Stargate x Reader Inserts

a lesson in language | daniel jackson

· a/n: something super quick and super cute that my fluff-addicted mind came up with. I paired it with a fictober prompt because it seemed to fit.

· DO NOT REPOST MY WORK!

· summary: you attempt to learn the hand symbols of an ancient language while conducting research with your boyfriend, Daniel Jackson, on a newfound culture.

· prompt: (#9) "Will you look at this?"

· warnings: fluff

· word count: 1,553

· music: Atlantis Is Waiting by James Newton Howard

You tapped the toe of your shoe against the bars of the stool you sat on, rubbing your fingers along the jut of your chin absentmindedly. Under your other hand sat a yellowed tome full of inked symbols of an ancient language – an artifact you and your fellow SG-1 members had discovered on your most recent excursion through the Stargate. The language, native to the foreign planet and its cultures, was something of a mix between what you and your boyfriend, Daniel Jackson, had recognized as sign language and hieroglyphs.

Letting out a hefty sigh, you attempted once more to replicate the hand symbol by twisting your fingers in the depicted positions, but you couldn't quite get the entwined knot to look right. This was your seventh attempt at perfecting this symbol. Growing frustrated with yourself, you plopped your hands down on the table in defeat, drumming the pads of your fingers against the cool metal.

Daniel sat across from you reading the uploaded files of the language that he was comparing with photographs of other Goa'uld artifacts, clicking away on the keyboard of his computer. The digital hue of the screen reflected against his glasses, which he promptly pushed up further onto the bridge of his nose – a subconscious habit of his.

"Hey, Daniel?" You prompted softly, loud enough to gain his attention.

"Hm?" he hummed in return, just barely turning his chin in your direction, his eyes glued to the monitor.

"Will you look at this? I just can't get these symbols right," you furthered.

"Sure," he responded sweetly, a twinge on curious enthusiasm lilting his tone. He pushed himself out from the table's edge and stood, making his way around to you. You nudged a stool out for him, which he took gratefully with a smile, leaning over your arm to peer at the texts.

He pointed to the extravagantly knotted symbol, the one where your fingers had trouble winding around and under each other. "Is this the one that's confusing you?"

You nodded.

"It might be easier if you picture the individual signs in your head, like assembling a single word with each letter one by one. Since the translation of one of these symbols is equal to a short sentence in English, it helps to picture each word you already know and try to do those step by step instead of interpreting it as a whole." He glanced up at you from the book before letting his eyes wander to the next page. "Does that make sense?"

Your blank stare told him that helped almost next to nothing.

"Well, see, this one had four grammatical additions to its gesture, so you have to keep your pinky here to indicate the plural nouns, and this one" – Daniel poked your middle finger – "underneath your thumb, but above your index."

"It's not so much the interpretation I'm struggling with, I can see the setup of the language and everything, I just literally can't move my fingers like that. I don't understand how they're joining their thumb and middle finger above the index while still keeping this one " – you wiggled your ring finger – "in between them and the pinky up here. Because if I move my index too far down, that rearranges the context completely."