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alicambsTitle: Into your life a little rain must fall
Author: alicambs
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Stuck in a downpour, Jack and Daniel compete to describe their kinkiest dates. Sam and Teal'c listen, amused.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1, its characters, and any affiliated work are the property of all those various corporations that lay claim to them. This means Daniel, Jack, Sam and Teal'c aren't mine, unfortunately!
Word Count: 2897
Written in April 01
Daniel frowned, leaning back against the wooden wall, and settling himself on the earth floor. “Well I’ve been watching him for sometime, Jack, and I keep being reminded of the film, Rain Man”
Jack looked at him in disbelief. “ Come again, Daniel, the Rain Man?”
Daniel shrugged, appealing to Sam. “You know the one with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, I remember. He was an autistic savant wasn’t he?”
Jack groaned. What was coming next? “And so, Daniel, can we get to the point here?”
Daniel flashed him a look of exasperated amusement. “The leader, he kind of reminds me of him. Intense, poorly socialised, fixated on specific objectives yet obviously highly intelligent.”
Jack stared at him and allowed a grin to flicker through. “Kind of reminds me of someone I once knew.”
Daniel frowned, before slowly grinning in return. “Yep, well one academic geek, placed with a bunch of loud-mouthed jarheads, can appear to be poorly socialised, Jack.”
Jack’s grin increased. “I’m impressed with your grasp of military colloquialisms, Daniel, but it’s flyboys, and you damn well were a geek when I first knew you.”
He raised his hand as Daniel opened his mouth to respond. “Hold it, I’m losing the plot here. Autistic savant?”
Daniel nodded. “The leader,” he hesitated, and frowned, adding almost to himself, “well he appears to have taken that role, I’m not sure how much he actually leads here.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he talks and responds to us even occasionally gives us eye contact, but he doesn’t really listen. He’s filtering through a lot we say, and fixing on the points that he’s specifically interested in, then somehow we get led away, sidetracked and we’re discussing things on his terms, his interests. For example, our weapons fascinate him, but it’s more in the assembly and design than in their destructive potential.”
Teal’c, turned from his position by the doorway. “I concur, Daniel Jackson. He was absorbed by the structure and operation of my Staff Weapon when I permitted him to touch it. The fire power was of secondary interest.”
Daniel nodded. “Exactly, Teal’c.”
Jack observed the rain falling in sheets outside and sighed. They weren’t going anywhere fast, the ground was saturated and muddy, they’d be slipping and sliding to the gate, so he might as well let this discussion carry on, it wasn’t that they had anything much else to do. To be honest, the natives whilst appearing pleasant had generally ignored them despite Daniel’s best efforts. They had been about to admit defeat and return home when the weather had taken a decided turn for the worse. He was glad that one of the huts appeared to be vacant, and they could take shelter, whilst waiting for the downpour to ease off. He returned his gaze to Daniel. Might as well let their archaeologist talk, might even encourage him, anything to take his mind of the dismal weather and lousy mission.
“Okay, I catch your drift, but aren’t you doing what you are always telling us not to. Imposing our cultural values on other people?”
Daniel’s open-mouthed astonishment was a ‘Dear Diary’ moment. He watched in secret amusement as Daniel struggled to close his mouth sneaking a grin at Sam, who had made herself comfortable in the only available chair and had the look of someone waiting for action.
“You listen to me, Jack?”
“Some times, Daniel, when I’ve got nothing else pressing to do with my mind.”
“Well that leaves quite a lot of times,” Daniel muttered, yelping slightly at the kick aimed his way. He glared resentfully at Jack before standing up from his position on the floor, stretching his back, and resuming his place.
“Okay, Jack, you have a point, but what I’m offering is an explanation for the leaders, and possibly these people’s behaviour, that is within the compass of our own experience.”
“It’s not within the compass of my experience, Daniel.”
Teal’c stirred in the doorway, and entered the conversation again. “Nor mine, Daniel Jackson.”
A laugh from Sam made it obvious that she was agreeing with the two men.
Daniel sighed. “Well, okay, it’s not exactly my speciality, is it? But the friend I watched the film with was involved with autistic children, and after the film she told me that some of the details that Dustin Hoffman had injected into his performance were very similar to what she saw with the children she was working with.”
“Sounds like you had a real wild time with your dates, Daniel.” Jack said wryly.
Daniel frowned at him, then surprisingly grinned. “You could say, Jack.”
Jack’s interest was aroused. Daniel seldom played and rarely talked about his life before the Stargate. Information about Sarah, now unfortunately Osiris’ host, had to be prized out of him. Talking to Sam, and from surreptitiously checking out the photographs, Jack had to concede that she was one foxy lady. Previously held images of Daniel holed up in his ivory tower, studying assiduously, and socially isolated had been destroyed by the knowledge of her. Geek or not, the guy had taste. He grinned at Daniel.
“Give, Danny, lets hear all about your unsavoury past.”
Daniel smiled, settling further back into the wall. “Only on a quid pro quo basis, Jack.”
Jack laughed. “What, check out our kinkiest dates?” This could be fun.
Teal’c shifted his position by the door turning a quizzical eyebrow towards Jack. “Kinky, O’Neill?”
Jack shrugged. “You know, Teal’c, kinky, weird, bizarre, strange, peculiar, that sort of date.”
Teal’c’s habitual sombre expression lightened, he raised an eyebrow in some amusement, and almost smiled. “No, O’Neill, I do not know, but I believe I will enjoy finding out.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “What, nothing in the least bit kinky?”
As Teal’c shook his head, the smile still visible, he sighed. “I’m rather disappointed, that leaves Daniel and Carter.”
Sam snorted. “No, sir, I think that leaves you and Daniel.”
“You disappoint me, Carter,” Jack said solemnly.
Another snort of laughter dismissed his words. Jack grinned, made himself comfortable on the bare floor of the hut, waved them all towards him, and looked around with sudden mischief at the expectant faces. “Well,” he said conspiratorially. “I had this real hot date once, she was to die for, but I couldn’t handle this strange little quirk she had.”
He checked their expressions. Teal’c had a knowing look about him, Sam was intrigued but dubious, and Daniel, yeah Daniel was suspicious, but listening.
“She liked poetry, you know, the sort that goes on for pages.” He shuddered convincingly, surprising a quick gleam of sympathy from Sam. “Tennyson, Wordsworth, I hated daffodils for months, I can tell you.”
That aside had lost Teal’c, but Sam and Daniel were with him, expectant and curious. “Byron was bad, then she got into Beowulf. Quoted tracts in old English. Drove me nuts.”
He shook his head sadly, checking that the audience was still with him. “Liked to compose odes when we got all romantic, or look for a verse to reflect her feelings.”
He was definitely getting into this, it was fun and the audience was still there, although the suspicion on Daniel’s face had deepened. Sam was just enjoying it. “I was so keen on her I even brought a few books, you know, just so I could act knowledgeable when she said a few names.”
Sam nodded; Daniel continued to stare fixedly at him as if expecting him to pull a rabbit from a hat. Teal’c had relaxed, allowing the smile to remain, and was waiting for the hammer to fall.
“I’d even learnt some of her favourite passages, and knew about Kublai Khan. It was going so smoothly, until…” He had thought to add a little drama, but realised if he didn’t finish this soon he was going to screw up the punch line by laughing too much.
“She decided to throw a diner party, introduce me to her friends. Warned me they were all bookish, and tended to be into poetry. So I worked diligently, learnt a few pieces.” At Sam’s look of frank disbelief he added. “I was keen Carter, very keen.”
Sam dissolved into giggles.
Jack relaxed, waited for Sam to compose herself, then went for it. “Well the meal was good, I kept up with most of the conversation, we’d retired for coffee, it was that sort of dinner party, when one of them challenged us to match quotations to the situations. I felt somewhat dubious at this point, and said I’d sit it out. Diana kept pushing me to join in until I agreed. The subject was the dinner party, and I was sunk. All I could come up with was. ‘I’m a little teapot short and stout, here’s my handle here’s my spout, when I get the stream up, hear me shout, pick me up and pour me out.’ I even did the actions.” He demonstrated.
The reaction was all he could hope for, Sam fell to the floor in a fit of giggles, while Daniel opened his mouth, shut it, looked in blank amazement, then began to silently shake with laughter.
Jack looked at his two teammates with pleasure, then up to Teal’c, who had one of the biggest smiles that Jack had ever seen on his face. Their eyes met, and they exchanged warm glances of satisfaction as they took in the two giggling bodies on the floor of the hut.
Sam recovered first, still liable to collapse without warning. Daniel took more time, heaving himself up the wall of the hut slowly, inch by inch. His eyebrows still doing dances of amusement over tear filled eyes.
Jack sat back, smiling sweetly at the pair of them, waiting until Daniel had composed himself. “We’re waiting, Daniel.”
Daniel groaned. “Jack, I couldn’t top that if I tried.”
“Give, Daniel. You started off this conversation.” He ignored the tiny frown and headshake. “You complete it.”
Daniel sighed. “You’re sure you don’t want me to expand your knowledge regarding Autistic Spectrum disorders?” He looked slightly guilty. “Actually, beyond the title my knowledge is entirely superficial, I just sound good.”
Sam laughed. “Come on, Daniel,” she said cheerfully. “Surprise me, or shock me, I don’t mind. Just make it a bit more believable than the Colonels.”
Jack tried for pained hurt. “Carter, would I lie or embellish anything?”
Sam grinned. “Do you want an honest answer, sir?”
Jack grinned back.
Daniel rubbed his nose, looked at Sam and Teal’c, and returned his gaze to Jack. “This friend I was talking about, I met her at Cambridge. I went to England during my studies, spent some time at both Oxford and Cambridge University.”
He smiled. “She wanted to introduce me to the city and the people. So we did the punting, the bus tour, the visits to the museum, toured the Fitzwilliam, had tea at Fitzbillies.” He stopped grinning up at them, “You know, their Chelsea buns were to die for, I ate one almost every day, my friend had a thing for Custard tarts. Eat them with coffee and wow.” He smacked his lips in enthusiasm. “Anyway, I digress, we did the touristy type things. She then decided to introduce me to another aspect of her life. One that surprised me a little.”
He stopped, looking up at Sam. “Heard of Dungeons and Dragons?”
Sam shook her head, her grin widening in anticipation. Jack looked puzzled. Teal’c remained motionless, his head slightly tilted towards Daniel.
“Well, D&D is a role playing game. You have a Dungeon Master, roles, attributes, strengths, you follow?”
Jack frowned and shook his head.
Sam nodded. “I think Mark was into something like that, or he collected the figures,” she said a little uncertainly.” I remember him painting them. Ugly things,” she added, glancing up at Daniel.
Daniel nodded. “That’s more Warhammer models I believe, can’t be sure, but it’s not what I meant. You play D&D by the role of the dice Sam, a special die actually, and react according to the dangers, or the possibilities put before you. I rather liked it, got a good role as a Vampire actually.”
Sam choked. Daniel raised his eyebrow expansively and repeated. “A Vampire, Sam.”
The choke lengthened.
“We had some fun with her group, but the weirdest time was when we all met up in one of the colleges and enacted the game in costume. They have some very good fancy dress places in the city, my friend took me to one to get my outfit, I had a whale of a time checking out the all the extras, especially the fangs.”
He stopped and pursed his lips in thought. “I liked the cloak, could have brought that home with me quite happily, but thought that the hat was a bit ridiculous.”
He smiled cheerfully at Jack. “So there you are, bit of a let down. My strangest time and I suppose kinkiest date was spent in Cambridge, dressed as a Vampire, in a college, pretending to bite the throats of some pretty attractive women, having stakes and garlic waved at me, and generally letting my hair down. I rather enjoyed it to be honest.”
Sam’s chokes had degenerated into a splutter of laughs and coughs.
Daniel grinned at her. “The strangest bit though, Sam, was the next day. I had an appointment to see the assistant curator of the museum to discuss some artefact or other. I was shaking her hand when it dawned on me that I’d seen her before, the night before to be exact as I was attempting to bite her throat. Once we’d recovered from the mutual embarrassment, she’d been a bemused spectator, we got on like a house on fire.”
Sam wiped her hand over her tear stained face, took a deep breath, and shook her head ruefully at Daniel. “You and the Colonel really know how to tell them,” she informed him cheerfully. “Yours scores points for possible plausibility, the Colonel’s for downright fabrication.”
Daniel just laughed.
Jack tried, he tried very hard, but he just could not see Dr Daniel Jackson, civilian advisor, SG1 member and occasional pain in the butt, dressed as a Vampire. The image wouldn’t even come to mind. He shook his head in disbelief. “You played games?”
Daniel nodded. “You’re telling me you didn’t? Come on, you run around playing games in the military all the time.”
“That’s not games, that’s training.” Jack retorted indignantly.
Daniel grinned. “Define ‘games’, Jack.”
Jack ignored him, trading definitions with a linguist was not his idea of fun.
“What is a Vampire, Daniel Jackson? I do not remember reading about such things.” Teal’c interrupted their word play.
Daniel grinned up at him. “A reanimated dead person who survives by drinking the blood of humans, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded. “I have heard of such things on Chulak. They are in stories read to children to warn them to behave.”
Daniel looked interested. “How do they describe them?”
Teal’c frowned. “Like men with wings such as your bats.”
“Fascinating.” Daniel smiled. “I wonder if any other beings of myth and legend exist out here. If the ‘gods’ do, why not the demons?”
Jack could see the direction the next set of questions were heading, and being totally uninterested in a discourse on mythology looked for a distraction. To his relief he noticed that the rain had eased off.
“Time to go home, kids,” he said firmly, jumping up to his feet, and stretching to relieve the cramps. “General Hammond will be waiting for our report. Not that we have anything much to say to him.”
With considerable grumbling, and a great deal of groaning, Sam and Daniel got to their feet, checked out their equipment and readied themselves for the walk back to the Stargate.
They exited the hut with some relief, turning away from the orderly cluster of huts seemingly placed to give symmetrical view from wherever they were seen.
Their departure went unremarked, although a child moved forward and twirled around in front of them her eyes fixed on the top of Teal’c’s Staff Weapon.
Jack motioned them forward placing his feet carefully on the muddy footpaths, watching the child, bewildered by his team’s lack of ability to relate to her and her people. “So tell me, Daniel, if these people are so poor at social interaction how come there are children around, and fairly well cared for ones at that.”
Daniel frowned in concentration, his eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Now there you’ve got me, Jack.” He stopped for an instant, looking back at the settlement. “I only suggested that their leader seemed to display many of the features I remembered from the film. I’m not suggesting for a moment that any of his followers have similar patterns of behaviour. I can see they’re orderly and like symmetry,” he waved at the layout of the huts, “but otherwise they seem perfectly ordinary, somewhat reserved people, who just don’t seem to be in the least bit interested in conversing with us.”
“You’re just peeved that your natural charm failed to get us anywhere,” Jack said snidely.
Daniel ignored him, watching his feet carefully as he negotiated the path.
Jack grinned. “So, campers, know any good poems we can recite on the walk back?”
The end
Author: alicambs
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Stuck in a downpour, Jack and Daniel compete to describe their kinkiest dates. Sam and Teal'c listen, amused.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1, its characters, and any affiliated work are the property of all those various corporations that lay claim to them. This means Daniel, Jack, Sam and Teal'c aren't mine, unfortunately!
Word Count: 2897
Written in April 01
Daniel frowned, leaning back against the wooden wall, and settling himself on the earth floor. “Well I’ve been watching him for sometime, Jack, and I keep being reminded of the film, Rain Man”
Jack looked at him in disbelief. “ Come again, Daniel, the Rain Man?”
Daniel shrugged, appealing to Sam. “You know the one with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, I remember. He was an autistic savant wasn’t he?”
Jack groaned. What was coming next? “And so, Daniel, can we get to the point here?”
Daniel flashed him a look of exasperated amusement. “The leader, he kind of reminds me of him. Intense, poorly socialised, fixated on specific objectives yet obviously highly intelligent.”
Jack stared at him and allowed a grin to flicker through. “Kind of reminds me of someone I once knew.”
Daniel frowned, before slowly grinning in return. “Yep, well one academic geek, placed with a bunch of loud-mouthed jarheads, can appear to be poorly socialised, Jack.”
Jack’s grin increased. “I’m impressed with your grasp of military colloquialisms, Daniel, but it’s flyboys, and you damn well were a geek when I first knew you.”
He raised his hand as Daniel opened his mouth to respond. “Hold it, I’m losing the plot here. Autistic savant?”
Daniel nodded. “The leader,” he hesitated, and frowned, adding almost to himself, “well he appears to have taken that role, I’m not sure how much he actually leads here.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he talks and responds to us even occasionally gives us eye contact, but he doesn’t really listen. He’s filtering through a lot we say, and fixing on the points that he’s specifically interested in, then somehow we get led away, sidetracked and we’re discussing things on his terms, his interests. For example, our weapons fascinate him, but it’s more in the assembly and design than in their destructive potential.”
Teal’c, turned from his position by the doorway. “I concur, Daniel Jackson. He was absorbed by the structure and operation of my Staff Weapon when I permitted him to touch it. The fire power was of secondary interest.”
Daniel nodded. “Exactly, Teal’c.”
Jack observed the rain falling in sheets outside and sighed. They weren’t going anywhere fast, the ground was saturated and muddy, they’d be slipping and sliding to the gate, so he might as well let this discussion carry on, it wasn’t that they had anything much else to do. To be honest, the natives whilst appearing pleasant had generally ignored them despite Daniel’s best efforts. They had been about to admit defeat and return home when the weather had taken a decided turn for the worse. He was glad that one of the huts appeared to be vacant, and they could take shelter, whilst waiting for the downpour to ease off. He returned his gaze to Daniel. Might as well let their archaeologist talk, might even encourage him, anything to take his mind of the dismal weather and lousy mission.
“Okay, I catch your drift, but aren’t you doing what you are always telling us not to. Imposing our cultural values on other people?”
Daniel’s open-mouthed astonishment was a ‘Dear Diary’ moment. He watched in secret amusement as Daniel struggled to close his mouth sneaking a grin at Sam, who had made herself comfortable in the only available chair and had the look of someone waiting for action.
“You listen to me, Jack?”
“Some times, Daniel, when I’ve got nothing else pressing to do with my mind.”
“Well that leaves quite a lot of times,” Daniel muttered, yelping slightly at the kick aimed his way. He glared resentfully at Jack before standing up from his position on the floor, stretching his back, and resuming his place.
“Okay, Jack, you have a point, but what I’m offering is an explanation for the leaders, and possibly these people’s behaviour, that is within the compass of our own experience.”
“It’s not within the compass of my experience, Daniel.”
Teal’c stirred in the doorway, and entered the conversation again. “Nor mine, Daniel Jackson.”
A laugh from Sam made it obvious that she was agreeing with the two men.
Daniel sighed. “Well, okay, it’s not exactly my speciality, is it? But the friend I watched the film with was involved with autistic children, and after the film she told me that some of the details that Dustin Hoffman had injected into his performance were very similar to what she saw with the children she was working with.”
“Sounds like you had a real wild time with your dates, Daniel.” Jack said wryly.
Daniel frowned at him, then surprisingly grinned. “You could say, Jack.”
Jack’s interest was aroused. Daniel seldom played and rarely talked about his life before the Stargate. Information about Sarah, now unfortunately Osiris’ host, had to be prized out of him. Talking to Sam, and from surreptitiously checking out the photographs, Jack had to concede that she was one foxy lady. Previously held images of Daniel holed up in his ivory tower, studying assiduously, and socially isolated had been destroyed by the knowledge of her. Geek or not, the guy had taste. He grinned at Daniel.
“Give, Danny, lets hear all about your unsavoury past.”
Daniel smiled, settling further back into the wall. “Only on a quid pro quo basis, Jack.”
Jack laughed. “What, check out our kinkiest dates?” This could be fun.
Teal’c shifted his position by the door turning a quizzical eyebrow towards Jack. “Kinky, O’Neill?”
Jack shrugged. “You know, Teal’c, kinky, weird, bizarre, strange, peculiar, that sort of date.”
Teal’c’s habitual sombre expression lightened, he raised an eyebrow in some amusement, and almost smiled. “No, O’Neill, I do not know, but I believe I will enjoy finding out.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “What, nothing in the least bit kinky?”
As Teal’c shook his head, the smile still visible, he sighed. “I’m rather disappointed, that leaves Daniel and Carter.”
Sam snorted. “No, sir, I think that leaves you and Daniel.”
“You disappoint me, Carter,” Jack said solemnly.
Another snort of laughter dismissed his words. Jack grinned, made himself comfortable on the bare floor of the hut, waved them all towards him, and looked around with sudden mischief at the expectant faces. “Well,” he said conspiratorially. “I had this real hot date once, she was to die for, but I couldn’t handle this strange little quirk she had.”
He checked their expressions. Teal’c had a knowing look about him, Sam was intrigued but dubious, and Daniel, yeah Daniel was suspicious, but listening.
“She liked poetry, you know, the sort that goes on for pages.” He shuddered convincingly, surprising a quick gleam of sympathy from Sam. “Tennyson, Wordsworth, I hated daffodils for months, I can tell you.”
That aside had lost Teal’c, but Sam and Daniel were with him, expectant and curious. “Byron was bad, then she got into Beowulf. Quoted tracts in old English. Drove me nuts.”
He shook his head sadly, checking that the audience was still with him. “Liked to compose odes when we got all romantic, or look for a verse to reflect her feelings.”
He was definitely getting into this, it was fun and the audience was still there, although the suspicion on Daniel’s face had deepened. Sam was just enjoying it. “I was so keen on her I even brought a few books, you know, just so I could act knowledgeable when she said a few names.”
Sam nodded; Daniel continued to stare fixedly at him as if expecting him to pull a rabbit from a hat. Teal’c had relaxed, allowing the smile to remain, and was waiting for the hammer to fall.
“I’d even learnt some of her favourite passages, and knew about Kublai Khan. It was going so smoothly, until…” He had thought to add a little drama, but realised if he didn’t finish this soon he was going to screw up the punch line by laughing too much.
“She decided to throw a diner party, introduce me to her friends. Warned me they were all bookish, and tended to be into poetry. So I worked diligently, learnt a few pieces.” At Sam’s look of frank disbelief he added. “I was keen Carter, very keen.”
Sam dissolved into giggles.
Jack relaxed, waited for Sam to compose herself, then went for it. “Well the meal was good, I kept up with most of the conversation, we’d retired for coffee, it was that sort of dinner party, when one of them challenged us to match quotations to the situations. I felt somewhat dubious at this point, and said I’d sit it out. Diana kept pushing me to join in until I agreed. The subject was the dinner party, and I was sunk. All I could come up with was. ‘I’m a little teapot short and stout, here’s my handle here’s my spout, when I get the stream up, hear me shout, pick me up and pour me out.’ I even did the actions.” He demonstrated.
The reaction was all he could hope for, Sam fell to the floor in a fit of giggles, while Daniel opened his mouth, shut it, looked in blank amazement, then began to silently shake with laughter.
Jack looked at his two teammates with pleasure, then up to Teal’c, who had one of the biggest smiles that Jack had ever seen on his face. Their eyes met, and they exchanged warm glances of satisfaction as they took in the two giggling bodies on the floor of the hut.
Sam recovered first, still liable to collapse without warning. Daniel took more time, heaving himself up the wall of the hut slowly, inch by inch. His eyebrows still doing dances of amusement over tear filled eyes.
Jack sat back, smiling sweetly at the pair of them, waiting until Daniel had composed himself. “We’re waiting, Daniel.”
Daniel groaned. “Jack, I couldn’t top that if I tried.”
“Give, Daniel. You started off this conversation.” He ignored the tiny frown and headshake. “You complete it.”
Daniel sighed. “You’re sure you don’t want me to expand your knowledge regarding Autistic Spectrum disorders?” He looked slightly guilty. “Actually, beyond the title my knowledge is entirely superficial, I just sound good.”
Sam laughed. “Come on, Daniel,” she said cheerfully. “Surprise me, or shock me, I don’t mind. Just make it a bit more believable than the Colonels.”
Jack tried for pained hurt. “Carter, would I lie or embellish anything?”
Sam grinned. “Do you want an honest answer, sir?”
Jack grinned back.
Daniel rubbed his nose, looked at Sam and Teal’c, and returned his gaze to Jack. “This friend I was talking about, I met her at Cambridge. I went to England during my studies, spent some time at both Oxford and Cambridge University.”
He smiled. “She wanted to introduce me to the city and the people. So we did the punting, the bus tour, the visits to the museum, toured the Fitzwilliam, had tea at Fitzbillies.” He stopped grinning up at them, “You know, their Chelsea buns were to die for, I ate one almost every day, my friend had a thing for Custard tarts. Eat them with coffee and wow.” He smacked his lips in enthusiasm. “Anyway, I digress, we did the touristy type things. She then decided to introduce me to another aspect of her life. One that surprised me a little.”
He stopped, looking up at Sam. “Heard of Dungeons and Dragons?”
Sam shook her head, her grin widening in anticipation. Jack looked puzzled. Teal’c remained motionless, his head slightly tilted towards Daniel.
“Well, D&D is a role playing game. You have a Dungeon Master, roles, attributes, strengths, you follow?”
Jack frowned and shook his head.
Sam nodded. “I think Mark was into something like that, or he collected the figures,” she said a little uncertainly.” I remember him painting them. Ugly things,” she added, glancing up at Daniel.
Daniel nodded. “That’s more Warhammer models I believe, can’t be sure, but it’s not what I meant. You play D&D by the role of the dice Sam, a special die actually, and react according to the dangers, or the possibilities put before you. I rather liked it, got a good role as a Vampire actually.”
Sam choked. Daniel raised his eyebrow expansively and repeated. “A Vampire, Sam.”
The choke lengthened.
“We had some fun with her group, but the weirdest time was when we all met up in one of the colleges and enacted the game in costume. They have some very good fancy dress places in the city, my friend took me to one to get my outfit, I had a whale of a time checking out the all the extras, especially the fangs.”
He stopped and pursed his lips in thought. “I liked the cloak, could have brought that home with me quite happily, but thought that the hat was a bit ridiculous.”
He smiled cheerfully at Jack. “So there you are, bit of a let down. My strangest time and I suppose kinkiest date was spent in Cambridge, dressed as a Vampire, in a college, pretending to bite the throats of some pretty attractive women, having stakes and garlic waved at me, and generally letting my hair down. I rather enjoyed it to be honest.”
Sam’s chokes had degenerated into a splutter of laughs and coughs.
Daniel grinned at her. “The strangest bit though, Sam, was the next day. I had an appointment to see the assistant curator of the museum to discuss some artefact or other. I was shaking her hand when it dawned on me that I’d seen her before, the night before to be exact as I was attempting to bite her throat. Once we’d recovered from the mutual embarrassment, she’d been a bemused spectator, we got on like a house on fire.”
Sam wiped her hand over her tear stained face, took a deep breath, and shook her head ruefully at Daniel. “You and the Colonel really know how to tell them,” she informed him cheerfully. “Yours scores points for possible plausibility, the Colonel’s for downright fabrication.”
Daniel just laughed.
Jack tried, he tried very hard, but he just could not see Dr Daniel Jackson, civilian advisor, SG1 member and occasional pain in the butt, dressed as a Vampire. The image wouldn’t even come to mind. He shook his head in disbelief. “You played games?”
Daniel nodded. “You’re telling me you didn’t? Come on, you run around playing games in the military all the time.”
“That’s not games, that’s training.” Jack retorted indignantly.
Daniel grinned. “Define ‘games’, Jack.”
Jack ignored him, trading definitions with a linguist was not his idea of fun.
“What is a Vampire, Daniel Jackson? I do not remember reading about such things.” Teal’c interrupted their word play.
Daniel grinned up at him. “A reanimated dead person who survives by drinking the blood of humans, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded. “I have heard of such things on Chulak. They are in stories read to children to warn them to behave.”
Daniel looked interested. “How do they describe them?”
Teal’c frowned. “Like men with wings such as your bats.”
“Fascinating.” Daniel smiled. “I wonder if any other beings of myth and legend exist out here. If the ‘gods’ do, why not the demons?”
Jack could see the direction the next set of questions were heading, and being totally uninterested in a discourse on mythology looked for a distraction. To his relief he noticed that the rain had eased off.
“Time to go home, kids,” he said firmly, jumping up to his feet, and stretching to relieve the cramps. “General Hammond will be waiting for our report. Not that we have anything much to say to him.”
With considerable grumbling, and a great deal of groaning, Sam and Daniel got to their feet, checked out their equipment and readied themselves for the walk back to the Stargate.
They exited the hut with some relief, turning away from the orderly cluster of huts seemingly placed to give symmetrical view from wherever they were seen.
Their departure went unremarked, although a child moved forward and twirled around in front of them her eyes fixed on the top of Teal’c’s Staff Weapon.
Jack motioned them forward placing his feet carefully on the muddy footpaths, watching the child, bewildered by his team’s lack of ability to relate to her and her people. “So tell me, Daniel, if these people are so poor at social interaction how come there are children around, and fairly well cared for ones at that.”
Daniel frowned in concentration, his eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Now there you’ve got me, Jack.” He stopped for an instant, looking back at the settlement. “I only suggested that their leader seemed to display many of the features I remembered from the film. I’m not suggesting for a moment that any of his followers have similar patterns of behaviour. I can see they’re orderly and like symmetry,” he waved at the layout of the huts, “but otherwise they seem perfectly ordinary, somewhat reserved people, who just don’t seem to be in the least bit interested in conversing with us.”
“You’re just peeved that your natural charm failed to get us anywhere,” Jack said snidely.
Daniel ignored him, watching his feet carefully as he negotiated the path.
Jack grinned. “So, campers, know any good poems we can recite on the walk back?”
The end
