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John hated it here. Cam could tell. It wasn't enough that he had his own gate team now, it wasn't the same. He was cycled through off-world missions with the rest of them and barely got through the gate. More often than not John had mountains of paperwork and rounds of endless meetings. Cam knew he hated every moment spent in a room full of suits. To be fair, most everyone knew. John wasn't exactly subtle.
After a particularly boring week, John had been assigned to training evaluation. Dealing with those only recently vetted to the program was only slightly less desirable of a duty than meetings. Cam had training evaluations the week before and knew how utterly annoying a set of young, arrogant officers could be. Rarely did the cream of the crop come with a dose of humility, that seemed to only come after being knocked around by life a few times. Cam idly wondered if he'd been that cocky when he was younger.
Cam wasn't following John around. Really. He simply happened to be in the vicinity when John let loose a tirade in General Landry's office. Cam heard John yell about 'untrained' and 'failure to strategize' and 'couldn't clear a perimeter at a playground'. Landry's voice wasn't clear, but his tone was firm. Uh oh. Cam thought, that wasn't a good sign. General Landry didn't coddle John like General O'Neill was prone to do, and John's recent attitude wasn't endearing himself to the man.
Cam decided to take action and headed towards the locker room so John wouldn't know he'd overheard anything.
Sure enough, John stormed into the locker room about fifteen minutes later. Cam caught his 'don't-start-with-me' look and ignored it. He promptly started talking about the weather and weekend plans. John did his best to pretend to ignore him, but Cam could tell he was listening.
“You want to go fishing?” John asked, trying to make sure he heard Cam right, “Since when do you fish?”
Cam shrugged. “It's kind of an SG-1 thing.”
John nodded and stared at Cam.
“What?” Cam asked, “You might surprise yourself and have fun.”
John shook his head and closed his locker. The SGC wasn't Atlantis, but John had grown accustomed to the stark grey interior while he waited for the brass to figure out what to do with Atlantis. He tried not to hate it and he wasn't sure what he'd do if he didn't have Cam around.
“And General O'Neill just lets you use his cabin?”
Cam smiled, grabbed his overnight bag and placed a hand on John's shoulder as they left the locker room. He knew that even with the repeal of DADT John was wary. “You worry too much, Sheppard.”
The drive to the cabin was uneventful. John sat back, listened to soft rock from the Mustang's speakers and enjoyed the scenery. Every now and then he caught Cam smiling at him.
They stopped at a general store that advertised cold beer, fresh baked muffins and live bait. “An appetizing combination.” John remarked, because he knew it would make Cam laugh.
Predictably, Cam laughed.
They wandered through the store picking up a couple days worth of supplies. John asked for a half a dozen of the muffins, because they really did look good.
“Aren't we going to buy bait?” John asked.
Cam shook his head as the clerk rang up their order.
The afternoon sky was heavy as they pulled up to the cabin. The car unloaded and the supplies put away, they sat on the rickety looking dock with a couple of beers and watched the sun settle in for the night.
They talked about everything. Their job, their teams, the direction the IOA might take in the future, what declassification would mean. They talked about sports and news and movies.
They talked about nothing. Silence stretched between them comfortably.
Cam leaned back, propped himself up on his elbows and John rested his head on Cam's thigh as he stared into the sky, startled at how familiar the moon hanging in the sky was.
John finally stirred. “So are we digging up our own worms in the morning? Those poles I saw looked pretty beat up, are you sure we're going to catch anything?”
“Nope.” Cam studied John's face, noting the lines of tension had begun to fade.
“So.... we're just going to sit on the dock and wait for the fish to jump into our laps?”
“There aren't any fish in the pond anyway, so it doesn't matter.”
“We can't fish if there aren't any fish.”
“Sure we can. We're fishing right now.” Cam pulled John back towards him. “Now get back here and out of my line of sight before you spook the fish.”
John leaned back towards Cam. “The fish that aren't there.”
“Right.”
-end-