"Ready To Rumble"
Title: Ready To Rumble
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 1,120
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SG-1
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Sam/Jack
Summary: They'd been fighting for what felt like weeks.
They’d been fighting for what felt like weeks.
He wasn’t sure when it had started or with what. No, that was a lie. He knew exactly how it started. He’d pulled them out of P4X-787 early because he’d gotten the sense that they had overstayed their very frosty welcome and the natives were getting restless.
He’d been waiting for an argument from Daniel and when it hadn’t come, Daniel merely packing his stuff and nodding when Jack had asked him if he had everything he needed. Jack should’ve known something was up. Daniel always argued, except when he knew he wouldn’t have to.
When he knew Sam was going to do it for him.
Sneaky fucker.
Sam started in as soon as he approached, telling him there was no reason to leave, they still had a lot of areas to check and she hadn’t gotten to follow-up on the readings she’d been getting from the North. He listened to her and then told her to stow it and she had, because Carter was a lot of things but she would never argue with a direct order, but she let him know how much she liked his decision in non-verbal ways.
She cancelled on movie night when they got back onworld, shut herself into her labs and didn’t come out for days. He appreciated that she didn’t try to go over his head with her objections but he knew she wanted to and that seemed to piss her off more.
“Whatever it is,” Hammond announced after a team-leader meeting a week later, “make it go away. I’ve had four researchers quit and a marine cry.”
Jack had tried to smooth things over in his own way, leaving blue jello in her labs, making sure her requisition requests went through before anyone else’s but otherwise staying out of her way.
Carter was having none of it.
Next time they were offworld, she would only answer him in clipped “Yes, Sir, no, Sir,” responses and he got the feeling she was saying “Screw you,” with every one. By now he was getting tired of it and made her take the dreaded third watch, sleep in the same tent as Daniel even though he knew Daniel was having a particularly dreadful sinus attack and would snore louder than usual and gave Teal’c the mac‘n cheese MRE even though he knew it was her favourite.
Her eyes narrowed, her back straightened but she didn’t say a word through any of it.
He caught Daniel and Teal’c rolling their eyes at each other more than once and that just made him edgier. When Sam took a tumble down an embankment and after he’d made sure she was physically okay, he’d yelled at her for ten minutes about watching where she was going.
“Stop being an asshole,” Daniel had said as soon as they had a minute alone and Jack had looked at him, feeling the anger ratchet up a notch.
“I’m being her CO,” he corrected stiffly and Daniel sighed, putting the pack down he’d been repacking.
“I’ve seen you being her CO. I maintain that currently you’re being an ass.”
“Careful Daniel,” Jack said in a low tone. He put up with a lot from his archaeologist, but there was a line and Daniel was blithely running towards it, pole vault in hand, because whenever he crossed it he did it spectacularly.
“I know it’s hard but you guys have been doing this for four years. What’s changed?”
Jack opened his mouth and then stopped. Ah, he thought, this may in fact be entirely my fault.
“I leaned,” he said, surprising himself with his admission and Daniel, who had put a hand up to his radio to check in with Sam and Teal’c, lowered it slowly.
“You what?”
“I leaned. Right before we left for ‘787 and you guys were at my place. Sam stooped over to get her beer and I misunderstood the movement and I… leaned.”
“Did you connect?” Daniel asked, looking a little mortified and a lot exasperated.
“No, she kind of skipped backwards and you guys came back in right then and that’s when she offered to take Teal’c back to the base.”
“Neither of you have talked about this since, have you?” Daniel asked, knowing the answer already when Jack ducked his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, no wonder. You’re both assholes.”
“I’m telling her you said that.”
“Good,” Daniel snorted. “Maybe it’ll break the ice.”
“Everything alright?” Both men jumped when Sam emerged from the brush surrounding their camp site, looking worried.
“Peachy,” Jack said and Daniel gave him a glare. Jack kicked him in the shin. Daniel swatted him in the head and after that it took Teal’c to pry them apart.
000
“Daniel said you were an asshole.”
Sam barely avoided snorting water out of her nose and turned streaming eyes to Jack. “He what?”
“Okay, it was a collective asshole calling. He included me.”
“Right. That’s better how, exactly?”
“I told him about what I did and how we hadn’t really dealt with it. He seemed to think that’s why we’re been at each other’s throats for the last little while.”
“Oh,” Sam said, voice small. “Well, you didn’t really do anything.”
“No, but there was all kinds of intention there.”
“Sir, I’m really not comfortable talking about this.”
“So, we’ll just keep arguing until Hammond gets fed up and breaks up the team then, shall we?” Jack asked and Sam paled.
“He-”
“Has noticed something’s up already. Told me to fix it.”
“Oh.” Sam shaded her eyes, looking at the distant figures of Daniel and Teal’c. Daniel was crouched down with his hands moving over the low wall of the ruins they’d found and Teal’c was standing behind, occasionally scanning their surroundings and moving as Daniel moved, always keeping himself between the oblivious Daniel’s back and any potential threat. The thought of being separated from them made everything in Sam go cold.
“How do we fix it?” Sam asked, looking back at Jack and then away, hating how they had lost their easy comfort with each other because of a single moment.
“Well, I’ll promise to stop being a complete jackass if you will.”
“Sounds fair,” Sam allowed, grinning. “Do you think that’ll fix things?”
“Absolutely not, but maybe we can claw our way back to some modicum of normal before we both kill each other and drive Daniel and Teal’c to ritual suicide.”
“Why would they do that?” Sam asked, frowning.
“Because they can’t live without us, of course.”
“You live in your own little warped world, don’t you?” Sam prodded with a laugh and Jack grinned.
“Absolutely.”
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 1,120
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SG-1
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Sam/Jack
Summary: They'd been fighting for what felt like weeks.
They’d been fighting for what felt like weeks.
He wasn’t sure when it had started or with what. No, that was a lie. He knew exactly how it started. He’d pulled them out of P4X-787 early because he’d gotten the sense that they had overstayed their very frosty welcome and the natives were getting restless.
He’d been waiting for an argument from Daniel and when it hadn’t come, Daniel merely packing his stuff and nodding when Jack had asked him if he had everything he needed. Jack should’ve known something was up. Daniel always argued, except when he knew he wouldn’t have to.
When he knew Sam was going to do it for him.
Sneaky fucker.
Sam started in as soon as he approached, telling him there was no reason to leave, they still had a lot of areas to check and she hadn’t gotten to follow-up on the readings she’d been getting from the North. He listened to her and then told her to stow it and she had, because Carter was a lot of things but she would never argue with a direct order, but she let him know how much she liked his decision in non-verbal ways.
She cancelled on movie night when they got back onworld, shut herself into her labs and didn’t come out for days. He appreciated that she didn’t try to go over his head with her objections but he knew she wanted to and that seemed to piss her off more.
“Whatever it is,” Hammond announced after a team-leader meeting a week later, “make it go away. I’ve had four researchers quit and a marine cry.”
Jack had tried to smooth things over in his own way, leaving blue jello in her labs, making sure her requisition requests went through before anyone else’s but otherwise staying out of her way.
Carter was having none of it.
Next time they were offworld, she would only answer him in clipped “Yes, Sir, no, Sir,” responses and he got the feeling she was saying “Screw you,” with every one. By now he was getting tired of it and made her take the dreaded third watch, sleep in the same tent as Daniel even though he knew Daniel was having a particularly dreadful sinus attack and would snore louder than usual and gave Teal’c the mac‘n cheese MRE even though he knew it was her favourite.
Her eyes narrowed, her back straightened but she didn’t say a word through any of it.
He caught Daniel and Teal’c rolling their eyes at each other more than once and that just made him edgier. When Sam took a tumble down an embankment and after he’d made sure she was physically okay, he’d yelled at her for ten minutes about watching where she was going.
“Stop being an asshole,” Daniel had said as soon as they had a minute alone and Jack had looked at him, feeling the anger ratchet up a notch.
“I’m being her CO,” he corrected stiffly and Daniel sighed, putting the pack down he’d been repacking.
“I’ve seen you being her CO. I maintain that currently you’re being an ass.”
“Careful Daniel,” Jack said in a low tone. He put up with a lot from his archaeologist, but there was a line and Daniel was blithely running towards it, pole vault in hand, because whenever he crossed it he did it spectacularly.
“I know it’s hard but you guys have been doing this for four years. What’s changed?”
Jack opened his mouth and then stopped. Ah, he thought, this may in fact be entirely my fault.
“I leaned,” he said, surprising himself with his admission and Daniel, who had put a hand up to his radio to check in with Sam and Teal’c, lowered it slowly.
“You what?”
“I leaned. Right before we left for ‘787 and you guys were at my place. Sam stooped over to get her beer and I misunderstood the movement and I… leaned.”
“Did you connect?” Daniel asked, looking a little mortified and a lot exasperated.
“No, she kind of skipped backwards and you guys came back in right then and that’s when she offered to take Teal’c back to the base.”
“Neither of you have talked about this since, have you?” Daniel asked, knowing the answer already when Jack ducked his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, no wonder. You’re both assholes.”
“I’m telling her you said that.”
“Good,” Daniel snorted. “Maybe it’ll break the ice.”
“Everything alright?” Both men jumped when Sam emerged from the brush surrounding their camp site, looking worried.
“Peachy,” Jack said and Daniel gave him a glare. Jack kicked him in the shin. Daniel swatted him in the head and after that it took Teal’c to pry them apart.
000
“Daniel said you were an asshole.”
Sam barely avoided snorting water out of her nose and turned streaming eyes to Jack. “He what?”
“Okay, it was a collective asshole calling. He included me.”
“Right. That’s better how, exactly?”
“I told him about what I did and how we hadn’t really dealt with it. He seemed to think that’s why we’re been at each other’s throats for the last little while.”
“Oh,” Sam said, voice small. “Well, you didn’t really do anything.”
“No, but there was all kinds of intention there.”
“Sir, I’m really not comfortable talking about this.”
“So, we’ll just keep arguing until Hammond gets fed up and breaks up the team then, shall we?” Jack asked and Sam paled.
“He-”
“Has noticed something’s up already. Told me to fix it.”
“Oh.” Sam shaded her eyes, looking at the distant figures of Daniel and Teal’c. Daniel was crouched down with his hands moving over the low wall of the ruins they’d found and Teal’c was standing behind, occasionally scanning their surroundings and moving as Daniel moved, always keeping himself between the oblivious Daniel’s back and any potential threat. The thought of being separated from them made everything in Sam go cold.
“How do we fix it?” Sam asked, looking back at Jack and then away, hating how they had lost their easy comfort with each other because of a single moment.
“Well, I’ll promise to stop being a complete jackass if you will.”
“Sounds fair,” Sam allowed, grinning. “Do you think that’ll fix things?”
“Absolutely not, but maybe we can claw our way back to some modicum of normal before we both kill each other and drive Daniel and Teal’c to ritual suicide.”
“Why would they do that?” Sam asked, frowning.
“Because they can’t live without us, of course.”
“You live in your own little warped world, don’t you?” Sam prodded with a laugh and Jack grinned.
“Absolutely.”