Fic: Goa'uld!Adam
So, in the interests of trying to actually get this finished, I'm reposting this WiP and going to try and finish it in comment-fic form - if you leave a comment, I'll try and write the next section as a comment fic (unless you ask me not to). =)
Goa’uld!Adam fic
"You're not like other Goa'uld," Kris says without looking up and the strange dual laughter makes his hackles rise despite himself. Kris stares fixedly at his knees and only flinches a little when Adam looms over him.
"I am not as other Goa'uld," Adam agrees and Kris shivers involuntarily at the sound of his cell's barrier/force field powering down. He doesn't like being in prison but he does like having the scanty protection between him and the Goa'uld on the other side. "You knew that before you came here."
"No, I didn't!" Kris didn't know there were any Goa'uld on this world. He'd thought, well, he'd barely been able to think past the cascade of information filling his brain and spilling over, but he'd thought this was a deserted world. It would have been perfect; just a little dust-ball barely big enough to support the earth-like atmosphere and millions of miles from System Lords and the SGC and being someone else's pawn. He'd just wanted to escape.
"You dare lie to me?" Adam's fingers slide into his hair and curl into a fist that wrenches Kris' head back. Kris can't even get his hands up in time to block. Kris is twisted back, helpless and relying on Adam's superior strength to hold him up.
"I'm not lying," Kris spits and hears more than sees R'cliff, Adam's First Prime, start forward. Adam's free hand waves the Jaffa back and god, what Kris wouldn't give to have Teal'c here right now. "You can bully me and hurt me and kill me and keep throwing me into the sarcophagus as often as you want but it won't change the fact that I. Am. NOT. Lying."
The Goa'uld's eyes glow as he studies Kris' face. Kris breathes hard and refuses to look away. Adam sniffs contemptuously and lets Kris topple sideways. Kris manages to catch himself before he falls flat on his face and stares down at his hands which are shaking just slightly. Kris doesn't look up, doesn't dare to meet Adam's eyes when the Goa'uld is wearing the ribbon device.
"You have spirit." One long finger traces the line of Kris' jaw and lingers on his dry lips. "And the knowledge of the Ancients; you broke Ra's seal on my Stargate in seconds when you tried to escape me. Oh little one, you are too delightful."
"Who are you calling 'little'?!" Kris snaps and Adam laughs again.
"I think, most definitely," he purrs, tilting Kris' chin up until Kris has no choice but to meet his blue eyes. "I will keep you. It has been far too long since I took a consort."
=/=
Kris is possibly the only recruit in the history of the Stargate program to be accepted after breaking his commanding officer's nose.
In his defense: one: no-body told him they were getting a VIP visit, two: General O'Neill wasn't wearing any rank insignia or his uniform and three: Kris had already been the butt of every 'short-stop' joke in this man's Air Force through both Gulf Wars.
His squadron leader just about had a coronary right there on the tarmac and Kris had just long enough to wonder if he would be allowed to bring his guitar to Leavenworth before the General started to laugh. There was a lot of talking and even more paperwork before Kris, his duffel and his guitar case were loaded on to a helicopter and sixteen hours later, he was sitting in a briefing on aliens and intergalactic treaties.
Kris earned his promotion to 2IC of SG-3 the hard way. He might have taken it personally when Colonel Mayburn looked down at him that first day and frowned doubtfully. Kris spent exactly one mission being babied before he snapped and sure, he's not a jarhead but Kris learned dirty fighting from his momma. After the second unplanned vasectomy, his team stopped giving him shit about his height or his music. (His being a flyboy, that's different and even Kris doesn't mind those taunts.)
It was a good feeling, saving the world and exploring alien planets and Kris was happy. Until PSX-1313 and the stupid glittery rock that Kris should never have fucking looked at...
=/=
R'cliff shadows Kris everywhere and that's just fucking aggravating. Kris can't go anywhere, fine. Kris isn't stupid. He got that memo the first time he tried to run with Adam's shiny silver collar around his throat only to wake up to the lid of the sarcophagus opening over him.
Adam was icily furious, tossing Kris around like a rag-doll and Kris spent three frigid nights on his knees, chained to the foot of Adam's bed. The part of Kris that West Point and too many FUBARed missions have long since sharpened to a knife's point points out that Adam didn't throw him into a wall or any of the silver/platinum statues. He didn't use the ribbon device or the hundred and one nasty looking weapons littered about. He did nothing that would actually have hurt Kris and Kris hates knowing that.
R'cliff doesn't touch him but he's always right behind Kris, almost like he's trying to fit into Kris' skin and frankly, it's creeping Kris out. He catches himself thinking that it would be easier if R'cliff was wearing the full helmet but he's seen the First Prime wear it all of once before.
(That it would be even easier if R'cliff wasn't gorgeous is something Kris doesn't even allow himself to think.)
=/=
Kris probably could have made it all the way; gotten a place on SG-1 if it hadn't been for the 'incident' with Doctor Jackson and seriously, what is up with Kris and SG-1 alumni? General O'Neill never lets him forget the broken nose and Doctor Jackson makes snarky comments about finding Kris a crayon to take notes. He gets on fine with Major Carter because of a shared love of motorbikes and Teal'c is always willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to a man who can take out a squad of Serpent Guards single-handed with only a tin-opener).
Just like every other mission in his military life, Kris is painfully aware of his size. He doesn't look intimidating. Hale, who serves with him on SG-3, thinks Kris should keep trying "because they're a fuckload easier to hit when they're laughing that hard."
Kris' team-mates are awesome. Really.
He still doesn't see how Doctor Daniel Jackson, self-proclaimed 'outside the box' thinker to the hidebound military mind, fell for the oldest trick in the book. Hadn't he ever heard of the old maxim 'Don't judge a book by its cover'?
=/=
Adam is astonishingly tactile. Kris has never been the focus of a Goa'uld's attention like this before but everything he's read or heard of them suggests that Goa'uld prefer not to touch humans unless absolutely necessary.
Yet another point from the "Adam is a typical Goa'uld" chain of thought.
Kris never gets a choice when Adam feels like feeling him up. The Goa'uld is incredibly strong and even if Kris could remember how to unlock the full potential power of his muscles, Adam always has the experience advantage.
He pins Kris on the bed, against a wall, activating the silver bracers that bind to the wall or the sheets and render Kris just another part of the decoration.
Kris could endure it, if Adam went straight for his cock or his ass. Air Force training is comprehensive and the SGC's additional training has four separate seminars on how to deal with off-world rape. Rape is a worst case scenario but at least it's one he's trained for.
Adam doesn't rape him. Adam doesn't touch him in a way that Kris would classify as sexual if it was anyone but Adam touching him. One day, maybe a month after Kris' last escape attempt, Adam pins him against a wall for three hours while he explores every millimeter of Kris' fingers. First with his fingers, cataloging the texture and the calluses left by Kris' guitar. Then with his lips and his tongue, tiny kitten licks across the skin; more curious than erotic.
Kris' cheeks burn and he's half-hard, just aroused enough to feel it with every breath. He's still hot and flustered when Adam lets him go and he runs to the bathroom to scrub his hands raw.
He still feels the phantom echo of Adam's touch hour later.
=/=
Kris believed he was straight for nineteen years. He didn't - and doesn't - believe that makes anyone else's sexuality any less valid. He just liked girls. He thought he was going to marry Katy and sell shoes and have a nice boring life. That's just how life is until Kris joins the Air Force instead.
He's nineteen years old, shivering and wet while rain pours down and Drill Sergeant Santos - better known to the recruits as Sergeant Satan - is screaming in his ear when Kris discovers that he likes boys too. The same day as Katy puts her engagement ring in the post with a letter that says she's sorry. Kris will never know the name of the Captain who catches his eye from the shelter of Humvee and winks but he will remember the pulse of warmth-embarrassment for the rest of his life.
=/=
Adam stops talking to Kris after R'cliff drags him to what looks like some supremely fucked up hospital and the collar gets sealed around his neck. He issues proclamations in Kris' general direction and leaves it to R'cliff to enforce the new orders.
Kris would think that Adam stopped caring altogether (shiny new bondage gear aside) but while Adam doesn't talk to him, he does strictly oversee everyone that does talk to Kris. Kris is starting to believe that Adam picks people at random because there's no pattern that Kris can see.
He's allowed to talk to M'gan who is Adam's chief priestess or something. Kris would have clocked her as a priestess but she's got two sleeves full of tattoos and a staff weapon on the wall of her chambers. Even R'cliff steps cautiously around M'gan.
Kris thinks most of the Jaffa would be on the 'okay' list but he's never got more than a few sentences into a conversation with any of them. (He's never tried to talk to R'cliff because he's a creep and Kris sees enough of him already.)
There is one glaring exception. G'key, who has some gobbledygook title that Kris doesn't recognize, is never allowed to acknowledge Kris for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Kris would protest but he has an overpowering urge to lock himself in his bathroom and scour his skin every time G'key looks at him.
=/=
Kris spends the two nights after his second time through sarcophagus spin cycle on his knees at the foot of Adam's bed. The Goa'uld doesn't actually seem to need sleep. He still has a bed that could fit three full SGC teams and the MALP.
Adam only ever uses the magnetic properties of the collar when he's tying Kris to the bed. Kris refuses to contemplate the Freudian implications of that. There are two great posts at each corner of the bed with chains looped around him. Adam doesn't use the chains with Kris; he pushes Kris' cheek against the post and bonds the collar to the cool metal. Kris has maybe half an inch of room to breathe and flex his neck. It isn't comfortable but it's survivable. It also means that Kris only gets to sleep in quick snatches and he spends most of the night in a weird Zen trance.
When Adam wakes up, his High Priestess of the Night D'ani goes to wake M'nte, High Priest of the Day and arranges for his breakfast. There's ten to fifteen minutes between Adam waking up and M'nte heralding his 'god's breakfast. It's like the pomp and glitter of Adam's world gets paused for a few minutes.
Adam doesn't talk to Kris, of course. He hasn't directly spoken to Kris since the collar went around his neck. Instead the Goa'uld sits on the edge of the bed, near the post where Kris is kneeling with his collar holding him upright and runs his fingers absently through Kris' hair. It's not deliberately sensual, Adam almost never looks at him.
It's a thoughtless, repetitive caress and on the second morning, Kris is dizzy with sleep deprivation and he sways as Adam's fingers brush along the back of his skull. The Goa'uld looks down at him, fingers curling just enough to tug on Kris' hair, tipping Kris' head back so Kris is staring blearily up into Adam's blue eyes.
The Goa'uld's expression is empty. Kris has a split-second impression of brilliant white teeth and glowing eyes before Adam scratches lazy lines along Kris' scalp. Kris gets herded around his daily routine, more asleep than awake and honestly, he doesn't remember any details of the day later.
When he's brought back to Adam's room that night, Kris is too exhausted to be afraid when he looks at the pole and thinks I'm going to choke to death tonight. If he could feel anything, it would probably be relief.
Instead R'cliff strips him down to the loincloth that replaced his BDUs and rolls him carefully into Adam's bed. Kris has the nagging feeling that something about this is wrong before his body simple shuts down and he slides into sleep. He dreams of a lover, faceless, voiceless but with soft lips and clever hands.
When he wakes up, half-hard and drowsy, Adam is petting his hair.
=/=
Kris read the reports on General (then Colonel) O'Neill's exposure to Ancients' insta-information-download. When he got the same download on a hostile world, pinned down by enemy forces, Kris had been more or less resigned to being dead or insane by the time the SGC got to them.
He's never understood why he wasn't and after a month of increasingly invasive tests, neither did anyone else.
Kris doesn't feel different, most of the time it's like the vast encyclopedia of knowledge is just hovering on the edges of his memory with relevant bits surfacing when he really, really needs them. Things like how to hot-wire a Stargate for example. Mostly, Kris doesn't feel different.
Except for the bad days. There's no obvious trigger; Kris recognizes the warning signs but there's no consistent cause.
The bad days are ...very bad. Kris' brain feels inflated, stuffed with too much information and a electric shock running just under his skin. His muscles will spasm and Doctor Fraser has described his external symptoms as 'like an epileptic fit'. Kris is barely aware of his body during the worst of it; he wakes bruised and aching afterwards.
He hasn't had a bad day for weeks, since just before he ran but Kris' hands shake when he wakes up in Adam's huge bed one gorgeous morning and he can't stand up without clinging to the pole by the head of the bed.
"What's wrong?" Adam is looming over him and when Kris looks up, the Goa'uld is haloed in rainbows.
"I'm having a relapse," Kris says, trying hard not to slur his words.
Adam cups his cheek as Kris shudders again. He's frowning and he snaps something over his shoulder in the ancient Egyptian gobbledygook that the Goa'uld use. He should have paid more attention to Doctor Jackson, Kris thinks. He only recognizes the sounds, not any of the words. Kris is starting to shake now and Adam's brows draw down as he scowls.
His eyes glow for a second and he leans in. Kris clamps his teeth shut; hazily determined that Adam isn't putting that fucking snake in him but it's a light brush of lips and Adam guides his shaking hands up.
There's a tingle as Adam anchors the cuffs to the head of the bed and he unhooks Kris' rumpled loincloth with a flick of his wrist. Kris still has enough coherent thought to blush and he kicks out at Adam.
"I do not want to hurt you, Kristopher," Adam's voice resonates as he leans in so close that Kris can taste the mint on his breath. "But this will help. I swear."
His hand curls around the bone of Kris' hip and Kris blinks rapidly, trying to focus. Adam's grip tightens, bruisingly so. "You are mine! I will not lose you now!"
Kris loses track of things but he remembers the sweet smell of scented oil that Adam's Priests use when they massage their God. He feels the slick heat of Adam's hand closing around his dick. His sense of touch spikes into hyper-sensitivity and Kris is babbling, thrashing against the cuffs.
He can hear Adam, hear every minute variation that suggests the symbiote is speaking and the words are almost lost in the cacophony of his beating heart, sobbing breath and the sound of his skin on the silken sheets. It takes an achingly long time to realize that he can understand Adam.
"My beautiful one...my jewel...my precious treasure..." Adam is whispering, Kris realizes as he rocks his hips up into Adam's slick fingers.
Kris is close now, so so close and god-! He keens as he comes, messy and loud. One white-out of pleasure and then everything goes dark and still.
In the morning, he'll think he was hallucinating when Adam's soft whisper follows Kris into sleep.
"My love..."
=/=
Kris does not submit to having to wear makeup with any grace.
The first time Kris is steered into side room where the lesser priestesses are waiting, it takes R'cliff and four Jaffa to hold him down. Kris breaks at least one Jaffa's arm and only R'cliff can present himself to Adam without needing the full-face helmet to hide a bloody nose and missing teeth.
Kris fights every time. Even when Adam takes him to bed and starts keeping Kris within arm’s reach throughout the day and the process of being made-up becomes a daily routine. Adam never comes into the small room with the spot lighting but every day, when Kris comes out, itchingly aware of the grease and paint on his skin, Adam looks him over.
Usually Adam's lounging in his chair while breakfast is served and Kris almost prefers when Adam's on his feet, towering over him.
Adam has only commented once - that first morning when R'cliff and the stiffly resentful troop of Jaffa escorted Kris in and Adam looked at him. His eyes flashed once and his lips pulled down. It was a tiny tell and Kris nearly missed it.
"Too red for his complexion," Adam said flatly.
Kris hates the make-up, won't look at himself in any of the hundreds of mirrors around the palace and fights with all the guile and ferocity he's capable of. He's hurt Jaffa badly enough that they needed medical attention but no-one talks about it. No-one ever mentions how Kris fights every morning. Adam has to know; Kris still hates the bastard's snaky guts but the Goa'uld isn't stupid. He never says anything and Kris rages inside his own head.
He's a decorated combat veteran. He's fought for the US and the world since he was sixteen and he hates that all it takes is a thin layer of make-up to turn him into Adam's pretty little pet.
=/=
The worst part of it, Kris thinks, is never being alone. He doesn't get more than a handful of seconds to himself. Even when he goes to the bathroom, R'cliff or one of the other Jaffa is looming up behind the thin screen, less than nine inches away.
Everything Kris does or says is watched. He's fairly certain that Adam knows how many times Kris breathes during a given day.
He gets no choice in what to wear. During the first week, while Kris is still fighting everything, Kris refused to wear the sarong-like robe. Adam watched him for the whole day with a very slight smile and Kris couldn't sleep for sunburn that night. He'd still tried twice more before giving in.
He gets offered one of three different meals - bland, spicy or sweet - during the day. The three meals are never different sizes or colors and Kris has one plate which is his plate and no-one else's and he gets two plates of whatever meal he is being given.
Kris spends his day being expertly herded around by Jaffa. He is permitted three hours to exercise under the eyes of what feels like Adam's entire guard force. He's gotten good at ignoring the eyes and he carefully avoids looking at the canopied balcony that leads into Adam's room.
When Kris dreams, he dreams of complex, intricate adventures in bizarre worlds that only make sense in the dreams.
Sometimes, when he's staring blankly at the walls, Kris wonders which of his lives is a dream.
=/=
Adam's court is decadent beyond Kris' wildest dreams; everything is polished gold or platinum and the walls and floors are intricate marble mosaics.
The first time Kris is brought to court is the great autumn festival.
Before he can be brought to court, Adam binds his collar to a pole and checks what feels like a million different chains against his skin while the lesser priests shave Kris and paint henna patterns along his arms and legs. Kris tries to bite Adam and the Goa'uld smiles at him.
He catches Kris' chin and tilts his head up at an angle that makes Kris' muscles quiver and forces him to swallow. Adam holds his head there just a second longer than Kris is comfortable with; reminding Kris that he is just a puny human facing an alien that is perfectly capable of ripping his head off.
Kris jerks his head away and feels the chill of the of Adam's fingers - encased in the platinum guards of his ribbon device - as the Goa'uld catches his head to steady him.
"Such fire," Adam breathes and Kris closes his eyes not to see the greedy gleam flash across gold eyes.
=/=
Kris never thinks he'll last in the Air Force. He's too short, too Southern, too nice. The only thing Kris has on his side is the mule-stubborn streak that he inherited from his momma.
His instructors for the first two months like picking on him; he's the obvious target. The next shortest guy is 6'1 and built like a power-lifter. So, even the other rookies prefer to pick on Kris. Most of it is juvenile stuff - toothpaste in his boots and shit like that.
Kris refuses to take it personally. Everyone is scared, everyone is trying to be the big man. Kris just grits his teeth and pushes himself harder. He never complains, never causes trouble and never, ever quits.
"YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO BE HERE?" Sergeant 'Sin' Sinclair screams in Kris' face after a fifteen klick run with full packs. Someone behind Kris made a crack about not being goddamn ground pounders but it's Kris that the Sarge blames for it. "YOU THINK YOU GOT A RIGHT TO BE HERE, MAGGOT?"
"YES, SARGE!" Kris bawls back.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOUR GRASS-COLORED BEHIND HAS A GODDAMN RIGHT TO BE HERE, REDNECK??"
"YOU HAVEN'T KILLED ME YET, SARGE!" Kris yells and Sinclair actually cracks a smile. It's brief and Kris is so exhausted that he can't be sure he hasn't imagined it.
"SO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING HERE, PRIVATE, IS THAT I'M NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH?"
"NOT MY PLACE TO SAY, SARGE," Kris says immediately.
They wind up running another three miles and Kris is beyond exhausted when they finally stumble back to base. Sarge Sin doesn't exactly lay off but Kris starts to see that satisfied glint in his eye more and more often.
When Kris winds up Top Gun, Sinclair shakes him by the hand and tells Kris that he never doubted him.
=/=
Kris spends the dead time when Adam is too busy to keep him around trying to fix every detail of his (past) real life in his mind. He memorizes every step of cleaning and reassembling a P-90.
He thinks of zats, the weight and the feel of one in his hand, how to activate it, how to fire it and how it feels when he shoots.
The resulting spark electrifies the entire inlaid metal pattern on the wall and shocks M'nte as he brushes against it.
Kris tries not to think about weapons for more than an hour a day after that.
While R'cliff hovers over Kris' dinner, Kris runs through the inventory list for his pack on a standard off-world mission. He doesn't think about transponder codes or Iris-overrides because that's dangerous.
He tries to remember the recipe for his momma's snickerdoodles but the type of sugar confuses him again and again. Kris doesn't notice when the air starts to smell sweet and warm.
Somewhere in the perma-crowd of guards, someone smiles and Kris feels the shiver go his spine. He doesn't know what's going on but he's starting to get a very bad feeling.
=/=
Kris isn't stupid.
He's not as smart Doctor Jackson or the rest of SGC's academic department. He's more of the General O'Neill school of 'it's a goddamn rock' archaeology. He doesn't care about the finer points of linguistics or anthropology. He doesn't have any aptitude for poetry or sweet talking.
Kris is never getting an embossed invitation to MENSA, is the point here.
What Kris is very good at is talking to people. He likes people and he's genuinely interested in their lives and attitudes. He can find common ground with just about anyone (and failing that, would be totally willing to shoot them if peaceful conversation isn't an option).
Colonel Mayburn loves him for it. Most of the Marines who get into the SGC are the stereotypical Marines which means they’re loyal, fearless and abysmal at actually dealing with people who don't know the USCMJ by heart. Kris is immediately the designated diplomat.
It's frustrating but rewarding and Kris likes to think that he does well. General O'Neill tells Kris that he'd like Kris to start considering a future as a team lead.
Kris' life is all starting to fall into place, right up until it all falls apart.
=/=
Kris thinks it takes a month to run through everything he can think of. Being idle is steadily driving Kris mad. The only thing that changes is Adam. None of the Jaffa will respond, even if Kris gets desperate enough to try talking to them.
Possibly R'cliff would talk to him but Kris isn't comfortable letting Adam's right hand that close. R'cliff takes up too much of Kris' life already. Kris can count the number of times he's seen R'cliff with an actual expression on the fingers of one hand.
The guy gives Kris the creeps and he's been present for some of the most embarrassing things Adam's done to him. Kris doesn't really think they have anything in common that he'd be willing to talk about.
Instead, Kris sits in the empty hall, crowded in by the ever-present Jaffa and reaches for the tiny whisper of knowledge in the back of his mind.
=/=
Here's the thing they don't tell you about working for the SGC; you are screwed if you don't get on with SG-1. General O'Neill is still defaults to CO of the SG-1 team over his SGC command and Doctor Jackson is his blue-eyed boy.
SG-3 gets it the worse (one of the team nights, Mayburn tells Kris that he will break Makepeace's nose if he ever sees the bastard again). SG-1 don't trust the Marines not to screw the whole planet which frankly is insulting. Kris isn't a jarhead, never even wanted to be a Marine but his team are good at their job. Sergeant Tom White is an older Marine who makes Kris think of his uncle and Corporal Jerry Stanton who seems to be a perpetual kid.
Kris likes his team-mates. They know their job, they're decent guys who make a point of inviting him to the team BBQs in White's house. Hell, Stanton helps Kris with basic car maintenance 'because the car mechanics around here will gouge you blind'.
They aren't the ground-breaking planetary explorers that SG-1 are but it gets grating after the tenth time that a juicy mission gets snatched out from under them because there are interesting rocks or Major Carter wants to run tests.
Things get worse because the only opinion that really matters on any diplomatic incident is Doctor Jackson's. Every single mission is open to SG-1 which Kris finds out when Teal'c compliments him on his shooting on TRX-597. Kris had thought that mission was classified but apparently, no. Not to SG-1.
The favoritism never really overt but that just means that it's a niggling thing that makes all the non-SG-1 senior officers grit their teeth when they get some well-intentioned 'advice' from Colonel Mitchell or Major Carter. Missions for SGC are rough enough without armchair team leads getting involved.
Teal'c at least confines himself to complimenting tactical decisions and correcting the SGC's more disastrous mis-interpretations of Jaffa culture. He's the only member of SG-1 that Kris doesn't distrust on sight when his team hauls him through the Gate, halfway past sane. Kris learns (remembers?) that he couldn't manage more than one word in fifty in English.
If the rest of his all-important team had reacted so rationally, Kris might not have run. General O'Neill immediately started working on contacting Asgard or the Nox. Major Carter virtually kidnaps the rest of SG-3 to interrogate them about the apparatus that downloaded the knowledge into Kris' brain. Doctor Jackson is instantly fascinated. He starts treating Kris like his own private experiment - babbling at Kris like the lingual slip has fried his ability to understand English. Kris curses him out in fifteen languages that were dead before Stonehenge was built.
(Sometimes he wonders if Doctor Jackson ever translated those insults?)
So, as soon as Kris sees an opening, he runs.
=/=
Adam's court takes Kris by surprise; he's used to Goa'uld who have one or two underlords, all minor and unimpressive Goa'uld with more ambition than sense. Every single briefing Kris has ever attended - even the Tok'ra harp on about how Goa'uld are effectively sociopathic loners who don't tolerate much in the way of independence or power in the hands of their underlings. General O'Neill and Colonel Mayburn give Kris the same basic summary of Goa'uld society. "Only worry about the big guy; he's the one that's actually a threat."
The System Lords Kris has seen or dealt with have fitted that general model; all about the one powerful 'god' in the center of the army/society. SGC deals with that guy because he's the one that makes every Adam's court isn't like that. Not that Adam isn't clearly the dominant figure, even Kris can see that. What he wasn't expecting was the obvious influence and power that Adam's under-lords display.
There are three habitable planets in the system. The Stargate told Kris that much when he stumbled through. What he hadn't known was that Adam's empire had colonized the meteor belt too, mining naquadah and other rare metals.
It makes for a Court of nearly fifty fully recognized 'lords' - every one of them a match for any System Lord that Kris has ever heard of. Each of the Lords has a full retinue in their own colors (though every one of them wears Adam's complex draconic symbol prominently displayed) with modified versions of the Jaffa weaponry that Kris is familiar with. They're closer to System Lords in their own right than the sort of underling Kris is used to seeing.
Kris gets to see every one of the Lords because he's on his knees beside Adam's throne as they are received. Every single one of them looks at him, glowing eyes lingering on the designs painted across Kris' chest and face.
The long length of platinum chain drags against his neck but Kris keeps his head up, stubborn and resolute. The condescending smiles that the Lords share with Adam make him bristle.
He is led off by M'nte after the reception, stumbling on numb legs into one of the sub-chambers. Kris doesn't mean to barge into the richly dressed man - the maddening pins-and-needles from nearly four hours on his knees have left him clumsy.
M'nte tries to intervene but the man knocks him back with an imperious sweep of his hand. Kris sees the glowing palm as Monte wrenches him sideways and there isn't time to react before the radiation spikes.
Kris doesn't think - his instinctive recoil bangs against the hum in the back of his mind. Knowledge explodes out and Kris reacts without thinking. The light that floods through his brain takes him (and the minor Lord) completely by surprise.
The last thing Kris sees before the light wipes him out is the shock on the face of the man turning to horror as red light fills the veins up along his neck and face.
There's a distant thrumming sound that builds to a scream and Kris doesn't remember anything more.
=/=
Kris dreams...
...of stars flaring to life, spinning in the dark and dying in brief flares of light that vanish almost before they happen.
There are voids, deep pits in the black that suck at him as he notices them. It feels like Kris is being tugged closer, drawn out in infinitely long strands of his own matter.
There's a beauty to the whole pattern, like a dance that Kris has always known. He can let himself unravel, thin threads fanning out in a spider-web that takes in every single point and void and lets the knowledge of them blend into Kris' mind. His mind stretches easily, soaking up the knowledge so easily that he doesn't even notice it happening.
Something snags on one of the fine threads, worry/anger/need tangling up one of Kris' infinite threads into a knot of emotion that drags Kris' attention back into one simple layer of awareness.
He draws himself closer together, spinning the strands back together into a whirlwind of sensation. He wraps himself around a single, radiant dot of light and feels the flickering rush of other voices talking/whispering/screaming growing louder and louder until the sound fills the world and Kris' senses implode in a thunder of light/sound…
...and Kris opens his eyes.
=/=
Okay, Adam is attractive. Kris can admit that (to himself).
He's tall, muscular and wears make-up - which Kris didn't know could be masculine - and everything he does is charged with power and a sensual, sexual energy that makes Kris' skin prickle. Attractive, yes.
What Kris doesn't get is why Adam feels the need to be naked all the time.
He wears nothing to bed - Kris spends the nights curled up as far from the temptation of warm bare skin. He stays naked while he bathes and the few scraps of clothes that Adam wears leave his arms and chest bare. He wears more jewelry than he wears clothes.
Adam adds a layer of sexuality to everything he does; lounging in his throne or purring orders to the minor Lords kneeling before him. If this was the SGC, just being in the same room as Adam would be grounds for a sexual harassment case.
As it is, Kris gets to sit in halls painted with detailed, lavish frescoes of Adam's prior lovers with only a loin-cloth and some silver jewelry to cover his skin. Kris hadn't realized that the frescoes were accurate until he'd asked M'nte who was happy to tell him the story behind every single one of the frescoes.
Adam never mentions his previous lovers and - as far as Kris can tell - hasn't had a lover in the time Kris has been his prisoner. The only person in Adam's bed has been Kris; he's sure of that.
What Kris isn't sure about is why that's the case.
=/=
Kris wakes in Adam's bed. He feels weak and his eyes are gummed up and his mouth tastes of sand and salt. He has to blink several times just to force his eyes open. He feels the ache right down to his bones even before he tries to move.
"Stay still," Adam's voice makes Kris jump and immediately, there are warm hands on Kris' chest, holding him down. "I told you to be still."
"-didn't," Kris rasps because apparently even feeling like he's been hit by a drunk steam-roller driver doesn't make him any less of a smart ass. (General O'Neill would be so proud.) "Tol' me to stay still. Not 'be still'."
He can just about see Adam's eyebrow arch but the Goa'uld's voice is amused. "Clearly your wit isn't damaged. Remain still until M'nte brings the healer."
"Y're vastly overestimating my recuperation abilities," Kris mumbles into the pillow, eyes already slowly closing.
Adam chuckles and the warm hands stroke down along his chest. Kris makes a sleepy sound of protest but he can't muster the co-ordination to actually push Adam away. Instead, he feels the collar around his neck warming up but he feels the exhaustion dragging him down again.
=/=
It takes nearly two whole weeks before Kris can leave Adam's bed without assistance (usually R'cliff's). The First Prime has been strangely solicitous. He's still mostly impassive but he brings Kris fresh fruit and cold water.
Kris is reminded of Teal'c in a lot of ways (despite R'cliff having more in common with a garden gnome in terms of looks). After the first day, when the tedium starts to set in, Kris starts talking to him. R'cliff eventually starts to respond to Kris' increasingly random rambling.
The first few conversations are stilted and awkward and, well, if Kris hadn't already known a bit about Jaffa culture from Teal'c, they probably would have stalled out in mutual mortification about five minutes in. R'cliff turns out to be a hundred and twenty years old and he has been Adam's First Prime for nearly ninety years.
He seems literally incapable of imagining any other life but still happily curious about anything and everything that Kris can tell him. There's something endearing about R'cliff's honest fascination with the different worlds Kris has seen. They trade stories about training and Kris counts it as a personal victory when a story about Sarge Sin makes R'cliff actually laugh.
Without actually intending to, Kris starts to relax around R'cliff. He's been Adam's prisoner for about a year and he's long since given up hope of being rescued. The Stargate is unlocked but Kris can only vaguely remember the address. It wasn't eight symbols, he's sure of that but he doesn't remember what he did to the computer to make it dial. Even Carter and her branch of the academics don't have a hope of finding him. The SGC has probably sent his tags back to his family and everything.
So having someone actually taking a real interest in him is almost dizzily addictive. R'cliff has a disconcertingly brilliant smile, rarer that good coffee in the mess but like that coffee, worth the wait. Kris rediscovers his sense of humor under the fretful bitterness of captivity and they talk about everything in the galaxy, finding interests and ideas that they share.
Kris looks forward to seeing R'cliff every morning and it takes more than one nearly sleepless night to realize why the nervous excitement seems so familiar; Kris hasn't felt like this since he was fourteen years old with a voice that cracked and warbled and he believed that Katy O'Connell was the single most beautiful thing on God's earth.
He doesn't freak out, even though he's never flirted with a guy before. He nearly does freak out about how he isn't freaking out but he's almost to the point where he trusts the First Prime. Having a friend to talk to makes even prolonged bed rest tolerable.
The day after Kris gets cleared to resume his so-called 'daily duty', R'cliff brings him clean clothes and helps him dress. Kris is mostly naked when Adam walks in, unheralded and nearly silent. Kris doesn't even hear the chime of metal on metal or Adam's jewelry jingle because he's in the middle of describing his first flight.
He does hear the hum of the ribbon device - a split second before he feels the blast singe his shoulder and R'cliff hits the wall. Kris turns, just as Adam backhands him. Pain explodes across his face. Kris literally sees stars as he falls.
Adam's eyes, glowing furiously as the room spins lazily away to the left, glare down at him and Kris smells the coppery reek of blood. His stomach heaves and the air stinks of ozone and heat. Kris hears R'cliff's voice, shrill and pleading and Adam's snarling tones. He tries to get his arms under him but there's another supernova of pain that whites out the world...
=/=
The Seal on Adam's Stargate is a complicated mix of solid form technology and bio-dynamic energy fields. It's not Goa'uld technology, not even Anquietas but a complex hybrid of nearly six different technologies. It would have taken massive resources and so much time that only an utter conviction that Adam needed to be caged could explain it.
The dedication is typical of Apep's obsessive nature but well beyond his resources.
Kris remembers it as a fractal pattern of circuitry with complex code that should have taken millennia to unwind. It clogged up every circuit, blocking off every possible override. There's no way to break the Seal from the outside and the only weak points are inaccessible from the far side of the Gate.
Kris shattered two vulnerable points, triggering a cascade failure that opened a gap in the shield wide enough for Kris to re-combine and tumble through. That isn't what happened exactly but it's the best description the purely human remnants of Kris' brain can put together.
Destroying those two circuits - and only those two circuits - while holding a multi-phasic instance of his own essence in micro-second stasis was something sufficiently complicated that, as far as Kris can tell, it temporarily burned out the knowledge crowding through his head. It left him vulnerable to the Jaffa but saved him from the slow disintegration that General O'Neill suffered.
The Seal is cracked but even in Adam's city, nearly a hundred miles from the Gate, Kris knows it isn't fully broken.
Yet.
=/=
R’cliff is punished, of course.
The punishment is intended for Kris’ benefit, of course.
Adam marches Kris out to the square where R’cliff is bound to the frame with his back bared to the lash. Two Jaffa flank him every second and one of the priests, an oily little man who Kris doesn’t know and doesn’t like. The priest has a nasal whine of a voice and Kris understands every word he says.
This is the fate of a traitor. See the wrath of your God and be humbled. See the punishment due to those who fail and repent. See the traitor break and wonder at your God’s infinite mercy.
Kris honestly believes Adam will kill the Jaffa. He should have known better. Adam is nothing like that merciful.
R’cliff is tied to that frame for weeks. An elderly couple dressed in rags, small and insignificant in the crowd, weep for him; R’cliff’s family or at least all that remains of it, Kris learns later. They cling to each other as braver souls in the crowd spit at them but most avoid them like the plague.
R’cliff’s once loyal troops each take a turn behind the vicious whip. It’s like Marquis de Sade and Torquemada were consulted on a brand new cat’o’nine tails. Every blow draws blood until R’cliff’s skin is dyed scarlet and the blood trickles down to stain the white marble in an ever-increasing pool.
Kris, safely enclosed by ranks of masked Jaffa, spends the weeks under a silk ceiling with water and plain bread to keep him alive. His guards bring him out as the sun rises and Kris stays right there as the priest whines and the lash draws more blood and Kris’ stomach heaves despite all the war and pain he’s seen already.
When the sun sets at last and the underlord with the healing device comes out to snatch R’cliff back from the brink again, the guards march Kris back into the Temple and Adam.
He’s chained to the bed now, with an intricate arrangement that could be a Replicator’s web for all Kris can break it. Adam doesn’t sleep anymore. He just lies in bed and stares at Kris. There’s just enough ambient light for Kris to see him and even in the darkest hours of the night, when Kris wakes from grey blurry dreams, Adam’s eyes glow gold.
Kris doesn’t sleep well.
=/=
Truthfully, Adam is, hands down, the most sexual and uninhibited being Kris has ever met.
The first time Kris saw him, Adam was sprawled on his throne with two of D’ni’s apprentices painting the nails on one hand and a slim brunet kneeling between his legs, lips stretched wide as Adam’s other hand grips his head and commands how deeply the boy would swallow his cock. The priestesses were focused on their task and the boy’s own cock was red and hard between his legs. What Kris remembers most clearly, fidgeting uncomfortably in his own skin every time, is that the boy’s expression was one of utter rapture.
So when Kris has been Adam’s bedmate (purely platonically) for a full turn of the seasons and therefore been celibate for a full planetary year, Adam decides to correct that parenthetical omission.
It’s been less than a week since R’cliff’s punishment ended. Kris has no idea if the First Prime is even alive. He’s rejoined Adam through six days of the same boring routine and brooded his way through them all. On the seventh day, Adam orders his Court dismissed and withdraws to his bedchamber with Kris trailing behind him like a puppy on a leash. One of the oldest Great Lords, a small sarcastic brunet with razor-edged cheekbones who Kris thinks is called Brad, keeps pace with Adam the whole way there and they talk about inconsequential matters.
Adam’s bed chamber has been remodeled, thick drapes drawn down to muffle the ambient light. Scented candles burn in every corner and fill the air with a muggy, cloying scent. Kris blinks as the world gets hazy around the edges.
R’cliff, almost delicate in fine silks instead of his black armor, is kneeling by the side of the bed. His cheeks are rouged, his lips are painted and open around a desperate, breathless panting. He looks like a china doll and when he looks up at them, his eyes are black with need. His mouth is dark, blushing pink and Kris feels the surge of heat in his blood. It’s more urgent, sharper and pointed.
When Adam’s hands settle on his hips and tug away the scraps of silk that are the clothing Kris has left, Kris has no strength left to resist.
=/=
Adam’s Court, as Kris thinks of them, turns out to be a semi-permanent arrangement. He never has fewer than three underlords dancing attendance but Kris sees a Great Court summoned only once during the time he spends as Adam’s unwilling guest. There are hundreds of underlords in the service of Adam’s Great Lords and Kris believes Adam when he says that he and his Court have spent an eternity in exile.
Kris is there during every one of the formal events, painted and primped and on his knees. He learns not to look any of the underlords in the eye after one unpleasant exchange. The offended underlord isn’t suicidal enough to actually attack him - even among the arrogant bastards that swarm around their Prime, such an insult is unthinkable.
Instead, the underlord appeals, in a formal, stilted language that has as much in common with the Goa’uld Doctor Jackson drummed into Kris as it does with Klingon, to Adam for redress. Adam turns those burning golden eyes on Kris and orders him stripped of the sheer tunic that just barely preserves his modesty. Left in just the loincloth, Kris shivers at the lazy perusal of his bare skin and Adam dips his head just enough that his words are only audible to Kris.
“Misbehave again, my pet, and you’ll spend this Court skin-clad.” He trails a finger down along the line of Kris’ pectoral muscle to tweak his nipple. Kris can’t help the gasp or the way his blood rushes south. Adam’s smile is pure feline satisfaction and his gaze is heated as he sits back on his throne.
Kris feels Adam’s attention warm and greedy linger for the rest of the Court.
=/=
Kris tries to escape more times than he can count. He nearly succeeds twice, if you count that first panicked attempt to run when he’d stumbled through the ‘Gate, half-mad and found himself surrounded by masked Dragon-Guards. Kris tries not to think about that - R’cliff and the others had brought him down within five meters and Kris had carried the bruises until his first whirl through the sarcophagus.
The second time is the one that Adam will never forgive him for. Kris has never asked which part drove the Goa’uld into a killing rage. By SGC standards, it was a pretty good plan. Admittedly, Kris hadn’t realized that his ability to tap the knowledge lurking in the back of his brain was so erratic or how much it would physically take out of him to channel useful knowledge. Still, break the Seal and run remains the only hope Kris will ever have of actual escape. Adam controls the system and light years of surrounding space and has effectively unlimited man-power to pursue anyone who tries to leave his territory against his wishes.
Kris knows that he cracked the Seal; the detailed certainty of that much is woven into Kris’ knowledge, somewhere between how to go incorporeal (nullified by Adam’s collar) and the precise procedure for altering molecular composition. He is sure that the Seal is not actually broken because Adam’s still here. Adam is Goa’uld, capricious with an insatiable craving for more. More territory, more power, more slaves, more control.
When his nightmares chase him from sleep, Kris lies awake and runs through every detail he can recall of the Seal and how to break it.
And swears to himself that the next time...next time he’ll go all the way.
=/=
Brad’s voice is deep and hypnotic, the occasional bass reverberation as his voice slips down an octave. R’cliff is kneeling between his legs, wrists crossed behind his back. He’s keening, a thread of sound that rises and falls with every artfully casual brush of Brad’s fingers against his straining cock. The (former?) First Prime is naked but for the scrap of silk that covers his eyes and the gut pouch is half-healed.
In the dim light, Kris could almost think he was human.
Brad croons in R’cliff’s ear, promising him release, pleasure beyond imagining if he will just let Brad have him. R’cliff’s wordless keen rises into a desperate cry as Brad circles his cock with a tantalizingly loose grip. R’cliff’s wrists aren’t tied but he keeps them crossed behind his back like they were chained there. He’s rocking up helplessly into the feather-light touches Brad trails across his skin, whining and whimpering while the underlord laughs.
The candles paint R’cliff skin gold and Brad is a darker, sleeker shape behind him, the light catching on the intricate rings on the Goa’uld’s fingers. The world is blurs of varied gold and Kris feels like he’s stumbled onto a porno set after smoking a joint. He’s sweating, Adam’s hands leaving fingerprints on his skin as his hands skim Kris’ slippery skin.
The incense smolders in the small golden bowls and makes the whole room smoky and Kris blinks slowly. The whole room is spinning lazily under his feet and only Adam’s hands on his hips keep him from falling. He’s panting, gulps of too hot air that don’t do anything to clear his muddled thoughts.
R’cliff arches back, head against Brad’s shoulders and the light from his rings flashes as he dips fingers into him, working him open slowly as the underlord’s voice rumbles against his ear. Adam’s mouth presses sloppy kisses against the corner of his mouth. Kris sways back into him, too disoriented to resist.
Adam’s eyes glow and his mouth is bruised dark, red in the gloom that surrounds them both. R’cliff’s sounds - there’s nothing coherent enough to be called words in the breathless whimpers that escape - sound too loud. It’s like being stuck in the cinema seat beside the couple who are fucking through a bland ‘blockbuster’. Kris can’t look at the two of them without feeling his cheeks heat (and his dick swell) but there’s nothing else to look at.
Adam’s voice is a deep vibration that resonates through Kris’ bones. “Would it be such a terrible thing to surrender?”
=/=
On the second planetary anniversary of his arrival, Kris wakes in the night to the sound of Adam’s armies mustering. Adam’s side of the bed is cooling even as Kris reaches out a sleepy hand. He crawls gingerly out of the bed, wincing with every step until he’s standing at the window.
Outside, Adam’s armies are marching into formation. Phalanxes of Jaffa that must number in the tens of thousands wheel and march to the bare fields. High overhead, the Ha’tak of Adam’s primary attack fleet create a new constellation of triangular stars over the domed roof of the Temple. Kris stares out, trying to guess how many Jaffa have been assembled but the massed army stretches back over the horizon, its true size lost to the darkness.
Kris’ heart stops. This isn’t just a display of power, another of the meaningless military marches that Adam’s underlords delight in. This is an invasion force.
He doesn’t - can’t - know where Adam means to invade but Kris thinks of Adam’s wild expression in firelight and his talk of a lesson that the ‘lesser’ Goa’uld would pay heed to. Adam could have been talking about almost any inhabited planet but Kris looks out at Adam’s army and thinks Earth despairingly.
The Seal isn’t broken yet but Adam would never have called up his troops if he wasn’t sure he could break it. He’s too jealous of his power and prestige to make an amateur mistake like that. His Priests must be close to a breakthrough.
Kris stumbles back, hip jarring against the marble and the jolt of pain from his still-tender ass offers him a burst of clarity. Decadent sex life notwithstanding, Kris is still the first-class airman that Uncle Sam made him and his tactical planning might be rusty but it’s still solid. Two minutes of weighing his meager options and Kris knows exactly what to do.
He lifts his hands to the collar still sitting comfortably at the base of his neck and curls his fingers around it. It hurts, burns like acid in his blood and his head aches like his old drill sergeant is pounding on it but the collar’s molecular structure yields one atom at a time until Kris is holding it in his hands.
His neck feels too light, unfinished without the comforting weight of his collar and Kris kisses it lightly, weaving the mental/psychosomatic threads that will carry his message to Adam. He blends his sorrow at having to go with the solid infusion of want that he’s built the whole message around.
Catch me if you can.
Adam is older than human history, cannier than all the generals Kris’ instructors idolized and cruel as only a God can be. Kris can’t hope to outwit him. Any argument or plan he can bring to bear against Adam will fail because Adam knows what Kris is thinking and what his options are before Kris does. A System Lord that cunning will mean the fall of Earth, the end of the free allied worlds and the resurgence of Ra’s Empire - this time in Adam’s iron grip. All Kris can do, alone in their room, is redirect Adam’s focus; force the System Lord to devote his attention to hunting Kris.
Kris leaves his collar in the center of the bed, a perfect silver circle and lets his body dissolve into nebulous loops of energy, taking the Ancients favored form with a single thought. He extends his perceptions to the room around him, committing every detail to memory. He hesitates for a long moment, surprised to find how much sweeter his time as Adam’s Beloved really was. Leaving is an almost physical wrench as Kris wills himself across the curve of the planet, homing in on the Stargate like a HyStrike missile.
Let the Hunt begin!
Originally posted here Please comment there using OpenID.
Goa’uld!Adam fic
"You're not like other Goa'uld," Kris says without looking up and the strange dual laughter makes his hackles rise despite himself. Kris stares fixedly at his knees and only flinches a little when Adam looms over him.
"I am not as other Goa'uld," Adam agrees and Kris shivers involuntarily at the sound of his cell's barrier/force field powering down. He doesn't like being in prison but he does like having the scanty protection between him and the Goa'uld on the other side. "You knew that before you came here."
"No, I didn't!" Kris didn't know there were any Goa'uld on this world. He'd thought, well, he'd barely been able to think past the cascade of information filling his brain and spilling over, but he'd thought this was a deserted world. It would have been perfect; just a little dust-ball barely big enough to support the earth-like atmosphere and millions of miles from System Lords and the SGC and being someone else's pawn. He'd just wanted to escape.
"You dare lie to me?" Adam's fingers slide into his hair and curl into a fist that wrenches Kris' head back. Kris can't even get his hands up in time to block. Kris is twisted back, helpless and relying on Adam's superior strength to hold him up.
"I'm not lying," Kris spits and hears more than sees R'cliff, Adam's First Prime, start forward. Adam's free hand waves the Jaffa back and god, what Kris wouldn't give to have Teal'c here right now. "You can bully me and hurt me and kill me and keep throwing me into the sarcophagus as often as you want but it won't change the fact that I. Am. NOT. Lying."
The Goa'uld's eyes glow as he studies Kris' face. Kris breathes hard and refuses to look away. Adam sniffs contemptuously and lets Kris topple sideways. Kris manages to catch himself before he falls flat on his face and stares down at his hands which are shaking just slightly. Kris doesn't look up, doesn't dare to meet Adam's eyes when the Goa'uld is wearing the ribbon device.
"You have spirit." One long finger traces the line of Kris' jaw and lingers on his dry lips. "And the knowledge of the Ancients; you broke Ra's seal on my Stargate in seconds when you tried to escape me. Oh little one, you are too delightful."
"Who are you calling 'little'?!" Kris snaps and Adam laughs again.
"I think, most definitely," he purrs, tilting Kris' chin up until Kris has no choice but to meet his blue eyes. "I will keep you. It has been far too long since I took a consort."
=/=
Kris is possibly the only recruit in the history of the Stargate program to be accepted after breaking his commanding officer's nose.
In his defense: one: no-body told him they were getting a VIP visit, two: General O'Neill wasn't wearing any rank insignia or his uniform and three: Kris had already been the butt of every 'short-stop' joke in this man's Air Force through both Gulf Wars.
His squadron leader just about had a coronary right there on the tarmac and Kris had just long enough to wonder if he would be allowed to bring his guitar to Leavenworth before the General started to laugh. There was a lot of talking and even more paperwork before Kris, his duffel and his guitar case were loaded on to a helicopter and sixteen hours later, he was sitting in a briefing on aliens and intergalactic treaties.
Kris earned his promotion to 2IC of SG-3 the hard way. He might have taken it personally when Colonel Mayburn looked down at him that first day and frowned doubtfully. Kris spent exactly one mission being babied before he snapped and sure, he's not a jarhead but Kris learned dirty fighting from his momma. After the second unplanned vasectomy, his team stopped giving him shit about his height or his music. (His being a flyboy, that's different and even Kris doesn't mind those taunts.)
It was a good feeling, saving the world and exploring alien planets and Kris was happy. Until PSX-1313 and the stupid glittery rock that Kris should never have fucking looked at...
=/=
R'cliff shadows Kris everywhere and that's just fucking aggravating. Kris can't go anywhere, fine. Kris isn't stupid. He got that memo the first time he tried to run with Adam's shiny silver collar around his throat only to wake up to the lid of the sarcophagus opening over him.
Adam was icily furious, tossing Kris around like a rag-doll and Kris spent three frigid nights on his knees, chained to the foot of Adam's bed. The part of Kris that West Point and too many FUBARed missions have long since sharpened to a knife's point points out that Adam didn't throw him into a wall or any of the silver/platinum statues. He didn't use the ribbon device or the hundred and one nasty looking weapons littered about. He did nothing that would actually have hurt Kris and Kris hates knowing that.
R'cliff doesn't touch him but he's always right behind Kris, almost like he's trying to fit into Kris' skin and frankly, it's creeping Kris out. He catches himself thinking that it would be easier if R'cliff was wearing the full helmet but he's seen the First Prime wear it all of once before.
(That it would be even easier if R'cliff wasn't gorgeous is something Kris doesn't even allow himself to think.)
=/=
Kris probably could have made it all the way; gotten a place on SG-1 if it hadn't been for the 'incident' with Doctor Jackson and seriously, what is up with Kris and SG-1 alumni? General O'Neill never lets him forget the broken nose and Doctor Jackson makes snarky comments about finding Kris a crayon to take notes. He gets on fine with Major Carter because of a shared love of motorbikes and Teal'c is always willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to a man who can take out a squad of Serpent Guards single-handed with only a tin-opener).
Just like every other mission in his military life, Kris is painfully aware of his size. He doesn't look intimidating. Hale, who serves with him on SG-3, thinks Kris should keep trying "because they're a fuckload easier to hit when they're laughing that hard."
Kris' team-mates are awesome. Really.
He still doesn't see how Doctor Daniel Jackson, self-proclaimed 'outside the box' thinker to the hidebound military mind, fell for the oldest trick in the book. Hadn't he ever heard of the old maxim 'Don't judge a book by its cover'?
=/=
Adam is astonishingly tactile. Kris has never been the focus of a Goa'uld's attention like this before but everything he's read or heard of them suggests that Goa'uld prefer not to touch humans unless absolutely necessary.
Yet another point from the "Adam is a typical Goa'uld" chain of thought.
Kris never gets a choice when Adam feels like feeling him up. The Goa'uld is incredibly strong and even if Kris could remember how to unlock the full potential power of his muscles, Adam always has the experience advantage.
He pins Kris on the bed, against a wall, activating the silver bracers that bind to the wall or the sheets and render Kris just another part of the decoration.
Kris could endure it, if Adam went straight for his cock or his ass. Air Force training is comprehensive and the SGC's additional training has four separate seminars on how to deal with off-world rape. Rape is a worst case scenario but at least it's one he's trained for.
Adam doesn't rape him. Adam doesn't touch him in a way that Kris would classify as sexual if it was anyone but Adam touching him. One day, maybe a month after Kris' last escape attempt, Adam pins him against a wall for three hours while he explores every millimeter of Kris' fingers. First with his fingers, cataloging the texture and the calluses left by Kris' guitar. Then with his lips and his tongue, tiny kitten licks across the skin; more curious than erotic.
Kris' cheeks burn and he's half-hard, just aroused enough to feel it with every breath. He's still hot and flustered when Adam lets him go and he runs to the bathroom to scrub his hands raw.
He still feels the phantom echo of Adam's touch hour later.
=/=
Kris believed he was straight for nineteen years. He didn't - and doesn't - believe that makes anyone else's sexuality any less valid. He just liked girls. He thought he was going to marry Katy and sell shoes and have a nice boring life. That's just how life is until Kris joins the Air Force instead.
He's nineteen years old, shivering and wet while rain pours down and Drill Sergeant Santos - better known to the recruits as Sergeant Satan - is screaming in his ear when Kris discovers that he likes boys too. The same day as Katy puts her engagement ring in the post with a letter that says she's sorry. Kris will never know the name of the Captain who catches his eye from the shelter of Humvee and winks but he will remember the pulse of warmth-embarrassment for the rest of his life.
=/=
Adam stops talking to Kris after R'cliff drags him to what looks like some supremely fucked up hospital and the collar gets sealed around his neck. He issues proclamations in Kris' general direction and leaves it to R'cliff to enforce the new orders.
Kris would think that Adam stopped caring altogether (shiny new bondage gear aside) but while Adam doesn't talk to him, he does strictly oversee everyone that does talk to Kris. Kris is starting to believe that Adam picks people at random because there's no pattern that Kris can see.
He's allowed to talk to M'gan who is Adam's chief priestess or something. Kris would have clocked her as a priestess but she's got two sleeves full of tattoos and a staff weapon on the wall of her chambers. Even R'cliff steps cautiously around M'gan.
Kris thinks most of the Jaffa would be on the 'okay' list but he's never got more than a few sentences into a conversation with any of them. (He's never tried to talk to R'cliff because he's a creep and Kris sees enough of him already.)
There is one glaring exception. G'key, who has some gobbledygook title that Kris doesn't recognize, is never allowed to acknowledge Kris for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Kris would protest but he has an overpowering urge to lock himself in his bathroom and scour his skin every time G'key looks at him.
=/=
Kris spends the two nights after his second time through sarcophagus spin cycle on his knees at the foot of Adam's bed. The Goa'uld doesn't actually seem to need sleep. He still has a bed that could fit three full SGC teams and the MALP.
Adam only ever uses the magnetic properties of the collar when he's tying Kris to the bed. Kris refuses to contemplate the Freudian implications of that. There are two great posts at each corner of the bed with chains looped around him. Adam doesn't use the chains with Kris; he pushes Kris' cheek against the post and bonds the collar to the cool metal. Kris has maybe half an inch of room to breathe and flex his neck. It isn't comfortable but it's survivable. It also means that Kris only gets to sleep in quick snatches and he spends most of the night in a weird Zen trance.
When Adam wakes up, his High Priestess of the Night D'ani goes to wake M'nte, High Priest of the Day and arranges for his breakfast. There's ten to fifteen minutes between Adam waking up and M'nte heralding his 'god's breakfast. It's like the pomp and glitter of Adam's world gets paused for a few minutes.
Adam doesn't talk to Kris, of course. He hasn't directly spoken to Kris since the collar went around his neck. Instead the Goa'uld sits on the edge of the bed, near the post where Kris is kneeling with his collar holding him upright and runs his fingers absently through Kris' hair. It's not deliberately sensual, Adam almost never looks at him.
It's a thoughtless, repetitive caress and on the second morning, Kris is dizzy with sleep deprivation and he sways as Adam's fingers brush along the back of his skull. The Goa'uld looks down at him, fingers curling just enough to tug on Kris' hair, tipping Kris' head back so Kris is staring blearily up into Adam's blue eyes.
The Goa'uld's expression is empty. Kris has a split-second impression of brilliant white teeth and glowing eyes before Adam scratches lazy lines along Kris' scalp. Kris gets herded around his daily routine, more asleep than awake and honestly, he doesn't remember any details of the day later.
When he's brought back to Adam's room that night, Kris is too exhausted to be afraid when he looks at the pole and thinks I'm going to choke to death tonight. If he could feel anything, it would probably be relief.
Instead R'cliff strips him down to the loincloth that replaced his BDUs and rolls him carefully into Adam's bed. Kris has the nagging feeling that something about this is wrong before his body simple shuts down and he slides into sleep. He dreams of a lover, faceless, voiceless but with soft lips and clever hands.
When he wakes up, half-hard and drowsy, Adam is petting his hair.
=/=
Kris read the reports on General (then Colonel) O'Neill's exposure to Ancients' insta-information-download. When he got the same download on a hostile world, pinned down by enemy forces, Kris had been more or less resigned to being dead or insane by the time the SGC got to them.
He's never understood why he wasn't and after a month of increasingly invasive tests, neither did anyone else.
Kris doesn't feel different, most of the time it's like the vast encyclopedia of knowledge is just hovering on the edges of his memory with relevant bits surfacing when he really, really needs them. Things like how to hot-wire a Stargate for example. Mostly, Kris doesn't feel different.
Except for the bad days. There's no obvious trigger; Kris recognizes the warning signs but there's no consistent cause.
The bad days are ...very bad. Kris' brain feels inflated, stuffed with too much information and a electric shock running just under his skin. His muscles will spasm and Doctor Fraser has described his external symptoms as 'like an epileptic fit'. Kris is barely aware of his body during the worst of it; he wakes bruised and aching afterwards.
He hasn't had a bad day for weeks, since just before he ran but Kris' hands shake when he wakes up in Adam's huge bed one gorgeous morning and he can't stand up without clinging to the pole by the head of the bed.
"What's wrong?" Adam is looming over him and when Kris looks up, the Goa'uld is haloed in rainbows.
"I'm having a relapse," Kris says, trying hard not to slur his words.
Adam cups his cheek as Kris shudders again. He's frowning and he snaps something over his shoulder in the ancient Egyptian gobbledygook that the Goa'uld use. He should have paid more attention to Doctor Jackson, Kris thinks. He only recognizes the sounds, not any of the words. Kris is starting to shake now and Adam's brows draw down as he scowls.
His eyes glow for a second and he leans in. Kris clamps his teeth shut; hazily determined that Adam isn't putting that fucking snake in him but it's a light brush of lips and Adam guides his shaking hands up.
There's a tingle as Adam anchors the cuffs to the head of the bed and he unhooks Kris' rumpled loincloth with a flick of his wrist. Kris still has enough coherent thought to blush and he kicks out at Adam.
"I do not want to hurt you, Kristopher," Adam's voice resonates as he leans in so close that Kris can taste the mint on his breath. "But this will help. I swear."
His hand curls around the bone of Kris' hip and Kris blinks rapidly, trying to focus. Adam's grip tightens, bruisingly so. "You are mine! I will not lose you now!"
Kris loses track of things but he remembers the sweet smell of scented oil that Adam's Priests use when they massage their God. He feels the slick heat of Adam's hand closing around his dick. His sense of touch spikes into hyper-sensitivity and Kris is babbling, thrashing against the cuffs.
He can hear Adam, hear every minute variation that suggests the symbiote is speaking and the words are almost lost in the cacophony of his beating heart, sobbing breath and the sound of his skin on the silken sheets. It takes an achingly long time to realize that he can understand Adam.
"My beautiful one...my jewel...my precious treasure..." Adam is whispering, Kris realizes as he rocks his hips up into Adam's slick fingers.
Kris is close now, so so close and god-! He keens as he comes, messy and loud. One white-out of pleasure and then everything goes dark and still.
In the morning, he'll think he was hallucinating when Adam's soft whisper follows Kris into sleep.
"My love..."
=/=
Kris does not submit to having to wear makeup with any grace.
The first time Kris is steered into side room where the lesser priestesses are waiting, it takes R'cliff and four Jaffa to hold him down. Kris breaks at least one Jaffa's arm and only R'cliff can present himself to Adam without needing the full-face helmet to hide a bloody nose and missing teeth.
Kris fights every time. Even when Adam takes him to bed and starts keeping Kris within arm’s reach throughout the day and the process of being made-up becomes a daily routine. Adam never comes into the small room with the spot lighting but every day, when Kris comes out, itchingly aware of the grease and paint on his skin, Adam looks him over.
Usually Adam's lounging in his chair while breakfast is served and Kris almost prefers when Adam's on his feet, towering over him.
Adam has only commented once - that first morning when R'cliff and the stiffly resentful troop of Jaffa escorted Kris in and Adam looked at him. His eyes flashed once and his lips pulled down. It was a tiny tell and Kris nearly missed it.
"Too red for his complexion," Adam said flatly.
Kris hates the make-up, won't look at himself in any of the hundreds of mirrors around the palace and fights with all the guile and ferocity he's capable of. He's hurt Jaffa badly enough that they needed medical attention but no-one talks about it. No-one ever mentions how Kris fights every morning. Adam has to know; Kris still hates the bastard's snaky guts but the Goa'uld isn't stupid. He never says anything and Kris rages inside his own head.
He's a decorated combat veteran. He's fought for the US and the world since he was sixteen and he hates that all it takes is a thin layer of make-up to turn him into Adam's pretty little pet.
=/=
The worst part of it, Kris thinks, is never being alone. He doesn't get more than a handful of seconds to himself. Even when he goes to the bathroom, R'cliff or one of the other Jaffa is looming up behind the thin screen, less than nine inches away.
Everything Kris does or says is watched. He's fairly certain that Adam knows how many times Kris breathes during a given day.
He gets no choice in what to wear. During the first week, while Kris is still fighting everything, Kris refused to wear the sarong-like robe. Adam watched him for the whole day with a very slight smile and Kris couldn't sleep for sunburn that night. He'd still tried twice more before giving in.
He gets offered one of three different meals - bland, spicy or sweet - during the day. The three meals are never different sizes or colors and Kris has one plate which is his plate and no-one else's and he gets two plates of whatever meal he is being given.
Kris spends his day being expertly herded around by Jaffa. He is permitted three hours to exercise under the eyes of what feels like Adam's entire guard force. He's gotten good at ignoring the eyes and he carefully avoids looking at the canopied balcony that leads into Adam's room.
When Kris dreams, he dreams of complex, intricate adventures in bizarre worlds that only make sense in the dreams.
Sometimes, when he's staring blankly at the walls, Kris wonders which of his lives is a dream.
=/=
Adam's court is decadent beyond Kris' wildest dreams; everything is polished gold or platinum and the walls and floors are intricate marble mosaics.
The first time Kris is brought to court is the great autumn festival.
Before he can be brought to court, Adam binds his collar to a pole and checks what feels like a million different chains against his skin while the lesser priests shave Kris and paint henna patterns along his arms and legs. Kris tries to bite Adam and the Goa'uld smiles at him.
He catches Kris' chin and tilts his head up at an angle that makes Kris' muscles quiver and forces him to swallow. Adam holds his head there just a second longer than Kris is comfortable with; reminding Kris that he is just a puny human facing an alien that is perfectly capable of ripping his head off.
Kris jerks his head away and feels the chill of the of Adam's fingers - encased in the platinum guards of his ribbon device - as the Goa'uld catches his head to steady him.
"Such fire," Adam breathes and Kris closes his eyes not to see the greedy gleam flash across gold eyes.
=/=
Kris never thinks he'll last in the Air Force. He's too short, too Southern, too nice. The only thing Kris has on his side is the mule-stubborn streak that he inherited from his momma.
His instructors for the first two months like picking on him; he's the obvious target. The next shortest guy is 6'1 and built like a power-lifter. So, even the other rookies prefer to pick on Kris. Most of it is juvenile stuff - toothpaste in his boots and shit like that.
Kris refuses to take it personally. Everyone is scared, everyone is trying to be the big man. Kris just grits his teeth and pushes himself harder. He never complains, never causes trouble and never, ever quits.
"YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO BE HERE?" Sergeant 'Sin' Sinclair screams in Kris' face after a fifteen klick run with full packs. Someone behind Kris made a crack about not being goddamn ground pounders but it's Kris that the Sarge blames for it. "YOU THINK YOU GOT A RIGHT TO BE HERE, MAGGOT?"
"YES, SARGE!" Kris bawls back.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOUR GRASS-COLORED BEHIND HAS A GODDAMN RIGHT TO BE HERE, REDNECK??"
"YOU HAVEN'T KILLED ME YET, SARGE!" Kris yells and Sinclair actually cracks a smile. It's brief and Kris is so exhausted that he can't be sure he hasn't imagined it.
"SO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING HERE, PRIVATE, IS THAT I'M NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH?"
"NOT MY PLACE TO SAY, SARGE," Kris says immediately.
They wind up running another three miles and Kris is beyond exhausted when they finally stumble back to base. Sarge Sin doesn't exactly lay off but Kris starts to see that satisfied glint in his eye more and more often.
When Kris winds up Top Gun, Sinclair shakes him by the hand and tells Kris that he never doubted him.
=/=
Kris spends the dead time when Adam is too busy to keep him around trying to fix every detail of his (past) real life in his mind. He memorizes every step of cleaning and reassembling a P-90.
He thinks of zats, the weight and the feel of one in his hand, how to activate it, how to fire it and how it feels when he shoots.
The resulting spark electrifies the entire inlaid metal pattern on the wall and shocks M'nte as he brushes against it.
Kris tries not to think about weapons for more than an hour a day after that.
While R'cliff hovers over Kris' dinner, Kris runs through the inventory list for his pack on a standard off-world mission. He doesn't think about transponder codes or Iris-overrides because that's dangerous.
He tries to remember the recipe for his momma's snickerdoodles but the type of sugar confuses him again and again. Kris doesn't notice when the air starts to smell sweet and warm.
Somewhere in the perma-crowd of guards, someone smiles and Kris feels the shiver go his spine. He doesn't know what's going on but he's starting to get a very bad feeling.
=/=
Kris isn't stupid.
He's not as smart Doctor Jackson or the rest of SGC's academic department. He's more of the General O'Neill school of 'it's a goddamn rock' archaeology. He doesn't care about the finer points of linguistics or anthropology. He doesn't have any aptitude for poetry or sweet talking.
Kris is never getting an embossed invitation to MENSA, is the point here.
What Kris is very good at is talking to people. He likes people and he's genuinely interested in their lives and attitudes. He can find common ground with just about anyone (and failing that, would be totally willing to shoot them if peaceful conversation isn't an option).
Colonel Mayburn loves him for it. Most of the Marines who get into the SGC are the stereotypical Marines which means they’re loyal, fearless and abysmal at actually dealing with people who don't know the USCMJ by heart. Kris is immediately the designated diplomat.
It's frustrating but rewarding and Kris likes to think that he does well. General O'Neill tells Kris that he'd like Kris to start considering a future as a team lead.
Kris' life is all starting to fall into place, right up until it all falls apart.
=/=
Kris thinks it takes a month to run through everything he can think of. Being idle is steadily driving Kris mad. The only thing that changes is Adam. None of the Jaffa will respond, even if Kris gets desperate enough to try talking to them.
Possibly R'cliff would talk to him but Kris isn't comfortable letting Adam's right hand that close. R'cliff takes up too much of Kris' life already. Kris can count the number of times he's seen R'cliff with an actual expression on the fingers of one hand.
The guy gives Kris the creeps and he's been present for some of the most embarrassing things Adam's done to him. Kris doesn't really think they have anything in common that he'd be willing to talk about.
Instead, Kris sits in the empty hall, crowded in by the ever-present Jaffa and reaches for the tiny whisper of knowledge in the back of his mind.
=/=
Here's the thing they don't tell you about working for the SGC; you are screwed if you don't get on with SG-1. General O'Neill is still defaults to CO of the SG-1 team over his SGC command and Doctor Jackson is his blue-eyed boy.
SG-3 gets it the worse (one of the team nights, Mayburn tells Kris that he will break Makepeace's nose if he ever sees the bastard again). SG-1 don't trust the Marines not to screw the whole planet which frankly is insulting. Kris isn't a jarhead, never even wanted to be a Marine but his team are good at their job. Sergeant Tom White is an older Marine who makes Kris think of his uncle and Corporal Jerry Stanton who seems to be a perpetual kid.
Kris likes his team-mates. They know their job, they're decent guys who make a point of inviting him to the team BBQs in White's house. Hell, Stanton helps Kris with basic car maintenance 'because the car mechanics around here will gouge you blind'.
They aren't the ground-breaking planetary explorers that SG-1 are but it gets grating after the tenth time that a juicy mission gets snatched out from under them because there are interesting rocks or Major Carter wants to run tests.
Things get worse because the only opinion that really matters on any diplomatic incident is Doctor Jackson's. Every single mission is open to SG-1 which Kris finds out when Teal'c compliments him on his shooting on TRX-597. Kris had thought that mission was classified but apparently, no. Not to SG-1.
The favoritism never really overt but that just means that it's a niggling thing that makes all the non-SG-1 senior officers grit their teeth when they get some well-intentioned 'advice' from Colonel Mitchell or Major Carter. Missions for SGC are rough enough without armchair team leads getting involved.
Teal'c at least confines himself to complimenting tactical decisions and correcting the SGC's more disastrous mis-interpretations of Jaffa culture. He's the only member of SG-1 that Kris doesn't distrust on sight when his team hauls him through the Gate, halfway past sane. Kris learns (remembers?) that he couldn't manage more than one word in fifty in English.
If the rest of his all-important team had reacted so rationally, Kris might not have run. General O'Neill immediately started working on contacting Asgard or the Nox. Major Carter virtually kidnaps the rest of SG-3 to interrogate them about the apparatus that downloaded the knowledge into Kris' brain. Doctor Jackson is instantly fascinated. He starts treating Kris like his own private experiment - babbling at Kris like the lingual slip has fried his ability to understand English. Kris curses him out in fifteen languages that were dead before Stonehenge was built.
(Sometimes he wonders if Doctor Jackson ever translated those insults?)
So, as soon as Kris sees an opening, he runs.
=/=
Adam's court takes Kris by surprise; he's used to Goa'uld who have one or two underlords, all minor and unimpressive Goa'uld with more ambition than sense. Every single briefing Kris has ever attended - even the Tok'ra harp on about how Goa'uld are effectively sociopathic loners who don't tolerate much in the way of independence or power in the hands of their underlings. General O'Neill and Colonel Mayburn give Kris the same basic summary of Goa'uld society. "Only worry about the big guy; he's the one that's actually a threat."
The System Lords Kris has seen or dealt with have fitted that general model; all about the one powerful 'god' in the center of the army/society. SGC deals with that guy because he's the one that makes every Adam's court isn't like that. Not that Adam isn't clearly the dominant figure, even Kris can see that. What he wasn't expecting was the obvious influence and power that Adam's under-lords display.
There are three habitable planets in the system. The Stargate told Kris that much when he stumbled through. What he hadn't known was that Adam's empire had colonized the meteor belt too, mining naquadah and other rare metals.
It makes for a Court of nearly fifty fully recognized 'lords' - every one of them a match for any System Lord that Kris has ever heard of. Each of the Lords has a full retinue in their own colors (though every one of them wears Adam's complex draconic symbol prominently displayed) with modified versions of the Jaffa weaponry that Kris is familiar with. They're closer to System Lords in their own right than the sort of underling Kris is used to seeing.
Kris gets to see every one of the Lords because he's on his knees beside Adam's throne as they are received. Every single one of them looks at him, glowing eyes lingering on the designs painted across Kris' chest and face.
The long length of platinum chain drags against his neck but Kris keeps his head up, stubborn and resolute. The condescending smiles that the Lords share with Adam make him bristle.
He is led off by M'nte after the reception, stumbling on numb legs into one of the sub-chambers. Kris doesn't mean to barge into the richly dressed man - the maddening pins-and-needles from nearly four hours on his knees have left him clumsy.
M'nte tries to intervene but the man knocks him back with an imperious sweep of his hand. Kris sees the glowing palm as Monte wrenches him sideways and there isn't time to react before the radiation spikes.
Kris doesn't think - his instinctive recoil bangs against the hum in the back of his mind. Knowledge explodes out and Kris reacts without thinking. The light that floods through his brain takes him (and the minor Lord) completely by surprise.
The last thing Kris sees before the light wipes him out is the shock on the face of the man turning to horror as red light fills the veins up along his neck and face.
There's a distant thrumming sound that builds to a scream and Kris doesn't remember anything more.
=/=
Kris dreams...
...of stars flaring to life, spinning in the dark and dying in brief flares of light that vanish almost before they happen.
There are voids, deep pits in the black that suck at him as he notices them. It feels like Kris is being tugged closer, drawn out in infinitely long strands of his own matter.
There's a beauty to the whole pattern, like a dance that Kris has always known. He can let himself unravel, thin threads fanning out in a spider-web that takes in every single point and void and lets the knowledge of them blend into Kris' mind. His mind stretches easily, soaking up the knowledge so easily that he doesn't even notice it happening.
Something snags on one of the fine threads, worry/anger/need tangling up one of Kris' infinite threads into a knot of emotion that drags Kris' attention back into one simple layer of awareness.
He draws himself closer together, spinning the strands back together into a whirlwind of sensation. He wraps himself around a single, radiant dot of light and feels the flickering rush of other voices talking/whispering/screaming growing louder and louder until the sound fills the world and Kris' senses implode in a thunder of light/sound…
...and Kris opens his eyes.
=/=
Okay, Adam is attractive. Kris can admit that (to himself).
He's tall, muscular and wears make-up - which Kris didn't know could be masculine - and everything he does is charged with power and a sensual, sexual energy that makes Kris' skin prickle. Attractive, yes.
What Kris doesn't get is why Adam feels the need to be naked all the time.
He wears nothing to bed - Kris spends the nights curled up as far from the temptation of warm bare skin. He stays naked while he bathes and the few scraps of clothes that Adam wears leave his arms and chest bare. He wears more jewelry than he wears clothes.
Adam adds a layer of sexuality to everything he does; lounging in his throne or purring orders to the minor Lords kneeling before him. If this was the SGC, just being in the same room as Adam would be grounds for a sexual harassment case.
As it is, Kris gets to sit in halls painted with detailed, lavish frescoes of Adam's prior lovers with only a loin-cloth and some silver jewelry to cover his skin. Kris hadn't realized that the frescoes were accurate until he'd asked M'nte who was happy to tell him the story behind every single one of the frescoes.
Adam never mentions his previous lovers and - as far as Kris can tell - hasn't had a lover in the time Kris has been his prisoner. The only person in Adam's bed has been Kris; he's sure of that.
What Kris isn't sure about is why that's the case.
=/=
Kris wakes in Adam's bed. He feels weak and his eyes are gummed up and his mouth tastes of sand and salt. He has to blink several times just to force his eyes open. He feels the ache right down to his bones even before he tries to move.
"Stay still," Adam's voice makes Kris jump and immediately, there are warm hands on Kris' chest, holding him down. "I told you to be still."
"-didn't," Kris rasps because apparently even feeling like he's been hit by a drunk steam-roller driver doesn't make him any less of a smart ass. (General O'Neill would be so proud.) "Tol' me to stay still. Not 'be still'."
He can just about see Adam's eyebrow arch but the Goa'uld's voice is amused. "Clearly your wit isn't damaged. Remain still until M'nte brings the healer."
"Y're vastly overestimating my recuperation abilities," Kris mumbles into the pillow, eyes already slowly closing.
Adam chuckles and the warm hands stroke down along his chest. Kris makes a sleepy sound of protest but he can't muster the co-ordination to actually push Adam away. Instead, he feels the collar around his neck warming up but he feels the exhaustion dragging him down again.
=/=
It takes nearly two whole weeks before Kris can leave Adam's bed without assistance (usually R'cliff's). The First Prime has been strangely solicitous. He's still mostly impassive but he brings Kris fresh fruit and cold water.
Kris is reminded of Teal'c in a lot of ways (despite R'cliff having more in common with a garden gnome in terms of looks). After the first day, when the tedium starts to set in, Kris starts talking to him. R'cliff eventually starts to respond to Kris' increasingly random rambling.
The first few conversations are stilted and awkward and, well, if Kris hadn't already known a bit about Jaffa culture from Teal'c, they probably would have stalled out in mutual mortification about five minutes in. R'cliff turns out to be a hundred and twenty years old and he has been Adam's First Prime for nearly ninety years.
He seems literally incapable of imagining any other life but still happily curious about anything and everything that Kris can tell him. There's something endearing about R'cliff's honest fascination with the different worlds Kris has seen. They trade stories about training and Kris counts it as a personal victory when a story about Sarge Sin makes R'cliff actually laugh.
Without actually intending to, Kris starts to relax around R'cliff. He's been Adam's prisoner for about a year and he's long since given up hope of being rescued. The Stargate is unlocked but Kris can only vaguely remember the address. It wasn't eight symbols, he's sure of that but he doesn't remember what he did to the computer to make it dial. Even Carter and her branch of the academics don't have a hope of finding him. The SGC has probably sent his tags back to his family and everything.
So having someone actually taking a real interest in him is almost dizzily addictive. R'cliff has a disconcertingly brilliant smile, rarer that good coffee in the mess but like that coffee, worth the wait. Kris rediscovers his sense of humor under the fretful bitterness of captivity and they talk about everything in the galaxy, finding interests and ideas that they share.
Kris looks forward to seeing R'cliff every morning and it takes more than one nearly sleepless night to realize why the nervous excitement seems so familiar; Kris hasn't felt like this since he was fourteen years old with a voice that cracked and warbled and he believed that Katy O'Connell was the single most beautiful thing on God's earth.
He doesn't freak out, even though he's never flirted with a guy before. He nearly does freak out about how he isn't freaking out but he's almost to the point where he trusts the First Prime. Having a friend to talk to makes even prolonged bed rest tolerable.
The day after Kris gets cleared to resume his so-called 'daily duty', R'cliff brings him clean clothes and helps him dress. Kris is mostly naked when Adam walks in, unheralded and nearly silent. Kris doesn't even hear the chime of metal on metal or Adam's jewelry jingle because he's in the middle of describing his first flight.
He does hear the hum of the ribbon device - a split second before he feels the blast singe his shoulder and R'cliff hits the wall. Kris turns, just as Adam backhands him. Pain explodes across his face. Kris literally sees stars as he falls.
Adam's eyes, glowing furiously as the room spins lazily away to the left, glare down at him and Kris smells the coppery reek of blood. His stomach heaves and the air stinks of ozone and heat. Kris hears R'cliff's voice, shrill and pleading and Adam's snarling tones. He tries to get his arms under him but there's another supernova of pain that whites out the world...
=/=
The Seal on Adam's Stargate is a complicated mix of solid form technology and bio-dynamic energy fields. It's not Goa'uld technology, not even Anquietas but a complex hybrid of nearly six different technologies. It would have taken massive resources and so much time that only an utter conviction that Adam needed to be caged could explain it.
The dedication is typical of Apep's obsessive nature but well beyond his resources.
Kris remembers it as a fractal pattern of circuitry with complex code that should have taken millennia to unwind. It clogged up every circuit, blocking off every possible override. There's no way to break the Seal from the outside and the only weak points are inaccessible from the far side of the Gate.
Kris shattered two vulnerable points, triggering a cascade failure that opened a gap in the shield wide enough for Kris to re-combine and tumble through. That isn't what happened exactly but it's the best description the purely human remnants of Kris' brain can put together.
Destroying those two circuits - and only those two circuits - while holding a multi-phasic instance of his own essence in micro-second stasis was something sufficiently complicated that, as far as Kris can tell, it temporarily burned out the knowledge crowding through his head. It left him vulnerable to the Jaffa but saved him from the slow disintegration that General O'Neill suffered.
The Seal is cracked but even in Adam's city, nearly a hundred miles from the Gate, Kris knows it isn't fully broken.
Yet.
=/=
R’cliff is punished, of course.
The punishment is intended for Kris’ benefit, of course.
Adam marches Kris out to the square where R’cliff is bound to the frame with his back bared to the lash. Two Jaffa flank him every second and one of the priests, an oily little man who Kris doesn’t know and doesn’t like. The priest has a nasal whine of a voice and Kris understands every word he says.
This is the fate of a traitor. See the wrath of your God and be humbled. See the punishment due to those who fail and repent. See the traitor break and wonder at your God’s infinite mercy.
Kris honestly believes Adam will kill the Jaffa. He should have known better. Adam is nothing like that merciful.
R’cliff is tied to that frame for weeks. An elderly couple dressed in rags, small and insignificant in the crowd, weep for him; R’cliff’s family or at least all that remains of it, Kris learns later. They cling to each other as braver souls in the crowd spit at them but most avoid them like the plague.
R’cliff’s once loyal troops each take a turn behind the vicious whip. It’s like Marquis de Sade and Torquemada were consulted on a brand new cat’o’nine tails. Every blow draws blood until R’cliff’s skin is dyed scarlet and the blood trickles down to stain the white marble in an ever-increasing pool.
Kris, safely enclosed by ranks of masked Jaffa, spends the weeks under a silk ceiling with water and plain bread to keep him alive. His guards bring him out as the sun rises and Kris stays right there as the priest whines and the lash draws more blood and Kris’ stomach heaves despite all the war and pain he’s seen already.
When the sun sets at last and the underlord with the healing device comes out to snatch R’cliff back from the brink again, the guards march Kris back into the Temple and Adam.
He’s chained to the bed now, with an intricate arrangement that could be a Replicator’s web for all Kris can break it. Adam doesn’t sleep anymore. He just lies in bed and stares at Kris. There’s just enough ambient light for Kris to see him and even in the darkest hours of the night, when Kris wakes from grey blurry dreams, Adam’s eyes glow gold.
Kris doesn’t sleep well.
=/=
Truthfully, Adam is, hands down, the most sexual and uninhibited being Kris has ever met.
The first time Kris saw him, Adam was sprawled on his throne with two of D’ni’s apprentices painting the nails on one hand and a slim brunet kneeling between his legs, lips stretched wide as Adam’s other hand grips his head and commands how deeply the boy would swallow his cock. The priestesses were focused on their task and the boy’s own cock was red and hard between his legs. What Kris remembers most clearly, fidgeting uncomfortably in his own skin every time, is that the boy’s expression was one of utter rapture.
So when Kris has been Adam’s bedmate (purely platonically) for a full turn of the seasons and therefore been celibate for a full planetary year, Adam decides to correct that parenthetical omission.
It’s been less than a week since R’cliff’s punishment ended. Kris has no idea if the First Prime is even alive. He’s rejoined Adam through six days of the same boring routine and brooded his way through them all. On the seventh day, Adam orders his Court dismissed and withdraws to his bedchamber with Kris trailing behind him like a puppy on a leash. One of the oldest Great Lords, a small sarcastic brunet with razor-edged cheekbones who Kris thinks is called Brad, keeps pace with Adam the whole way there and they talk about inconsequential matters.
Adam’s bed chamber has been remodeled, thick drapes drawn down to muffle the ambient light. Scented candles burn in every corner and fill the air with a muggy, cloying scent. Kris blinks as the world gets hazy around the edges.
R’cliff, almost delicate in fine silks instead of his black armor, is kneeling by the side of the bed. His cheeks are rouged, his lips are painted and open around a desperate, breathless panting. He looks like a china doll and when he looks up at them, his eyes are black with need. His mouth is dark, blushing pink and Kris feels the surge of heat in his blood. It’s more urgent, sharper and pointed.
When Adam’s hands settle on his hips and tug away the scraps of silk that are the clothing Kris has left, Kris has no strength left to resist.
=/=
Adam’s Court, as Kris thinks of them, turns out to be a semi-permanent arrangement. He never has fewer than three underlords dancing attendance but Kris sees a Great Court summoned only once during the time he spends as Adam’s unwilling guest. There are hundreds of underlords in the service of Adam’s Great Lords and Kris believes Adam when he says that he and his Court have spent an eternity in exile.
Kris is there during every one of the formal events, painted and primped and on his knees. He learns not to look any of the underlords in the eye after one unpleasant exchange. The offended underlord isn’t suicidal enough to actually attack him - even among the arrogant bastards that swarm around their Prime, such an insult is unthinkable.
Instead, the underlord appeals, in a formal, stilted language that has as much in common with the Goa’uld Doctor Jackson drummed into Kris as it does with Klingon, to Adam for redress. Adam turns those burning golden eyes on Kris and orders him stripped of the sheer tunic that just barely preserves his modesty. Left in just the loincloth, Kris shivers at the lazy perusal of his bare skin and Adam dips his head just enough that his words are only audible to Kris.
“Misbehave again, my pet, and you’ll spend this Court skin-clad.” He trails a finger down along the line of Kris’ pectoral muscle to tweak his nipple. Kris can’t help the gasp or the way his blood rushes south. Adam’s smile is pure feline satisfaction and his gaze is heated as he sits back on his throne.
Kris feels Adam’s attention warm and greedy linger for the rest of the Court.
=/=
Kris tries to escape more times than he can count. He nearly succeeds twice, if you count that first panicked attempt to run when he’d stumbled through the ‘Gate, half-mad and found himself surrounded by masked Dragon-Guards. Kris tries not to think about that - R’cliff and the others had brought him down within five meters and Kris had carried the bruises until his first whirl through the sarcophagus.
The second time is the one that Adam will never forgive him for. Kris has never asked which part drove the Goa’uld into a killing rage. By SGC standards, it was a pretty good plan. Admittedly, Kris hadn’t realized that his ability to tap the knowledge lurking in the back of his brain was so erratic or how much it would physically take out of him to channel useful knowledge. Still, break the Seal and run remains the only hope Kris will ever have of actual escape. Adam controls the system and light years of surrounding space and has effectively unlimited man-power to pursue anyone who tries to leave his territory against his wishes.
Kris knows that he cracked the Seal; the detailed certainty of that much is woven into Kris’ knowledge, somewhere between how to go incorporeal (nullified by Adam’s collar) and the precise procedure for altering molecular composition. He is sure that the Seal is not actually broken because Adam’s still here. Adam is Goa’uld, capricious with an insatiable craving for more. More territory, more power, more slaves, more control.
When his nightmares chase him from sleep, Kris lies awake and runs through every detail he can recall of the Seal and how to break it.
And swears to himself that the next time...next time he’ll go all the way.
=/=
Brad’s voice is deep and hypnotic, the occasional bass reverberation as his voice slips down an octave. R’cliff is kneeling between his legs, wrists crossed behind his back. He’s keening, a thread of sound that rises and falls with every artfully casual brush of Brad’s fingers against his straining cock. The (former?) First Prime is naked but for the scrap of silk that covers his eyes and the gut pouch is half-healed.
In the dim light, Kris could almost think he was human.
Brad croons in R’cliff’s ear, promising him release, pleasure beyond imagining if he will just let Brad have him. R’cliff’s wordless keen rises into a desperate cry as Brad circles his cock with a tantalizingly loose grip. R’cliff’s wrists aren’t tied but he keeps them crossed behind his back like they were chained there. He’s rocking up helplessly into the feather-light touches Brad trails across his skin, whining and whimpering while the underlord laughs.
The candles paint R’cliff skin gold and Brad is a darker, sleeker shape behind him, the light catching on the intricate rings on the Goa’uld’s fingers. The world is blurs of varied gold and Kris feels like he’s stumbled onto a porno set after smoking a joint. He’s sweating, Adam’s hands leaving fingerprints on his skin as his hands skim Kris’ slippery skin.
The incense smolders in the small golden bowls and makes the whole room smoky and Kris blinks slowly. The whole room is spinning lazily under his feet and only Adam’s hands on his hips keep him from falling. He’s panting, gulps of too hot air that don’t do anything to clear his muddled thoughts.
R’cliff arches back, head against Brad’s shoulders and the light from his rings flashes as he dips fingers into him, working him open slowly as the underlord’s voice rumbles against his ear. Adam’s mouth presses sloppy kisses against the corner of his mouth. Kris sways back into him, too disoriented to resist.
Adam’s eyes glow and his mouth is bruised dark, red in the gloom that surrounds them both. R’cliff’s sounds - there’s nothing coherent enough to be called words in the breathless whimpers that escape - sound too loud. It’s like being stuck in the cinema seat beside the couple who are fucking through a bland ‘blockbuster’. Kris can’t look at the two of them without feeling his cheeks heat (and his dick swell) but there’s nothing else to look at.
Adam’s voice is a deep vibration that resonates through Kris’ bones. “Would it be such a terrible thing to surrender?”
=/=
On the second planetary anniversary of his arrival, Kris wakes in the night to the sound of Adam’s armies mustering. Adam’s side of the bed is cooling even as Kris reaches out a sleepy hand. He crawls gingerly out of the bed, wincing with every step until he’s standing at the window.
Outside, Adam’s armies are marching into formation. Phalanxes of Jaffa that must number in the tens of thousands wheel and march to the bare fields. High overhead, the Ha’tak of Adam’s primary attack fleet create a new constellation of triangular stars over the domed roof of the Temple. Kris stares out, trying to guess how many Jaffa have been assembled but the massed army stretches back over the horizon, its true size lost to the darkness.
Kris’ heart stops. This isn’t just a display of power, another of the meaningless military marches that Adam’s underlords delight in. This is an invasion force.
He doesn’t - can’t - know where Adam means to invade but Kris thinks of Adam’s wild expression in firelight and his talk of a lesson that the ‘lesser’ Goa’uld would pay heed to. Adam could have been talking about almost any inhabited planet but Kris looks out at Adam’s army and thinks Earth despairingly.
The Seal isn’t broken yet but Adam would never have called up his troops if he wasn’t sure he could break it. He’s too jealous of his power and prestige to make an amateur mistake like that. His Priests must be close to a breakthrough.
Kris stumbles back, hip jarring against the marble and the jolt of pain from his still-tender ass offers him a burst of clarity. Decadent sex life notwithstanding, Kris is still the first-class airman that Uncle Sam made him and his tactical planning might be rusty but it’s still solid. Two minutes of weighing his meager options and Kris knows exactly what to do.
He lifts his hands to the collar still sitting comfortably at the base of his neck and curls his fingers around it. It hurts, burns like acid in his blood and his head aches like his old drill sergeant is pounding on it but the collar’s molecular structure yields one atom at a time until Kris is holding it in his hands.
His neck feels too light, unfinished without the comforting weight of his collar and Kris kisses it lightly, weaving the mental/psychosomatic threads that will carry his message to Adam. He blends his sorrow at having to go with the solid infusion of want that he’s built the whole message around.
Catch me if you can.
Adam is older than human history, cannier than all the generals Kris’ instructors idolized and cruel as only a God can be. Kris can’t hope to outwit him. Any argument or plan he can bring to bear against Adam will fail because Adam knows what Kris is thinking and what his options are before Kris does. A System Lord that cunning will mean the fall of Earth, the end of the free allied worlds and the resurgence of Ra’s Empire - this time in Adam’s iron grip. All Kris can do, alone in their room, is redirect Adam’s focus; force the System Lord to devote his attention to hunting Kris.
Kris leaves his collar in the center of the bed, a perfect silver circle and lets his body dissolve into nebulous loops of energy, taking the Ancients favored form with a single thought. He extends his perceptions to the room around him, committing every detail to memory. He hesitates for a long moment, surprised to find how much sweeter his time as Adam’s Beloved really was. Leaving is an almost physical wrench as Kris wills himself across the curve of the planet, homing in on the Stargate like a HyStrike missile.
Let the Hunt begin!
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