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sga_flashficTitle: A History of Flight
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quettaser
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sheppard Gen mostly with a bit of John/OFC and John/OMC
Spoilers: Through to the end of "Epiphany"
Length: ~3,800
Notes: Much thanks tokissingchaos9 for her fast beta skills.
Summary: Based mostly on this postcard, but also this one as well (both by me). Sky reflecting water reflecting sky reflecting water and on into infinity and John falls in love...
The sky is azure above him, not that John would know to call it that. He’s only five, flat on his back in the middle of a field, ants itching at his back. His hands are up in the air, trying to brush away the clouds, mould them into perfect shapes, yet no matter how far he stretches he can’t quite reach.
But the wind blows, blades of grass grazing John’s skin and the clouds move of their own accord, sweeping across the sky. They multiply and divide, traveling through the air in a way he can’t predict. John vows there in the field, that one day he’ll be able to map the clouds in the sky. From one end of the earth to the other, he’ll know each and every one.
His mom calls for him and he jumps up, head filled with thoughts of nimbuses and lunch. He runs back towards the house (for once it’s nice to live on the edge of the base, fields stretching over the hills into infinity) and anticipates his mom standing in the door with a sandwich and water. But instead she has something else, a kite, from the looks of it, thin paper painted blue with a big yellow star. There’s no tail, but the wood is springy beneath his fingers, like the kite is itching to fly.
They have another one in the shed, big and made of faded red plastic, worn at the edges with occasional spots of grease and other staining things native to the shed. His family only ever brings it out if they go to the beach (which they haven’t in a year, back when his dad was on leave), but this one is small and new, just for John.
Lunch is gone from his head and John runs back away from the house, kite trailing behind him, and he hopes that the breeze is strong enough to get it up in the air. At the beach the wind was always too strong for him to hold on to the string for too long before his dad was taking it away again, warning him about the dangers of it flying away.
But here the wind puffs gently and John spends the rest of the afternoon learning how to control the kite just right. By the time the sun has reached the line of trees between fields, he can get his kite to dip and turn with a single tug, making it skip in the air.
He gets tired then, kite still pulling at the string and he lies down, laying the spindle on his stomach and John watches the kite sway back and forth. Its rhythm matches the movement of the clouds and John is beginning to map the breeze.
*
The carnival comes to town (the third base in the last two years) and John’s mom takes him on Friday night, after their obligatory phone call with his dad. John’s eight and only gets to talk to his dad once a week. He knows he wakes up early to talk to them and that he’s stationed on the other side of the world and he gets to fly, but beyond that, John can’t comprehend quite what it is his dad is doing.
But at the carnival his mom passes him a ticket and points out the Ferris wheel. She sends him up by himself, opting to sit and watch, her smile spreading wide across her face. John’s not sure why she wants him to until he gets to the top, the seat swaying under him. The ground is spread out beneath him, just as big and as looming as the sky normally seems.
John can see the entire carnival lit up and the winding streets snaking back towards the base, towards their house. Further on are the landing strips, familiar patterns in the twilight. The stars are coming out and John wonders that if the world can change so much with a few feet, how much can it change from up where the clouds are?
They spend the rest of the night walking around the fairway, trading bad jokes and playing math games in-between tossing things at other things to win further things. John ends up winning a toy airplane (though the registration numbers and markings are all wrong) and his mom gets a large stuffed giraffe that looks far too cheery to be stuffed.
His mom pulls the family camera from her purse and shows someone they don’t know how to use it. She and John sit on a bench with their prizes and smile for the camera, the flash blending in with all the other bright lights of the carnival. John’s mom tells him the picture will go with their next letter to his dad. John plans to tell him all about the Ferris wheels.
*
Planes roar overhead and John’s dad flashes an ID and they’re through a gate, through a door, around a building and into a hangar. John is eleven, all elbows and knees and hair that – much to his mother’s chagrin – won’t stay straight. His growth spurt hit early and he carries himself a little slumped with his shoulders bent inward, like he doesn’t want to be an exception, standing out from all the other kids.
It’s the semi-annual County Fair and Air Show (as his mom tells him) and John knows his dad has to go fly soon so he’s not sure why he’s here in the hangar, planes looming over his head. He always forgets how big they are, wide wings above his head perched on delicate wheels. He really wants to go and ride the Ferris wheel (he saw it peering out from behind the trees on their way in) but it’s not every day that his dad takes him to see his plane, so John swallows the urge to ask for tickets.
His dad is biting back a smile, an uncommon thing since he’d come back from the war. John doesn’t know a lot about Vietnam. He can find it on a map but that doesn’t explain why his mother turns off the news every time they mention it (often) and hides the paper before John can read the headlines (even more often). His friends at school don’t know much about it either, but he knows it’s bad, knows it was war and the thin-lipped stares of everyone on the base only reinforce that.
But today is different, and John’s dad is ushering him up the short steps and into the cockpit of his plane (he knows by the tiny picture of himself with his mom tucked in beside the seat). John knows his dad flies, but he’s never gotten to be in the plane before and there are so many buttons, John wouldn’t have known where to start.
His dad is standing on the steps, leaning on his arms as they drape into the cockpit. His voice is low and conspiratorial and John’s dad is smirking a bit, just with the corner of his mouth. “Now, you have to promise not to tell your mom what I’m about to tell you, okay Johnny boy? She thinks you’re still too young, but I know better than that.”
The back of his fingers is a light tap against John’s arm. He’s seen him do that with his friends on the base, Uncle Bill, Uncle Ted, Ronnie and Simpson (none of them real uncles but John doesn’t know their full names either) and it makes John sit up straighter at the thought of being one of his dad’s close friends. John nods quickly, these moments are few and far between and he isn’t willing to waste a second. His fingers run along the cool metal between the buttons, memorizing each pit and scratch.
“The thing you have to know about planes is that they’re just like women. The only way to get the best out of your plane is to know it, backwards and forwards. You have to know what everything does, what every sound means. You have to be able to listen because chances are, she knows what’s going on a lot better than you do.”
It’s the most John’s heard him talk in a long time. John’s hands still move restlessly across the panels while he watches his dad’s face. It’s relaxed in a way John’s not used to, wrinkles fading under the loving gaze his dad lavishes on the plane. John wonders when he’ll be able to have that for anyone, for anything.
“Now, you may think you’re the one flying, but really, she’s the only thing keeping you in the air, and you have to treat her with every respect. She needs to be your life, John, remember that. You treat her right then she’ll trust you and keep you flying forever. Some guys might try to name their planes themselves, but that’s stupid. You didn’t make her, you just have the honor of flying with her. When the time’s right, she’ll tell you her name.”
John’s dad leans in close, voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Now, this is the secret part. Treat a woman exactly the same, and she’ll fall in love with you, but, and this is important, only if you care about her back. Women and planes know if you’re being insincere. Don’t try and trick them. You’ll only end up falling if you do.”
Later on in his life, John might have argued the woman aspect of that rationale, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him then, sitting in the plane, his dad saying more than he has in years. John thinks this is probably the famous birds and bees talk, but it seems to involve a lot less anatomy than he’d been told to expect.
He doesn’t mind it though, because a year later when his mom dies of cancer, it helps him understand what’s broken in his father. Why he leaves the service and sleeps until noon (John walks, their new apartment close to the school, far from the base). Why the house smells like alcohol when John comes home and why he’s stopped seeing his dad smile.
*
Sarah smells good. Really good.
John is sixteen in the back of her car and all he can think is that she smells like berries. She always smells like fruits, like things people don’t naturally smell like and it amazes him that she can do that, that any girl can do that. Her lips are soft, like everything about her and John can’t quite remember how he ended up with a girlfriend.
He’s grown somewhat into his limbs (not yet into his hair, though people seem to like that) but he still slouches a little, every movement much more of a lean or a stretch. He does okay in school, mostly because that’s easiest, and he doesn’t have to try hard to get B’s. He does better in math, but that’s only because he’s read his mom’s teaching texts more times than he can count; tidy, precise notes written in the margins.
John has plenty of friends, guys who slap him on the back and jeer good-naturedly at anything and girls who smile a lot and like to run their fingers through his hair. He spends most of his time with them, tossing a ball back and forth and bullshitting about everything because it’s easier than bullshitting with his dad.
His dad is quiet most of the time, occasionally tinkering with an old radio or something in the kitchen when John gets home. He doesn’t ask about grades or school, just mumbles something about the latest game while John cooks their meager dinner. He doesn’t raise his voice or incoherently flashback to anything, he just sits on the couch, dejected and miserable.
So John spends as much of his time out as possible. He wants to take flying lessons, but they’re too expensive, though, occasionally Bill or Ted (he still calls them Uncle out of habit) will drop by and take him up for a ride. They ask about his dad, but there’s not much John can tell them so the flights are mostly silent, John reveling in the feeling while he can.
John’s in the back of Sarah’s car and he should care that he’s missing Return of the Jedi, but he also thinks that he’s sitting on the very cusp of virginity and that he should probably shut up before he ruins it. Sarah’s hands are warm as they slip beneath the waistband of John’s pants and he thinks he might hear Yoda dying. Not much later, while Endor celebrates, John comes to the happy realization that sex is a lot like flying.
*
John is seventeen when Doug Flutie throws his Hail Mary. He’s at home watching with his dad while finishing up his calculus homework. They both cheer and high-five each other before falling back into another long and awkward silence. For a second, John sees a flicker of his old dad, the wry smile and knowing look, but it disappears just as quickly. His dad goes off to bed after that and John breaks his pencil trying to finish his integrals.
He wants to go to Boston College or study applied aerodynamics (then he could build the planes) but he knows they don’t have the money for that at all. It takes him a day or two, but there’s only one other thing John would rather do, so he applies for the Air Force Academy and sets out to be a pilot.
*
The first plane John flies for the military is Kelly. She’s worn, like all the other planes they fly, but hardy and stronger than he’s likely to give her credit for. He’s lucky, he gets to fly her all through training and she’s a stern teacher, unafraid to knock him about and more than once he’d come back from a trip out and swear that he was changing tacks. She always ended up calling him back, though.
Being able to show him the world at twenty-one thousand feet had always been more than enough incentive.
After that he’s on too many tours to learn the names of the planes he flies. Nearly every day there’s a different one, and for a while, John gets used to what feels like flying blind. He meets Greg then and in a night made up entirely of one too manys, John manages to add an extra dimension to his identity.
He’s in crisis mode only for a little while, the sex is still like flying and it all feels natural, so John doesn’t fret much about it except he doesn’t share these particular escapades with his friends. Though, he was never really one to kiss and tell to begin with. Greg is soon reassigned, but for reasons entirely on the up and up and John can’t help but feel a little cheated and left wondering where it all might have gone.
*
In Kabul, John wishes he knew the name of the plane Mitch and Dex had been in. It feels only right that she should be honored too, her name scratched into the rock that stands as a temporary memorial. But he probably wouldn’t have anyway, those names are something private and he hopes that Mitch and Dex had known it. The thought of going down in a plane he doesn’t even know frightens John too much for him to examine why.
Cara is kind to him the next day, like she knows and John is extra careful, watching every shrub and tree with rapt attention. When they land, he takes his time cleaning her, thankful that he knows her name.
*
John likes Mary. The chopper is playful and bright and entirely too cheerful for being in Antarctica. Though, he does admit he likes it here, but she may have a lot to do with that. Mary almost never freezes up on him and responds easily to his touch. She doesn’t shy away from the mountains and told him her name after only two days.
That kind of easy acceptance after Afghanistan made the rest of it bearable, even if it meant getting used to having to clear ice from everything ever. The long tours around McMurdo are nice too. It amazes John that the same planet can share the fields behind what seems to be every army base he’s lived on and this expanse of ice and rock. Sure, most of the time he’s a glorified taxi driver and he’s never going to get laid here, but this place is cleansing and the bitter air on his skin makes him feel like he’s flying even when he isn’t.
*
The puddlejumpers, John decides, are elusive. Willing to bend and bow to every need thought at them, but John can’t get a handle on their real personality. He knows they have names, they had makers and for all that the Ancients were technologically advanced, they weren’t cloning the ships. Jumper 2 pulls just a little to the left and Jumper 1 (whom he wants desperately to know her name because it makes him flinch any time he thinks Jumper 1) has a tendency to drift up if no one's paying attention.
But they’re also nothing like John’s ever flown before, smooth and yielding in every maneuver. He wishes Sumner were still here, so that, if nothing else, John would have more time to fly them. He wants to test their limits, discover all their secrets and fly until it’s an instinct, the handles wearing creases in John’s hands.
It takes almost a month, but her name is Lucy and McKay is in the middle of pulling out her insides. It would be enough to make him sick, but John also has an alien bug attached to his neck so Lucy’s distress only ever takes up half his conscious thought.
As soon as Beckett clears him (and he eats, sleeps and showers) John heads to the jumper bay and slowly works his way over Lucy’s entire body. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to recognize if anything is wrong, but he hopes she’ll tell him and that then, he’ll be able to find a way to fix it.
He murmurs apologies about McKay’s fumbling rewirings and for the first time, John thinks he might be a little crazy for talking to a plane. But the moment passes, though he stops talking out loud. Lucy seems okay and John itches to take her out again.
It’s then that they discover that the roof opens and John takes Lucy out over the water, and he can feel her humming with joy. It’s the most open she’s been with him and John can’t stop himself from smiling. Sky reflecting water reflecting sky reflecting water and on into infinity and John falls in love with Lucy and Atlantis.
*
Chaya, John discovers, is nothing like flying at all. She’s something entirely different, wholly to the left of everything he’s ever experienced (and really, he’s walked through a Stargate). She crackles with power and strength and gives with honey skin and subtle hands and he’ll be damned if he can learn anything concrete about her.
She slides through his fingers all too easily, and while he’s intrigued (and hell, sex, even if sex as beings of energy, is something that’s few and far between) he doesn’t find himself mourning her loss.
She’s too different, he decides, and he’d never be able to know her the way he was taught. At least, not without a much greater understanding of quantum physics and John doubts that Rodney would take on the task of teaching him. And while existing as a being of pure energy can be pretty damn cool, it’s nothing compared to Lucy over Atlantis, or Mary in Antarctica or even Kelly back in Colorado Springs.
Chaya has nothing on Ferris wheels.
*
Flying the Wraith dart makes John nauseous. He can feel the ship twisted and turned, tinged with blood and death and in his mind she cries out for help. He flies by guesswork and throws his mind at the ship’s controls. It cuts into him, like heavy fingers on an open wound and flying has never felt more alien.
He doesn’t know where the feeling is coming from, because the dart hasn’t killed more people than some of the planes John’s flown, but none of them stink of death the way the dart does.
John thinks of Lucy, what it would be like if she were trapped inside this warped form and he shivers, flexes his fingers. He tunes out the ship's non-existent pleas and focuses everything he has on the dart, for once forcing his intention on the dart. She responds well enough, only fighting his control for a little at first and John urges her towards the hive.
Much, much later, he’ll be sick in the shower and he’ll feel the loss of another piece of himself for the city and the people that he loves.
*
Lucy is finicky after that, and John can tell the whole ordeal has shaken him. He lands far from energy signatures, forcing his team and himself to walk. He doesn’t want to risk having to do anything particularly nimble in the air, not when his hands feel leaden on Lucy’s surface.
But then he gets himself stuck in a time-dilation field and John finds himself grounded for months and no amount of haunting images and nausea can keep him from wanting to fly again. Teer is sweet and kind and John thinks that maybe he can be happy here if no one ever bothers to come and save him (which, honestly, the moment one of his team is put in danger he is there to rescue them, it couldn’t hurt to repay the kindness).
He holds off for as long as possible because he’s never been one to use people, especially not women and especially not for this, but it’s been so long since John’s been in the sky. He tricks himself into thinking she can be enough (though he never quite soars with her the way he did with Sarah and Greg and a few others whose names John keeps locked up safe) but the moment his team returns, he can’t hide his joy.
Turning down Ascension is easier the second time and John chuckles and hopes there won’t be a third. He takes Lucy out for hours after that (even though Rodney assures him he really wasn’t gone that long), reacquainting himself with her and for the first time in a long time, John lets things go and flies.
Fin.
Author:
quettaserRating: PG-13
Pairing: Sheppard Gen mostly with a bit of John/OFC and John/OMC
Spoilers: Through to the end of "Epiphany"
Length: ~3,800
Notes: Much thanks to
kissingchaos9 for her fast beta skills.Summary: Based mostly on this postcard, but also this one as well (both by me). Sky reflecting water reflecting sky reflecting water and on into infinity and John falls in love...
The sky is azure above him, not that John would know to call it that. He’s only five, flat on his back in the middle of a field, ants itching at his back. His hands are up in the air, trying to brush away the clouds, mould them into perfect shapes, yet no matter how far he stretches he can’t quite reach.
But the wind blows, blades of grass grazing John’s skin and the clouds move of their own accord, sweeping across the sky. They multiply and divide, traveling through the air in a way he can’t predict. John vows there in the field, that one day he’ll be able to map the clouds in the sky. From one end of the earth to the other, he’ll know each and every one.
His mom calls for him and he jumps up, head filled with thoughts of nimbuses and lunch. He runs back towards the house (for once it’s nice to live on the edge of the base, fields stretching over the hills into infinity) and anticipates his mom standing in the door with a sandwich and water. But instead she has something else, a kite, from the looks of it, thin paper painted blue with a big yellow star. There’s no tail, but the wood is springy beneath his fingers, like the kite is itching to fly.
They have another one in the shed, big and made of faded red plastic, worn at the edges with occasional spots of grease and other staining things native to the shed. His family only ever brings it out if they go to the beach (which they haven’t in a year, back when his dad was on leave), but this one is small and new, just for John.
Lunch is gone from his head and John runs back away from the house, kite trailing behind him, and he hopes that the breeze is strong enough to get it up in the air. At the beach the wind was always too strong for him to hold on to the string for too long before his dad was taking it away again, warning him about the dangers of it flying away.
But here the wind puffs gently and John spends the rest of the afternoon learning how to control the kite just right. By the time the sun has reached the line of trees between fields, he can get his kite to dip and turn with a single tug, making it skip in the air.
He gets tired then, kite still pulling at the string and he lies down, laying the spindle on his stomach and John watches the kite sway back and forth. Its rhythm matches the movement of the clouds and John is beginning to map the breeze.
*
The carnival comes to town (the third base in the last two years) and John’s mom takes him on Friday night, after their obligatory phone call with his dad. John’s eight and only gets to talk to his dad once a week. He knows he wakes up early to talk to them and that he’s stationed on the other side of the world and he gets to fly, but beyond that, John can’t comprehend quite what it is his dad is doing.
But at the carnival his mom passes him a ticket and points out the Ferris wheel. She sends him up by himself, opting to sit and watch, her smile spreading wide across her face. John’s not sure why she wants him to until he gets to the top, the seat swaying under him. The ground is spread out beneath him, just as big and as looming as the sky normally seems.
John can see the entire carnival lit up and the winding streets snaking back towards the base, towards their house. Further on are the landing strips, familiar patterns in the twilight. The stars are coming out and John wonders that if the world can change so much with a few feet, how much can it change from up where the clouds are?
They spend the rest of the night walking around the fairway, trading bad jokes and playing math games in-between tossing things at other things to win further things. John ends up winning a toy airplane (though the registration numbers and markings are all wrong) and his mom gets a large stuffed giraffe that looks far too cheery to be stuffed.
His mom pulls the family camera from her purse and shows someone they don’t know how to use it. She and John sit on a bench with their prizes and smile for the camera, the flash blending in with all the other bright lights of the carnival. John’s mom tells him the picture will go with their next letter to his dad. John plans to tell him all about the Ferris wheels.
*
Planes roar overhead and John’s dad flashes an ID and they’re through a gate, through a door, around a building and into a hangar. John is eleven, all elbows and knees and hair that – much to his mother’s chagrin – won’t stay straight. His growth spurt hit early and he carries himself a little slumped with his shoulders bent inward, like he doesn’t want to be an exception, standing out from all the other kids.
It’s the semi-annual County Fair and Air Show (as his mom tells him) and John knows his dad has to go fly soon so he’s not sure why he’s here in the hangar, planes looming over his head. He always forgets how big they are, wide wings above his head perched on delicate wheels. He really wants to go and ride the Ferris wheel (he saw it peering out from behind the trees on their way in) but it’s not every day that his dad takes him to see his plane, so John swallows the urge to ask for tickets.
His dad is biting back a smile, an uncommon thing since he’d come back from the war. John doesn’t know a lot about Vietnam. He can find it on a map but that doesn’t explain why his mother turns off the news every time they mention it (often) and hides the paper before John can read the headlines (even more often). His friends at school don’t know much about it either, but he knows it’s bad, knows it was war and the thin-lipped stares of everyone on the base only reinforce that.
But today is different, and John’s dad is ushering him up the short steps and into the cockpit of his plane (he knows by the tiny picture of himself with his mom tucked in beside the seat). John knows his dad flies, but he’s never gotten to be in the plane before and there are so many buttons, John wouldn’t have known where to start.
His dad is standing on the steps, leaning on his arms as they drape into the cockpit. His voice is low and conspiratorial and John’s dad is smirking a bit, just with the corner of his mouth. “Now, you have to promise not to tell your mom what I’m about to tell you, okay Johnny boy? She thinks you’re still too young, but I know better than that.”
The back of his fingers is a light tap against John’s arm. He’s seen him do that with his friends on the base, Uncle Bill, Uncle Ted, Ronnie and Simpson (none of them real uncles but John doesn’t know their full names either) and it makes John sit up straighter at the thought of being one of his dad’s close friends. John nods quickly, these moments are few and far between and he isn’t willing to waste a second. His fingers run along the cool metal between the buttons, memorizing each pit and scratch.
“The thing you have to know about planes is that they’re just like women. The only way to get the best out of your plane is to know it, backwards and forwards. You have to know what everything does, what every sound means. You have to be able to listen because chances are, she knows what’s going on a lot better than you do.”
It’s the most John’s heard him talk in a long time. John’s hands still move restlessly across the panels while he watches his dad’s face. It’s relaxed in a way John’s not used to, wrinkles fading under the loving gaze his dad lavishes on the plane. John wonders when he’ll be able to have that for anyone, for anything.
“Now, you may think you’re the one flying, but really, she’s the only thing keeping you in the air, and you have to treat her with every respect. She needs to be your life, John, remember that. You treat her right then she’ll trust you and keep you flying forever. Some guys might try to name their planes themselves, but that’s stupid. You didn’t make her, you just have the honor of flying with her. When the time’s right, she’ll tell you her name.”
John’s dad leans in close, voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Now, this is the secret part. Treat a woman exactly the same, and she’ll fall in love with you, but, and this is important, only if you care about her back. Women and planes know if you’re being insincere. Don’t try and trick them. You’ll only end up falling if you do.”
Later on in his life, John might have argued the woman aspect of that rationale, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him then, sitting in the plane, his dad saying more than he has in years. John thinks this is probably the famous birds and bees talk, but it seems to involve a lot less anatomy than he’d been told to expect.
He doesn’t mind it though, because a year later when his mom dies of cancer, it helps him understand what’s broken in his father. Why he leaves the service and sleeps until noon (John walks, their new apartment close to the school, far from the base). Why the house smells like alcohol when John comes home and why he’s stopped seeing his dad smile.
*
Sarah smells good. Really good.
John is sixteen in the back of her car and all he can think is that she smells like berries. She always smells like fruits, like things people don’t naturally smell like and it amazes him that she can do that, that any girl can do that. Her lips are soft, like everything about her and John can’t quite remember how he ended up with a girlfriend.
He’s grown somewhat into his limbs (not yet into his hair, though people seem to like that) but he still slouches a little, every movement much more of a lean or a stretch. He does okay in school, mostly because that’s easiest, and he doesn’t have to try hard to get B’s. He does better in math, but that’s only because he’s read his mom’s teaching texts more times than he can count; tidy, precise notes written in the margins.
John has plenty of friends, guys who slap him on the back and jeer good-naturedly at anything and girls who smile a lot and like to run their fingers through his hair. He spends most of his time with them, tossing a ball back and forth and bullshitting about everything because it’s easier than bullshitting with his dad.
His dad is quiet most of the time, occasionally tinkering with an old radio or something in the kitchen when John gets home. He doesn’t ask about grades or school, just mumbles something about the latest game while John cooks their meager dinner. He doesn’t raise his voice or incoherently flashback to anything, he just sits on the couch, dejected and miserable.
So John spends as much of his time out as possible. He wants to take flying lessons, but they’re too expensive, though, occasionally Bill or Ted (he still calls them Uncle out of habit) will drop by and take him up for a ride. They ask about his dad, but there’s not much John can tell them so the flights are mostly silent, John reveling in the feeling while he can.
John’s in the back of Sarah’s car and he should care that he’s missing Return of the Jedi, but he also thinks that he’s sitting on the very cusp of virginity and that he should probably shut up before he ruins it. Sarah’s hands are warm as they slip beneath the waistband of John’s pants and he thinks he might hear Yoda dying. Not much later, while Endor celebrates, John comes to the happy realization that sex is a lot like flying.
*
John is seventeen when Doug Flutie throws his Hail Mary. He’s at home watching with his dad while finishing up his calculus homework. They both cheer and high-five each other before falling back into another long and awkward silence. For a second, John sees a flicker of his old dad, the wry smile and knowing look, but it disappears just as quickly. His dad goes off to bed after that and John breaks his pencil trying to finish his integrals.
He wants to go to Boston College or study applied aerodynamics (then he could build the planes) but he knows they don’t have the money for that at all. It takes him a day or two, but there’s only one other thing John would rather do, so he applies for the Air Force Academy and sets out to be a pilot.
*
The first plane John flies for the military is Kelly. She’s worn, like all the other planes they fly, but hardy and stronger than he’s likely to give her credit for. He’s lucky, he gets to fly her all through training and she’s a stern teacher, unafraid to knock him about and more than once he’d come back from a trip out and swear that he was changing tacks. She always ended up calling him back, though.
Being able to show him the world at twenty-one thousand feet had always been more than enough incentive.
After that he’s on too many tours to learn the names of the planes he flies. Nearly every day there’s a different one, and for a while, John gets used to what feels like flying blind. He meets Greg then and in a night made up entirely of one too manys, John manages to add an extra dimension to his identity.
He’s in crisis mode only for a little while, the sex is still like flying and it all feels natural, so John doesn’t fret much about it except he doesn’t share these particular escapades with his friends. Though, he was never really one to kiss and tell to begin with. Greg is soon reassigned, but for reasons entirely on the up and up and John can’t help but feel a little cheated and left wondering where it all might have gone.
*
In Kabul, John wishes he knew the name of the plane Mitch and Dex had been in. It feels only right that she should be honored too, her name scratched into the rock that stands as a temporary memorial. But he probably wouldn’t have anyway, those names are something private and he hopes that Mitch and Dex had known it. The thought of going down in a plane he doesn’t even know frightens John too much for him to examine why.
Cara is kind to him the next day, like she knows and John is extra careful, watching every shrub and tree with rapt attention. When they land, he takes his time cleaning her, thankful that he knows her name.
*
John likes Mary. The chopper is playful and bright and entirely too cheerful for being in Antarctica. Though, he does admit he likes it here, but she may have a lot to do with that. Mary almost never freezes up on him and responds easily to his touch. She doesn’t shy away from the mountains and told him her name after only two days.
That kind of easy acceptance after Afghanistan made the rest of it bearable, even if it meant getting used to having to clear ice from everything ever. The long tours around McMurdo are nice too. It amazes John that the same planet can share the fields behind what seems to be every army base he’s lived on and this expanse of ice and rock. Sure, most of the time he’s a glorified taxi driver and he’s never going to get laid here, but this place is cleansing and the bitter air on his skin makes him feel like he’s flying even when he isn’t.
*
The puddlejumpers, John decides, are elusive. Willing to bend and bow to every need thought at them, but John can’t get a handle on their real personality. He knows they have names, they had makers and for all that the Ancients were technologically advanced, they weren’t cloning the ships. Jumper 2 pulls just a little to the left and Jumper 1 (whom he wants desperately to know her name because it makes him flinch any time he thinks Jumper 1) has a tendency to drift up if no one's paying attention.
But they’re also nothing like John’s ever flown before, smooth and yielding in every maneuver. He wishes Sumner were still here, so that, if nothing else, John would have more time to fly them. He wants to test their limits, discover all their secrets and fly until it’s an instinct, the handles wearing creases in John’s hands.
It takes almost a month, but her name is Lucy and McKay is in the middle of pulling out her insides. It would be enough to make him sick, but John also has an alien bug attached to his neck so Lucy’s distress only ever takes up half his conscious thought.
As soon as Beckett clears him (and he eats, sleeps and showers) John heads to the jumper bay and slowly works his way over Lucy’s entire body. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to recognize if anything is wrong, but he hopes she’ll tell him and that then, he’ll be able to find a way to fix it.
He murmurs apologies about McKay’s fumbling rewirings and for the first time, John thinks he might be a little crazy for talking to a plane. But the moment passes, though he stops talking out loud. Lucy seems okay and John itches to take her out again.
It’s then that they discover that the roof opens and John takes Lucy out over the water, and he can feel her humming with joy. It’s the most open she’s been with him and John can’t stop himself from smiling. Sky reflecting water reflecting sky reflecting water and on into infinity and John falls in love with Lucy and Atlantis.
*
Chaya, John discovers, is nothing like flying at all. She’s something entirely different, wholly to the left of everything he’s ever experienced (and really, he’s walked through a Stargate). She crackles with power and strength and gives with honey skin and subtle hands and he’ll be damned if he can learn anything concrete about her.
She slides through his fingers all too easily, and while he’s intrigued (and hell, sex, even if sex as beings of energy, is something that’s few and far between) he doesn’t find himself mourning her loss.
She’s too different, he decides, and he’d never be able to know her the way he was taught. At least, not without a much greater understanding of quantum physics and John doubts that Rodney would take on the task of teaching him. And while existing as a being of pure energy can be pretty damn cool, it’s nothing compared to Lucy over Atlantis, or Mary in Antarctica or even Kelly back in Colorado Springs.
Chaya has nothing on Ferris wheels.
*
Flying the Wraith dart makes John nauseous. He can feel the ship twisted and turned, tinged with blood and death and in his mind she cries out for help. He flies by guesswork and throws his mind at the ship’s controls. It cuts into him, like heavy fingers on an open wound and flying has never felt more alien.
He doesn’t know where the feeling is coming from, because the dart hasn’t killed more people than some of the planes John’s flown, but none of them stink of death the way the dart does.
John thinks of Lucy, what it would be like if she were trapped inside this warped form and he shivers, flexes his fingers. He tunes out the ship's non-existent pleas and focuses everything he has on the dart, for once forcing his intention on the dart. She responds well enough, only fighting his control for a little at first and John urges her towards the hive.
Much, much later, he’ll be sick in the shower and he’ll feel the loss of another piece of himself for the city and the people that he loves.
*
Lucy is finicky after that, and John can tell the whole ordeal has shaken him. He lands far from energy signatures, forcing his team and himself to walk. He doesn’t want to risk having to do anything particularly nimble in the air, not when his hands feel leaden on Lucy’s surface.
But then he gets himself stuck in a time-dilation field and John finds himself grounded for months and no amount of haunting images and nausea can keep him from wanting to fly again. Teer is sweet and kind and John thinks that maybe he can be happy here if no one ever bothers to come and save him (which, honestly, the moment one of his team is put in danger he is there to rescue them, it couldn’t hurt to repay the kindness).
He holds off for as long as possible because he’s never been one to use people, especially not women and especially not for this, but it’s been so long since John’s been in the sky. He tricks himself into thinking she can be enough (though he never quite soars with her the way he did with Sarah and Greg and a few others whose names John keeps locked up safe) but the moment his team returns, he can’t hide his joy.
Turning down Ascension is easier the second time and John chuckles and hopes there won’t be a third. He takes Lucy out for hours after that (even though Rodney assures him he really wasn’t gone that long), reacquainting himself with her and for the first time in a long time, John lets things go and flies.
Fin.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-22 06:12 am (UTC)