A/N - I wanted to use this fic to explore John and Rodney's very early relationship, and how they transitioned to being friends! This fic will be six or seven chapters total.
I'm also working on developing a more regular posting schedule. I'm shooting to post a new chapter every third day, with a little additional time in between fics. There will be some exceptions, but I'm trying my best to make it more consistent from now on.
"Run faster, McKay," John shouted, slowing down for the millionth time as he looked back at the struggling scientist. Rodney was running so slow that it looked like he was barely even trying, although his face was a deep and horrifying shade of tomato-red.
"I...can't," McKay gasped, then squealed as an arrow zinged past his head.
"You better," John growled under his breath, dropping back and grabbing the scientist by the back of his ill-fitting tac vest. "Or we're both dead."
John and his newly-formed team had been on one of Elizabeth's trade missions, attempting to acquire new allies. The society was not one that Teyla was familiar with, but they'd proven to be sort of medieval, even down to the huge castle rising up a little ways from the Gate.
John, Ford, Teyla, and McKay were currently running away from that same castle as hard as they could - fairly successfully, with the exception of Rodney. The society had expressed a certain amount of interest in trading with the Atlantis expedition, especially in their weapons technology. When John had refused to make any sort of deal without contacting Dr. Weir first, the interest had turned hostile, and they'd apparently decided to take the weapons without asking. The team (again, minus Rodney) had dealt with the first few soldiers who'd come after them, but John didn't really want to shoot his way through an entire planet, and didn't think that he really could pull that off anyway. Besides, Dr. Weir would probably like him to avoid causing yet another interplanetary incident.
John had sent Ford and Teyla on ahead to dial the Gate, and he'd stayed behind with Rodney, who turned out to be an incredibly slow runner. John could actually hear the yells of the pursuing soldiers now, and arrows had begun to fall around them. If it wasn't for McKay, John could have made it to cover and laid down a wave of bullets to keep their attackers at bay, but as it was, he didn't have that choice. Rodney would never be able to make it to cover in time, he'd end up wounded or worse, and then he'd probably somehow manage to get in the way of John's return fire.
Rodney squealed again, and John automatically pushed Rodney in front of him, half-turning back and raising his sidearm. If he could drop just one of the attackers, then maybe the rest would back off….
There was a sudden, tearing pain in his left arm, the kind that John associated with getting shot. His brain dimly informed him that that was impossible, that his attackers didn't have guns and that was the whole problem, but before he could sort it out he was falling, tumbling head over heels on the rocky ground and exploding all over with pain.
John landed flat on his back. He blinked stars out of his vision as he stared up at the weirdly blue sky, trying to get his bearings. He needed to...he probably needed to get up and fight. Otherwise, he was going to end up captured. But his arm was on fire, and his thoughts seemed to be coming slower already. He sucked in a sharp breath and turned his head, trying to figure out the extent of the damage.
There was a feathered arrow sticking out of his upper arm, quivering slightly with each of John's shaky exhales. It wasn't bleeding too much yet - the arrow itself seemed to be acting as a sort of stopper, keeping John's blood inside of him. But John really couldn't tell the extent of the damage at this point. It might have mostly just grazed him, or it could have shattered bone. All he knew was that it hurt.
John groaned, and used his good hand to hoist himself half-upright. Teyla and Ford were nowhere in sight - good. Hopefully they had already made it back to Atlantis, and were telling Dr. Weir what had happened.
Mckay was standing a few feet off to John's left, watching John struggle with an expression of frozen horror. His eyes flitted sideways, and John realized that their pusuants were closing in. In a few seconds, he was going to be surrounded. He tried to grab for his P90, but he didn't think he could fire it one-handed. Especially not while lying on the ground.
"Mckay," John hissed. "Your gun."
As if in a dream, Rodney raised his weapon. It trembled wildly in his hands. John grimaced. He had spent hours at the shooting range with Mckay, trying to get the scientist comfortable with handling a weapon. By the end, he was managing to hit the target at least half the time. But as John knew all too well, target practice didn't always translate to real life combat situations. Rodney looked like he might faint before he fired off a single shot.
"Mckay," John whispered. "Come on, you can do this. You gotta-"
"I surrender!" Rodney suddenly yelled, dropping his weapon and throwing his hands up. "I surrender, I surrender, please don't hurt me-"
"Mckay," John groaned.
Rodney shot John a look that was a desperate mixture of fear, embarrassment, and defiance.
"On your knees!" one of the men yelled.
He wasn't even holding a weapon, not that John could see, but apparently that didn't matter to Rodney. Rodney lowered himself to his knees, hands still in the air. John closed his eyes in defeat, trying frantically to think of any way out of this that wouldn't get them both immediately shot. He knew there wasn't one. They'd been doomed as soon as Rodney dropped his weapon.
Rough hands grabbed John by the shoulders, hauling him upright. Sheppard choked off a cry as the arrow shifted in his arm, clenching his jaw so tightly he thought it might snap. He was out of plays, and a quarter of his team was worse than useless, and he was starting to get scared, but that didn't mean he had to act like it. He concentrated on stuffing down the fear and the pain as he was pushed back the way they had come, towards the castle. Rodney followed, beginning to mutter indignantly about the violent treatment. John tuned him out, instead focusing on stepping carefully so the arrow in his arm didn't move too much. It was going to be a long walk to the castle.
By the time they made it back to the castle, Rodney was officially scared out of his mind. He'd thought he'd reached his peak when Sheppard had been hit, but it turned out that being ushered through the doors of the castle gate and knowing that they were out of time was much, much worse.
Rodney had really expected that Sheppard would have something up his sleeve. The de facto military commander always seemed to come out on top, even though Rodney suspected that half of the time it was just down to luck. Still, Rodney was sure that he'd pull out a brick of C4, or Marines would suddenly appear from behind a well-placed stand of trees, or something else would happen that was equally violent yet effective.
But Sheppard did nothing. The whole journey back, John just trudged along, head up defiantly, jaw set in some stupid knockoff of Captain America. He didn't say word one to Rodney, or to his captors, never mind that Rodney was practically on the edge of a panic attack.
After a while, he gave up looking at Sheppard. The arrow in the man's arm was bobbing around with every step, and while John hadn't even seemed to notice, it was making Rodney ill to look at.
The gates shut behind them with a final-sounding clang, and Rodney shot an accusatory glare at John. It was his job to keep all of Atlantis safe, especially to keep Rodney safe. And now, he was locked inside a medieval castle, probably about to be drawn and quartered, all because Sheppard had thought it was a good idea to wave his guns around in front of the local thugs.
"Move," one of the guards said, pushing Rodney forward and ushering him through a door set into the huge outer wall of the castle. They went left down a narrow passageway, ending up outside a cell that looked small, wet, and cold.
"Oh no," Rodney said frantically. "No, no, I'm not going to go in there. I have this thing about tight spaces, I get all itchy and my chest hurts-"
"Shut up, McKay," Sheppard hissed, speaking for the first time since they'd been captured.
"Better listen to your friend," a guard growled.
He's not my friend, Rodney thought angrily, but he swallowed the words as the guard unlocked the cell.
The guard spun Rodney roughly around and unzipped his tac vest, peeling it efficiently off his shoulders before Rodney even really knew what was happening. Good riddance, in Rodney's opinion. Sheppard had made him wear the vest, and at first, Rodney had been on board. But then he'd actually started having to walk around in it, and he'd discovered it was heavy, and it was hot, and it made it hard to breathe. Plus, while he liked the idea of being bulletproof, they didn't really seem to do much good. John had just been shot in the arm with an arrow, and the tac vest had done precisely nothing to stop it.
Of course, the tac vest had some things he needed in the pockets, such as communication devices and power bars. But he hadn't really expected to keep those things anyways. And he wouldn't need them if he was dead.
The guard shoved Rodney forward, and he stumbled into the cell. He turned back around in time to see one of the men rip the arrow out of John's shoulder - Rodney had to quickly look away, or he probably would have been sick.
"Hey!" John yelled indignantly. "You're not supposed to do that!"
The guards ignored him. They stripped John of his vest as effectively as they had Rodney. John's good hand immediately went to the wound in his arm, which was already bleeding freely. Blood turned John's fingers red, and Rodney tried valiantly to pretend it was ketchup.
The guard pushed John into the cell. John stumbled, just as Rodney had, but instead of regaining his footing, he immediately went to his knees. The barred door clanged shut.
"You can't just leave us here!" Rodney screamed, running to the door. "We don't even know why we're here! We didn't...we didn't even commit a crime or anything! Hey, are you listening to me? I'm talking to you! You can't just walk away!"
Apparently, they could just walk away. Rodney got exactly no answers, and the guards vanished around the corner.
"Well this sucks," Rodney said angrily. He thought he might have been talking to John, but he wasn't exactly sure. Did John think this sucked? He was one of those military-types, he probably...ate medieval prisons for breakfast. Rodney was sure he'd been in situations exactly like this one so many times, this particular situation probably hardly even registered.
But, on the bright side, John would probably have them both out of prison and back on Atlantis in time for dinner.
"So?" Rodney asked expectantly, turning back towards Sheppard. "What's the plan, hmm?"
John didn't answer him at first. His fingers were still clamped tightly over the wound, and blood was starting to drip down his arm, forming a small pool on the ground. Rodney turned away hastily. Behind him, he could hear John's breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps.
"Y-you're bleeding," Rodney said dizzily, staring at the opposite wall and trying very hard not to listen to the gentle dripping sound of Sheppard's blood hitting the ground.
"Oh really?" John snapped. "I hadn't noticed."
Rodney considered, trying to decide whether or not John was being serious. He had to have noticed, right? Rodney had never been very good at sarcasm, and from what he knew of John Sheppard, the pilot really didn't seem to notice things like bleeding out from wounds in his arm.
"So what's the plan?" Rodney asked again, still carefully looking at the wall. Behind him, he heard a small, soft sound from John, one he couldn't identify.
"Gotta stop the bleeding," John growled. It seemed to be taking a lot of effort for him to speak.
"Yes, that seems like it's probably a good idea," Rodney agreed.
John sighed heavily, his breath catching on the end of his exhale. "You're gonna have to help."
Momentarily forgetting the very gross sight behind him, Rodney whirled around, raising his hands and shaking his head frantically.
"No, no, no, remember when I said I'm not good with tight spaces? Well, I'm worse with blood. There was this one time the Red Cross came to my school, and I tried to give blood to impress this girl, and I ended up passing out when they pricked my finger and I had to go-"
"McKay," John said sharply. He squeezed his fingers a little more tightly over his arm, and Rodney winced at the wet slipping sound they made. At some point, John had moved from his knees to an uncomfortable-looking position against the wall. He tipped his head backwards, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
"Can't you just do it?" Rodney asked, knowing he sounded pathetic and not caring. This was Sheppard's area, he was good at this. For all Rodney knew, the man didn't feel pain, and he certainly wasn't afraid of a little blood. What was Rodney supposed to do? He was good with numbers and wires, not with people and blood. This was too much to ask of him.
"No, I can't do it," John snapped. "Look at how much blood's on the floor. If I could do it one-handed, the bleeding woulda stopped already."
Rodney supposed that he had a point.
"Okay, okay," Rodney said nervously. "What am I supposed to do?"
John made a pained, little sound, and peeled his hand away from the wound. "I'm gonna need you to take off your jacket-"
"What?" Rodney said, aghast. "I'm not getting my jacket covered in your blood-"
"Fine," John said, sounding annoyed. "You can use mine. Just...give me a sec…."
John began to shrug his own jacket off, a difficult and painful-looking process that involved so much wincing and whimpering that Rodney almost wished he hadn't said anything. Almost.
"Here," John said, handing Rodney his bloody jacket. "I need you to take this, and press down on my arm as hard as you can, for as long as you can. That should get the bleeding stopped."
"And if it doesn't…?"
"Don't think about that," John said, sounding angry again. "It will."
Rodney shrugged nervously, and pressed the balled-up jacket to John's shoulder. John squirmed a little, but it seemed involuntary, so Rodney ignored it.
Since Rodney had been selected for an Off-World Team, he had had to go through a week long training soon after arriving on Atlantis. John had taught him how to shoot, but he had also learned the basics of wilderness survival, emergency Jumper maintenance, which was the only part he had aced, and Ancient history and culture. Dr. Beckett had also taught him some first-aid. He hadn't liked it, he hadn't even really been paying attention, but he...he knew it. It had to be in there somewhere.
Of course, during that same training, he had managed to make Sheppard go blind for two days by accidentally setting off a flash bomb too early, and had nearly gotten kicked off the team. So it was hard to say if any of the training he had received really counted for much.
Rodney pushed down a little harder, and John squirmed away. Rodney quickly dug his hand into John's other shoulder, trying to keep him still. John sucked in a sharp breath.
"Mckay, gentle!"
Rodney looked at John's face, and saw that the color had drained from it. His breathing was coming fast and shallow.
"Does this...hurt?" Rodney asked blankly. He ran backwards through his memory, trying to think of a single time he'd seen John in pain. Other than the Iratus bug, of course, but that seemed to be a different sort of category. Even when Rodney had set off the flashbang grenade, Sheppard had been more furious than anything else. He was having trouble conceptualizing that this, as gruesome as it was, as much as it would have sidelined Rodney, was actually giving Sheppard trouble as well.
"Of course...it hurts," John ground out. "There's a fucking hole in my shoulder, and you're digging your hand into it."
"Oh," Rodney mumbled. "I...I thought…never mind."
"What?" John asked, shifting under Rodney's hand and letting out a small hiss of pain. "You thought I didn't feel pain or somethin'?"
Acutely aware of how stupid this sounded now, Rodney shrugged, letting his grip on John's shoulder relax very slightly. "Well, it's not my fault. With the amount Beckett yells at you for leaving the infirmary, and the constant sparring with the Warrior Princess, and the whole...Major Machismo act, how was I supposed to know?"
"It's called being tough, McKay," John said, and Rodney braced reflexively for the undercurrent of judgement and found to his surprise that there wasn't one. "You don't always have to show you're in pain. Doesn't mean I don't feel anything."
"Oh," Rodney mumbled, deciding not to say that the concept of concealing one's physical discomfort was completely foreign to him. If you didn't complain, and loudly, at that, how were people supposed to know that you were uncomfortable and respond accordingly? In Rodney's experience, the wheel had to be very squeaky indeed to receive any amount of grease.
"I think the bleeding's stopped," Rodney offered tentatively.
"Great. Now tear off a sleeve of the jacket, and help me tie it around my arm as a bandage."
"But then you won't be able to wear the jacket," Rodney pointed out. "Won't you be...cold, or something?"
Sheppard sighed again. "Yeah, I'm probably gonna be cold. Better cold than dead."
Under John's watchful eye, Rodney managed to rip a blood-soaked sleeve off the jacket and carefully tied it around John's arm. He had expected the wound to look better now that the bleeding had stopped, but it just looked big and red and angry. The arrow had left a sizeable hole in John's arm when the guards had ripped it free, and Rodney felt queasy looking at it too long. Quickly, he finished "bandaging" Sheppard's arm and sat back in relief.
"You're welcome," Rodney said pointedly. "That was terrible and disgusting, and you couldn't have done it by yourself."
John sighed and rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Mckay," he said. "I'm sure it'll heal up great."
Rodney couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He wasn't very good at sarcasm. And John didn't make it very easy.