F is for Faith
Dec. 30th, 2012 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinkhcTitle: F is for Faith
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Prompt: Trust Issues
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,970
Summary: While visiting Evan’s mom, Evan and John have a picnic, and stuff. Part of the Overs & Unders ‘verse
Content Notes: No standard notes apply
Benchmark +50
When Evan announced that they were going out into the garden and that he was going to paint, Heather had gone to the pantry and collected a cooler bag, then filled it with food. She handed John a throw blanket and told him there was a hammock rolled up in the shed, if he wanted to put it up to use it. Then she left for the day, she had classes to go to at the community college, where she was currently studying pastry design.
Kneeling on the ground, John spread the blanket out while Evan set up his easel where he could see the little bubbling fountain near the hydrangeas and started mixing his paints. John wasn’t very hungry, and he suspected that Evan would want to paint for a while before stopping to eat. “What should I do?” he asked Evan.
“What do you want to do?”
He shrugged and looked around the garden. Evan was supposed to tell him what to do, that was the way this was supposed to work. Evan was the over, he was the under. He rubbed his forehead and pressed his fist to his stomach. Why did Evan always put it back on him to make a decision? He started to hunch over when Evan was suddenly there, gripping his shoulders.
“It’s okay, calm down, I’m sorry, I forgot, being here at home.” Evan pulled him forward, holding him for a minute. “John, why don’t you trust yourself?” Evan whispered as he smoothed John’s hair back from his forehead.
“I make bad decisions,” John blurted, then hid his face against Evan’s flannel shirt. “I make bad choices.”
Evan sat beside him, his hands still on John’s arms, resting lightly. “Like what? Tell me so I can understand. Give me an example.”
He shouldn’t tell his current over about his previous overs, that had always been bad in the past, it had led to several painful punishments, in fact. When he talked about Maybourne during his sessions with Kate Heightmeyer with Evan present made Evan mad. John understood it wasn’t directed at him, but he didn’t like it when Evan got angry. “I shouldn’t say anything. I should just forget about it,” he shook his head, hoping Evan didn’t press for more.
Slipping the tip of his finger under the leather collar John was wearing, Evan gave a gentle tug, a reminder of John’s position as his under as he said, “Tell me about one poor decision you made, John.”
Surely there was one thing in his past that wouldn’t make Evan angry? “Let me think. Are you hungry? Your mom made this picnic for us.” He hoped food might distract Evan, but knew that was a foolish hope, Evan never forgot anything.
John thought about what he could say as Evan rummaged through the cooler bag and pulled out juice boxes for each of them and a bag of cut up vegetables. Passing a fruit punch to John, he crunched on a carrot and watched John expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He did that a lot. He waited, without pushing.
“I... I rushed into things, I accepted the first over that asked for me.” There, he’d said the hard part, he had started The sky had not collapsed, the earth hadn’t opened up. Spectres from his past had not materialized to punish him for speaking. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Tell me about it,” Evan offered him the bag of sliced veggies. John took a piece of cauliflower and stuffed it in his mouth as he thought about what to say. His over would wait patiently, John knew; he needn’t rush.
“I met him at the beach the summer I finished college. He was teaching surfing lessons, and I wanted to learn, so I took a few lessons. Then we went on a few dates. His name was Todd.” Not all his memories of Todd were bad. Not everything about Todd had been bad. Just most of it.
Evan pulled more stuff out of the bag and started making sandwiches. It seemed such an ordinary thing to do, to sit on a blanket and have a picnic on a warm day. “I don’t deserve this,” he whispered suddenly, drawing Evan’s attention. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Nonsense,” Evan said dismissively. “There isn’t anything you could have done in the past that would make me believe that, John. Short of murder. You aren’t, by chance, an ax-wielding serial killer? I’d really hate to wake up dead one morning because you snapped.”
“No, I’m not a killer,” John snorted and smiled and Evan smiled back and handed him a sandwich. “I rushed into things with Todd. I wanted to learn, I wanted to be a proper under, I’d waited until after I was done with school because I wanted to do it right. I thought he was a good instructor. I mean, he taught me how to surf, and we had a lot of laughs. I thought that would carry over into a relationship, that he would be as patient with training me as an under as he had been with the board. ”
“But he wasn’t,” Evan said when John fell silent.
He shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich. “At first it was okay. But then Todd started to get demanding and mean. He liked to hurt me, but he didn’t want me to make any noise.”
“Easy, John, you can stop telling me whenever you want to, don’t force it.”
“I’m okay. I want you to know what happened. He tied me up and left me like that, sometimes for hours. Once he left me chained to the bed for a whole weekend, he went partying and forgot about me. Then he punished me because I messed myself, and brought his friends in to laugh at me and see what had happened.”
Evan’s lips were pressed together tightly, he was getting angry. John wondered if he should stop talking. “That was so wrong of him, John. He humiliated you. He should have been protecting you.”
“He was very young. We both were. Too young for a serious relationship. I don’t hate him,” John blurted.
“No?” Evan cocked his head and looked at him.
“Uh-uh. He didn’t know any better. I made the mistake, I gave him permission when I took his chain around my neck and let him be my over. It wasn’t all bad, some of it was good. I wish that we could have stayed friends, but he was angry when I left.”
“What made you leave?” Evan’s hand was on John’s thigh, rubbing lightly, making circles.
“My brother got in a bad car accident. Todd was a real dick about it, he wasn’t going to let me leave to see Dave in the hospital. I had a glimpse of what things would continue to be like and I decided to break the arrangement, we didn’t have a legal one, it was all verbal. So I packed my stuff when he went to the beach and I called a cab and left. After my brother was well, I joined the Air Force.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I wonder if I had stayed if it would have been better. I wouldn’t have met the others, I wouldn’t have continued to pick men that were bad for me. I might not have ended up with Maybourne.”
Evan wiped his hands on a napkin and took the empty juice box from John’s hand. “Maybe. But we can’t live in the past, John. We can learn from it and move on. If not for all of that, I wouldn’t have met you. Do you believe that I would ever do any of the things Todd did?”
“No. I know you wouldn’t, you’re different than him, than all of them.”
“So there, wouldn’t you say that’s a good decision you made, agreeing to take me as your over?” John nodded and looked down at his lap. When he heard Evan clearing up the remnants of their lunch, he started to help, handing him the food and gathering the paper trash.
“I wish...” he bit his tongue, he hadn’t planned to say that out loud.
Evan had heard his slip.. “Wish what? C’mon, spill.”
He might be asking for trouble by saying anything else, this could go very, very badly. “Sometimes I wish you treated me... I wish you’d touch me as if I were normal and not made of glass, like I’m always just about to shatter.”
“I don’t want to rush you, John.”
“I’m not going to break!”
“If I believed that were true, I’d take you upstairs right now and keep you in bed for the rest of our leave time. I can wait, John. I think it’s a good sign that you’re getting impatient, that you’ve been asking for more. You’ve given me more already.” Evan stroked a finger over John’s lips and smiled.
John shuddered at the memory of the handful of times he and Evan had been slightly intimate. “That was only the once,” he complained.
“Twice,” Evan countered, then clapped his hands together. “Okay, talking time is over. I want you to pose for me.”
“Huh?”
Evan stood up and started walking back to his easel. He picked up his sketchbook. “I haven’t had a live model in ages. Pose for me.”
It seemed a simple enough request. “What do I do?”
“Take off your clothes.”
In the backyard, in broad daylight? “Here?”
“We’re alone, no one can see into the garden. And if they can, shame on them for looking.” Evan grinned at him.
Feeling very self conscious, John began to unbutton his shirt. He took that off first, then kicked off his sneakers and bent over to pull at his socks, he wiggled his bare toes. He was straightening up when Evan called, “Hold that, just like that.”
He held still, something he was very good at, after years of training as an under for impatient overs. The scratch of Evan’s pencil on the paper was a soothing sound and he let himself be lulled by it.
“Good. Okay, now stretch out on the blanket and look at me.” Evan came over and arranged his foot so that one knee was up, then moved his arm around to cradle his head. “Just like that.”
It was quite comfortable. “I could fall asleep like this,” John told him after Evan resumed drawing.
“Then have a nap, I don’t mind, I’ll finish my sketch and then go back to the flowers.”
The warmth of the early summer sun on his skin and the lull of Evan’s soft sounds as he worked did indeed calm him and he drifted off to sleep.
~*~
Evan had set aside the sketch pad and was working in oils, painting the hydrangeas, as he had promised his mom he would do for her at some point. He smiled as John snorted in his sleep, he was out cold, sprawled on his stomach on the blanket. Evan had sprayed him with sunblock earlier to keep him from burning.
He heard the screen door close and looked over to see his mom coming out. She smiled and nodded in approval as she saw what he was painting. Then she looked over at John and smiled again. “Someone is relaxed,” she said quietly, as she got to Evan’s side.
“Finally,” Evan replied.
Heather clucked her tongue. “He’ll burn.” She walked over to the blanket and picked up John’s shirt, shaking it out and moving to spread it over his bare back. Evan heard her gasp in shock. He had forgotten about John’s scrs and had not thought to warn her. She looked over at him, and then back at John. She spread the shirt carefully over John and then rushed back to Evan’s side. “Evan?”
He set his brush and palette down and took her elbow, leading her back to the kitchen steps, where they could talk out of John’s hearing range, should he wake. He sat on the top step and patted the spot beside him. Her expression was troubled as she looked across the yard at John. “Who did that to him?”
“His last over.”
“Heavens, Evan, how could someone do that to another person? Especially one given into their keeping?” Heather had been his father’s over, she had instilled very firm ideas of how an over should treat an under. “No wonder he has panic attacks. Evan, however did you end up taking him on? How did you meet him?”
He sighed. “The base psychiatrist, Kate Heightmeyer, came to me six months ago and told me about John’s case. He was being released from the military hospital and they were looking to place him on our base, to get him out of the situation he was in. The team working with him felt he needed an over that could be patient and work with him to get him back on his feet.”
“It was a bad situation?”
“Very, he was in the hospital for months recovering. He hasn’t told us how he ended up with him, but he was kept against his will.”
“Has this former over of his been punished?”
Evan rubbed the back of his neck and blushed slightly. “Well, he has now. We ran into him before we came out here.”
“What did you do?”
“He might have run into my fists a few times.”
“I don’t condone violence as a rule. But good. He’s been burned, Evan, I know burn scars when I see them.”
“And cut, and whipped.” He patted her knee as she worried at her lower lip. “He’s getting better, Mom. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to sit at the table and eat with strangers, he would have flipped out being touched and hugged. He wouldn’t have engaged anyone in conversations. When he first came to me, he was non-verbal.”
“Now I’ll worry for you, Ev.” She touched his arm and stared into his face. “How can you have a fulfilling relationship if he’s so... broken? When you got here, I thought this was a love match, I thought John was just shy.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “He is shy. It might not have started as one, but this is a good match, Mom. I look at it this way, I didn’t have anyone before. There was never time, and especially not with my current posting. An no, I can’t tell you where it is. Now I have John. I care about him, and I think he cares for me too.”
“That poor boy.”
“He doesn’t need pity, Mom. He needs understanding and patience, but not pity. I have a feeling there’s going to be a scene before we leave. He tends to act out when he wants something, to push to get a reaction. He was a little off kilter earlier, and I’m not sure if there’s going to be a flare up before he gets settled again. He deals with things a little differently than the rest of us.”
She glanced over towards John again, sleeping peacefully on the picnic blanket. “It looks like you had a nice day out here.”
“We did. Thanks for the picnic lunch.”
“You’re welcome. I’m making pot roast and potatoes for dinner.”
He made a yummy sound and then rubbed his belly as she stood and opened the door. “Is there anything I shouldn’t say or do, Evan?” she asked from the doorway, looking over at John, who was beginning to stir.
“Nope. Just be yourself, please. Don’t treat him any differently than you would any other under I might have brought home. He would be embarrassed if he knew I told you what I did. Let him come to you with it. He volunteered about the panic attacks the other day, I didn’t expect that.” She nodded and went inside and he walked back along the stone path that he had put in twelve years earlier as a gift for his mother and resumed his painting.
John woke and sat up and Evan could sense him watching him paint. “Nice nap?”
“Yeah,” he replied, pulling his shirt on and not meeting Evan’s eyes.
“Did you bring a book outside with you?” he knew John had one, he’d seen it. When John held it up and waggled it, Evan smiled. “Read to me,” he said, forcing John to speak and not withdraw into silence. The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, with John reading aloud and Evan painting.
Dinner passed without incident, though John was very quiet and avoided Evan’s eye. He answered the questions Heather put to him, but offered nothing on his own. Evan decided it might be best to cut the pending tantrum off at the pass and so he announced that they would be going up to bed early.
He showered first and waited for John to come out, sitting on the bed in his boxers, weighing out his options. When John came back into the bedroom and went to the drawer for sleep bottoms and a shirt, Evan said, “Leave them, come over here.”
He saw John’s hand still in midair at his tone. Then he turned and slowly walked over, head down. He stood beside the bed as Evan sat there with his legs over the side. “I’ve learned a few things over the past few months too, John. I know when you’re tensing up and when you’re about to have a tantrum.”
John’s head came up, but he put it right down again.
“I won’t have an incident here, not in my mom’s house.” He hid his smile behind his hand as he saw John’s reaction to his stern tone. Rather than tensing up, John was doing the opposite, he was relaxing. Kate told him he was soft with John, undemanding, and that eventually, he might have a problem if he couldn’t be what John needed as he recuperated. John had been attracted to dominant, arrogant, demanding overs in the past because while they were often too much for him, they fed some need that John had.
“Are you planning on misbehaving?” Evan asked.
“No, sir,” John replied. “But sometimes I can’t help myself, it just happens.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Evan said, “And what sort of thing might ‘just happen’ now, if you were to hazard a guess?” He wondered if John would take the out he was offering him. He still could not ask for what he needed, but he might let himself be manipulated into telling Evan.
“The bathroom might get messed up,” John whispered.
“As in shaving cream and soap and toothpaste all over the place messed up?”
John nodded, “Yes sir.”
“Why don’t we say that has happened, for the sake of argument, since a deed considered is halfway to done?” Evan rested his hands on his knees and waited for John’s reaction.
John looked up at him, tilting his head. “Sir?”
“We’ll save the hassle of the cleanup this way. Less stress and my mom doesn’t need to see or hear anything.”
“Okayyyy.”
“Now, what do you think a proper punishment is for messing up the bathroom at a house where we are guests?” He knew not to leave it too open or John would shut down. He needed to give him choices. “I think standing in the corner. Or writing an apology letter. Or sleeping on the floor alone. Or a good hard spanking. Which do you think?” This was the closest they’d get to John asking, at least for now.
John didn’t hesitate, and Evan almost laughed at the speed with which he answered. “Spanking.” It was exactly what he had expected. He also knew that this wasn’t entirely about John’s need to be punished. There was a strong sexual element to this as well.
“Take the towel off and get over my knees,” he ordered. As he thought, when John removed the towel, Evan could see that he was hard. John arranged himself in such a way that his erection was pressed intimately against Evan’s thigh. He gave a swat to John’s bottom and he heard John sigh. This was quite different than the first time he had spanked John, when it had been a true punishment and John had been embarrassed and hurt.
He landed a few more swats, pausing between each one to smooth his hand over John’s bare rump. “Such a naughty thing you are,” he said softly, landing another smack. He grasped one cheek in his hand and squeezed. “Admit that you’re naughty, John.”
“I’m very naughty,” John replied, his voice high and a little breathy as he hung down across Evan’s knees, his fingers to the floor for balance. After a few more swats, he groaned, “Need this.” Evan almost stopped at the admission, but instead pretended not to hear.
“I think you need to feel this tomorrow, to be reminded how naughty you are.” At his words, John pressed against his thigh and moved so that his cock rubbed against Evan. He brought his hand down harder, the slap making a sharp noise in the quiet room.
Two more hits like that and John grunted, “Harder... sir.”
Evan swatted him again and then made John stand. His lower lip jutted out in a pout because Evan had stopped. “You know this isn’t a punishment, don’t you?” After a few moments, John nodded. “You like this.” Again, John nodded reluctantly. Evan grasped his arm and pulled him down, then kissed him hard on the lips and released him. “Do you want more?”
He didn’t think John would answer, but he was surprised. “Please, sir. Don’t stop.”
Evan stood and went to the armchair in the corner and dropped the towel John had been wearing over it. “Bend over the arm. I want you to touch yourself while I’m spanking you.” John was blushing, but he did as Evan said. In this position, Evan could see John’s face in the mirror on the closet door. It was a little awkward, but he was able to position himself to spank John and also to watch him as he stroked himself.
“You’re so naughty, John,” Evan whispered, running a hand over his reddened ass. He continued to periodically land a swat as John stroked himself. Hohn was sweating profusely and began to grunt as he twisted his hand on his cock. He suddenly went still and then looked back over his shoulder at Evan for permission to continue. Evan damned John’s former overs and told him, “It’s okay, finish. I’m watching.”
Evan slid into the armchair and John knelt in front of him and pressed his cheek to Evan’s knee as Evan rubbed a hand over his head, scratching his scalp as he knew John liked. “I...” John whispered, looking up at Evan.
He caught John’s chin in one hand. “Go on,” Evan urged.
“I don’t know why I like that.”
“Shall I hazard a guess?” When John nodded, he said, “I think you like the feeling of being in someone else’s control. It’s part and parcel of your dynamic, why you identify as under and not over. When you’re being spanked like that, you have no way of knowing when the next swat is going to land, or how hard it is going to be.”
Blushing, John nodded, “I guess so.”
“Do you like the pain?”
John thought about it before he gave a nod. “I like the heat. It reminds me.”
“You like to be reminded. Collar, cock cage, heated skin, all remind you. That’s interesting.” Evan said, caressing John’s face.
John slid his hand up Evan’s thigh, and fingered him through the fabric of his boxers. “May I, sir?”
“Why?” He didn’t mind John touching him, but he needed to be sure it was for the right reasons, and not just a tit for tat thing.
“I want to watch you too, the way you were watching me.” The answer wasn’t what Evan had expected. He nodded and lifted his butt to allow John to pull his shorts off. John wrapped his hand around Evan’s erection and stroked him, all the while watching him. The rhythm was not what Evan was used to, but John soon had him sighing and thrusting up off the chair. He tried to keep his eyes open, to watch John, but when he came he tilted his head back and cried out quietly.
John let go of him when he had gone soft and moved up to straddle Evan’s thighs. He leaned in and kissed him, tentatively at first, then with more exuberance. Evan held his hips and kissed him back, enjoying John’s initiative.
“Thank you,” John whispered as he broke off the kiss and sat back, wincing as his butt pressed against Evan’s thighs.
“For?”
“Not treating me like glass.” His fingers tangled in Evan’s hair and he leaned in to kiss him again.
Evan nudged John to get up so they could go to bed. Once under the covers, John immediately scooted over and pressed against him. Stroking a hand over John’s back in the dark, Evan smiled as he heard him sigh contentedly. He pressed a kiss to the top of John’s head. “Thank you, John,” he whispered.
“For what?” John mumbled around a yawn.
“For trusting me, even if you don’t trust yourself.”
~*~
John heard Evan’s cell phone ringing and he rolled over to pick it up off the nightstand and handed it to Evan.
“Hello,” Evan yawned. “Yeah, sure I remember you. Hi. What? You’re friggin’ kidding me. No. Yeah, yeah, I get it. No, I understand.” He looked over at John and reached for him, pulling him up against him and hugging him. John liked when Evan was sleepy and lazy like this, with no tension in his body.
He couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but if it was something he needed to know, Evan would tell him.
“Yeah. We can be ready in fifteen. What? Why?” His arm tightened around John. “I don’t like it. Does it have to be...? Fine. Fifteen.” He clicked the phone off and hugged John with both arms.
“You sound mad,” John said, stating the obvious.
“Annoyed. Not at you. Maybourne is raising a stink. He filed assault charges. I have to go to the SGC and talk to General Hammond and maybe with legal and get this cleared up.” He kissed the top of John’s head brusquely and rolled away off the bed.
John got up and began to dress too. “John, look, I have to leave you here.”
“What?”
“That was Janet Fraiser, you remember her from Medical, right? She said things are a little crazy at the mountain right now. She doesn’t think it would be a good idea for you to go in.” Evan fastened his belt and sat down to put his boots on.
He hadn’t been separated from Evan in six months, not since the first day in Atlantis. “You’re trying to protect me.”
“Yes. That’s part of my job, remember? Keeping you safe. This is the best way I can do that, by not taking you into a hostile and volatile situation. They have something else going on there, something came through the Gate and they’re dealing with that too. I cannot keep you at my side there, not with what needs to be done. The safest place on the planet for you right now is here, with my mother.”
Evan held out a hand to him as he stood up. John took it and followed him along down the stairs. Heather was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, sipping coffee. “What happened?” she asked as she saw Evan.
“Maybourne filed charges. I have to go to the base and answer some questions. It will be fine,” Evan tried to reassure both John and his mother. He steered John to the table and made him sit. He crouched down in front of him and took his hands. “I will be back as soon as I can.”
“John isn’t going?”
Evan stood and shook his head. “No. I want him here. Look, they might, and I mean might, throw me in the brig for a while.” He handed his cell phone to John, folding his fingers around it. “I have friends at the base. They will call if anything happens and I can’t get right straight back to you, John.”
“They’re going to put you in jail for breaking Colonel Maybourne’s nose.”
Evan rubbed his cheek with his knuckles. “It will have been worth it. Kate’s number is in the phone.” Evan looked over at his mother, “Kate Heightmeyer, our therapist. If you need her, call her, John.”
“I don’t want to talk to Kate, I’m on vacation,” John tried to smile for Evan. He was so worried, and John didn’t want him going off thinking he was going to lose his shit. John stood up and hugged Evan. “Don’t worry about me. You need to think clearly, so you can talk yourself out of trouble. I’ll be fine here.”
“So proud of you right now,” Evan whispered, stroked his face and then kissed his lips. “I need to go. They’re sending a car and meeting me at the corner,” he said for his mother’s benefit. They were using the Asgard beam to pick him up and transport him to the mountain.
John walked to the door with him and waved when Evan got to the sidewalk and turned back to wave to him. He felt Heather move up beside him. She slipped her fingers through his and gave a squeeze.
“Did he really break a Colonel’s nose?”
“He deserved it. He’s a very bad Colonel,” John replied.
She tugged at his hand. “Come on and have some breakfast. Do you like cinnamon toast?”
“I don’t know, I never had it.”
“Then today is your lucky day!”
~*~
He kept the cell phone in his pocket all day, checking it every once in awhile to make sure the battery was charged and that he had not missed a call or text message. No one called.
When Heather found out John had not seen the epic, three film version of a classic series of books he had read as a kid, she insisted that they have a movie marathon. He was drawn into it and it distracted him from his concerns about Evan. It helped to pass the hours. They broke for lunch when the delivery boy arrived with a pizza Heather had ordered for them.
Evan’s sister Eileen, sans children, stopped in to say hello as Heather was making dinner. She sat at the table across from John as they had tea. “So where’s Evan?”
“He had to go to the base for a meeting,” Heather said.
“Oh?”
“He’s in trouble for fighting,” Heather said.
John took a deep breath. “Maybourne took the first swing. Evan will get out of it.” He was sure of it.
“Who is Maybourne?” Eileen asked, sipping at her tea.
“He used to be my over. But they took me away from him and he was pretty pissed off about it. He came at Evan, when we were at the hotel. He wanted to take me back. Evan stopped him.” John hadn’t really intended to say all of that, but Heather had been looking straight at him and he thought she should know the truth.
“They took you away? I don’t understand,” Eileen said.
How much was too much to say? This was Evan’s mother and his sister, the two people Evan loved and trusted the most. “He was abusive.” John held up a wrist to show the scars from the shackle. “He kept me chained up. The military found out and they removed me from the premises.” There was no disgust in Eileen’s eyes, as he might have expected. She reached across the table and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “When I got out of the hospital, they sent me to Evan.”
“A better place. Evan is a good man,” Eileen said, and squeezed his hand again before she let go. “So, he hit this Maybourne?”
“Broke his nose,” Heather said.
“And his jaw, four ribs and he had a ruptured testicle, according to the police officer that came to the room,” John added with a smirk.
The phone in John’s pocket buzzed. “Excuse me,” he said as he pulled it out and saw a text message from Kate. ‘Evan still with legal. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. Watched movies all day. About to have dinner. No worries, Evan will be fine.’ He typed the message awkwardly and hit the send button.
Heather was watching him with concern. “Text from Kate. She said Evan’s with legal and wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“Are you?” Heather asked, coming over to squeeze his shoulder.
“So far. I hope they don't keep him overnight, I hate sleeping alone,” he joked. Eileen laughed and kissed his cheek, excusing herself to go home and feed her sons and husband.
The cornbread was on the table and Heather was spooning out bowls of chili when the kitchen door opened and Evan came in. “Oh, thank God!” Heather exclaimed, and put the ladle down to hug him.
John smiled and got up to hug Evan too. Evan cupped his cheeks and looked into his face. “You okay?”
“I’m really good now.”
“Evan, sit, eat, tell us what happened.” Heather set another place beside John and Evan sank into the chair.
Sniffing at the chili, Evan smiled and spooned up a mouthful, making appreciative noises. “It took some doing, but legal got hold of those security tapes from the hotel and it held up my testimony and corroborated the police reports.”
“That’s good,” John said, buttering some corn bread and handing it to Evan.
“Yeah. When General Hammond had all the evidence in front of him, he was madder than a wet hen. He bucked Maybourne back down to Major, and threatened to make it Captain if he set foot on the base again. He can’t court martial him for what he did to you, but he strongly suggested that Maybourne consider retiring.” He smiled and ate some more, answering whatever questions he could without breaking security.
When the meal was over and the table cleared, Evan pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “This was part of what took me so long, I was in with legal getting it figured out and then the General had to approve it.” He slid the envelope across the table. “They reviewed the security tapes from Fort Hood. It was determined that you were taken from the base under duress. In light of that, and the evidence of what came later, they have determined that you were forced to resign and have reinstated your commission. You are currently on indefinite medical leave, Major Sheppard.”
John picked up the envelope and pulled out the papers within. His hands were shaking. “Evan, I...”
“When you’re ready John.”
“I may never be ready. I’ll never be strong enough.”
“I have faith in you. You will be, someday. It might just be that you’ll be strong enough to decide that you really do want to resign. But on your terms, when it is your decision.”
The End
Notes: Hurt Comfort Fill: Trust Issues
Cotton Candy Bingo Fill: Picnic
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis - AU
Prompt: Trust Issues
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5,970
Summary: While visiting Evan’s mom, Evan and John have a picnic, and stuff. Part of the Overs & Unders ‘verse
Content Notes: No standard notes apply
Benchmark +50
When Evan announced that they were going out into the garden and that he was going to paint, Heather had gone to the pantry and collected a cooler bag, then filled it with food. She handed John a throw blanket and told him there was a hammock rolled up in the shed, if he wanted to put it up to use it. Then she left for the day, she had classes to go to at the community college, where she was currently studying pastry design.
Kneeling on the ground, John spread the blanket out while Evan set up his easel where he could see the little bubbling fountain near the hydrangeas and started mixing his paints. John wasn’t very hungry, and he suspected that Evan would want to paint for a while before stopping to eat. “What should I do?” he asked Evan.
“What do you want to do?”
He shrugged and looked around the garden. Evan was supposed to tell him what to do, that was the way this was supposed to work. Evan was the over, he was the under. He rubbed his forehead and pressed his fist to his stomach. Why did Evan always put it back on him to make a decision? He started to hunch over when Evan was suddenly there, gripping his shoulders.
“It’s okay, calm down, I’m sorry, I forgot, being here at home.” Evan pulled him forward, holding him for a minute. “John, why don’t you trust yourself?” Evan whispered as he smoothed John’s hair back from his forehead.
“I make bad decisions,” John blurted, then hid his face against Evan’s flannel shirt. “I make bad choices.”
Evan sat beside him, his hands still on John’s arms, resting lightly. “Like what? Tell me so I can understand. Give me an example.”
He shouldn’t tell his current over about his previous overs, that had always been bad in the past, it had led to several painful punishments, in fact. When he talked about Maybourne during his sessions with Kate Heightmeyer with Evan present made Evan mad. John understood it wasn’t directed at him, but he didn’t like it when Evan got angry. “I shouldn’t say anything. I should just forget about it,” he shook his head, hoping Evan didn’t press for more.
Slipping the tip of his finger under the leather collar John was wearing, Evan gave a gentle tug, a reminder of John’s position as his under as he said, “Tell me about one poor decision you made, John.”
Surely there was one thing in his past that wouldn’t make Evan angry? “Let me think. Are you hungry? Your mom made this picnic for us.” He hoped food might distract Evan, but knew that was a foolish hope, Evan never forgot anything.
John thought about what he could say as Evan rummaged through the cooler bag and pulled out juice boxes for each of them and a bag of cut up vegetables. Passing a fruit punch to John, he crunched on a carrot and watched John expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He did that a lot. He waited, without pushing.
“I... I rushed into things, I accepted the first over that asked for me.” There, he’d said the hard part, he had started The sky had not collapsed, the earth hadn’t opened up. Spectres from his past had not materialized to punish him for speaking. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Tell me about it,” Evan offered him the bag of sliced veggies. John took a piece of cauliflower and stuffed it in his mouth as he thought about what to say. His over would wait patiently, John knew; he needn’t rush.
“I met him at the beach the summer I finished college. He was teaching surfing lessons, and I wanted to learn, so I took a few lessons. Then we went on a few dates. His name was Todd.” Not all his memories of Todd were bad. Not everything about Todd had been bad. Just most of it.
Evan pulled more stuff out of the bag and started making sandwiches. It seemed such an ordinary thing to do, to sit on a blanket and have a picnic on a warm day. “I don’t deserve this,” he whispered suddenly, drawing Evan’s attention. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Nonsense,” Evan said dismissively. “There isn’t anything you could have done in the past that would make me believe that, John. Short of murder. You aren’t, by chance, an ax-wielding serial killer? I’d really hate to wake up dead one morning because you snapped.”
“No, I’m not a killer,” John snorted and smiled and Evan smiled back and handed him a sandwich. “I rushed into things with Todd. I wanted to learn, I wanted to be a proper under, I’d waited until after I was done with school because I wanted to do it right. I thought he was a good instructor. I mean, he taught me how to surf, and we had a lot of laughs. I thought that would carry over into a relationship, that he would be as patient with training me as an under as he had been with the board. ”
“But he wasn’t,” Evan said when John fell silent.
He shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich. “At first it was okay. But then Todd started to get demanding and mean. He liked to hurt me, but he didn’t want me to make any noise.”
“Easy, John, you can stop telling me whenever you want to, don’t force it.”
“I’m okay. I want you to know what happened. He tied me up and left me like that, sometimes for hours. Once he left me chained to the bed for a whole weekend, he went partying and forgot about me. Then he punished me because I messed myself, and brought his friends in to laugh at me and see what had happened.”
Evan’s lips were pressed together tightly, he was getting angry. John wondered if he should stop talking. “That was so wrong of him, John. He humiliated you. He should have been protecting you.”
“He was very young. We both were. Too young for a serious relationship. I don’t hate him,” John blurted.
“No?” Evan cocked his head and looked at him.
“Uh-uh. He didn’t know any better. I made the mistake, I gave him permission when I took his chain around my neck and let him be my over. It wasn’t all bad, some of it was good. I wish that we could have stayed friends, but he was angry when I left.”
“What made you leave?” Evan’s hand was on John’s thigh, rubbing lightly, making circles.
“My brother got in a bad car accident. Todd was a real dick about it, he wasn’t going to let me leave to see Dave in the hospital. I had a glimpse of what things would continue to be like and I decided to break the arrangement, we didn’t have a legal one, it was all verbal. So I packed my stuff when he went to the beach and I called a cab and left. After my brother was well, I joined the Air Force.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I wonder if I had stayed if it would have been better. I wouldn’t have met the others, I wouldn’t have continued to pick men that were bad for me. I might not have ended up with Maybourne.”
Evan wiped his hands on a napkin and took the empty juice box from John’s hand. “Maybe. But we can’t live in the past, John. We can learn from it and move on. If not for all of that, I wouldn’t have met you. Do you believe that I would ever do any of the things Todd did?”
“No. I know you wouldn’t, you’re different than him, than all of them.”
“So there, wouldn’t you say that’s a good decision you made, agreeing to take me as your over?” John nodded and looked down at his lap. When he heard Evan clearing up the remnants of their lunch, he started to help, handing him the food and gathering the paper trash.
“I wish...” he bit his tongue, he hadn’t planned to say that out loud.
Evan had heard his slip.. “Wish what? C’mon, spill.”
He might be asking for trouble by saying anything else, this could go very, very badly. “Sometimes I wish you treated me... I wish you’d touch me as if I were normal and not made of glass, like I’m always just about to shatter.”
“I don’t want to rush you, John.”
“I’m not going to break!”
“If I believed that were true, I’d take you upstairs right now and keep you in bed for the rest of our leave time. I can wait, John. I think it’s a good sign that you’re getting impatient, that you’ve been asking for more. You’ve given me more already.” Evan stroked a finger over John’s lips and smiled.
John shuddered at the memory of the handful of times he and Evan had been slightly intimate. “That was only the once,” he complained.
“Twice,” Evan countered, then clapped his hands together. “Okay, talking time is over. I want you to pose for me.”
“Huh?”
Evan stood up and started walking back to his easel. He picked up his sketchbook. “I haven’t had a live model in ages. Pose for me.”
It seemed a simple enough request. “What do I do?”
“Take off your clothes.”
In the backyard, in broad daylight? “Here?”
“We’re alone, no one can see into the garden. And if they can, shame on them for looking.” Evan grinned at him.
Feeling very self conscious, John began to unbutton his shirt. He took that off first, then kicked off his sneakers and bent over to pull at his socks, he wiggled his bare toes. He was straightening up when Evan called, “Hold that, just like that.”
He held still, something he was very good at, after years of training as an under for impatient overs. The scratch of Evan’s pencil on the paper was a soothing sound and he let himself be lulled by it.
“Good. Okay, now stretch out on the blanket and look at me.” Evan came over and arranged his foot so that one knee was up, then moved his arm around to cradle his head. “Just like that.”
It was quite comfortable. “I could fall asleep like this,” John told him after Evan resumed drawing.
“Then have a nap, I don’t mind, I’ll finish my sketch and then go back to the flowers.”
The warmth of the early summer sun on his skin and the lull of Evan’s soft sounds as he worked did indeed calm him and he drifted off to sleep.
Evan had set aside the sketch pad and was working in oils, painting the hydrangeas, as he had promised his mom he would do for her at some point. He smiled as John snorted in his sleep, he was out cold, sprawled on his stomach on the blanket. Evan had sprayed him with sunblock earlier to keep him from burning.
He heard the screen door close and looked over to see his mom coming out. She smiled and nodded in approval as she saw what he was painting. Then she looked over at John and smiled again. “Someone is relaxed,” she said quietly, as she got to Evan’s side.
“Finally,” Evan replied.
Heather clucked her tongue. “He’ll burn.” She walked over to the blanket and picked up John’s shirt, shaking it out and moving to spread it over his bare back. Evan heard her gasp in shock. He had forgotten about John’s scrs and had not thought to warn her. She looked over at him, and then back at John. She spread the shirt carefully over John and then rushed back to Evan’s side. “Evan?”
He set his brush and palette down and took her elbow, leading her back to the kitchen steps, where they could talk out of John’s hearing range, should he wake. He sat on the top step and patted the spot beside him. Her expression was troubled as she looked across the yard at John. “Who did that to him?”
“His last over.”
“Heavens, Evan, how could someone do that to another person? Especially one given into their keeping?” Heather had been his father’s over, she had instilled very firm ideas of how an over should treat an under. “No wonder he has panic attacks. Evan, however did you end up taking him on? How did you meet him?”
He sighed. “The base psychiatrist, Kate Heightmeyer, came to me six months ago and told me about John’s case. He was being released from the military hospital and they were looking to place him on our base, to get him out of the situation he was in. The team working with him felt he needed an over that could be patient and work with him to get him back on his feet.”
“It was a bad situation?”
“Very, he was in the hospital for months recovering. He hasn’t told us how he ended up with him, but he was kept against his will.”
“Has this former over of his been punished?”
Evan rubbed the back of his neck and blushed slightly. “Well, he has now. We ran into him before we came out here.”
“What did you do?”
“He might have run into my fists a few times.”
“I don’t condone violence as a rule. But good. He’s been burned, Evan, I know burn scars when I see them.”
“And cut, and whipped.” He patted her knee as she worried at her lower lip. “He’s getting better, Mom. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to sit at the table and eat with strangers, he would have flipped out being touched and hugged. He wouldn’t have engaged anyone in conversations. When he first came to me, he was non-verbal.”
“Now I’ll worry for you, Ev.” She touched his arm and stared into his face. “How can you have a fulfilling relationship if he’s so... broken? When you got here, I thought this was a love match, I thought John was just shy.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “He is shy. It might not have started as one, but this is a good match, Mom. I look at it this way, I didn’t have anyone before. There was never time, and especially not with my current posting. An no, I can’t tell you where it is. Now I have John. I care about him, and I think he cares for me too.”
“That poor boy.”
“He doesn’t need pity, Mom. He needs understanding and patience, but not pity. I have a feeling there’s going to be a scene before we leave. He tends to act out when he wants something, to push to get a reaction. He was a little off kilter earlier, and I’m not sure if there’s going to be a flare up before he gets settled again. He deals with things a little differently than the rest of us.”
She glanced over towards John again, sleeping peacefully on the picnic blanket. “It looks like you had a nice day out here.”
“We did. Thanks for the picnic lunch.”
“You’re welcome. I’m making pot roast and potatoes for dinner.”
He made a yummy sound and then rubbed his belly as she stood and opened the door. “Is there anything I shouldn’t say or do, Evan?” she asked from the doorway, looking over at John, who was beginning to stir.
“Nope. Just be yourself, please. Don’t treat him any differently than you would any other under I might have brought home. He would be embarrassed if he knew I told you what I did. Let him come to you with it. He volunteered about the panic attacks the other day, I didn’t expect that.” She nodded and went inside and he walked back along the stone path that he had put in twelve years earlier as a gift for his mother and resumed his painting.
John woke and sat up and Evan could sense him watching him paint. “Nice nap?”
“Yeah,” he replied, pulling his shirt on and not meeting Evan’s eyes.
“Did you bring a book outside with you?” he knew John had one, he’d seen it. When John held it up and waggled it, Evan smiled. “Read to me,” he said, forcing John to speak and not withdraw into silence. The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, with John reading aloud and Evan painting.
Dinner passed without incident, though John was very quiet and avoided Evan’s eye. He answered the questions Heather put to him, but offered nothing on his own. Evan decided it might be best to cut the pending tantrum off at the pass and so he announced that they would be going up to bed early.
He showered first and waited for John to come out, sitting on the bed in his boxers, weighing out his options. When John came back into the bedroom and went to the drawer for sleep bottoms and a shirt, Evan said, “Leave them, come over here.”
He saw John’s hand still in midair at his tone. Then he turned and slowly walked over, head down. He stood beside the bed as Evan sat there with his legs over the side. “I’ve learned a few things over the past few months too, John. I know when you’re tensing up and when you’re about to have a tantrum.”
John’s head came up, but he put it right down again.
“I won’t have an incident here, not in my mom’s house.” He hid his smile behind his hand as he saw John’s reaction to his stern tone. Rather than tensing up, John was doing the opposite, he was relaxing. Kate told him he was soft with John, undemanding, and that eventually, he might have a problem if he couldn’t be what John needed as he recuperated. John had been attracted to dominant, arrogant, demanding overs in the past because while they were often too much for him, they fed some need that John had.
“Are you planning on misbehaving?” Evan asked.
“No, sir,” John replied. “But sometimes I can’t help myself, it just happens.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Evan said, “And what sort of thing might ‘just happen’ now, if you were to hazard a guess?” He wondered if John would take the out he was offering him. He still could not ask for what he needed, but he might let himself be manipulated into telling Evan.
“The bathroom might get messed up,” John whispered.
“As in shaving cream and soap and toothpaste all over the place messed up?”
John nodded, “Yes sir.”
“Why don’t we say that has happened, for the sake of argument, since a deed considered is halfway to done?” Evan rested his hands on his knees and waited for John’s reaction.
John looked up at him, tilting his head. “Sir?”
“We’ll save the hassle of the cleanup this way. Less stress and my mom doesn’t need to see or hear anything.”
“Okayyyy.”
“Now, what do you think a proper punishment is for messing up the bathroom at a house where we are guests?” He knew not to leave it too open or John would shut down. He needed to give him choices. “I think standing in the corner. Or writing an apology letter. Or sleeping on the floor alone. Or a good hard spanking. Which do you think?” This was the closest they’d get to John asking, at least for now.
John didn’t hesitate, and Evan almost laughed at the speed with which he answered. “Spanking.” It was exactly what he had expected. He also knew that this wasn’t entirely about John’s need to be punished. There was a strong sexual element to this as well.
“Take the towel off and get over my knees,” he ordered. As he thought, when John removed the towel, Evan could see that he was hard. John arranged himself in such a way that his erection was pressed intimately against Evan’s thigh. He gave a swat to John’s bottom and he heard John sigh. This was quite different than the first time he had spanked John, when it had been a true punishment and John had been embarrassed and hurt.
He landed a few more swats, pausing between each one to smooth his hand over John’s bare rump. “Such a naughty thing you are,” he said softly, landing another smack. He grasped one cheek in his hand and squeezed. “Admit that you’re naughty, John.”
“I’m very naughty,” John replied, his voice high and a little breathy as he hung down across Evan’s knees, his fingers to the floor for balance. After a few more swats, he groaned, “Need this.” Evan almost stopped at the admission, but instead pretended not to hear.
“I think you need to feel this tomorrow, to be reminded how naughty you are.” At his words, John pressed against his thigh and moved so that his cock rubbed against Evan. He brought his hand down harder, the slap making a sharp noise in the quiet room.
Two more hits like that and John grunted, “Harder... sir.”
Evan swatted him again and then made John stand. His lower lip jutted out in a pout because Evan had stopped. “You know this isn’t a punishment, don’t you?” After a few moments, John nodded. “You like this.” Again, John nodded reluctantly. Evan grasped his arm and pulled him down, then kissed him hard on the lips and released him. “Do you want more?”
He didn’t think John would answer, but he was surprised. “Please, sir. Don’t stop.”
Evan stood and went to the armchair in the corner and dropped the towel John had been wearing over it. “Bend over the arm. I want you to touch yourself while I’m spanking you.” John was blushing, but he did as Evan said. In this position, Evan could see John’s face in the mirror on the closet door. It was a little awkward, but he was able to position himself to spank John and also to watch him as he stroked himself.
“You’re so naughty, John,” Evan whispered, running a hand over his reddened ass. He continued to periodically land a swat as John stroked himself. Hohn was sweating profusely and began to grunt as he twisted his hand on his cock. He suddenly went still and then looked back over his shoulder at Evan for permission to continue. Evan damned John’s former overs and told him, “It’s okay, finish. I’m watching.”
Evan slid into the armchair and John knelt in front of him and pressed his cheek to Evan’s knee as Evan rubbed a hand over his head, scratching his scalp as he knew John liked. “I...” John whispered, looking up at Evan.
He caught John’s chin in one hand. “Go on,” Evan urged.
“I don’t know why I like that.”
“Shall I hazard a guess?” When John nodded, he said, “I think you like the feeling of being in someone else’s control. It’s part and parcel of your dynamic, why you identify as under and not over. When you’re being spanked like that, you have no way of knowing when the next swat is going to land, or how hard it is going to be.”
Blushing, John nodded, “I guess so.”
“Do you like the pain?”
John thought about it before he gave a nod. “I like the heat. It reminds me.”
“You like to be reminded. Collar, cock cage, heated skin, all remind you. That’s interesting.” Evan said, caressing John’s face.
John slid his hand up Evan’s thigh, and fingered him through the fabric of his boxers. “May I, sir?”
“Why?” He didn’t mind John touching him, but he needed to be sure it was for the right reasons, and not just a tit for tat thing.
“I want to watch you too, the way you were watching me.” The answer wasn’t what Evan had expected. He nodded and lifted his butt to allow John to pull his shorts off. John wrapped his hand around Evan’s erection and stroked him, all the while watching him. The rhythm was not what Evan was used to, but John soon had him sighing and thrusting up off the chair. He tried to keep his eyes open, to watch John, but when he came he tilted his head back and cried out quietly.
John let go of him when he had gone soft and moved up to straddle Evan’s thighs. He leaned in and kissed him, tentatively at first, then with more exuberance. Evan held his hips and kissed him back, enjoying John’s initiative.
“Thank you,” John whispered as he broke off the kiss and sat back, wincing as his butt pressed against Evan’s thighs.
“For?”
“Not treating me like glass.” His fingers tangled in Evan’s hair and he leaned in to kiss him again.
Evan nudged John to get up so they could go to bed. Once under the covers, John immediately scooted over and pressed against him. Stroking a hand over John’s back in the dark, Evan smiled as he heard him sigh contentedly. He pressed a kiss to the top of John’s head. “Thank you, John,” he whispered.
“For what?” John mumbled around a yawn.
“For trusting me, even if you don’t trust yourself.”
John heard Evan’s cell phone ringing and he rolled over to pick it up off the nightstand and handed it to Evan.
“Hello,” Evan yawned. “Yeah, sure I remember you. Hi. What? You’re friggin’ kidding me. No. Yeah, yeah, I get it. No, I understand.” He looked over at John and reached for him, pulling him up against him and hugging him. John liked when Evan was sleepy and lazy like this, with no tension in his body.
He couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but if it was something he needed to know, Evan would tell him.
“Yeah. We can be ready in fifteen. What? Why?” His arm tightened around John. “I don’t like it. Does it have to be...? Fine. Fifteen.” He clicked the phone off and hugged John with both arms.
“You sound mad,” John said, stating the obvious.
“Annoyed. Not at you. Maybourne is raising a stink. He filed assault charges. I have to go to the SGC and talk to General Hammond and maybe with legal and get this cleared up.” He kissed the top of John’s head brusquely and rolled away off the bed.
John got up and began to dress too. “John, look, I have to leave you here.”
“What?”
“That was Janet Fraiser, you remember her from Medical, right? She said things are a little crazy at the mountain right now. She doesn’t think it would be a good idea for you to go in.” Evan fastened his belt and sat down to put his boots on.
He hadn’t been separated from Evan in six months, not since the first day in Atlantis. “You’re trying to protect me.”
“Yes. That’s part of my job, remember? Keeping you safe. This is the best way I can do that, by not taking you into a hostile and volatile situation. They have something else going on there, something came through the Gate and they’re dealing with that too. I cannot keep you at my side there, not with what needs to be done. The safest place on the planet for you right now is here, with my mother.”
Evan held out a hand to him as he stood up. John took it and followed him along down the stairs. Heather was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, sipping coffee. “What happened?” she asked as she saw Evan.
“Maybourne filed charges. I have to go to the base and answer some questions. It will be fine,” Evan tried to reassure both John and his mother. He steered John to the table and made him sit. He crouched down in front of him and took his hands. “I will be back as soon as I can.”
“John isn’t going?”
Evan stood and shook his head. “No. I want him here. Look, they might, and I mean might, throw me in the brig for a while.” He handed his cell phone to John, folding his fingers around it. “I have friends at the base. They will call if anything happens and I can’t get right straight back to you, John.”
“They’re going to put you in jail for breaking Colonel Maybourne’s nose.”
Evan rubbed his cheek with his knuckles. “It will have been worth it. Kate’s number is in the phone.” Evan looked over at his mother, “Kate Heightmeyer, our therapist. If you need her, call her, John.”
“I don’t want to talk to Kate, I’m on vacation,” John tried to smile for Evan. He was so worried, and John didn’t want him going off thinking he was going to lose his shit. John stood up and hugged Evan. “Don’t worry about me. You need to think clearly, so you can talk yourself out of trouble. I’ll be fine here.”
“So proud of you right now,” Evan whispered, stroked his face and then kissed his lips. “I need to go. They’re sending a car and meeting me at the corner,” he said for his mother’s benefit. They were using the Asgard beam to pick him up and transport him to the mountain.
John walked to the door with him and waved when Evan got to the sidewalk and turned back to wave to him. He felt Heather move up beside him. She slipped her fingers through his and gave a squeeze.
“Did he really break a Colonel’s nose?”
“He deserved it. He’s a very bad Colonel,” John replied.
She tugged at his hand. “Come on and have some breakfast. Do you like cinnamon toast?”
“I don’t know, I never had it.”
“Then today is your lucky day!”
He kept the cell phone in his pocket all day, checking it every once in awhile to make sure the battery was charged and that he had not missed a call or text message. No one called.
When Heather found out John had not seen the epic, three film version of a classic series of books he had read as a kid, she insisted that they have a movie marathon. He was drawn into it and it distracted him from his concerns about Evan. It helped to pass the hours. They broke for lunch when the delivery boy arrived with a pizza Heather had ordered for them.
Evan’s sister Eileen, sans children, stopped in to say hello as Heather was making dinner. She sat at the table across from John as they had tea. “So where’s Evan?”
“He had to go to the base for a meeting,” Heather said.
“Oh?”
“He’s in trouble for fighting,” Heather said.
John took a deep breath. “Maybourne took the first swing. Evan will get out of it.” He was sure of it.
“Who is Maybourne?” Eileen asked, sipping at her tea.
“He used to be my over. But they took me away from him and he was pretty pissed off about it. He came at Evan, when we were at the hotel. He wanted to take me back. Evan stopped him.” John hadn’t really intended to say all of that, but Heather had been looking straight at him and he thought she should know the truth.
“They took you away? I don’t understand,” Eileen said.
How much was too much to say? This was Evan’s mother and his sister, the two people Evan loved and trusted the most. “He was abusive.” John held up a wrist to show the scars from the shackle. “He kept me chained up. The military found out and they removed me from the premises.” There was no disgust in Eileen’s eyes, as he might have expected. She reached across the table and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “When I got out of the hospital, they sent me to Evan.”
“A better place. Evan is a good man,” Eileen said, and squeezed his hand again before she let go. “So, he hit this Maybourne?”
“Broke his nose,” Heather said.
“And his jaw, four ribs and he had a ruptured testicle, according to the police officer that came to the room,” John added with a smirk.
The phone in John’s pocket buzzed. “Excuse me,” he said as he pulled it out and saw a text message from Kate. ‘Evan still with legal. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. Watched movies all day. About to have dinner. No worries, Evan will be fine.’ He typed the message awkwardly and hit the send button.
Heather was watching him with concern. “Text from Kate. She said Evan’s with legal and wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“Are you?” Heather asked, coming over to squeeze his shoulder.
“So far. I hope they don't keep him overnight, I hate sleeping alone,” he joked. Eileen laughed and kissed his cheek, excusing herself to go home and feed her sons and husband.
The cornbread was on the table and Heather was spooning out bowls of chili when the kitchen door opened and Evan came in. “Oh, thank God!” Heather exclaimed, and put the ladle down to hug him.
John smiled and got up to hug Evan too. Evan cupped his cheeks and looked into his face. “You okay?”
“I’m really good now.”
“Evan, sit, eat, tell us what happened.” Heather set another place beside John and Evan sank into the chair.
Sniffing at the chili, Evan smiled and spooned up a mouthful, making appreciative noises. “It took some doing, but legal got hold of those security tapes from the hotel and it held up my testimony and corroborated the police reports.”
“That’s good,” John said, buttering some corn bread and handing it to Evan.
“Yeah. When General Hammond had all the evidence in front of him, he was madder than a wet hen. He bucked Maybourne back down to Major, and threatened to make it Captain if he set foot on the base again. He can’t court martial him for what he did to you, but he strongly suggested that Maybourne consider retiring.” He smiled and ate some more, answering whatever questions he could without breaking security.
When the meal was over and the table cleared, Evan pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “This was part of what took me so long, I was in with legal getting it figured out and then the General had to approve it.” He slid the envelope across the table. “They reviewed the security tapes from Fort Hood. It was determined that you were taken from the base under duress. In light of that, and the evidence of what came later, they have determined that you were forced to resign and have reinstated your commission. You are currently on indefinite medical leave, Major Sheppard.”
John picked up the envelope and pulled out the papers within. His hands were shaking. “Evan, I...”
“When you’re ready John.”
“I may never be ready. I’ll never be strong enough.”
“I have faith in you. You will be, someday. It might just be that you’ll be strong enough to decide that you really do want to resign. But on your terms, when it is your decision.”
The End
Notes: Hurt Comfort Fill: Trust Issues
Cotton Candy Bingo Fill: Picnic