Originally Posted: Sep. 13th, 2006
Length/Rating: 100 words, PG-13
Pairing/Warnings: John/Elizabeth
Summary: Sometimes the lies you tell others are just mirrors of the lies you tell yourself. Written for sga_flashfic Bad Sex challenge. This is the drabble that kickstarted the Ashes, Ashes AU! 🙂

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They’d been dragged off one by one to have their minds torn away, whittled down by machines searching for secrets they didn’t have. One a day for four days… until only two remained in the tiny cell. That last night John startled when Elizabeth reached for him in the darkness.

“Please.” Just a whisper and suddenly the room was smaller. “I want something to hold onto.”

“But I don’t, I mean I–” because he’d believed there were rules you weren’t supposed to break.

“Then lie to me.”

And he did.

He was never sure, afterward, who he’d been lying to.