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A haunting mountain fog blanketed the outside of the base as Daniel walked to his car. Another lonely Christmas, same as the last, and same as most the Christmases he’d had in his life. The air chilled him right to the bone, causing him to hasten his pace to his Hyundai Elantra, which he also wasn’t entirely fond of.
“C’mon, c’mon” he muttered to his car as the engine sputtered. He was well aware he needed a block heater but ask him if he had the damn time.
His engine groggily turned over, and an array of dashboard warning lights now stared him down. A couple new ones, though they were usually the ones that showed up when he started his car from frozen. He pumped the gas for a second or two to hopefully warm things up a little bit. No such luck.
“Agh! Stop it!” He shouted as his heat blasted freezing air directly in his face. He quickly pressed some buttons to hopefully get some warm air filling the car as he scraped his windshield, as he was out of wiper fluid from doing it the lazy way too many times.
He got out of the car, gloved up and ready for some frigid window scraping action to see Jack standing cross-armed, staring through the fog. Daniel rolled his eyes and got to scraping, expecting the usual “get a block heater Daniel! I got a buddy who can do it cheap!” Spiel. He’d heard it all before, but each additional time was nails to a chalkboard.
“We’re gonna be having a bit of a celebration Christmas Eve at my place if ya felt like joining... it’s a pretty lonely time’a year for all of us, y’know. No sense in feeling sorry for ourselves alone. May as well be with good people when we’re mopin’ around is what I say.” Jack muttered. Daniel turned around and sighed.
“I don’t need anyone, Jack. Besides, I barely even celebrate Christmas.”
Jack exhaled with a whistle. “And a rock feels no pain, huh.” He then deeply inhaled and exhaled sharply. “Invites still open if you change your mind but god only knows you’re too proud for that, same way you’re too damn proud to get a block heater.”
“Jack, c’mon. Don’t be a jerk”
“Merry Christmas, Jackson. Go home.” Jack turned away and walked to his truck, unplugging it before getting in.
The exchange stayed in Daniel’s mind as he made the drive to his apartment. He was still adamant he didn’t wish to go to the celebration, but he was painfully aware of his reputation on base. It wasn’t just SG-1 that saw him as a killjoy, it was everyone. There had been a few instances where airmen his age had gatherings outside of work and invited him. Each time, Daniel found some excuse to stay on base with his work. Eventually, people stopped trying. The same thing happened in college, aside from a couple nights spent playing complicated German board games, his friends from his dorm gave up on inviting him out.
He supposed that’s why Jack irritated him. It was easy to live in solitude when people gave up on him. It was easy not to feel bad when he flaked on plans, because no one really cared if he was there or not. Jack on the other hand, was tenacious. Over a year he had been pestering Daniel with every activity he did outside of work. He was forever trying to get Daniel to go to things with him. Jack seemed more naturally inclined towards socialization than the rest of the team, but Sam and Teal’c would usually welcome the prospect of out of the workplace socializing with a little coaxing. Daniel was different. As Jack would put it, Daniel was a pain in the ass.
As Daniel drove, he remembered what Jack had said: “Merry Christmas, Jackson. Go Home”. It stung. Jack never gave up that easily. It seemed as though Jack had finally given up on him, just like everyone else had. While there was a small part of him that felt relief, there was another part, a bigger part, that felt bad. As much as it was annoying, Jack’s constant effort to try and include him was endearing. Similar to how in high school, he always wanted to be invited to parties. Not that he would go, it just would’ve been nice to have an invite to refuse instead of just being a loser who wasn’t invited, not even thought of.
By the time Daniel got home, he had made up his mind. He poured himself a glass of scotch and went over to the phone in his office. He took a sip and let out a long sigh as he dialled. There was only one thing worse than being wrong: being the asshole who had to go with their hat in their hands to apologize.
“Whaddaya want, Jackson.” The subtle brag of being rude immediately due to having caller ID was a hallmark of phone conversations with Jack.
“Jack, I wanted to… Well I just.. I’m sorry.”
“Great talk. I don’t remember being offended, but great talk. See you Monday.” A silence hung on the line as Daniel brushed his hand through his hair.
“Jack…”
“Daniel…”
“I’m sorry I was a jerk earlier. I’ll be at your place tomorrow.”
“…With eggnog and rum, I assume?” Jack asked. Daniel got visibly confused and mildly disgusted.
“I-I Guess- Won’t the rum curdle the eggnog?”
“Dark rum. Bring enough to share. I put myself down for paper plates, so I really can’t help you”
“Okay so a quart of dark rum and, what, a quart of eggnog?”
“A handle’a rum and a gallon’a nog… It’s Christmas, Jackson! Spread some damn cheer!”
Jack hung up, leaving Daniel to sigh and hang up after. Clearly Jack was still a little upset, but he had no choice now, he was now obligated to go so hopefully Jack would eventually come back around.
Feeling the impending doom of an unnecessary social gathering, Daniel had some more scotch and went to bed early, not that that helped any. He spent the whole night playing through the possible scenarios. There was nothing to worry about, hell they were people he worked with every day, who he trusted with his life, but god dammit a social gathering was a social gathering. The night was restless, and he only woke up to feel more tired than before.
Daniel showed up to Jack’s house around 5 with the eggnog and rum as per Jack’s request. Jack and Teal’c both answered the door, clearly a little bit beyond tipsy. They welcomed Daniel in as he made a comment about how he didn’t know they’d be starting so early. Jack slumped onto an arm chair and took a sip from a beer and Teal’c restarted the Peanuts Christmas album on Jack’s stereo. Daniel headed into the kitchen to put his drinks in the fridge and grab himself a beer.
“Is Sam here?” Daniel asked from the kitchen.
“Not yet, but I’m eagerly awaiting her arrival. She’s bringing donuts!” Jack replied. Daniel came back through to the living room.
“So… liquor and donuts? That’s Christmas?”
“Uh… yeah, that’s about it, Daniel. Booze, donuts, and good people. That’s all Christmas really is.”
Jack, Teal’c and Daniel talked for a while before Sam arrived with donuts and a case of beer. Much to Daniel’s surprise, it was an enjoyable evening. Even more to Daniel’s surprise, Jack did actually have something up his sleeve for dinner. Around 7 or so, Jack called for pizza and it was turning into a great night. Sam went into a trivial pursuit game and just grabbed the cards to sporadically ask trivia questions.
“What is the capital of the province of Saskatchewan?” She asked. She flipped over the card to see the answer, finding out she was right.
“S” Jack asked, misinterpreting the question as a language arts question.
“Uhhhh Moose Jaw. No wait! Saskatoon! That’s the one. Final answer is uh yeah Saskatoon!” Daniel sputtered. Sam made a buzzer noise to tell him he was wrong, and then her eyes fell on Teal’c.
“How about you, Teal’c? You know it?”
“I believe the answer... is Regina.” Teal’c said, calmly. Sam grinned.
“You would be... correct! The capital of Saskatchewan is Regina!”
Daniel looked at Teal’c and laughed, a bit more than what was reasonable, but he’d had several ‘RumNogs’ mixed by Jack so he was well in the bag. “How did you know that, Teal’c?” Daniel asked when his giggles subsided.
Teal’c smiled and gave a slow nod. “The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the superior team of the Canadian Football League.”
“The Canadians don’t play real football! C’mon T! I taught ya better than that!” Jack said, quite loudly, but not intentionally yelling.
Jack made grabbing hands for the box and pulled one randomly out of the middle.
“In Star Trek: The Next Generation, what instrument did Commander Riker play?” Jack read. Daniel smacked his hand on the side table repeatedly, saying “I know this one, I know this one!” Jack looked over to Daniel and told him to spit it out.
“Trombone!”
“Yes! You win a...” Jack looked around. He then saw someone out of the corner of his eye out in the other part of his house. Jack slowly got up and grabbed a beer bottle by the neck.
“Oh, great. I win an empty beer bottle.” Daniel muttered. Jack quickly shushed him.
Sam got up and walked slowly behind him. Daniel, who was much less sober and closer to being so far in the bag he might not be able to get up in the morning, looked at them both very confused from where he was sitting. He eventually got up when Teal’c got up and the whole Scooby Gang was creeping towards the figure Jack had seen.
Jack fixated on not making a sound, each breath felt like he was taking his life into his hands. It wasn’t just someone who wandered into the wrong house. He knew what he saw. It was definitely someone trying to be seen, yet only seen enough to then hide; like some sort of sick taunt. They were wearing one of those white party city porcelain doll masks. Likely a burglar, but no one got to burgle Jack without getting roughed up a bit.
Jack went through his house, clearing room by room from where he saw the figure on. When they’d finally cleared the last room, Daniel finally asked: “what was that about, Jack?” very apprehensively.
“I could have sworn I saw someone...” Jack replied, still hushed.
They returned back to the living room, Jack still looking over his shoulder and checking doors. The Colorado night sky was in full effect, but as Jack peered out the window on his front door, there was nothing as far as the porch light would reach. Jack hung behind, opening his front door, checking for any unknown cars maybe lurking under a streetlight or something. Just as he was determining all the cars he could see he recognized, he heard Daniel yelp.
Jack ran back to the living room to see the masked person cocking their head at his friends. The eyes of the mask burst with yellow light for a second and then the person reached their hand out to Daniel’s head. Jack had seen this all before. In an instant, Jack leapt to action, tackling the masked individual, although seeing as he was less than sober, his tackle was messier than intended. He landed atop the person and started wailing on them sloppily. The party city mask flew off and it revealed a disheveled looking Apophis. While it was exactly who everyone was expecting, they were met with the sudden horror that Apophis never travelled without an entourage.
As quick as Jack had tackled, serpent guards came out of seemingly nowhere. Apophis had played them like a piano it seemed. Zat’nik’tel shots flashed across the room, and they had no time to react. It quickly went dark for the humans.
The last thing any of them remembered was Jaffa circling them all with Zat guns as they woke up in a goa’uld holding cell aboard Apophis’s ship. This was going to be one hell of a report if they managed to get out of this one alive. There they were, defenseless in their civvies at varying levels of sobriety aboard a hostile ship. They’d gotten out of worse, but the difference between said worse situations and the one they were in, was that in the worse situations they were at the very least, armed and sober.
Jack sat up groggily. His vision was blurry and at first, he didn’t recognize where he was. Then it hit him and let out a long sigh.
“This has to be the worst Christmas I’ve ever had.” He muttered, letting his head fall back down. “Any plans, Carter?” He asked. Sam lifted her head, looked around, and also let herself fall back onto the floor.
“with all due respect, sir… Fuck if I know”
Daniel sat bolt upright and smacked his jacket. He grinned to find that the Jaffa had neglected to take the flask of scotch in his inside pocket. “Guys… I know exactly what to do…” Daniel held up the flask. “Let’s spread some damn cheer!” He shouted, opening the flask. Jack and Sam cheered, and Teal’c gave a smile.
And so, ‘twas the night before Christmas, and all through the goa’uld mothership, not a creature was stirring, except SG-1 who were ass blasted drunk in the holding cell. When all of a sudden, there arose such a clatter. It was a fire fight down the hall. Daniel, trashed as all hell from numerous RumNogs, began to scream “hello!” to hear the echo. A confused SG-3 on a routine mission came to find the Scooby Gang’s Christmas party in full tilt.
SG-3 helped their sister team escape, unsure of how they got there, but not going to leave them there. As Jack jumped through the stargate, in his fucked-up state, he screamed “Yippee Ky-yay mother fuckers!” fully prepared to defend Die Hard as his favourite Christmas movie in the report.