Prompt
(062) Shattered
Daniel,
Baal, Jack
Written for the community slash100 at livejournal.
He walks because if he didn't, they'd drag him. The clank of their boots and armour bounces off the walls, one sound coming back to him a million times. They pass through a door and his escort stops, his body stopping him automatically. His body has long learned to take care of itself, because his mind doesn't care any more.
He doesn't know how long he's been here. It could be days or years. He remembers he used to think Jack would come for him, but he doesn't now. He's died too many times for Jack to save him. He doesn't know why the bastard who took him keeps reviving him; he knows, when he bothers to think about it, that he's long gone.
"Good morning, Daniel," a voice says next to his ear. It slides around his head like oil. He feels a slight pressure in the small of his back and he walks forward, up two steps. The pressure's gone and he stops. A push to his shoulders and he sinks to the ground.
Good boy, Daniel, good boy. Maybe you'll get to live today.
He leans against the throne, and hears the bastard dismiss the guards. Fingers slide through his hair, slick as the bastard's voice, tugging and petting. He thinks about Jack's hands, retreats into the memory of gun-calloused fingers and butterfly touches.
"I have a surprise for you, Daniel," the bastard croons. Daniel almost cares, because surprises, he's learned, are never good.
Then there's the clank of boots and armour. He looks up and meets brown eyes. Dread and terror and relief and longing rush into him, making him lightheaded. Jack's here. Jack's come for him.
"Daniel!"
His eyes fall. Jack shouldn't have come. The bastard will only do to Jack what he's done to Daniel.
The bastard opens a compartment in his throne, the one containing his knives. He takes one out, playing with it idly. "Hold him," he orders the guards. Then softly to Daniel, "Watch."
Daniel raises his eyes again, noting detachedly how Jack is raising his chin defiantly. The bastard throws the knife, and it's a silver flash before it sinks hilt-deep into Jack's shoulder. Jack winces, but doesn't make a sound. Daniel knows he will, eventually. Everybody does.
But Jack makes Daniel feel, has always made Daniel feel, like he hasn't in so long. And behind Daniel's blank eyes and emotionless face, he can feel something black and foreign in his gut.
The bastard is talking, but Daniel doesn't know what he's saying. Jack's getting angry, Daniel can tell by the stiffening of his shoulders, the thinning of his lips, the darkening of his eyes. He can feel the amused pleasure rolling off the bastard in waves.
The bastard takes another knife, standing and walking over to Jack. Daniel watches. And he sees. He sees with such startling clarity that he almost lets it show on his face. He may be a lost cause, but Jack isn't. Jack isn't addicted to the sarcophagus yet, isn't fractured into a thousand tiny pieces. Jack can be saved.
Daniel can save him.
The bastard isn't paying attention to Daniel, nor are the guards. No need. The bastard has done this before, and Daniel has always watched. Now he quietly moves around the throne to the knife compartment, and takes one out. Jack doesn't see him approaching, he's too busy with the bastard. The guard he kills first doesn't see him coming either. Daniel's almost surprised at how easy it is to slit his throat.
The guard gargles and his armour clanks when he hits the floor. It doesn't matter. Daniel's already thrown the dagger into another guard's neck, grabbed the dead guard's staff weapon, and killed the remaining two. The bastard has activated his personal shield, and is watching him with dark eyes. Jack is barely conscious, bleeding from a hole near his heart. The dagger the bastard is holding is bloody.
Daniel twists his dagger out of the guard's neck, stepping on it and hearing the crunch to make sure he's dead. Then he turns to the bastard. His body moves without his mind leading it, self-defense lessons reemerging and taking hold. Somehow he disarms the bastard and then his dagger is in the bastard's stomach.
He looks in the bastard's eyes, wide with surprise.
"I've got a question for you, Baal," he says, and his voice doesn't sound like it's his. "Would you like to be cremated or buried?"
And then he twists the dagger out of the bastard's stomach and slashes his neck. Blood spurts over him, and when the bastard falls, Daniel snaps his neck. The goa'uld wiggles out of the bastard's mouth, onto the stone floor, and Daniel slams the dagger into the goa'uld's body. It thrashes before stilling.
Daniel runs over to Jack. He picks Jack up, cradling the body against his own, taking small comfort in the blood still dripping from the wounds. He half-runs to the sarcophagus, a journey he knows by heart, and lays Jack in there. He doesn't know how much time passes before the sarcophagus opens. He watches it, waiting for Jack to come out. Nothing happens. He slowly walks over to the sarcophagus. Jack is in there, white and stiff, blood pooled around his wounds and crusting his clothes. Too late.
As Daniel collapses against the gold-plated sides, he feels the last of himself die.
And then he begins to laugh.