A/N: I would like to officially dedicate this story to my cousin John, who's in Iraq (although he may be coming home some time soon) and my pal out of all the cousins, since he's the closest to me in age. Before you ask, no, he's not airforce, he's reserves, and he's been doing a lot of cool things to help the local kids at where he's stationed, like getting people at home to send over school supplies and such. Cousin Johnny rocks!
Ch. 3
The Positive
Day one – official day one now that John had a preliminary clue as to what was going on – he awoke to the thump of the lock and a guard leaning in to set a metal bowl and tin cup on the floor. He flitted out, shoving the door shut and thumping the lock back into place.
John rubbed eyes dry enough to crumble from his sockets. Sleeping on hay gave a whole new meaning to hay fever. It wasn't just his nose that itched; every part of him felt colonized my miniscule mites having gold-rush fever on his flesh. And soft as hay might look from a distance, it poked – mercilessly.
John picked hay from his clothes with disgust while simultaneously scratching his skin raw. His fingernails snagged the pierced flesh of his back, and stinging pain shot through his nerves. With a hiss, he yanked his hand away and went viciously rigid until the pain passed. With a whispered expletive, he shivered away the evening chill that couldn't be entirely stayed off by the hay, then crawled toward his breakfast.
He stared into the tarnished bowl and his stomach cowered in terror.
Watered-down cream of wheat that had already seen the digestive tract and been puked back out – that's what they were serving him. It was thin, lumpy, with a smell like sour milk. Torture tactic number one; poor meal to weaken the body, thus weakening the mind, and effectively beating the defiant soul down into the dust. Whether John ate the sludge or not, it wouldn't matter. It was most likely nutrient fortified enough to keep him alive, but not to the point of allowing him to remain fit as a fiddle.
Who made up that term anyway? Fit as a fiddle. It's an instrument, not a body. Unless they're referring to keeping it tuned... tuned, instrument, tuned body... John didn't care if his mind wandered. It gave him something to do.
Seeing how all options were minimal if existent at all, John took the bowl and lifted it to his mouth. One sip was all it took, and he was spitting it back out in a spray of curds and whey (and whatever that hard, nasty lump was).
" Ah... Crap! That freakin' sucked!" Horror, thy name is cesspool gruel. He snatched the water and took a mouthful to rinse the offending taste from his tongue. Spraying that out, he took an actual swallow, just one to conserve what he had. Torture tactic two; thirst to create desperation. He knew he probably shouldn't have used his only water to rinse his mouth, but he'd been desperate – it was already starting.
The rest of the day passed uneventful. No one came, so no new food was brought much to John's expectations. Chances were, the rest of the team was suffering the same treatment, which brought about in John a constant pang of worry, sticking to him like a thorn he couldn't find to get rid of. Rodney's hyperglycemia wouldn't have him lasting long, and Menk would probably just sit back and watch as the aftermath of the condition did all the gruesome work for him.
Thinking on it was all the torture Menk needed to use against John. But if Rodney were smart (he would already be desperate) he would conserve the muck enough to stay off reactions for as long as possible. It wasn't a guarantee, just a poor attempt at assurance to keep the worry from causing John to break his foot against the door.
The day rolled on without him, slinking into the warmth of midday that made the shed feel like a tiny cardboard box that had sat in the sun for too long. To conserve water and cool down, John removed his shirt and sat with his back against those chinks in the boards where air snaked through the best. When evening came and the world cooled, John replaced his shirt and finished off the last half-inch of water still in the cup. Night arrived, darkest in the shed, bringing with it chilled temperatures that would have been more tolerable if John still had his jacket. Hunger was a black hole in his stomach, cold and sharp, emitting angry grunts from his gut.
But it still wasn't to the point that his guts would tolerate the sludge. Even in the dark, John could practically sense the presence of the offending bowl, and he shuddered. Exhausted even after having done nothing but pace and tell his stomach to clam up, he moved over to the hay pile and huddled into it, shifting and moaning with each poke and itch. Outside, the click of a cricket-wanna be was the only sound.
Until an erak howled.
Day two – same old dance. John awoke with a shiver and groan from limbs stiff enough to make him think they had frozen in place. He stretched, itched, pulled hay from his clothes, then crawled over to the bowl of congealing goo.
Still not desperate enough, though his hands shook slightly as he lifted the refilled cup. When had that happened?
He took a sip and set it down. Barely awake, still contemplating the gruel and its possible ingestive side effects, he caught the distinct noise of boot-falls, followed up by the click and thump of the lock. John barely managed to scramble to his feet when the door burst open and five men piled into the shed, grabbing Sheppard by both arms.
" What the..." He only got that far when one of the men yanked off John's shirt, while two others set about the task of removing his pants.
" Ah hell no!" he cried, jerking, kicking, writhing like a bucking bull. It only ended up serving their purpose of stripping him down to his boxer shorts. The cool morning air was like a slap to his bare skin, and he shivered, cringing, knowing good and well how it made him look but unable to stop it.
They proceeded to hall him outside, leaving his clothes on the dusty floor. It was early morning, the golden dawn when everything was amber-touched at the top but gray beneath the canopy. John saw the village for the first time, similar to a Mykote village, but the similarity ended there. Everyone in this village was clean, dressed either in dark green uniforms or everyday wear of slacks and shirts for the men, simple dresses for the women. Nothing ragged or dirt-stained about any of them, and several were holding some kind of technological device.
John was hauled twenty feet from the shed to a pole – a pole with a long chain bolted to the top. At this, John dug his bare heels into the ground.
" Oh no... no, no, no..." Visions of a public beating ran like wild fire through his brain. He shrank back as they neared the pole. His struggles were totally pointless, like a fly trying to wriggle from the sticky tongue of a frog. These guys were strong – Ronon strong. Speaking of the runner, John prayed like a dying man that the Sateden would pop out of the wood-works at any moment, guns a-blazing.
They came to the pole, and another of the soldiers picked up the other end of the chain. Dangling from it was a ring too big to hold one of Sheppard's wrists.
Not too big to go around his neck, though. They clasped it on with a click, then let it settle heavily on John's collarbones. He was finally released, and the men took several steps back to view their handy work with smug grins.
" Bit more filth. It'd look more as it should," said one.
" Give it time, Gad. Place is dusty. He'll be lookin' like the back-side of an erak in no time." The second soldier kicked the dust at John. Bits of dirt and rocks stung his shins.
They laughed, all of them, then left with shared pats on the back. John was left standing one article of clothing away from being in the buff. The daily comings and goings of the village slowed like a suddenly dammed river as every head and every eye turned in John's direction.
Now John was officially surprised. For all their fox-like attributes, the Cys were monumentally lacking in imagination. Even a public beating would have been a step up from being tethered to a pole in his boxers like some lowly frat house initiate. Humiliation was inevitable, but John wasn't a stranger to Animal House style torture. College, Air Force, they all had their pointless and random acts of initiation. If Menk came at him with a wooden paddle, John was going to bust out laughing.
As for the here and now, John felt too confused to laugh. Was trust still an issue? Once John got a daily dose of humiliation, would it be followed up by laughter, release, a round of drinks, with a little peace-treaty signing on the side?
The slight burning at his back where the knife had been stuck was a big, reverberating no, and that's what made John nervous. This couldn't possibly be it – more like just the beginning.
Still, as John always liked to tell Rodney 'try to stay positive.' At least he was outside, breathing the fresh air, which in turn was clearing his head. Humiliation he could handle. It wasn't like he lived on this world to be forever subject to rumors and secretive snickers.
John moved to the pole and sat with his back to the slick, worn wood, his knees drawn up for his arms to rest across. He pitied dogs, and even felt a small inkling of pity for the eraks if this was how they were leashed. The metal was loose around John's neck, but the rim was biting into his collar bones and upper spine. Hunger wasn't helping his comfort situation, but he'd been in worse situations, and worse states than this. Feigning indifference was no feat for him – like breathing.
The day wore on. People stopped, stared, pointed, and laughed. John sat, or paced when sitting made his butt go numb. The only change was when a solider brought him a cup of shallow water. The burly man held the cup as John drank, then snatched it away after three gulps. Things didn't get interesting until late afternoon, when a group of boys ages eight to twelve milled about ten feet away like jackals waiting for the lion to leave the carcass. They whispered, pointed, and John tensed. He recognized the looks on their faces – some nervous, others elated. They were plotting.
Minutes later, the plot was revealed when three of the boys chucked rocks at John. One pelted his head, the other his arm, and the third a two pointer on his right ribcage.
" Hey!" he barked, scrambling to his feet and stalking out as far as the chain would let him. The boys laughed, dancing just out of reach. More rocks were thrown, and John was forced to duck them and allow the majority of the stones to strike his bare back.
The kids threw hard. But so could John. He grabbed rocks that landed nearby and started hurling them back at the brats. The kids scattered, yelling what could only be dirty words in Cyladran/Mykote.
" That's it, you little snots! Run home crying to mom!" John dropped back to the ground to rest against the pole when his legs took on the consistency of Jell-o. He was winded, which wasn't a good sign. Two days into this mess and he was already led-limbed and panting as though he'd just run up a hill, twice. Still trying to scrounge out the positive, John took into thankful consideration that the trees were thick enough to keep the sun off his back.
Nature made up for it with bugs – the sweat-suckers, joined by the blood-suckers. The sound of skin on skin as John smacked at the insects drew more eyes to him. John smirked at the women whispering in disgust, and the women eyeing him with small smiles of their own. Men either laughed, or shot him pissed glares.
When dusk settled, the soldiers returned to unchain John and 'escort' him bodily back to the shed. The moment he was dumped inside and the door slammed shut, John gave them the one-fingered salute, still wearing a smirk, then hurried back into his clothes when the chill air slipped like worms through the cracks in the walls. It was too dark to see, and in dressing he knocked over the bowl of sludge. No love loss there.
Day three – Talk about deja vu, except John awoke to being man-handled, which was a far more frightening experience with sleep still clinging like dew to his brain. He shouted and struggled, pulling and kicking with his heart slamming hard enough to leave a bruise on his lungs.
" Get off of me!" Any other time he would have beat them back with the panicked ferocity of a cornered animal. But even spook-addled as he was, he was aware enough of his attempts to know them to be feeble. It was a familiar sluggishness, like being doped up on one of Beckett's magical pain-killing concoctions. Except that he could still feel the pain.
Once they had the shirt off, they threw him to the ground, and one of the thugs planted their foot on his back. Being pinned made the removal of the rest of his apparel less of a hassle. He was back in his boxers, twitching with exertion and chill.
" You sons of...! You could have just asked! I'll take my own freakin' clothes off, just quit doing it for me!"
A soldier crouched, grabbing John by the shoulders, but leaning in toward John's head before lifting him up. " The efforts half the fun, Master Sheppard." He pulled John to his feet, and he was hustled back outside to the post and chain.
John smirked. People really needed to be more careful with their word choice. " So you're saying you enjoy ripping my clothes off?"
That earned him a smack to the back of the head. " The struggle, dung-mouth. You don't put up much of a fight. Thought you were a soldier."
" Give me better food and I'll show you a better fight," John retorted.
" You got food. Not our deal if you don't eat."
They locked the collar back around his neck.
He smiled sooner today. John was a creature of quick conditioning. Not so much accepting his current state of being, but more putting up with it until change could be enacted. No point in banging his head against a wall when he'd be the only one getting the concussion. Yes, he was embarrassed as hell, but there was a loophole. Get people to laugh with him instead of at him, act like it was no big deal, and it wouldn't be a big deal. So he leaned with one shoulder against the pole with arms folded and feet crossed, saluting, nodding, or verbalizing greetings for whoever passed close enough by to hear.
" Ladies."
The group of young women walking by giggled.
" Ma'am."
The woman covered her little-girl's eyes and shot John a dagger-sharp glare.
" Gentlemen."
The oldest of the four spit at John's feet. " Suck it, erak bait."
A young couple, busy doing the google-eye deal at eachother, wandered in too close.
" You love-birds should probably get a room," John simpered. That earned him a brain-jarring punch to the face from the young man, one that had him falling to his hands and knees. John just chuckled as he struggled into a sitting position. The world spun, meshing into a kaleidescope of green and brown, flecked with sparking lights. John shook his head clear and nearly fell to his side. The world eventually righted, but there was a lingering sense of dizziness hovering at the edges of his mind, waiting for the slightest movement to make John's surroundings do another drunken spin on the merry-go-round.
He'd been ignoring hunger like it was one of McKay's rants. But also like McKay's rants, it was starting to demand his undivided attention. Even sitting, he shook with it, and his mouth salivated when a slight breeze brought him the scent of baking bread. His stomach was furious.
One more day, maybe two, and he'd be right as rain to down the sludge he was being served. He was fine with that. It wasn't like he was on a hunger strike, just unable to stomach the gray matter hardening in the metal bowl (they'd brought him a new one this morning, despite never even giving him a chance to snub it.) He was actually hoping for the desperation that would have him eating it, then maybe he'd have better strength enough to at least inflict a bloody nose on the goons that enjoyed stripping him.
John gave up on polite greetings, and let his thoughts go to his team. Ronon he wasn't worried about. More than likely, the Cys were giving his little area a wide berth. Teyla, she was tough, but if they had her wearing nothing but under clothes, and some drunken male was feeling a bit 'raunchy', then there could be trouble. More for the male, unless hunger was wearing Teyla down as well.
Rodney would have hated it, but most of John's worry was geared toward him. The humility of being in only underwear would have him launching his mouth off at incredible levels of pissyness – unless the hyperglycemia got to him first. He'd be the weakest of them all, ripe for taunts and physical abuse from rocks being hurled by the neighborhood brats. This wouldn't go down well for him, and it made John tense.
John must have dozed, or drifted off so deep that all reality became non-existent, because the next thing he knew, he jolted back into the real world when the toe of a boot thumped him in the hip.
" Wha...!" He looked up to see Menk standing over him, smiling like an old buddy.
" John. How you holding up?"
Adrenaline shot through John's veins. He grabbed the top of the pole and used it to hoist himself to his feet. He wobbled, but dizziness had only a minor presence now. All energy remaining was called to him to help kindle the fires of anger.
" Where the hell's my team?" he growled. " You can't do this. If Rodney doesn't get enough food, he gets sick..."
Menk placed his hand on John's shoulder.
" John, you really think me so cold? Your friend told me – more than once – of his little condition. It's not unheard of among a scatterin' of our own people. I'm not a cold man like that, John. You suffer on our terms, not nature's."
That was far less reassuring. The oddly sincere kindness in Menk's tone made John want to snap the man's neck.
" Let me see them," John pressed, trying to bore holes into Menk with just his gaze. He shoved Menk's hand from his shoulder. " All of them... one of them, I don't care just let me know if they're all right!"
Menk, king of nonchalance, snapped his fingers. He was handed the key to the collar, and unlocked it. It slid off John's neck to thud on the ground. John rubbed his bruised collarbones and back. The moment he dropped his hand, Menk placed his own paw on the back of John's neck, and began guiding him to the shed.
" They are John, but they'll be no seeing them. Not for a bit. I do have a surprise though that should lift your heart some. Unexpected really, but not somethin' you pass up. I think you might find it a little off, but you need a change, and surprise is always a good change."
A guard opened the door to the shed.
" Surprise," Menk said, and shoved John inside. He stumbled and fell to his knees in the hay. The door slammed close and the lock clunked behind him.
The rise of hay-dust made John cough hard. On sucking in a second breath, he felt a warm hand grip his bicep. Needless to say, it scared the hell out of him, and he jerked his arm away with a cry and snarl of alarm.
" Don't touch me!"
" Sir, sorry sir!"
John froze, then whirled around. The day wasn't quite over, and there was light enough in the shed for him to see that he was no longer alone. The figure stood before the door erect at attention but shifting nervously. But since John's eyes hadn't adjusted to the gloom, he couldn't make out the face.
The voice held some vague familiarity.
" Who's that?" he asked. " Who's there?"
" Oh! Sorry sir. Mathers, sir. Lt. Brian Mathers."
Mathers. John knew that name, and through the name a clearer image of the face popped into his head. A young kid, twenty-something, with dark brown hair and a sharp-featured face.
" Mathers. Part of Stackhouse's team, right?"
" Yes sir."
Menk was right, this was a surprise. John had been expecting more along the lines of someone he knew more personally. Hell, he'd almost expected to find Beckett or Weir what with how weird things already were. Still, a fellow Atlantean was a fellow Atlantean, so John still didn't know what to make of it.
He did know it was definitely not a good sign that another of their's had been captured.
John plopped back against the hay. His eyes had adjusted, and the face in his head became one with the face he was seeing now. Crap, the kid looked no older than Ford.
" Um, sir?" the kid said, and held out John's clothes. " I think these are yours."
John looked at the clothes, then at himself, then back at the clothes. He'd completely forgotten his current state of dress. He reached out and took the apparel.
" Thanks Lieutenant." He slipped his shirt on first. " So, spill it. What brings you to my neck of the hell-hole? Let me guess..." he slipped into his pants, reveling in the relief of not feeling so freakishly exposed in front of a subordinate. " Rescue attempt gone wrong?"
Brian smiled sheepishly. " Exactly, sir. When your team didn't come back two days ago, Weir sent three teams to assess what had happened. We've been officially searching for three days now. Jenkins, Rennolds, and I were combing the woods when I suddenly blacked out. Didn't hear a freakin' thing, sir. There was just this kind of pain in my back then..." he slapped his hand on his thigh, " Bam! I'm down. I, uh, woke up here."
John tugged on his boots. " Back still hurt?"
" Only a little, sir."
John nodded, yanking the bootlaces tight. " Just move around, it'll go away."
" Permission to ask what happened?"
This kid was by the book. John hated that. " Look, first off, loosen up about the protocol. I know it's important, but I'm really not in the mood. You can keep calling me sir if it makes you feel better, just don't keep asking my permission. Leniency is a must if I'm to keep my sanity. Second of all, sit down, take a breather. You're going to be here a while. Now, what happened. Let me tell you what happened. We got screwed, that's what happened." John finished tying off his boot, then pointed a finger at the young Lieutenant now sitting Indian style before the door. " Never trust these freakin' farmer types! One minute they're all Little House on the Prairie, the next they're asking you to build them a nuke in a secret bunker or shooting you with weapons that make a wraith stunner look like a slingshot. And never say yes to a drink unless it's offered by someone from your own planet. Actually, you know what? Just never say yes to a drink."
Mathers squinted. " O – Kay?"
John sighed, then dropped back against the hay when his body felt too heavy to hold itself up. Hay dust puffed up in a small, swiftly dissipating cloud. " We were ambushed, stunned, dragged here, and separated. The Cyladrans – our lovely hosts – hate us because we got Atlantis and they didn't. So, we're being punished. And that's what happened. Is – is happening."
The shed went quiet.
" You all right, sir?"
John let out a weary breath. " Yeah... just a little hungry. Food looks hazardous to the health."
" Yeah, I saw sir."
John snorted out a chuckle. " Try tasting it. Makes you long for a bowl of sewage."
" I'll pass, sir."
John closed his eyes. Even lying down, with arms splayed to either side, John's hands still shook. " So, Mathers, in terms of Earth, where to you hail from?"
" Well, originally, I was born in Rhode Island, but my family was military so we moved around a lot."
John's mouth quirked up in a smile. " I sympathize with you. Where were you stationed before here?"
" I was part of a team back at the SGC, but it was kind of short lived when they called people to take up the Atlantis gig."
John opened his eyes at this. Even the greens had more experience than him in off-world matters. And here he'd thought joining the Atlantis expedition was 'no experience necessary'. Maybe for him – he had the gene. It always made him ponder who got the boot to make room for him, but chances were there had always been room for one more.
John's jaw twitched. Room for one more. Wasn't that some ghost story? Room for one more in the hearse, room for one more in the elevator to hell, killing everyone on board say for the guy who didn't listen to room for one more.
Except John wasn't dead – yet. Close, but no dice. Or maybe he was the one driving the hearse, working the elevator. He was the team leader.
John reclosed his eyes. He was gearing toward the negative.
Positive, positive, stay positive. Just because people die around you doesn't make you any kind of bad luck. He ended on that train of thought before it could go any further. He could never let himself go down that road, because he would never come back from it if he did.
He was the one who was supposed to die.
He felt unwavering pity for Mathers. Of all the team members to get stuck with...
Positive! Everyone suffers the bad, and everyone takes the blame. You're no more special in that department than Teyla, Ronon, McKay, hell even Mathers. You can't save everyone.
The hell I can't.
You can try. But you can't.
John sighed heavily, lifting his shaking hands to rub his aching face. What was the saying? You know you're going crazy when you're answering yourself – or maybe that was answering yourself out loud. No one ever got funny looks for mental debates.
" Sir?" Mathers said.
" Yeah?"
" Any idea what's going to happen to us?"
John dropped his hands back onto the hay, and softly laughed. " Public humiliation." He then lifted his head enough to look at Mathers. The kid appeared confused, even more so than when Menk dropped John half naked in the shed.
" Just," John began, " try to stay positive. At least it's not a public beating."
TBC...
