fandomhigh | Advanced Negotiations

"You know, it's really disturbing that I've can empathize fully with every last one of those. You ever had to explain why how you got a thirty-seven million dollar piece of equipment broken?"

Jack sat in his chair and watched the other boy wave his hand in front of his face. The muscle in his body suddenly got very cold for a second and then...

"I'm not sure. I didn't really think you wanted to hurt me in the first place so... I got cold for a second though."

Overhearing this, Sam writes a note and throws a piece of balled up paper at Jack.

I told you that wasn't what Daniel said, but did you listen? Noooo...They never would have blown it up like that if you'd kept your mouth shut.

Ooh. Must be interdimensional waste-paper day today.

Jack opens the note and scrawls something on it before sending it sailing back.

If the two of you would learn how to use normal-people words and not all those big ones maybe I would've understood one of you.

I might even've listened maybe.

She just knows Liz is keeping records of this for Janet and Parker.

She reads the note and snickers in disbelief. I'll believe that when I see it.

Jack chucks the note back again.

Weirder things've happened. Daniel for one.

I think Daniel counts as at least four.

Nine. And that's only including the one death with Mrs. Ermoin and the chopsticks.

~~We weren't even off-world for that one, Jack--it shouldn't count. Eight.~~

~~Chopsticks. It counts. Nine.~~

Chinese restaurant in Denver. Doesn't count. Eight.

Chopstick through the brainstem. It counts. Nine. Maybe even Ten for the look on the doctors face.

Accident. Eight. ~~Although maybe the SGC should think about recruiting that waiter...~~

Brainstem. He was a Daniel-Ka-Bob. Nine. ~~You didn't recognize Specialist Li-Ken? From Fourteen?~~

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Anakin's eyes went wide. "You've done that, too? Eject out of one Starfighter--which was on fire, mind you, it wasn't like I was trying to destroy it for kicks--and have it explode into a building full of evil bad guys and all the sudden your this drain of credits on the Council." He stuck his lower lip out. "I couldn't get a new one for months."

He shrugged off O'Neill's reaction. "Yeah, it does feel a bit cold. It's way more effective when the being you're trying it on is actually angry about something." He levitated his pen of his desk and started it spinning in the air.

~~OMG Teh Pout!!~~

"It's like we're kindred souls! Or something else equally girly like that. All anyone cares about is money, like no one else ever made a mistake or anything."

Jack watched the pen spin, somewhat mesmerized. "Now that is cool."

~~Yay, Teh Pout! Anakin/Pouting OTP!~~

Anakin sat up. "It's like we were separated at birth! But without that weird cloning thing that seems to be going on around here. We could have slumber parties and talk about boys and things." He snickered. "Stupid government worrying about money. And it's never 'oh, we were so worried about you.' It's always 'why did you have to crash the prototype, Anakin?'"

He looked down at the pen and grinned. "This can impress the natives, too. Especially if you do the same thing to their chief. It's amazing how quickly they'll rethink their position then."

"Like ohmigawd! We could like totally braid each others hair and eat raw cookie-dough and have pillow-fights in out undies!" Jack took a small moment to laugh at the mental image. "That's because people are replacable apparently while machines? Notsomuch."

Jack smiled at the image of a random system lord (Baal) spinning in circles until he got sick. "Sounds like a really good trick."

Anakin had a mental image of the guys in the dorms braiding each other's hair and began laughing so hard he almost couldn't breathe. This school was so much more fun than the Temple.

"The 'oh the expense' lectures are especially hypocritical from an organization that's devoted to the worship and study of life," Anakin added. "And the floating thing really is a good trick. Lots of fun at parties. Although it certainly has less benevolent applications as well."

Jack tried to hold his laughter in but when Anakin cracked he couldn't help himself.

"You're tellin' me, it costs like seven hundred millio dollars to turn on the lights at the last place I came from. The floating trick probably can't be taught easily, can it?"

"Seriously. The run an intergalactic organization. Replacing a single Starfighter is, like, budget-dust to them." He yanked on his braid. "I think the whole 'no possessions' part of the Jedi Code is taken just a little too seriously by the beings working in the Accounting Office."

He let the pen drop back onto the desk. "Yeah, the floating thing is a bit of a Jedi mind trick. You kinda have to be born with the gift." He looked apologetic. "Sorry. I wish I could teach you how."

"See now I just wouldn't be able to do that whole no possessions thing, that'd be a deal-breaker for me."

Damn. "I was afraid you were gonna say something like that. Was worth a try though."

Anakin smiled. "When I joined the Jedi I was nine years old, so it wasn't like I owned anything anyway. When you don't have stuff to begin with, it's easy not to get attached to it."

He crossed his legs and shifted in his chair. "It never hurts to ask, right? Except if it's some kind of forbidden thing in a culture, and then we're right back where we started with the hostile beings and the misunderstandings and the lectures."

"Yeah I guess I can see that, you can't really miss what you never had."

"Nice segway. How do you really know what's going to offend someone though? I once went somewhere where the natives didn't have to piss and found it disgusting to the point of anger that we did. That was an uncomfortable four days."

Anakin grinned. "Thank you. And my old teacher said I never paid attention when he was talking." He sighed. "You really never know what's going to set someone off, do you? For us, the Archives are full of ten thousand generations of information on every group the Jedi have ever encountered. You can do some extrapolating based on similar government structures or species, but at the end of the day, the only way you find out is by making a mistake and learning from it."

He winced at O'Neill's story. "Never had that experience, thank goodness. We did run into a group who was offended we breathed oxygen, though. Talk about irreconcilable differences."

"At least you had that we were always going in blind and keeping our fingers crossed."

Jack blinked. Wow. "How the hell did you handle that?"