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There are a lot of deserted rooms in Atlantis. Carson has set himself the task of exploring them one by one. He has a few ground rules. He only explores by day and he always leaves a note in his quarters so if there was ever a problem he would be found easily.
He enjoys the solitude of his explorations. The Ancient gene he carries mean that doors open for him, lights turn on, and he is free to admire the beauty that the Ancients created.
It's a Wednesday when he finds the puzzle box. Not that the day of the week is important. The room he selects to explore is small, although the fact that one wall is entirely made of glass means it is flooded with light, and it seems a lot larger than it actually is. At first glance the room seems empty but once Carson has blinked away the after-images he sees that there is a small wooden box sitting on the floor at the exact centre of the room.
It looks almost exactly like the Japanese puzzle box his grandmother had owned. He had loved that puzzle box. His grandmother would hide sweets inside, a reward for him getting it open.
"It's exquisite." And in the time it would have taken Rodney to suggest that maybe picking up random objects wasn't the best idea, Carson had the box in his hands.
It is flawless. The wood highly polished and as smooth as silk under his hands. No obvious sign of an opening but he'll find it. Carson has no doubt about that.
When twenty minutes later Carson leaves the room the box goes with him.
■■■
He takes it to his quarters, places it down on his desk, and taps it lightly on all sides. Nothing. Of course this puzzle box has been made by the Ancients so it stands to reason that it won't be as easy to open as the ones he played with as a child.
He goes to bed that night, having completely failed to open the box. His dreams are filled with the box and what might be inside. In one dream he is showing the box to John. The soldier seems very interested in it. Then the dream morphs into something else. Carson and John in bed together, John calling out his name.
Carson wakes up with the image of John orgasming still in his mind. His dreams about Major Sheppard begun back in Antarctica. Carson has done his best to ignore them but they are becoming more frequent and much more intense in nature. So much so that he knows he blushes any time he has to speak to the major.
■■■
It is the memory of this dream that means Carson gets halfway to the infirmary before he realises he has the puzzle box in his hands. For a moment he thinks about taking it back to his quarters but that would take time and besides he might be able to work out how to open it while he is doing one of the mundane but necessary tasks with which his days are so often filled.
He puts it on a shelf in his office, glancing at it occasionally. The wood shimmers in the light and for a moment he thinks he sees the outline of a narrow rectangle on one side, a possible opening? But then Lieutenant Ford comes in complaining of a headache and the box is forgotten.
Lunchtime comes and in a similar way to what had happened this morning Carson finds he is bringing the box with him. He doesn't even remember picking it up. Still it will give him something to do while he is eating. Carson collects a tray, some food, and then finds an empty table.
■■■
On the other side of the room John is enjoying a leisurely lunch with Teyla and Rodney. Rodney as usual is holding forth on a subject only he is interested in, but John has stopped listening. He sees Carson come in but his brief hope that the doctor will see John and come to sit with him is extinguished when Carson finds a table of his own. He watches Carson put a tray down on the table. A tray which Carson immediately loses interest in, concentrating instead on a small wooden box.
John can't help but wonder what exactly it is that has Carson so fascinated. If only there were a way he could make Carson be that fascinated by him. John has been trying to engineer seemingly accidental meetings with Carson for a while now, but something always seems to happen to send those meetings awry. Usually something Rodney related.
"You could just talk to him you know." Teyla's gentle voice interrupts his thoughts and John tears his focus away from Carson.
"Talk to who?" John asks in a low voice. Rodney is still talking unaware that he has lost his audience.
"Dr Beckett of course. You like him don't you?"
John's initial reaction is to deny it but Teyla is a friend and maybe it's time he opened up to someone about just how attractive he finds the Scottish doctor. Decision made he is just about to reply when he hears Carson emit a startled cry.
He is on his feet and moving before he even realises. Carson is lying slumped across the table. The box he had been fiddling with lying open on the floor next to him.
"Carson?" John bends over the unconscious man and presses two fingers against his neck. Thank goodness there is a pulse. "What the hell happened!" He broadcasts his question to the entire room and then, carefully so as not to strain his back, he lifts Carson in his arms. "I'm taking him to the infirmary." He looks at Teyla.
Rodney is staring at the box on the floor. "I saw him with that yesterday. He told me he was trying to open it." Rodney bends down.
"Don't touch it," John snaps.
"It's just a puzzle box." Teyla scoops the object up. "Empty now."
"Carson got a faceful of whatever was inside." Rodney says but he is talking to himself as John is already halfway to the infirmary with his precious burden.
■■■
The medics who examine Carson won't tell him anything but he can see the worried looks on their faces, he knows something is wrong.
"John." Elizabeth is standing at his shoulder. "Teyla told me what happened."
"I just wish they'd tell me if Carson's going to be okay." Unconsciously John takes a step forward towards Carson.
"You've been here all night." Elizabeth's voice is sympathetic, soothing. He's being managed and he hates it. "Maybe you should get some rest."
"I'll rest when I know Carson's going to be okay." He wishes now that he'd been braver. If he'd told Carson how he feels maybe...
"Don't do that to yourself." Elizabeth puts a hand on his shoulder and he forces himself not to pull away. She takes a step back and looks at John, pursing her lips as though she's assessing him. Then she smiles.
"What?"
"If I find out how Dr Beckett is will you go and get some sleep?"
"Yes." He doesn't need to think about the answer. He doesn't want to leave Carson's side but he wants answers more.
Elizabeth nods and strides off. John turns his attention back to Carson. The man looks as though he is fast asleep. As far as John can tell the color in his skin is normal, his breathing steady and even. John rests a hand on Carson's chest. He shudders because this is the most he has touched Carson since he first realised he has feelings for him. Beneath his hand he can feel Carson's heart beating steadily. Everything to him seems normal. So why isn't Carson waking up?
John smooths the hair back from Carson's forehead. The man murmurs something but he doesn't wake.
"I spoke to Dr Nagahata. He says they have identified a residue inside the puzzle box. His best guess is that Dr Beckett inhaled the substance and that is what's put him to sleep."
"Let me guess," John drawls. "No one has any idea what the residue actually is or how to wake Carson up."
Elizabeth frowns. "That does seem to be the case. However Carson doesn't appear to have suffered any ill effects. He's healthy."
"Apart from the whole being unconscious thing you mean?"
"Yes, apart from that."
What Elizabeth has told him doesn't make him feel any better but a promise is a promise and so John goes back to his own quarters. He stretches out on top of his bed, boots and all, and tries to clear his mind. He has watched Teyla meditating, perhaps he can do something like that. He knows he won't be going to sleep.
■■■
He is roused some time later by a pounding on his door and then Rodney is in his room with a book, an actual book in his hands.
Groggy with sleep John pulls himself upright, trying to understand why Rodney and now Teyla are in his room. His thoughts go to Carson. "Is he---"
"Doctor Beckett"'s condition is unchanged," Teyla reassures him.
"Then what's going on? A Wraith attack?" Which would be worse? The Wraith attacking Atlantis or Carson dying?
"Look at this."
Typical Rodney, thrusting the book at him without even a single word of greeting.
John rubs a hand across his face. He is usually much better at waking up than this. He feels decidedly groggy as though he had received a very small dose of whatever has infected Carson.
"What am I looking at?" He can't focus on the page and he directs his question at Rodney.
Teyla answers him. "It is an Athosian book of fairy tales."
"Fairy tales?"
"Cinderella, Snow White." Rodney is brusque as though John is missing the point.
"I know what fairy tales are, Rodney." John frowns as he looks down at a pencil drawing. The subject is a princess, although she might not be a princess, she could just as easily be the daughter of a humble woodcutter. The girl is stretched out on a bed, an anxious looking man standing to one side.
"This is yours?" he asks Teyla.
"Yes."
"You're not seeing it, are you?" Rodney tears the book from his hands and holds it up in front of John. Rodney is tapping his finger against the page. "Recognise it?"
John grabs the book and peers at the part of the picture that Rodney was indicating.
"Is that---"
"It's a puzzle box," Rodney says, his voice full of triumph. "Like the one Carson had."
John looked at Teyla.
"In the story," Teyla begins in her gentle voice. "The girl, Alyssa, walks every day in the woods near her home. One day she gets lost and finds herself in a clearing that contains a small pond. There are fish in the pond and Alyssa feeds them with the remains of a loaf of bread. She falls asleep and dreams of the man she loves."
"The man she loves," Rodney says, "but she has no idea how he feels about her." Rodney raises his eyebrows and scowls at John.
"Thank you, Rodney," Teyla says in a voice that stays just short of sarcasm. "Alyssa wakes up and goes home. The next morning when she opens the door of her cottage she finds a puzzle box on the stoop outside."
John almost smiles.
"When Alyssa opens the box she instantly falls asleep. Nothing her father does can wake her. Eventually he appeals to the people who live in the village to help him. The man that Alyssa is in love with is one of them. He comes to the cottage and---"
"True love's kiss," Rodney says.
John looks from Teyla to Rodney and then back again. The woman smiles at him.
"You really think that's the answer?"
"There's only one way to find out." Rodney leaps to his feet. "Look, Major, it almost certainly won't work. But isn't Carson worth it?"
"Then maybe you should kiss him."
"Ha. In this case however it has to be you. You're the one Carson's in love with."
John isn't going to ask how Rodney knows that. Instead he follows Rodney and Teyla back to the infirmary and Carson's bed. He's not sure how he feels about kissing Carson. Obviously it is something he's thought about. Thought about quite a lot actually. It's just this isn't how he had imagined their first kiss would go. For a start in all John's daydreams both of them were conscious.
"There's no change." A nurse is hovering by Carson but he walks away after Rodney glares at him.
John's hand goes automatically to smooth back Carson's hair.
"Well?" Rodney’s arms are folded across his chest.
"Perhaps we should give them some room," Teyla suggests and John shoots her a grateful look.
He strokes Carson's hair again and then he bends down and presses his lips to Carson's.
"Did it work?"
John ignores Rodney. He is far more interested in watching Carson for signs that he is waking up.
"Maybe you should kiss him again."
It is then that Carson's eyes finally flutter open.
"Welcome back." John can't help but smile.
Carson's hand creeps to his mouth. "You kissed me?"
"In my defence it was Rodney and Teyla's idea. Something about true love's kiss."
Now it is Carson's turn to smile. "Aye, well I'm grateful, Major."
"I think we're on first name terms now, don't you?" John reaches out to stroke Carson's cheek. The blue eyes looking up at him are filled with emotion and John feels a lump in his throat. He has been so worried.
"Maybe you could kiss me again. I mean only if you want to." Carson is blushing and the sight is nothing short of adorable.
"I want to," John says and he bends down over Carson again. This time Carson's lips open against his and John tastes him for the first time. He has to remind himself where they are and he backs away from Carson more than a little reluctantly.
"Dr Beckett needs to rest now." The nurse is back again and since a quick glance over his shoulder tells him Rodney and Teyla are gone John doesn't think he will be able to get rid of him this time. "You can come back later."
"Oh, I will," John says. He is having trouble tearing his eyes away from Carson let alone leaving him.
"I can't wait," Carson says, taking hold of John's hand. "I'll be fine now. I promise."
"Okay." John knows that he will have to be content with that. And he leaves but not before he has stolen another kiss. John will come back later and then once Carson is back on his feet John fully intends to spend as much time as possible sweeping him off them again.