Fic: See For Yourself - Part 2 (B:tVS/SG-1, PG-13)
Title: See For Yourself, Part 2 - Advanced Reading Assignments
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Fandoms: B:tVS, Stargate: SG-1
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: B:tVS mid-7.15 "Get it Done", Stargate SG-1 mid-season 8 and slightly AU
Notes: Follows " See For Yourself". Also-- I've added an extra 24 hours to "Get It Done", between the burial and the 'calling an emergency'; it worked out best that way.
Summary: Buffy didn't like people-shaped puzzles. They had a way of coming back to bite her on the butt at the least convenient moment. 3000 words.
Buffy frowned at the boy seated next to Dawn on the front room couch. There'd been a lot of weirdness going on at the high school lately, but so far it had mostly been the usual spring-on-the-Hellmouth kind of weird, just a little ahead of schedule. This kid, Nick Jackson, though; he and his friend Jon O'Neill were another kind of weird altogether, and it worried her.
She'd seen the school's files on them when they'd scheduled their counseling appointments, and both were inhumanly clean and boring for a pair of intelligent, strong-willed sixteen-year-old boys. The only thing either of them had ever been officially reprimanded for was lax attendance, and even that had only happened within the last year or so. Whatever the reason for that, it didn't seem to have hurt their grades any; both boys had maintained an impressive GPA at their Colorado Springs high school, and their current teachers had rave reviews for them, especially Nick. They'd had enough money to rent an apartment and buy a used truck after coming to town, but didn't act like they belonged in the privileged crowd with the upper-middle-class kids, nor did they participate in any extracurricular activities.
In fact, they pretty much didn't act like typical teenagers at all aside from the occasional bickering match and the fact that Nick kept making calf-eyes at Dawn. Both boys were constantly on edge, keeping track of their surroundings like veteran Slayers or Watchers and ready to leap into action at the drop of a pencil. She'd swear the sarcastic one, Jon, had seen right through her dumb blonde act, and they both moved too carefully not to have had some kind of training in physical combat.
They were a puzzle, and Buffy didn't like people shaped puzzles. They had a way of coming back to bite her on the butt at the least convenient moment, and she couldn't afford any of those moments right now, not with so many Potential Slayers under her care-- one less after what had happened with Chloe-- and the First doing its best to come up with an apocalypse that would actually stick.
If she had to guess off the top of her head, she'd say Nick and Jon had been brought up by Watchers or similarly dedicated demon-hunting families and had lost their parents to the fight; that would certainly explain their emancipated minor status. It would explain their skinny files and advanced academic abilities, too; if they'd both been home-schooled in the supernatural up until a little over a year ago, then had to suddenly rejoin the system, whatever organization their families had belonged to might have slapped some fake records together to make the transition easier.
There were just two problems with that theory. First, there was no way in heck they were British, and Giles hadn't recognized their names or descriptions at all, so the Watcher connection was looking less probable all the time. And second, neither of them seemed to have any idea just who it was they were talking to. Buffy had been the Slayer long enough that half the supernatural world seemed to know about her; there was no way these boys wouldn't if they were a legitimate part of the paranormal scene. Either the cluelessness was an act, or it wasn't, and either way, given all the other things that didn't add up about them, Buffy took it as a bad sign.
She hadn't warned her sister about her suspicions yet. Buffy hadn't wanted to rain on Dawn's parade if it wasn't absolutely necessary, especially since there was so little else for the younger girl to get excited about in recent months. Dawn had noticed the new guys from the moment they'd appeared in town, especially Nick, but had been too worried about all the Hellmouthy stuff going on to do anything about it; still, it hadn't stopped her from talking happily about the cute boy checking her out in class, and now that he'd turned out to actually have a brain as well, she was obviously over the moon about him. It was good to see her acting her age again.
Would it be too much to ask, Buffy wondered, for the cute boys with the mysterious pasts to turn out to be on the side of Good just this once? The situation with the First and "from beneath you, it devours" weighed heavily on her. Buffy could still hear the First Slayer saying it wasn't enough, and knew that there was every chance she wouldn't be walking away from the apocalypse party this time. Most of the Potential Slayers were probably doomed, too, along with any of the Scoobies she couldn't convince to leave town. Hopefully, she'd be able to get Dawn out of danger before the big day came, but she wasn't going to hold her breath about that; her sister was just as stubborn as she was when she wanted to be.
Speaking of which. "So when were you going to tell me about the book you found?" she asked, sternly, ignoring the boys for a moment to focus on Dawn.
"Later tonight, at the meeting," Dawn replied, earnestly. "I just thought-- you'd want to know what it said, and since it's written in Sumerian, I was going to need a little lead time to rough out a translation. I didn't have any luck with it last night, so I copied some of it down and took it in to work on at lunch."
"And you just so happened to trip across the only other student in the entire school who could read it?" she asked mildly, eyeing the shaggy-haired blond geek sitting next to her sister.
Dawn swallowed, and glanced at her new friend; from the surprise on her face, she hadn't even considered that Nick might have an ulterior motive. Before she could say anything, however, Nick set his jaw and spoke up himself.
"It was more like I tripped across her," he said. "She had it out on her desk, and-- well--" He paused to glance at Dawn, flushing, then glared back over the arm of the couch as his friend Jon started snickering. "I saw that she was trying to read something in Sumerian, and since my uncle taught me how to translate it, I volunteered to help."
A likely story, Buffy thought. "This uncle. Who is he?" she prompted.
All the teenage awkwardness seemed to drain back out of Nick at the question; he squared his shoulders again before answering, and the jaw went back up. "Dr. Daniel Jackson. He has PhD's in Archaeology, Anthropology and Philology; you can check his credentials if you want."
It was as though all the submissiveness had been removed from the teenager's makeup; he wasn't so much rebelling against authority, as refusing to recognize that she had any authority over him in the first place. More than that: it was like it didn't even occur to him that she might expect him to. What kind of background could this kid possibly come from?
"And you don't live with him because?"
That, he didn't answer; Jon O'Neill reached over the couch to grip his shoulder, then gave her a concentrated frown that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Whatever it was about Nick that made him so non-teenagery, Jon definitely shared it. "Look, we're not on trial here. Nick just wanted to help you guys out. But if you'd rather he didn't, that's all right; we can take a hint."
"Buffy!" Dawn hissed. "Seriously, cut it out. I translated half of it myself; he just filled in the gaps. He's been at school with me, in the daytime, so you can totally lay off with the Spanish Inquisition."
Buffy didn't miss the look the boys gave each other at that; she crossed her arms and stared at them a moment longer, then finally nodded. She'd check with Giles later, have him look this Dr. Daniel Jackson up; maybe it would be the clue they needed to find out where the boys came from. But in the meantime, pushing Dawn any further would be counterproductive.
"Okay, then," she said, throwing her hands up. "Book me. Tell me what it says."
Dawn took a deep breath, then glanced apprehensively over at Nick.
"It's an origin myth," she said. "The story of the very first Slayer."
Nick watched Dawn's sister's face carefully as Dawn began explaining what the text had to say. As origin myths went, it was short on details, but long on tragedy and supernatural consequences; not one he remembered hearing before, but not especially unique, either, in his experience. Clearly, however, there was something he was missing-- something quite possibly related to the covert goings-on in town.
Most fairy tales and legends were, at their roots, much darker than the primary-colored versions watered down, set to music, and spoon-fed to modern children. They were an important part of cultural development, carrying meaning forward through the generations, intended rather to educate than to entertain. This particular myth was not even the first to center around the empowerment-- and enslavement-- of a young woman. The way both girls reacted to it, though, it might as well have been a Biblical text rather than an artifact of darker historical times; Dawn read it out in tentative, solemn tones, and Buffy grew progressively more thin-lipped and pale as the story progressed.
"And then it says, 'They chained her to the Earth'," Dawn finished hesitantly, "'and infused her with the darkness.' That's-- that's pretty much it, for the history part. After that, there's a lot more stuff about how you have to see it for yourself, if-- if you're willing to make the exchange." She fidgeted with the papers in her hands, then extended them, cautiously, toward her sister.
Buffy stared back at her for several wordless moments, eyes as green and lifeless as a stagnant pond, then swallowed visibly and took the papers. "He always did say I belonged in the darkness with him," she said quietly, looking down at the translation Nick and Dawn had spent so much effort on as though her worst fears were hiding in amongst the words. Then she chuckled mirthlessly. "He's never going to let me live this down, is he?"
Alarmed, Nick glanced over his shoulder at Jon, who returned it with a cautious, alert wariness in his posture. They'd known something strange was going on in this town, uniting a mixed group of teenagers and young adults in battle against a coalition of long-lived, inhumanly gifted enemies; the original assumption had been that said enemies were actually Goa'uld in disguise, and that the resistance operating under the apparent leadership of Buffy Summers was composed of the few residents of the town both aware enough, and courageous enough, to fight back. Nick wasn't so sure either theory had been correct, anymore.
He certainly hadn't been expecting the forces of "good" to turn out to be, not conscientious citizens, but some kind of strange warrior-goddess cult. Offworld, maybe that would have seemed more or less ordinary; but not here on Earth.
Dawn cleared her throat nervously at her sister's words. "Anyway," she said, a little louder than usual, raising her eyebrows at the older woman, "most of the rest of the pages were blank, but that should be enough to help with your project, right?"
"Project?" Buffy said, blankly. Then she blinked, an expression of dismay washing over her face, and glanced between Nick and Jon again, gaze as sharp as a razor. "Right, the project," she said, hastily. "Yes, that'll be very helpful, Dawn, thank you. And thank you," she turned to Nick, "for helping her. I understand she promised you food?"
As evasions went, that was far from the most subtle one Nick had ever heard, but he didn't want to threaten the tentative foothold he and Jon had finally established. "If it's not too much trouble," he murmured diffidently. "Jon and I usually just stop at the Doublemeat Palace on the way home."
"Oh, for ew," Dawn wrinkled up her nose at that. "I got so sick of their stuff when Buffy worked there last year. Did you know they don't even serve real meat? Their secret ingredient is vegetables."
"Dawn!" Buffy glared half-heartedly at her sister. "I was sworn to secrecy!"
"It's what?" A sudden jolt and thunking sound shook the couch, and Nick glanced over to see Jon sprawled on the floor where he'd fallen off the armrest, staring up at Dawn in horror. "No way."
"Yes way," Dawn said, giggling. "The burgers are completely fake. Buffy thought for awhile they were making people burgers or something, they were so secretive about it; she even had our friend Willow do scientific tests on the patties, but they came back full of cellulose."
Nick shook his head, bemused, as Jon mimed sticking a finger down his throat. "I can't believe you tricked me into eating veggie burgers," he moaned. "I’m telling Jack on you."
"I'll see your Jack and raise you a Daniel," Nick snickered, recalling years' worth of team arguments about food. Offworld cuisine was one thing, but Jack held beef sacred. Daniel would be totally proud of Nick for pulling one over on any version of their friend, even accidentally.
"Seriously, even if it's true, it's not like it's doing you any harm," he added. "Which-- why are they keeping it a secret?" he asked, turning back to Dawn. "You'd think they'd sell more of them to the health-conscious crowd if people knew they were vegetarian, especially since you can't even tell the difference from actual meat in a taste-test."
"That's a good question," Dawn said, turning to raise her eyebrows inquisitively at her sister.
Buffy shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand the retail business," she said. "Teenage drama is one thing, corporate marketing? Might as well be speaking Fyarl."
...And just when they were starting to sound like normal young women again, something else strange intruded. Nick mentally filed the word 'Fyarl' as another clue to whatever was really going on, and resigned himself to several evenings spent soothing Dawn's sister's prickly nerves. They'd finally made positive contact; now it was time to build a relationship, the same as SG-1 would with any wary tribe they might encounter through the 'gate.
Not that the socializing itself would be all the much of a hardship...
"Ahem," Dawn's sister cleared her throat, and Nick abruptly realized he'd been staring.
He blushed, tearing his eyes away from Dawn's profile, and retraced the conversation in his mind. "So, food?" he said brightly.
"I'm pretty sure Andrew's cooking, so whatever it is will at least be edible," she replied, then grimaced, glancing at a clock hanging on the wall. "You're welcome to get some to take with you, but we do have a meeting scheduled with Principal Wood this evening, so I'm afraid you and Jon will have to hang out with Dawn some other time."
"I don't think we've met Andrew," Jon interjected, picking himself up from the floor.
"I'd be surprised if you had," Buffy said, "he's a houseguest of ours, not a high school student." Her eyes narrowed a little as she studied the downsized colonel, and Nick wondered, not for the first time, just what she saw when she looked at them. Something sure had her on her guard. It could be anything-- he and Jon hadn't been actual teenagers in decades, and there were bound to be mannerisms they weren't getting right. Just their luck they'd have to deal with someone whose actual job was deciphering and redirecting teenage motivation.
Booted feet sounded on the front porch as he weighed the pros and cons of actually waiting around for food before they left; he'd about decided not to press their luck that evening-- he knew a dismissal when he heard one-- when the front door opened, and a man in a leather coat with bleached hair rushed in, tucking a lightly smoking blanket under one arm.
Every hair on Nick's arms stood on end as he stared at the sharp, all too familiar profile. "Just curious," he said aloud on Jon's behalf, nudging him sharply with his foot. "But we don't want to intrude, so--"
"You're not intruding," Dawn objected with a scowl for her sister. "Spike, tell Buffy to knock it off," she said, appealing to the new player. "This is my house too, I can have friends over for dinner if I want."
"Not when we have that emergency meeting to get ready for tonight," Buffy replied, blandly.
"I'm not getting in the middle of this one," 'Spike' added in a British accent, shaking his head as he continued through the room, disappearing into the kitchen beyond.
Several emotions warred in Dawn's expression, then she sighed, reaching out to lay a hand on Nick's arm. "Maybe Thursday?" she asked, smiling hopefully at him.
"Sure," he shrugged, summoning up a stiff grin in reply. "It's not like Jon and I ever really have plans, so--"
"Great, she'll let you know," Buffy chirped, striding over to the front door and opening it for them.
Quickly, casually, Nick squeezed Dawn's hand in his as he stood. "See you tomorrow," he said, then let go and picked up his backpack, Jon right behind him as he walked leisurely out the door.
"Was that who I think it was?" Jon hissed at Nick as they reached the sidewalk.
"I think so," Nick replied, pausing to stare warily up at the house on Revello Drive.
Of all the potential Goa'uld they'd been tracking in the deadly 'Order of Aurelius', 'William the Bloody' had been the most recently active-- and he was here, welcomed without qualm in the house of those they'd thought to represent the opposition.
"We have to call Jack," Jon said. "Things just got a lot more complicated."
-~-
(x-posted to jedibuttercup & twistedshorts)
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Fandoms: B:tVS, Stargate: SG-1
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: B:tVS mid-7.15 "Get it Done", Stargate SG-1 mid-season 8 and slightly AU
Notes: Follows " See For Yourself". Also-- I've added an extra 24 hours to "Get It Done", between the burial and the 'calling an emergency'; it worked out best that way.
Summary: Buffy didn't like people-shaped puzzles. They had a way of coming back to bite her on the butt at the least convenient moment. 3000 words.
Buffy frowned at the boy seated next to Dawn on the front room couch. There'd been a lot of weirdness going on at the high school lately, but so far it had mostly been the usual spring-on-the-Hellmouth kind of weird, just a little ahead of schedule. This kid, Nick Jackson, though; he and his friend Jon O'Neill were another kind of weird altogether, and it worried her.
She'd seen the school's files on them when they'd scheduled their counseling appointments, and both were inhumanly clean and boring for a pair of intelligent, strong-willed sixteen-year-old boys. The only thing either of them had ever been officially reprimanded for was lax attendance, and even that had only happened within the last year or so. Whatever the reason for that, it didn't seem to have hurt their grades any; both boys had maintained an impressive GPA at their Colorado Springs high school, and their current teachers had rave reviews for them, especially Nick. They'd had enough money to rent an apartment and buy a used truck after coming to town, but didn't act like they belonged in the privileged crowd with the upper-middle-class kids, nor did they participate in any extracurricular activities.
In fact, they pretty much didn't act like typical teenagers at all aside from the occasional bickering match and the fact that Nick kept making calf-eyes at Dawn. Both boys were constantly on edge, keeping track of their surroundings like veteran Slayers or Watchers and ready to leap into action at the drop of a pencil. She'd swear the sarcastic one, Jon, had seen right through her dumb blonde act, and they both moved too carefully not to have had some kind of training in physical combat.
They were a puzzle, and Buffy didn't like people shaped puzzles. They had a way of coming back to bite her on the butt at the least convenient moment, and she couldn't afford any of those moments right now, not with so many Potential Slayers under her care-- one less after what had happened with Chloe-- and the First doing its best to come up with an apocalypse that would actually stick.
If she had to guess off the top of her head, she'd say Nick and Jon had been brought up by Watchers or similarly dedicated demon-hunting families and had lost their parents to the fight; that would certainly explain their emancipated minor status. It would explain their skinny files and advanced academic abilities, too; if they'd both been home-schooled in the supernatural up until a little over a year ago, then had to suddenly rejoin the system, whatever organization their families had belonged to might have slapped some fake records together to make the transition easier.
There were just two problems with that theory. First, there was no way in heck they were British, and Giles hadn't recognized their names or descriptions at all, so the Watcher connection was looking less probable all the time. And second, neither of them seemed to have any idea just who it was they were talking to. Buffy had been the Slayer long enough that half the supernatural world seemed to know about her; there was no way these boys wouldn't if they were a legitimate part of the paranormal scene. Either the cluelessness was an act, or it wasn't, and either way, given all the other things that didn't add up about them, Buffy took it as a bad sign.
She hadn't warned her sister about her suspicions yet. Buffy hadn't wanted to rain on Dawn's parade if it wasn't absolutely necessary, especially since there was so little else for the younger girl to get excited about in recent months. Dawn had noticed the new guys from the moment they'd appeared in town, especially Nick, but had been too worried about all the Hellmouthy stuff going on to do anything about it; still, it hadn't stopped her from talking happily about the cute boy checking her out in class, and now that he'd turned out to actually have a brain as well, she was obviously over the moon about him. It was good to see her acting her age again.
Would it be too much to ask, Buffy wondered, for the cute boys with the mysterious pasts to turn out to be on the side of Good just this once? The situation with the First and "from beneath you, it devours" weighed heavily on her. Buffy could still hear the First Slayer saying it wasn't enough, and knew that there was every chance she wouldn't be walking away from the apocalypse party this time. Most of the Potential Slayers were probably doomed, too, along with any of the Scoobies she couldn't convince to leave town. Hopefully, she'd be able to get Dawn out of danger before the big day came, but she wasn't going to hold her breath about that; her sister was just as stubborn as she was when she wanted to be.
Speaking of which. "So when were you going to tell me about the book you found?" she asked, sternly, ignoring the boys for a moment to focus on Dawn.
"Later tonight, at the meeting," Dawn replied, earnestly. "I just thought-- you'd want to know what it said, and since it's written in Sumerian, I was going to need a little lead time to rough out a translation. I didn't have any luck with it last night, so I copied some of it down and took it in to work on at lunch."
"And you just so happened to trip across the only other student in the entire school who could read it?" she asked mildly, eyeing the shaggy-haired blond geek sitting next to her sister.
Dawn swallowed, and glanced at her new friend; from the surprise on her face, she hadn't even considered that Nick might have an ulterior motive. Before she could say anything, however, Nick set his jaw and spoke up himself.
"It was more like I tripped across her," he said. "She had it out on her desk, and-- well--" He paused to glance at Dawn, flushing, then glared back over the arm of the couch as his friend Jon started snickering. "I saw that she was trying to read something in Sumerian, and since my uncle taught me how to translate it, I volunteered to help."
A likely story, Buffy thought. "This uncle. Who is he?" she prompted.
All the teenage awkwardness seemed to drain back out of Nick at the question; he squared his shoulders again before answering, and the jaw went back up. "Dr. Daniel Jackson. He has PhD's in Archaeology, Anthropology and Philology; you can check his credentials if you want."
It was as though all the submissiveness had been removed from the teenager's makeup; he wasn't so much rebelling against authority, as refusing to recognize that she had any authority over him in the first place. More than that: it was like it didn't even occur to him that she might expect him to. What kind of background could this kid possibly come from?
"And you don't live with him because?"
That, he didn't answer; Jon O'Neill reached over the couch to grip his shoulder, then gave her a concentrated frown that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Whatever it was about Nick that made him so non-teenagery, Jon definitely shared it. "Look, we're not on trial here. Nick just wanted to help you guys out. But if you'd rather he didn't, that's all right; we can take a hint."
"Buffy!" Dawn hissed. "Seriously, cut it out. I translated half of it myself; he just filled in the gaps. He's been at school with me, in the daytime, so you can totally lay off with the Spanish Inquisition."
Buffy didn't miss the look the boys gave each other at that; she crossed her arms and stared at them a moment longer, then finally nodded. She'd check with Giles later, have him look this Dr. Daniel Jackson up; maybe it would be the clue they needed to find out where the boys came from. But in the meantime, pushing Dawn any further would be counterproductive.
"Okay, then," she said, throwing her hands up. "Book me. Tell me what it says."
Dawn took a deep breath, then glanced apprehensively over at Nick.
"It's an origin myth," she said. "The story of the very first Slayer."
Nick watched Dawn's sister's face carefully as Dawn began explaining what the text had to say. As origin myths went, it was short on details, but long on tragedy and supernatural consequences; not one he remembered hearing before, but not especially unique, either, in his experience. Clearly, however, there was something he was missing-- something quite possibly related to the covert goings-on in town.
Most fairy tales and legends were, at their roots, much darker than the primary-colored versions watered down, set to music, and spoon-fed to modern children. They were an important part of cultural development, carrying meaning forward through the generations, intended rather to educate than to entertain. This particular myth was not even the first to center around the empowerment-- and enslavement-- of a young woman. The way both girls reacted to it, though, it might as well have been a Biblical text rather than an artifact of darker historical times; Dawn read it out in tentative, solemn tones, and Buffy grew progressively more thin-lipped and pale as the story progressed.
"And then it says, 'They chained her to the Earth'," Dawn finished hesitantly, "'and infused her with the darkness.' That's-- that's pretty much it, for the history part. After that, there's a lot more stuff about how you have to see it for yourself, if-- if you're willing to make the exchange." She fidgeted with the papers in her hands, then extended them, cautiously, toward her sister.
Buffy stared back at her for several wordless moments, eyes as green and lifeless as a stagnant pond, then swallowed visibly and took the papers. "He always did say I belonged in the darkness with him," she said quietly, looking down at the translation Nick and Dawn had spent so much effort on as though her worst fears were hiding in amongst the words. Then she chuckled mirthlessly. "He's never going to let me live this down, is he?"
Alarmed, Nick glanced over his shoulder at Jon, who returned it with a cautious, alert wariness in his posture. They'd known something strange was going on in this town, uniting a mixed group of teenagers and young adults in battle against a coalition of long-lived, inhumanly gifted enemies; the original assumption had been that said enemies were actually Goa'uld in disguise, and that the resistance operating under the apparent leadership of Buffy Summers was composed of the few residents of the town both aware enough, and courageous enough, to fight back. Nick wasn't so sure either theory had been correct, anymore.
He certainly hadn't been expecting the forces of "good" to turn out to be, not conscientious citizens, but some kind of strange warrior-goddess cult. Offworld, maybe that would have seemed more or less ordinary; but not here on Earth.
Dawn cleared her throat nervously at her sister's words. "Anyway," she said, a little louder than usual, raising her eyebrows at the older woman, "most of the rest of the pages were blank, but that should be enough to help with your project, right?"
"Project?" Buffy said, blankly. Then she blinked, an expression of dismay washing over her face, and glanced between Nick and Jon again, gaze as sharp as a razor. "Right, the project," she said, hastily. "Yes, that'll be very helpful, Dawn, thank you. And thank you," she turned to Nick, "for helping her. I understand she promised you food?"
As evasions went, that was far from the most subtle one Nick had ever heard, but he didn't want to threaten the tentative foothold he and Jon had finally established. "If it's not too much trouble," he murmured diffidently. "Jon and I usually just stop at the Doublemeat Palace on the way home."
"Oh, for ew," Dawn wrinkled up her nose at that. "I got so sick of their stuff when Buffy worked there last year. Did you know they don't even serve real meat? Their secret ingredient is vegetables."
"Dawn!" Buffy glared half-heartedly at her sister. "I was sworn to secrecy!"
"It's what?" A sudden jolt and thunking sound shook the couch, and Nick glanced over to see Jon sprawled on the floor where he'd fallen off the armrest, staring up at Dawn in horror. "No way."
"Yes way," Dawn said, giggling. "The burgers are completely fake. Buffy thought for awhile they were making people burgers or something, they were so secretive about it; she even had our friend Willow do scientific tests on the patties, but they came back full of cellulose."
Nick shook his head, bemused, as Jon mimed sticking a finger down his throat. "I can't believe you tricked me into eating veggie burgers," he moaned. "I’m telling Jack on you."
"I'll see your Jack and raise you a Daniel," Nick snickered, recalling years' worth of team arguments about food. Offworld cuisine was one thing, but Jack held beef sacred. Daniel would be totally proud of Nick for pulling one over on any version of their friend, even accidentally.
"Seriously, even if it's true, it's not like it's doing you any harm," he added. "Which-- why are they keeping it a secret?" he asked, turning back to Dawn. "You'd think they'd sell more of them to the health-conscious crowd if people knew they were vegetarian, especially since you can't even tell the difference from actual meat in a taste-test."
"That's a good question," Dawn said, turning to raise her eyebrows inquisitively at her sister.
Buffy shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand the retail business," she said. "Teenage drama is one thing, corporate marketing? Might as well be speaking Fyarl."
...And just when they were starting to sound like normal young women again, something else strange intruded. Nick mentally filed the word 'Fyarl' as another clue to whatever was really going on, and resigned himself to several evenings spent soothing Dawn's sister's prickly nerves. They'd finally made positive contact; now it was time to build a relationship, the same as SG-1 would with any wary tribe they might encounter through the 'gate.
Not that the socializing itself would be all the much of a hardship...
"Ahem," Dawn's sister cleared her throat, and Nick abruptly realized he'd been staring.
He blushed, tearing his eyes away from Dawn's profile, and retraced the conversation in his mind. "So, food?" he said brightly.
"I'm pretty sure Andrew's cooking, so whatever it is will at least be edible," she replied, then grimaced, glancing at a clock hanging on the wall. "You're welcome to get some to take with you, but we do have a meeting scheduled with Principal Wood this evening, so I'm afraid you and Jon will have to hang out with Dawn some other time."
"I don't think we've met Andrew," Jon interjected, picking himself up from the floor.
"I'd be surprised if you had," Buffy said, "he's a houseguest of ours, not a high school student." Her eyes narrowed a little as she studied the downsized colonel, and Nick wondered, not for the first time, just what she saw when she looked at them. Something sure had her on her guard. It could be anything-- he and Jon hadn't been actual teenagers in decades, and there were bound to be mannerisms they weren't getting right. Just their luck they'd have to deal with someone whose actual job was deciphering and redirecting teenage motivation.
Booted feet sounded on the front porch as he weighed the pros and cons of actually waiting around for food before they left; he'd about decided not to press their luck that evening-- he knew a dismissal when he heard one-- when the front door opened, and a man in a leather coat with bleached hair rushed in, tucking a lightly smoking blanket under one arm.
Every hair on Nick's arms stood on end as he stared at the sharp, all too familiar profile. "Just curious," he said aloud on Jon's behalf, nudging him sharply with his foot. "But we don't want to intrude, so--"
"You're not intruding," Dawn objected with a scowl for her sister. "Spike, tell Buffy to knock it off," she said, appealing to the new player. "This is my house too, I can have friends over for dinner if I want."
"Not when we have that emergency meeting to get ready for tonight," Buffy replied, blandly.
"I'm not getting in the middle of this one," 'Spike' added in a British accent, shaking his head as he continued through the room, disappearing into the kitchen beyond.
Several emotions warred in Dawn's expression, then she sighed, reaching out to lay a hand on Nick's arm. "Maybe Thursday?" she asked, smiling hopefully at him.
"Sure," he shrugged, summoning up a stiff grin in reply. "It's not like Jon and I ever really have plans, so--"
"Great, she'll let you know," Buffy chirped, striding over to the front door and opening it for them.
Quickly, casually, Nick squeezed Dawn's hand in his as he stood. "See you tomorrow," he said, then let go and picked up his backpack, Jon right behind him as he walked leisurely out the door.
"Was that who I think it was?" Jon hissed at Nick as they reached the sidewalk.
"I think so," Nick replied, pausing to stare warily up at the house on Revello Drive.
Of all the potential Goa'uld they'd been tracking in the deadly 'Order of Aurelius', 'William the Bloody' had been the most recently active-- and he was here, welcomed without qualm in the house of those they'd thought to represent the opposition.
"We have to call Jack," Jon said. "Things just got a lot more complicated."
-~-
(x-posted to jedibuttercup & twistedshorts)