“Daniel.”
“Sam?”
“Has anyone ever tried to braid your hair?”
Daniel choked on his beer. “Wh-wh-what did you say?” he managed to get out between coughs.
“I said, has anyone ever braided your hair?”
Nope, it hadn’t been his alcohol-addled mind playing tricks on him. He stared back at Sam blankly.
“Captain Carter, that is incorrect,” said Teal’c from his seat across Jack’s living room. “You asked if anyone had ever attempted to braid Daniel Jackson’ hair.”
“Pfft,” replied Sam, clearly feeling the effects of her own glass’s contents. “Same difference.”
Teal’c merely raised an eyebrow in response.
“Well, to answer your question, no, they most certainly have…” Daniel trailed off, suddenly remembering an incident from his undergraduate days.
“Have?” Jack prompted, waving his bottle in circles.
“Not successfully,” Daniel grumbled. Jack snorted. “Thanks, Jack.” Jack smirked.
“Aw, why not?” Sam whined. “Surely there must be some culture out there where all the men have braids if their hair is long enough. I thought you anthropologists dressed according to the culture you’re studying all the time,” she added accusingly.
“Sam. Why are you suddenly obsessed with my hair?”
“It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed.
Teal’c broke through Jack’s guffaws to remark, “Daniel Jackson, your face has become a most abnormal shade of red.”
“It’s the beer,” Daniel mumbled, sinking down further into the floor and taking another swig. “I didn’t come back from the dead to be teased mercilessly, you know,” he said pointedly.
Sam made a valiant struggle to control herself. “I know. I’m sorry.”
It was the night after SG-1 had returned from their successful “rescue” mission to Oannes. Following a nice, long rest in the infirmary for Daniel, the team had, as promised, gathered for a night of bonding. As usual, they’d ended up at Jack’s house, the three humans indulging themselves in well-earned spirits and Teal’c sticking to water. After the week’s stress and relief, they were allowing themselves to become perhaps a bit merrier than usual.
Sam was still eyeing Daniel with a calculating look, but fortunately for him, Jack jumped in. “So. Scrabble, anyone?”
Sam and Daniel both blinked at their leader in surprise. “You never want to play Scrabble,” Daniel pointed out.
“Sure I do.”
“No, you don’t, because you always lose.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“Not.”
“Too.”
“Not-”
“Indeed,” interrupted Teal’c.
Jack glared at him. “Okay, fine. I lose at normal Scrabble. But tonight, we play by my rules.”
“Sir?” Sam asked.
Jack smirked. “It’s simple, Carter. Same as normal, except the more points you get…the more booze you drink.”
“Uh, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Daniel said nervously.
“And Teal’c couldn’t play,” added Sam.
“I am content to observe this ritual,” said Teal’c, with what could have been a smile quirking his lip.
“Aw, come on. This is the only chance in hell I’ll ever have of beating the brain trust,” Jack pleaded, waving his bottle in the direction of Daniel and Sam.
Daniel sighed. “All right, I’ll play.” He popped the last California roll into his mouth.
“Carter? You’re not going to let Daniel win, are you?” Jack prodded.
Sam looked like she wanted to protest on principle, but…he had a point. She sighed. “Fine.”
“Excellent.” Jack sprang up from his seat, getting the board game from the cabinet as the others cleared the take-out waste from the coffee table. Daniel scooted closer to the table; Sam leaned forward on the couch.
As Jack had predicted, the two scientists soon took the lead. Unfortunately, even with their deepening state of inebriation, they still held the advantage over him, remaining neck and neck, even as the words became ever more bizarre and foreign to him.
After a particularly clever use of a Q by Daniel, a rosy-cheeked Sam tilted her head to the side. “Daniel…as fascinating as the Colonel’s version of this game is…care to make it more interesting?”
Daniel eyed her over the rims of his glasses as he completed the requisite swig of success. “How so?”
“A bet.”
He set his bottle down on the coffee table. “If I win, you have to organize all the books in my office. By author and culture.”
“Fine. And if I win…” Sam leaned towards him, a sly smile growing on her face, “I get to braid your hair.”
Daniel stared back at her. “You’re on.”
“Hey!” piped up Jack. “What if I win?”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “Was that a joke, O’Neill?”
Jack glared back at him. “Thanks for the support, T.” Teal’c inclined his head. Oh, he was definitely smiling
With the stakes raised, both Sam and Daniel redoubled their efforts. The alcohol didn’t seem to affect them at all anymore, so intent were they on the board before them. Finally, all tiles had been drawn, and they were down to the last batches on their racks.
Jack stared at his selection morosely. He placed three tiles on the board.
“Jack, ‘plub’ isn’t a word,” Daniel pointed out.
“It should be.”
“It’s not.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, snatching the tiles back. “I got nothin’.”
Daniel, seated across from him, contemplated his tiles carefully, then added three to the board to connect the R in SCHADENFREUDE to the T in CATEL for ARGOT. “Done,” he said absently, rubbing his chin and glancing between his remaining two tiles and the board.
Sam stared at her own tiles for several moments. Then slowly, deliberately, she placed two tiles on either side of the German word’s H.
Jack peered at the board. “Ohm? That’s a word?”
“Indeed it is,” said Teal’c, who’d been placed on dictionary duty.
But Daniel wasn’t paying attention to his teammate’s confusion. Instead, the blood was slowly draining from his face as he watched Sam lift up her very empty tile rack and place it deliberately upside-down. “Done,” she said simply. Then she grinned a decidedly evil grin at Daniel.
The archaeologist’s “Aw, crap,” was drowned out by Jack’s cackling. While Daniel took the time to glare at his so-called best friend, Sam literally bounced out of her seat and onto the armchair behind Daniel.
“I don’t suppose you have any hair ties, sir?” she asked, pulling on Daniel’s shoulders so that he was forced to scoot back to lean against the chair. The Colonel gave her a blank look. “Er, I guess not.”
“Ya think?” he responded.
“Oh well, guess we can’t do this, too bad,” said Daniel hurriedly, moving to scoot away from the hair demon.
“Not so fast, mister!” Sam exclaimed, pulling him back again. “A bet’s a bet.”
“Damn.”
“I have rubber bands,” Jack suggested.
“God, no, are you kidding? That’d wreak absolute havoc on this gorgeous…” she trailed off, combing her fingers through his hair.
Daniel shifted uncomfortably.
“I’ll just have to make them very tight,” Sam reasoned. “That way, they’ll stay in.”
“Great,” he muttered.
Jack smirked. “Another beer, Danielle?” He was rather unsteady getting to his feet, but he managed.
“Cute.” Daniel sighed in resignation. “And please.”
“Relax, Daniel,” said his torture mistress. “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.” The giggle that accompanied this statement belied the assertion.
“Come on, you endured a giant squid sucking at your brain. A few pulled hairs won’t kill you,” said Jack, returning with Daniel’s drink.
“Says you.”
“Hold still!” Sam scolded, turning his head firmly into alignment.
After the longest hour of Daniel’s recent memory, the tugging finally ceased. “Ta-da!” declared the far too enthusiastic voice behind him.
Jack and Teal’c, who’d grown bored after the first five minutes or so and turned to an intense Go Fish tournament, whipped their heads around – and developed the most frightening expressions to which Daniel had ever borne witness.
“That’s…just…” Jack managed.
“I believe the term you seek is ‘priceless,’ O’Neill.”
“Exactly.”
“Kill me now,” Daniel groaned, planting his face firmly in his palms.
“Don’t listen to them, Daniel,” Sam said, rubbing his neck in what was probably intended as comfort. “I think it looks great.
“You would.”
“No, I’m serious! It gives you a real surfer look, very Californian.”
“Wonderful,” he mumbled into his hands.
“My kingdom for a camera!” cried Jack, springing to his feet. Or at least trying to do so – the inebriated Colonel overcompensated and only barely maintained his footing with some creative wind-milling. “Oy.” He clapped his hand to his head.
“Go look at it in the mirror, Daniel!” said Sam.
“I’ll pass.”
“You have to.”
“No, I really, really don’t. And I really, really don’t think I can walk right now, anyway,” he added, eyeing Jack.
“Yeah. As much as I’m enjoying this, girls, I think I’d better call it a night before I…can’t call anything.” Jack paused as if to examine what he’d just said, but seemed to think the better of it.
“Do you require assistance, O’Neill?”
Jack waved him off. “Nah, I’ll make it. You get some…kel’no’reem.” He looked at his other team members. “You kids are welcome to keep playing dress-up as long as you want, but you’re far too gone to drive. You know where the extra blankets are.” And with that, he stumbled off to his bedroom.
Teal’c also rose and inclined his head towards them. “Good night, Captain Carter and Daniel Jackson.”
“Night, Teal’c,” Sam chirped. Daniel grunted, and Teal’c wandered off for the peace of the guest room.
Daniel sighed. After a hesitant pause, Sam ventured, “Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
She seemed to be coming down from her giddy high. “You’re not…upset with me, are you?”
Daniel leaned his braided head back on the seat behind him to look up at her. “No,” he sighed. “Just drunk.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he assured her. “I learned my lesson about playing Scrabble under the influence, right?”
She snickered, then burped. “Whoops.”
He wrinkled his nose. “You have beer breath.”
“So do you.” She stuck her tongue out at him, or rather, down at him. Tugging on a braid, she added, “I’m glad you’re alive again.”
“Why, so you could make a mannequin out of me?” he teased.
She swatted his shoulder. “Fine, see if you get any more compliments from me.”
“No one’s been that obsessed with my hair since Abydos,” he mused. At her inquiring look, he continued. “It was the color that did it for them, actually. Lightest they’d ever seen, and lighter after so much time in the sun.” He chuckled. “Sha’re used to–” He broke off, shaking his head gingerly and lifting it up ever so slowly. Using the table and arm of Sam’s chair as supports, he got to his feet. “Come on,” he said, holding out a hand to her.
She took it and got up, equally woozy. “Where are we going?” He looked at her sheepishly, and her eyes lit up in delight. “So you do want to see it!”
His cheeks were pink again, but that could’ve been the alcohol and head rush. He shrugged. “It’s my inner masochist.” Leaning on one another for support, they made their way to the smaller bathroom. Daniel paused right outside of it.
“The moment of truth,” Sam quipped, reaching inside to flick on the light.
Daniel rolled his eyes, then took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and stepped into the door frame.
“You can’t see with your eyes closed, you know.”
“Says you.” But he opened them nonetheless.
It was a good thing he was holding the door frame for support already. “Sam!”
The good Captain Doctor was doubled over laughing and couldn’t respond.
“I don’t look like a surfer, I look like a…a…”
“Rastafarian?” she choked out.
“Gorgon!” he corrected. Although, to be fair, Sam’s suggestion wasn’t completely off. In the place of his usual floppy mop, of which he did take good care, thank-you-very-much, were a multitude of short braids, springing snake-like from all over his head. They stuck out every which way, the ones on top flopping over. He took off his glasses in hopes that the lack of focus would help. It didn’t.
Sam recovered from her fit and stood once more, moving to stand in the mirror with him. “I think it’s cute.”
“You would. Where’d you learn to braid like that, anyway?”
She gave him a condescending look. “Daniel, I’m a girl.”
“Ah. Right.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Bedtime for you.” He nodded his agreement, and with a last, incredulous look at his reflection, he followed her back to the living room, stopping to grab blankets from the closet on their way.
Clearing assorted playing cards and trash from the seats and shutting off the remaining lights, they settled down on opposite couches. “Night, Sam,” Daniel mumbled through his haze.
“Night, Daniel.”
All was silence. Daniel welcomed the blessed sleep’s claim on him. Just as he was drifting peacefully away, a soft, mischievous voice cut through the fog:
“It’ll be curly in the morning if you sleep with them in, you know.”
Samantha Carter, Daniel decided, was truly an evil woman.
Feedback is always adored and appreciated. I apologize for any brain damage you might have incurred while reading this fic. ;-)