Fic: Peanut Butter And Jelly
Mar. 16th, 2004 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galaxysoupFANDOM: Stargate SG-1
TITLE: Peanut Butter and Jelly
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: hurt/comfort, angst, episode tag
SUMMARY: Cassie puts her knowledge of Jack and Daniel to the test.
SPOILERS: Scorched Earth, minor for In the Line of Duty
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, many grateful thanks to Barb. Originally published in the zine Fragments.
PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY
Cassie squinted up at the leaden sky and sighed as a large drop of rain splashed against her cheek. It had been perfectly sunny when she’d made the long trek from home into town, warm with a gentle breeze and no hint of inclement weather. It had been the kind of day Janet normally chased her out of the house to enjoy, muttering darkly about vitamin D deficiencies and fresh air and how Cassie would wither like an under-watered plant if she didn’t get off the couch and get some exercise.
Hah. Cassie scoffed in the face of exercise and vitamin D. There was no vitamin D in the rain, the clouds, or the ominous flickers of approaching lightning up near the mountains. Pneumonia, maybe, and plenty of fresh air, but no vitamin D.
“This sucks,” her friend Leslie complained, retreating under the marquee to huddle against a poster advertising The Scariest Movie Since Psycho, Out This July! “I hate rain.”
“Me too.”
Leslie stuck her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders, peering near-sightedly into the rain. “I don’t see my mom. Is yours here?”
Cassie shook her head. Wouldn’t that have been nice. “No, she’s on duty. I was going to walk home.” She made a face. “Joy.”
“My mom could probably give you a ride home, if you want,” Leslie offered.
Cassie grimaced and disguised it with a shrug. “Nah. One of my uncles lives down the street. I can just hitch a ride with him.” Leslie’s mother would almost certainly have their dog Jiminy in the car, who reeked to high heaven and slobbered like a sprinkler. Cassie liked dogs, but Jiminy was not an experience she was going to put herself through if she could avoid it.
Leslie nodded glumly. “Okay. See you on Monday, then.”
“Okay. See you then.”
Cassie turned up the collar of her jacket and trudged out into the rain. She had no idea if Daniel would be home this early in the afternoon, but she knew where he kept his spare key and was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind if she sat out the rain in his kitchen. There was a definite advantage to being the de facto adopted niece/daughter/kid sister of so many grownups, even if they tended to be psychotically over-protective and unwilling to notice she was no longer the child they had rescued three years ago. One of those advantages was that she was never without a bolt hole, whether she was hiding from homework, rainstorms, or just wanted to watch something forbidden on TV.
She reached Daniel’s building just as the sky opened up and the storm started in earnest, and dodged through the front door giving the doorman an expressive grimace. He sighed in agreement and stepped aside to let her pass. She turned down her collar, brushing ineffectively at the damp material, and punched the button for Daniel’s floor.
She could tell he was home as soon as she got out of the elevator. The overwhelming smell of coffee was a dead giveaway, as was the slightly open front door. Jack always gave Daniel hell about his security, or lack thereof, and Daniel always rolled his eyes and ignored him. Jack was almost as over-protective of Daniel as he was of Cassie. They complained about it frequently over hot chocolate and Cassie’s French textbooks.
“Daniel?” she called, poking her head in. “You here?”
“Cassie?” He sounded surprised. “Come on in. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
She followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen, stopping in surprise as she caught sight of the livid bruises marking the left side of his face. “What the hell happened to you?”
“What? Oh, that.” He touched the bruises self-consciously and grimaced. “I got... distracted. Walked into a door.” There was a flash of anger on his face, and then he smiled tightly.
Cassie winced, recognizing another one of those things she was never going to be told about in detail. Good thing she was an accomplished snoop. “Ouch. Mom send you home?”
He smiled and turned back to his coffee pot. “Yeah. Apparently I’m going to drive her to veterinary medicine.”
Cassie had to laugh. “That’s what she says every time I complain about getting sick, too.”
“You want something to drink?” Daniel asked, pouring himself a mug of coffee that smelled strong enough to melt naquadah.
“No, I’m fine,” Cassie said, giving the mug a wary look. The strength of Daniel’s coffee was often indicative of his mood, and she had to wonder what had Daniel upset enough to mainline industrial toxic waste. “But do you think you could give me a ride home? I was going to walk, but it’s raining.”
“Sure, no problem. Just let me grab my coat.” Daniel turned and headed for the hall, bumping into the corner as he went. Cassie frowned. You couldn’t live with a doctor for three years, and be part of the most accident-prone adopted family in the universe, without picking up a little medical knowledge. That, combined with her understanding of Daniel’s character, was making her suspicious.
“Daniel, are you allowed to drive?” Just the fact that Janet had sent him home early answered that one, unfortunately.
Daniel froze, halfway into his coat. “Um. No.” He thought for a moment, and brightened. “But you can drive. You have a learner’s permit now, right? All you need is a licensed driver in the car with you.”
Cassie didn’t move. “Daniel, I’m fifteen.”
“No learner’s permit?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Oh well, it was worth a shot.” He hung his coat back up and returned to the kitchen. “Want a sandwich instead?”
Cassie laughed. “Sure, why not? Hey, is Jack home? Maybe I can call and have him drive me.”
Daniel dropped the jar of peanut butter. It bounced to the floor and rolled under the table. “Yeah, I think so. Try him.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed as she crawled after the peanut butter. Daniel really hadn’t sounded that enthusiastic about the idea. So, Jack was involved in this as well, somehow.
Duh. Like he wouldn’t be, when it came to Daniel.
“Here’s the peanut butter.”
“Thanks.” Daniel opened his bread drawer, blanched, and slammed it shut. Cassie blinked.
“Something wrong with the bread?”
Daniel gave her a sideways look, a touch of humor on his face. “Let’s just say I think it’s on the verge of creating a society. I imagine if I give it another week it’ll have a Library of Congress.”
Cassie snickered. “All right, I’m going to call Jack.” She glanced around. Books, artifacts, papers, books, more artifacts... and an empty phone cradle. “Where did your phone go?”
Daniel had to think for a minute. “Um... next to the fish tank, I think.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“Being phone-like.”
Cassie shook her head and dialed Jack. The phone rang for what seemed like forever, but just as she was getting ready to hang up Jack answered.
“Look, Daniel, I don’t care how great their civilization was, they were still a bunch of freeze-dried petrie dishes and no matter how cool their government might have been it was no excuse for - ”
Well, that was a clue she hadn’t been expecting. “Jack! It’s Cassie,” she cut in hastily.
“Oh!” Jack’s voice switched in an instant from pissed off to friendly. “Hey there, kiddo. What’s up?”
“I’m at Daniel’s and he’s not allowed to drive. Can you give me a ride home?”
There was a brief pause. “Sure. When do you want me to come?”
Okay, so that probably meant he wasn’t hurt too. Whatever happened had happened to Daniel alone.
“Uh… half an hour? Any longer and Daniel’s stale bread might make a bid for freedom.”
“Ew,” Jack said, as if his refrigerator wasn’t like ten times worse.
“Yeah,” Cassie said brightly, injecting as much innocence into her voice as possible. “Did you know he gave himself a concussion walking into a door?”
The pause was longer this time. “Really. Well, you know Daniel.”
Yes, she did... and she knew Jack, too, and something was most certainly rotten in the state of Colorado. Her spider-sense was tingling. The Earth-bound one, of course, not the naquadah one. “No kidding. Well, I’ll see you in half an hour.”
She hung up and watched Daniel’s fish pensively. Fact: Jack and Daniel were fighting, again. Fact: it had something to do with a mission. Fact: Daniel was injured and Jack apparently was not.
Oh, geez. Not again. Didn’t they ever fight about anything else?
Daniel was studying his freezer with a slight frown on his face as she came into the kitchen. “I think I’ve figured out a solution for the sandwich thing,” he announced.
“What’s that?”
He reached into the freezer and emerged with a box of frozen waffles. “Waffle sandwiches! I figure it’s close enough to bread that it won’t really make a difference. We can just put jelly and peanut butter in the little pockets.”
Cassie cracked up. “My mom doesn’t know you eat like this, does she?”
Daniel gave her a very nervous look. “No...”
She took the box and began feeding waffles into the toaster. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I’m fifteen, remember? I’d live on soda and pizza if I could.” She gave him a speculative look. Daniel held up his hands apologetically.
“I don’t have any soda, Cass. The best I can do is academic strength coffee.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust and he laughed.
By the time Jack arrived, they had finished cooking the waffles and were just sitting down to enjoy their snack. Cassie beamed at him as he came into the kitchen and waved her sandwich in his direction, playing the Innocent Child role to the hilt. It was always so much more informative when they didn’t think she had a clue what was going on.
“Waffle sandwiches, Jack! You want one?”
Jack arched one eyebrow. “Waffle sandwiches?” He spotted the empty box on the counter. “Well, we all know how much Daniel likes frozen stuff.”
Daniel scowled at his plate. “I like to have a lot of choices,” he said, deliberately not looking at Jack.
Jack favored Daniel with a frosty smile and turned to Cassie. “Got your stuff? Let’s head out.”
Daniel glared at him. “Let her finish her sandwich. I think there’s time for that.”
Jack sent Daniel a hard look. “Fine. I’ll be waiting in the truck.” He turned to go.
Cassie banged her hand down on the table. “Now wait just a damn minute!” If Jack left, then he and Daniel would never talk and they’d be painfully polite around each other for weeks until they either got over whatever it was they were fighting about, or one of them came close enough to dying that it scared the other into apologizing first. Well, as far as Cassie was concerned, that was just plain stupid.
“Cass?” Daniel asked warily.
“You two can be so obnoxious sometimes!” She pinned Daniel with a look. “Daniel, Jack’s sorry, but he’ll do the same thing again.” She turned to Jack. “Jack, Daniel’s sorry, but he’ll do the same thing again too.” Her gaze flicked between them. “Daniel, Jack wishes you wouldn’t put yourself in danger all the time, and he only acts like a bastard because he cares about you. Jack, Daniel wishes you would actually listen to him sometimes, because he’s trying to do what’s best for everybody, and no matter how weird things get he’s still your best friend.”
They gaped. Cassie sat back down and finished her sandwich, confident that as soon as they had time to process what she’d said they’d come around. All she was doing was expediting the process and saving the rest of them weeks of tiptoeing about.
Jack was the first one to shake himself out of his stupor. He turned to glare at Daniel.
“You told her what happened?”
Daniel glared back, but before he could respond Cassie broke in again.
“He didn’t have to. That’s what you always argue about.” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you guys, grow up. No matter how much you argue you’d still die for each other, so for God’s sake hug and make up already.”
They exchanged wary looks. Finally, Daniel turned his attention to his coffee mug. “I suppose next time I could be a little more specific about the way I’m planning on interpreting your orders,” he said grudgingly.
Jack examined the paint job on Daniel’s kitchen wall. “In the event of another situation like this one, I guess I could try and be a little more attentive to what you’re yammering on about.”
“And?” Cassie prompted. They gave her blank looks. She made a ‘go on’ gesture with one hand. “You’re best friends.”
Daniel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Cassie, really, I don’t think we need to - ”
“Oh, give me a break.” She treated them both to another eye-roll. “I get enough of this macho crap on the school bus every day.”
Daniel shot her an affronted look. “Jackyou’remybestfriend,” he mumbled to the coffee cup.
Jack coughed. “Ditto,” he admitted to the wall.
Daniel bit his lip. “You want a sandwich before you go?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably, finally meeting Daniel’s eyes. “Or we could maybe order some pizza. Or Chinese. Or... something. My treat.”
Daniel smiled. “Okay.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about the, you know...” Jack waved one finger in the direction of Daniel’s bruises.
Daniel made a face. “That’s okay. My fault for not watching where I was going when I stormed out of your office.”
Cassie leaned back in satisfaction. “My work here is done.”
THE END
TITLE: Peanut Butter and Jelly
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: hurt/comfort, angst, episode tag
SUMMARY: Cassie puts her knowledge of Jack and Daniel to the test.
SPOILERS: Scorched Earth, minor for In the Line of Duty
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, many grateful thanks to Barb. Originally published in the zine Fragments.
PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY
Cassie squinted up at the leaden sky and sighed as a large drop of rain splashed against her cheek. It had been perfectly sunny when she’d made the long trek from home into town, warm with a gentle breeze and no hint of inclement weather. It had been the kind of day Janet normally chased her out of the house to enjoy, muttering darkly about vitamin D deficiencies and fresh air and how Cassie would wither like an under-watered plant if she didn’t get off the couch and get some exercise.
Hah. Cassie scoffed in the face of exercise and vitamin D. There was no vitamin D in the rain, the clouds, or the ominous flickers of approaching lightning up near the mountains. Pneumonia, maybe, and plenty of fresh air, but no vitamin D.
“This sucks,” her friend Leslie complained, retreating under the marquee to huddle against a poster advertising The Scariest Movie Since Psycho, Out This July! “I hate rain.”
“Me too.”
Leslie stuck her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders, peering near-sightedly into the rain. “I don’t see my mom. Is yours here?”
Cassie shook her head. Wouldn’t that have been nice. “No, she’s on duty. I was going to walk home.” She made a face. “Joy.”
“My mom could probably give you a ride home, if you want,” Leslie offered.
Cassie grimaced and disguised it with a shrug. “Nah. One of my uncles lives down the street. I can just hitch a ride with him.” Leslie’s mother would almost certainly have their dog Jiminy in the car, who reeked to high heaven and slobbered like a sprinkler. Cassie liked dogs, but Jiminy was not an experience she was going to put herself through if she could avoid it.
Leslie nodded glumly. “Okay. See you on Monday, then.”
“Okay. See you then.”
Cassie turned up the collar of her jacket and trudged out into the rain. She had no idea if Daniel would be home this early in the afternoon, but she knew where he kept his spare key and was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind if she sat out the rain in his kitchen. There was a definite advantage to being the de facto adopted niece/daughter/kid sister of so many grownups, even if they tended to be psychotically over-protective and unwilling to notice she was no longer the child they had rescued three years ago. One of those advantages was that she was never without a bolt hole, whether she was hiding from homework, rainstorms, or just wanted to watch something forbidden on TV.
She reached Daniel’s building just as the sky opened up and the storm started in earnest, and dodged through the front door giving the doorman an expressive grimace. He sighed in agreement and stepped aside to let her pass. She turned down her collar, brushing ineffectively at the damp material, and punched the button for Daniel’s floor.
She could tell he was home as soon as she got out of the elevator. The overwhelming smell of coffee was a dead giveaway, as was the slightly open front door. Jack always gave Daniel hell about his security, or lack thereof, and Daniel always rolled his eyes and ignored him. Jack was almost as over-protective of Daniel as he was of Cassie. They complained about it frequently over hot chocolate and Cassie’s French textbooks.
“Daniel?” she called, poking her head in. “You here?”
“Cassie?” He sounded surprised. “Come on in. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
She followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen, stopping in surprise as she caught sight of the livid bruises marking the left side of his face. “What the hell happened to you?”
“What? Oh, that.” He touched the bruises self-consciously and grimaced. “I got... distracted. Walked into a door.” There was a flash of anger on his face, and then he smiled tightly.
Cassie winced, recognizing another one of those things she was never going to be told about in detail. Good thing she was an accomplished snoop. “Ouch. Mom send you home?”
He smiled and turned back to his coffee pot. “Yeah. Apparently I’m going to drive her to veterinary medicine.”
Cassie had to laugh. “That’s what she says every time I complain about getting sick, too.”
“You want something to drink?” Daniel asked, pouring himself a mug of coffee that smelled strong enough to melt naquadah.
“No, I’m fine,” Cassie said, giving the mug a wary look. The strength of Daniel’s coffee was often indicative of his mood, and she had to wonder what had Daniel upset enough to mainline industrial toxic waste. “But do you think you could give me a ride home? I was going to walk, but it’s raining.”
“Sure, no problem. Just let me grab my coat.” Daniel turned and headed for the hall, bumping into the corner as he went. Cassie frowned. You couldn’t live with a doctor for three years, and be part of the most accident-prone adopted family in the universe, without picking up a little medical knowledge. That, combined with her understanding of Daniel’s character, was making her suspicious.
“Daniel, are you allowed to drive?” Just the fact that Janet had sent him home early answered that one, unfortunately.
Daniel froze, halfway into his coat. “Um. No.” He thought for a moment, and brightened. “But you can drive. You have a learner’s permit now, right? All you need is a licensed driver in the car with you.”
Cassie didn’t move. “Daniel, I’m fifteen.”
“No learner’s permit?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Oh well, it was worth a shot.” He hung his coat back up and returned to the kitchen. “Want a sandwich instead?”
Cassie laughed. “Sure, why not? Hey, is Jack home? Maybe I can call and have him drive me.”
Daniel dropped the jar of peanut butter. It bounced to the floor and rolled under the table. “Yeah, I think so. Try him.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed as she crawled after the peanut butter. Daniel really hadn’t sounded that enthusiastic about the idea. So, Jack was involved in this as well, somehow.
Duh. Like he wouldn’t be, when it came to Daniel.
“Here’s the peanut butter.”
“Thanks.” Daniel opened his bread drawer, blanched, and slammed it shut. Cassie blinked.
“Something wrong with the bread?”
Daniel gave her a sideways look, a touch of humor on his face. “Let’s just say I think it’s on the verge of creating a society. I imagine if I give it another week it’ll have a Library of Congress.”
Cassie snickered. “All right, I’m going to call Jack.” She glanced around. Books, artifacts, papers, books, more artifacts... and an empty phone cradle. “Where did your phone go?”
Daniel had to think for a minute. “Um... next to the fish tank, I think.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“Being phone-like.”
Cassie shook her head and dialed Jack. The phone rang for what seemed like forever, but just as she was getting ready to hang up Jack answered.
“Look, Daniel, I don’t care how great their civilization was, they were still a bunch of freeze-dried petrie dishes and no matter how cool their government might have been it was no excuse for - ”
Well, that was a clue she hadn’t been expecting. “Jack! It’s Cassie,” she cut in hastily.
“Oh!” Jack’s voice switched in an instant from pissed off to friendly. “Hey there, kiddo. What’s up?”
“I’m at Daniel’s and he’s not allowed to drive. Can you give me a ride home?”
There was a brief pause. “Sure. When do you want me to come?”
Okay, so that probably meant he wasn’t hurt too. Whatever happened had happened to Daniel alone.
“Uh… half an hour? Any longer and Daniel’s stale bread might make a bid for freedom.”
“Ew,” Jack said, as if his refrigerator wasn’t like ten times worse.
“Yeah,” Cassie said brightly, injecting as much innocence into her voice as possible. “Did you know he gave himself a concussion walking into a door?”
The pause was longer this time. “Really. Well, you know Daniel.”
Yes, she did... and she knew Jack, too, and something was most certainly rotten in the state of Colorado. Her spider-sense was tingling. The Earth-bound one, of course, not the naquadah one. “No kidding. Well, I’ll see you in half an hour.”
She hung up and watched Daniel’s fish pensively. Fact: Jack and Daniel were fighting, again. Fact: it had something to do with a mission. Fact: Daniel was injured and Jack apparently was not.
Oh, geez. Not again. Didn’t they ever fight about anything else?
Daniel was studying his freezer with a slight frown on his face as she came into the kitchen. “I think I’ve figured out a solution for the sandwich thing,” he announced.
“What’s that?”
He reached into the freezer and emerged with a box of frozen waffles. “Waffle sandwiches! I figure it’s close enough to bread that it won’t really make a difference. We can just put jelly and peanut butter in the little pockets.”
Cassie cracked up. “My mom doesn’t know you eat like this, does she?”
Daniel gave her a very nervous look. “No...”
She took the box and began feeding waffles into the toaster. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I’m fifteen, remember? I’d live on soda and pizza if I could.” She gave him a speculative look. Daniel held up his hands apologetically.
“I don’t have any soda, Cass. The best I can do is academic strength coffee.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust and he laughed.
By the time Jack arrived, they had finished cooking the waffles and were just sitting down to enjoy their snack. Cassie beamed at him as he came into the kitchen and waved her sandwich in his direction, playing the Innocent Child role to the hilt. It was always so much more informative when they didn’t think she had a clue what was going on.
“Waffle sandwiches, Jack! You want one?”
Jack arched one eyebrow. “Waffle sandwiches?” He spotted the empty box on the counter. “Well, we all know how much Daniel likes frozen stuff.”
Daniel scowled at his plate. “I like to have a lot of choices,” he said, deliberately not looking at Jack.
Jack favored Daniel with a frosty smile and turned to Cassie. “Got your stuff? Let’s head out.”
Daniel glared at him. “Let her finish her sandwich. I think there’s time for that.”
Jack sent Daniel a hard look. “Fine. I’ll be waiting in the truck.” He turned to go.
Cassie banged her hand down on the table. “Now wait just a damn minute!” If Jack left, then he and Daniel would never talk and they’d be painfully polite around each other for weeks until they either got over whatever it was they were fighting about, or one of them came close enough to dying that it scared the other into apologizing first. Well, as far as Cassie was concerned, that was just plain stupid.
“Cass?” Daniel asked warily.
“You two can be so obnoxious sometimes!” She pinned Daniel with a look. “Daniel, Jack’s sorry, but he’ll do the same thing again.” She turned to Jack. “Jack, Daniel’s sorry, but he’ll do the same thing again too.” Her gaze flicked between them. “Daniel, Jack wishes you wouldn’t put yourself in danger all the time, and he only acts like a bastard because he cares about you. Jack, Daniel wishes you would actually listen to him sometimes, because he’s trying to do what’s best for everybody, and no matter how weird things get he’s still your best friend.”
They gaped. Cassie sat back down and finished her sandwich, confident that as soon as they had time to process what she’d said they’d come around. All she was doing was expediting the process and saving the rest of them weeks of tiptoeing about.
Jack was the first one to shake himself out of his stupor. He turned to glare at Daniel.
“You told her what happened?”
Daniel glared back, but before he could respond Cassie broke in again.
“He didn’t have to. That’s what you always argue about.” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you guys, grow up. No matter how much you argue you’d still die for each other, so for God’s sake hug and make up already.”
They exchanged wary looks. Finally, Daniel turned his attention to his coffee mug. “I suppose next time I could be a little more specific about the way I’m planning on interpreting your orders,” he said grudgingly.
Jack examined the paint job on Daniel’s kitchen wall. “In the event of another situation like this one, I guess I could try and be a little more attentive to what you’re yammering on about.”
“And?” Cassie prompted. They gave her blank looks. She made a ‘go on’ gesture with one hand. “You’re best friends.”
Daniel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Cassie, really, I don’t think we need to - ”
“Oh, give me a break.” She treated them both to another eye-roll. “I get enough of this macho crap on the school bus every day.”
Daniel shot her an affronted look. “Jackyou’remybestfriend,” he mumbled to the coffee cup.
Jack coughed. “Ditto,” he admitted to the wall.
Daniel bit his lip. “You want a sandwich before you go?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably, finally meeting Daniel’s eyes. “Or we could maybe order some pizza. Or Chinese. Or... something. My treat.”
Daniel smiled. “Okay.”
“Hey, I’m sorry about the, you know...” Jack waved one finger in the direction of Daniel’s bruises.
Daniel made a face. “That’s okay. My fault for not watching where I was going when I stormed out of your office.”
Cassie leaned back in satisfaction. “My work here is done.”
THE END
