Fic: Revelation of blood

[valandhir]

Revelation of blood
Author: Valandhir
Summary: Derek never understood until it was too late.
Pairing: Derek/Future!John
Rating: P17
Word count:  ca. 2000
Warnings: slash, character death
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, names or various other parts of the Terminator/SCC universe, they all are right to their respective owners. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

Author's note: Late night journeys are something I probably should avoid... they create plot bunnies. All this was written while sitting on a nightly bus station, waiting for a very late bus to arrive. I apologize for mistakes/errors and other problems beforehand.
 

 

Revelation of blood

The day that would make Derek finally understand begun as one of those many, dark and dangerous days of fighting. At O-fivehundert, about an hour before dawn he had met up with Liam and the rest of the infiltration team. Going after weapon factories was dangerous enough, but going in and deliver some virus that would disrupt Skynet’s systems required careful preparation. The chip with the virus rested safely in Derek’s pocket, besides two clips of ammo. Had anyone else ordered Derek on this mission, he’d probably told him to go and play hide and seek with the junkyard. In fact he had told something to that effect to Perry about five years ago. Skynet installations were places to blow up, not to upload some fancy software that would hopefully give Skynet the digital equivalent of a migraine. But this, this was different and be it only because Derek trusted John. Every single virus John had developed had shut down some Skynet operations or damaged them permanently, allowing the freedom fighters to move in, more easily. If Derek was quite honest with himself, it hadn’t needed that much proof for him to trust John. He just did. Period. Full stop. 

Striding through the tunnels under Serranno point, he already saw the team, preparing to move out. Liam was doing the checkover for Mac, the new guy. Derek didn’t like Mac replacing Eric, but he had no say in that matter. Perry had made that call and he had not asked for Derek’s opinion in that matter. Liam had suggested Derek take that whole matter up to Connor, but that was the one thing Derek could not do. Or rather he could, if anyone could bring a matter to Connor’s attention it was him, but all the same he would not do that. He had been very careful never to take advantage of the fact that John and him… that John and him were lovers.
Lovers, that was the term Derek felt uncomfortable with. True they had hit off shortly after the Century breakout. In fact, Kyle had dragged Derek all over to bunker 212 to meet ‘John Connor, the leader of the resistance’. Derek had grinned about his brother’s enthusiasm and gladly obliged. He had been surprised by Connor, he had expected him to be older, grimmer and less charismatic. They had hit off from the beginning, Connor, the man with the brains and the strategic genius to see what needed to be done to make a good dent into the junkyard and Derek, tough and ruthless enough to carry out any mission, no matter how mad, no matter how dangerous. They had begun to trust each other, to rely on each other, they had become something like friends. Not the easy going friendship Connor and Kyle shared, Kyle never got over his serious hero-worship for the man, but a silent friendship of two men, who shared some of the darkest and dirtiest sides of this war.

They had ended up in each others arms on Connor’s 30iest birthday. It had been in the beginning of another dreadful winter, one that should prove worse than the ones before had been. They were not lovers, Derek had thought at that time, they just ended up in each others arms on occasion. Nothing bad about it. There were times you just needed someone to hold on, to feel the warmth, to know you were alive, just to be able to face another dark day, or another dreadful winter. In those days when they were constantly on the move, no place to stay longer than a few days, no place to hide or rest for long, it was a comfort to have someone to hold onto.

In the year that followed, when they took Eagle Rock and freed Palmdale Work camp, when Colonel Baxter betrayed them to the machines, Derek became aware that it might be more, or at least it was on John’s side. He could see it in John’s eyes, hear it in his voice, in those precious moments when they were alone. It wasn’t that he did not care about John, he cared about him a lot, John was one of his best and closest friends. But he didn’t love him. Not the way John loved him.

He had thought about breaking off, backing out and telling John that they were not *that* close. He had been ready to do so in autumn. It had been the day the kid assassin had made that mad attempt on John. It was the first of many more to come. That kid had come within a hair’s breath to succeed were all other Skynet assassins had failed. Derek had killed that boy before he could succeed, but it had been a close call. Too close. And what was worse: it had an effect on John that no other assassin had ever had. If machines came after John, he grinned and lured them into the next available trap, if terminators came he led them on a merry chase that saw them reprogrammed and send against Skynet in the end, and if human traitors came after him… Derek sighed, John fought them and found it in himself to forgive them, to forgive their memory, that they had not been stronger. But that kid had been different. John could never forgive himself that he had been the reason for this kid to suffer and eventually die. He would never blame Derek for actually killing that boy, but he blamed himself to be the one Skynet wanted dead so badly. Whatever Derek had wanted to say on that stormy autumn day remained unsaid. Whatever his own feelings were, he wouldn’t be a rat-bastard and leave a friend, a lover in such a time. So, when they were finally alone, he had just held John close, been the rock to cling to, John needed.

The following winter had been a wretched one. Kid assassins, human traitors and new series of Centaurs were only the tip of the iceberg. There were days, and long dark nights, when Derek wondered if they were fighting a losing battle. He never said it aloud, he just took on the worst assignments, the most dangerous missions and whatever new plans John could come up with. He never again though about actually ending this thing with John. The resistance needed John Connor, the only man who had an inkling how to fight the machines successfully, and if John needed Derek, then so be it. Derek cared about John, they were friends and comrades in arms, it was enough.

During his imprisonment at the Mansion camp Derek’s greatest fear wasn’t the torture that would inevitably come, it wasn’t a slow death or any other abuse the machines could inflict on him: he feared they might try to brainwash him, like some of the other assassins and send him back to kill John. And no matter what they did to him down in that basement, there were things he must not give up, must not let them slip, no matter what the consequence.

The time after the escape had been the hardest in Derek’s life. Kyle was gone, nobody knew where and why. Nobody would tell him. He had wanted to confront Connor about it, to demand answers but Perry had seen to it, that he got no chance to talk to John. Not that Perry had an idea about him and John, for all Perry knew they just had been close not more. It had gone on for some weeks like that, the abyss he was drifting into getting a little darker and deeper each passing day. Many of Derek’s comrades attributed his recovery to a certain Australian girl from Perth. They had no idea. The day after recovering from the virus, Connor had found Derek. He had heard about the mission.

Derek had been shocked to say the least. John looked like he had not slept for weeks, tired, exhausted and… defeated. He had been glad to see that Derek was alive and well after the mission to the dead bunker. “I can’t tell you about Kyle, Derek – nobody can know. Not now, and maybe not ever.” Derek had wanted to lash out, to tell Connor that he owed him the truth but he had seen that look in John’s eyes. John mourned for Kyle, as much as Derek did, and whatever John knew did not make it easier on him. John had been Kyle’s friend and not lightly send him on whatever mission he had send him. Within one short second Derek saw himself reminded that he wasn’t alone in his grief. So he bit back all bitter words and drew his friend into a bone crushing hug. They both had lost Kyle, they both grieved for him. It had to be enough.

The ten months that followed Derek found himself more and more the anchor for John, the one thing to hold onto, when everything else came crushing down on John Connor. Most of Derek’s comrades thought that Jesse was behind Derek’s recovery and they never knew how wrong they were. Derek still mourned Kyle and missed him, but it was John that had brought him back from the suicidal slope he had been slithering down. He still would not call them lovers, but of what importance was this in times like these?
“Ready to move out, Derek?” Liam asked. ‘Anything okay?’ was the unspoken question. Derek and Liam’s friendship had begun on some infiltration missions and expanded to some real friendship fighting off human traitors and kid assassins. Perhaps it had been the quiet understanding that neither of them would lose sleep over killing one Skynet’s human tools. Liam knew about Derek and John ever since he had taken out an assassin that had surprised them asleep.

Derek nodded. “I’m okay, Liam. Let’s get running.”

A scream rang up behind them in the corridors of Serranno, followed by a series of shots and the dreaded shout “Metal!”. Liam cursed, drawing his plasma gun and raced up the corridor, Derek close behind him. Four enemies were slaughtering the guards on lab level. Derek and Liam fall into their usual battle routine, covering each others, while emptying the ammo of their plasmaguns on the metal. They get support from the other side, some of Perry’s people push through, using pyro-grenades on the bastards. The explosions rip the metal apart. Derek and Liam only wait long enough for the explosion clouds to fade then they race on, securing the entrance to the reprogramming facility. The security door to that room is open, and a body lies on the threshold.

The plasmarifle slips from Derek’s hands, cluttering on the hard concrete ground, when he recognizes the man lying there. “Medic!” He shouts before rushing over, kneeling down beside the wounded man, gently turning him around. The body is limb, when he turns him and the chest is a bloody mass, riddled with bullets. But it is the eyes, the open, broken eyes that tell Derek it’s too late. He has come too late. The machines have finally succeeded in terminating John Connor.

Cradling John’s body in his arms, a painful hollow feeling erupted in Derek’s chest. A pain he has never experienced before. Tears come to his eyes and he doesn’t try to bite them back, even as no tears in the world will ever wash away the pain he feels. Only here and now he knows with an absolute certainty that he had loved John Connor, had loved him with every fiber of his being. That he has always loved him, perhaps from the very day the met. Seeing the pale, dead face of his lover, blurred by the tears he can not hold back, Derek finally understood. He had loved John Connor but it had not been enough.