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"How come you never cook for me?" Cam asks one evening while wrangling a colander full of steaming wet pasta over the sink.
John, sitting on the other side of the breakfast bar, freezes with his beer bottle halfway to his mouth.
"Because you've got a kitchen?" he tries, before taking a long sip and flashing Cam his winning-est smile.
Cam squints at him through the steam. "You need a real apartment."
***
Daniel offends the high priestess of an obscure Goa'uld posing as a Etruscan goddess during what they thought was a routine first-contact. Latin would be a cake-walk for Daniel, but Etruscan is apparently worse than Welsh with the consonants and he earns himself a smack in the face for everything he says. After a while, the Jaffa just haul him away.
The rescue mission is a complete shit-storm of failure. John loses his gun before he's even off the gate platform, and Cam, in his infinite wisdom, offers up an ultimatum that lands the rest of the team behind a set of very well-made bars.
"Well, thanks anyway, guys." Daniel says, hanging his head between his knees. The whole left side of his face is bruised purple and yellow and when he spits in the dirt, the saliva is shot through with blood.
John coughs and takes his hat off to wave at his face. It's about 100 degrees in the jail and the concept of public hygiene doesn't seem to have reached this particular planet. Flies buzz around their faces. The combined heat, stench, and blow to the head he got a few hours earlier keeps John on the edge of puking.
Sam launches herself off the floor and begins walking from one end of the cell to the other. There's no electricity in here - no computers for her to hack into, and they took away everyone's walkies. "Is anyone else starving?" she asks. John is too queasy to think about food.
Vala is pouting at the lock, having already broken a pick she fashioned out of a sparkly barrette, while Teal'c attempts to drag the bars in the window well out with his bare hands.
"How long has Cam been gone?" Sam stops her pacing and looks at her watch.
"Three and a half hours," Teal'c grits, his back and arms bulging from the strain of pulling.
"How does he know that?" John asks. Sam just shakes her head and starts pacing again.
Another hour goes by before a shout from the hallway brings everyone alert. The door swings open and a guard topples face-first into the room. Cam slinks through the doorway, stepping over the body carefully.
"So, I mighta made that priestess even madder," he says before jingling an ornate keychain in the air.
"You know," Vala says and hops to her feet, "we never used to get captured so much."
"It's Sheppard's fault," Sam and Daniel say in unison.
John wonders if it would be wrong to puke on one of them in retaliation.
***
By the time they get back to Earth, John has been awake for twenty-seven hours straight and feels like absolute crap. Lam cleared him to go home, barely, and only after Cam made some noise about how they've each had concussions before and he'll keep an eye on him. John proclaims a burning need for fried potatoes on the way to Cam's car.
"I got nothing at home." Cam tells him, stowing his backpack in the trunk.
"Waffle house," John rasps, easing himself into the passenger seat.
Cam snorts and starts the car. "You're buying."
***
John turns out to have left his wallet on base, so Cam ends up paying anyway. They each order eggs and bacon and John gets two orders of hash browns covered in cheese.
He can only eat a few bites, though, before the churning in his stomach starts up again. He drops his fork and staggers to the back of the restaurant.
When he comes out of the bathroom, Cam is waiting for him by the front door with a doggie bag in one hand and a plastic bottle of water.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, peering at John closely.
John feels it's best not to open his mouth. He frowns and takes the bottle.
"Okay, let's get you to bed." Cam guides him with a steady hand on the back of his neck.
***
John wakes up ravenous in the middle of the night on the couch. He tiptoes past Cam's room on the way to the kitchen and catches a glimpse of Cam's bare back, striped in moonlight from his mini-blinds. John stands there and looks for a few seconds before Cam stirs. John moves on before he wakes up.
He tries to be quiet, but forgets to stop the microwave before it beeps, impossibly loud, at the end of the cycle. He winces, listening for movement from the bedroom. Sure enough, Cam comes trudging in a few minutes later, scratching at his chest. He didn't put any pants on either, John notices, and shifts in his seat, his cock growing heavy between his legs.
"Hash browns?" he offers the plate.
Cam blinks at the plate for a few seconds, before shaking his head sleepily and heading to the fridge. John shrugs and takes a huge bite. They're not as good as fresh, but at that moment, at three AM with a dull headache and probably a concussion, they're good enough to make him close his eyes and groan blissfully. He swallows and opens his eyes to get another bite, but notices it's gotten really quiet.
Cam is staring at him with the carton of orange juice dangling at his side.
"What?" John asks.
Cam puts the juice back in the fridge and takes a step closer.
"I'm gonna kiss you, okay?" he says.
John pushes back from the kitchen table.
"Okay." Cam climbs onto his lap, straddling him on the chair. He ducks and stops with his mouth millimeters from John's.
John can smell the juice on Cam's breath and nudges his chin up, catching their bottom lips together. Cam makes a tiny noise and sinks down, gripping John's shoulders.
John licks drops of juice from the day-old fuzz on Cam's upper lip and bites his way down Cam's chin and neck.
The hash browns clatter to the floor a few moments later, but no one notices until the morning when Cam steps in them on his way to make coffee.
"You still owe me for dinner," Cam tells John when he wraps himself around Cam's back.
"I'll heat you up some eggs." John says, and steals Cam's coffee.