Title: Or Else No Flesh Should Live
Author: Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Feedback: Onlist or to mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
Author Website:
Rating: pg-13
Pairing: Jack/Daniel (clones)
Category: First Time, Angst
Date: 6/5/03
Status: Incomplete (but close to being finished!)
Series: nope.
Season/Spoilers: Season One, Tin Man
Archive: Alpha Gate. Area 52. Jackdaniels. Anyone else please ask.
Synopsis: Everyone needs something to hold on to; without the thing you most need, you'll loose your grip. Trapped outside the lives they once lived, the inorganic clones of SG-1 fight to adjust to their new existence.
Notes: It's pretty obvious (at least to my warped brain!) in 'Double
Jeopardy' that Robo-Jack-and-Daniel had recognized something that our boys were still ignoring. *sigh* So, of course, I began to wonder just how that came to be.... *grins* I can't help myself! This takes place immediately after Tin Man. I want to thank Slida and Geminia. Both these wonderful ladies wrote amazing 'Double Jeopardy' fics and inspired me to look at how the robo-J&D got together. Also, I forgot to thank my beta recently, so I throw myself to her glorious mercy right now. Thank you, Ayashi, for putting up with my nonsense. ^_~
As always, I do so love feedback. *bows, gives puppy eyes* Please...?
Warnings:
A
R
N
I
N
G
S
P
A
C
E
Disturbing imagery. Language. Robots in looooove. ^_^
DISCLAIMER: Do I look like I'm in charge? Didn't think so. Needless to say,
I do not own Stargate. I don't even own the couch I'm sitting on! Our beloved SG-1 is property of Double Secret Productions, Showtime/ Viacom,
MGM/UA, and Gekko Productions. All of these groups have some very scary lawyer people in dark suits, so I am not going to mess with them. Even though they should be taking better care of our colonel and his pet archaeologist. The only thing I own is the idea for the story itself. Feel free to email me if you want to archive or link to this fic-- I'd be honored.
DATE BEGUN: May 5th, 2003
DATE FINISHED:
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Or Else No Flesh Should Live 1/?
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
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It was all clockwork now. The ground, dull chrome with mutinous, half-formed reflection; the sky, which was only pipes winding upwards, rumbling their resentment. Over all, there seemed to be a type of machine-beat, a tick-tock, and Jack supposed it was his heartbeat now, his pulse where Janet touched and could find nothing.
Tick-tock.
That was someone's name, too-- yes, Charlie (always Charlie), who read 'Return to Oz' with halting syllables under his mother's guidance. Who outgrew such flights of fancy in favor of super-hero games, but still named his dog Tick-Tock, after the metal man in the story. Charlie, who was Jack's no longer, and never had been, really.
It was kind of like that. Jack didn't have a key to turn but, if he strayed too far, his (what would you call it? cogs? systems?) self would ground to a slow stop, like his mother's old Valiant.
//window rolled all the way down, driving under forty-five but pretending it's a mile a minute. sixteen and wielding the new plastic card like it gives you a right to do anything you want. turn the volume up so it makes the seats shake.
'I can't get no, sa-tis-fac-tion.'
And bang on the dashboard for good measure.//
But that wasn't his either, and Jack rubbed his cheek, at least thankful that his hand now touched skin and not metal. If he looked in the mirror it was just the same as always, but he knew.
//Beauty is only skin deep-- ha ha!-- and so is your humanity.//
He didn't even have days-- Carter, so damn precise, called them cycles. Sleep was a recharge period, food wasn't needed. He worked with uncanny knowledge, fixing valves and patching bulkheads.
Toting that barge, lifting that bail. A Goddamn, over-rated janitor with delusions of ever having a life.
"For crying out loud," he said to himself, and he imagined the voice sounded metallic, too. That was illogical (who are we, thrice-blasted Spock now!?) but it filled what body he had with fear. He sat on his resting bench, arms clenched and legs dangling, watching Teal'c and Carter, laid out like corpses. Their faces were cool and impassive as glass, showing nothing-- he wondered if they found the same frightening stillness where the dreams used to be. The benches were all hard angles, drifting outward and then back in, like coffins; he jumped up suddenly, disturbed by the association. He was surprised when he found his hands shaking, for he would have thought that impossible in a marionette such as himself. He lifted his arms curiously, as if feeling for strings, but his eyes were on what had come to be Daniel's station. Usually, the young man slept between Jack and Teal'c, but the monitors were all flashing green over his empty space.
In the hallway, the dust was heavy and revealed his footprints like snow; Jack shivered without honestly feeling cold. Seeing Harlan through a threshold, Jack passed without saying anything, wondering with almost indifferent annoyance if he would have disliked the 'human' Harlan just as much. Or more.
He found Daniel sitting on a high beam, like a kid after a tree-climbing victory, humming low and hopelessly off tune in the back of his throat.
"Hiya, Danny."
(Wonder what it is that makes my voice work-- like a stereo, maybe? Or digital, perhaps. Wonder if I want to know.)
"Jack," Daniel said in greeting, face halfway between a sunny smile and pain. He gazed down at the older man from his loft, kicking his feet, considering.
"What are you up to?" He tried for casual and wasn't sure how it came out-- but this was Daniel, and it would be alright anyway. He remembered, briefly, the other Jack (the _real_ one) gazing up, asking 'Daniel?' in a way that rang familiarity in... whatever passed for Jack's bones now.
Daniel, _his_ Daniel, had said, "Sort of." Why? Jack rallied his anger like wild dogs at a gate-- he was just as much real as his counterpart, he was the same, a... copy, a misfit, a poor facsimile? "Oh," he said miserably, "Who am I fooling?"
"Beg pardon?" Daniel jumped from his perch with that same skittish grace as always, landed on his feet without a scratch and smiled to himself.
"Nothing," Jack shook his head, "I mean, I was just contemplating my own demise, is all." There was a hand on his shoulder-- somehow, he'd known there would be-- but there was a warmth that surprised him. Daniel's hands were still warm, and he savored that touch more than he had ever allowed himself to before.
//There is no before. Not for you.//
They sat together just where they'd been standing, folding their legs and settling into the ages old dust. Part of Danny must love it here, all alien and all his to unravel.
"Jack," said Daniel, as if measuring the space between words, "This is... we can't just throw it away! Come on, things will get... better."
"I think I'm going to outlaw saying that," the older man grumbled, moving his hands as if to encapsulate the word. "'Better', I'll be damned. I'm not... Daniel, we're not anything-- I'm not Sara's ex-husband, or Charlie's father, or even your best friend. I'm like," in a way, Jack hated words because he felt his hands were too large to hold them, "a photograph. You know, just a copy. Just... everything Jack O'Neill was up until some crazy robot dwarf decided to Xerox me-- him. Whatever."
"But now you're not Jack O'Neill," Daniel said with a smile that would have been serene, if not for the pain behind it.
Frustrated, the soldier tried to grip the air. "That's what I'm saying, that's the problem!"
"Think about it, Jack," Daniel's arm bushed against his, then lay still under Jack's surprised gaze. "I mean, you're not that Jack anymore-- he's never been through anything like this. He's never..." the young man took a deep breath, "gorged his arm open in front of his friends, or felt what it's like to..."
"Loose everything?" Jack pressed a finger to his temple. "Worst part is, I never had it in the first place."
Softly, "Neither did I."
"I'm sorry." But the older man only half meant it, because at least he wasn't alone, hurting somewhere down in his cogs and microchips. He could see it in Daniel's eyes, too
//how'd Harlan copy the color so well? didn't think anyone would be able to do that//
that they would take out each other's pain and look over it, eager for something to make them human.
"Sounds corny," Daniel muttered, head tilted down, "but I mean, we have each other. You, me, Carter, Teal'c-- we're all going through the same thing."
"They're not real either." Jack resorted to drawing patterns in the thick dust-- hockey strategies, football plays. "I mean, our Carter is just a copy of the Carter we-- they-- knew." He wiped his hand cruelly against the figures. "Damn it, this is making my head hurt."
"Do you find the other Daniel more real than me?" Daniel should have said it carefully, but the boy never learned-- always eager to rush in and touch and understand. Jack stilled another moment, wondering if he actually breathed. It didn't seem like it, though he still had his sense of smell, a registry of old crude oil, coppery stench and Daniel's familiar scent of old books and new coffee.
//that's strange, shouldn't be there. maybe we'll all start to smell the same, after a while//
"No," O'Neill said gruffly, unaware of how much time had passed, "I mean, you're _my_--" he dropped the word out of his mouth quickly, "-- Daniel. The flesh and blood one is.. kind of a stranger, now."
"See, you do get it!" Daniel almost clapped his hands, "We're us already, not them, and in time we'll be _really_ us, with them as just a foundation."
"It's funny," Jack leaned back, "you being a linguist and me not understanding a word you say."
Teasingly, "You know what I meant."
"Yeah," he shrugged gracelessly, "I guess so."
They listened to the hum and murmur of the great city-machine all around them, studying each other's faces covertly when they were sure the other wasn't looking. Resting his chin in his hand, Jack willed his mind away from the yawning chasm of his singularity, made a conscious effort with his voice.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" Jack rolled his eyes, "Excuse me, I mean _recharging_? Carter says we should only go about forty two hours without some more juice, if we can help it. give our systems a rest and not deplete our inner power sources." He snapped his fingers, frowning, "She can't even let us pretend, can she? We can't call it _sleep_. Nooo... have admit we have batteries strapped to our backs." Smirking bitterly, he mimed banging on drums, "Damned Energizer bunnies."
"She's trying to be logical," Daniel supplied, his tone twinged with only a flicker of resentment and plenty of resignation, "That's what she has to fall back on. Last I saw her she was deep into the computer files and trying to work with the binary. She'll love these forty-two hour days."
"And Teal'c," Jack said, continuing though he hadn't heard the reassurances, "God only knows what's going on in his mind. He was like a Vulcan even on a good day, you know? Just raises his eyebrow-- what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I was remembering."
Jack paused, "What?"
Sheepishly, the younger man ran a hand through his hair, "You asked what I was doing instead of sleeping. I was remembering."
"Best not too, Danny-boy," Jack's friendly pat was kept light and quick, "It's not yours anyway."
"But," The linguist was getting excited now, moving his hands while his friend watched the flickering, fleshy motions in half-fascination. "You know how, if you try and remember an event, it's kind of fuzzy and muted, especially the further back you go?"
"Yeah, it's human nature," and Jack looked away.
"Not our nature anymore!"
//do you know what you're saying danny? aren't you afraid of letting go, that this cubix, wired mind might eat you up and spit you out babbling crazy? like some toy monkey, with it's voice box shorted, that keeps saying, "Hi, I'm-- Hi, I'm--" and never finishes anything?//
O'Neill eyed his friend carefully, "So?"
"Well, now that I have a..." Daniel swallowed, "a more mechanical mind, I remember things a little better. Small things. Um, like this house I always passed on the way to Uni-- it had these oval windows. Just seemed homey," his voice was far off-- in another life. One he didn't own. "I kind of thought I might want to live there, one day. And the soup Sha'uri used to make in the hot season. It was so cool going down my throat. The last time she touched me, after that kiss-- on the shoulder-- before she was taken."
"The exact look," Jack said-- his own voice surprised him, he seemed to be talking around himself, "On Charlie's face, laying there dead in the bedroom. The pattern of blood on the carpet."
"God, Jack." Pain, pain in Daniel's voice, and it wasn't for himself. It was for the older man beside him, and Jack looked up in surprise. There was a tentative hand on his back, sliding up to his shoulder, and an even more cautious sort of half-embrace. "I'm sorry..."
"It's not mine," the soldier repeated, "I'm just a damned _copy_-- if it isn't mine, why should I have to hurt about it?"
"They'll find Sha'uri," Daniel murmured, as if conversing with someone else, "but it's none of my business, now. I have no rights."
Jack snorted disdainfully, "Join the club." His hand briefly curled against Daniel's hip-bone, to show he didn't mean it. "Come on," he said, pulling them both to their feet, "you gotta... sleep, recharge, whatever."
"Guess so." A sigh, deep but just that pitch Jack remembered. It seemed impossible, for Daniel's chest lay flat and still.
And if Jack's hand stayed against Daniel's elbow a little longer than it would have before, well...
It was only because he didn't have much else.
//because of the few things you do have, you have the one thing you really need. like an operating system-- can't function properly without it. the one thing that, if it were lost to you, would prevent you from surviving this//
"That," said Jack, with a mutter that wavered between convictions, "has got to be bull."