Title: And The Survey Says…

Author: Wonderland

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em, wish I did, you know who does, yadda, yadda, yadda

Summary: Completely inspired by a challenge I happened upon on another Stargate site. When I read, “what would you do if you were a system lord?” the first thing that popped in my mind was: Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Season/Spoiler info: none

And the Survey Says…

I didn’t do it on purpose...at least, I don’t think I did. No, almost positive I would never have started this if I had known I was gonna end up with a black eye, a drunken archaeologist and a crotch full of ice water.

Damn, but he can fly mad sometimes. And over the least things. I mean, come on, how could he show up at my door with that sky-blue sweater and not expect me to say something about how well it matched his eyes? And of course, big dumb me; I had to ask who bought it for him. That’s when I got the laser beam eyes.

“What makes you think I didn’t buy it for myself?” His voice is dangerous in its silky smoothness.

Proving once again that I am the undisputed king of sticking my foot in my mouth, I quipped, “Oh, come on, Daniel, you would never buy anything that sexy.”

What I didn’t find out until later was that someone pinched his ass in the elevator on the way in this morning. When I roared in anger, fully prepared to check a bazooka launcher out of the armory and hunt down the nasty criminal, Daniel refused to name suspects. He knows who must have done it, given that these elevators aren’t sized for crowds. You get any more than six people in there and you’ll be pinching your own ass.

So he was pissed off most of the day, and I contributed to it. What’s new? “I fail to see why people,” insert my name here, “seem to think that I cannot take care of myself in a proper manner. That I need adult supervision to eat or dress or cross the fucking street.”

One of the things I have noticed about Daniel is when he stops with the contractions and starts with the clearly pronounced, well articulated profanity, it means he is desperately hanging on to control the only way he knows, by picking and choosing his words carefully. It’s when he can’t find the proper words that it’s time to break out the Kevlar vests and as much C4 as you can carry as you hastily make your retreat. I have neither vest nor ordnance but I do have a straight shoot for the door and I intend to make use of it.

Until he steps in front of me. “I have been taking care of myself since I was eight years old. And I have managed to keep myself mostly alive and intact within the confines of that time period.” The words are coming fast and furious now. “If you, or any of your shit-for-brains military marionettes, think I am incapable of doing so, I suggest they meet me in the gym. We can settle those preconceived notions about how tough I really am.” I wouldn’t agree to meet him in the gym, a dark alley or on the playground in the mood he is in.

“Daniel,” I am completely unsure of what to say as I stall for time, only that I need to calm him down to the point that my nice quiet neighborhood is not in danger of being destroyed by a Dr. Daniel Jackson explosion that would register on the Richter scale. So I take the coward’s way out, the way that all married men have learned is the quickest way to end an argument. Apologize even if you don’t know what you did wrong. Especially so. “Daniel, I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re incapable of taking care of yourself.” I take a leap of faith and step closer, my hand naturally finding the back of his head, a spot that seems made for stroking. “I’m sorry, I really am. I just got ticked off when you told me you were assaulted.”

“I got my ass pinched. I would not exactly call that an assault.”

Okay, a bit of an improvement, the profanity has leveled off. “Daniel, someone touched you intimately without your permission. Given that you are a senior staff member, a civilian and were on base at the time, that is simply intolerable. So, are you going to tell me who did it, or do I have to watch the security tapes? Because I promise you, I will do so.” This is another marriage trick I learned the hard way. Get their head twisted in another direction and sometimes they completely forget what they were mad about. It usually doesn’t work on Daniel, because he can hold like three conversations at one time and still know what all is happening around him.

His chin jerks up, letting me know he’s still quite pissed. “Watch them. As far as I know, there are no cameras on any elevator on the base.”

Damn, he has me there and well he knows it. “Aaaah, my head hurts. How about a drink?” Jack O’Neill’s number ten rule for Daniel-managing; if all else fails, get him drunk. One of these days, I’m gonna write down all these rules about how to handle Daniel. I could make a fortune selling it to the other SG teams, especially the Marines, who, with the exception of Ferretti, don’t have a clue how to handle Daniel. Ferretti genuinely likes Daniel, teases him, and buys him expensive liquor for any and all occasions. Sometimes for no occasion other than he wants to live. If Kawalski were still around, he’d be doing the same. Daniel won them both over after that first mission.

Anyway, I pour us both a drink, about twice as much for him as for me. I kill mine straight down, giving Daniel a smirk that I know he will take for a dare and he falls for it. Ah, one drink down, a few more to go and he won’t be able to argue with anything but his pillow. That one went down so good we have another. Screw dinner, we’re on the liquid diet tonight.

“The thing is, I should be used to it by now, ya know?”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” I can’t believe he’s still upright, although he seems to be listing to port just a tad. Actually, I can’t believe either one of us is still conscious; we’ve gone through the best part of a fifth of Jack. “Face it, Daniel, you’re pretty.”

“Pretty?” He squints at me; his glasses fell by the wayside several shots ago.

“Pretty. Hey, learn to live with it. I have.”

“You’ve learned to live with being pretty?” He enunciates slowly as if he can’t comprehend what I just said.

“I’ve learned to live with you being pretty. You think I don’t hear it all the time?” I sigh loudly, dramatically. “’That Dr. Jackson, he’s just soooo cute.’” I assume a very effective falsetto and sigh again for effect, batting my eyelashes for good measure.

Cute Daniel sloshes some more whiskey in his glass and downs it in one gulp. “Who said that?” His voice is overly precise.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna tell you. And then there was the survey.”

“The survey?”

“Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about.” Some enterprising and clearly bored-out-of their-skull individual started a base-wide survey; one of the questions being what is the first thing you would do if you were a system lord. And some equally enterprising individual had scrawled on the commissary-posted survey, ‘Dr. Jackson’. The concept caught on. “Well, the results are in. And number one on the survey, by a landslide. Dr. Daniel Jackson.”

It takes a little while for his pickled brain to realize more than a few folks had enthusiastically volunteered to ‘do’ him. Then it takes a bit more time for him to visualize what the definition of ‘do’ is. I’m not telling him that according to survey data, at least 68.5% of the respondents were male. “Unh unh.”

“Oh, yeah, you beat out shoving the Tollans backward through an open wormhole and taking Anise to Vegas for the weekend.” His reaction to this is yet another drink. And that should be the last one. “Come on, big fella, it’s time for all good boys to be in bed.”

“I’m not a boy.”

“Tell it to the Marines,” I sneer as I jerk him up from the couch, snagging his glasses on the way and drag him up the steps to his room. Okay, it used to be my guest room but he’s the only person who ever sleeps there.

“The Marines know I’m not a boy.” He grins slyly.

“They do, do they?”

“Oh, yeah. Ask Mullins.”

I had forgotten about Mullins. SG3’s resident idiot, he made the fatal mistake of getting on Daniel’s bad side by openly disparaging some ruins they’d found. The next time SG3 has to ship with Daniel, Mullins will be quaking in his military boots.

After depositing Daniel in front of the toilet, I go back down to get him some water. If he doesn’t drink some now, he’s gonna be miserable in the morning. This means I’ll be miserable, too. I see he’s managed to find his way to bed, after putting his clothes and glasses within arm’s reach. Something you get used to doing off-world cause you never know when you’ll have to jump and run.

I sit on the side of the bed and touch his shoulder. “Here, drink some water before you pass out.”

“Not gonna pass out.”

“Yeah, right. Sit up here.” He does reluctantly, the blankets slipping down to give me a pretty good idea what he’s not wearing under there. “Uh, ya want something to sleep in?”

“No, I’m good.” He starts to slide back down.

“You certainly are.”

He bolts back up. “What did you say?”

“What? I didn’t say anything.” Desperately backpedaling, trying to figure out what I said. Crap! Did I just say he was good?

“You said I was good.”

“Did not.”

“Did too!”

“Did not! Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Jack, in that survey that was going around the base?” If I hadn’t been two and a half sheets to the wind, I would have left right then and there. “Did you vote?”

“Who? Me, vote? I haven’t voted since Clinton.”

“Liar!”

“Hey, who you calling a liar?”

“You, you big liar! Come on, be a man.” He pauses wickedly for effect. “If you can, that is.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll show you a man.” I shove him down on the bed and hold his wrists in my hands, using my body to pin him. “Who’s the man now?”

He bucks up into me, bringing his elbow around, with a bit more force than was necessary. Unfortunately, he has excellent aim and said elbow connects with my cheekbone. I end up on the bed with Daniel straddling me, my wrists in his grip now. “Did you vote?”

“Yes.” I manage to squeak out. Damn, my whole face hurts!

“Did you vote for me?” He bounces on me like Tigger. “You voted that you’d like to ‘do’ me?” Another bounce.

“Hey, you’re kind of pretty; it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“Say it.”

What the hell. “Yeah, I voted that I’d like to do you.” Just for fun, I give him a theatrical leer and a broad wink.

“Admit I’m the man.”

Okay, that’s not gonna happen. I struggle to get up and I wind up in a Daniel headlock. I think I know who the man is, but I’ll be damned if I’ll admit it. “I don’t see any man here, just a pretty boy,” I manage to wheeze out.

“Oh, really? See if this clears your vision.” And he promptly shoves the glass of ice water down the front of my jeans. My jolt brings both of us off the bed, Daniel lands on the floor on his ass and I’m fumbling to remove the now empty glass from my pants. He blinks up at me with that angelic look. “Need some help there?”

I gasp for breath as the ice and water cling to certain parts of my anatomy. Daniel is gasping also, but for an entirely different reason. “I’m glad you think it’s so damn funny. Froze my nuts off, you did.”

He howls. “God, Jack, you should have seen your face!” I stand up but there is no graceful way to walk with wet, icy jeans plastered to your crotch. Daniel is laying on the floor now, tears streaming down his face. With a growl, I grab his arm and sling him up on the bed.

“Go to sleep and shut up.”

He crawls under the covers, then stops. “Jack,” his eyes are wicked, “did you wet the bed?”

“Dammit, will you go to sleep? I’m gonna take a shower.” I waddle into the bathroom where I warm up certain parts of my anatomy with a nice hot shower. Wrapped in a towel, muttering to myself, I shuffle to my bed, only to find a suspiciously Daniel-shaped lump already there. As if that weren’t enough of an insult, the son of a bitch is on my side of the bed. “Daniel, what the hell are you doing? Go sleep in your own bed.”

“Can’t. You left a wet spot. Crawl in. Try to keep your hands to yourself. Night.”

I contemplate my choices. I can try to shift Daniel out of my bed, but he’s not the pipsqueak he appears to be. I’m not a hundred percent sure I could budge him, not without his help, which will not be forthcoming. I can go sleep in the guestroom, with the aforementioned wet spot. No, don’t think so. I could head for the recliner or the couch. My back and my knees veto that idea. “Shit.” I throw in the towel, both literally and figuratively, and crawl in with Daniel.

“Night, Jack.”

“Night, Daniel.” I roll over and pray that there is no emergency in the middle of the night. I’d really hate to try to explain this one.