PART TWO NEW SG1 FIC BY CASPER F. JOKE
see the previous entry for part one.
Read and enjoy :) And do leave a comment, please.
Before…
“You wanna know what I dreamt last night?”
They were huddled, freezing in an abandoned tool shed, the tiny shelter more resilient to earthquakes, its accompanying house collapsed to the ground, what had once been the yard now black and gray shades of ash.
“Sure,” Simon sniffled, hugging the kid even closer beneath their shared covering. They didn’t dare light a fire; the tool shed still stank of chemicals and gasoline, so taking a chance wasn’t worth their lives. The Squirt tilted his head back, the blue backwards Cubs cap revealing hazel eyes bloodshot and running. The ash was so bad that day, a new eruption somewhere adding to the gloom of the browned sky that they both wheezed and hacked all during their hike, their cheeks slate with filth, their eyes registering exhaustion.
The Squirt cleared mud from his throat. “I dreamt that Daniel came over for lunch and we had soup and Mom asked him where he got the soup and he said, ‘Look under the house.’ So, Mom did and it was there with lots of other food.”
Simon readjusted his hold, tugged the kid even closer as the wind howled angrily around the shed. He didn’t even bother reminding the kid that there was no way he could recall their lost home; he just pressed his cheek to the kid’s, and said, “What did the house look like?”
“The one out there,” the Squirt poked one cold digit out of the blankets to point in the general direction of the flattened building.
“Kid, there’s nothing out there but mortar, boards, and dust,” Simon said, trying to quell a shiver. Their combined warmth wasn’t enough. They were going to have to chance a fire… but if not here… where?
“Yes, there is,” the Squirt insisted. “You should go look.”
“Squirt---,” he was not going to go out in that wind! “I’ll go look in the morning, okay?”
Several breaths passed away as the night deepened, and the wind ripped and snarled. Then, “I gotta take a leak.”
Simon opened his arms, helped peel away the covering. The kid clumped away, his mis-sized pants winging around his shins. A moment later, and he reappeared. “There’s a hole that you can crawl into.”
“What?”
“At the side of the house. There’s a hole. Come on, Sam---!”
“Simon! You have got to remember to call me ‘Simon’ now!”
“But I like Sam better--- and there’s a hole that you can crawl into.”
“Tomorrow, okay?” He was sitting up now, his eyes still stinging from the grimy wind.
“No. Come look,” and the Squirt disappeared out the door.
“Hey!” And then he, too, was heaving away the covering, moving out into the biting wind, following the ragged figure that was his brother across the grim yard to the house’s side.
Indeed, there was a hole. Just big enough for a person to crawl into.
“Go look,” the Squirt insisted. “I brought the flash light,” he said, handing over the tool that they only used under duress. Batteries were a precious find.
Biting back reprimands, Simon ducked under the hole, the flashlight flickering over something that might have once been a cupboard door, on its side now, the hasp broken.
“What do you see?” the Squirt was right at his feet, his voice excited, curious.
“Jesus,” Simon breathed, belly down, stretching his arms out to pull himself forward.
“What?”
“Hand me the pack!”
“Why? What is it?”
“A fuckin’ treasure trove!”
“Fuckin’ great!!”
“Don’t swear, goddammit!”
*~
They feasted: on two cans of soup, one beef with vegetables, one chicken with dumplings, hot over a fire that they built some ways off away from the shed, the abandoned house, the stench of ash not enough to ruin their meal. The house had been full of canned products. Whoever the original owners had been, they’d kept a well stocked pantry--- and either theJaffa or the Super Soldiers were too dumb to realize food stores when they were seeing them. Canned meats, more soups, beans and greens of every type, peaches, pineapple, fruit cocktail, even three cans of pie filling, apples, blue berry, cherry, and more, enough to break Simon’s back after he’d filled the pack and dragged it out of the hole. It was enough to feed them for days, their stomachs were so shrunken with hunger they couldn’t manage more than a smidgen though they felt gorged to their brows.
They stayed hidden for a week, Simon paranoid at every sound, the Squirt regaling him with dream stories every morning, many of them about Daniel showing him the puddle in the ground that they could jump into, some of them about Mom and Dad, some of them about impossible things like grassy green parks to play and swim in, clean white snow to ski on, golden sunrises and the sound of birds flying overhead. Once he even dreamt of flying, describing the act with such vivid detail that Simon wondered if the kid wasn’t channeling ghosts who had once flown in airplanes.
But the food didn’t last, and eventually they had to move on. The last of the cans went into the pack, and hand in hand they found the road to resume their journey.
*~
“Tell me about Mom and Dad.”
It was the Squirt’s favorite thing to hear even though Simon had told it a thousand times already. “Mom and Dad were the best at everything…”
“Mom could make cookies.”
Not really since they were mostly burnt on the bottoms and salty to taste, but Simon never disputed the claim. “Yeah. Dad was the bravest man who ever lived, and Mom was the best. Dad was taller than a tree, and Mom’s eyes kinda went crinkly when she laughed.”
“Like mine?”
“Just like yours.”
“And you look just like Dad, and I look just like Mom.”
“Mostly. You sorta look like both of them mushed together…”
“In a blender.”
“Yeah,” Simon paused to scan the horizon. Smoke. Not volcanic. Man made. They must be coming up on a town or settlement of some type. “And on Sunday morning, you could climb into bed with them, and Mom always hugged ‘n kissed you, and Dad always read the newspaper and let you lie on his shoulder so you could read the comics together, and sometimes they made pancakes while you watched cartoons.”
“What was your favorite cartoon?” the Squirt always asked though he had no concept of what one was though Simon had tried to describe television and movies as best he could.
“Pokemon---.”
“And Pikachu!!” the Squirt’s voice broke and he coughed, spitting brown guck onto the roadside. Nonetheless, he offered Simon a big smile, the cartoon names always bringing a chuckle to the kid.
“Yeah.”
They walked for a bit longer, the Squirt dropping behind as Simon’s longer legs (which still hadn’t stopped stretching as he grew) reached in stride. “Sam---.”
“Simon!” Simon admonished the kid.
“Simon--- why can’t I call you Sam anymore?”
“I told you--- we gotta keep who we really are a big secret, ‘cause if anyone ever finds out they’ll take us to the Jaffa or the Super Soldiers and kill us dead.”
The Squirt pondered this for a moment, an unusual thing for him to do since he usually winced away from the thought of theJaffa or Super Soldiers. “But the Jaffa are all gone; and the Super Soldiers aren’t around much anymore either.”
No. The Ori had done one helluva job destroying Anubis and what remained of the Goa’uld. Still. “I know, but we gotta remain anonymous anyway.”
“A non-mouse? What’s that?”
“Anonymous; means, no one knows who we are.”
“But what if I only called you Sam when it was just us?”
“Because you’d forget and slip up and I’m not letting that happen.”
“I wouldn’t---!”
“You would. Besides, Simon is better than Sam.”
“I liked Sam. Simon’s too snooty.”
“Snooty? Where’n hell did you hear that word?”
“Daniel.”
Simon let the issue go. “Yeah, well, it’s Simon from now on and until I say otherwise.”
“At least it’s better than Stewart.” The kid kicked at a pebble sending it skittering beyond Simon’s feet. “I think you should stay Simon from now on.”
Simon craned around to catch a glimpse of his brother’s face, but the blue cap and honey dark hair were in the way. “Big change of heart, little man. Why?”
The Squirt muffled his nose and chin down into the collar of his oversized coat. It had been Simon’s for a long time until they’d found a dead body down by a mud choked creek, and Simon had taken the coat he’d found, revulsion twisting his guts, but desperate for warmth in a garment that fit. The hazel eyes met Simon’s darker ones for a moment then, “‘Cause I’m tired of calling you different names. I want you to stay you forever.”
“But I’m always me,” Simon reassured the kid, slowing to walk side by side with his younger brother. “No matter what my name is.”
“Tell me your real name again,” the Squirt suddenly demanded.
Simon took a breath to protest.
“Please?! I won’t say it out loud, I promise, I won’t even look at you when you do. Please, Simon? Please, please?”
Snorting at the dramatics, the big wide eyes just like his Mom’s, the pleading puppy dog voice, Simon gave in. They stopped at the side of the broken road, the horizon nothing more than smashed dwellings, pulverized rock, gray, dingy, dying. He bent low, whispered into the wisps of honey dark hair at the kid’s ear, and spoke his name. As promised, the kid didn’t even look up.
They resumed walking.
The Squirt pocketed his mitten, reached to take his brother’s hand. “When are you going to tell me my real name?”
“When you’re old enough.”
“I’m old enough now,” the kid pointed out. “I’m nine years old--- and I’ll be ten soon--- that’s way more than old enough.”
“Not yet.”
“When?!” Simon’s hand was given a vigorous tug to emphasize the kid’s impatience.
“Soon.”
“Simon…!”
“Quiet. Someone’s coming…” Simon yanked his brother off to the side of the road, using debris to hide them, kept tugging until they’d run over to what might have once been a foot-bridge or drain opening, ducking down to hide beneath it. They tightened themselves in, utterly still, all but holding their breaths. A heavy buzzing sounded, growing as it came closer, a motorcycle maybe, rattled as it slowed. Stopped. The Squirt’s eyes begged Simon for reassurance, but he had none to give.
“Where’d you go little sugar daddies? Come out come out wherever you are!!”
Simon felt nausea grip his gorge. Slipped a hand over the Squirt’s face to hush his breathing. Pulled his gun from the small of his back. A 9 mm, it had once belonged to his Dad.
“Come out come out sugar candies--- gimme some o’ that sweeeeeeeet lovin’!!”
A second voice laughed, and Simon’s skin crawled. Not slavers. Slavers he could have handled. This was worse.
“Come on little white bread bare butted babies--- come out and play with ol’ Nate and Pete.” Again, the second man laughed, the sound a shriek that ripped over Simon’s ears.
Simon took a deep, sucking breath. Made to move the Squirt deeper under the sheltering bridge. If he was lucky, very lucky, he could kill one man before facing the second one. If he wasn’t, he’d have to fight the second man, and he had no way of knowing if he could win that fight. He could only try. And pray. And hope that the Squirt stayed hidden until it was all over.
He had just reached to take his brother by the shoulders when a sound startled him--- the tearing Thwack! of gun fire--- a sound only made by one thing: a Super Soldier. Simon froze. The Squirt froze. Their eyes widened.
Out beyond their shelter the cut screams of two dying humans could be heard. Then nothing. Just the wind moaning over dusty ground. Silence. Simon waited for the sound of heavy, armored footsteps to approach. He thought he might have heard them, but no, nothing. The Squirt dared to resettle next to his brother, both boys pressed close, Simon’s hand ready with his gun. His useless gun which wouldn’t down a Super Soldier, but which might give the kid a chance to run. Maybe.
They stayed that way, cramped and immobile for the rest of the day, and all through the night, forgoing food in favor of silence, their mouths dry, their eyes reddened and wide as the wind hissed in the stillness.
*~
Part 3
officersun524.livejournal.com/29550.html
Read and enjoy :) And do leave a comment, please.
Before…
“You wanna know what I dreamt last night?”
They were huddled, freezing in an abandoned tool shed, the tiny shelter more resilient to earthquakes, its accompanying house collapsed to the ground, what had once been the yard now black and gray shades of ash.
“Sure,” Simon sniffled, hugging the kid even closer beneath their shared covering. They didn’t dare light a fire; the tool shed still stank of chemicals and gasoline, so taking a chance wasn’t worth their lives. The Squirt tilted his head back, the blue backwards Cubs cap revealing hazel eyes bloodshot and running. The ash was so bad that day, a new eruption somewhere adding to the gloom of the browned sky that they both wheezed and hacked all during their hike, their cheeks slate with filth, their eyes registering exhaustion.
The Squirt cleared mud from his throat. “I dreamt that Daniel came over for lunch and we had soup and Mom asked him where he got the soup and he said, ‘Look under the house.’ So, Mom did and it was there with lots of other food.”
Simon readjusted his hold, tugged the kid even closer as the wind howled angrily around the shed. He didn’t even bother reminding the kid that there was no way he could recall their lost home; he just pressed his cheek to the kid’s, and said, “What did the house look like?”
“The one out there,” the Squirt poked one cold digit out of the blankets to point in the general direction of the flattened building.
“Kid, there’s nothing out there but mortar, boards, and dust,” Simon said, trying to quell a shiver. Their combined warmth wasn’t enough. They were going to have to chance a fire… but if not here… where?
“Yes, there is,” the Squirt insisted. “You should go look.”
“Squirt---,” he was not going to go out in that wind! “I’ll go look in the morning, okay?”
Several breaths passed away as the night deepened, and the wind ripped and snarled. Then, “I gotta take a leak.”
Simon opened his arms, helped peel away the covering. The kid clumped away, his mis-sized pants winging around his shins. A moment later, and he reappeared. “There’s a hole that you can crawl into.”
“What?”
“At the side of the house. There’s a hole. Come on, Sam---!”
“Simon! You have got to remember to call me ‘Simon’ now!”
“But I like Sam better--- and there’s a hole that you can crawl into.”
“Tomorrow, okay?” He was sitting up now, his eyes still stinging from the grimy wind.
“No. Come look,” and the Squirt disappeared out the door.
“Hey!” And then he, too, was heaving away the covering, moving out into the biting wind, following the ragged figure that was his brother across the grim yard to the house’s side.
Indeed, there was a hole. Just big enough for a person to crawl into.
“Go look,” the Squirt insisted. “I brought the flash light,” he said, handing over the tool that they only used under duress. Batteries were a precious find.
Biting back reprimands, Simon ducked under the hole, the flashlight flickering over something that might have once been a cupboard door, on its side now, the hasp broken.
“What do you see?” the Squirt was right at his feet, his voice excited, curious.
“Jesus,” Simon breathed, belly down, stretching his arms out to pull himself forward.
“What?”
“Hand me the pack!”
“Why? What is it?”
“A fuckin’ treasure trove!”
“Fuckin’ great!!”
“Don’t swear, goddammit!”
*~
They feasted: on two cans of soup, one beef with vegetables, one chicken with dumplings, hot over a fire that they built some ways off away from the shed, the abandoned house, the stench of ash not enough to ruin their meal. The house had been full of canned products. Whoever the original owners had been, they’d kept a well stocked pantry--- and either theJaffa or the Super Soldiers were too dumb to realize food stores when they were seeing them. Canned meats, more soups, beans and greens of every type, peaches, pineapple, fruit cocktail, even three cans of pie filling, apples, blue berry, cherry, and more, enough to break Simon’s back after he’d filled the pack and dragged it out of the hole. It was enough to feed them for days, their stomachs were so shrunken with hunger they couldn’t manage more than a smidgen though they felt gorged to their brows.
They stayed hidden for a week, Simon paranoid at every sound, the Squirt regaling him with dream stories every morning, many of them about Daniel showing him the puddle in the ground that they could jump into, some of them about Mom and Dad, some of them about impossible things like grassy green parks to play and swim in, clean white snow to ski on, golden sunrises and the sound of birds flying overhead. Once he even dreamt of flying, describing the act with such vivid detail that Simon wondered if the kid wasn’t channeling ghosts who had once flown in airplanes.
But the food didn’t last, and eventually they had to move on. The last of the cans went into the pack, and hand in hand they found the road to resume their journey.
*~
“Tell me about Mom and Dad.”
It was the Squirt’s favorite thing to hear even though Simon had told it a thousand times already. “Mom and Dad were the best at everything…”
“Mom could make cookies.”
Not really since they were mostly burnt on the bottoms and salty to taste, but Simon never disputed the claim. “Yeah. Dad was the bravest man who ever lived, and Mom was the best. Dad was taller than a tree, and Mom’s eyes kinda went crinkly when she laughed.”
“Like mine?”
“Just like yours.”
“And you look just like Dad, and I look just like Mom.”
“Mostly. You sorta look like both of them mushed together…”
“In a blender.”
“Yeah,” Simon paused to scan the horizon. Smoke. Not volcanic. Man made. They must be coming up on a town or settlement of some type. “And on Sunday morning, you could climb into bed with them, and Mom always hugged ‘n kissed you, and Dad always read the newspaper and let you lie on his shoulder so you could read the comics together, and sometimes they made pancakes while you watched cartoons.”
“What was your favorite cartoon?” the Squirt always asked though he had no concept of what one was though Simon had tried to describe television and movies as best he could.
“Pokemon---.”
“And Pikachu!!” the Squirt’s voice broke and he coughed, spitting brown guck onto the roadside. Nonetheless, he offered Simon a big smile, the cartoon names always bringing a chuckle to the kid.
“Yeah.”
They walked for a bit longer, the Squirt dropping behind as Simon’s longer legs (which still hadn’t stopped stretching as he grew) reached in stride. “Sam---.”
“Simon!” Simon admonished the kid.
“Simon--- why can’t I call you Sam anymore?”
“I told you--- we gotta keep who we really are a big secret, ‘cause if anyone ever finds out they’ll take us to the Jaffa or the Super Soldiers and kill us dead.”
The Squirt pondered this for a moment, an unusual thing for him to do since he usually winced away from the thought of theJaffa or Super Soldiers. “But the Jaffa are all gone; and the Super Soldiers aren’t around much anymore either.”
No. The Ori had done one helluva job destroying Anubis and what remained of the Goa’uld. Still. “I know, but we gotta remain anonymous anyway.”
“A non-mouse? What’s that?”
“Anonymous; means, no one knows who we are.”
“But what if I only called you Sam when it was just us?”
“Because you’d forget and slip up and I’m not letting that happen.”
“I wouldn’t---!”
“You would. Besides, Simon is better than Sam.”
“I liked Sam. Simon’s too snooty.”
“Snooty? Where’n hell did you hear that word?”
“Daniel.”
Simon let the issue go. “Yeah, well, it’s Simon from now on and until I say otherwise.”
“At least it’s better than Stewart.” The kid kicked at a pebble sending it skittering beyond Simon’s feet. “I think you should stay Simon from now on.”
Simon craned around to catch a glimpse of his brother’s face, but the blue cap and honey dark hair were in the way. “Big change of heart, little man. Why?”
The Squirt muffled his nose and chin down into the collar of his oversized coat. It had been Simon’s for a long time until they’d found a dead body down by a mud choked creek, and Simon had taken the coat he’d found, revulsion twisting his guts, but desperate for warmth in a garment that fit. The hazel eyes met Simon’s darker ones for a moment then, “‘Cause I’m tired of calling you different names. I want you to stay you forever.”
“But I’m always me,” Simon reassured the kid, slowing to walk side by side with his younger brother. “No matter what my name is.”
“Tell me your real name again,” the Squirt suddenly demanded.
Simon took a breath to protest.
“Please?! I won’t say it out loud, I promise, I won’t even look at you when you do. Please, Simon? Please, please?”
Snorting at the dramatics, the big wide eyes just like his Mom’s, the pleading puppy dog voice, Simon gave in. They stopped at the side of the broken road, the horizon nothing more than smashed dwellings, pulverized rock, gray, dingy, dying. He bent low, whispered into the wisps of honey dark hair at the kid’s ear, and spoke his name. As promised, the kid didn’t even look up.
They resumed walking.
The Squirt pocketed his mitten, reached to take his brother’s hand. “When are you going to tell me my real name?”
“When you’re old enough.”
“I’m old enough now,” the kid pointed out. “I’m nine years old--- and I’ll be ten soon--- that’s way more than old enough.”
“Not yet.”
“When?!” Simon’s hand was given a vigorous tug to emphasize the kid’s impatience.
“Soon.”
“Simon…!”
“Quiet. Someone’s coming…” Simon yanked his brother off to the side of the road, using debris to hide them, kept tugging until they’d run over to what might have once been a foot-bridge or drain opening, ducking down to hide beneath it. They tightened themselves in, utterly still, all but holding their breaths. A heavy buzzing sounded, growing as it came closer, a motorcycle maybe, rattled as it slowed. Stopped. The Squirt’s eyes begged Simon for reassurance, but he had none to give.
“Where’d you go little sugar daddies? Come out come out wherever you are!!”
Simon felt nausea grip his gorge. Slipped a hand over the Squirt’s face to hush his breathing. Pulled his gun from the small of his back. A 9 mm, it had once belonged to his Dad.
“Come out come out sugar candies--- gimme some o’ that sweeeeeeeet lovin’!!”
A second voice laughed, and Simon’s skin crawled. Not slavers. Slavers he could have handled. This was worse.
“Come on little white bread bare butted babies--- come out and play with ol’ Nate and Pete.” Again, the second man laughed, the sound a shriek that ripped over Simon’s ears.
Simon took a deep, sucking breath. Made to move the Squirt deeper under the sheltering bridge. If he was lucky, very lucky, he could kill one man before facing the second one. If he wasn’t, he’d have to fight the second man, and he had no way of knowing if he could win that fight. He could only try. And pray. And hope that the Squirt stayed hidden until it was all over.
He had just reached to take his brother by the shoulders when a sound startled him--- the tearing Thwack! of gun fire--- a sound only made by one thing: a Super Soldier. Simon froze. The Squirt froze. Their eyes widened.
Out beyond their shelter the cut screams of two dying humans could be heard. Then nothing. Just the wind moaning over dusty ground. Silence. Simon waited for the sound of heavy, armored footsteps to approach. He thought he might have heard them, but no, nothing. The Squirt dared to resettle next to his brother, both boys pressed close, Simon’s hand ready with his gun. His useless gun which wouldn’t down a Super Soldier, but which might give the kid a chance to run. Maybe.
They stayed that way, cramped and immobile for the rest of the day, and all through the night, forgoing food in favor of silence, their mouths dry, their eyes reddened and wide as the wind hissed in the stillness.
*~
Part 3
officersun524.livejournal.com/29550.html