The Chair
By Gumnut
Oct 2003

Colonel Jack O’Neill was literally dragged into the room and thrown into the chair. He protested vehemently, but his cries were in vain.

He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this. His mind rifled through the events of the last few days and came up with nothing. It must be fate. It always had to be O’Neill, didn’t it, the Universe’s fall guy. It wasn’t like he didn’t pay his dues, no, he had saved Earth how many times now? But fate just seemed to want to take that bit extra. A little bit more of Jack O’Neill. Let’s see how long it is before he finally cracks.

He stared at the grey walls, dank and depressing. He couldn’t expect much more from a torture chamber could he? And torture chamber it was. There was no other description. Various instruments were lined up on display, their purposes both obvious and vague enough to produce the necessary terror. He wanted to cast his eyes away from them, but a sick fascination had his sight locked in place.

There were hooks.

There were knives.

There were oddly shaped pieces of metal that left the imagination to provide a possible use.

His stomach crawled with tension.

He had to get out of here.

He checked the three other occupants in the room. Two of them were preparing various devices, obviously for use on him. The other….

He made a break for it. His boots hit the floor, and he had made it halfway to the door before he was grabbed from behind.

“No!”

He struggled, but the hands that held him were Daniel’s, and no matter how desperate he was, he couldn’t hurt a friend. And Daniel knew it.

Those same hands now turned him, and a pair of earnest, deluded eyes bore into his soul.

“Jack, I made a promise. I’m sorry but this has to be done.”

Traitor.

This is what happens when you soften, O’Neill. They get under your skin and you’re vulnerable, and before you know it, you have made a crucial mistake brought on by the bonds of friendship, and you are looking down the barrel of a gun.

You have no-one to blame but yourself. You knew Daniel. You knew this was possible. You knew the lengths he could go to.

You knew that one day that friendship would break you.

And it had brought him here.

To this room.

To these instruments.

To a fate worse than death.

Hands pushed him towards the chair once again, and he was forced to sit. A figure loomed over him. Threatening. Foreboding.

An instrument was selected. An arm was raised.

He would not give them what they wanted.

He would not break.

“Jack!”

He darted his eyes in Daniel’s direction. The pleading look on his face broke him in places he didn’t know he had.

“Jack, please.”

The face of his friend spoke of the desperate situation, of the reasons that had led to this event, and he suddenly realised that he had no choice.

Surrender was the only option.

He looked up.

The figure loomed.

“Now, open wide, Colonel O’Neill. This won’t hurt a bit.”

God, he hated the Dentist.

*********
FIN.