The first time Derek lied to John Connor, it didn't count; John Connor decided it wasn't a lie after all.
It was also the first time he met John. Turned out, the voice on the radio and the legendary name had a real person attached to them after all.
"The resistance is glad to have you, Reese," John said, shaking Derek's hand, and Derek felt the man's eyes bore into him, looking for something. Not finding it, Derek assumed.
"I can help you any way you need me to, sir," Derek said, and it was all talk, all bluff, because anyone with eyes could see that Derek didn't know shit about doing anything to machines but run from them. He wanted to wince at his own words, for making a promise he might be too stupid or green or scared or fucked-in-the-head to keep.
But John looked at him and decided. "Yes, you can. And you will."
No one argued. John Connor was right too often.
The third time Derek lied, it was so fast Derek almost wished he didn't have to count it.
When he first started living with teenaged John, he couldn't stop staring.
The kid noticed. He asked Derek, nervous almost, "I guess it's weird for you, right? Seeing me like... this?"
As if Derek would be disappointed somehow, as if John expected to be told he could never live up to the legend.
The kid didn't have any idea. How much he looked like Kyle. Watching John - eating breakfast at a table, reading books - it was like having Kyle back, like Derek getting to watch Kyle do all the things JD took away.
And at first it was awful, like watching a machine that looked like his brother, but then Derek realized that there were little differences, in the jawline or in the nose. And then Derek started staring even more, because nothing's more human than an imperfect copy.
But that was one answer John didn't need to carry.
So Derek simply answered the question with a nod.
John gave a small shrug of apology and looked back down at his pancakes.
The fourth time was when young John asked Derek if they were friends in the future.
Derek answered, "Sure."
John knew right away it was crap; he set his jaw, nodded, and spoke the truth he could read in Derek's answer: "John Connor doesn't have friends."
The fifth time was soon after Derek gave him his birthday present. John was sleeping (except he wasn't), and Derek was checking on him. Uncle looking in on his nephew. Guard verifying his general's status.
He tried to be quiet about it. But still he was glad when John opened his eyes and gestured for Derek to come in. It was good that even a tired-kid version of Connor couldn't be sneaked up on.
John sat up in his bed. He looked...
Like kids in the future did when they were scared of John Connor.
"I knew," John said. He looked at Derek like that meant something.
"Okay."
"I knew. When I sent Kyle back. That he would die."
"I know."
"But you also know that - that I sent my own father back to die. I killed my father."
"Metal killed him. And you haven't done anything yet."
"I'm here. Which means I killed him," John said, looking up at him, trying not to let his voice waver.
"You had no choice," Derek said. That was true.
But John kept looking up at him. Derek wondered what John needed from him - for Derek to be angry, to accuse - or to kick another hole into John's innocence, to mold him into the leader he would have to be.
"Soldiers die to protect you," Derek said. Also true.
John's jaw tightened. He was even less in the mood for platitudes than usual, Derek saw, and he rolled his eyes.
It looked exactly like when Kyle would do the same. Like when he was a kid ignoring his brother's attempts to lighten their load with bad jokes.
Derek looked down at John. Grateful, that, for all the shit Kyle had to endure, he didn't have to carry what John did.
"I know what you did and why you did it, John. And I forgive you."
The second time was a little white lie, a few months before Kyle was sent back to the Twentieth Century and Derek started hating Connor. One of the newbies under Derek's command in the Resistance - a kid, sixteen maybe - had messed up. And it had almost been bad. Really bad.
But almost bad is still a good day, and Derek didn't want the kid to have to face the wrath of John Connor, so he covered.
He could feel John's gaze getting harder and heavier as he stood there, lying right to his commander's face. He half expected John to clock him just to make the point: don't ever try and bullshit John Connor.
Instead, Connor pulled him aside.
"Protect the kid. Fine. But you are a shit liar, Derek. And you are going to need to be better at it."
Derek swallowed, tried not to look afraid and probably failed.
John repeated the order. "Be better at it."
"Yes, sir."
And that was that. Derek practiced, to a mirror, to his friends, knowing that John Connor was planning to send him on a mission, maybe to infiltrate the Grays, maybe to keep an eye on things up north.
It was only later - earlier - that Derek started to wonder if there were some other reason, some other pressure building in the clang of all the things that John knew and no one else did. If John was asking him for something.
If John Connor were saying, "Lie to me. Lie to my desperate, angry, teenaged face and do it well."
Derek could. He did what John Connor needed him to do.
Note: Written for tscc_las on livejournal for the prompt "Deception"