Lions and Tigers and Igigi, Oh My
FOUR chapters in FOUR days... count 'em. FOUR. Does this make for a spurt?
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
Tony stood at the side as Carter tried to get the cell door open. O'Neill was leaning against the bars bemoaning their lack of C4. Eventually he seemed to get bored with listening to himself bitch. “So,” he said in a lazy drawl. “How’s it hanging with you, Teal’c?” Up until now, O’Neill had walked the room peering at every shadow. Now he finally focused on his teammate, who clearly wasn’t named Murray.
“All things hang as they usually do.”
O’Neill grinned. “Well that’s better than the alternative. Carter?”
Carter currently had her hands in the guts of alien circuitry. “I’m working on the locking mechanism now.”
“Yeah, I see that. I was hoping for more results,” O’Neill said.
Carter spared him a dirty look. “This is not easy, sir.”
“Now that’s your problem. You always make it look easy, so now you’ve raised my expectations.”
“I’ll make sure to disappoint you more in the future,” Carter said dryly without even looking up from her work.
Daniel laughed, and O’Neill gave him a dirty look. “So, Teal’c, here’s the thing. Thanks to Di’Nozzo’s friend, we’re all compromised.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow.
“We got matching snakes. It’s like getting a team tattoo, only less tacky. So, if any of us start trying to take over the universe, feel free to shoot us in the ass with a zat.”
Tony got the feeling that O’Neill had finally managed to shock Teal’c. Personally, Tony would have been shocked at their little ragtag rescue, but Teal’c had been all stoic man up until this point. Now he blinked at O’Neill as if waiting for the punch line. Eventually he bowed his head and gave a simple, “I shall. How did this happen?”
O’Neill grimaced before saying, “Samas had the jaffa drop us in a pond full of goa'uld.”
“Onac,” Tony corrected him.
“Right. One burrows into the brain of an unwilling host, and the other... Oh. Right.” O'Neill gave Tony a dirty look.
Tony's temper finally snapped. “You can stop acting like an utter bastard. Gibbs and Samas are trying to save their people, and in case it’s escaped your notice, he’s a good guy.”
Immediately, O’Neill was in his face. “Right. And we’ve never heard that one before. Do you have any idea how many of these assholes have pretended to be on our side? They claim to be our allies and then test dangerous equipment on us. And we get ordered to still play nice. They tell us that they hated Ra and are on our side. Only their definition of ‘our side’ seems to include ripping out pieces of my internal organs and collecting DNA from Danny the old fashioned way.” O’Neill was right there in Tony’s space, crowding him back into the wall.
Tony glanced over, and Daniel was bright red, his gaze going everywhere except Tony. The arms around his stomach and the way he withdrew were familiar enough. Tony knew victims.
“Pieces of internal organs?” Tony asked softly, avoiding the more explosive topic of Daniel and stolen DNA.
O’Neill snorted and turned his back. A few brisk and stiff steps took him to the other side of the corridor where he watched for guard, and from the looks, he would have welcomed a chance to shoot someone.
Surprisingly, it was Daniel who spoke up. He might be showing the signs of a victim, but he was one of those victims that had a spine of steel who would stand up and point right at the perpetrator. Tony had seen that enough to recognize the type, and he’d seen enough victims who couldn’t do that to be impressed by Daniel’s strength.
“Hathor was the worst of them. She was one of the queens, and she used a goa’uld device to remove some of Jack’s internal organs to turn him into a jaffa. It would have worked except we had access to a sarcophagus, one that we blew up shortly after that.”
Tony frowned. “Wait.” He looked over at Teal’c. “You used to be human?” That was disturbing on a level that Tony rarely got disturbed anymore. Hell, he was in Baltimore when they had that kinky group who did self-serve castrations on each other and landed one guy in the emergency room. After that, Tony would have claimed he’d seen it all in terms of body modification, but this was a new level of disturbing.
“I was not,” Teal’c said calmly. “For many generations my family have been jaffa, although I believe my ancestors were once from Earth.”
That somehow made it worse. Not only did the goa’uld screw with people’s bodies, but they made it genetic so that the kids were screwed by default. Tony really didn’t like these guys.
Daniel had his head ducked in a half bow, and he studied the back of his own hand where he gripped his zat. “She used my DNA to try and spawn new goa’uld.”
“What?” Tony’s voice came out as a disbelieving sort of squawk, which was not the tone he was going for with a potential rape victim.
Daniel’s head popped up, and Tony could almost feel the aggression rolling in from O’Neill’s side.
“I mean, they’re a different species. Why would a queen want human DNA? That’s… disturbing and wrong.”
O’Neill snorted.
Daniel shrugged. “If the symbiotes have some human DNA in them, it makes them more compatible with human hosts.”
“And that probably explains why they can’t live as free-swimming predators,” Tony said softly. “God, no wonder Samas thinks the goa’uld are sick bastards.”
O’Neill narrowed his eyes. “Do not start in on how all onac are warm and fuzzy.” From the tone O’Neill was using, he was seriously considering shooting Tony.
“Samas is as warm and fuzzy as a porcupine. That was actually the second time I watched him eat one of his own people and then vomit up the remains,” Tony pointed out. “He’s a predator, and if he thinks an onac is weak, he’s not going to feel guilty about killing in cold blood. Well, assuming they have blood.”
O’Neill leaned back against the corridor and seemed to turn his attention back to guarding the far end of the hall, but now that Tony understood the dynamics better, he could see how O’Neill kept part of his attention on Daniel the whole time.
Tony ran his fingers through his hair. This was a little more complicated than he’d understood. “I just think that Samas wants his people to be predators. That won’t work if they stay in hosts. I don’t think he’s going to keep his word because he’s warm and fuzzy. I think he’ll keep his word because he has a sense of honor and because it gets him what he wants.”
“Selfishness is a motive I can get behind when it comes to the goa’uld,” O’Neill said, and this time Tony didn’t bother correcting him.
“I wonder if the genetic manipulation was because of Ra or if the queens were doing it to try and get back at him, maybe by making their jaffa stronger than his.” Tony couldn’t quite figure that one out.
“What?” Daniel pushed up his glasses. “What are you talking about?”
“The queens.” Tony could see the blank expression on Daniel’s face. “The queens always had the power, so Ra tried to clip their wings and there was some sort of war. And clearly this is news to you.”
Daniel made a strange face. “Sort of. We know there were a lot of queens that got put in stasis in some way.”
“And others were killed. Apparently Yu was associated with one of the queens who really hated the idea of moving into hosts full time. He and Ra didn’t get along well after that.”
“And you found out all this in the few days you were here?” O’Neill asked. He didn’t bother hiding his skepticism, but that was fine. Tony cultivated an air of incompetence, so he didn’t mind it when people believed his shtick.
Tony grinned. “It helps to make friends in low places.” Personally Tony was still a little hacked off that O’Neill had dismissed Stelli, sending him back to the slave quarters. True, he was probably safer there, but he was Tony’s buddy, not O’Neill’s.
“Where does Samas fit into the war between the queens and Ra?” Daniel asked.
Tony grinned and did a bit of quick mental editing. “Ra brought the igigi in to try and fix some genetic line or replenish his forces… I don’t actually know what. But I know Samas lost his queen when she refused to cooperate with Ra. Apparently she hadn’t realized what he was doing with her children until later.”
Daniel was nodding. “That makes sense. Igigi were lesser gods, slaves to the higher gods. Shamash was never identified with that mythology, but he was known as the god of justice who inspired Hammurabi and was the mentor to Gilgamesh, the champion of mankind. He stepped in to protect people several times in history.”
“Right. So he’s the good guy,” O’Neill said, and now he was glaring at Daniel.
However, unlike Tony who always tried to return a stupid grin for every hateful look he got, Daniel gave O’Neill an equally unhappy glare. “I am not an idiot, and the Code of Hammurabi was one of the most brutal codes of justice in all of human history. If Shamash had anything to do with it, I would call him a cold hearted bastard who cares about justice, even if his concern for actual people is a little lacking. His queen would have been Nanna, who was the daughter of Ninlil, but we haven’t run into any mention of those queens.”
Tony blinked. Okay, Tony was used to people subconsciously weaving in the details around the lies and obfuscations he sometimes used. Tony would mention some random woman, and let Tim’s imagination go from there, even when Tony was talking about the waitress at the local sandwich shop. However, Daniel seemed to be taking that to an oddly specific extreme. “Nanna? Ninlin?”
Daniel was humming. “Has Shamash mentioned either of those names?”
Tony didn’t intend on giving Daniel any specific details he could check on. The man was too smart. Luckily, given a couple of details, he also seemed pretty willing to make up the rest of the story on his own. Tony answered sadly, “Mentioning queens around Samas, especially mentioning his queen, is a sure way to get locked out of the room or just have Samas separate from Gibbs and go swimming. Not much talking gets done when he’s in that form.”
“I have never heard of a goa’uld who casually separated from the host,” Teal’c said. The man was usually so silent that his voice startled Tony. He was equally shocked that Teal’c almost seemed to be coming down on the side of giving Samas the benefit of the doubt and not lumping him in with all goa’uld.
“Oh thank God. I have it,” Carter said. She had no more than finished when the cell door popped open.”
“There you go, Major. See, miracles on demand,” O’Neill said happily. “Okay kids, it’s time to blow this popsicle stand.”
“What? No!” Tony stepped right into O’Neill’s personal space. “We said we could go back up Gibbs as soon as we had Teal’c.”
“And, but, or…” O’Neill let his voice trail off, that same manic glee coloring his tone. He man was definitely a couple of reels short of a full movie.
“And I’m going to the bridge. But Gibbs would never leave us. Or you can leave, and then you’ll be stuck with onac in your heads.”
O’Neill gave a dramatic sigh. “Fine. We’ll go find the gunny. Happy?”
“Deliriously,” Tony answered. O’Neill didn’t fool him, though. If the colonel hadn’t been planning on going up to the bridge, he wouldn’t have been so quick to agree. He’d never planned on leaving Gibbs behind, but he had planned on threatening to leave, just to annoy Tony. The man was an asshole. Unfortunately, Tony was starting to think he was an asshole who might be right about one or two things.
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
Tony stood at the side as Carter tried to get the cell door open. O'Neill was leaning against the bars bemoaning their lack of C4. Eventually he seemed to get bored with listening to himself bitch. “So,” he said in a lazy drawl. “How’s it hanging with you, Teal’c?” Up until now, O’Neill had walked the room peering at every shadow. Now he finally focused on his teammate, who clearly wasn’t named Murray.
“All things hang as they usually do.”
O’Neill grinned. “Well that’s better than the alternative. Carter?”
Carter currently had her hands in the guts of alien circuitry. “I’m working on the locking mechanism now.”
“Yeah, I see that. I was hoping for more results,” O’Neill said.
Carter spared him a dirty look. “This is not easy, sir.”
“Now that’s your problem. You always make it look easy, so now you’ve raised my expectations.”
“I’ll make sure to disappoint you more in the future,” Carter said dryly without even looking up from her work.
Daniel laughed, and O’Neill gave him a dirty look. “So, Teal’c, here’s the thing. Thanks to Di’Nozzo’s friend, we’re all compromised.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow.
“We got matching snakes. It’s like getting a team tattoo, only less tacky. So, if any of us start trying to take over the universe, feel free to shoot us in the ass with a zat.”
Tony got the feeling that O’Neill had finally managed to shock Teal’c. Personally, Tony would have been shocked at their little ragtag rescue, but Teal’c had been all stoic man up until this point. Now he blinked at O’Neill as if waiting for the punch line. Eventually he bowed his head and gave a simple, “I shall. How did this happen?”
O’Neill grimaced before saying, “Samas had the jaffa drop us in a pond full of goa'uld.”
“Onac,” Tony corrected him.
“Right. One burrows into the brain of an unwilling host, and the other... Oh. Right.” O'Neill gave Tony a dirty look.
Tony's temper finally snapped. “You can stop acting like an utter bastard. Gibbs and Samas are trying to save their people, and in case it’s escaped your notice, he’s a good guy.”
Immediately, O’Neill was in his face. “Right. And we’ve never heard that one before. Do you have any idea how many of these assholes have pretended to be on our side? They claim to be our allies and then test dangerous equipment on us. And we get ordered to still play nice. They tell us that they hated Ra and are on our side. Only their definition of ‘our side’ seems to include ripping out pieces of my internal organs and collecting DNA from Danny the old fashioned way.” O’Neill was right there in Tony’s space, crowding him back into the wall.
Tony glanced over, and Daniel was bright red, his gaze going everywhere except Tony. The arms around his stomach and the way he withdrew were familiar enough. Tony knew victims.
“Pieces of internal organs?” Tony asked softly, avoiding the more explosive topic of Daniel and stolen DNA.
O’Neill snorted and turned his back. A few brisk and stiff steps took him to the other side of the corridor where he watched for guard, and from the looks, he would have welcomed a chance to shoot someone.
Surprisingly, it was Daniel who spoke up. He might be showing the signs of a victim, but he was one of those victims that had a spine of steel who would stand up and point right at the perpetrator. Tony had seen that enough to recognize the type, and he’d seen enough victims who couldn’t do that to be impressed by Daniel’s strength.
“Hathor was the worst of them. She was one of the queens, and she used a goa’uld device to remove some of Jack’s internal organs to turn him into a jaffa. It would have worked except we had access to a sarcophagus, one that we blew up shortly after that.”
Tony frowned. “Wait.” He looked over at Teal’c. “You used to be human?” That was disturbing on a level that Tony rarely got disturbed anymore. Hell, he was in Baltimore when they had that kinky group who did self-serve castrations on each other and landed one guy in the emergency room. After that, Tony would have claimed he’d seen it all in terms of body modification, but this was a new level of disturbing.
“I was not,” Teal’c said calmly. “For many generations my family have been jaffa, although I believe my ancestors were once from Earth.”
That somehow made it worse. Not only did the goa’uld screw with people’s bodies, but they made it genetic so that the kids were screwed by default. Tony really didn’t like these guys.
Daniel had his head ducked in a half bow, and he studied the back of his own hand where he gripped his zat. “She used my DNA to try and spawn new goa’uld.”
“What?” Tony’s voice came out as a disbelieving sort of squawk, which was not the tone he was going for with a potential rape victim.
Daniel’s head popped up, and Tony could almost feel the aggression rolling in from O’Neill’s side.
“I mean, they’re a different species. Why would a queen want human DNA? That’s… disturbing and wrong.”
O’Neill snorted.
Daniel shrugged. “If the symbiotes have some human DNA in them, it makes them more compatible with human hosts.”
“And that probably explains why they can’t live as free-swimming predators,” Tony said softly. “God, no wonder Samas thinks the goa’uld are sick bastards.”
O’Neill narrowed his eyes. “Do not start in on how all onac are warm and fuzzy.” From the tone O’Neill was using, he was seriously considering shooting Tony.
“Samas is as warm and fuzzy as a porcupine. That was actually the second time I watched him eat one of his own people and then vomit up the remains,” Tony pointed out. “He’s a predator, and if he thinks an onac is weak, he’s not going to feel guilty about killing in cold blood. Well, assuming they have blood.”
O’Neill leaned back against the corridor and seemed to turn his attention back to guarding the far end of the hall, but now that Tony understood the dynamics better, he could see how O’Neill kept part of his attention on Daniel the whole time.
Tony ran his fingers through his hair. This was a little more complicated than he’d understood. “I just think that Samas wants his people to be predators. That won’t work if they stay in hosts. I don’t think he’s going to keep his word because he’s warm and fuzzy. I think he’ll keep his word because he has a sense of honor and because it gets him what he wants.”
“Selfishness is a motive I can get behind when it comes to the goa’uld,” O’Neill said, and this time Tony didn’t bother correcting him.
“I wonder if the genetic manipulation was because of Ra or if the queens were doing it to try and get back at him, maybe by making their jaffa stronger than his.” Tony couldn’t quite figure that one out.
“What?” Daniel pushed up his glasses. “What are you talking about?”
“The queens.” Tony could see the blank expression on Daniel’s face. “The queens always had the power, so Ra tried to clip their wings and there was some sort of war. And clearly this is news to you.”
Daniel made a strange face. “Sort of. We know there were a lot of queens that got put in stasis in some way.”
“And others were killed. Apparently Yu was associated with one of the queens who really hated the idea of moving into hosts full time. He and Ra didn’t get along well after that.”
“And you found out all this in the few days you were here?” O’Neill asked. He didn’t bother hiding his skepticism, but that was fine. Tony cultivated an air of incompetence, so he didn’t mind it when people believed his shtick.
Tony grinned. “It helps to make friends in low places.” Personally Tony was still a little hacked off that O’Neill had dismissed Stelli, sending him back to the slave quarters. True, he was probably safer there, but he was Tony’s buddy, not O’Neill’s.
“Where does Samas fit into the war between the queens and Ra?” Daniel asked.
Tony grinned and did a bit of quick mental editing. “Ra brought the igigi in to try and fix some genetic line or replenish his forces… I don’t actually know what. But I know Samas lost his queen when she refused to cooperate with Ra. Apparently she hadn’t realized what he was doing with her children until later.”
Daniel was nodding. “That makes sense. Igigi were lesser gods, slaves to the higher gods. Shamash was never identified with that mythology, but he was known as the god of justice who inspired Hammurabi and was the mentor to Gilgamesh, the champion of mankind. He stepped in to protect people several times in history.”
“Right. So he’s the good guy,” O’Neill said, and now he was glaring at Daniel.
However, unlike Tony who always tried to return a stupid grin for every hateful look he got, Daniel gave O’Neill an equally unhappy glare. “I am not an idiot, and the Code of Hammurabi was one of the most brutal codes of justice in all of human history. If Shamash had anything to do with it, I would call him a cold hearted bastard who cares about justice, even if his concern for actual people is a little lacking. His queen would have been Nanna, who was the daughter of Ninlil, but we haven’t run into any mention of those queens.”
Tony blinked. Okay, Tony was used to people subconsciously weaving in the details around the lies and obfuscations he sometimes used. Tony would mention some random woman, and let Tim’s imagination go from there, even when Tony was talking about the waitress at the local sandwich shop. However, Daniel seemed to be taking that to an oddly specific extreme. “Nanna? Ninlin?”
Daniel was humming. “Has Shamash mentioned either of those names?”
Tony didn’t intend on giving Daniel any specific details he could check on. The man was too smart. Luckily, given a couple of details, he also seemed pretty willing to make up the rest of the story on his own. Tony answered sadly, “Mentioning queens around Samas, especially mentioning his queen, is a sure way to get locked out of the room or just have Samas separate from Gibbs and go swimming. Not much talking gets done when he’s in that form.”
“I have never heard of a goa’uld who casually separated from the host,” Teal’c said. The man was usually so silent that his voice startled Tony. He was equally shocked that Teal’c almost seemed to be coming down on the side of giving Samas the benefit of the doubt and not lumping him in with all goa’uld.
“Oh thank God. I have it,” Carter said. She had no more than finished when the cell door popped open.”
“There you go, Major. See, miracles on demand,” O’Neill said happily. “Okay kids, it’s time to blow this popsicle stand.”
“What? No!” Tony stepped right into O’Neill’s personal space. “We said we could go back up Gibbs as soon as we had Teal’c.”
“And, but, or…” O’Neill let his voice trail off, that same manic glee coloring his tone. He man was definitely a couple of reels short of a full movie.
“And I’m going to the bridge. But Gibbs would never leave us. Or you can leave, and then you’ll be stuck with onac in your heads.”
O’Neill gave a dramatic sigh. “Fine. We’ll go find the gunny. Happy?”
“Deliriously,” Tony answered. O’Neill didn’t fool him, though. If the colonel hadn’t been planning on going up to the bridge, he wouldn’t have been so quick to agree. He’d never planned on leaving Gibbs behind, but he had planned on threatening to leave, just to annoy Tony. The man was an asshole. Unfortunately, Tony was starting to think he was an asshole who might be right about one or two things.