Other People's Monsters, by Merry (Villains challenge)

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Title: Other People's Monsters
Author: merryish
Spoilers: None
Characters: John Sheppard, Daniel Jackson (gen)
Word count: 420
Notes: One of the things I like best about Rising is thinking about all the plausible conversations that we missed. This is just a tiny piece of one.
Summary: Once upon a time, somewhere in the middle of the beginning...



Other People's Monsters
by Merry

~

In the lunatic days before takeoff, or gate-off, or whatever it was they called it, the days when he didn't really believe a word of it and was just waiting to get slammed with the best punchline of all time, John actually managed to pick up a lot of information. All it took was a tiny little hint of sane, human skepticism, and Daniel Jackson started talking. He talked like he'd been saving it up for years. O'Neill said Jackson was a linguist and John believed it, because he seemed to have a special knack for getting three words in where a normal guy could fit only one.

He liked Jackson, partly because he was smart and partly because he didn't seem to give a damn about anything but information. John could relate. He didn't give a damn about anything but flying. Jackson might not be a pilot, but when he started talking and his hands started waving around (and O'Neill started rolling his eyes), there was a look on Jackson's face John knew from the mirror.

The really cool thing about Daniel Jackson, though, was that he was surprisingly easy to get drunk. One beer, and the guy was gone; John imagined they didn't let him off base much. Anything the official, top secret, completely bullshit sci-fi anthology reports didn't tell him, Jackson was perfectly willing to spill under the influence of alcohol and an audience.

"So these...goold, things." John leaned back in his chair, and eyed Jackson across O'Neill's coffee table. "They're not really people, right?"

"Snakes," Jackson said, gesturing with his bottle. The motion had a vaguely sinuous, snaky curl to it that made John's skin crawl. "Snake-heads. They go in through your mouth, or the back of your neck, and wrap themselves around your spine like a string of Christmas lights. Burrow into your brain. Suppress your will and personality and set up housekeeping in your body." Jackson took another pull from his bottle, then set it down very carefully, very precisely, on the coffee table. "After that, they usually start trying to take over the galaxy."

John thought about that for a minute. "But... just this galaxy, right? Not the one I'm going to."

Jackson blinked at him, fish-eyed behind his glasses. "Probably not."

"Oh. Well. Good, then."

Jackson met John's eyes with a little too much sympathy to be comforting. "Not really."

"Oh?"

"When the Ancients fled Pegasus for this galaxy, they considered it a refuge."

John's eyes widened. "Oh."

Jackson smiled kindly, and nudged an unopened bottle across the table. "Whatever they were running from... it was probably a whole lot worse."


~

end.

Comments

[sholio]

Neat! There is next-to-zero John & Daniel fic out there. I like the idea of John getting Daniel drunk and pumping him for information.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I think John and Daniel have some serious notes to compare in the area of "and I hang out with this lunatic because...?" =)

[celli]

Ha, that's awesome. I can just imagine the "oh shit" look on Sheppard's face.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

I think John's cursed.

Well... at the very least, I think John probably thinks he's cursed. =)

Yay, glad you enjoyed!

[cake-horse.livejournal.com]

Hee. I really liked this. Especially the pointing out of the similarities between John and Daniel, which I think are really there.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

Well, to start with, they're both cutie-pies....

...

I bet you meant something, um, not-shallow, though. =)

Glad you liked it!

[ratcreature]

"When the Ancients fled Pegasus for this galaxy, they considered it a refuge."

Bwah! That's great.

[merryish.livejournal.com]

*grin*

John just can't win, you know?

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

Nice! Excellent and creepy and I love that D'oh! moment of realization at the end.

[with-apostrophe.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like this - your summary drew me in, and your characteristations were spot on. I love that John recognises his passion about flying in Daniel's passion aboutlanguage and culture.

Plus, how could I resist a story which has the two hottest guys in sci-fi in it? Shallow? Moi? Damn straight!

[adannu.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh. You are SHINY.

[emeraldsword.livejournal.com]

I like this. Really very sweet, and I love the way John is just so confused and Daniel knows that and is being nice to him.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

oh, nice one. you always get the impression shep and daniel would get along, and there really does need to be more fic with the two of them.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic; there really does need to be more Daniel & John fic out there. I can see John responding to him much the way he responds to McKay, the way Jack responds to Daniel -- the kind of tolerant, you're-totally-crazy-but-I-could-learn-a-few-things -- and Daniel warming to a quietly intense audience. And you manage to touch on something that the show does such a piss-poor job of glossing over: just about everybody else has already had their introduction to the SGC and gate-travel. John comes in completely cold, with no knowledge of the past eight years. That's gotta be rough, and I wish they'd played on that more.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

AARRARGH!! It just STOPPED. There should be more!!!!

(also, I like! *g* Daniel as an easy drunk, the description of the description of the snakes, the idea of John hanging out with Jack and Daniel....maybe noticing that the General's hand along the back of the couch behind Daniel's head sometimes falls....

[skeddy-kat.livejournal.com]

Very nice. I especially liked the "kindly" way Daniel broke the bad news to him. That would be so Daniel.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

You! You are writing fic! Yay!

And I enjoyed this. Although I'm wondering a little bit about that pill...

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

ooh, ouch. Well done.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

Isn't Daniel just *so* helpful? :)I love the ending because I can just imagine the look on John's face!

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Very cool. & :-)

[niangao.livejournal.com]

Oh Daniel. You're so right, and so prophetic.

I really like this! Because hopefully someone imparted some SG-1 wisdom to John before sending him on his merry way to another galaxy as the second highest ranking officer on a very dangerous mission... and Daniel would be perfect for the job.

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

All it took was a tiny little hint of sane, human skepticism, and Daniel Jackson started talking.

Ahaha, that's totally true!

[unadrift.livejournal.com]

I can totally see the image: Daniel, the easy drunk. John, the captive audience. It never really occurred to me to think about the crash course John must have received on the galactic bad guys in recent history. I liked this, especially for John's *uh-oh* realisation at the end. Also, the title is awesome.

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

John's eyes widened. "Oh."

Nicely pithy reaction there. *g* I am deeply amused by the idea of Daniel as a really, really cheap drunk.

[leesa_perrie]

Oh, this is good. I love drunk Daniel (he's so cute) and the realisation at the end is great! Nice interaction between the two characters. Very well written.

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Oh, very cool. I love the idea of John getting some more background on the whole thing from Daniel.

[briar_pipe]

*wince* Good punchline.

We don't see a lot of these two together in fic, and it's a darn shame. They'd probably get along like a house on fire.

Oh, just caught this: across O'Neill's coffee table. John gets Daniel drunk at Jack's house? I think I love you. *g*

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Oh. Yes.

(And, and Daniel! And John!)

...might you perhaps at some point be inspired to write some more?

[lastscorpion.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's just beautiful! I am cackling with glee at how terrific that ending was!

[npetrenko.livejournal.com]

Nice!

hehehe

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, yeah, daniel. YOU knew. (Jack, too, probably - one of the reasons to keep Daniel home?)