Lily Hargrave (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lilyhargrave) wrote2025-05-05 11:04 pm
lilyhargrave) wrote2025-05-05 11:04 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfic: Symbiosis (SGA/SG-1, NC-17) Chapter 3
Title: Symbiosis
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis/Stargate SG-1 fusion
Rating: NC-17/Explicit
Pairing: John Sheppard/Anansi the Goa'uld (OC), future likely: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, John Sheppard/Cameron Mitchell
Tags & Warnings: Slash, canon-typical violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Goa'uld (Stargate), Action/Adventure, Made-up Goa'uld biology, Taking liberties with canon, because canon is inconsistent and doesn't make sense sometimes, I invented one (1) good Goa'uld for this, Goa'uld!John, Sharing a Body, Consensually, Internalized Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, John gets to get over it, WIP, No idea when or if I'll finish it, Start at your own risk!, Conquering the galaxy, Politics, More tags to be added as applicable
Summary: In the early days of the Stargate Program, one John Sheppard is recruited into the SGC.
His first mission on a gate team goes catastrophically wrong.
Previous: Chapter 2
Chapter 3
John blinks, turns his head, lifts his hands– yeah, he can move again.
What, you think I was going to shoot?
He gets that sense of wry amusement again. A little distrust goes both ways. You were intent on killing us both rather than be a host earlier with rather admirable determination.
Yeah, well– he'd been sure it was that or be meat puppet for a malicious alien parasite. Which, granted, he's not entirely convinced it's not, but he'll withhold judgement for now.
He flexes his shoulders, raises a hand to rub at the back of his neck– then wishes he hadn't.
He can feel the bulge of the Goa'uld around his spine under his fingers, and the pressure of his hand makes him flinch, and he can feel that inside, making his stomach lurch, and he gets an echo of the instinctive urge to thrash and hiss and bury and control from the Goa'uld, too.
They both hold very still, for a moment.
Please don't do that.
Yeah, no, John agrees. He flexes his jaw, swallows. Only I can't quite breathe.
He feels like he has a bad cold or something, uncomfortable pressure against his larynx, his throat swollen.
I know, the Goa'uld sighs. Let me try...
He shifts, and John forces himself to keep still and not puke or scratch at his neck in an attempt to get him out. From what he can tell (which is more than he'd like to, really), he's rearranging his coils around John's spine, shifting his tail downward to try and flatten himself, ease the pressure on John's oesophagus and larynx. He winces at the spike of pain the downwards thrust sends along his spine, but the Goa'uld soothes it away as soon as he settles again, presumably starts healing the internal injuries he must be causing. John's never really thought about it, but there's really no room for a foot-long snake in people.
I know, I'm sorry, the Goa'uld sighs. If it helps, I'm no more comfortable than you. Were we merging, I would shed most of my body. But since I might need to leave you, I'm restraining myself from the full blending, and keeping my outside form– we'll just have to cope until we arrive.
John remembers the reports and footage he's seen of the attempt to remove the parasite from Kowalsky, how they'd cut most of it out of him and it still hadn't mattered.
Yes. There's hardly need for eyes or fins or muscles when inside a host. What we retain is mostly nervous system, which we graft onto the host's, while most of our tissues break down and are absorbed by the host body.
But you were fully snaked when you jumped me, John points out. I thought that guy was your host? How does that work?
I regrew my body and reversed the meld. Jamahl hung onto life as long as he could to give me the time to do it, even though his injuries were too severe for me to heal.
There's that sorrow again, and maybe it's a trick, what does John know?, but it sure feels like real grief. It makes him damn uncomfortable.
Sorry. Ask your questions.
And you're still just gonna let me leave with all the stuff you tell me?
Your people are enemies of the Goa'uld– I'm perfectly happy to supply you with any and all information that will help you fight them. Also, I wouldn't want you to feel like you didn't know what you were agreeing to, if you do decide to host me.
Why aren't there more Goa'uld like you? John wants to know. Because if he does mean everything he says, this guy sounds like the most reasonable Goa'uld that John's ever heard of– and that includes the Tok'ra.
He gets a snort. There is a reason why I don't like the Tok'ra much, despite the fact that we share some philosophical ground. As for your question: My hatch siblings died, or have joined the other Goa'uld. I am the last one left who holds on to our queen mother's views, and she died long ago without the chance to renew herself.
Renew herself?
A queen may hatch one queen larva in her life, to whom she passes on all her memories, and then dies. She may choose to include the seed of a male if she has been seeded, or not. If she doesn't, the new queen is essentially a clone of the old queen.
That... doesn't sound like a very good survival strategy, John observes. I mean, if a queen dies without doing that, like yours, then there's one less queen, right? So over time, wouldn't you get less and less queens until they're all gone?
Yes, the Goa'uld agrees. That is why, despite the amount of prim'ta maturing in the wombs of Jaffa all over the galaxy, I don't believe my species will survive for long– relatively speaking. Logically, there must have been a way for new queens to be created, once, but I have no memory of it. Maybe it is knowledge the queens don't pass on to us.
This genetic memory thing is really weird, John tells him. But so if you made little baby snakes, they'd be sane, right?
He gets laughed at, amused, a little sardonic. I cannot. You misunderstand my identification– I prefer male hosts, but biologically, I am sexless, like most of the Goa'uld you will meet. The vast majority of us are neither male nor female. We have no reproductive capabilities. True males are even rarer than queens. Apophis is one, to the best of my knowledge. Osiris was one. Ra. I know of no others.
Wait– so where do all the little Goa'uld come from? You said there were lots. I mean, you need one for every Jaffa, right?
Yes. Queens need no male to hatch larvae. A large part of our reproduction is asexual. Well, as far as Goa'uld material is concerned. Some host code, I believe you call it DNA, is usually incorporated, otherwise compatibility is... less than ideal. If a queen is seeded, she may store the male's seed for a long time and use it at will. It is usually enough for several thousand offspring.
Okay, your reproduction is really weird, John decides. Hey, what happens if... I mean... (Does he want to know this? Yeah, okay, morbid curiosity:) Like, you're usually in a host– how does that work anyway? Do you use the host bodies to do the deed...?
Which is a pretty sickening thought, because those host bodies don't agree to the proceedings, so that's rape.
I'm afraid that is one more violation most hosts suffer, but not for reproduction– that's forbidden. The result could be a harsesis– an offspring with the body of a host but the Goa'uld genetic memory. It's the one thing even the System Lords agree is too dangerous to allow.
Oh, so hosts just get raped for the fun of it?
Yes. Your bodies offer pleasure our own don't.
Right, John remembers. No reproductive equipment for most of you.
Indeed, the Goa'uld agrees wryly. And even for a queen, the act of getting seeded holds no special pleasure.
Wait. You remember your own conception?
Well, no, not as such. I was hatched without a male's contribution. But I do remember a seeding my queen mother took part in, so I suppose you could say I remember my potential conception.
Okay, so weird. John shakes his head. Also, I don't think I wanna talk about people getting raped anymore.
He walks over, sits back down in the pilot's chair.
You said you were gonna teach me how to fly this thing– what does that do? He points at a random button, and spends the next little while getting alien spacecraft explained to him. It makes a lot more sense than alien parasite reproduction, and is a lot more palatable.
It's not like he gets to do much– they're in hyperspace, and all there is to do is to let the ship take them from A to B on it's pre-programmed course. Still. It's a spaceship.
The Goa'uld chuckles. I have a Hebridan racer I believe you would enjoy. The image John gets is of something long and sleek that's more drives than ship, like something straight out of Star Wars. Latest ion-propulsion, great acceleration, though a little rough to handle in turns.
Are you bribing me with spaceships? John asks, and gets a laugh.
No, that wasn't my intention. But if you did agree to this meld, at least we would share a common interest besides the destruction of the Goa'uld.
Well, that'd be more than he had in his marriage, he supposes.
You are married?
Divorced, he corrects. And I don't really want to talk about it.
Of course. Here, let me show you how to run course calculation simulations.
John plays around with the ship's systems for a while longer, but even that gets boring eventually, so he gets up and starts exploring the ship instead.
It's a small ship, so there isn't that much to find. The bulkhead from the cockpit leads into a more or less round, open room. Behind that is an engine room full of crystals John doesn't need a Goa'uld to tell him to stay away from, and a ladder leads up into a small, dome-shaped room above the main room with a padded floor and a cramped wash room to the back. There's a leather pack set against the wall, and the sight of it sends a pang through John– not his, of course, he's never seen it before.
You really do miss him, don't you? John can't help but ask.
Yes. He was my companion for a hundred and eighty years. I wish we hadn't come here. It wasn't worth it.
John doesn't ask any more, because... maybe it's an act, but if it isn't, he doesn't want to prod at that kind of pain. Instead, he goes to the wash room to clean his face and rinse his mouth, because actually, it still tastes like blood. Then he realizes how thirsty he is.
Is this water drinkable? he asks.
Yes.
There's a bit of amusement there, so John asks, suspiciously: It's not recycled piss, is it? Hey, this is a spaceship.
It is, he gets told, with more amusement, and grimaces. Among other things. I assure you, the filters are excellent– it's cleaner than water you'll find in the purest spring. And even if it weren't, I could filter the toxins out for you.
Gross! John declares, and he could swear he's getting eyes rolled at him.
He drinks it anyway. He's spent enough time on desert missions to have done worse, but still...
Filters, remember? It's just water.
Doesn't help with knowing where it's been.
Sometimes you humans can be amusingly squeamish about the oddest things, he's informed. You should eat something, too. There's food in the pack.
Do I want to know what that's made out of? he asks as he takes a seat on the padding, which is softer than it looks, and drags the pack open.
Berries, nuts, honey, flour– no plants you would know, but I doubt you'd find objectionable.
It feels wrong to root through someone else's pack– a dead guy's, especially with the Goa'uld's grief hanging around the edges of his consciousness. But John is hungry, it's been hours since breakfast back at the SGC before this whole mess started. So he eats alien granola bars, which aren't half bad, especially when compared to MREs.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis/Stargate SG-1 fusion
Rating: NC-17/Explicit
Pairing: John Sheppard/Anansi the Goa'uld (OC), future likely: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, John Sheppard/Cameron Mitchell
Tags & Warnings: Slash, canon-typical violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Goa'uld (Stargate), Action/Adventure, Made-up Goa'uld biology, Taking liberties with canon, because canon is inconsistent and doesn't make sense sometimes, I invented one (1) good Goa'uld for this, Goa'uld!John, Sharing a Body, Consensually, Internalized Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, John gets to get over it, WIP, No idea when or if I'll finish it, Start at your own risk!, Conquering the galaxy, Politics, More tags to be added as applicable
Summary: In the early days of the Stargate Program, one John Sheppard is recruited into the SGC.
His first mission on a gate team goes catastrophically wrong.
Previous: Chapter 2
John blinks, turns his head, lifts his hands– yeah, he can move again.
What, you think I was going to shoot?
He gets that sense of wry amusement again. A little distrust goes both ways. You were intent on killing us both rather than be a host earlier with rather admirable determination.
Yeah, well– he'd been sure it was that or be meat puppet for a malicious alien parasite. Which, granted, he's not entirely convinced it's not, but he'll withhold judgement for now.
He flexes his shoulders, raises a hand to rub at the back of his neck– then wishes he hadn't.
He can feel the bulge of the Goa'uld around his spine under his fingers, and the pressure of his hand makes him flinch, and he can feel that inside, making his stomach lurch, and he gets an echo of the instinctive urge to thrash and hiss and bury and control from the Goa'uld, too.
They both hold very still, for a moment.
Please don't do that.
Yeah, no, John agrees. He flexes his jaw, swallows. Only I can't quite breathe.
He feels like he has a bad cold or something, uncomfortable pressure against his larynx, his throat swollen.
I know, the Goa'uld sighs. Let me try...
He shifts, and John forces himself to keep still and not puke or scratch at his neck in an attempt to get him out. From what he can tell (which is more than he'd like to, really), he's rearranging his coils around John's spine, shifting his tail downward to try and flatten himself, ease the pressure on John's oesophagus and larynx. He winces at the spike of pain the downwards thrust sends along his spine, but the Goa'uld soothes it away as soon as he settles again, presumably starts healing the internal injuries he must be causing. John's never really thought about it, but there's really no room for a foot-long snake in people.
I know, I'm sorry, the Goa'uld sighs. If it helps, I'm no more comfortable than you. Were we merging, I would shed most of my body. But since I might need to leave you, I'm restraining myself from the full blending, and keeping my outside form– we'll just have to cope until we arrive.
John remembers the reports and footage he's seen of the attempt to remove the parasite from Kowalsky, how they'd cut most of it out of him and it still hadn't mattered.
Yes. There's hardly need for eyes or fins or muscles when inside a host. What we retain is mostly nervous system, which we graft onto the host's, while most of our tissues break down and are absorbed by the host body.
But you were fully snaked when you jumped me, John points out. I thought that guy was your host? How does that work?
I regrew my body and reversed the meld. Jamahl hung onto life as long as he could to give me the time to do it, even though his injuries were too severe for me to heal.
There's that sorrow again, and maybe it's a trick, what does John know?, but it sure feels like real grief. It makes him damn uncomfortable.
Sorry. Ask your questions.
And you're still just gonna let me leave with all the stuff you tell me?
Your people are enemies of the Goa'uld– I'm perfectly happy to supply you with any and all information that will help you fight them. Also, I wouldn't want you to feel like you didn't know what you were agreeing to, if you do decide to host me.
Why aren't there more Goa'uld like you? John wants to know. Because if he does mean everything he says, this guy sounds like the most reasonable Goa'uld that John's ever heard of– and that includes the Tok'ra.
He gets a snort. There is a reason why I don't like the Tok'ra much, despite the fact that we share some philosophical ground. As for your question: My hatch siblings died, or have joined the other Goa'uld. I am the last one left who holds on to our queen mother's views, and she died long ago without the chance to renew herself.
Renew herself?
A queen may hatch one queen larva in her life, to whom she passes on all her memories, and then dies. She may choose to include the seed of a male if she has been seeded, or not. If she doesn't, the new queen is essentially a clone of the old queen.
That... doesn't sound like a very good survival strategy, John observes. I mean, if a queen dies without doing that, like yours, then there's one less queen, right? So over time, wouldn't you get less and less queens until they're all gone?
Yes, the Goa'uld agrees. That is why, despite the amount of prim'ta maturing in the wombs of Jaffa all over the galaxy, I don't believe my species will survive for long– relatively speaking. Logically, there must have been a way for new queens to be created, once, but I have no memory of it. Maybe it is knowledge the queens don't pass on to us.
This genetic memory thing is really weird, John tells him. But so if you made little baby snakes, they'd be sane, right?
He gets laughed at, amused, a little sardonic. I cannot. You misunderstand my identification– I prefer male hosts, but biologically, I am sexless, like most of the Goa'uld you will meet. The vast majority of us are neither male nor female. We have no reproductive capabilities. True males are even rarer than queens. Apophis is one, to the best of my knowledge. Osiris was one. Ra. I know of no others.
Wait– so where do all the little Goa'uld come from? You said there were lots. I mean, you need one for every Jaffa, right?
Yes. Queens need no male to hatch larvae. A large part of our reproduction is asexual. Well, as far as Goa'uld material is concerned. Some host code, I believe you call it DNA, is usually incorporated, otherwise compatibility is... less than ideal. If a queen is seeded, she may store the male's seed for a long time and use it at will. It is usually enough for several thousand offspring.
Okay, your reproduction is really weird, John decides. Hey, what happens if... I mean... (Does he want to know this? Yeah, okay, morbid curiosity:) Like, you're usually in a host– how does that work anyway? Do you use the host bodies to do the deed...?
Which is a pretty sickening thought, because those host bodies don't agree to the proceedings, so that's rape.
I'm afraid that is one more violation most hosts suffer, but not for reproduction– that's forbidden. The result could be a harsesis– an offspring with the body of a host but the Goa'uld genetic memory. It's the one thing even the System Lords agree is too dangerous to allow.
Oh, so hosts just get raped for the fun of it?
Yes. Your bodies offer pleasure our own don't.
Right, John remembers. No reproductive equipment for most of you.
Indeed, the Goa'uld agrees wryly. And even for a queen, the act of getting seeded holds no special pleasure.
Wait. You remember your own conception?
Well, no, not as such. I was hatched without a male's contribution. But I do remember a seeding my queen mother took part in, so I suppose you could say I remember my potential conception.
Okay, so weird. John shakes his head. Also, I don't think I wanna talk about people getting raped anymore.
He walks over, sits back down in the pilot's chair.
You said you were gonna teach me how to fly this thing– what does that do? He points at a random button, and spends the next little while getting alien spacecraft explained to him. It makes a lot more sense than alien parasite reproduction, and is a lot more palatable.
It's not like he gets to do much– they're in hyperspace, and all there is to do is to let the ship take them from A to B on it's pre-programmed course. Still. It's a spaceship.
The Goa'uld chuckles. I have a Hebridan racer I believe you would enjoy. The image John gets is of something long and sleek that's more drives than ship, like something straight out of Star Wars. Latest ion-propulsion, great acceleration, though a little rough to handle in turns.
Are you bribing me with spaceships? John asks, and gets a laugh.
No, that wasn't my intention. But if you did agree to this meld, at least we would share a common interest besides the destruction of the Goa'uld.
Well, that'd be more than he had in his marriage, he supposes.
You are married?
Divorced, he corrects. And I don't really want to talk about it.
Of course. Here, let me show you how to run course calculation simulations.
John plays around with the ship's systems for a while longer, but even that gets boring eventually, so he gets up and starts exploring the ship instead.
It's a small ship, so there isn't that much to find. The bulkhead from the cockpit leads into a more or less round, open room. Behind that is an engine room full of crystals John doesn't need a Goa'uld to tell him to stay away from, and a ladder leads up into a small, dome-shaped room above the main room with a padded floor and a cramped wash room to the back. There's a leather pack set against the wall, and the sight of it sends a pang through John– not his, of course, he's never seen it before.
You really do miss him, don't you? John can't help but ask.
Yes. He was my companion for a hundred and eighty years. I wish we hadn't come here. It wasn't worth it.
John doesn't ask any more, because... maybe it's an act, but if it isn't, he doesn't want to prod at that kind of pain. Instead, he goes to the wash room to clean his face and rinse his mouth, because actually, it still tastes like blood. Then he realizes how thirsty he is.
Is this water drinkable? he asks.
Yes.
There's a bit of amusement there, so John asks, suspiciously: It's not recycled piss, is it? Hey, this is a spaceship.
It is, he gets told, with more amusement, and grimaces. Among other things. I assure you, the filters are excellent– it's cleaner than water you'll find in the purest spring. And even if it weren't, I could filter the toxins out for you.
Gross! John declares, and he could swear he's getting eyes rolled at him.
He drinks it anyway. He's spent enough time on desert missions to have done worse, but still...
Filters, remember? It's just water.
Doesn't help with knowing where it's been.
Sometimes you humans can be amusingly squeamish about the oddest things, he's informed. You should eat something, too. There's food in the pack.
Do I want to know what that's made out of? he asks as he takes a seat on the padding, which is softer than it looks, and drags the pack open.
Berries, nuts, honey, flour– no plants you would know, but I doubt you'd find objectionable.
It feels wrong to root through someone else's pack– a dead guy's, especially with the Goa'uld's grief hanging around the edges of his consciousness. But John is hungry, it's been hours since breakfast back at the SGC before this whole mess started. So he eats alien granola bars, which aren't half bad, especially when compared to MREs.
Yay!
Re: Yay!
Re: Yay!
Hey, wanna see my "stuck together" storyline? It's in Calliope and starts with "Fate Misnamed."