kriadydragon | Leaving No Man Behind

Leaving No Man Behind

Rating: PG-13 for torture (nothing heavily explicit, but read with caution)

A/N: I almost didn't post this until I decided to do a picture for it. One scene in particular was begging for a picture.

Leaving No Man Behind

The bad guy's weren't very creative. Hell, they weren't even supposed to be bad guys, not to Sheppard. Mistaken identity was a bitch that way, unless it really was possible to mix up Lantean with Xenophan. He still didn't know what these bastards were looking for, which made it impossible to come up with a distracting lie. Sheppard didn't even know the name of their planet.

The bad guys were old fashioned in their abuse. Varied, too. They started light with punches and kicks, sometimes with John on the floor, sometimes in a chair, and sometimes strung up like meat. They gave him water while denying him food, let him keep his pants but not his shoes or shirt, and dumped him in a cold cell with stained cement walls and a barred window when they were done.

They were looking for something. If they would just tell Sheppard what it was, he could lie and buy some time as he figured out a way to escape. Without that tid-bit of knowledge, his attempt at lying fell short each time, and each time his weakness increased.

When kicking and punching became useless (or boring), they continued to adhere to old school styles by stringing him up and giving him a couple of lashes, interchanging with an electric cattle prod that skittered pain down his spine. John, of course, screamed the gutteral bellow of the defiant and agonized. He howled like an animal and they laughed, then demanded.

“I don't... know what the hell... you're talking about!” John gasped. Every breath was a knife to his ribs. He smelled his own sweat and blood, chin pressed to his chest to see the sickly light shimmer over his stained body.

Talking earned him a kick to the back and he spun until his stomach lurched. “Save your stories for little children, Xenophan,” said the master bad guy. Then the pain recommenced until John lost consciousness.

He woke up back in his cell with a tin cup of water and brand-spankin' new bruises. He rolled his good eye up to the puny square window too high to reach. Outside, the sky was gray, a winter-over cast pouring in the cold like an invisible waterfall. Sheppard shivered when it slithered across his wet skin.

Was it selfish to wish rescue would stop taking it's damn sweet time? For that matter, was it selfish to want rescue, calling on “we don't leave men behind” like calling for a favor to be returned? If his team ended up wounded in the process, killed, then hell yes it was selfish.

John closed his eyes and gritted his teeth when he rolled onto his back for the cold concrete to numb it. Pain throbbed, stung, burned and he hissed, arching his spine off the floor. He could pin-point the exact placement of each injury.

Burns – chest, stomach, back. Cuts and lacerations – arms, back, feet. Broken/cracked bones (he was past the point of telling which from which) – ribs, arms, fingers, collarbone, feet, leg.

If it was possible for him to be rescued without consequences, he wouldn't mind it. That wasn't so much to ask for, was it?

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The bad guys must be fed up, or really, really bored. They'd decided to get creative.

Insects, tiny insects like scorpion-sized Iratus bugs with eight legs and a double tail. John's heart-rate rocketed until he was sure it was going to explode in his chest. Head bad-guy, who he called Bill for no other reason than it being the first name to pop into his head, circled him holding the mini-iratus by the tail.

“These little monsters hurt when they get in an eating mood. Carrion-feeders, mostly, but they're not opposed to warm flesh. Blood makes 'em go wild.”

Bill placed the first on John's shoulder. There was a screech, so high-pitched it pierced John's ear, then two sharp pricks in his shoulder. Bill was right, the little bastards did hurt. It was as though the thing were squirting acid into his veins. Sheppard clenched his mouth shut to keep from screaming.

Then a second was placed on the back of his neck, then a third, a fourth, fifth... on his back, shoulders, chest – tiny legs getting tangled in the chest hair. They shrieked before digging in, spitting more acid, and John couldn't help screaming. Throwing his head back, he howled.

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We don't leave our men behind. We don't leave our men behind. We don't leave our men behind.

John stopped caring whether wanting to be rescued was selfish or not. Saved or killed, which ever came first, he'd take them. He'd reached a rut, stuck in monotony, with blood crusted on his skin and pinky-nail holes where his flesh had been devoured. He can still fill the insects' legs pricking like tiny needles looking for a tender spot, the burns stinging and lacerations itching. And yet for all the blood he's probably lost, he lives.

So die already you stubborn SOB. Yeah, like it was ever that easy.

John rolled onto his front to numb the wounds there, despising his own tenacity. But, to be brutally honest, he doesn't want to die. Being taken on a good-will mission during the dinner hours in a friendly village, snatched due to mistaken identity, was no way to go. Except that was cruel irony talking, not ego. There had been no reason to fear danger except from the wraith. They'd been friends with the villagers since first arriving to Pegasus. Except John still could never pronounce their name.

Cruel irony actually didn't have that much to do with why John wanted to live. He just does, like any sane, breathing, human being. It's instinct, it's nature, it's not giving up because there are people out there who don't want him to die, who would care a whole hell of a lot if he did die. And, if possible, he'd rather not put them through it. He doesn't have to say that he knows what it's like. He had already said it, mostly without realizing it, because “soldier” and “tour in Afghanistan” had said it all the first time.

He'd really rather not put his people through that. And if they don't want to put themselves through it, then they needed to hurry up and save his sorry ass already.

John returned to his back when it started throbbing.

They'd never left him behind, his team. Gotten pretty damn close to being unable to save him, but save him they did, or tried to. It had taken him long enough to realize that they always try. Leave no man behind applied just as much to him as anyone else. He remembered like yesterday, after Kolya's creative method of persuasion, the way his team so surreptitiously kept him in their sights. Rodney had let him take the last blue Jello. Ronon had given him a set of small knives and showed him how to hide them. Teyla had rescheduled sparring with Ronon to spar with him.

They'd never left him behind, even when he was right there.

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John figured silence was golden and stopped talking. He didn't even attempt to lie. More beatings, whippings, burnings, bugs, and now shoving bitter liquids down his throat rounded out his day. The blue-ish one made him see all kinds of pretty colors, but all the giggling made it hard to answer questions. The red one hurt like something eating its way out of his stomach, and he vowed never to watch Aliens again. The piss-colored one made him puke, and the brown one made him inexplicably terrified.

They liked using the brown one. It was very Temple of Doom with them forcing it into his mouth by holding his nose, then watching and laughing as he squirmed on the floor whimpering and shaking. He probably would have given them his social security number if they'd asked for it. Not the address to Atlantis, though. Never that. He was a good soldier, and good soldiers never prattled away the information that really mattered.

When tired of the pathetic display of frailty, they tossed him back into his cell to ride it out with shadows that kept trying to turn into monsters. Pale, vampire-like monsters that took life through the chest rather than the neck. Giant bugs, men in rags with AK-47s, and people who were supposed to be dead. They never said anything, just stared, and as much as he feared them speaking, he sometimes wished they would.

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John didn't know what he was supposed to say, or do, or maybe think anymore. The bad guys hurt him in both clever and not so clever ways. Just not as long as they used to. They must be getting bored. Some days, John just sat stuffed into his usual corner, knees pulled up in his usual huddle, with no more pain being added on to the pain soothed by his gentle rocking. Some days they forgot to give him water, some days forgot to poor the broth into his mouth that kept him alive. Those were the good days.

We don't leave our men behind, we don't leave our men behind, we don't leave our men behind...

John rocked harder. They were coming, he knew they were. They didn't leave men behind. His team would never leave him behind. They wouldn't unless they had to.

John stopped rocking. Maybe they had to.

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No more real torture, just kicking, lots of kicking. And hitting. The bad guys weren't so much bored as fed up, hating his mistaken guts enough to keep him alive, because they wanted a confession and no longer cared when they got it. They were just happy to see him suffer.

John would have been more defiant if he knew how. He was so damn tired all the time, uncoordinated, his mind floating in an airy fog that smeared shapes. He was tired of pain making it impossible to fight the flinches every time the human smears came too close. All he had was silence since he knew talking was what they wanted. So talking he didn't give them.

Sheppard stared at the wall, trying to think. There was something he liked to think, something he needed to remember.

We don't leave our men behind.

Unless they had to, which was okay. John would never ask them to do something they couldn't do. He just wished he would die already. An end was an end, and he would take what he could get. He wasn't afraid of dying, never had been. He'd prefer to live, but, sometimes... sometimes it just wasn't possible.

John pressed his forehead against the stained cement wall that smelled of mold and rust.

We don't leave our men behind.

He wished he would stop thinking that.

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John kept his face to the wall when the cell door clanged. Still not dead yet, but he was pretty sure the next kick would be the climax, like the last kick should have been, and the kick before that. The bad guy said something that his brain refused to translate into real English. His brain wasn't up to much of anything except keeping his heart beating and lungs breathing. Stupid, stubborn brain.

A touch on his shoulder sparked a flinch that seized his whole body, slamming his tender back against the wall that forced a yelp from his throat.

“Sheppard, easy! Easy. It's okay, it's just me, just Ronon.”

Ronon. Who was Ronon? Who was...?

John whipped his head around in mindless alarm. “What?” First word spoken in, how long? And it came so easy, wanting confirmation and not giving a damn about anything else. He stared, wide-eyed, chest heaving, heart hammering, at Ronon's steady brown eyes staring back.

“Ronon?”

Dex placed a hand on both his bony shoulders. “Yeah, it's me. I'm sorry we took so long.”

John couldn't breathe, couldn't think beyond one little mantra. We don't leave our men behind. He reached out with a trembling, crooked, skinny finger, pressing it to Ronon's cheek and ignoring the pain. He'd never been able to trust his eyes alone for some time. The feel of warm skin and hard bone underneath made his breath catch.

“I thought...” he rasped, and swallowed. “I thought you couldn't come. I thought...”

“What the hell is going on in there? We need to leave!”

John rolled his eyes up to see McKay barge in, followed by Teyla trying to stop him. Their images blurred behind a wall of moisture that burned in Sheppard's eyes. He swallowed and it hurt, tried to breath but couldn't fill his lungs.

“Um...” he began. He couldn't quite get a handle on his voice, not that he had anything to say. His mind still refused to work the way it was supposed to. He couldn't even lift his hand to wipe away the damn moisture.

All this loss of control was scaring the hell out of him. He wanted to run, or shrink away into the dark where no one could see him, just for a moment until he could remember how to think, breathe, and talk without shattering. One word, one breath, and something bad would happen, he knew it. He just needed a moment to keep it from happening.

The large hand on his shoulder slid to the back of his neck. Light pressure against his weak neck forced his head to drop against a broad chest.

“Sheppard's a little out of it,” Ronon said. “He needs a minute. Just give him a minute.”

John closed his eyes and breathed. They'd come for him, just like he knew they would.

We don't leave our men behind.

The moisture squeezed through his eyelids and fell.

They'd come for him. They'd come. They were here.

The hand on his neck was gone so a strong arm could wrap around his body. “Time to go home, Sheppard.” He was lifted, gently, feather-light but a being of pure pain too weak to make it known except to whimper. More gentle hands touched him, keeping him up as they carried him away.

Just like he knew they would. Just like he'd selfishly hoped.

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John awoke to warmth, numb, and his team formerly clustered around his bed being herded off by Carson. Terror pressed down on John until he could barely suck in a breath. He lifted his head, reaching out with a weak arm that looked as though the I.V. and splint should be weighing it down.

“Wait!”

All four stopped and turned, Beckett moving fast to check the rapidly beeping heart monitor. His team slowly regathered around his bed with Teyla taking his trembling, bound hand into her steady ones.

A few controlled breaths getting his heart to slow down, and John forgot why he'd been so frightened. He twitched a small, weak smile.

“Hey guys. Took you long enough to find me.”

Rodney dropped his guilty gaze to the floor. “Yes, well... we would have found you sooner, but the Daedalus took it's sweet time about arriving and all the witnesses kept getting the address wrong and those bastards had put up one hell of a fight...”

“But you found me,” John interjected.

Rodney looked up, blinked, then nodded. “Uh, yeah, we did.”

“Would have gone from planet to planet if we had to,” Ronon said.

“We do not leave our people behind,” said Teyla with a squeeze to his hand.

Of course we don't. John tried to squeeze back and winced. “Thank you.”

It was then that Carson chased them off, promising they could return later after they grabbed some lunch. Sheppard's own meal was to come, soon, now that he was awake to eat it. Beckett checked him over as they waited.

“I knew they'd come,” John said. Knew they'd come or at least try. Knew they would always try. He knitted his brow in consternation. “Do you think it's selfish, wanting to be rescued?”

Carson snorted as he lowered his stethoscope. “No. Just means you've got a bloody lot to live for.”

Made sense. He'd do anything for that bunch that had refused to leave him behind. He'd die for them, but would much rather live for them.

The End

Done in Charcoal. I don't often draw people (especially in charcoal) but am trying to amend that. People are way easier to draw in pencil, but I love charcoal so! Much better looking enlarged, I promise.