A few notes for this story:
* It's set during Roswell, and SG-1 novel, but a lot of people might not have read it.
*Spoiler Alert*
* Cam and Vala are left in 1908, they pretend to be married, find the Egyptian gate in 1922, travel to another planet ruled by Qetesh and Vala is taken over. Other things happen after but I don't want to spoil that novel and my story.
If you have any questions please feel free to PM me.
This story is dedicated to Kat. Thanks for letting me write this in a week.
Disclaimer: own nothing
Lotus
Chapter 1
Those Blue-Grays
"Memory believes before knowing remembers"
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
The room smells God awful. Literally god awful. It always does afterwards, but sometimes are worse than others, and sometimes are worse yet, because sometimes he has to watch. Her chambers are decorated in gold of course, as she usually is—or it—he guesses, but it's been so long that it is a she to him—and she is more of an it, cast away in the background but he swears, swears he still senses some tiny glimmer of her—her lips would twitch—the corner—into a lopsided, half-grin tell him she is still there and he wants to scream for her.
The gold and bronze room is the most opulent he's ever seen, like a room in a museum or a set decorated from Ancient Rome. Twenty-foot ceilings painted with tableaus marvelling Michelangelo's chapel thing, except they're all of it—her—not her, she would never do this. Just it crawling on top of a mountain of naked bodies—corpses—did it matter?—riding random Jaffa, licking throats and faces and stomachs and—God, if he hadn't seen it in real life it would bother him more.
Curtains hang from the ceiling, thick as religious drapery—are religious drapery—but he's never been the type—unless he gets a macaroon—and a king king-size bed large enough to fit almost a whole squadron in and he knows because he's seen it because it is insatiable because it is the god of sex.
She is Vala
Speckles of gold pebble themselves throughout the marbled floor, and in the middle of the room sits a bath—a type of fountain always half-illuminated by something giving an ethereal blue glow. The bath is somehow a natural spring, but not actually the main bath—no—it had another room constructed for that. Not even an indoor pool but an indoor lake, a natural hot spring to bead the sweat and raise the libido.
Today is a bad one and it's only the second round out of ten to fifteen. It isn't that bad because he didn't witness it directly, but he heard the screams. Jaffa screams of ecstasy transformed in the predawn full moon into howls of anguish then gurgles of blood caught in throats—into hacked limbs and eviscerated torsos. But he didn't have to watch, so he'll give it a 6.5/10.
It's constructed a pile of bodies on the bed, he counts off hand—tries not to anymore because all he does is feed his rage and there is no one he can direct his rage to but it—and her—when she saved his ass—how many times did she save his ass?—twelve Jaffa, a mild party—orgy, it's a fucking orgy but he can't staple the negativity of that word and the sexual deviancy behind it to her face because he longs for her to come back in more than a lip twitch or eye twinkle. Left alone to his own devices, he replays memories and wishes they never passed through the Egyptian stargate. Should have braced the cold and died cuddling each other in Antarctica.
Perched atop the mountain of ripped apart Jaffa it sits—with her face—sweat shiny and blood smudged. The gold ornamental claws it wears circle around its lips wiping away any evidence of what her mouth has done—its mouth. Vala's mouth blew raspberries at him and grinned so brightly, even when his face crunched into one of short-lived patience he felt a smile itch at his lips. She was contagious and now it is contagious.
"Cameron." It greets, picking its bright, unsmiling teeth with a claw. Its legs are crossed, its hair is messy from fucking and fighting—not from untwining braids or pulling out full pigtails—and its completely naked. He's seen it naked so many times that by day three of being first prime he stopped blushing. Now he doesn't even turn away, doesn't even gawk—he gawked a couple of times at first because he's a man and despite the situation sometimes the blood just flows south—just paces around the pool of blood growing from the bed, dark red, and the metallic smell almost overpowers the stench of sweat and cum.
"You can't keep doing this." Bronze and gold statues of itself—in other hosts—line around the chamber and the blood has spurted far enough to give some statues freckles. The pool ripples and grows and begins to drip into the fountain, worms down the topaz and turquoise tiled side and stains the petal of a pink lotus—the pink lotuses are for her and when one died last week he killed the next Jaffa he saw.
"This conversation bores me." The voice is deep, masculine with no warmth or compassion, computerized for killing. But her accent remains untouched and give the voice a uniqueness among Goa'uld—a different level of class—which is another reason it took her body. Beautiful voice and privileged information.
It slides off the dead bodies landing on the bed with a thump and falling—purposefully—to its hands and knees.
"Then stop mass murdering your Jaffa."
"But they're so incompetent." She—it rolls onto its back, skin flushing with an after sex glow he gets to witness a dozen times a day. Ivory diffusing into a steamed pink and her—its stomach undulates in remaining torrents of arousal.
He moves along an embedded golden border of the room—he's allowed to cross over to the bed area but he never does—the bed being its sacred area doesn't concern him, the closer he gets, the realer it gets, and the gravity of the situation—the bruises and bit marks on her body that she didn't ask for—the cum wiped off in her hair that she doesn't want—gives him rage that again he has no channels to direct. "If you want to win a war against Ra, you're going to need numbers. More numbers than him. Taking the new soldiers into you bed every time a group finishes basic training and then slaughtering them doesn't get you any further—"
"They were sexually incapable, Mitchell." And he doesn't know why it reverts to that name sometimes or how it says it exactly in her tone—only considerably deeper—and why it only uses it to express emotions like weariness or irritation as she would.
He toes the line as it fans out her hair—gorgeous black hair with phantom ringlets strewn out on a pillow—only some strands clump together and he knows why, and it makes his stomach solid. "They looked pretty capable to me."
It laughs, mouth wide, lips pull, throat chortling like the true stereotype of a villain. "Hardly. Spent in under an hour. I'm the god of sex, how will that reflect upon me."
She is a goddess, and he realized it too late. Years of hiding in basements and pretending to be married. He gambled on bets he knew would win—baseball games and Olympic sports. Took what little cash they amassed and bought stock in oil and she blossomed as their money doubled, tripled, septupled. He bought her a mansion and when she grew bored, he bought her a bigger one. She was content despite being stuck a hundred years before their timeline, she wore the stupid clothes—the finest of the stupid clothes—and ate weird foods that she stuck her nose up at and wished they could have chicken strips. She laughed at puppet shows and grew close to a camel they saved in Egypt that she named Daryl. She danced with him in an ornate wooden ballroom before all their societal peers and made him feel like a king. She laid in his bed beside him—again naked and again blushing a lotus pink—and stroked her fingers through his arm hair and listed the things she missed. She never listed Jackson, but he knew he was on that list and the rage pricked at his skin until she dragged her fingers through his hair coaxing him gently like she did with Daryl, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as she told him how sweet she was on him—his vernacular, her raspy voice—and how she wanted no one and nothing but him even after they made it back to their timeline.
He was a king.
"I'll fetch the maidens to clean up this mess." Downcasts his eyes and pivots back onto the golden line. He was a king before it was a god.
Fixes itself on the edge of the bed, legs cross Fatal Attraction style and years ago—in a hotel room in Cairo—that move would've turned him on immediately and he would've tackled her college football style. Now he's seen those legs, those hips, that pelvis do unspeakable things to people, wanted unspeakable things done to it. "It's not a mess, it's art, Darling."
Straw. Daryl's back.
"You do not get to call me that." Pivots back again and his little Egyptian skirt—or whatever the hell it's called—spins Seven Year Itch style. If his grandma could only see him now, screaming at a God who bathes in blood, mass murders at its orgies while he Monroes in an ancient manskirt. "That is her word for me, you've stolen enough from me."
It doesn't speak which isn't usually a good sign. Just tightens crossed legs and leans forward, breasts bunching against knees and observes through narrow, but intrigued eyes.
"You've stolen enough."
"Oh, have I?" Lifts from the bed, face stoic with currents of anger waving through, body shimmering like rippling water or the accumulating blood pool as it approaches. "Cameron, you should never forget about what I can take from you. Darling."
"You don't—"
"I can take her from you, Darling. I grow tired of this body, it's gauntness and weakness in reoccurring sexual performances. Killing this body would be akin to losing an eyelash." Deep words spitting from its mouth and hitting the floor with the same smack of its feet. The hip sway enticingly dangerous. "I switch bodies and she becomes obsolete unless a form of entertainment and I would entertain myself. She was beat and starved for a week on end during my fall in your time, I can surmount that record and I will set you up to watch as I do."
What can he do but fall to his knees.
He begs, because he cares about a single thing in this timeline and it's her. She sacrificed her ticket out of 1908 to save him, healed him fully despite her own fatigue and when he reawakened she celebrated and held his head against her lap—he felt the relief whisper out of her.
"Forgive me, my God." Pleads with clasped hands and a downward face because his silent sobs are about to become all too heard. "I spoke out of turn."
It seems unappeased by his truthful and very near hysteric pleas, but it stops its advances. "And why did you?"
"A break in composure, my God." It loves the 'my God' stuff. Gets off on it, hears it ask for it while fucking, for praise and prostrations.
"You will answer me truthfully." With her voice—her accent—it sounds like an unsure question, but the Goa'uld don't waiver in their ruthlessness. He's lucky it was benevolent enough not to slaughter her on the spot to prove a point.
"Always, my God."
"You love her."
Unspoken words from her to him, sitting out on a hotel balcony in Cairo, watching the sunset over the pyramids, listening to the street vendors call out for the last time that day, holding her in his lap and closing his eyes and pretending that it wasn't so bad because she was there with him and he had her and that was enough when for years it seemed like nothing. Sighed it into her ear, and she tightened his arms around her hips.
"I feel the same way."
"I know."
"I can't say that"
"I know."
"Because of reasons."
"Me loving you means I understand that."
Pulling his face from the ground and without hesitation he stares into her eyes—voided blue-gray—and answers, "Without a doubt."
"Then come to her." It stretches out its arms, with fingerprints of blood mottling its skin. Her body is a crime scene. Her body is a prison cell. Her body is a mausoleum where his rage goes to die.
Jerks away from its outstretched hand sans one shiny red apple. The same bloody fingertips beckoning him. The same she flicked his ear with, and traced his lips, and racked through his hair. The ones he kissed as he watched her fall into a gentle sleep. "Never."
It's fingers fan in entrancingly, and a smirk develops on its lips. "It is the simple solution to both our problems."
"What are you talking about?"
"You wish to be sexually reunited with your concubine—"
"She wasn't my concubine. And I don't wish anything."
It arches an eyebrow and he's aware this is his second strike. The only reason it hasn't reacted greater is because it needs him to agree. To give in after he promised her. Looked into her blue-grays—struggling to hold back her tears for him—and promised her he would never give into its seductions. Promised her he would let himself or her die before. That there would be one thing it would never have after so easily conquering her body. Pressed his lips to hers and tasted the tears he didn't see. Clamped his hands in desperation onto the side of her face and breathed her in one final time before the Jaffa tore her away. He cried while he heard her scream from the other room, unable to watch her drain from—be imprisoned in—her own body and when it re-entered the room with a cheeky grin he thought maybe a true God was watching over them, maybe religion wasn't all nodding and repetition and macaroons.
Then in a deep, emotionless voice it greeted, "Hello Darling."
"I require copulation." It stands before him now and the stench is unhealthy. It hits the back of his throat and throws him in a gag that he pulls of as a cough. She used to smell like flowers. Take radiant baths with rose petals he would sometimes rain on her, it left that blush on her skin.
Bursts to his feet searching for those eyes—the too giddy ones when he kissed her in the public garden and pulled at the bottom of her petticoat and she deadpanned, "Cameron, no. We're in public." But nodded and pulled him further into the jasmine bushes while biting her lip.
"I'll have the boys send in the next round of newbies." He eyes the stack of dead bodies again. "Maybe you want the maidens in to clean up first."
"I require sanitization." It points to the fountain the water bubbling up warmly and trickling down from an elaborate double-decker spout in the middle.
"I'll send in the maidens." He reiterates and dares to take a step.
Gets in two before its voice booms throughout the chamber. "You will do it, Cameron."
He spins back again and knows this is the final countdown. The mythical third strike—he fell into her eyes and promised and that means more to him than whatever punishment it has in store. The final promise cannot be undone with beatings and sex acts. "No, the hell I won't"
"You dare to—"
"Yes, I do."
"Insubordination." It screams covering the feet between them with eerie expertise. The gold claws wrap around his neck and if the body was anyone else's but hers, he thinks it would lift him right off the ground.
"Do it." Its eyes widen—white conquering irises—as he eggs it on. If he dies he doesn't have to see her die—a sign of a true God. "Do it."
"Oh Cameron." Releases his neck and a golden claw drags from the bottom of his chin to his lips. The thumping of his heart is palpable in the moments he waits, cannot fathom anything worse than the torture of day-to-day life—of waiting for SG-1 to return and save them from this nightmare—but its not an original thought and it only ever gets worse. "She will not let me."
Eyebrows furrow and he's squinting at it because for once it has him stumped. Its tastes and requirements are very basic. Flesh and worship in any sense of the word. Unusual for it to mention Vala not once, but twice in the same day. "What?"
It rolls her eyes, they glimmer for a second and he knows it's her. It could be doing it as a ploy, to play him—he knows it's her. It clacks the claws together, and he would say it's embarrassed if he didn't know any better. "She cares for you and is currently using all her strength to keep me from harming you. I suppose it's sweet in an utterly idiotic way."
"She—wait how do you know this?" If he looks hard enough it always has an underlying cause, should be that it just wants to get fucked right now, but they've been here too many years, and he's gotten to know the bait and switch game. "I thought when you crawled in there you destroyed her right to her body."
"True," it nods in agreement, "if I was some common trash system lord."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I haven't irradiated her ability to influence me completely."
"Why not?"
"Because I keep her consciousness captive and alert." A gruesome grin curls on its lips and the eye shine he recognized before is snuffed out completely. It leans in, a claw pressing into the butt of his chin and whispers, "I make her watch everything and I relish in her screaming protests and mewling pleas."
But he's already read its book, knows its moves. He's danced with her before and knows she stumbles at the corners, knows she moves her hands to his ass when she thinks no one is looking. He knows she has some control over this thing. That's his wife. If she can be strong, he can sure as hell be strong. "Now, now, that doesn't sound like fourplay to me."
"She wants you, Cameron." It licks her lips, draws in some of the blood off them. "She is trying to convince me to let her share you for one last time."
"No, she's not you—"
"Would you like me to let her try and convince you?"
And he doesn't move because he can't. Wants to but it's been so long and if she pops back in for even a second, he'll abandon his backup plan to destroy it, and spend all his time searching for a way to bring her back. "No."
"She believes she can convince you."
"No."
"I'll allow her just a few—"
"No," shouts out the rage instead of smothering it in her. The brightness, the heat at his cheeks flares and the tears he can't control burn equally as hard.
"Cameron?"
For the first time since he's entered the room it's completely silent—serene—just the babbling of the fountain echoing across the empty space. Her eyes are desolate but they're hers. Her lips tremble and pull with puppet strings into a failing grin.
"H—Hey Princess." He doesn't know what to do. Swoop her up and run her away. Put a bullet in her brain. Nothing at all because maybe this is it fucking with him again. Tries to every once and a while just to keep days from blurring together.
"I'm—I'm trying," raspy voice gasping, because she's drowning. Her head twitches, shakes to the side, physically clearing thoughts. "I'm trying to think of something I can say to convince you it's truly me, but I don't own any of our memories anymore."
"You don't have to—"
Gulps in another mouthful of air and turns her head sideways towards him. In her jittering the golden claws topple to the floor. "Do you remember how you used to take me flying? Biplanes barely crawling off the ground. You bought that stupid hat."
"I rocked that hat."
"I hated that hat."
"I bought you that scarf."
Cries freely now, her hands—her blood painted fingers—twitching at her side. Chokes, "I loved that scarf."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
In the time it takes her to collapse to the floor he's rushing at her, gathering her up and depositing her in the fountain. Bubbles foam and swirl around her, boiling her skin to a different pink. He cups water letting it cleanse her, watching as grime and blood streak and disappear. Her head cranes towards hm, eyes wide with shock teetering on childlike glee. Her hand reaches out near him, skimming the surface of the water to stroke a lotus blossom. "I love these flowers."
"I know," mumbles it close to her ear, revels as she squirms at the proximity. Wets his fingers and rolls them on her earlobes watching the blood pull off in flakes. The feeling is natural. The feeling is euphoric. But the thing with being purely happy is it seldom ever lasts long. "How much time do you think we have?"
"Not long." The answer is blunt as she pulls his arms forward from behind her, sliding them over her shoulders, then her collarbone, then the swell of her breasts before dipping them into the water. "Come in quickly."
Hand cups her cheek, thumb running circles, painting with a different type of fingertip. "Va—"
Spins in the fountain and covers his mouth with her hand, a mixture of white and pink patterns glistening on her arm and blood free fingertips. "Don't say my name. It will bring her back."
"It. It's an it." Strokes her cheek with the back of his hand. She is the only inhabitant of that—her—body. She is all he sees and everything he does he does for a hope of retrieving her—a needle in a haystack—a Ra's pool in the middle of the desert—one wrong move.
Pulls her face towards him and kisses her—consumes her—tastes every little thing from the floral mossy scent of the fountain water to the saltiness of sweat and tears and the blunt taste of blood from Jaffa long dead. She pulls him, her hands gripping his knees buried beneath Egyptian cotton, sliding up his stomach over the chest he's forced to wax, slipping through the bronzing oil like car tires stuck in mud. Pulls again and he's in the fountain on top of her—already hard— her hands flip a single clasp and his manskirt floats and boils on top of the water.
He buries his face in her neck and cushions her head from smashing again the marble floor with his hand. Sucks on her skin and she tastes like her, feels like her and he rolls his tongue against hers because he needs more—needs more to last him.
Their first time was in a lavish hotel room with a view of the pyramids so breathtaking it looked like a painting. Her hair was down in ringlets—she'd recently been goaded into wearing hats from the other rich wives. She hated hats and the setting and having to roll her hair only to spend and hour pinning it up into an under curling bun. The hat, a dark green and purple pinstriped, was tossed—or thrown irately—onto the bed. Confining dress and petticoat followed, and he blushed to think of the state of her.
She leaned, stretching her back out on the railing of their terrace. She wore a pair of his gray slacks held up by one of his leather belts—she had poked a new hole to suit her size—and one of the tank tops he purchased as an extra small by 'accident'. It was sticking to her back with sweat.
"Someone is going to see you," was all he said as he flipped through letters and correspondence hoping for an update from Carnarvon.
"It is a waste to hide this body underneath all of that packaging." The humidity volumized her hair—made it full and shiny—yet she somehow kept it unfrizzy.
He chuckled and slapped down the remaining letters on the radio stand. "You and I finally agree on something, Princess."
"Do you call me Princess now because you've bought me everything 1922 can offer?"
Called her Princess because before—a long time ago in a different lifetime—lifetime one of four—she would complain and whine until it became too much of a hassle to deal with her and eventually she got her own way. Called her a Princess in that instant because he bought her castles and hoped to rescue her.
She cocked her head at him confused when he didn't answer—only grinned—so she shook her head and walked by him and back inside, but a bruise on her shoulder made him hold her in place. "What's that?"
"Oh nothing, I fell wearing that stupid outfit at the market today and—"
She doesn't lie anymore—doesn't have a reason to lie to him—so he saw through this one like the gossamer curtains in the veranda doors. "Who did this."
"No one did, Darling I—" Pulled her arm away from him—or attempted to—he refused to let it go. She tried to yank, but he held on tighter.
"Hate to break it to you, Vala, but you're a lousy liar now."
"Fine." Finally reclaimed her arm and rubbed at the spot he'd grasped for so long. "A man tried to attack me in an alleyway today." Noticed his change in expression and raised both her index fingers requesting a moment. "But—But I easily defeated him and left his tiny drunken self in a manure pile."
"Why are you using alleyways still. We're high class."
"Darling, I'll never be high class."
That made him chuckle and roll his eyes when she gave him a grin encouraging his mirth. He spun her back around, fingers tracing at the circumference of the bruise. "What did he hit you with?"
"A lead pipe or a wrench. It might have been a pearl handled revolver. I was in an alley. It was dark." Peered over her shoulder and when the mirth so quickly disappeared she slowed her words and bit her bottom lip.
"No more alleys."
"Cameron aren't you overreacting just a squish."
"No. More. Alleys."
"You're not my real husband you know." He paused on his way to the kitchen—to retrieve ice for her bruise—and wondered why it upset him so much. Why he cared about a bruise this week, or the gash she received in a bar fight the week before—promised she didn't start that one.
Pressed his cotton shirt to his back, planting her hand in an nonverbal apology.
"I just want you safe."
"We're never going to be safe here."
And he just swung around and kissed her—thinks she thought he was going to hit her—but caught her off guard as she stumbled backwards onto a very stiff—half wooden—couch with the ugliest pattern he's ever seen. Kissed her and after an initial surprise she kissed back. Ended up on top of him writhing as he traced a finger from her neck to her hips. Watched the pink blossom across her sunburnt skin and was truly content for the first time in fourteen years.
But the thing about being truly content is—
Yells his name as she finishes—the high walls and ceiling catching the sound and throwing it around like a stadium of her cheering for him—directs his head back against the side of her neck heaving with him as he cums. Her warmth, her smell, her all the same—still her.
She chuckles, fingers—clawless—drifting over the taut muscles in his back. He chuckles into her neck, sucks on her earlobe tasting floral water—Turkish delights. Leans back to kiss her for the last time—tell her to keep being strong so he can—but her eyes are already empty—not even a glimmer.
"Mmmm," it moans beneath him—deep voice, inhuman voice—wide haunting grin retuning to its face, hips gyrating against his still lifting and sinking in the water. Its tongue drags up his chin to his lips and he dashes back—causing waves, causing lotuses to rock. "That was earthshattering, Darling."
It always wins