sga fic: apparent horizon

title: Apparent Horizon
author: crimsonclad
rating: R
summary: It isn't until he gets the manifest that Sumner figures out that Atlantis is a suicide mission.
notes: This was a theory of mine for awhile. And it fits John, too, whether Sumner knows it or not. Oh, and Bates looks so much like a kid I knew in second grade that I gave him the same name.



Apparent Horizon

It isn't until he gets the manifest that Sumner figures out that Atlantis is a suicide mission, that none of them are coming back, not ever.

Markham, caught with a new recruit after six years of loyal service. Anderson, left to regret a vindictive ex who actually overnighted some incriminating photos to his C.O. Bates, whose used to smile too much, until some nosey tech intercepted a private and almost innocent email.

Colonel Marshall Sumner.

They were all in a special category: the group of men who were too good to send home with a discharge, but too queer to really trust anymore, and all of them stuck in a miserable limbo until then. Buried inside a mountain, they worked on a secret project because it kept them close and they were good at keeping secrets, but not great.

The Atlantis Mission had seemed like a gift, proof of regained trust, until he saw the list of blacklisted names. Poor Dr. Weir probably thought she was getting the best and brightest, not the men the military most wanted to permanently disappear. The fact that most of them were both was hardly a comfort.

Ford wasn't even gay, but he had tried to cover for a member of his unit, and that was close enough, apparently. Sumner didn't know much about Sheppard, which he didn't like. If they had to die together they could at least die with their own. He didn't need cocky strangers figuring it out and trying to scramble up the ranks somehow. Sheppard could have been there for the same reasons as everyone else, but the way he flirted with the women of the SGC made Sumner think he was really just a bad soldier, and that pissed him off.


**


The expedition was housed at the SGC longer than he expected, something about harmonic fluctuations and a Czech scientist who has having trouble with his visa.

Bates stopped by one night with a report about the status of the comlinks he had chosen-- a primary set and a back up, just in case. "Oh, and Colonel, if you want I can get the camera in your room turned off. I've gotten pretty familiar with the way the system feed works for this section of the compound."

"Turn it off?"

"A man of your rank shouldn't have to deal with such invasions of privacy. Probably just an oversight."

Sumner didn't bother to correct him.


**


It was the next day at 0930 that he figured it out-- Bates had been hitting on him, offering him privacy and company too, way to act like a kid out of basic there, Marshall. A month ago he would have shrugged, said 'bad idea' and Not Thought About It, but it had been twenty-nine days since they told him about his new posting.

Bates was glaring at some scientists in the mess when Sumner found him, wearing his important and busy expression. "Maybe later you could check on that problem we talked about, Sgt," he bit out, and Bates stared at him for a moment before nodding.


**


No matter whether he managed to hold out for months or years, that first moment back always felt the same. Desperate, biting kisses, hot eager hands and an almost palpable connection of yes, yes, me too, me, yes. He guessed Bates had taken care of the camera.

But suddenly he remembered where they were going, and he stopped. Put a few inches between them. Bates looked confused and a little terrified, and Sumner-- no, Marshall, put a calming hand on his waist. "This mission--" he started, but didn't know how to finish, say the rest.

"We're going to die, aren't we?" Bates asked, resigned.

"Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure that's their plan." They both stood there for a moment, barely touching.

"What do you want to do?" Bates asked finally, and Marshall almost laughed. He wanted to tell O'Neill, who was apparently as clueless as Weir about the secret staffing policies of this latest mission. He wanted to fight his way out of the mountain, guns blazing. He wanted the world to know who was going off to die, and why.

"We leave in a week," he said, which was hardly an answer-- but Bates got it anyway. His intuition was what made him such a natural for security, such a fucking treasure, a brilliant and loyal man who could have become anything he wanted, except for the one detail. Bates-- no, Joshua, Marshall remembered from the paperwork, Joshua reached for his own collar slowly, fingers sure and steady on the fastenings. He took off his watch, and the pale shiny slesh of his naked wrist shouldn't have been so shocking, so forbidden.

It was like no other military fuck Marshall Sumner had ever managed.


**


They had a week. A week to find out what it was like, touching without a deadline, meeting the eyes of the guy who was touching you back. They kissed almost shyly, Josh from hesitation, Marshall from unfamiliarity. The newest generation allowed it, but Marshall had come from the world where a kiss made you gay when a blowjob didn't, and he had never risked going outside to find out what it could have been like.

He was too old for a kid like Josh, but they were both dying in a matter of days, and it made everything else irrelevant. He had to beg for it, but Josh called him Marshall, called him not just by his name but by his first name, the one he hadn't heard in years. Each quiet hiss of it made his eyes roll back, each "god, Marshall, yes," was utterly foreign and perfect. It was their fucked up little honeymoon, bodies curved together in a concrete room buried deep in the belly of a mountain. Josh put his mouth places that had never even known a careful hand, and if Marshall jerked in surprise before relaxing with a laugh, Josh never seemed to mind.

They kept apart outside the room, in the mess, but Marshall felt a strange lightness in his chest when he heard someone say "Sergeant Bates," heard a now-familiar voice answer and thought Josh, Josh, Josh.


**


When he walked through the Stargate, Colonel Marshall Sumner was cradling his P-90 in his hands. He had bite marks on his collarbone and Josh's taste in his mouth. And when they got to the other side, the city came alive.

He knew the feeling.


**


The energy was running low and the city was old, impossibly old, but they had brilliant scientists and plenty of weapons, and Earth was already an unreachable memory.

Dangerous, snatching a moment in an intricate corridor, Josh's grateful hands on his hips-- but no one here would care, he was realizing. Dr. Weir's wariness about military would hardly endear her to its antiquated policies, and once his men realized the situation they'd be breathing almost identical sighs of relief.

"It doesn't matter here," Josh was murmuring, awestruck, almost unrecognizable from the grim soldier who had watched his scientists so carefully as they unloaded their instruments. "God, it doesn't matter. We're never going back there."

It could work, Marshall tried to tell himself, and was surprised to find how close he was to believing. The city loved them, was pulsing with a steadily growing affection already. Mostly for Sheppard, but the rest of them could still feel echoes of it, how lonely and forsaken Atlantis had felt all this time. She was positively basking in the warmth, humming as Marshall held Josh against her lovely walls and mouthed along his stuttering pulse. She would never betray a secret, never tell.

"We should go," Marshall said regretfully, brushing his thumbs against Josh's pinked cheeks. "Try not to look like I kissed you in a hidden corridor."

Josh rolled his eyes, but slid back into Bates almost seamlessly, heading for the gate room with a sturdy stride. Marshall followed, securing the perimeter, wondering at the high tripping rhythm of his heart. He was going to explore new worlds, help discover unimaginable technology, and have Josh anyway. He would have someone to touch and breathe with, and no one would report him. They reported to him, and if the Atlantis military was going to make a few civilized allowances, then he didn't think there was anyone to mind.

They had sent him off to die. Watching the wormhole shimmer into existence, he thought about chaos theory and the way Josh murmured in his sleep, and started counting down the hours before they could both come back home.