Title: Empty Victory
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Camulus / Ba'al
Word Count: 2270
Rating: NC-17
Summary: After Camulus is surrendered to Ba'al in 'Zero Hour', he is treated to Tall, Dark, and Twisted's particular brand of hospitality. But there is one concession Ba'al can't wring from the defeated former System Lord
Author's Notes: I don't know why I wrote Camulus/Ba'al. I don't even like Ba'al. I think I blame Callahan for this one.
The Goa'uld did everything in style. Even torture chambers were elegantly draped in rich fabrics, every surface intricately curled and inlaid with gold. This decadent vice had led to their downfall, Camulus mused as gravity pressed him into a serrated grill, dark blood dripping parallel to the floor, not staining his golden skin. Decadence, complacence, softness.
"Now that you've had a chance to think . . ." And by 'think', his captor meant, of course, 'exsanguinate'.
". . . you can tell me more about this zero point module."
"Didn't . . ." Talking was hard, his voice was a croak. He swallowed, his throat like broken glass, and tried again. "Didn't turn out as you expected?"
Ba'al snarled and let go the knife in his hand, but all he got for his effort was a soft grunt as it flew √ fell across the chamber and sliced through a bicep. Camulus's eyes closed and he dropped his head back against the grill. Fresh pain lanced through his scalp, adding to the dozens of cuts or buried knives scattered across his torso, arms, and legs.
Ba'al was asking him a question. Camulus didn't hear.
Camulus's world went dark.
Camulus could admire Ba'al. He had come to this realisation lying on the floor of his cell, looking up at the guards above him. Gravity-control technology that others would use in a ship Ba'al had applied to this prison, and a more effective method of containment Camulus had never encountered. Floor became wall to leave prisoners disoriented and trapped at the bottom of a dead-end hallway that had become a pit. Made things like acid and knives, though carelessly dropped, perfectly aimed. After each of their little chats, Ba'al healed Camulus just enough to let him survive to the next day.
He hadn't seen the inside of a sarcophagus in . . .
He didn't know how long he had been here. Their "discussions" could last minutes, or hours. In his cell it was eternal daylight. He passed out from blood loss and lost more time.
In a way, he was surprised that he was still functioning as well as he had. The effects of the sarcophagus were, among other things, narcotic and addictive and withdrawal was highly unpleasant. It was this clinical description of the physical condition of his host that preoccupied the Goa'uld as he waited for his next summons. For another summons always came.
Camulus hissed as acid burn through skin, worked its way into muscle and bone. A hiss was all he allowed himself. A hiss or a grunt, never more than that. Ba'al was shouting. He always shouted when Camulus refused to talk.
"Do you have any idea how much was destroyed by the device you delivered to me? How many of my Jaffa were killed?"
"How many of mine?" Camulus croaked, focusing eyes that struggled to flare. "How many of those Jaffa were mine, Ba'al. Jaffa I trained and you stole √" He clamped his teeth together, grinding them against sharp pain as his outburst was rewarded with a scattering of drops across his torso.
"Silence!" Ba'al roared.
"Make . . ." Camulus dragged in a breath. "Make up your mind. Do I speak -"
Ba'al snarled, the bottle in his hand twitching and splashing more, the liquid hissing and spitting as it bit into Camulus's shoulder.
"- or stay silent?" Camulus ground out.
"Insolent, broken fool," Ba'al declared, and Camulus wanted to punch the pompous bastard. "Your lands are mine, your warriors are mine. You are mine."
"Even you . . ." Dark circles encroached on his vision and he closed his eyes to make them go away. "Even you can't take the last from me."
He went into withdrawal some time, some few "sessions", after that. The trembling grew worse, but still he dragged himself to his feet every time the floor of his cell became the wall, and every time he walked into the hands of stonefaced Jaffa guards under his own power. He was dying slowly. And he knew that Ba'al would make it neither quick nor easy.
In the unending day of his imprisonment he heard the tramp of lockstepping boots and raised himself from the floor with shaking arms that didn't seem to want to work. He felt gravity reverse and couldn't find his feet in time, sprawling painfully across the new floor. He had to stand, that was the only thought pounding through his head. He had to . . .
Strong hands wrapped around his upper arms, dragging him across the floor. Camulus struggled and managed to slip one arm free, but two more Jaffa just stepped in and took the place of one. His head drooped between his stretched arms as he went limp. They would have to work to haul him around √ it was petty, but pettiness was all he had left. He was expecting the harsh lines and serrated metal of Ba'al's torture chamber; he wasn't expecting warm golden light, a soft bed with fine linens. As overwrought as anything, Ba'al's bedchamber was draped in gold cloth, the bed massive, his sarcophagus gleaming. It was as ornate as a temple, and as heavily guarded. Impassive Jaffa lurked among the hangings, their numbers shifting in Camulus's head as his body, thinner now than when he arrived and with muscles slack and untoned, was thrown facedown onto that massive bed.
Ba'al entered, his eyes flaring at the sight sprawled in front of him. Camulus had always been fond of pretty hosts, and this was one of the prettiest. Dark hair curled over his neck, obscuring the strong jaw that was half-buried in the sheets. Though scarred now beyond the symbiote's ability to repair, Camulus's skin gleamed golden and smooth in the light, and even slack from lack of use and trembling from weakness the muscles that corded beneath that tawny skin were those of a powerful man.
His prize. He had taken the proud Celt's planets, his fleet, his worshippers, his armies. He had even forgiven the Camulus's duplicity with the Tau'ri by now. Camulus's snarled insults while writhing under the pain Ba'al inflicted were sweet to him, but still there was one thing Camulus had not given him √ his submission. And it was that which Ba'al craved greatest.
At least, that was what Ba'al had craved greatest until he saw Camulus lying there.
What man or woman, Jaffa or Goa'uld or Tau'ri, could resist the golden god? Naked. Weak. Completely at his mercy. Ba'al could taste victory on salty skin already.
"Leave us," he snapped, eagerness tinting his voice. The Jaffa guards who lined the walls snapped to attention, turned precisely on synchronised heels, and the tramp of their boots faded from the chamber. Ba'al advanced, his own boots making but a soft scuff on the shallow steps up to the bed. His hands were already at the fastenings of his robes and his eyes fixed on the big, broken man seemingly unconscious √ seemingly dead, the rise and fall of his breath barely enough to stir his shoulders.
"Is this how you would take me?"
Ba'al froze at the cracked voice √ the sound reedy and weak, and yet still laced with strength of conviction. He scrambled to twist his face into the sneer of cold contempt he usually wore. "You live still, Camulus."
"I live." Camulus stirred, shifted, spread his thighs just slightly. The effect was of deliberate action, yet he knew it was the extent of his ability to move at the moment. "Would you take me like this?" he asked again, gaining strength. "Unconscious, unable to fight you? Give in to the human lusts of your host? Would this . . ." Shaky breath, the shakiness he buried in sheets too soft. It would be so easy to just relax into them and sleep. "Would this give you the victory you seek?"
The bed sank and Camulus knew that Ba'al was kneeling. He was even expecting the blow that crashed across the back of his skull and made his vision blur further. "Silence!"
"You cannot silence me," Camulus snarled. "Take me if you want. But you will never have me."
Ba'al snarled, but his weight was lifted from the bed and he stalked wordlessly from the chamber.
Camulus allowed himself the energy to smirk. After a moment, he lifted himself on trembling arms √ the small rest, the small victory strengthed him. From bed to floor was a controlled tumble. The shallow steps down from the bed to the centrepiece of the room, the impressive golden sarcophagus, that Ba'al had swept up so easily proved too great a challenge for uncoordinated limbs and weakened muscles, and he sprawled to the cold floor. Ba'al had given in and opened himself up to greater stupidity. With that thought in mind and with grim determination, Camulus dragged himself upright again, determination becoming victory on his face as the sarcophagus hissed open under his shaking, uncoordinated fingers.
Greater stupidity indeed.
Ba'al lounged on his opulent throne, his thoughts preoccupied with anything but his captive √ his unbroken captive, despite his best efforts. What he had intended to be his crowning glory, his final triumph had, well . . . "not gone according to plan" was putting it mildly. So now Ba'al was brooding. As a tactical strategy, brooding was rarely effective √ done properly, however, it at least seemed impressive. And so far his brooding had provided no practical solutions to the problem at hand, and he could see his Jaffa beginning to shuffle their feet.
He swept to his feet to issue some orders, when whatever he was saying was neatly cut off by the doors to the throne room crashing open and an armoured and unconscious Jaffa slid across the floor to a halt at Ba'al's feet. Ba'al looked up at the figure framed in the doorway, as tall and as straight, as smooth and unblemished, as golden and strong as he had been for centuries. A staff weapon was held almost negligently in his hand, and he wore only a hip wrap taken from Ba'al's own wardrobe. Ba'al took three quite steps back, lifting his hand to point imperiously.
"Seize him!"
Jaffa rushed forward, but were halted by a single booming command √ and not from Ba'al. The room was frozen as Camulus paced forward, the staff thumping against the stone floor. "Do they obey your command, Lord Ba'al?" Camulus sneered, making the title an insult.
"Didn't you hear me? Take him!" Ba'al snarled, but he still backed up a step.
They hesitated, did not attack.
"You've made another mistake, Ba'al," Camulus smirked, his voice filling the room. "You don't even know which of your own troops were born to your worship, and which have had my seal burned from their foreheads and replaced with your own." He jabbed his finger at his own, unmarked forehead as he spoke. He halted a handful of paces away from the other Goa'uld, his eyes never leaving Ba'al's face.
"This is ridiculous -"
Camulus swung the staff weapon in a precisely controlled arc, pointing directly at a Jaffa to the left of Ba'al on his throne. "Do you still set your stance too wide when you are fighting hand to hand?" he asked, and saw the surprise flicker across the warrior's face. The staff weapon moved again, selected another victim. Camulus didn't know their names, but he knew some of their faces. Had seen many of them in the dust at his feet as he inspected his troops during their training. Other things were simply a matter of observation. "You. You have not broken that habit. Your hand should be closed when you brace your staff against it, for greater strength."
"This is meaningless!" Ba'al snapped, sweeping forward. "You are one man, barely armed √ not even dressed. You cannot escape, Camulus, surely you realise this."
If that was intended to rile the other Goa'uld, it had no such effect. If only, it caused a slow smile to spread across his face. He returned the staff weapon to his side, making a soft click with military precision.
"Leave us," he commanded the Jaffa.
Only a moment of hesitation and Ba'al was left without guards.
They looked at each other for a long moment.
"There is only you and I now, Ba'al," Camulus said, his voice soft with deadly menace.
Ba'al broke, but Camulus was on him in a few quick strides, the staff weapon abandoned in favour of hands and feet. The fight, such as it was, was short and ugly. Camulus crushed the ribbon device on Ba'al's hand beneath his knee, vertebrae crunching as loudly beneath his other. When they crashed to the floor, Ba'al had landed on the edge of the raised dais of his throne, that edge now digging into his torso. He struggled to rise, but coughed and gurgled as a broad, strong hand wrapped around the back of his neck, slamming his head and throat into the dais before leaning heavily.
Ba'al heard the tearing of cloth and tried to protest, vocal cords compressed.
"You may have taken my lands, my Jaffa, my liberty," Camulus snarled, his head bent close to Ba'al's now. "But remember this, Lord Ba'al . . ."
Ba'al's fingers clawed at the stone floors, his shoulders rolled in the effort to heave the other body off. Twisted gold and shattered glass dug into his hand. And still he couldn't stop the powerful leg that kicked his thighs apart, nor the heavy weight that descended onto him.
"You are my creature now."