapon, and it was pointed at John.
The man had his legs crossed casually and the weapon, what he thought was a gun but looked somehow bigger and slicker than any hand gun he had ever seen, was resting on one knee, his finger laced casually in the trigger. His face was still in shadow and his clothes were black so Rodney couldn’t make out much more.
The man finally stood and came further into the room, his weapon still trained on the comatose John. He was tall with greying hair and looked lean and wiry and with a start Rodney recognised him. Rodney opened his mouth to speak and the man held up a hand. “The trigger on this gun is pressed the second your voice is raised above the level of quiet talking, understand?” the man said. Rodney nodded numbly.
“What do you want?” Rodney asked, his voice barely above the required tempo.
“Ah, I seem to hear that question a lot lately,” the man grinned and the furrows and folds in his skin got deeper. The expression disappeared as soon as it had surfaced, his face relaxing back to carefully constructed blandness. He crossed the room and sat lightly on the corner of John’s bed. Rodney clenched his fists and his nails dug into his palms painfully.
“Don’t worry. I have absolutely no interest in you. It’s the freak I want. I just want to find out a few things first. Make my job easier if you will,” he explained, almost conversationally. The hand not holding the weapon clapped John on the thigh. Rodney bit his lip to keep from screaming. “For one thing, I came in here expecting all out hell. I’d heard scary things about this guy. I come in and you’re snoring and he’s out cold. Literally. He’s cold to the touch, no pulse, no breathing. Yet during the night he walks and talks. Interesting huh?”
Jack took a second to grin wryly. "I mean, c'mon. As crazy as it sounds, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think the 'V' word here am I?" he prompted. Rodney couldn’t tear his eyes off the man’s hand on John as he drummed his fingers, waiting for some kind of response. When he decided it wasn’t forthcoming his hand clenched, pinching the skin on John’s thigh. “Interesting. I’ve never seen this before,” he said and stood from the bed finally.
Rodney looked out at the bright sky beyond the motel room window. The sun wouldn’t be setting for another hour or more. Rodney wondered if he could keep this man talking for that long. He seriously doubted it “Well, better get this one stashed and hog-tied before he becomes active,” he said almost jovially. He slung his weapon over his back. He then plucked the blanket that was lying on the end of John’s bed and threw it over him before he scooped him up.
Rodney could see one pale hand trailing out of the bottom of the blanket. This man looked for all the world like he was carrying a dead body.
“Aren’t you going to let me go?” Rodney tried to inject pleading into his tone. The man cocked an eyebrow at him, hefting the dead weight in his arms.
“You’ll be found by housekeeping tomorrow morning. Either that or you can start yelling your lungs out but make sure to wait until I’m out of earshot,” he said and treated Rodney to one last cold smile. He then made his way to the motel room door and opened it, awkwardly juggling John all the while. He kicked the door shut behind him.
~~~
“Just until I get the call where to drop him.”
Sam was standing in the doorway of her lounge room, arms crossed and teeth worrying her bottom lip. She looked from Jack to the younger man who was now chained to her gas heater which was bolted to the floor.
“This is it then, I don’t want to ever see you again after this,” Sam grated, rubbing a tired hand over her eyes and leaving the room. Jack went back to scrutinising the bound man before him, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and putting it on Sam’s coffee table so it would be in easy reach.
John seemed to realise the pretence of sleep wasn’t lulling Jack into a false sense of security and opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and menacing.
“What do you want with me?” His voice was almost a growl and dripped with hate. He was well and truly caught and he had obviously figured that out. His eyes had done a quick once-over of the room before he had deigned to speak, weighing his options. He had obviously decided there were none.
“What makes you think I’m going to answer any of your questions? As soon as I get a phone call there will be people on their way here to pick you up. The less I hear your voice the better,” Jack snapped. The younger man’s eyes narrowed and he sneered at him, his gaze baleful. John was chained so his knees were beneath him with his head on the floor. It was the most awkward position Jack could think of which would render him immobile. Jack wanted him neither comfortable nor able to gain any leverage to worry the chains that bound him. Jack watched with interest as John scanned the room again from his awkward position, seeming to have ideas and discard them, getting more and more disgusted and resigned by the moment.
“At least tell me Rodney’s okay?” he prodded.
The question surprised Jack and he hated that. He didn’t like the chitchat he was being forced into. The question and the plaintive look John was now giving him bothered him more than he could say. He was a creature of habit and his whole life had been about taking orders. He feared one thing more than death.
Lack of direction.
“Last I saw of him,” Jack admitted and shrugged. John nodded as best as he could with his face pressed to the floor.
“How did you find me anyhow?”
Jack sighed. He was going to get talked at and it was in his nature to be accommodating. Driven by an automatic politeness that was deeply embedded in his psyche, he answered him. “I was tracking you both for a while but I knew your friend would be looking for answers or some kind of leverage. I pushed him in the right direction, for me anyhow. I found him, I found you. It’s funny but the smart thing would’ve have been to have separated after the bus thing.”
“No one’s ever accused me of doing the smart thing,” John sighed and Jack snorted despite himself.
“Few people surprise me these days,” Jack shrugged. “You kinda all blend together after a while.” He sighed. “The last person to surprise me was-”
Just then Jack’s phone bleated. He picked it up and listened for a moment and then grimaced. “I thought this was a retrieval… Okay, fine. Yes, I understand.” Jack snapped his cell shut and dropped it back onto the table. Jack pulled his gun out of his jacket pocket and put the muzzle to John’s temple.
“Nothing personal,” he said.
~~~
John has asked him why a couple of times.
Why rescue him, why give up any chance at a normal life, why, why, why?
Rodney had always looked at him with a small half-smile and had said, “I’m not too sure. I’d never been brave before in my life. I guess I was just due.”
This is what ran through John’s head as he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. No anger at the man holding him or frustration at the circumstance, just the small half-smile Rodney got when he said something self-deprecating. That, and a glimmer of curiosity as to whether there was a split second of actually feeling the shot when someone pulled the trigger, or whether you just heard the click and then nothing.
There was a meaty thump and a curse and John opened his eyes and looked sideways. He frowned because what he was seeing didn’t really make any sense. His captor was flat out on the floor and the woman with the too-bright red hair was standing over him, breathing raggedly and with one of those large champagne bottles held in both hands.
The woman’s face was firm as she took a step towards him but a window smashed to her right and something came rolling across the floor, trailing smoke. John’s eyes started watering immediately and he cursed.
“Get out!” he cried, trying to push himself upward, chains digging into his forearms and biting across his back.
The woman made an abortive move toward him and then doubled over, coughing raggedly. “What about you?” she managed as there was another smashing sound and a second canister rolled to a stop by her couch, spewing smoke.
“Don’t worry about me. Get out now! Go out the back!” John watched the woman disappear through the smoke, taking note of the direction she headed and then he heaved himself upwards.
There was a loud groaning noise and a separating feeling which John was pretty sure was his left shoulder pulling free of the socket and then he was free, large gas heater crashing sideways and chains pooling around his feet. John heard the hiss of gas escaping into the room just as the first shots were fired.
“Ah hell,” John groaned, stepping forward and tripping over the prone form of his captor. He took a beat to look at the other man before he leant down and pulled him up, slinging him over his right shoulder and making his way towards the back of the house.
John could now vaguely hear the sounds of people yelling and vehicles screaming to a halt outside. Fortunately, the women’s small house backed onto forest so it seemed no one had made their way around properly yet. He figured his captor’s cold-cocking had prompted the people waiting outside into action abortively and not everyone was in position. John wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Only feeling the tiniest moment of guilt, John heaved the older man up and off his shoulders, tossing him unceremoniously into the thickening brush. He saw the man roll through bushes and disappear and figured he had given him a fighting chance at least. John turned, about to make his way in the opposite direction when he saw a flash of red through the trees and then a group of men moving behind fast.
John clenched his fists for a second, knowing that if he moved now he could make it away clean, but then the woman had saved his life. It wasn’t really much of a debate.
John ran, low and silent through the trees to where three men dressed in dark green camouflage gear had the woman pinned to the ground. He came at the men head on, all focused on the struggling woman underneath them.
“Get off her,” John snarled, not recognising the feral timbre of his own voice. The voice was cold and murderous, the voice of the thing John became when he slept, when all the life leeched out of him, leaving a hollow husk.
This was a voice John was terrified of, but for now, his heart leapt at the sound of it, feeling strength course through his limbs, feeling one with the night.
Part Seven
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Sorry, I keep forgetting people are not used to me-speak.
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