It Takes Effort To Be This Unlucky

by Raisintorte

"So in what universe was this road trip a good idea again?" John slumped in the corner of the tin foil lined cellar he was currently sharing with Cam.

"A nice parallel one?" Cam was sitting in the opposite corner, hiding behind a stack of broken-down cardboard boxes.

"Right. Can we go back to ours, please?" John rubbed his hands against his eyes and took a visual inventory of the cellar. There wasn't much there except tin foil walls and broken-down cardboard boxes.

"I would love to, but I think they might object." Cam pointed up to the ceiling with his finger as he spoke.

"Well, I think there's a lot they object to. The U.S. Government, hygiene, things that aren't plaid or flannel . . ." John looked around the cellar trying to locate windows, but for crazies, they'd done a good job of lining the walls seamlessly with tin foil. If he hadn't known where the door was, he probably wouldn't have been able to find it.

"You noticed the matching outfits as well?" Cam smirked.

"Yeah, it's kinda hard not to." The men who had unceremoniously dumped them into the cellar had been wearing matching Carhartts cover-alls, boots, and red plaid shirts. They looked like something out of a bad horror movie.

Cam glanced around, almost, but not quite meeting John's eyes. "It would have been nice if they hadn't taken our clothing."

"Yes, but then we would have been able to communicate with the mother-ship. And they can't be having that." John rolled his eyes and tried to arrange himself in a way that least displayed the fact he was naked. He could have stacked some boxes to hide behind but John didn't feel like moving. He wasn’t exactly too excited to get up and walk around with everything hanging out, even to find a more concealing location.

"Just our luck we got lost and the one place we stop and ask for directions, just happens to be owned by -" John paused for effect, "- conspiracy theorists who think we're part of an advance alien team sent by the government to prime the public for the invasion. I mean really, what are the chances?"

John had to laugh at that. Given what he had heard about SG-1, Cam seemed to have as much bad luck as John did in the having-things-go-right department.

“I would say, given our line of work – pretty high.” John said. He heard the boxes rustle as Cam shifted positions and poked around in them. "I noticed you just used we to describe how we ended up here. There was no we about it. You were driving.”

"And you were supposed to be navigating. Really, you can find your way around another galaxy, but you can't find your way through the mountains of Colorado? I guess you really do need your fancy little jumper with its built-in nav system to get around.” Cam said as he shifted down the wall to go through more of the box remnants.

"My navigating skills are just fine thank you very much. Your listening skills on the other hand . . ." John shrugged his shoulders.

"O-kay. You were reading the map upside down." Cam had a rather indignant look on his face.

"I was not!" John took offense to that, he was positive he'd been reading the map right. Well, almost.

"Yes, John. You were. So I chose to go the other way."

"Exactly!" John popped his hands in the air for emphasis.

Cam gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

"You chose to go the other way. Which is exactly how we ended up in Farmer-Few-Screws-Loose's cellar - Naked."

"Fine. But it's totally your fault we lost our clothing. You couldn't just stop the sarcasm for one moment. No. You just had to make a joke about us having transmitters in our shoes."

"I thought if I played along, they might let us go. It's not like you were doing anything useful"

"Playing along might have worked. You played right in!"

"Oh please. You were bound to lose your pants anyway. Carter told me to watch out for that."

"She did?" That stopped Cam's argument short.

“Yup. When I told her you and I were heading up to Jack’s cabin for some downtime she told me to watch out for your ever disappearing pants. There was also an amusing anecdote about SG-1 finding you handcuffed to a bed with your mouth full of Twinkie. Now that is something I would pay to see – and wow, that sounded better in my head.” John blushed a bit.

Cam cleared his throat awkwardly. "I figured. Alright, moving on - we need a plan."

"Yes. We do. I think we're going to need to feel around the walls for cracks or creases. I've been trying to pull the foil off, but it appears to be super glued on. I almost wish we could tell them that tin foil won't protect them against aliens. Not like they would believe us, but really, tin foil? So cliché!" John rolled his eyes and added mock emphasis to his words.

"I'm starting to think my entire life is one giant cliché. You take those two walls, I'll take these." Cam walked started feeling around on the wall behind him.

John started in on his walls. He had to try very hard not to look at Cam. He didn't know if Cam would appreciate him staring, but he really was a nicely proportioned man. John finished his first wall and moved on to the next. He didn't know how they were going to check the last foot or so before the ceiling (it was a surprisingly deep cellar), but they could worry about that later.

"Jackpot!" John turned from his wall, hoping Cam had found a crack of something and was almost disappointed when he saw Cam holding up a stack of burlap sacks. "I just found these under this box. We can put them on, and then we won't be so . . . naked."

"Given the number of times I've heard you've lost your pants, I'm surprised that you're so worried about being naked." John caught the bag Cam had thrown at him and starting fashioning it into a sarong of sorts.

"Twice! I've lost my pants twice. Twice is not always! Contrary to popular belief, I don't just walk about the Mountain pant-less. What, you aren't worried about being naked?" Cam sounded rather flustered as he cinched the sack around his waist.

John was working very hard to control his laughter. "I'm just giving you a hard time. And no, I'm not really worried." Cam gave John a questioning look, but John wasn't about to explain. If Cam couldn't figure out that John was attracted to him, he wasn't going to spell it out. Especially not in their current situation.

When Cam had invited John away for the weekend John had gotten the impression there had been something more behind the invitation than friendship, but in the event he was wrong, he didn't want to find out while they were locked in a cellar. Cam was friendly with everyone, so it was hard to figure out how to read the vibes he was getting.

"Okay, we should check out the top of the walls for windows or something. We're gonna have to give each other a lift up." Cam walked over to John, got down on one knee, and cupped his hands so John could step up. John balanced on Cam's hand and felt around the top of the wall.

"Nothing over here, and I have a feeling we aren't going to find anything else in this cellar. This? Is not good, I don't know what Frick and Frack up there are planning for us, but we've been down here long enough for me to start worrying." John started to hop down from Cam's hands, but his foot got caught on Cam's burlap sack and he landed on Cam in a heap.

He started to get up and Cam grabbed onto his arm. John could tell from the expression on Cam's face that he hadn't been getting wrong impression. John really didn't want to get up, but he didn't think he should stay sprawled all over Cam.

"As much as I'd love to stay here, I don't really think this is the position we want to be in when they come in to 'interrogate' us.'" John rolled off Cam and went back to his corner.

"Well, I'll keep that in mind for when we get out of here." Cam headed back to his and smiled at John.

"Yeah, well, we have to get out of here first."

"About that. I'm thinking if we position ourselves next to the door, when they come in next time we can take them out. If we fold that cardboard over, we can make it into a club. It probably won't hurt them, but it might stun them." Cam started stacking the cardboard and folding it together.

John started ripping up burlap sacks to bind the cardboard together. He was just about head over to Cam when he started to feel the beginnings of a transporter beam. "Oh, Thank God."

****

John rematerialized on the floor of the Odyssey next to Cam. He heard everyone laughing before he looked up.

"So, Cam. See you lost your pants again. Good job!" John saw Sam standing with the rest of SG-1.

"Haha, laugh it up. Not that I'm not grateful, but why did you beam us out?"

"Daniel has a new lead on where we need to go to find the Sangraal. We've been calling you for 12 hours, but you didn't respond. We had the Odyssey find your transmitters. You weren't within driving distance so we beamed you up. Colonel Sheppard is coming along." John felt the ship jump to hyperspace.

"Gotcha. Come on Sheppard. Let's find some BDUs." John stood up and started following Cam. He could see Cam's sack was starting to slip, but Cam was too annoyed to hold it up. It would be rather hilarious if it fell, but it probably not the best thing for Cam's dignity.

John looked at Cam as they walked out. "I wonder what Frick and Frack are going to think when they go back into the cellar and find us gone?"

"I don't know, but they are probably going to think something is going on when the Marines show up to collect my car." John could tell from the expression on Cam's face he was looking forward to hearing how well that went.

"Right. Don't envy those guys." John and Cam continued walking down the hallway towards the supply closet.

"Neither do I." Cam clapped John on the back, which was just enough movement to cause Cams burlap sack to fall down.

"You might want to fix that, I mean not that I don't appreciate the view, and all but I don't know if this is the appropriate time for us to get naked together again." John smirked at Cam and kept walking - he was fairly confident he would see Cam naked again in the near future.