TITLE: Self-Defense
AUTHOR: custardpringle
RATING: G
SUMMARY: There's such a thing as shielding yourself too well.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Inspired by some rather discouraging spoilers for "The Gift." I don't own any of it.
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It's the most basic lesson learned by anyone who's ever served in the military: Protect yourself. Shield yourself—physically, mentally, and emotionally—so that nothing outside you gets in and nothing inside you gets out. To do otherwise would be to exhibit weakness, to invite exploitation. In a lot of cases, it could get you killed.
John Sheppard has learned this lesson, along with many others, very well over the years. It's a big part of the reason he's currently hiding in a small closet, waiting for the voices in the corridor outside—one male, one female—to fade so that he won't have to deal with the people they belong to.
How strangely his mind works, John thinks as he waits for them to go away. Somehow, despite everything, he's managed to cling to the childish belief that everything will turn out more or less all right in the end. And, up until now, he's always been more or less right. Even in the hell that was Afghanistan, he lost his two best friends, but at least he came out alive. Except that he'd learned to keep himself locked in tighter than ever. Which, again, is why he's in this whole mess now.
He's always thought this would turn out all right too, because it just had to. His feelings would be reciprocated, of course, and sooner or later things would come to their inevitable fruition. It never occurred to him to wonder how exactly this could come about if he never revealed what he felt in the first place.
At least, that's what he thought until a couple of mornings ago, when he walked out onto a balcony that had seemed at first glance empty. Except that it wasn't empty; the two of them were standing there in each other's arms. John mumbled a frantic apology and fled before they could see how stunned he was.
There's also a basic lesson everyone learns in high school. It's that, no matter how bad a thing you've got for someone, they never like you back. John forgot that one far too easily, but it's coming back to haunt him now.
Now the future John's been taking for granted is crumbling around his ears, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. So he's purposely wandered into the remotest part of the city he can possibly find, except that precisely the two people he wanted to avoid seem to have followed him. If he didn't know better, he'd think it'd been done on purpose to torment him. It can't be on purpose, of course, because there's no way anyone can know. He's hidden this far too well, and it's too late to do anything about it now.
Although he isn't sure how long it's going to stay hidden. It's not just anyone he has to worry about here—it's his therapist, of all people, and there's no way he can keep anything from her forever, especially not something that's tearing him up like this.
John just can't wait to find out how long it'll take her to work out that he thinks he's falling in love with her boyfriend. Knowing her, it won't go over well.
The voices are still outside. Far from continuing on, they seem to have stopped a few feet away. Up until now, they've been fairly loud, engaged in a mock argument. (People with PhD's, John has noticed lately, are immensely fond of argument. Even, apparently, when they hold doctorates in totally different disciplines.) But they're quieter now. More intimate. Listening to them, half of John wishes he could just curl up in this closet and die.
The other half is wishing that Jane Heightmeyer had never been born.
He supposes he should be more altruistic about the whole thing. After all, at least Rodney's happy and— taken by itself—that makes John happy. God knows there've been few enough opportunities for happiness lately, for any of them. But John happens to think that he could've done just as good a job, maybe even better, at making him happy. He had the chance, even. He could've said something, done something, anything but sit back and trust that Rodney would make the first move. And Rodney did make the first move, come to think of it, just not towards John.
There's silence outside the door now, but it isn't an empty silence. It's the silence of two people whose mouths have found something better to do than talk.
John can't take it anymore. If he sits there one second longer, listening to the deafening silence and wishing it was him out there necking with Rodney, he's going to go nuts. So he opens the door, enjoying a momentary flash of satisfaction at the boggled expressions that greet him as the couple breaks apart to stare at the unexpected intrusion. An instant later, though, it occurs to John how completely insane this must look. "I—I was looking for—something," he stammers, and then turns on his heel and heads down the corridor at a near-run, desperate to escape.
So he doesn't see them turn to stare after him as he vanishes around a corner. He doesn't see Rodney's eyes narrow, a belated question forming in his mind.
"Something wrong?" Jane asks softly.
"No." Rodney forces a smile. "Nothing wrong. I'm fine." It's the same thing he always says when someone inquires after his welfare, and the words come off his tongue so easily that not even Jane realizes it's a lie.