Drowning
"We're like the man who drifted into Niagara Falls in a little wooden barrel," the man in the cell next to mine said. He leaned his head against the bars and stared at the cell across from him.
"What?" A man with spiky black hair stared back at him.
"It's a metaphor for our current situation. Like you could come up with something better, Sheppard."
"Bet I could, McKay."
"Prove it," said the man next to me. McKay.
"Alright," Sheppard answered. "It's like...like…like a man waking up with a horse's head."
I stared between the two of them, but they spoke only to each other. A horse? What was a horse?
"Oh, please. That's so overdone. It's unoriginal, cliché. Definitely not better." McKay stuck his chin out, daring the other man to respond.
"Fine," Sheppard answered. He pressed his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes in concentration. "You want original, how about…"
McKay and I waited. Sheppard sunk deeper into the bars.
"Hey, you okay?" McKay asked. I had been about to ask the same thing.
Sheppard jerked his head up. "Yeah, just a headache."
"Your face is all swollen."
I stared at the man, Sheppard, seeing how puffy the side of his face was. McKay was right—his face was badly swollen. The skin was blue and purple and stretched tight over his cheek. One eye was swollen almost completely shut.
"Getting hit will do that to you. Thanks by the way."
"Oh, like this is my fault. You're the one who didn't duck." McKay answered. He sounded irate, but there was something else in his face.
"Not blaming you. That would be…unoriginal. Cliché."
"What are you saying?"
I looked from McKay to Sheppard. Sheppard had his head down again, leaning against the bars of the prison.
"I don't know. My head hurts."
"Metaphors, remember. We were talking metaphors." McKay slapped the ground as he spoke.
Sheppard sat up a little and tried to look back at McKay. Even from where I was sitting, I could see the glazed look in his eyes. Well, one eye. The other eye was closed tight by the bruise.
"Right," Sheppard said. "Uh…like stepping through a stargate into the vacuum of space."
"Okay, that's not exactly cliché because, how could it be? Still, mine was better."
I bit my lip, pondering that. What was McKay's? Something about a man in a barrel? Stepping through the ring of the ancestors into the blackness of space sounded much, much worse.
"Like being stuck in the back of a puddle jumper sticking halfway out of a stargate with an Iratus bug attached to your neck."
"Dramatic, but I'll concede. It is original."
"Better…" Sheppard slurred, sinking to the ground. I thought it probably wasn't a very good idea for him to lie down. I looked at McKay.
"Dream on." McKay's voice rang out, louder than it had been before. He was on his knees now, staring intently at Sheppard. The panic he'd been trying to cover up before was now clearly written across his face. "How about…like trying to shake hands with a Wraith?"
Shake hands with a Wraith? Who the hell would do that?
"Like duct taping a rocket to your bicycle," Sheppard mumbled. My eyebrows rose in surprise. I hadn't realized he was still awake.
"That doesn't make sense."
"Sure it does. Did that once. Didn't end well."
McKay sat back, thinking about that one. He suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed to the ceiling. "Like building a bomb in your garage and then telling your mom you'll blow the neighborhood up if she nags you one more time about cleaning your room."
The man was insane.
"You didn't." I heard my disbelief reflected in Sheppard's voice.
"Did. Also didn't end well."
"Like drinking blood," I blurted out before I could stop myself.
The two men froze, whatever they were going to say next stuck in their throats. McKay opened and closed his mouth a few times as he stared at me and I could feel my cheeks flushing red.
Sheppard, still on the ground, turned his head slightly in my direction.
"Creepy."
"Really creepy," McKay added. I sunk back away from my prison bars and hoped they would forget I was there. There was only the three of us in this particular wing of cells, though, so the chances of that were slim. But I was here, with them. Why couldn't I participate in this conversation?
"Like stealing Ronon's chocolate brownie, while he's looking," McKay said, turning back to the man on the ground.
"Or telling Teyla her shirt looks funny while stick fighting," Sheppard answered.
"You said that to her? What did she do?"
"Not sure, actually. Woke up in the infirmary about an hour later though."
I almost laughed at that, but bit my lip and crawled into the shadowy part of my cell. I could still see both of them, but maybe I was a little less visible. I was pretty sure they hadn't forgotten my "drinking blood" comment yet.
"I vaguely remember that." McKay was nodding. He looked at his friend on the ground. "Hey, Sheppard, wake up."
"mmm…'wake..."
"Hardly. Let's see…" McKay rocked back on his heels a moment, but kept his eyes trained on the form in the cell across from him.
"Like trying to eat boots…with metal bars…and powerbars…is that in a movie?" Sheppard interjected before McKay could come up with another metaphor.
"That doesn't even make sense."
To either of us.
"Like dirt in…in…uh—my stomach…hurts." Sheppard's voice trailed off and he turned his head away from McKay.
McKay was leaning forward instantly, pressing his face against the bars. "Sheppard?"
Sheppard lay still.
"Ah, crap," he muttered, then more loudly, "Sheppard!"
Sheppard didn't move. McKay started scrounging around his cell, gathering small, loose rocks. When he had a handful, he started pitching them at his friend. Most of them missed, but even the few that did seem to hit didn't have much of an effect. McKay started scrounging around his cell again. There were a few stones in my cell, so I grabbed a handful and set them near the bars of McKay's, within easy reach. Blue eyes met mine when he saw the pile and he nodded at me as he grabbed them.
He was about as successful with the second pile of stones as he was with the first, but one rock landed solidly on Sheppard's face, and the man with the spiky hair grunted and flapped his arm in irritation.
"Sheppard? Are you awake?" McKay yelled.
I could see Sheppard's face from my cell. I watched as his eyes fluttered open and he peered cautiously around.
"Where are we?"
"Ah, crap," McKay muttered again. "We're in prison, remember? We got caught in that riot."
Sheppard brought a hand to his face, wincing when his fingers brushed the bruise around his eye. "Head hurts," he mumbled.
"A baton to the face will do that to you."
"Remember now…remember…metaphors?"
"Metaphors, yes. We were talking about our impending doom without actually talking about our impending doom."
"Not waving but drowning," Sheppard answered, and I saw McKay frown in confusion. His face creased in the half-irritated, half-worried-sick look he'd worn earlier.
"You're not making sense again."
"Makes sense." Sheppard rolled toward McKay, grunting.
"In your world maybe." McKay seemed to relax a little and slumped against the bars.
"No," Sheppard continued. "It's…poem. Not waving but drowning."
"Huh?"
"Saw it in a book. A girl goes swimming in a lake and starts to drown. She waves her arms to catch people's attention and they all wave back at her. Not waving but drowning."
"That's a horrible metaphor."
"Why? Thought it was good. Original, creative, not cliché…"
"But then that would mean that our rescuers would come to our rescue just to watch us die instead." McKay had a point. I nodded, ready to add my support, then snapped my jaw shut. The last time I'd spoken—
"Drown," Sheppard said.
"What?"
"Drown. She drowned."
"I'm not talking about the poem…never mind. Fine, drowned. I'm drowning in confusion right now."
"Don't drown, Rodney. Doesn't end well."
Neither does being thrown in prison, I almost said.
"Thank you, Guru of Wisdom. I'll put that on my list of things not to do."
"'Sss good."
"Sheppard?"
Sheppard was drifting off again. His face looked even paler than before, too. I crawled forward, exchanging a look with McKay.
"'mmmfine…"
"No, you're…"
A thunderous boom echoed down the hallway and reverberated through the rocks. I could feel the stone floor beneath my hands and knees shaking with the force, and I looked at Sheppard and McKay in a panic.
"Oh, please let that be who I think it is."
Who? I wanted to yell, but being on the wrong side of prison bars never ended well. Did it really matter who McKay thought it was?
"Rodney?" Sheppard whispered.
"Just hold on, Sheppard. Help's coming." McKay rattled the bars of his cell door, to no avail.
"'Kay. Holding on." Sheppard rolled onto his back, squeezing his eyes closed as he did so. "Hold on to your horses…don't get caught holding the bag…hold…holding the fort." The man mumbled, the words starting to slur badly through clenched teeth. His face had to be throbbing.
"Get a hold of yourself, Sheppard." But McKay was staring down the hall toward the door that led down into this particular wing of cells.
"…thatzzzitexacccly…"
McKay looked back at Sheppard, then banged his forehead into the bars.
"Shoot me now," he said, his eyes closed.
"If you want me to."
The new voice startled both of us, and I scrambled to the back of my cell at the sight of the large man standing between Sheppard's and McKay's.
McKay, however, jumped to his feet. "Ronon! I am so glad to see you. Get us out of here."
"Stand back," Ronon said, pointing his gun at the lock on the cell door. A very large gun. A woman came down the hallway behind Ronon, followed by other men, wearing black.
"Sheppard got hit in the head, hard." McKay said as his door swung open. Ronon had already turned and shot the lock off of Sheppard's door.
"H'rrrdddheadd."
"John?" The woman asked kneeling next to Sheppard.
Sheppard reacted instantly to her voice, turning toward her and reaching out a hand. The woman grabbed it, resting her other hand against the unswollen side of Sheppard's face.
"hmmm…Teyla?"
"Yes," Teyla soothed.
"Tired…"
"We've got you, sir." Two of the men wearing black had some kind of stretcher that they opened up and gently lifted Sheppard onto. Sheppard groaned, his arms flopping limply at his sides.
"Careful. He's been totally delirious. That head injury might be pretty serious," McKay said. He fluttered nervously as the men wearing black lifted Sheppard and began walking out of the prison. It was only then that I noticed they were wearing the same type of uniform as both McKay and Sheppard. Teyla followed, and Ronon and McKay turned to leave as well.
"Hey, wait," I yelled, waving my arm.
McKay turned and stared at me, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. I wondered what was so funny about being left behind in a prison cell to die, but then McKay nodded to the other man, Ronon, and Ronon pointed that big gun at me. I scrambled backward but the big man still fired at me and—no, not at me. At the lock on my door.
My door swung open. I stood there, with my back against the wall as McKay waved goodbye, and then he turned and ran, catching up with his friends and disappearing around the corner.