Work Text:
Paper Unicorns
"What are you drawing?" John asks quietly.
Cam tilts the scrap of paper in his hands until it catches the faint strip of light coming in through the high, barred window. "Unicorn."
"That's not a unicorn." John keeps his voice hushed. He's not sure if everyone crammed into the tiny cell with them is sleeping, or just doing a good job of faking it, but he's not eager to take the risk of disturbing anyone either way.
Cam shifts a little, wincing in pain.
"Where's the horn?" John asks, instead of saying something about how Cam's hurting. He's learned his lesson already on that one.
"I was getting to it."
"Shouldn't it have wings as well?"
"Unicorns don't have wings."
John can feel Cam rolling his eyes, but before Cam can say anything, a voice somewhere in the cell calls over, "Shut the hell up."
John really wants to tell the guy to fuck off, he'll talk if he wants to, but he's seen what happens to people who argue in here and it's a risk they can't take. He presses closer to Cam instead, watches Cam's stub of pencil stutter across the page and whispers, "They'll come for us," like a worn talisman of hope.
*
The work - John doesn't have a better word for it, though he knows that one isn't right – could be worse. It's monotonous, days longer than the worst days on Atlantis, the guards ruthless in their treatment of anyone they think isn't working hard enough, but if John forgets all that, he could be working on a production line anywhere, slotting pieces together to make God knows what.
The problem isn't the constant risk of things getting worse than they are. The problem is that Cam is working in another of the huge underground halls, somewhere that John can't watch his back. Somewhere that, when the person working next to him fell behind two days ago, Cam was the one beaten by the guards and John couldn't protect him.
"You slacking there?" The guard's voice is loud and close in John's ear over the sound of the machinery. "Got something better to do?"
John pictures, very clearly, sinking his fist into the guy's face. It'd feel so good, and it's not like the guy doesn't deserve it, but one of them has to be healthy enough to orchestrate an escape, and Cam's not.
John ducks his head, busies his hands with the repetitive, already-habitual motion. When they get out, he's going to the Pegasus Coalition and getting these guys shut down, if he has to burn all of his limited capital with them to do it.
"That's better." The guard jabs John with his night stick as he moves on, and John lets his anger burn hot in his stomach, ready for when he's going to need it.
*
Cam's usually back in their cell later than John, a pattern that's depressingly familiar after two weeks. John's internal clock has reset itself to their day, and pings an alarm at him when Cam's five minutes late.
By the time Cam's a half hour late, John's twitchy with his inability to pace in the tiny, crowded cell. He keeps his eyes fixed on the door. Every time he blinks, he sees a worse scenario on his eyelids – Cam beaten again by the guards, Cam tossed above ground like trash, Cam caught in a machine, killed or maimed, Cam sent somewhere else, somewhere that John isn't with him, somewhere that makes escaping harder.
Cam trying to escape, being caught. Punished.
John tries to tell himself that Cam could have gotten out, made it back to the gate. It's true, but he knows that even if Cam could, he wouldn't. Not if it meant leaving John behind, the same way John would never be able to leave Cam behind, a slave and a prisoner, with the risk of not getting back in time.
If they're going to die here, they're going to die together, the same way they came in, captured on a two-man recon mission that went wrong.
The guy sitting next to John elbows him sharply, right in the bruise left by the guard's stick. John glares back.
The guy shrugs. "Need some room to move. You're not using it."
"I'm waiting for someone."
"Your girl aint coming, friend." The guy shoves John again, knocking him sideways before he can catch his balance.
John straightens up, braces himself in the space he's keeping for Cam, safe between John and the cell wall. Some of the other prisoners have started to take an interest – probably hoping for a fight, something to break the monotony, or just give them an excuse to unleash some violence.
"I'm waiting for someone. Find somewhere else." John's a little proud of how calm his voice comes out. He takes another deep breath, pushing down the urge to fight. If he gets into a fight, he'll be dragged out and punished, and Cam will come back not knowing where he is.
"Seems like you're taking more than your share," the guy says. He's taller than John, just enough to loom over John, his eyes hard. He's built, but his skin is ghost-pale. Too long in the dark. Too long building up the kind of resentment that leaks all over anyone getting in front of it for too long.
John wishes for Teyla, just for a second, and her ability to smooth over any misunderstanding. Five years on a team with her, but he hasn't gotten any better.
"My friend will be back soon," John says, hoping he isn't lying. "I don't want to fight you." He looks up, makes himself look the guy in the face. He pushes respect onto his face, covering over any hint of the challenge he wants to make, and forces himself to add, "Please."
Against all expectations, it works, the guy shifting back out of John's space and looking away. The tension in the air is already dissipating, the other prisoners losing interest without the prospect of a fight.
A guard rattles the barred door, yells something that the wood renders unintelligible.
John closes his eyes, and forces himself to picture Cam's hands on the pencil stub, the image of a winged unicorn appearing on a scrap of paper. They'll come for us. They will.
He doesn’t mean to sleep, but he must, because he wakes up to movement in the cell. Someone swears, followed by a whisper of apology in a voice that pulls John from sleep with a sharp tug. The cell isn't quite pitch black, but it's close, and the black, shapeless clothes they're all dressed in make picking out a person harder.
He starts when a hand touches his knee, then reaches for it. Cam's hand is cold in his, and Cam falls more than sits in the space John left for him. John twists to face him as much as he can, uses his free hand to check Cam for more injuries. He doesn't find any, but that doesn't mean anything.
"Okay?" he asks, close enough to feel Cam's breath against his cheek.
Cam lets go of John's hand. A moment later, he's back, pressing John's hand between both of his. John feels something there, unfamiliar, metal. "We're getting out of here," Cam says.
*
It's a knife, John sees in the early morning of the torches being lit, not the key he was hoping for. He doesn't say anything to Cam, who surely did something stupid and dangerous to get it, but he can't see how one knife is going to get them out of an underground compound filled with guards and locked doors.
Maybe it doesn't matter. Cam's eyes burn with a conviction that John hasn't seen since before Cam was beaten, like having the knife, or maybe just getting it, has shored up something that was starting to cave inside him. Maybe that matters more than being able to use the knife to escape.
They'll come for us, John thinks, the words worn smooth from being turned over and over in his mind. Maybe the knife is Cam's version of John's fading hope for rescue.
*
Two days become three become four. John's bruised from being smacked around by the guards, exhausted from long days and too short nights spent not sleeping. He still looks, on the long walk from the cell to the machinery room, for clues, a way out, but it's more habit than anything else.
He's losing hope, and no amount of assuring himself that their teams will come for them will change that.
"We need a plan," he whispers, that night, pressed close to Cam so they can talk without being overheard.
"You should go for the gate." Cam wraps his hand around John's, the knife between their palms.
John shakes his head. "I'm not leaving you behind. They captured us together, they'd punish you."
"You'd get back with a rescue team before that happens." Cam sounds completely convinced, and John can't tell any longer whether Cam means it or is faking.
"It's been three weeks. If they could get to us, they would have." It feels treacherous to say that out loud, but one of them has to.
"They don't know where we are. You know how hard it is to track people through the gate, and we went through six."
"You're still injured," John says. "You should go. I can take the punishment better."
Cam shakes his head.
"No, what?"
"I'm not leaving you behind either."
John opens his mouth to argue, then realizes that he's about to give exactly the same arguments Cam just gave him. "Then we'll have to go together," he says instead. "You got a plan?"
*
It turns out that Cam does, and John hates it. It's dangerous, and unlikely to succeed, and the consequences of failing will be horrific. None of which would usually bother him, but usually the consequences of bad plans don’t fall on Cam the way these will.
"We're not doing it," he says firmly. "We'll think of something else."
Cam's silent for a long minute, his head down. When he finally looks at John, they're close enough that, even in the darkness of the cell, John can see the desperation in his eyes. "Please."
It's almost enough for John to cave – he's never had any resistance, not really, to Cam, and it's only gotten worse as a result of John's overwhelming need to protect Cam through their imprisonment and slavery.
Then he thinks about all the terrible fates he imagined for Cam, the night Cam was late getting back to their cell, and he can't do it. Better Cam breaks under what's happening than that he's killed. He can recover from the former; even after years of watching Cam go through the gate, John can barely look sideways at the possibility of Cam being killed.
"Give me a week to think of something else," John bargains. And then, because he's never claimed to be the good person in their relationship, says, "Trust me," because John knows it's the only thing Cam won't be able to say no to.
*
John thinks, at first, that he's hallucinating. He's three days into the five they compromised on, no closer to figuring out an escape plan that won't likely end with both of them dead and – and he looks up on his way from the cell to the machinery room, and sees Ronon Dex standing at the junction of two corridors, wearing a guard uniform and a glare.
Except that when John blinks, Ronon's still there, and catches his eye, just long enough to nod, and for John to nod back, message received.
"Hey!" John pushes the guy in front of him, hard enough that he stumbles away. "I saw that, I saw what you're trying to do."
"What the fuck?" The guy turns on John, already coming at him with clenched fists, which makes John feel less bad about dragging him into this.
John grabs for the guy's shoulders, swings him round, up against the wall, his own back to the corridor, the rush of angry voices and swelling violence. The guy gets in a lucky shot, knocking the wind out of John, and then there are familiar hands on him, dragging him back.
"I'll kill you," John shouts, not even sure where the words are coming from. If Ronon wasn't holding onto him, he thinks he might actually mean them.
They have to get out of here. Cam's not the only one breaking under the pressure.
He feels something tuck into his pants pocket, Ronon's breath on the back of his neck. "Stay by the cell door. Tonight. Give Mitchell one of these."
John doesn't have chance to respond before two more guards are grabbing his arms, pulling him away from Ronon and marching him down the corridor. He can hear more guards, urging the others on to the machinery rooms. He wants to fight, break free, inflict some violence of his own.
Instead, he lets himself be marched down the corridor, and tries to think about tonight, instead of right now.
*
Cam almost falls over John when he's shoved into the cell, late that evening. A moment later, he's on his knees next to John, who curls himself tighter into the small space they're occupying, keeping his head down in the vain hope that Cam won't see his bruises.
"What did you do?" Cam demands. His hand on John's cheek is cool and gentle, and John can't resist turning into it.
"Stay here," John murmurs. "Take this. Rescue's coming."
Cam palms the tiny device – like a tracker, except they have trackers implanted in them, so John's not sure why they'd need another - without even looking at it. "What's that got to do with you being beaten up?"
"Step one," John says. "We're going home."
*
Time stretches, long and slow into the night, and no-one comes. Nothing happens. Although they're sitting silently together, John knows Cam isn't sleeping, can feel the doubt burning off him. Not that John doesn't understand. If he didn't have the tiny device tucked in his pocket, he'd think the whole thing was his imagination, a wishful thinking hallucination.
The hand on his shoulder makes him jump so hard he has to stifle a groan.
"Quiet." The voice behind them is so low it's barely audible, but John knows Ronon's voice. "The devices have a switch on the side, turn them on."
John complies, fumbling slightly to do it by feel, and for a moment, the whole world blurs.
"Whoa," Cam says quietly. "What is this thing?"
"Lets you walk through walls. McKay made it, only way out of here."
Ronon waits until they're all on their feet, then holds out his hand to John. "Don't let go. It's really easy to get stuck."
John takes Ronon's hand, and Cam's, and follows Ronon into the wall.
It's like he thought going through the gate would be, the first time. He can feel the molecules that make up the wall pressing against him, shifting aside to let them through. It's a weird, uncomfortable feeling, makes him want to brush the sensation away. He's grateful that he doesn't have a hand free to do it.
He focuses on Ronon's back instead of looking around. If he'd thought about it at all, he'd have expected them to go through the wall and into the corridor, but of course they're not invisible. Instead, they're literally walking inside the wall, which is thick enough that it's all John can see if he looks to either side.
He has no idea how Ronon knows where he's going with nothing to guide them, but Ronon keeps going, sure and certain.
It takes John a little while to realize they're going up. Up means the surface. Up means fresh air and clear skies and the road back to the gate.
Up means out.
He wants to hurry, only stopped by the faint wheeze of Cam's breath behind him, a reminder that Cam's not healed from the injuries the guards inflicted. He doesn't think about his own injuries - they're bruises, mostly, nothing that Dr Lam won't be able to fix. When they get back to Atlantis.
"We're coming out any second," Ronon reports. "The Hammond'll beam us the second we're all out."
John squeezes Cam's hand, feels Cam squeeze back, and then he's following Ronon out of the wall. He gets a brief flash of perimeter guards, the sound of surprised yells, and then the transport beam is washing over the three of them, and the next thing he feels is the deck of the Hammond under his feet.
*
The first couple of days back in Atlantis are a whirlwind of medical checks and debriefs and welcome homes. Rodney wants to gloat about breaking several rules of physics to get them out, with a sideline into apologizing for how long it took; Teyla brings Torren to visit John in the infirmary; Ronon keeps stopping by, claiming he's got time on his hands, but obviously checking in.
Cam's team are just as bad – Ford and Keller are near permanent bookends on either side of his bed, at least until Lam points out that, with Keller being an off-world rather than an Atlantis medic, Lam can throw her out whenever she wants. Nehima, their fourth team member, one of the survivors of the hollowed out moon, is even worse, quiet and still at the foot of Cam's bed, but completely immovable.
John can't wait to get out of the infirmary, twitchy and exhausted from the constant sounds of movement. From the dark circles under Cam's eyes, he's just as bad, but the first night they're both released back to their quarters, John lies awake, staring at the ceiling until he falls into a fitful sleep as the sky is lightening.
He's not particularly surprised, the second night, to open the door in response to the chime and find Cam standing on the other side.
"I have to get out of here." Cam sounds desperate, helpless, and for a moment, John thinks he's dreaming, or sleepwalking, thinks they're still back in that cell. "I can't – I have to get out of the city, John."
John probably doesn't get it perfectly – he never has before, why start now – but he's pretty sure he gets it enough. Cam grew up with fields and empty space, skies that stretch on for what seems like forever. For John, being able to turn his head and see the stars through his open window is enough. For Cam, the small quarters on Atlantis probably feel like being trapped and enslaved all over again.
"I've got beer," he says. "Let me grab my boots, we'll go out on the pier."
They're off-duty till the end of the week, pending Lam and Heightmeyer signing off on their returns, which means they can probably get away with it, for once. John doesn't much care, fully prepared to use the weeks they just spent as prisoners and slaves to get them the leeway Cam clearly needs.
Cam makes a face at John's beer, like always, but drains it in three long swallows. Unlike most of the other residents of Atlantis, he puts the empty can to the side instead of tossing it into the ocean, and lies back on the cool metal, one arm tucked under his head. John could almost be fooled into thinking of Cam, the one time the two of them stayed with Cam's parents, lying back in a field in the sunshine, uncomplicatedly happy.
Could be, if not for the tension he can feel burning off Cam. He puts his own beer down and touches one hand to Cam's ankle. "Okay?" he asks, even though he knows the answer. He might not be good at this stuff, but Cam and Teyla are always telling him how much trying matters, and he's pretty sure they know what they're talking about.
"Everyone's acting like it was just one more captured-off-world-and-daring-rescue."
They're not, really, as evidenced by the hovering and the need to get cleared by Heightmeyer, but this doesn't seem like the moment to argue. John waits, watching Cam's face even though Cam's got his eyes closed.
"This is different."
Cam doesn't open his eyes or ask a question. John's still sure he's required to answer that one. "Because we weren't just prisoners," he guesses. Thinking about the guy who nearly fought him for Cam's space in their cell, how he looked like he'd been down there forever.
Thinking about how the hope for rescue had started to fade, replaced by a future where they spent every day literally slaving away, until they died down there.
"I thought I could handle anything this galaxy could throw at me," Cam says.
John doesn't know, not really, why this is getting to Cam in ways that other things, far worse things, haven't. Maybe Cam doesn't know either, and maybe it doesn't matter. John tightens his grip on Cam's ankle, until Cam opens his eyes, looks at John.
"You can," John says firmly. "You did, we made it and we're home. Our guys came for us."
It's more than the talisman of fading hope that John tried to cling to while they were trapped. It's real, now, evidence of it in their friends' concern, in Cam lying next to him, vulnerable and open, in the shining lights of Atlantis that will always mean home.
"Come here." Cam sits up enough to grab John's wrist and pull him down. It's a little faster than John was expecting, enough that he loses his balance and crashes down on Cam harder than he meant to. It's okay though, because Cam laughs, free and easy like the light wind is blowing away all the despair they brought back with them.
"We couldn't have done this in my quarters? In a bed?" John lets Cam arrange them how he wants, and winds up half on Cam, half on the cool metal of the pier, Cam's arms round him, not holding on, just holding him. He rests his head on Cam's shoulder, closes his eyes.
They're scheduled to meet with the leaders of the Pegasus Coalition as soon as he and Cam are cleared to go off-world, and John already has half an infiltration plan in his head. He grins, thinking about the slavers, about rounding them up and making them pay.
About taking all the people who aren't as lucky as John and Cam, don't have anyone to rescue them, and getting them home.
"I like it here," Cam says, drowsy.
John's not quite sure what Cam's responding to, or if he's just saying something. It doesn't matter. "Me, too," he says. Even with the bad bits, even with the worst bits. This is his home now, and yeah, he likes it here too.
Cam's quiet for so long that John assumes he's fallen asleep, starts to let his own eyes fall closed. He's halfway to sleep himself when Cam says, "This is really uncomfortable."
John rolls his eyes, sure that Cam knows he's doing it. "I offered to do this in bed."
There's a moment's pause. "You offering to do anything else in bed?"
John, instead of answering, gets to his feet and reaches out a hand. The feel of Cam taking it, pulling himself up with a grin, is the best thing he's seen since Ronon appeared to rescue them. "Whatever you want," he says, and lets Cam drag him away, back into the city, back into bed.