voicetest

[colonelkickass]

Whoa. Hold on there, soldier.

Look, for the last time, it wasn't my fault you stayed up so late last night coming up with this 'dear diary' program on my account. So sending me to this 'Bete Noire' place? Kind of unwarranted punishment, don't you think? I don't even speak French.

You given any thought what I'm going to be doing there? Course not. Not to mention the lack of a team or a Stargate or even a neighborhood Applebee's. Nothing. Nada. Now, I can understand you getting all excited about me being around all of a sudden, all I'm saying is give it a couple of days instead of...

Wait.

Who?

[ And there's a breath as he pinches the bridge of his nose. ]

Okay. Ah. I'm just going to put this as delicately as I can, alright?

Over my. Dead. Body.




...yeah, you're right, that's a bit much. Still, it's not going to be far from the truth if our very special buddy is hanging around. There is only one of him this time, right?

Comments

[atadiscoverer]

General O'Neill?

[Talking with him was always so awkward after he nearly shot down that helicopter with a drone]

Are you okay?

[colonelkickass]

It's Colonel, actually. And who would you be?

Aah, timelines, you are so wacky.

[atadiscoverer]

Of course, why would he remember Carson.

But...Colonel? He was fairly sure that the Jack O'Neill at Homeworld Security was a General]

Uh. I'm Dr. Carson Beckett, Gen...Colonel. From the Atlantis Expedition?

[colonelkickass]

Sorry, the what?

[atadiscoverer]

What year is it for you, colonel?

[Carson was beginning to get a bit of a sinking feeling.]

[original_fine]

And by special buddy you mean...?

[Jim reaches into information he should not have for the purposes of my own amusement.]

[colonelkickass]

Ba'al. System Lord. Glowing eyes, a little too attached to leather and the sound of his own voice?

[original_fine]

[Sigh]

I was afraid you were going to say that...

[colonelkickass]

You know him?

[original_fine]

I do. Not as well as you do, which would explain why we're still on speaking terms.

[colonelkickass]

I don't suppose telling you what he really is is going to make much of difference there. That Bete Noire place.

[original_fine]

I will stay it has a strange effect. From what I do know--and I'm not sure how much to believe--I think it might actually be making him more human.

All I know really is that he's inhabiting a willing host and has a bad habit of torturing people and running crime rings but seems sort of conflicted about things in general.

[colonelkickass]

'Seems' being the operative word in that sentence. I remember being on the receiving end of his hospitality, and trust me, there's no confliction.

Whatever he's told you, however he's presenting himself, it's a lie. The guy's a megalomaniac nutcase who will do or say anything if he thinks it'll get him closer to his goal.

[original_fine]

Oh, I'm well aware of that. He tortured me for days, once. This was before he gave me some excellent advice on sex toys--I wasn't aware at the time, of course.

Here's my conflict--I don't know what his goal is, right now.

[colonelkickass]

Okay. We're going to ride right on past you explaining the...sex toys part.

[ Ba'al and sex toys. Two thoughts that never needed to meet, ever, under any circumstances.

O'Neill just shakes his head and tries not to be nauseous. ]

Ba'al only ever has one goal in mind, and that's putting everyone and everything thing under his greasy Goa'uld thumb. How he goes about it is the million dollar question.

[original_fine]

[But he has a really good explanation! The one where Ba'al owns a sex shop. A really good one.]

You don't believe people can change?

Look, I'm not questioning your experience with him. I have enough of my own. But if he's playing a long game, it's really, really long.

[colonelkickass]

People might. Alien parasites capable of destroying entire galaxies out of spite when they have an off day? Not so much.

[original_fine]

I think, perhaps, we have different perspectives. We've learned that what we call "humanity" is not bound by species.

And we all have our bad days. I've been a witness to what I can be, stripped of civilization and conscience. I'm capable of the same.

[colonelkickass]

I've met my fair share of aliens, and I grant you most of them are decent, and I use the term loosely, people. You get your bad apples, but you can't judge them all based on a few, all that jazz. I get that.

But the Goa'uld are rotten to the core. They enslave, and what they can't enslave they destroy. Just because he's on good behavior now doesn't mean he isn't getting his hand into every cookie jar he can, and the people he calls friends now? They just get better collars and nicer bowls to lick out of when he's gotten what he wants.

[original_fine]

I've never heard him call anyone his friend. In fact, he seems to get really upset when it looks like he might actually care about anything at all.

But I can see that.