a combination of the prompt ' John hurt or in danger in a space elevator incident. ' (I have something much more whumpy planned based on this as well!) from chaoticeaglebananamug and 'John and Gordon and having stuff in common ' from scribbles97

The space elevator was perfectly designed for its purpose – getting one person to and from Five when it was in geostationary orbit. The cable that connected it could take four times the actual weight of any cargo it was ever going to carry. The capsule itself was triple walled against the trauma of both vacuum and re-entry. It had a flotation device for emergency water landings that double as cushioning for emergency land... landings.

All thoroughly tested, particularly today. An errant gust of wind when he was nearly safely docked had smashed the capsule - and John inside – into the side of the mountain overlooking the island. He wasn't hurt, at least no more than a little bruising from being thrown against his safety harness but there had been an overload of the docking system as the preliminaries had already begun. Nothing too serious, the module was still intact but the doors were malfunctioning: wedged shut and refusing to open.

John had been in there for three and a half hours at this point and by the looks of things Brains was making no progress on freeing him. Gordon had to pick his way through pieces of circuitry and tools and paneling to get close, Brains barely stopping to give him a nod of acknowledgment at his approach.

"How's it going?" He asked, leaning on the nearest railing.

"Not good to be honest" Brains sat back on his heals and wiped his brow. "I think the wiring is too badly damaged for the doors to be operational. It might be quicker just to take out the panel, though I would have to modify a laser cutter and even that might take another hour. I'm so sorry John, I should have thought about this and engineered it better."

"Brains, I've told you before, you did engineer it perfectly, else I would be smeared across the island right now. So go easy on yourself would you?" John's voice, transmitted from inside the elevator was tinny and tired, as well it might be. John had blown past his scheduled rest day by at least seventy-two hours even before he had spent half a shift stuck in there.

"Why don't you go get what you need to cut him out," Gordon suggested "I'll keep him company."

Brains didn't hesitate for a moment now a decision had been made, and thundered down the stairs to his workshop.

"You don't need to stay Gordon." John said, as the echos from Brains' footsteps faded.

"Sure I do. Who knows what trouble you'll get into if you aren't supervised."

"Trouble? Trouble? Gordon, the door won't open, the consoles are off line because Brains is tearing the electrics apart and even the damn harness won't release. You do know that there is literally nothing I can do in here, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do." Gordon said softly, sitting down with his back against the wall "that's why I'm staying."

John spent ninety five percent of his time in orbit, in the confines of a few hundred feet of corridors and tubing. His life was contained within walls at almost all times so you would think that he wouldn't have a problem with spending time contained in the space elevator. After all, it was just like Five, but smaller, right?

No.

It wasn't that John was claustrophobic – really not. But during one long sleepless night when Gordon had been digging through a cargo ship's worth of debris for pollutants John had confided that he didn't feel at all confined when up on the station. He was as free in space as he was on the earth and it was only during the transition between the two that he felt at all ill at ease.

And now he was literally trapped in there, cut off and held in. Gordon could empathise with that, though his experience with being trapped in his own machine had been decidedly more perilous. He knew John more than well enough to hear the tightness in his voice that usually only seeped out when he was most stressed with too many calls and not enough hands. To hear it now meant John was struggling with being downed when he should be walking – or floating – free, wound up tight with the need to move and straining against the impossibility of it.

He needed a distraction, but with most of the elevator's systems off line there was nothing in there, no reports to read, no data to analyse or EOS to talk to. Which is where Gordon came in.

"Tell me about that latest paper you wrote."

"What?"

"It got published somewhere didn't it?"

"In sixteen journals and four languages." John said, testy that anyone could forget that.

"So what was it about?"

"It's not really your thing Gordon."

"Maybe, but you've got an hour and my undivided attention. I challenge you to make it my thing."

"Thanks Gordon," John said softly, before launching into a very long winded summary of his latest breakthrough that Gordon tried his hardest to understand. After all John was usually the one who listened, he was owed at least this much in return.