Fic: Learning to Get Along

Oct 10, 2011 22:43

Title: Learning to Get Along
Author: rivulet027
Summary: Jack is convinced that Atlantis hates him, which is a problem seeing as Daniel loves her.
Word Count: 1,279
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with SG-1 or SGA. Neither is my toy box and I’m merely playing. I also own nothing to do with Mark Twain.
Written For: green_grrl
Prompt: 1. On or relating to Atlantis 2. Jack's ATA gene Optional Request: if it's an SGA crossover, make that side gen or Sheppard/McKay
A/N: Post series for both SG-1 and SGA.


Learning to Get Along:

If there was one thing that Jack O’Neill knew it was that the city of Atlantis hated him. He’d seen how easily she responded to Colonel Sheppard, almost as if she was anticipating his wants. With him, he had to think long and hard just to get the lights to turn on, the city was sluggish for him at best. The city hadn’t let anything happen to Carson when he was frozen. Unspeakable things kept happening to Jack whenever he so much as walked around unaccompanied. He’d get transported to an area he hadn’t indicated and then there’d be a room that hadn’t been explored and his life would get turned upside down, again.

There was only one problem with Atlantis hating him and that was Daniel loved her. Actually Daniel loved her so much Jack wasn’t sure it didn’t count as a torrid affair.

“Really?” Daniel asked.

Jack shrugged.

“You’re jealous of my being buried in translations on an ancient city that we still haven’t fully explored,” Daniel pointed out.

Jack looked out the window of his hotel room and then back to where Daniel was seated on the small couch. Jack scowled, “What’s the point of my retiring if you’re always off exploring?”

“It’s what I do Jack.”

“I know, but if I could actually be there with you this wouldn’t be so bad!”

Daniel frowned, “You’re the one that decided to get a hotel room.”

“How else am I supposed to get you alone?”

Daniel crossed his arms, “And this is how you want to spend our alone time?”

“Yes! No! That city hates me.”

“It’s a city.”

Jack scowled, “I nearly drowned.”

“Radek had that whole area drained in less than five minutes.”

“I disappeared for a whole day!”

“The botanists are having spasms of joy over the garden you managed to activate.”

Jack crossed over and put his hands on the back of the couch, “It turned me into a woman.”

“You’re the one who activated that…”

“I didn’t mean to!” Jack exclaimed, “I was a woman for a whole week!”

Daniel smiled, “That was fun.”

Jack paused, took in the wicked grin on Daniel’s face and answered with his own, “Aspects of that experience were fun.”

Daniel smirked.

“You have to admit that weird stuff keeps happening to me,” Jack prodded.

“Well you do have a strong ATA gene and you keep wandering off,” Daniel tried to point out.

“Not on purpose!”

“What do you want to do?” Daniel asked.

Jack scowled and dropped onto the couch beside Daniel, accepted it when Daniel wrapped arms around him. He leaned up and captured Daniel’s lips. They kissed long and slow for several moments, till Jack felt himself calming.

Daniel pulled away breath heavy as he suggested, “We could go back to Colorado.”

Jack frowned. He wasn’t prepared to take Danny away from the city he loved so much.

“We could get a dog,” Daniel went on, “You’d like a dog.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed.

Daniel’s lips quirked.

“Now you’re just trying to get me to slow down into my old age,” Jack accused as he kissed the corner of Daniel’s mouth.

“What old age? Maybe the city just reacts differently to your ATA gene then Sheppard’s.”

“What? Like she’s playing pranks on me?” Jack mused. He hadn’t thought of that.

“It’s a city.”

“A city that won’t know what hit it!” Jack grinned as several scenarios ran through his head.

“It’s not sentient!”

Jack pulled Daniel into another kiss and as he pulled away said, “You keep believing that.”

If the city loved Sheppard and kept playing pranks on him Jack decided he needed to get Sheppard on his side. He found Sheppard at dinner time, buried in a corner, a large book in his hands. Jack dropped the tray on the table across from him, “I don’t think you like me.”

Sheppard eyed him over the book, “Sir?”

“Jack.”

“Sir?”

“I’m retired, Colonel, it’s Jack.”

“Why do I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting conversation?” Sheppard asked as he laid down his book.

Jack frowned at the book, “Mark Twain wrote an autobiography?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be released till one hundred years after his death,” Sheppard informed him.

“Smart man.”

Sheppard nodded, then added, “John.”

Jack frowned.

“If I’m calling you Jack, then I’m John.”

Jack held out his hand. They shook.

“Now what’s this about?” John asked.

“You don’t like me.”

“I don’t know you,” John pointed out, “But you’re pretty much the reason I found out about Atlantis, even if you didn’t want me to come here.”

“Or maybe I just wanted to make sure Elizabeth was aware of all the angles,” Jack pointed out.

They lapsed into silence as they both thought about the time that they had known Elizabeth Weir.

“She’d have liked this, having Atlantis here on Earth,” John mused.

“She’d have had to back in the Pegasus by now,” Jack told him.

John smiled his acknowledgement and for Jack that was all he needed. The conversation shifted to mundane likes and dislikes. Jack showed up the next day and found Sheppard with Ronon, but sat down and began talking. It took a week for the whole team to be at ease around him, occasionally Rodney still eyed him suspiciously, but Jack felt he’d made progress.

The lights now started to work for him correctly and then they’d slow, as if the city realized she was supposed to be sluggish. The transporter only got him lost once and it was lost into a part of the city he semi-recognized. He was well on his way to considering John Sheppard a friend and the city needed to realize that.

He waited for another week to pass before he wandered into a living section that hadn’t been occupied yet, but was in the planning stages. Jack found a room with a table and set his ipod and player on it. After putting the ipod on shuffle he closed his eyes and let the music pound into the room. Then he began to turn on different lights.

The city responded slowly.

“If you want a prank war I’d win,” Jack pointed out.

Nothing.

“John likes me,” Jack pointed out with a grumble as he pushed his want for the lights just that bit harder.

The lights turned on and off just slightly faster.

“Look I just want to make Danny happy and being here does, so if we could just get past whatever wrong foot we started out on that’d be great,” Jack grumbled as he shut his eyes. He was about to start threatening all the pranks he could pull on the city when he felt the effort he needed to turn on the lights ease.

He opened his eyes and watched as the lights around the apartment responded, as the city slowly realized what he was trying to do. Soon the lights were switching on and off to the music, different lights at different times. It was barely taking any thought at all. Jack grinned. It almost felt as if the city was dancing with him.

“Oh wow,” Daniel commented from the doorway.

Jack grinned and bragged, “Only took me two weeks.”

“To learn how to do this?” Daniel asked as he crossed the room.

“No, to get the city to allow me to guide it into doing this,” Jack corrected.

Jack’s grin widened as Daniel cupped his chin, “You did this for me?”

“Well, can’t have you left behind when she goes back to the Pegasus and I have to go with you.”

Daniel answered with a grin of his own and a kiss.

ficathon_viii, genre:humor, season:future, author:rivulet027, genre:established_relationship, rating:pg-13, writtenfor:green_grrl

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