Work Text:
Respect - Daniel
CATEGORY : Snippet/Tag for "Need" H/C/Smarm/1st
I can’t breathe.
My face is smothered into a coarse material which is making it almost impossible for me to take in any air.
But I don’t care. I don’t care if I die of suffocation right now, there’s no way I’m pulling away. The tight hold that is keeping my face buried is the only thing keeping me together.
Even though I have to wonder if it’s too late. Have I gone too far this time, is everything shattered into pieces that even the great Jack O’Neill can’t fix.
He’s trying.
He stared down the barrel of the loaded gun I pointed at him with trembling hands only a few minutes ago. He pulled me back to reality, holding me until I stopped fighting, holding me so tight I can’t breathe.
And I’m holding him right back, burying my face further into his shoulder, blocking out the absurdity of the situation and letting go all of the pent up aggression the sarcophagus had whipped up inside me.
It’s a strange feeling, knowing you are hell bent on a course of self destruction but not having the ability to drag yourself off it.
I knew when I stretched my legs over that damned throne, flipping the vast expanse of royal robe from my knees, that it was wrong. Seeing Jack crumple to his knees in front of me was wrong. Every time I put my foot in that device and settled back into its clutches, I knew it was wrong.
Daniel Jackson - the man who would be king.
Those were the words he sneered at me. They had hurt then, those words had bounced off me as easily as those which had exploded from my lips in the mines.
You never show me any respect.
Why would he? What have I ever done that would be worthy of Jack’s respect? I screwed up from the first day we met.
Abydos.
That whole situation had been my fault. My life was so pathetic that I jumped at the chance to do something.......anything, and to hell with the consequences.
So I lied. I told them I would get everyone home. It’s the God’s honest truth that as I said those words, I didn’t have the vaguest idea how I was going to do that. More importantly, I didn’t even let it bother me.
And here we are.....a year or so later and I’m doing it all over again. Damning other people and not even breaking a sweat over it until it blows up in my face.
I’d like to think that isn’t me, these things happen because of.....I don’t know, fate or something. Or *is* it me? Am I, deep down, just out for myself? Hiding my selfish nature from the world, and myself, under this guise of complacency. Out to flex my true identity at any opportunity, revelling in some deluded belief of superiority and subconsciously seeking out these extreme situations in some pathetic effort to prove them all wrong. My peers who ridiculed me, the military personnel that, even know, laugh at my expense - if I was given the means, how far would I go to show them?
I nearly shot my best friend today. That’s how far it went this time.
Best friend? He doesn’t even know I think of him like that. I *know* he doesn’t think of *me* like that. But that’s what he is. He’s the only person, apart form Sha’re, who knows me. For good or bad, Jack knows everything about me. I have no high school or college buddies to meet up with on the weekend, all the people I once considered friends slowly disappeared during my very public fall from grace.
So that leaves Jack.
The man who was by my side when I met Sha’re, and at my side when he pledged we would get her back. The man I spend nearly every waking moment with, the man who tries so hard not to dislike me when I am the complete antithesis of everything he knows. The man who is holding me now like both our lives depend on it......at this moment I think *my* life really does.
I’m thinking straight again, these thoughts have taken my mind away from the desperation in my body. My breathing has softened but my gasps are still muffled by the SGC jacket I’m crying into.The pain in my chest is slowly ebbing away and I take a deep shuddering breath, the kind I used to take when I was small and had cried myself into exhaustion. Twenty-five years down the line and here I am once more, exhausted and drained.
I move my face to the side, resting my cheek on his shoulder and I close my eyes. I relax into the soothing action of his hand up and down my back as he rocks me gently; the other hand stroking my sweat soaked hair.
I don’t care that we’re huddled on the cold concrete floor of a storeroom and I don’t care that things are undoubtedly going to get worse before they get better - I care that for once, my friends are still my friends, no matter what.
Jack is here at my side once more. I know he will be there until I get through this and I know he will be there when I screw up again. That’s why I’m making a promise to him that one day I *will* do something to earn his respect.
********** FIN **********
© March 27, 2001 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp.
The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters
who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names,
titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television,
Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd.
Partnership.
This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and
solely meant for entertainment.
All other characters, the story idea and the story itself
are the sole property of the author.