Title: Velcro Fly
Author: MissAnnThropic
Summary: SG-1 and a song.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas. Oh, and if anyone suspected I was a rocking old man with a wicked long beard making any money off the featured song... I'm not and I don't. Bums me out, too.
A/N: Once again, a piece from the CFF collection. This one has been sitting in my CFF folder for a long time but I was too disgusted to do anything with it. I guess I just decided 'what the frell'. My apologies for this horrendous story in advance. Clearly I suck at comedy.
Colonel Jack O'Neill had always liked the sounds of the SGC. Just enough murmur and shuffle to know people were milling around, not enough to be a distraction. It was subtle. Contrary to what most people might think, sometimes Jack liked subtle.
Hands stuffed into the pockets of his BDU pants, Jack ambled down the corridor. He nodded to passing airmen, immersed in the atmosphere of the SGC. The echo of footsteps that took so sweetly long to die in the cement corridors, voices at the periphery of his hearing, the smell of canvas and electronics, the carefully regulated underground temperature, the soft undercurrent of music...
Jack's eyebrows ticked and he looked around curiously. He could definitely hear music, and that was odd within the SGC. Cocking his head, Jack followed the sound. To his bafflement, it led him to the door of Sam Carter's lab.
Jack knocked on the door but there was no answer. Now that he was near the source, he sincerely doubted Sam would hear anyone knock. The walls of the SGC were thick and solid enough to muffle sound, but right at her door he could tell the music within had to be cranked.
Frowning, Jack pushed open the door.
And sound assaulted him. Heavy drum and electric guitar screaming from the CD player, filling the room with classic rock.
Jack was furious. Sam could be caught off-guard by blaring that stuff so loud that she didn't hear people coming into her own lab. It could distract her, and the kind of things Sam Carter worked with brooked no margin for error. She was being stupid and he was pissed.
At least he was for all of two seconds, before he set eyes on Major Carter. Then he was just stunned to silence, jaw agape.
Major Carter had her back to the door, oblivious to her unhappy visitor. She was staring at a spread of papers on the table before her, math equations scribbled over them. Loosely held in her right hand was a pen that she tapped against the table in time with the beat of the song. And she was dancing. Not break-out boogy-down kind of dancing, but a definite bob and sway. Jack was afforded the kind of view of her jamming backside no CO to a tall, blonde, female 2IC should ever see.
Jack's mouth worked uselessly for a few moments as Sam moved, then the guitar and drums were joined by vocals... and Major Carter.
Jack stopped breathing in shock when Major Doctor Samantha Carter of the U.S. Air Force sang aloud.
"You need just enough of that sticky stuff to hold the seams on your fine blue jeans, I say yeah yeah..."
"Carter!"
Sam jumped and spun to face him. For a second they had to look quite the sight. Jack was wide-eyed and open mouthed, Sam was flushed beet red with a suitably mortified expression on her face.
In the next beat she'd jumped over to the CD player and stopped the music. She kept her eyes on the player, refusing to look into Jack's face.
Jack stepped further into her lab, had the sense to finally close his mouth, and considered his 2IC.
"ZZ Top, Major?"
Sam bit her lip and reluctantly looked up at Jack. When she saw his face her tight, worried expression (and some of the embarrassment) dissipated. He was trying to be mad, he really was, but it was hard to fault her for a little dancing and singing. He couldn't properly reprimand her for something that was 'too cute' for an Air Force officer, could he? It just seemed wrong.
"Yes, sir... I didn't hear you come in."
"I noticed." Another blush from the major, but less crimson than the first. "I didn't know you were a ZZ Top fan."
Sam gave a fleeting smile, "I... um... Daniel turned me on to them."
Jack's eyebrows leapt toward his hairline. "DANIEL introduced you to ZZ Top! What's HE doing listening to ZZ Top?"
Sam smiled, a little easier, and shrugged, "I don't know. I was over at his apartment last week helping him clean out some of the, uh... items he tends to accumulate."
"Rocks, books, junk," Jack nodded.
"I'm sure everything has some historical value if we're talking about Daniel. Anyway, he thought it would go faster with some tunes in the background and he put on this."
Jack couldn't help a deep chuckle. "Daniel Jackson and ZZ Top."
Sam chuckled as well. "Fan, sir?"
"Fan, no. Familiar with them, yes. I was always more of a concerto guy myself."
Jack both regretted and grew smug at his confession for the face Sam made. He'd thrown her a curve ball, but he'd also 'slipped' a rather obscure personal fact about Jack O'Neill. The cute little tilt of her head and the crinkle on her brow made him call it a break even.
Jack cleared his throat and finally addressed the issue at hand. "Don't you think music might be a tad inappropriate for the setting, Carter?"
Sam ducked her head. "I... yes, sir, I just... well, I had some equations that Siler's been after me to look at for weeks and I've had this in my head all week. I'm sorry, sir."
"I suppose if you weren't doing anything remotely dangerous in here it's not a big deal, although the kind of math I've seen you do should count as a risk for an aneurysm. Maybe you should turn it down, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. We're due for an off-world mission tomorrow morning, don't be late."
"I won't."
Jack moved toward the door to her lab, paused before he got there, and turned to look back at Sam. "Oh, and Carter? Not bad. You sing better than you cook."
Sam blushed again at her CO's teasing and Jack grinned and left shaking his head.
The next day Jack was in the locker room... and he wasn't smiling about it anymore. ZZ Top had been stuck in his head since he'd walked in on Carter yesterday. He didn't want ZZ Top in his head. He'd sat through the pre-mission briefing and kept tapping his foot, twitching his fingers, doing anything and everything to try and shove aside that stupid bearded band just so he could listen to General Hammond. He was beset and pissed.
Jack was shrugging into his olive drab jacket when he heard Daniel behind him putting on his boots... and humming. GOD! Not ZZ Top AGAIN!
"Daniel!"
Daniel jumped, startled, then looked up at Jack and scowled. "What?" he asked indignantly.
"Knock off the humming."
"Why?"
"It's annoying."
Teal'c, already geared up and ready to go, stood with his hands behind his back and offered, "I do not find it unpleasant, O'Neill."
"Well I do," Jack growled. "I've had that damn song in my head for a day now..." Jack trailed, then turned abruptly to face Daniel. "ZZ Top? What kind of archaeologist listens to ZZ Top?"
Daniel challenged haughtily, "What do you think we should listen to, Jack?"
"Well, I don't know... there has to be archaeologist music or something."
Daniel's eyebrows rose in a supremely annoying fashion and he smiled. "Sorry, I forgot about Air Force music."
Jack rolled his eyes.
Daniel finished tying his boots and stood. "I was on a dig in Central America when I was an undergrad and the graduate assistant liked to play rock music while we worked."
"Just... stop humming. That's all I asked."
"Do you take offense to this brand of Tau'ri music, O'Neill?"
"Not on principle, no. I caught Carter listening to it yesterday and it got stuck in my head and Daniel's rendition isn't helping."
Daniel's astute gaze locked on Jack, his eyes narrowed, then he smiled again. "It just bothers you that Sam was listening to such a heavily connotative song."
"Does not."
"Does to."
"Does not."
"Whatever you say, Jack." Daniel looked entirely too pleased for Jack's liking. It did nothing to improve the colonel's mood.
The planet was a tree-laden bust as far as Jack O'Neill was concerned. No natives, no trouble, no action... just a long hike through the woods to reach a dilapidated temple that had probably been destroyed before Apophis was a Goa'uldy tadpole. Boring was the name of the game. Quiet and boring, and SG-1 decided to entertain themselves.
Daniel started it. Humming again, from his place behind Sam, in front of Teal'c, Jack leading the entourage. Jack snapped at him a couple of times but it only shut Daniel up for a few minutes. Then he'd start back up, the song that would not die and leave Jack in peace.
When Jack's perseverance to silence the civilian flagged, Daniel got louder. Jack didn't bother jumping down his throat because sometimes with Daniel it was like trying to bail out a boat with a fork.
Then Sam started humming and Jack and Teal'c were marching between their own buzzing juke box.
The very last straw was when Daniel started singing, and Sam seemed obliged to join him. In duet, the two chorused, "Well, it feels so right when you squeeze it tight, when you reach the end do it over again, I say yeah yeah!"
"For crying out loud!" Jack barked, but it was masked by another round of "I say yeah yeah," sung by Daniel, Sam... and Teal'c.
Jack almost screamed.
General Hammond could tell that something was up with SG-1. Jack looked pissy during the debrief, and his teammates were not very conciliatory about whatever they'd done to earn Jack's steely-eyed wrath. And since no one else on the team was upset, it had to be something that pitted the three of them against the colonel. Hammond decided he didn't want to get into the middle of it. Half the time, SG-1 had arguments like a family as opposed to a team, meaning their 'spats' were rarely a matter for command intervention. Jack would make up to his team, or they'd bring him around... it was the way SG-1 worked.
Jack was in the parking garage, on the way to his truck, when a voice called to him. "Colonel!"
Jack turned at Sam's voice to see her, also in civilian clothes, trotting up to him. He glowered for a moment, because he hadn't forgotten that she'd been part of the guilty party on the planet, then his anger waned. It was too damn hard to actually stay mad at Carter.
"Sir... I'm sorry we upset you on the planet today."
"Look, Carter, no sweat."
Sam smiled carefully, "To be fair... Daniel started it."
Jack laughed. "And you should know better than to encourage him, Major."
Sam grinned then quipped, "So what's Teal'c's excuse?"
Jack cringed at the memory of a singing Jaffa. If Apophis had any idea there'd be a new weapon against Earth.
"The question is, is Teal'c's familiarity with ZZ Top your fault or Daniel's?"
"Daniel's!"
Jack smirked. "Pretty quick to absolve yourself."
"Every man for himself, sir."
Jack sighed with a smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, Carter."
"Good night, sir."
Jack turned back to his truck and climbed in behind the steering wheel. In his rear view mirror, he watched Carter walk away toward her own car.
Jack started his truck and began to pull out of his parking space. Without thinking, he began to sing to himself under his breath, "There ain't never a catch, all you got to do is snatch, do the velcro fly."
END