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Cam had flown 302s, a wide variety of planes, and enough alien space ships that he’d stopped keeping count, but
never anything like this. He almost wished for something to fight – even something to fly round would do – because
the jumper was amazing, responding to his every thought, and he’d said that about stuff he’d flown before, but
he’d never known how different it would feel when he meant it literally. It was every pilot’s wet dream, and he
thought he could do this forever.
Until he remembered that there was a very real possibility he’d have to.
*
Like
Sheppard, who’d taught him, Cam flew with his hands on the controls even though he didn’t really need to –
they were going in pretty much a dead straight line and any obstacles were big enough to see long before there was any risk
of hitting them. It was comforting though, reassuringly familiar, like the 24 hour clock in the bottom of the jumper’s
display screen, telling them they’d been traveling for nearly four days, despite the meaningless of an Earth clock in
space.
“Four weeks,” Sheppard had said, staring at the line running between their current position and
Atlantis.
“Can you live in a jumper for four weeks?” Cam had asked. Sheppard had still been doing all the
flying then, Cam’s brand new ATA gene (courtesy of Keller and Lam’s research into a new and improved delivery
system, and Landry’s decision that everyone should get the therapy) still making him faintly dizzy around the Ancient
tech,
“We could live for months on the stuff that’s packed into jumpers these days,” Sheppard had
said in a voice that told of hard won experience.
Neither of them had mentioned how, if this didn’t work, they
might have to.
*
Once Cam could fly without getting so dizzy the ship started spinning, their day was split
into chunks allocated to eating, sleeping and flying, a routine they stuck to as rigidly as Cam remembered doing during his
first days in the Air Force. John was wary of relying on the jumper’s auto-pilot for any length of time, so they both
spent a lot of time flying while the other one slept, MREs covering for the fact that one person’s breakfast was the
other’s evening meal.
It didn’t matter anyway – Cam was just grateful for someone to talk to. Sam
had said, when they got back to Earth, that they'd probably never remember anything of their fifty years on the Prometheus,
but Cam still dreamed of empty space, running through a deserted ship, going slowly crazy, and knew he wasn’t inventing
it. He woke up sometimes to Sheppard’s hand on his shoulder, Sheppard’s face twisted in sympathy, and thought
about the mission reports he’d read from Atlantis, all the times Sheppard had been cut off from his people and figured
Sheppard understood.
A chime sounded brightly, an alarm symbol appearing by the clock, and Sheppard stirred in the
back of the jumper. Cam was never sure if he actually slept or was just faking it – he always looked exhausted, but
Cam *was* sleeping and he knew it didn’t make a difference.
“Morning,” Cam offered, getting a grunt
from Sheppard who, sleeping or not, didn’t appear to be a morning person.
Sheppard stomped around the back of
the jumper for a few minutes, then came up front and took the co-pilot’s seat. “Anything happen?”
“Well,
there was a giant space squid, but I managed to dodge him,” Cam said.
“Good to know,” Sheppard said
solemnly, then threw an MRE at Cam’s head. “Any change on the DHD?”
When the Inter-Galactic Gate
Bridge had spat them out partway through the Midway Station-Atlantis section, they’d been in the middle of nowhere,
literally, with a DHD that refused to dial, no way of contacting either Earth or Atlantis, and the Daedalus grounded
to fix a problem with the hyper-drive. Stranded, in other words, through neither of them had said that out loud.
“Still
nothing,” Cam said, shaking himself out of the memory. He wasn’t even supposed to be in Pegasus, but Sheppard
had been making the bi-monthly test run through the bridge and he’d talked Landry into letting Cam spend his week of
down-time learning to fly the jumpers.
“We probably need to be nearer a planet with a gate,” Sheppard said,
opening his MRE and making a face. ”Thought this was something else. Switch?”
“What is it?”
Cam asked dubiously. Four weeks was long enough to be surviving on MREs without having to start in on the truly awful ones.
“Chicken
surprise,” Sheppard said, still pulling the face, and Cam took pity on him, tossing over his own.
They ate in
silence, staring out of the jumper window, though the view didn’t have a lot to recommend it – space was space,
endless and black, nothing like the night sky from home. Cam couldn’t help feeling that there was a reason he wanted
to go through stargates and not up in space ships. Space was a hell of a lot more interesting when you could get across it
in seconds and go straight to the good stuff.
Finally, Sheppard balled up the remains of his breakfast and stood up.
”My turn to fly,” he said, looking like he was about half a minute from poking Cam until he moved.
“Heaven
forbid we let the jumper run on auto-pilot for a few minutes,” Cam said, moving out of Sheppard’s way. “It’s
not as though a ship built by the Ancients would be able to warn us if we were going to hit a planet or anything.”
“There’s
plenty to crash into in space,” Sheppard said, already looking more relaxed, more energized, as his hands closed over
the jumper controls. Cam thought about the report of Atlantis’ flight across Pegasus a couple of years ago, and decided
Sheppard might have a point.
*
The bench seats in the back of the jumper weren’t wide enough to sleep
on unless you slept stiller than the dead, so they’d made a sort of mattress on the floor with sleeping bags. It wasn’t
the most comfortable Cam had ever been, but he’d slept in worse places and, tucked into a sleeping bag, the lights dimmed
and Sheppard in the front of the jumper, a silent but reassuring presence, it was almost peaceful. Or at least, it could have
been if he’d been able to shut his brain off.
They hadn’t talked about why the bridge sequence might have
shut down early, or why they couldn’t contact anyone. They’d given it twenty four hours, hovering out of range
of the last gate they’d come through, in case it had activated, trying intermittently to dial, then decided that their
best bet was to head for the nearest planet with a gate and land to try and dial from there.
“McKay’ll
probably fix it while we’re flying there,” Sheppard had said. “If I have to sit through another lecture
about waiting for them to come through, you can suffer with me.”
“Deal,” Cam had said. He’d
wanted to claim that his team was as likely to fix the problem as McKay, but, since Sam had gone to Atlantis, scientific fixes
were the one thing his team wasn’t great at.
If it required shooting, stealing or translating, he thought, lying
in the dark and reliving the conversation, SG1 would be all set, though.
*
He woke up when the jumper jerked
to the side, the inertial dampeners not quite absorbing all the motion, every light in the little ship brought up to full
beam. “Sheppard? What the hell was that?”
Sheppard didn’t answer, and Cam struggled out of the sleeping
bag to find him hunched forward over the jumper controls, his body tense.
“Sheppard?” Cam asked again,
reaching for his BDUs. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t up to facing it without pants, long running team jokes about
that notwithstanding. “If we’re about to die in a collision with a stray meteor, I’d appreciate a warning.”
“We’re
not,” Sheppard said, not looking away from the flight path he’d called up. Cam squinted at it over his shoulder,
but he couldn’t see anything that shouldn’t be there. “Everything’s fine.”
“So
you just decided that right now is a good time to practice your evasive maneuvers?”
Sheppard went even more tense,
but Cam thought he saw a tremor run through his hands. He really wasn’t equipped to deal with Sheppard if he decided
to freak out. ”Space debris,” Sheppard ground out, and the display changed in response to Cam’s surprise,
showing the fast zigzag Sheppard must have done to avoid hitting it.
“The proximity sensors didn’t pick
it up?” he asked, and Sheppard stiffened even further. This couldn’t be good.
“Didn’t hear
them,” he said, sounding like he was talking through gritted teeth. Cam finally got it, cursing himself for taking so
long. Sheppard had dozed off at the controls.
“All right.” He put his hands on Sheppard’s shoulders,
preparing to pull him up. ”You’re done. Go in back and *sleep*, because I’m not planning on being killed
by some freak collision in the middle of nowhere.”
“You’ve got another two hours,” Sheppard
said. “Anyway, I’m wide awake now.”
“Yeah, till the adrenaline burns off and you crash even
harder.” Cam tugged at Sheppard sleeves, a little surprised when Sheppard rose at the first tug. “I can handle
things for a few hours. And don’t think I won’t find sleeping pills somewhere on this ship and knock you out if
I have to.”
Sheppard rolled his eyes, but actually went, which, if nothing else had, told Cam how exhausted and
freaked he really was. He shuffled around briefly then went quiet, the lights dimming again.
Cam stared out the window,
space as empty as it had been the last time he’d looked. The problem was, now he was hyper-awake, seeing floating debris
from the corner of his eye every time he blinked.
In the back of the jumper, Sheppard shifted, sounding like he was
turning over.
The jumper, presumably picking up on Cam’s over-alertness, threw up a display of the path in front
of them, which was as empty as ever.
Sheppard moved again, with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a huff. It made
a change from the usual still way he lay, which made it a pretty good clue that he hadn’t been sleeping for the last
four days, just lying there and trying to fool Cam.
Cam tried to ignore him, focusing on the route plan and the jumper’s
estimation in Ancient of how far they had to go, like he didn’t already have it memorized.
Something thumped
softly in the back of the jumper and Cam’s patience wore out. “All right. Tell me where the sleeping pills are
on this ship.”
Sheppard sat up. “Not exactly an essential part of the mission pack.”
Cam could
see the point of that. “Since I don’t have access to warm milk or hot chocolate…” He raised an eyebrow
at Sheppard, and Sheppard flushed, looking away.
Cam blinked, surprised – he’d only intended to suggest
that Sheppard try harder to sleep – and then realized how Sheppard had interpreted it. “Oh,” he said stupidly.
Sheppard
ran a hand through his hair, still not looking up. “Mind if I turn the lights out? I’ll probably sleep if it’s
dark.”
Cam hesitated, the jumper suddenly feeling very small. It wasn’t like he’d never looked at
Sheppard, but, hell, everyone looked at Sheppard; the man was the hero of Atlantis and looked like a recruiting poster for
SGC pilots. He’d never really thought about the jump from looking to touching, though, with Sheppard mostly in another
galaxy.
Except now he was in Sheppard’s galaxy, Sheppard’s ship, with Sheppard half-naked and exhausted
and asking. In the back of the jumper, Sheppard lay down and pulled the sleeping bag over himself, turning to the side so
Cam could only see the back of his head. Even that looked tense and unhappy, and it wasn’t as though having sex with
Sheppard was exactly going to be a hardship.
He flicked the auto-pilot back on and turned the proximity sensor alarm
up as high as it would go, just in case.
He hadn’t bothered with shoes when their near miss had jolted him awake,
and Sheppard started when he crouched next to the mattress. “You need something to help you relax, right?”
Sheppard
didn’t turn over. “Could you turn the lights out please. Or close the door to the front section,” he said,
the same tight tone as when he’d confessed to nearly hitting something.
“Sure.” Cam shifted his balance
so he could rest one hand on Sheppard’s bare shoulder. He was warm from the sleeping bag, and Cam couldn’t resist
rubbing slow circles in his skin with his thumb. “I could help.”
Sheppard sighed, and rolled onto his back,
the movement shifting Cam’s hand to rest against his neck. “I take it you don’t mean telling me a bed-time
story.”
“Not so much,” Cam agreed dryly. He ran his hand up Sheppard’s neck, cupping his jaw
and holding him in place. “Just relax,” he said quietly, and leaned in to kiss him, soft and careful.
It
took Sheppard a few seconds to kiss back, then his hand found it’s way into Cam’s hair, pulling him closer. Cam’s
balance wobbled, and he put his other hand down by Sheppard’s head, straddling Sheppard’s hips. Sheppard grinned
into the kiss, grinding up against Cam’s weight, already half-hard.
“No you don’t,” Cam said.
“You just lie there and –“
“Think of Atlantis?” Sheppard suggested, quirking an eyebrow
at Cam. For that, Cam bit him sharply on the edge of his jaw, and Sheppard shuddered. Interesting. Cam sucked gently at the
bite mark, then lower, across Sheppard’s throat, down his chest and over the curve of his stomach until he was mouthing
Sheppard’s cock through the damp material of his boxers, Sheppard giving a long breathy sigh.
“Up,”
Cam muttered, nudging Sheppard’s hip until he lifted up enough for Cam to slide his boxers off and close his mouth over
Sheppard’s cock.
Sheppard groaned, low and turned on, and Cam looked up just in time to watch his eyes close
and his head drop back. “That’s really good,” he murmured, his voice slurring with something that might
be pleasure and might just be exhaustion as Cam sucked him off, slow and easy like they’d got nothing better to do and
hours to do it in, and Sheppard came with a barely audible gasp, his whole body going boneless.
He reached out, his
eyes still closed, when Cam pulled off and sat up. Cam caught his hand, not sure where it was heading, and Sheppard pulled
him in for a sloppy, off-centre kiss. “You need anything?” he asked. His eyes slitted open, then slowly closed,
like he didn’t even have the energy for that. Mission accomplished.
“I’m good,” Cam said, fairly
generously, he thought, given the press of his own hard-on against the buttons of his pants, the slow curl of arousal in the
pit of his stomach. If he’d thought Sheppard looked good in his uniform, upright and working, it was nothing compared
to how he looked now, sprawled naked across their bed, post-coital and sleepy, and it was doing strange things to Cam’s
insides, the kind of things that made him really hope they’d make it back to Atlantis and find it still there, if only
for the prospect of a bed to do this on again. “Go to sleep.”
“M’not tired,” Sheppard
slurred, but his grip on Cam’s hand relaxed, and his breathing deepened into sleep.
Cam gave it a couple of minutes,
then pushed himself up and pulled the covers over Sheppard. He very carefully did not smooth the guy’s messed up hair,
or contemplate how much like tucking him in it was, concentrating instead on willing his dick to understand that there wasn’t
going to be a happy ending for a while, because there was no way he was jacking off in the jumper with Sheppard asleep barely
three feet away.
Anyway, knowing his luck, that would be just the moment they were either rescued or attacked by some
previously unknown space-dwelling aliens, both of which were just too embarrassing to contemplate.
He settled back
in the pilot’s seat, turning slightly so he could keep an eye on Sheppard.
Outside the jumper, space kept rushing
by, taking them closer to home.
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