ficwize | FIC: Daddy Issues

Title: Daddy Issues:
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Prompt: Three as requested by

kneazles
Warnings: None, really, if you've seen the first movie.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Three Conversations John Connor Had with Kyle Reese that Messed with His Mind
Pairings: John Connor and Kyle Reese
Disclaimer: I don't own the fandom.
A/N: Written for June!challenge Day 11 at

fic_on_demand. Many thanks to

musesinspire for the beta.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

*************

(i)

"You're John Connor?" The dirty bedraggled man chained next to Connor on the Century Prison floor looked shocked. "I thought you were miles from here."

"Surprise." John answered wearily, but his eyes were skimming over the other man sharply, looking for whatever quality it was that drew them together in the time when he didn't know how they were really connected.

"I've heard about you." Kyle lay back on the floor, his eyes staring upward listlessly. "You're supposed to be the best at fighting the machines." He sighed. "But if you're caught, what chance do the rest of us have?"

John rolled his eyes. From the way Derek and his mother had always talked about Kyle, he'd expected to find a bad ass soldier. Instead he only saw some scared kid who was prepared to give up.

"Are you always this whiny?" John snapped, irrationally angry at Kyle for failing to be what he'd hoped he would be.

"Fuck you." Kyle looked over at John, his eyes sparking with irritation and John felt a moment of vertigo. Looking into his father's eyes was like looking into his own.

Shaking his head, he grinned. "Now that's more like it. I don't know about you, but I don't think I like the accommodations here. And I have no intention of staying."

Sitting up, Kyle looked at John closely. Whatever he saw in John's eyes, it must have answered the unspoken questions he had, because he smiled slightly. "What do you want me to do?"

The hope in Kyle's expression surprised John and he felt the first stirring of genuine affection. Hope was a hard quality to hold onto in the post-Judgment Day world. The man who had it could change everything. "You'll see," he whispered. "Soon."

*****************

(ii)

"You can't leave them there to die!" Kyle screamed in John's face as the older man forced the younger to flee.

"It's gone. They're all dead already!" John spat back, dragging Kyle along with him by force. "Your death won't help them and it'll hurt everything else."

Behind them, the machines mowed through their camp and the screams of soldiers fighting and dying split the night. "We can help them!" Kyle protested, as tears streamed from his eyes.

"No," John stopped long enough to haul Kyle in front of him and give him a hard shake. "No, soldier, we can't. Face facts and get your ass in line. We're running."

He wasn't expecting it. Kyle's fist hit John in the face hard enough that he saw stars and staggered back. The blow forced John to release Kyle, and the younger man stood there, disbelief and disgust warring for control of his emotions. "I thought better of you than this."

John spat blood on the ground and started forward, fisting his hand in Kyle's shirt and dragging him along. "Then you thought wrong."

Kyle didn't answer, but he obeyed and the two men fled the massacre behind them. That night, as they slept fitfully in a ditch, John didn't dream of Terminators and dying soldiers. He dreamt of Kyle and how the man who would one day be his father thought he was a coward.

*****************

(iii)

Around him, soldiers drank and sang and temporarily forgot that the world was ending. John stood in the middle, emotionless and untouchable. Thirty. He was turning thirty today. The math behind his real age versus his technical age made his head hurt and he shook it off.

He could see Cameron in the corner, watching over the festivities with a confused look on her face. He knew that it would lead to endless questions later, followed by a few "Thank-you-for-explaining" moments. That only made his head hurt worse.

To his right, he could see Derek and Kyle and the urge to go and join them was so overwhelming that for a second he nearly gave into it. He wanted someone to tell him that he was making the right choice - that when he sent Kyle back to the past in a week's time, something Kyle knew nothing about yet - that he was doing what had to be done.

"Happy Birthday, sir." The cheer ran through the room and John forced himself to smile and acknowledge it, although all he wanted was to steal some of the moonshine for himself and go back to his room and drink until he was oblivious.

He hated the person he had become. John Connor. The Great John Connor. The Great and Awesome John Fucking Connor. The cold hearted bastard who used people without a care or thought for their wishes, their needs, or their lives. It made him wonder if he'd become worse than the Terminators. They killed because they were programmed to do it. He killed because he thought he had some mystical right to screw up people's lives and free will.

The cup pressed into his hand caught him by surprise and he looked up to see Kyle smiling blearily at him. "Thought you might want this, sir. You're looking a little too depressed for the occasion."

"You're drunk, soldier." John replied, accepting the moonshine gratefully.

"Yeah, I am." Kyle grinned at him. "It's liberating."

"Is it?" John took a drink, grimacing slightly at the taste.

"Isn't there a saying about truth and booze?" Kyle shrugged. "Seems liberating to me."

John smiled slightly. "And what truth has the booze liberated from you, soldier?"

"That I'm glad I don't have to make the decisions you do. You get stuck with all the shitty choices." Kyle paused, thinking. "I'm glad I know you. I'm proud to work with you, sir. It's an honor." He grinned. "One day, I'll tell my kids about how the Great John Connor and I broke out of Century Prison Camp together. It'll be the stuff of legends."

The comment stunned John into silence for a moment, his eyes wide with surprise before they flooded with emotion. Blinking, he looked down and took a breath, regaining control of himself before he blurted out the secret he'd kept from Kyle for years.

"Happy Birthday, John." Kyle clapped him on the shoulder and then was swept away in the crowd.

"Thanks." John whispered to the empty space right in front of him. "It's an honor to know you, too.” The name he always wanted to speak died unspoken on his tongue.