Title: Not That Big A Deal, Really (the Small Annoyances remix)
Author:
kuonjiFandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Samantha Carter, OFC, George Hammond, OMC, Janet Frasier, Teal'c, (Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson)
Pairings: none
Category: humor
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Gateverse Remix 2008 (Original story by CK on
brainofck)
Spoilers: none
Words: ~1340
Summary: Jack and Daniel switch bodies, but it's not that big a deal to everyone. It's just the little things, really.
A/N: I was quite excited to get CK as my remixee, as I have read many of her stories and loved them. It also helped that she is a very prolific writer, so I had a lot of great fics to choose from! It took me a while to settle on a likely victim, er, candidate. Here's hoping I did it justice. ;)
Original story:
Not That Big a Deal, Really, by CK on
brainofck.
Not That Big A Deal, Really (the Small Annoyances remix)
by kuonji
The most amazing thing about Colonel O'Neill and Daniel's bodyswitch was how quickly everyone got used to it. Including Sam herself.
In retrospect, it was odd that Sam had never noticed before how drastically different the Colonel's and Daniel's body language were.
The Colonel's posture was loose and his stride was long and efficient, expending no more energy than strictly necessary. Daniel, on the other hand, tended to stand as if he were still in front of a lectern, and he walked with a comparatively ostentatious rolling and trotting gait.
There was no question of whom to turn to when orders needed taking or suggestions needed giving. Daniel, too, was easy to spot for a question or request for assist. Sam often had to do a double-take when her brain registered what her optic nerves were telling her, but she never made a mistake in the midst of a mission.
Which was a relief, of course.
It was only back on Earth that Sam ever got confused. She would call the wrong name in the cafeteria or look to the wrong person during a team movie night. It was embarrassing.
Overall, though, things were back to normal surprisingly quickly.
Even if the Colonel kept using Daniel's shy smile to cadge cookies off of her -- and she kept falling for it, too, dammit.
***
The most infuriating thing was, he hadn't even stopped to say goodbye.
She had thought Daniel honestly liked her, at very least as a casual acquaintance-slash-friend. He'd held the elevator doors for her and carried her backpack sometimes. He was really a gentleman. And he'd liked to practice Mandarin with her in his cute accent. He was smart, a doctor of a lot of things, and he was pretty hot, too.
The worst thing was, the guy who'd apparently moved into his place was some old pervert. Jasmine -- 'Jazz' to her friends -- had met him at the mailboxes a couple of weeks after Daniel left. He must have been, like, fifty, and he'd smiled at her (totally smarmy) and said, "Hi, Jazz! Ni hao ma?"
Yeah. As if. She got enough random guys nihao-ing her at Starbucks.
The other day, though, she'd locked herself out of her apartment by accident, and Mr. Nihao had been the one to run down to the manager for her while she'd stayed upstairs with her groceries. So maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all.
Jasmine figured a girl could use all the friends she could get.
Even if she did still wonder where Daniel had disappeared to.
***
The strangest thing about the whole business, it turned out, was what might be called simply a matter of decorum.
Dr. Jackson had made it clear a long time ago, back when the SGC was new: He wanted in to the program, whatever it took, but he refused to pretend that he was in the military.
George wasn't a particularly strait-laced officer, but it offended him on some level to step into a briefing and see the figure of Colonel Jack O'Neill slouched comfortably in a roller chair, instead of standing to receive a higher ranking officer.
Equally strange was seeing Dr. Jackson's expressive face slackening at descriptions of various alien sites and artifacts, while brightening at reports on experimental space flights and weapons reports.
Despite the split-seconds of dissonance that George continued to experience every now and again, however, he was satisfied on the whole. They were both of them the best of men and George was grateful to have them, in whatever form.
Even if catching 'Dr. Jackson' juggling in Jack's office was bogglingly bizarre.
***
The brazenest person in the world had to be the fellow who moved in to Jack's place a couple of weeks ago.
The first time he noticed him, he was gadding about Jack's front yard in a bath robe, drinking Jack's beer, cool as you please. He'd even called, "Good morning, Bob!", as if they were on a first name basis already.
And when Jack came back late that evening, what do you think but he had to knock on his own front door to be let in?! The world was definitely going to crap with this generation.
It wasn't that Bob had anything against them homosexual types. He'd been a little surprised, of course. He'd known Jack O'Neill for years and never suspected. That young man, though! He really took the cake.
But heck, he'd grabbed Jack for a few words yesterday, and he'd seemed kind of awkward but happy enough. Bob supposed he was willing to let bygones be bygones.
Even if he wished Jack had had more sense.
***
The biggest headache caused by SG-1's latest catastrophe, professionally speaking, had to be the cartloads of abominably intricate paperwork involved. A close second, though, was the parade of ever more creative self-inflicted injuries.
Before the laser surgery, the Colonel broke two pairs of glasses, General Hammond's coffee mug, and his own nose. He tripped down his own stairs and gashed his ear on a picture frame. He forgot to take his anti-histamines and came to Janet thinking he had a horrifying, never-ending flu.
Daniel, in the meanwhile, so used to squeezing around obstacles at the very last moment, kept bruising himself on the extra inches added to his height and his limbs. On the way to the bathroom at night, he'd bump into his own artifacts. In the cafeteria, he'd knock over trays. Walking through the narrow halls and crowded labs, he'd run into people and not remember why.
Janet was at her wit's end.
On the other hand, they both remained reasonably healthy. Best of all, they seemed to be adjusting to their new bodies with admirable equanimity. If they were happy in each other's shoes (and shirts and pants), then as their physician Janet supposed it was all right with her.
Even if Daniel still seemed a bit too obsessed with his new exercise regimen.
***
The most dangerous mistake to make during combat was to be unclear of your own abilities. It was certainly a greater challenge when you had in fact once known yourself extremely well, only to change unexpectedly.
Soon after the switch had been deemed to be permanent, Teal'c had offered to assist O'Neill and Daniel Jackson in learning their new forms. They were clearly ill-equipped to fight as they were, through no fault of their prior training. No amount of anticipated injury or weakness could have caused the changes in their bodies as they now were.
O'Neill had always preferred spare, precise, bird-of-prey movements that accentuated his long limbs and nimble fingers. Though not the most powerful of warriors, O'Neill could provide most with a comfortably formidable adversary.
Now in Daniel Jackson's body, he had lost some of his speed. However, he retained his skill, and so he quickly became proficient in leveraging his new-found youthened ligaments and his now more heavy-set build.
Daniel Jackson had taken longer. Though capable of instantaneously molding himself to a vast range of cultures and ideologies, he faced a physical paradigm shift with less competence. Once adequate in hand-to-hand combat, he had become hopelessly tangled in O'Neill's battle-hardened form.
Now, though, he had succeeded in adapting his own maneuvers to his new body. He had learned to take advantage of his now superior vision and longer reach.
Watching the two of them spar against each other, Teal'c felt the satisfaction of an instructor, a companion, a teammate, a friend. The two men circled each other, exchanging blows and ironic comments. Their intimate knowledge of their former bodies was both asset and handicap.
Each session presented new surprises and triumphs.
O'Neill and Daniel Jackson's exchange of bodies had been undoubtedly a great challenge. It could not, however, cause either man pause.
In the grand scheme of their tempestuous and often strange lives, it was, as the Tau'ri say, 'not that big a deal'.
Truly.
END.