Never A Picnic
Title: Never a Picnic
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for mild (as in very) nudity, gen
Spoilers: none
Author:
randomfreshink
Recipient: for
aurora_novarum
Request details: Wanted: A "race" (as in "vroom vroom," not "I am an Asgard"); a conspiracy; and...um, I don't know...bubbles?
Didn't Want: noncon; deathfic; SG-1 as babies or animals
Notes: Humor, set S1 -- and this really, really is gen, even with that opening--but there's not too much of a conspiracy unless you count Daniel and Sam's aiding and abetting each other. Thanks to
fignewton for the usual really great beta, and for laughing.
Sam won, but there was no 'of course' about it. She had a bra to get off, and that should've been a handicap, but this was Sam. So Daniel glanced at her pile of clothes, distracted and wondering. Then Sam flashed past--all pale skin and...breasts.
He stood frozen, staring, got caught with his shirt off and, my god, those legs of hers really did go on forever, right up to that ass, and that led his stare higher to the narrowing waist and to those breasts. When higher brain functions kicked in again--after Sam's breasts disappeared into the mud--he blinked. It shouldn't surprise him--he knew she had breasts--and, well, if you wanted to put it into common vernacular you could say what she had was 'a really nice rack.' Words to die by, if Sam ever heard them. He was pretty sure of that. But it was true and it wasn't all that often that he got to see them swinging free like that--okay, it was never. But it shouldn't startle him to have Sam be...well, so female. But it did.
He associated Sam with bright eyes, and that deceptively delicate facial bone structure--elegant neck and capable hands and incandescent energy. That was Sam. She was like some ancient silk, a shimmer that was tougher than you'd guess. But he just didn't think all that often about her breasts. If anything, it was usually her legs that stopped him. She had great legs--long with a stride on her that...a sharp gouge on the back of his calf distracted him from the distraction of Sam. He yelped and remembered why he was trying to get out of his own clothes so damn fast.
With a muttered curse, he glanced at Sam's uniform, saw the glint of her knife in the pile of desert cammo. Well, duh. Pulling his own out, he cut through his boot laces, then straightened and reached for his belt. Jack's yell just about had him slicing his thumb open.
"Daniel! I'd like to take back an archeologist with all his parts!"
Glancing over at Jack, he'd have given a lot for a free hand to make a rude gesture. But he could feel small legs crawling up the back of his calf, and he didn't want them any higher and biting into those parts Jack seemed so worried about. Ducking his head, Daniel sliced his belt, and popped two buttons getting his pants off. Jack streaked past him, and that had him blinking and staring again.
God, Jack had a really white ass. As in pasty. And you noticed it more because it wasn't the locker room where you didn't look anyway and the rest of him was so tan. The man didn't have a pool, so did he do yard work with his shirt off and in cut-offs maybe? That mental picture had Daniel distracted utterly. Until the next pinch.
With a curse, he shucked his trousers, almost tripping on them as he fumbled out of pants and boots and socks and everything else. He remembered his glasses and then his bandana at the last second, and tossed them onto the rest of his gear. Then he was running for the mud, hands clasped over those parts Jack had brought up, and thank god he couldn't see well enough to see who was staring at him.
Crawling into the hot mud, he ducked, covered himself in it, and came up with a sharp breath expelled and a sigh of relief. It was a bit squishy in places you didn't want mud squishing, but it was warm, and sitting curled up in it was better than being eaten alive. In fact, it was almost relaxing.
Jack didn't seem to think so. In fact, he looked like an unhappy raccoon. Or maybe that would be an unhappy mud baby.
He had ducked his head under the mud, too, to make sure he got all the bugs off. But Jack had scraped the dark red, viscous material away from his eyes, leaving big, paler circles. Mud dripped off Jack's flattened hair. Daniel didn't scrape the mud away from his own face--he just blinked a few times and tried to focus hard on not laughing.
Jack was already pissed, and even a chuckle would come off as mocking, which would put Jack in a worse mood. Which left Daniel not even daring to swap a quick glance with Sam. He was brushing shoulders with her and could feel her quivering with trying to holding everything in. So he looked at Teal'c instead.
Well, he looked at the towering, indistinct outline of Teal'c, the last man left standing, in this case, with his clothes on. Unfortunately, Daniel's looking at Teal'c had Jack turning and looking, too, and that wasn't going to lead to anything good, Daniel knew.
Teal'c hadn't joined in the race to see who could strip the fastest. He was still in full uniform and was staring down at the crawling ground at his feet. He had dragged a circle around his boots with his staff, and was using the end of the weapon to sweep away any of the...well, ants, for lack of a better description. Really big ants--with really hard shells. Daniel had stepped on a few, not really meaning to, but two minutes after the first dozen had shown up, there'd been no clear place left on the ground, and he hadn't so much as hurt one of them.
"Insects, Daniel?" Jack said, turning back to glare. "You didn't say ants the size of B52's."
"Well, maybe that's because I have no idea what the size of a B52 is--but if it's not bigger than four inches, you're exaggerating."
"Am I? I've seen ponies smaller than these things! What the hell are they?"
"Given their size, voracity and speed, sir, they could be related to the Army Ant found in--"
"Carter!" Jack snapped, and Sam's mouth went tight and her eyes fired. Jack just kept pushing--ah, yes, it really was going to be one of those missions. "Not every question needs an answer, but the one we do need answered is who the hell left the food out to bring these guys here?"
Since Jack was staring hard at Daniel when he asked this, Daniel was going to guess that question also wasn't supposed to really need an answer. But the assumptions behind it irritated the hell out of him. He tried for as much dignity as he could--which probably wasn't much since he was naked and mud soaked--and he also tried folding his arms, but the mud was slick. So he settled for returning Jack's glare.
And the best he could come up with for an answer--since the mud hadn't quite taken the sting out of the bites on his legs--was, "Hey, don't look at me."
"Daniel, you're the only snack-happy member of this team."
Okay, that was going too far, since Jack usually shared those snacks. He started another protest, but Sam got there before him.
"Sir--it was me. I think."
Glancing at Sam, Daniel wondered if she was doing this just to defect Jack's anger, but guilt, not protective belligerence, shadowed her eyes. He wondered then if, as a kid, she'd been the type who always confessed every wrong. Given what he knew of her, he didn't think so--but he would bet she'd never been the type to let anyone take the blame for her.
"I, uh, may have opened an MRE when I was setting up the seismic monitors, and, uh--forgot I'd open it." She winced slightly and Daniel pressed his lips tight, because it sounded just like something he would have done. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd done just this same thing a few missions ago.
Jack didn't look amused. He was staring at Sam, eyes wide and unblinking, like she'd confessed to armed robbery. Sam had her shoulders hunched, but maybe that was just her trying to stay covered in mud--and her breasts covered, too--and not out of any fear of Jack coming down on her hard.
"You? You brought them on us?" Jack sounded like Sam had to be incapable of that kind of thing, and Daniel rolled his eyes.
"Oh, come on, Jack--it's not exactly one of the ten plagues of Egypt."
"No--it's ants." Jack swept a hand out at the crawling ground. "A whole lot of ants. Alien ants!"
"Well, at least we know now that the carvings at the 'gate weren't so much hyperbole. The really interesting thing is, I'm pretty sure the inscriptions weren't left by the inhabitants. In fact, I don't think there are any inhabitants--well, other than them." Daniel swept an arm out at the swarm, and it was a little creepy since their clothing now seemed to be moving on its own as the sort-of-ants dug into it. And he knew he was babbling, but it was distracting Jack, so he just kept going.
"I think, in fact, that other 'gate travelers may have left the advice that the mud would protect you--even if they were a little vague about the type of insects here. But you'd actually be surprised how much information we've learned from other cultures that've left that kind of graffiti. The Romans used to inscribe...."
"Graffiti?" Jack interrupted, his tone suspicious, as if he thought Daniel was making this up, which was a little insulting, since Daniel had more than enough trivia to spare. Then Jack asked, "As in 'Kilroy was here'?'"
"More like Kilroyus--it was mostly Latin with a--"
"Daniel, did it also happen to mention how long we have to wallow like pigs?"
Daniel glanced at their gear. Given the size of the things--and the bites from their pincers which were still stinging--he was going to guess everything edible would be sliced apart and taken. Then he glanced at Jack.
"Uh, until they're gone?" he offered. "Look at it this way, Jack, people pay big money back home for a soak in a mud bath like this."
"Yeah, and they're idiots!" Turning, Jack glanced over at Teal'c again, who was focused on brushing ants away from his boots, and Daniel took the opportunity to swap commiserating glances with Sam.
Jack hadn't been in that good a mood to start. He hated mineral surveys, grumbled they should be left to the rock hounds--his term for the geologists. But, given that there had been carvings at the 'gate, and that writing meant possible first contact with a new culture, SG-1 had been tagged to look into this place. Which was actually a lot like Yellowstone, Daniel thought, glancing around, able to relax now that they did have warm, somewhat comfortable, protective mud. This area of the planet had to be very like Yellowstone--a giant volcanic caldera, with vents that brought steam and minerals to the surface, creating mud pots and geysers and an amazing display of colors. There were the usual trees scattered around. And there were ants. A whole lot of them. But Teal'c seemed to be dealing with them just fine.
Daniel watched Teal'c shove a few more away. Then he watched as his vest started to move away from the rest of the gear. Ah, they must have found the snacks stashed into his pockets. And then Jack was expressing his unhappiness again.
"Teal'c, why the hell aren't you in here with the rest of your team?" Jack said. And he sounded pleasant, which meant he didn't intend to be pleasant about any of this.
Looking up from his sweeping, Teal'c lifted one eyebrow and cocked his head. That was about as much detail as Daniel could see without his glasses, but he did start to wonder how suicidal Jack was going to be about this.
"O'Neill?" Teal'c said.
The one word--a low voiced question--carried a lot of questions. Daniel translated all of them in his head: What do you want? Are you going to make me do something I do not wish to do? Just how crazy are you Tau'ri? For that last part of it, he didn't think the Jaffa had the high ground on that one, even if they had the arrogance to think they could claim it. For all that warrior stoic crap, from what he'd seen, a Jaffa was just as likely to be goaded into doing something stupid as was any human--meaning people were people, pretty much everywhere.
And, yes, Jack was about to prove that by going mano-a-mano with Teal'c, because, after all, if Jack was going to be forced into an embarrassing situation, his entire team was going to go with him. It would be endearing how Jack dragged his team with him into almost everything--certainly into trouble and back out again--if it wasn't also so damned aggravating at times.
"Teal'c, get your ass in here!"
Ah, fearless leader has spoken, Daniel thought, and he elbowed Sam under the mud. He gave her lifted eyebrows and two fingers held up and a nod towards Teal'c. Meaning, twenty bucks to back Teal'c. She was also looking a little raccoonish, and it was odd to see her with dark, reddish hair--well, with dark, reddish mud-flattened hair. She shook her head, then held up three fingers, and then one, and nodded towards Jack. Daniel blinked at her, thought she had to be crazy, but he nudged her under the mud again and held out his hand to shake on it. They did, under the mud. Then turned to see the outcome of the Teal'c and Jack staring contest.
Teal'c had a fastidious streak that was as wide as his shoulders, so Daniel couldn't see mud going down well with him--not at all. But it seemed that an order was an order, and also that Jack had distracted Teal'c enough.
Daniel noticed the start Teal'c gave, which meant some of the ants had gotten through Teal'c's line of defense. Which meant Teal'c had better start wallowing with the rest of them--the caution signs at the 'gate had been specific about the mud offering both protection and healing from the bites.
Teal'c stripped like he did everything, and with efficient grace, he was bare-assed fast. He would have beaten Sam earlier. And, god, the guy had muscles everywhere. Daniel couldn't help but stare, but he noticed that while Sam had copped a look at Jack, she averted her eyes now.
Frowning, Daniel made a note for Chinese and plum wine some evening to dig into that--and pay up on the bet. He was also betting that something in Sam's past had left her with distaste for being part of any group that'd stick one person into an embarrassing spotlight. And he was going to go for it having something to do with her Academy days, and how a good chunk of the military seemed to be stuck in outdated customs-boys' club wasn't the half of it. But if Sam didn't want to share about any of it, they'd still get a good meal. That, however, was for later.
For now, they had Teal'c crowding into the mud pot... spa...cauldron? Boil, boil, toil and....
And the bubbles rose then. Three of them broke the surface with an unholy stink and a thick plop and splatter.
Daniel reeled back, tried to cover his mouth and nose, but his hand had mud on it and it stank, too, now. He swore, so did Jack, and Sam choked back a raw cough. Teal'c stared at them as if he thought they were wimps, and that set Jack off again.
"Teal'c, you been at the Western Beans?"
"Sir, that was the planet," Carter said, patience worn thin in her tone. "This whole area is heated with mineral vents."
Jack turned his stare on her, then asked, "Planet farts?"
Another bubble rose and burst, and Daniel put his stare on it and forced a frown as he bit the inside of his lower lip. If he laughed, Sam and Teal'c would kill him for encouraging Jack. And he shouldn't encourage Jack. No one should--not that the lack of it ever stopped Jack.
"More like burps, sir," Sam said.
"Oh? This look like anything other than the ass end of nowhere, Carter?"
Daniel glanced up as Sam was looking around, wide-eyed under the mud. She scraped a fresh splatter of mud off one cheek, which only smeared everything even more, then admitted, "No, sir."
Teal'c stared at the mud, then at Jack. And the look in Teal'c's eyes had Daniel deciding he should offer Sam ten-to-one odds that Jaffa revenge would be had before they got back through the 'gate. But he'd never get her to take that kind of sucker bet.
Another bubble slopped up, stinking of rotten eggs, and Daniel wished to hell that Janet had not put him on better and stronger allergy meds.
"Christ, that stinks," he muttered.
"Thank you, Daniel. Any other brilliant observations?" Jack asked. Then he turned to glare at Teal'c. "And that better be Junior poking at me, not anything else!"
God, Jack--Daniel fought hard not to say the words, because it would only make it worse. But Jack really was not going to make it off this planet alive if he kept this up. Teal'c's mouth pulled down to that grim look he'd worn most of the first few months--the one that had had every SF on the base keeping one hand on his sidearm at all times and staying about ten feet away from Teal'c's reach.
"I am not in bodily contact with you, O'Neill." Teal'c managed to make the words sound as if his fist could remedy the situation real fast, and Daniel decided he'd better follow Sam's example and come clean--well, metaphorically speaking.
"Uh, I think that's my foot."
"Daniel!"
"What--can I help it if I'm naturally buoyant?"
"Is that what you call it?" Jack said, squirming which set the mud slopping. More bubbles lifted and burped--or farted, depending on your point of view about which end of this planet they were on.
Then Sam said, "Well, sir, it does make sense, given Daniel's larger--"
"Larger what, Carter?" Jack said, making the words a dare and a warning.
And Daniel started biting the inside of his lower lip again.
Sam, bless her, didn't drop her stare from Jack's goading one, even if her ears pinked on the tips where a patch of skin showed through the mud. "Chest capacity, sir. He's very broad in the chest, and across the shoulders. But it's the extra depth in his chest which gives him a greater lung size, and naturally makes him...."
Seeming to realize she was digging herself a hole by adding maybe one too many details for a physical description of one of the guys on her team, Sam broke off. Daniel fixed his stare back on the mud because no way was he going into any of it. But, hell, if he could notice Sam's...chest, well, then why shouldn't she notice his in return? They were scientists. They were supposed to notice things and be observant. Right?
Jack--thank god--had enough of a moment of sanity to leave it as well. He looked over at their gear, then started climbing out of the mud. "Okay, campers, picnic's over."
The ants did seem to be gone, but Daniel waited for Jack to get out, so he could see just how much the mud covered, which was, also thank god, most of everything. It clung like a second skin, but it also clumped, which helped to cover some of the basics. So Daniel climbed out and found his glasses, and he was careful not to look at Sam or Teal'c or Jack. After wiping off some of the mud from his face, he lifted what was left of his shirt and stared at it.
The ants had sliced through the fabric, leaving quarter-inch gashes so that it looked as if punk rocker fashion mavens had just been through here with razors. Daniel was glad he hadn't been in his shirt at the time. Then he thought about the walk back to the Stargate and about how mud dried, how it contracted and then flaked. And he thought about chafing. Flaking and chafing did not make for a good combination. So he took his knife and set to work.
Sam noticed what he was doing, but she didn't say anything. After watched for a minute, she had her knife out, too. He swapped a glance with her and got back a bright-eyed stare. Then they both glanced at Jack--instinctive guilt, Daniel decided. Or maybe it'd just been drilled into them by Jack. But Jack was dealing with his own bad combination of mud and clothes. So was Teal'c, who'd managed to scrape most of the mud off his face and head, which showed the real advantage of not having hair. Daniel had squeezed most out of the ends of his hair, but that lay wet and cold now on his neck, and mud dripped down his back. God, he had mud everywhere, and he lifted one foot and shook it.
He also had, thanks to his knife and another five minutes, an almost decent kilt. He'd sacrificed his shirt for it, and his trousers--if you sliced open the inseam, it gave you sort of a long loin-cloth, or a kilt if you hiked it up a bit. He cut off the bottoms, used them for rags to get the worst of the mud off. Then he sliced into his shirt to make a belt, since his real belt was in two parts now. He left his boots off--without laces, he didn't see the point, and there wasn't enough of his pack left to hold anything, so he was leaving that, too. The ants had left his bandana a little more ragged around the edges, but he retied it around his hair and then he draped his jacket over his shoulders. Since the mud covered the rest of him and would keep him from getting sunburned. And he had a strong feeling he probably looked someone who'd been ship-wrecked and left too many years on some god-forsaken island.
Glancing over at Sam, he saw she didn't look that bad, so he was going to take some hope from that. She'd gone for a similar kilt-kind-of-skirt--she'd slit the inseam of her trousers, but she'd left it long. She also had gone for putting her shirt and jacket back on--she hadn't cut her belt. And she was trying to get as much equipment into her pack as possible.
"Daniel?" The question came soft from behind him, but Daniel braced as he turned. In his experience, soft and Jack were not words that went together all that often, and so he always had a certain amount of suspicion when they showed up together. Because it usually meant he'd just gotten himself shot or hit or otherwise was really screwed, and Jack was being careful with him, which he hated.
"Jack?" He gave back a blank stare that he kept empty, so Jack would have to work for anything he wanted.
"Just what are you wearing?" Jack asked.
Daniel wasn't sure he wanted to explain, so he swapped a glance with Sam, who stepped forward, her own ripped-open pants legs swinging loose over her boots. "Technically, sir, we're not out of uniform."
"Technically, Carter? You're walking a thin line here."
"Yes, sir. Wonder where I learned that, sir," she said, muttered with her smile lighting huge anyway. But Daniel wasn't quite sure Jack's words were intended as a compliment--Jack liked to hog the bad behavior for himself.
Picking up one the one sock he'd found, Daniel dangled it. "They seemed to like cotton. Not so much the synthetic fabric."
P90 back on, Jack glanced at him. "Daniel, you're wearing a skirt."
"Kilt," Daniel said, straightening. He gestured at the garment, which ended just above his knees. "The length makes it a kilt, which has actually been around as a male garment since...."
"Daniel, do you really want to give the Marines in the gate room that much of an eyeful?"
"Jack, do you really want to walk two miles with mud drying and trapped where you don't want anything rubbing? Besides, the way we must stink, who the hell is going to notice what we look like?"
Sam gave a snort that she muffled and Teal'c stepped forward. "Daniel Jackson is wise in this matter."
Jack glanced at him, and at Teal'c's uniform, which was just about as shredded as anyone's, but Teal'c wore it as if it wasn't. And he was wearing all of it. "Oh? I don't see you in a skirt."
"A Jaffa is trained to endure any hardship, no matter how small. But you would be wise, O'Neill, to follow Daniel Jackson's example."
Daniel blinked, then put on his best wide-eyed, innocence--he'd perfected the look with any number of social workers who'd wanted to pry into his life and psyche as if they had any business there. No way was he spoiling Jaffa revenge at its most devious--a dare that Jack, being Jack, wouldn't back down from. God, Jack would be walking like a cowboy for a week after two miles with mud in all the wrong places. He had to wince with sympathy, and that started chewing at his resolve to let Jack suffer though his karmic retribution. So he gave it one more try.
Knife still out, he stepped forward. "Jack, I could just...."
"No." Holding up a hand and backing up a step, Jack glanced at him, then at Teal'c, then at Carter. "You and Carter are floor show enough for the boys back home. Teal'c, bring the MALP. Carter, Daniel, get the rest of your gear on it."
"Jack--?"
"Daniel, don't want to hear it. Now, let's hoof it before mini-horde shows back up for seconds."
Throwing his hands wide, Daniel decided that if Jack wanted it that way, Jack could have it that way. He sheathed his knife and helped Sam load the MALP. It was odd to have a breeze where there wasn't usually one, but he fell into step with Sam on the walk back to the gate, his kilt flapping in time with Sam's long skirt. It was rocky enough that he had to watch his step since he was barefoot, but the ground was warm, so it wasn't a hardship. And he was the only one who didn't have to keep pulling at his clothing. Well, Teal'c didn't pull at anything, but that look on his face turned grimmer with each step. And Jack was miserable enough that he shut up and just kept adjusting his trousers.
Even Sam kept tugging at her jacket, and she stared at Daniel's bare chest for a long moment before she admitted, "I'd kill for a shower."
Daniel glanced at her. "Think they'd let us start packing one of those solar warmed camping ones?"
She glanced at him, grinned, then shook her head.
By the time they made the Stargate, the mud was dry and tight. Daniel had been dousing himself with water to wash off what he hadn't managed to wipe clean, keep it moist as much as he could, which kept earning him glares and headshakes from Jack. And Daniel thought about dumping the rest of his canteen over Sam since she was watching him with a touch of longing in her gaze. But she was being the good, strong soldier, and he thought he'd better let her get on with that, along with Teal'c and Jack, both of whom were walking with a little more wide-legged care than they had been earlier.
Daniel had been right about the chafing--and about one other thing. As soon as they stepped through the Stargate and before they'd made it halfway down the ramp, faces were turning away, hands were covering faces, and a whole lot of folks were backing off. There was a reason that gases had become one of the more effective weapons of war, Daniel thought. Smells could overpower.
But Hammond proved just how good a commander he was in that he didn't flinch and he did walk up to the base of the ramp to meet them, even if he did so with his nose wrinkling.
"What in blue blazes--?"
"Ants, sir," Jack said. "Mud and ants. It's never a picnic out there--just a whole lot of 'Them,' sir."
"Them?" Hammond asked, baffled, and Daniel was wondering about that as well.
But the tension that always hit the pit of his stomach coming out of the Stargate was also unknotting because the guards were relaxing. Which was why, of course, Jack came home like an idiot.
By now, everyone knew that if Jack O'Neill showed up with something stupid to say, then it really was Jack O'Neill. No alien could be that goofy. And if it really was him, and he could joke--even badly--then the rest of SG-1 had to be okay, too. And Daniel was fine with that because he always felt better when he didn't have automatic weapons pointed at him.
Smiling, mud flaking, Jack kept talking as he handled his weapons to the SF who eased forward to take them while trying not to get too close.
"'Them,' sir. Big ants--it's a classic. But I'm sure Carter could tell you why ants can't get fifty feet high, even if you do nuke 'em. Enough of 'em sure can kill a mission, sir, so I have to report that Carter failed to get her mineral readings. But we brought samples--mountains and Mohammad...and back to a mountain...sir."
Jack peeled some of the dried mud from his cheek, then crumpled it to dust and offered up a wide smile. Hammond glanced from him to the others, still worried, but starting to let go of it. Then he nodded. "Sounds like it'll be an interesting debrief, Colonel. Make it an hour--better yet, make it two, and some very long showers with more soap than you think you need."
"You becha, sir. Okay, kids, you heard the man. And last one into the showers really is a rotten egg--or still smells like one."
Daniel glanced at Sam, then at Teal'c--and then they bolted for the locker room. But, of course, with Jack and Teal'c handicapped by the chaffing, and Sam's long legs--and a little cheating with sharp elbows--Sam won the race there, too.