A/N:So I got real sick, and during one of my fever dreams I just heard "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar over and over again and when I woke up I started listening to 80s music and haven't really stopped. I had the thought of writing a 'back in time' fic but really didn't get it off the ground until Stargateddrabbles prompts got me motivated.
This fic is more focused on the day-to-day living, the media, and relationship building that occurs, and not so much the technical babble of don't-step-on-a-butterfly-or-you'll-reset-evolution type thing that A Sound of Thunder focuses on. The 80s is this really weird mash-up of pop princess pink and dark grittiness surfacing (both in music and on a socio-political level) and I wanted capture that.
Lastly, each chapter will have a thematically relevant song in the title, which I will add to the footnotes.
Totally Rad
Chapter 1
Centerfold
He thought he was alone.
For an entire fucking month, he thought he was alone.
Spent it flying under the radar, living in a hotel room with a hot plate and a bathroom door that didn't close. His neighbors were all illegal immigrants—some of the nicest people he's ever met—who hooked him up with a factory job that paid off the books.
In his downtime, he tried to figure out how to let someone know what happened, when he didn't even know.
He, Jackson, Vala, and Teal'c walked through the gate like normal, like always, seven chevrons hot and ready to go. Only as soon as they did, they all got the same startled expression and were torn away down different wormholes.
He awoke face down in an alley behind the hotel where he lives now.
Had to pass off his SGC uniform as a costume for a party and store his P90 behind the rickety closet door before eventually stealing a pair of the tightest jeans he's ever worn.
He didn't fit in, that's for damn sure, he still doesn't. His hair hasn't grown out enough, and he still doesn't like squeezing into those jeans whenever he goes to work.
When he found out it was 1988 he almost passed out.
When someone said it again, he almost threw up.
Whenever anyone talks about how the 90s are just around the corner, he almost cries.
He's already done the 80s and the 90s—he's already lived through that punishment of boybands and the Gulf War and just everything counterculture he can think of. The only saving grace is the Saturday morning cartoons that come in fuzzy over the hotel TV. He eats Nintendo cereal and watches Transformers and pretends that his momma is gonna shout at him from the other room to share the remote with his brother.
Except that right now another him is out there, nineteen, a year into an air force contract that's going to change his life and let him meet some of his favorite people.
Tries to imagine what Teal'c would be like in the Victorian period with his one-word answers finally acceptable, or Jackson in Ancient Greece desperate to bum a ride to Egypt, or Vala in the roaring twenties making her own brand of moonshine and sticking dirty bills under lacey garters.
One day after work, Luis, his neighbor who got him his job, invites him over for a beer. Doesn't know why, maybe he's just so grumbly and depressed all the time the guy took pity on him. Luis's place is a little nicer but has way more family with a pregnant wife and a toddling daughter, but he has two bedrooms and a CRT TV with cable. 1980s cable, consisting of about 20 channels that are mostly just radio on TV.
"If you pay the manager fifty extra bucks, he'll hook you up." Luis twists the cap of his Budweiser off and swigs it back while bouncing his baby daughter on his knee.
"I'll save my money, thanks," groans it into the neck of his own beer, remembering the last time they went out as a team. It's hard to keep his head clear lately, and it's only been one month—well thirty-five days.
What he does remember is how she was dressed and that she had way too much to drink and he's never been that conflicted in his life. Thinks about her the most because if he closes his eyes in the shower, he can still remember how she smelled that night, still see the blue play over her skin.
Luis's wife calls him from the bedroom, and he stands quickly, setting the beer down on a glass table between them. "Here, find something good."
He hands him the remote before retreating to help his wife with something, and he doesn't know what makes him actually channel surf, but he does because maybe there's a way he can place bets on the Superbowl or something, at least live in '88 in luxury which is probably a boxy car and a mansion decked out in pinks, blues, and black.
Flips by NBC, by CNN, by MTV—and then immediately back to MTV.
Because.
Because.
Because.
Holy fuck.
"—and that was The Pixies with Gigantic, and I have no idea how you people don't realize what that song is implying—"
She's right there.
She's right fucking there in front of him in the popped stomach of the television. Black hair all teased and sitting in a high pony on the side of her head. She's decked out in bright pink lips and purple eye shadow. She's got on two or three tops with a large belt around her waist and a zebra striped skirt. She's never looked more Vala and he was wrong about the 1920s because she's never been more in the zone.
"—The four o'clock music block will start off with Stroke Me—do you people really not see the innuendos in your own—" but she cuts herself off with a forced giggle and shrugs her shoulders innocently, before reclining back onto a square couch. Her hair doesn't even move. It still has the diamond clip in it from when he last saw her.
"—of course, first comes my daily music dedication to Cameron, Daniel, and Teal'c. Once again here's Somebody Save Me by Cinderella."
He chuckles, and then covers his mouth, a little lost for the second time since he woke up in the eighties.
"Hey?" Luis drops a hand to his shoulder, his daughter hanging off his hip. "You okay, man?"
Realizes he's crying, and she skips over to the brick backdrop, her zebra skirt is almost a tutu and her legs, God her legs. She laughs until the cut fades away to the song she announced, but just before the transition her face falls, tired and lost.
He can find her.
"I gotta go to New York City."
A/N: Chapter title borrowed from The J. Geils Band song