“Jack, I swear to
God, if you don’t leave that thing ALONE I’m going to come down there
and beat you to death with it,” Daniel snarled.
“Lighten the hell
up, darl-ING,” Jack called lightly. “I’m not doing a damn thing
except sitting here and melting.”
“Don’t call me
‘darling’. You KNOW I hate it!” Daniel yelled. “How the
hell can you be melting with all that beer and ice cream you’ve been
scarfing down while you’re PLASTERED to the one and only fan we
have?” Daniel tossed his pen down and impatiently swiped the
beads of sweat from his brow. He had WORKING air conditioning at
his place, along with heat AND humidity control, so what the hell were
they doing at Jack’s house in a heatwave? Only Jack knew.
Daniel shook his dripping hand, stretched up and peered down into the
living room, where Jack was destruct testing the TV remote and Daniel’s
patience. Daniel glanced behind him to the hallway. He
sighed. What he had in mind – it was a mistake. Huge.
But there was no way around it, he had to do it. He had no
choice, the heat was killing him, but still - it was a mistake.
He cautiously eased up and snuck out of the dining area without making
a sound.
“Can I help it all
the smart boys are fly boys? Grab another beer for me while
you’re up, willya?” Jack hollered without looking around.
Daniel ignored that
command and made for the bedroom. He was asking for trouble, he
knew he was, but he was going to expire from the humidity if he didn’t
get out of some of these clothes. Egypt and Abydos were dry
heat. This oppressive, damp heaviness was like a live thing,
knocking him wheezing on his ass and of course Jack pointedly had sole
custody of their only fan. Jack was half-naked, sprawled
comfortably all over his couch, right in front of said fan, deliciously
cool…and waiting. Waiting for Daniel to melt in every sense of
the word, go to Jack and sprawl with him. Preferably on Jack's
lap. Jack’s blatant, gloating possession of the fan was entirely
tactical. A lure. Bait for a very specific trap. Jack
was also hot, in the ‘horny as hell’ sense of the word, and royally
pissed off about not getting any.
Daniel yanked open
the bottom bureau drawer and fished around for the denim cut-offs he
knew were in there somewhere. Every single thing he was wearing
was chafing. Every single thing. He stripped speedily and
silently, his only defence against ambush. He was naked and
adjacent to Jack’s bed, which was pretty much how and where Jack wanted
him to be, 24/7. Daniel smiled suddenly, stroking gentle fingers
over the comforter. He wasn’t putting up much of a fight, to be
honest.
Hustling into Jack’s
cut-offs, which were bleached to a soft grey, blessedly cool and
comfortable even if they were dangerously abbreviated, given Jack’s
currently libidinous state, Daniel had to fight to keep a big sloppy
grin from his face. He was constantly amazed by how gentle Jack
was with him, how Jack's instinctive warmth and tenderness could focus
all the passion Jack felt for him into the most shattering love-making
Daniel had ever experienced.
Daniel swallowed
convulsively as sweet, remembered pleasure coiled through him, a deep,
heavy pang that quickened his breathing and made the sweat stand on his
flushing skin. All that pleasure from mere touch. Skin on
skin, Jack’s boundless patience and stamina, making love as though they
had all the time in the world, coaxing Daniel free of every inhibition
he thought he had. They’d been together five months now, though
three of those they’d been forced to spend apart, and the only
inhibition Daniel hadn’t shed, the only loving he hadn’t shared with
Jack was intercourse. Soon, though. He knew what it was to
be inside Jack, was shaken to the core each time by Jack’s willingness
to be so open to him, to be so vulnerable. Daniel’s lips twitched
as he turned. Jack was so passionate. So pushy. So
LOUD. And so – dammit! - so HERE.
Daniel gulped as he
was clasped fervently to a lot of hot, hard, distractingly hairy and
outrageously gloating Jack.
“Sweet Jesus,” Jack
groaned, eyeing Daniel in disbelief. He ran a shaking finger
around the waistband of the cut-offs, slung low on Daniel’s hips, “and
thank God for heat waves. Let’s make love, Danny, please.
I’m DYING here,” he groaned, licking and nipping at Daniel’s sweat
dewed throat.
“Well, die quietly,”
Daniel snapped, breathing hard and quick as Jack tightened his grip
imperatively and lifted Daniel off his feet to tumble him down on the
bed. Despite his wriggling, Jack had him pinned flat in a
heartbeat. In fact, Jack was grinning wolfishly BECAUSE of
Daniel's wriggling, if the encouragingly filthy suggestions being
whispered into Daniel's ear were anything to go by. It was
difficult to breathe, let alone think, and articulation was almost
impossible as Jack insinuated himself between Daniel’s sprawled thighs
and rocked suggestively. He was iron hard, heavy, insistent heat
straining against Daniel.
“Come on, you know
you want to,” Jack growled, pinning Daniel’s wrists to the pillow,
grinning like a fiend as Daniel’s hands turned in his, twining their
fingers together, feeling Daniel shiver beneath him, the inviting
hardness swelling against him. “I love you. Let’s MAKE – “
“Love.
Yes. Mm hm. Grasped that,” Daniel gasped as his hormones
battled his report deadline for supremacy.
“Grasp THIS then,”
Jack hissed, thrusting against Daniel.
“N-no,” Daniel
protested faintly. He wanted to, God, how he wanted to. “I
can’t. There isn’t time. I HAVE to get this report done,
Jack, you know that. SG-5 goes off-world tomorrow.”
Jack bared his
teeth. “A quickie,” he coaxed, nibbling gently on Daniel’s ear,
sidling his tongue around to that sweet spot just – Daniel quivered
beneath him, gasping – THERE, he gloated.
“No,” Daniel refused
with as much conviction as he could muster, given his body emphatically
and indeed peremptorily disagreed. “They’re NEVER quickies, Jack,
you KNOW that. We’ll be in bed all afternoon and I HAVE to get
this done. After the report is finished, I promise.” He
reached up and kissed the beloved, sullen face. “I hate you too,”
he said tenderly, “now let me up, I have work to do.”
“Leave it,” Jack
ordered, scowling. The scowl kinda segued into a grin as Daniel
squirmed delightfully, trying to get free. “Ni-ce,” Jack gloated,
“Keep it up.”
“You don’t need any
help keeping it up,” Daniel snapped tartly, “You’re doing just fine
without me. In fact, you’re positively rampant.” He glared
as Jack panted ludicrously, blatantly squirming in enthusiastic
counterpoint to his own struggles. “If you don’t get off me,
right NOW, I’m marching in there tomorrow and telling the general I
didn’t get the report completed as a result of taking the afternoon off
to have sex with my pushy boyfriend.”
“A shit-load of HOT
sex with your persuasive boyfriend,” Jack insisted. “I can tell
you without reservation that the general would completely buy that
story.”
Daniel scowled up at
him. “You’ve been thoroughly out of hand since the first time I
let you sweetheart me out of my clothes and apparently my senses.
To this day, I have no idea why I let you kiss the shit out of me.”
“I’ve told you a
million times, it was the Blood of Sokar,” Jack smirked into huge,
stormy eyes. He lived to get Daniel hot and bothered. “I was
confused. I thought you were…“
“ME,” Daniel
snapped. “Confused my ass, which is exactly what you were
after. I’ve seen cobras strike slower than your hands grabbing my
butt. AND you knew I couldn’t so much as whimper a protest, what
with being two feet away from the open chamber GENERAL Carter and MAJOR
Carter were sharing and…”
“It was at least
three feet and it was your own goddamn fault,” Jack interrupted
hurriedly. “You’re ridiculously tender-hearted. You should
have kicked me to shut me up, not snuggled up next to me and breathed
on my neck.”
“I was trying to
comfort you,” Daniel sniffed. “You were having a nightmare.”
“I was feeling no
pain at all, mostly because I was having a wet dream and when I opened
my eyes you made it come true.”
“I was feeling
pain. I banged my head when you – you…“
“I was being
chivalrous, shielding your body with my own.”
“Shielding me from
what?” Daniel hooted incredulously. “You rolled on top of me and
kissed the shit out of me,” he corrected crisply. “I was the only
one who was confused. I still don’t know why I didn’t just knee
you in the balls, except you’d factored that in as well, and you knew
I’d never be low enough to do that to you when you were wounded.
You’re such a prick, Jack O’Neill. You knew you were in love with
me for months before you bothered to let me in on it.”
Jack’s lips twitched
ruefully. The sulky pout was softening him, as always. “I
was embarrassed, what can I say? I’d felt – weird – about you…“
“Weird? That’s
romantic,” Daniel drawled witheringly.
“Shut up,” Jack said
equably. “Weird, ever since I took my eye off your balls and that
bitch Hathor had you shorn like a sheep. My libido has been jumpy
ever since your nape was exposed to the world. Flaunting the big
blue eyes and the bone structure at me didn’t help at all.” Not
at ALL. Except to make his trigger finger itch whenever anyone
showed an inappropriate interest in Daniel, which so far seemed to be
everybody. “I didn’t really know I was in love with you until
that debacle with Linea.”
Daniel
blushed. He hadn’t slept with Ke’ra, no matter what the base
thought. She’d lost her memory and could have been married for
all he knew. She’d kissed him, and he’d wanted that so badly,
needed that connection, needed to be wanted again, so much. He’d
almost – well, it had been too close. Knowing it was wrong had
been barely enough to stop him, to make him back away when they both
wanted it desperately. The attraction was explicable for so many
reasons, and loneliness was only part of it. He’d looked at Ke’ra
and finally realised he was seeing Sarah, another loss, not the bone
deep ache of losing Sha’uri, but still a loss.
Ke’ra was reaction
to so many old hurts, and she was someone he could help. Had
helped, despite Jack rampaging round the base with a loaded gun.
He knew now that Jack had been jealous, but at the time, he’d only seen
Jack venting his rage at being the one to set Linea free, wanting to
erase his own mistake with a bullet. They’d all been fooled by
Linea, but Daniel had faith in Ke’ra. She had the chance she
deserved to put her knowledge to good use, to live clean and free of
her past, and though Daniel was still weighed down by his own past, it
was due to Ke’ra he now had Jack. The extremity of Jack’s
jealous, protective rage had finally shocked Jack into thinking
straight, and led directly to that outrageous ambush when they’d limped
back to Vorash to get medical attention for Jacob after his ordeal on
Netu.
Daniel still had no
idea how Jack had known Daniel was in love with him before Daniel had,
but somehow, Jack had known. Just as he’d known on the journey
back from Netu that Daniel had reached his lowest ebb, and had
ruthlessly taken advantage of Daniel’s evident confusion, though Jack
hadn’t learned until much later that Daniel was confused because
Apophis had used his best friend against him. Much, much later.
Making love with
Jack that first time, in fact making love with Jack every time, stunned
him with the intensity of the passion he could be made to feel, the
uninhibited responses he was encouraged to share. Daniel
remembered with crystal clarity making love with Jack amidst the
comforting familiarity of the dunes. He remembered Jack's fervent
kisses, Jack's sure, certain touch, the deep, powerful glides against
his aching erection. He remembered pushing urgently against Jack,
clinging desperately to Jack's shoulders, shuddering, sobbing into the
hollow of Jack's throat as the hot, aching pleasure rippled through him
endlessly. He hadn't even known Jack could spell 'Tantric'.
Jolted back to the
here and now, literally, Daniel scowled. Jack was doing a LOT of
encouraging, right now. In fact, the ecstatic rocking and rubbing
was bordering on a one-colonel cheerleading section. Jack was
eyeing Daniel’s lips hungrily. When Jack was this libidinous, it
was time to play dirty. Daniel made with the melting, soulful
eyes. “Please, Jack, let me up, let me finish,” he pleaded,
batting his lashes gently. Jack looked a little glazed. He
was SUCH a pushover. “SG-5 need this information. You wouldn’t be
putting the moves on me if the report was intended for SG-1, you know
you wouldn’t. Admit it.”
“Ruthless little
bastard,” Jack bitched, refusing to admit any such thing. He
sighed heavily, easing his grip enough to let Daniel push and prod and
finally shove hard enough to get out from under him. Jack didn’t
feel obligated to help in any way. He had a boner with Daniel’s
name on it and he was going to share this pain freely with the
cause. He didn't know why the hell Daniel allowed himself to be
guilt-tripped into bringing work home the moment Jack's back was
turned. He stalked out of the bedroom and followed Daniel back
around to the kitchen, pouncing on another cold beer as Daniel settled
down at the dining table again with his laptop and his books.
Always the books.
Jack took a long
draught of the beer and slunk back over to the couch and the
remote. He was tantalised by all the naked skin being flaunted at
him, totally off-limits until duty was very definitely done. He
couldn’t fault Daniel for following orders. We-ell, to be
accurate, he couldn’t admit out loud he WAS faulting Daniel for
following orders when they could have been rolling around getting
sweaty, so he was just going to have to settle for amusing himself
until Daniel was finished. Then he was going to make Daniel
suffer. Jack sighed heavily and rested his beer on his
boner. An ice pack was obvious enough to be fun, paraded
pointedly past his hard-hearted love, but Jack wasn’t into masochism
and at least he could drink the damn beer after it took the edge
off. He sighed heavily and channel surfed.
“JACK!”
Yeah, yeah.
Jack surfed a few more channels on general principles and then found
what looked like a cop show. The big guy was definitely your
typical studly hard-ass cop The little guy appeared to be a
spaniel from this angle. That was Big Hair, all right.
Aww. Bless. The little guy had curls AND big blue
eyes. The kid was about twelve and the hard-ass towered over him
as they dove for cover. The frigging rocket the bad guys were
using was definitely over-kill. Jack mused over the logistics of
hijacking. A little C4, a little CS gas, open truck, minimal
noise, no casualties. Nice and easy. He sneered at the
screen. Strictly amateur hour, here, even if the fuckers did have
MP5s, Jack’s own weapon of choice.
Jack guzzled some
more beer and lay down to lazily watch the proceedings. He
noticed almost immediately there was sparkage between the cop and the
little guy. More than a spark as the big guy hovered protectively
and hustled the kid home, out of danger. Maybe the kid was one of
these sensitive types, nerves couldn’t take it. The studly
hard-ass wouldn’t even let the kid drive. Jack eyed the big guy
thoughtfully. Nah. Stud just wanted an excuse to tuck him
up all snug in bed. That was one raging case of denial, right
there. Jack guzzled a little more, watched a little more.
Chuckled. Whoa, boy, was it ever denial. The two of ‘em
were all over each other, even with the denial chicks fawning and
fighting over them.
“These guys are SO
doing it,” Jack called casually when the break started.
“Which guys are
doing what?” Daniel called back, totally at sea. He’d tuned Jack
out completely.
“What we should be
doing right now,” Jack said pointedly. “This is a hoot.
Talk about repressed. The big, macho cop has his hands all over
the little guy every chance he gets.” He heard a definite snort
from behind the laptop and jumped up, grinning. “THAT was
entirely different. I wasn’t trying to get in your pants.”
He loped around to stand behind Daniel, cupped his hand roughly around
the back of a tense neck. “Not at first, anyway,” he admitted,
dropping both hands to give Daniel a little neck rub, ease some of the
tension away. “How’s it going?” he asked softly as Daniel sighed
and leaned into his kneading hands.
“I’m getting
there. Slowly. Can’t afford a mistake here, Jack, this is a
rigidly structured society, with strict adherence to protocol.
The Tucau are cutting the upstart Tau'ri ‘aliens’ all the slack they’re
willing to, and the best I can hope is that our responses aren’t seen
as out and out insults. Even acknowledging someone of a lower
caste than our team has been granted would be a mistake, and all I can
do is extrapolate from various Earth cultures so we can avoid the most
glaring errors.” Daniel pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge
of his nose. He had a sickening headache, which was growing more
intense by the second. Humidity killed his sinuses. “That
feels good,” he acknowledged as Jack’s gentle, knowing fingers worked
their magic. “And that feels better,” he sighed as Jack planted a
light kiss in his hair.
Jack headed off to
the medicine cabinet and the aspirin without a word, slipping into the
kitchen to pour Daniel an icy cold ginger ale and heaping a bowl full
of ice cream for him. He hesitated. Aah, what the
hell. Danny liked something to hold onto when he got
excited. Jack scooped himself a slightly bigger heap and strode
out to resuscitate his wilting archaeologist. “Time out, Danny,”
he ordered briskly. “Take a load off. That’s an order,” he
used the magic words when Daniel grimaced at him.
“You can’t order me
to eat ice cream,” Daniel protested, a grin getting away from him.
“I just did.
Now get your ass down here before I have to enjoy myself thoroughly
coming back up there and fetching it,” Jack called over his shoulder as
he headed for the couch.
“You drive me up the
wall when you’re masterful,” Daniel mock-gushed, hitting the save key
gratefully.
Jack wisely said
nothing as Daniel slipped onto the couch and curled up next to him,
sighing softly and snuggling in, which was just fine by Jack.
Daniel swallowed the aspirin without complaint, which meant he had the
headache that made him throw up, and took long, greedy gulps of his icy
ginger ale, which meant he was dehydrated. Jack felt guilty about
hogging the fan. He knew perfectly well Daniel coped with the
desert heat better than the rest of the team put together, but intense
humidity gave him this headache, the one where he threw up. Not
that he ever complained about it, no, not Danny. He would just go
grey at the first convenient moment, and disappear behind the selected
tree or rock the instant Jack or Carter had checked it out.
Carter had mastered the difficult art of keeping both eyes on the
treeline and one soothing hand on Daniel. Not her gun hand,
obviously. Daniel would have died at the stake before he’d let
Jack or Teal’c do the soothing pat thing, but Carter was sneaky,
somehow convincing Daniel it was for her sake, not his. That was
of course entirely different.
Jack nudged over
bowl and spoon invitingly. “Dig in,” he encouraged, ploughing
into his own goodies. He watched out the corner of his eye,
fascinated, as Daniel carefully scooped up a little of each flavour in
turn and then ate them all together, tongue slipping slowly over the
spoon, revelling sensually in the explosion of tastes. Jack hid a
smile and settled down to watch his show again. The other
one. The one on television.
“What the hell is a
student doing partnering a cop anyway?” Jack asked eventually, after
he’d made a serious dent in the ice cream. Big enough that Daniel
had surreptitiously moved his own bowl to safety. Lucky Jack
didn’t take this stuff personally.
“He’s an
anthropology student. The cop is his doctoral research subject.”
“The cop is only
interested in researching one thing, and it ain’t the doctorate.”
“I think they like
each other. A lot,” Daniel admitted after observing the onscreen
action for a while. “The big guy and – um – “
“Jim is the stud,
Blair is the cuddly one,” Jack supplied helpfully. He
snorted. “You betcha he likes him, only he’s not owning up to
it. If this guy was any more repressed he’d be up on the roof of
the cop building with one of those MP5’s they just confiscated. The
guys who made the show must have been tearing their hair out.”
Daniel nodded
reluctantly. The two main characters WERE a little too 'in touch'
with their feelings – and each other - for any network executive’s
peace of mind. They - um - felt a lot. He glanced at the
screen. Felt a lot literally AND figuratively. A moment
later he snapped bolt upright on the couch, bridling as Jack burst out
laughing. “He panicked?” Daniel snarled, outraged. “Blair
tripped and fell flat on his face in front of natives menacing him with
SPEARS?”
“I guess the big,
blue-eyed charm doesn’t work on every indigenous type in a grass skirt,
huh?” Jack grinned. “And cut the kid some slack. He just
told the denial chick he was uncoordinated.”
“It’s
embarrassing. It’s such a damn cliché,” Daniel
snarled. “He’s an academic so that automatically makes him some
helpless wuss unable to function when he’s put into an alien
environment? That is such crap! The process of getting a
research grant is cut-throat, Jack, you’ve no idea. Some kid
who’d fall flat on his face the first time someone waved a spear at him
wouldn’t stand any chance of getting a field project let alone a
research grant in anthropology, because there are fifty more just like
him who’d stand their ground. Screw up once, just ONCE, you are
O-U-T, out. You’ve never seen me fall on my face when someone
waved a spear at me, and I’m a linguist,” he snapped indignantly.
“I have to get back to my work.” He scowled vengefully at the TV
and stalked back to his laptop. “They’ll screw anyone for
ratings,” he grumbled.
“No, they won’t,”
Jack corrected, reaching for the abandoned bowl just as Daniel trotted
back down the stairs and snatched it from his grasp with a reproachful
look. “Jim wants to, he REALLY wants to, but they won’t let him.”
“That’s what fan
fiction is for,” Daniel said cursorily.
“What?”
“Fan fiction,”
Daniel called as he sat down and opened his report file again.
“People write stories that fix things they think are wrong for the
show. Bad characterisation, improbable plots, even the death of
favourite characters.”
“You read this
stuff?”
“No, but I know it’s
on the web. A lot of anthropologists and information scientists
are studying the impact of the free exchange of information and ideas
on the world wide web - the global community, you know?” Daniel
accepted the moment the words were out of his mouth that was probably a
rhetorical question. “I’ve read some articles recently, and fan
fiction was one of the issues addressed.”
Jack unplugged the
fan and carried it up into the dining area. He fussed with it
until he got the maximum cool air playing over Daniel’s glistening and
tragically still off-limits skin, kissed him gently on his shivering
nape, and left him to it.
As he watched the
show, Jack was wondering about Jim who’d wanted to do it with Blair,
and couldn’t because it was prime time. He was wondering if
anybody had fixed that.
“For God’s sake!”
Jack howled.
Daniel jumped.
All had been calm for a few hours now. He was almost finished his
report, mostly because Jack had been totally engrossed in whatever it
was he was looking at on his laptop. For engrossed, read
QUIET. He’d hooked up the modem, so Daniel presumed Jack was
looking at something on the web.
“Sexy_colonel is
taken,” Jack snapped in answer to a mildly enquiring look from
Daniel. “And leather_boy. AND hockey_stud.”
“Excuse me?” Daniel
bleated, totally taken aback by the stream of salacious non-sequiturs.
“I need a pseudonym,
Daniel, try to keep up,” Jack said impatiently. “I can’t have my
feedback coming to my officially assigned USAF email address, can I?”
“Sexy ‘colonel’?”
Daniel challenged. “And more importantly, ‘feedback’?” he asked
cautiously.
“Colonel is
neutral. Anybody could be a sexy colonel,” Jack insisted.
“Including an Air
Force colonel,” Daniel commented crisply. “Don’t give me any crap
about reverse psychology, either,” he added hurriedly. Jack’s
mouth closed with a definite snap. “Let it go,” he ordered his
mutinous – and if he was being completely honest here – sexy colonel.
“You didn’t say I
was sexy,” Jack muttered, trying out the hurt puppy eyes to no
noticeable effect.
“I certainly
didn’t,” Daniel said meanly, accepting his report conclusion and final
read through were going to have to wait a little longer. Things
were looking much more interesting on Planet Jack. “What the hell
do you need a pseudonym for, Jack? Feedback? Feedback for
what?”
“My story,” Jack
beamed. “You were right about this fan fiction stuff. Found
a shit load of it.”
“About ‘The
Sentinel’?”
“About Jim and
Blair, and it isn’t fan fic. Well, it is, but it’s a sub-genre,”
he added cunningly. He knew Daniel well enough to judge the
effect a carefully placed mention of technical stuff like transitive
verbs or absolute dating could have on his susceptible lover.
“Slash fic. I knew if I spotted those two wanted to do it, I
wouldn’t be the only one.”
Daniel saved his
report, put the laptop on standby, slid it to one side. He leaned
forward, fascinated, propped his chin on his hands and stared at
Jack. “And just how did you find this ‘slash fic’?”
“I did a
search. Not one of those fancy pants Boolean string beans you
use, but completely effective nonetheless,” Jack said smugly.
“Which keywords did
you use?”
“’Jim’, ‘Blair’ and
'fucking’,” Jack said crisply.
Daniel blinked
hard. “Ah. The…direct approach. Crude, but
effective,” he admitted.
“Gotta love that
document level indexing on Google. I got four thousand three
hundred and seventy hits.” Jack grinned. That was a lot of
fucking.
“And just how,
exactly, does this lead us to sexy_colonel and feedback?” Daniel
queried gently.
“Because I’ve read
some of those stories and I can do better. Seriously, Danny, if I
gotta read one more story about the kid having to take it up the ass
‘cause he’s the Guide and the Blessed Fucking Protector gets to stick
it to him whenever he feels like it, but it’s okay, it's DESTINY, my
head will explode. It's just the little guy's bad luck he's a
guy? And what the hell, let's fix it by making the kid a wuss in
crying need of protection and a good hard fuck to keep him
'safe'. Keep him in line, more like, 'cause God forbid Big Bad
Jim should make an effort, woo him or something. Sheesh."
“Oh,” Daniel said
weakly. He was somewhat at a loss. This was surreal even
for Jack. “You’re going to fix the fix-it fan fiction?” he
clarified. He caught the tender, somewhat speculative warmth in
Jack's eyes and blushed. Wooing was one of Jack's
specialities. Jack never assumed he'd be getting any, for all the
teasing, and their dates were followed by seriously creative
seductions. Jack loved it when Daniel played hard to get, and
Daniel loved Jack going postal when Daniel played TOO hard to get.
“Yeah, sure.
I’ve skimmed. Big Jim was military, Special Forces. Me
too. He’s hot for an archaeologist with beautiful big blue
eyes. Me too.”
"Blair is an
anthropologist,” Daniel snapped, ignoring the 'eyes’ stuff. Jack
got sappy from time to time, and all Daniel could do was ride it out
until Jack came to his senses and started biting his head off instead
of stroking it. Daniel tried to avoid pillow talk, even when they
were both naked and feeling pretty sappy. The occasional
'sapphire' or 'cerulean' reference was liveable, but Daniel wasn't
about to reciprocate because Jack would want to be 'velvety' the whole
damn time.
"Huh?" Jack muttered
vaguely, eyes on his screen.
'He's an
anthropologist, not an archaeologist,” Daniel insisted.
"Ah, they both dig
up dead guys, what's the difference?" Jack brushed it off impatiently.
“Anthropologist is
easier to spell,” Daniel said dryly. “And you mean
palaeontologist.”
“You both study
cultures, though. You got the damn PhD on your records.”
“You were Black
Ops,” Daniel said lightly. It was a little blatant to point out that
there were three branches of military service, and Jack would be as
happy to be called 'sailor' as Daniel was to be called
'anthropologist'. He was a Doctor of Archaeology. Jack was
an Air Force colonel. After a moment's careful reflection, Daniel
decided never to mention the word 'sailor' in Jack's presence. It
would only encourage him. Daniel could actually picture several
scenarios where Jack wouldn't mind being referred to as a sailor at
all, most of them involving an inflatable submarine and various ways of
getting Daniel wet and wild. Anchors aweigh, indeed. Daniel
glanced at Jack, thought about boarding parties, and shuddered.
“I fucking wasn’t
Black Ops,” Jack snarled, “I’ve never sunk THAT low – oh, very funny, I
get the damn point.”
“I’ve spent half my
life studying the written word, Jack. I’m an archaeologist, and
my area of expertise is the languages and literature of ancient
cultures. Archaeology is a specialised field of study within
anthropology, certainly, just as linguistics is a specialised field of
study within archaeology. It was studying the development of
early writing systems that led to my research on the
cross-pollinisation of ancient cultures.”
“Linguist is easier
to spell, too,” Jack said lightly. He stared at Daniel for a
moment. “Special Ops is sanctioned, Daniel,” he said
seriously. “It’s not the same as Black Ops. I’ve never been
a paid assassin.” Or a kidnapper, or a torturer, or…
“You don’t need to
tell me that,” Daniel said softly. “And I don’t want this to be
construed in any way as encouragement, but how about Fly Boy?”
“Damn, I like that,”
Jack pounced on his keyboard and typed furiously, hitting the submit
key with a flourish. “Godammit!” he glared accusingly at the
infuriating red field on his screen.
“Taken?”
“Sixty-nine of them,
apparently,” Jack complained gloomily. “I know!” Jack added
‘fanfic’ and beamed when it sailed through. “There ya go,
flyboy_fanfic at your service,” Jack gloated. “And at yahoo.com.”
Daniel strolled
around the table to take a look at Jack’s new identity. Then he
took another look. “Um, Jack, I can’t help but notice this
profile has ‘female’ checked in the gender box.”
Jack shot him a
withering look. “Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel. If everyone
knew I was a man, my work would have no credibility. These are
women, writing for women. Actually, I think some of them are
little girls writing for women, from the realism of some of the sex
scenes I’ve saved on my hard drive for later. In the humour
folder. I have to be a woman.”
“Flyboy?” Daniel
queried.
“An assumed
identity,” Jack explained patiently.
Daniel sat down
limply. “Let me get this straight. You’re a gay man – “
“Celibate at this
precise moment,” Jack grumbled, “but I’ll let that one go. And
not gay per se, since my cup pretty much runneth over with you.
I’ve never felt the slightest urge to have - random example here -
Teal’c squirming all over me.” He grinned as Daniel’s blush
bottomed out somewhere round his knees. Daniel brought a certain
quality of enthusiasm to his intense, ongoing and protracted
explorations of Jack’s body that reminded Jack irresistibly of a
possessive puppy worrying at a bone that was too big for it. Lots
of concentrated licking, kissing, nibbling and growling. Except
for those occasions when Jack had Daniel inside him, and then Daniel
was pure sultry confidence. Boy, was he EVER. “Jim himself
is strictly ‘Blairsexual’ so I guess that makes me – “
“If you say it I’m
going right home, storm or no storm,” Daniel snarled.
“Blairsexual?” he asked incredulously.
“According to
Blair. Some of them write him like he’s twelve years old,” Jack
confessed. “It’s disturbing, actually. He’s a grown man,
but they’re letting the curls, the big blue eyes, and the studly cop
fool them. In one story, Blair was a foot shorter than Jim, just
to make sure we got it. Poor kid is the designated bottom.
The ‘girl’. He hardly ever gets a break. Scary stuff.”
“It certainly is, if
some of the writer's are making the relationship unequal…” Daniel began.
"Wussifying…" Jack
supplied helpfully.
"Disempowering,”
Daniel amended, “and feminising Blair to emphasise Jim's role as the
archetypal warrior-protector."
"Did you have to
bring a word like ‘archetypal’ into a serious literary discussion?”
Jack asked sourly.
Daniel opened his
mouth, ran through the ensuing argument in his mind and closed his
mouth again with a decided snap. He settled for an apologetic
look and made suitably encouraging noises to his haughty artiste.
Jack graciously
acknowledged Daniel’s surrender. “Blair seems to be the
designated bottom even in stories that shouldn't know what a bottom
is," Jack sighed. Some of the denial-repression stuff wasn't
pretty, and he hadn't saved a single story where Jim vented all over
the kid 'cause he wouldn't admit he wanted him.
Daniel took a deep
breath and tried to get a handle on flyboy's world-view. “So,
just to clarify, you’re a gay man who gets so much a couple of hours
doing without feels like the end of the world, pretending to be a woman
with no experience of gay sex or possibly no experience of sex at all
pretending to be a repressed gay man with no experience of gay sex.”
“Just throw in
Jimbo’s super powers and you’ve got it nailed,” Jack added
judiciously. “Speaking of which, it’s been ALL DAY since either
one of us got nailed,” he whined.
“You had brunch on
me.”
“Except for the
brunch quickie.”
“See?
See! We don’t DO quickies. You dragged me out a deep,
refreshing sleep at ten this morning and we didn’t get out of bed until
two this afternoon and you’re still bitching about not getting any,”
Daniel accused. “Some people could get through a month of Friday
date nights with what YOU demand out of a ‘quickie’.”
Jack bit down a
grin. It seemed petty to point out that Daniel was the one who
liked to make love in the morning, especially Sunday morning, and he
was the one who loved cuddling up under the covers, talking about
anything or everything, snacking, making love again. And
again. “Yeah, well, I’m getting a few ideas about demanding a LOT
from the good stuff for when the drought is finally over.”
“The good stuff?”
“Some of the writers
are good. VERY good. Some of the sex is better. The
guys are grown-ups. These are filthy, filthy women, and I only
wish I could meet some of them. They know what nipples are for.”
Daniel blushed.
“You were a quick
study,” Jack said indulgently, stealing a swift kiss. “Now get
your ass back to that report and let me work here. And prepare to
be ruthlessly exploited.”
Daniel shook his
head despairingly and went back to his own laptop. As he was
powering up, a thought struck him. “How on Earth can you write a
convincing story after seeing only one episode?”
“I know all I need
to know. It’s right there in the fan fiction and the episode in
question was pretty conclusive from what I’ve read. The Big Bad
Blessed Protector Jim is a mother hen with a colour co-ordinated
Tupperware fetish and a MAJOR cleaning perversion. Blair is an
adorably cuddly, enthusiastic little – literally little - innocent who
gets hustled home after nasty action scenes 'upset his sensitive
disposition' while Big Jim does the manly cop thing. Blair
doesn't do what he's told, he wanders off, he can’t fight for shit, he
has to be rescued, and he cries. They got denial chicks all over
the damn place to take our minds off the fact Jimbo would be dragging
the kid into the nearest holding cell to take down his particulars
every five minutes, and the denial chicks have a name. Mary
Sues. I got all I need.”
Daniel strove for
but failed to find an adequate response.
Jack glanced up,
grinning fiendishly. “I swear to God, the kid did all of those
things in the episode I watched. And it had TWO Mary Sues.
One each. Hedging their bets, I guess. Major mojo they’re
trying to ignore. Blistering the screen. And it turns out
the kid is actually LIVING with the cop. Subtext my ass.”
“You’ve covered an
awful lot of ground in the space of a few hours,” Daniel commented
suspiciously as Jack typed furiously.
“King of Skim,
that’s me,” Jack muttered distractedly. “How the hell do you
think I get through all the crap you and Carter keep inflicting on my
in-tray?” He became aware of a very crowded silence. He
looked up. He looked down. Quickly. “I just bought
myself another hour of report time, right?” he asked, already knowing
the answer was an emphatic yes.
“At least. And
a vegetarian feast pizza.”
“Ow!” Jack
eyed his love cynically. “How come you look all adorable and
cuddly and big eyed and you’re actually a vindictive prick?”
“You got lucky,”
Daniel smiled sweetly. “And you put up with me because you want
to keep right on getting lucky.”
“See? Mean,”
Jack complained to the room at large before the lure of creativity
sucked him back into the depths of formulating deathless fan fic prose.
”What’s the title of
this epic work?” Daniel asked after a discreet interval and very little
in the way of productivity on his part.
“’Blair’s Savage
Secret’,” Jack typed a little more. “Stop laughing. It’s
either that or ‘Primal Impulse’. I’m subverting the
sub-genre. Gonna play along with the helpless Guide/studly
Blessed Protector thing until the end, then the poor kid gets to drill
the big guy up the ass for once.”
“Can’t be ‘Blair’s
Savage Secret’, then,” Daniel suggested fair-mindedly. “You’ll
clue in your audience at the start. ‘Primal Impulse’ is
better.” Daniel did a little desultory typing. “Subverting
the sub-genre?” he asked softly.
Jack looked up
again. He smiled. Very big, very blue, and right now very
soft eyes were fixed on him. Daniel melted whenever Jack gave any
hint whatsoever he was either listening to Daniel or just learning new
shit out and about on his own. That softness suggested a rapid
final read through and the meat feast from Domino’s, side order of
naked archaeologist to go. Tender hearted.
Susceptible. Hmm. “What do you want to be called?”
“What?” Daniel
stiffened.
O-kaay. So
Danny wasn't THAT susceptible. “You’re going to be in the story,
and Daniel is too obvious. OMC.” Jack threw that in
deliberately to throw Daniel off the scent. Daniel would ask.
Daniel needed to know. He always needed to know. It was one
of those immutable things. Maybe even archetypal.
“OMC?”
“That’s guy for Mary
Sue.”
“I don’t want to be
anything in your story.”
“Well you are.
I need you. I’ve already rejected the idea of having me as the
main OMC, Jim’s superior officer from way back when, a mission gone
wrong, torturing us both with guilt, his fault of course,“ Jack
challenged. He had considered some him-Jim UST but he was about
as attracted to Jim as he was to Carter, so he was regretfully letting
that cliché go.
“Oh, of course,”
Daniel gushed, rolling his eyes.
“But that wouldn’t
work. Blair would drop Jimbo in a heartbeat if I was on the
table.”
Daniel took in the
predatory gleam in Jack’s eyes and put his head in his hands,
despairing. “You mean that literally, don’t you? Jeez.”
“Kitchen sex is
hot,” Jack said crisply. “I’m conscious of my demographic, here.”
“Demographic?”
Daniel’s head snapped up. “You’re not thinking of letting anyone
read this story, are you?”
“Why write it if
only I get to read it?” Jack said reasonably. “It’s a good
story. Visiting student friend – that’s you – seducing sweet
little Blair," he glanced at Daniel shiftily, "well, kinda." And
it had to be Blair. No way was Jim getting his claws into Danny
even in the guise of a gratuitously exploited OMC. "Blair comes
home dazed. Jim smells you on the kid – he’s always sniffing
Blair for some reason. Super powers, I guess. And listening
to the kid’s heartbeat. Voyeur if you ask me. Anyway,” Jack
dragged himself back to the point, “Jim goes NUTSO and throws Blair out
– that’s a fan fiction classic too – guy gets crazy jealous – what?”
Jack demanded as Daniel buried his head in his hands again.
Daniel’s shoulders were shaking. “I do NOT get jealous. I’m
protective. I have to be, because it took a five-alarm hard-on
and my tongue down your throat for you to pick up on the sparkage
between US. That’s the ONLY alarm I want you feeling.
Speaking of which – “
“No.”
“It would help me to
visualise, and we’re right here AT the table,” Jack wheedled.
“No.”
“Mean-spirited
shit,” Jack sighed. “Stifling my creativity, here." That
appeal also failed to yield visible results. Jack abandoned the
unequal struggle. "Anyway, Blair moves into your hotel room with
you, and Jim does the psycho stalker thing he’s apparently
pre-programmed to do if it looks like he’s going to lose his guide, and
in the middle of this it turns out you have this – “
“Pathologically
jealous, devilishly handsome, dangerously sexy older boyfriend with
shady government connections?” Daniel was appalled, he just KNEW how
Jack’s mind worked.
“Devilishly
handsome?” Jack straightened up, beaming. “Dangerously sexy?”
“Fan fiction
hyperbole,” Daniel quelled him.
Jack scowled.
“I’m excising all references to pert buttocks, then.”
“Thank God for small
mercies.” Daniel eyed Jack’s sleek, deceptive innocence
dubiously. “No.”
“What?” Jack tapped
each key, slowly. Precisely. Tauntingly.
“No.”
“I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”
“No goddamn way you
and me and Blair have a threesome. NO.”
“I have full
creative control, here, and don’t criticise my sex scenes until you can
make me come just by biting my tongue.”
“Jack, I can make
you come just by biting MY tongue,” Daniel smiled sweetly. “And
YOU need a beta reader.”
“A what?”
“A beta
reader. To check for grammar, punctuation, spelling, insane plots
and ludicrous characterisation.”
“And that would be
you, would it?”
“It would indeed,”
Daniel said firmly. “So just email that puppy on over the moment
it’s finished.”
“To your officially
assigned USAF email? Or…” Jack let it trail off gently. He
smiled wolfishly as Daniel glowered at him suspiciously. “Check
out chocolate_covered_archaeologist,” he taunted, “also at
yahoo.com. Sexy Naked Archaeologist was already taken and Studly
Spacemonkey was too obvious.”
“You can’t save the
day, you know,” Daniel ignored the deliberate provocation, because he
had a horrible feeling he’d find that email account when he went
looking for it, and he was sure now he had a firm grip on Jack's
terrifying creative processes. “That has to be Blair.”
“Jim,” Jack
corrected absently. “Blair is the rescu-ee, not the
rescu-er. And I can save the day if I want. I’m an
OMC. It’s my JOB. I get to be skilled and resourceful as
well as devilishly handsome and dangerously sexy. Just kiss my
ass and call me Mary Sue.”
Daniel shook his
head in a vain attempt to clear it, then cautiously loaded IE5.
Unlike Jack, he had a wireless modem on his laptop. He also had
way more ram, a bigger hard drive and a multi-processor kernel that
gave the colonel a severe case of laptop envy every time he whipped it
out. Daniel pulled up Yahoo from his favourites and hit the mail
button. After typing in the username he had no hesitation in
typing in **** as the password. It couldn’t be anything else, not
with an ego the size of Planet Jack to deal with. It wasn’t
anything else, and he had two emails, one from Yahoo and one from
flyboy_fanfic. Daniel read, digested, did a quick web search, hit
the reply button and rapidly typed a restrained - under the
circumstances - response. Then he hit send.
Jack knew it was
only a matter of time before he got an answer to his various
suggestions, so he was alternating between saving his story and hitting
the check mail button. He grinned when he saw that Daniel had
tabled a response.
***
Date:
Sun, 27 Aug 2000 19:07:41 (MDT)
From:
chocolate_covered_archaeologist@yahoo.com
Subject:
Primal Impulse
To:
flyboy_fanfic@yahoo.com
They’re
hanging just fine, flyboy, thank you.
> Hey gorgeous!
>
Can we have sex? How about you just…
>
<snipped>
No,
we can’t. Not now. Possibly not ever. And if you pull
what I snipped, your email won’t be the only thing singing soprano.
> How do you feel about being called Sebastian?
I
hate it. I do not want to be in this story. If you persist
in your attempts to write me into this story to exploit me for
gratuitously graphic ‘three on a table’ sex scenes I’m going to smack
you in the head with your laptop.
I
also hate James, Will, Benjamin, Julian and Jean-Luc. I wish
you’d watch something that didn’t make your brain rot, unlike the
Sci-Fi channel. I’m only glad you didn’t try to saddle me with
Obi-something. I know all about your thing for padawans and their
light sabres. And in the interests of accuracy, I’m fairly
confident that ‘Jackson Heights’ is a suburb in New York. And
finally, FYI, they named the DOG Indiana!
> I take it you have no strenuous objections to a little
BDSM? Blair takes it on as well as up the ass in a lot of
stories. How about <snipped>
I
know perfectly well you’re NOT just talking about the story!
Having identified the source of this acronym, all I can say is any part
of you that touches me, you don’t get back, and if you wave any kind of
implement at me with sex in mind, I’ll be using it on YOU where the sun
don’t shine.
> picture galleries…can’t carry you around in my wallet,
can I?
‘BOONIE
BOY’???? You’ve been taking PICTURES of me? With MY
camera? Oh my God! I thought you were taking pictures of
the structures for me! You were joking about the photos of my
ass, right? Right?
> firmware
That’s
disgusting.
> <snipped>
Well,
okay, if you don’t annoy me to the point I have to concuss you, the
answer is yes.
> love you
Why
is frankly beyond me, but, yes, I love you too. Now leave me
alone.
> p.s <snipped>
I
don’t want to be IN the damn story, and I certainly don’t want to be
kidnapped and tortured with Blair just so you and Jim have to join
forces to kick majorly bad guy ass and rescue us. No.
N-O. Not even if the two of you DO reach a grudging big cojones
mutual respect thing as a result. You’re NOT the Lone Ranger and
I’m certainly not frigging Tonto, and this story isn’t supposed to be
about US anyway.
> p.s p.s Hi Ho Silver! Away!!
That
was NOT funny.
> breakfast
Not
marmalade, though, it’s too sticky. And nothing with seeds.
You simply can’t get them all, and God knows you give it your best shot
every time.
> yours
Mine?
You certainly are.
C.C.A.
p.s.
Yes, my head still hurts.
p.p.s
Yes, please, just so long as you’ve grasped that pickles DON’T go with
tuna in any world that makes sense.
***
Jack created himself
a C.C.A folder, moved the mail, then shut down Yahoo. Danny
wasn’t up to playing so – he shrugged. “Philistine. Pickles
very definitely go with tuna,” Jack grinned. “And no, you’re not
having coffee, not with that headache.” He saved his story one
last time then put the laptop on stand by. “Finish the conclusion
and I’ll proof read the report for you. If I don’t get it,
Captain Noble won’t either.” He nodded, satisfied, when Daniel
just smiled gratefully, and headed off to make the sandwiches.
It hurt to do this
to innocent canned tuna, but this was how Danny liked it, and Danny
wasn’t feeling shit hot, so this was how Danny would get it. Jack
delved into the freezer for sweetcorn, the bottom corner cupboard for a
bowl, plates and a glass, the top corner cupboard for the balsamic
vinegar. Then he grabbed submarine rolls, salad and mayo, and a
potato. Heated, chopped, sliced and diced, mashed and
dished. Three large sandwiches, one small, crisp, artistically
arranged tuna salad with a hot potato in its skin, one milk, one beer,
two aspirin. And probably an early night and a long, recuperative
sleep for Daniel if he could pry him away from his spell checker.
When he emerged from
the kitchen, Jack found Daniel sitting at Jack’s laptop, looking
distinctly accusatory.
“Boonie Boy?” Daniel
challenged.
“Nothing you
couldn’t show Carter,” Jack said lightly. “All the sexy naked
archaeologist pictures are password protected.” He slid Daniel’s
plate and glass to a spot by the laptop and nodded. “Go
ahead. I know you’re dying to read it.” He set his own
plate and bottle down by Daniel’s laptop and sighed. One pristine
document, open and waiting.
“Thank you,” Daniel
delved into the tuna. It was so easy to add too much balsamic and
overwhelm the other flavours. He tasted cautiously. “This
is great,” he praised lavishly. Jack sulked if Daniel didn't
enthuse at length about every single thing prepared by Jack's fair
hands, and if he didn't enthuse fast enough, Jack started asking
questions. The only appropriate response to a loaded throwaway
comment like 'I think I used too much chilli' was to guzzle down the
iced water after every mouthful and insist he could barely taste
it. Allergies tended to cover incidental side-effects such as
wheezing or streaming eyes. In fact, allergies were vital
survival tools in Jack's kitchen. In return, Jack sniffed
haughtily and picked at every nutritionally balanced gourmet meal
lovingly prepared with the very best of fresh ingredients until he was
absolutely positive Daniel accepted on a molecular level the magnitude
of the favour Jack was doing him by choking it down just to please
him. Then Jack fell on it like a starving wolf pack bringing down
an elk. Daniel fully sympathised with the travails of various SGC
parents who described in graphic detail the agonies they went through
every time they tried to get a six-year old to eat a carrot.
Daniel had a similar experience every time he served Jack broccoli, and
he, like the parents, had learned the hard way the ONLY way to compel
obedience was by threatening to withhold dessert.
“This is no way to
treat tuna,” Jack corrected. It tasted good, but it wasn’t
traditional. Daniel had changed his life in lots of ways he’d
never considered way back when the only thing on his mind had been
burying himself in Daniel’s ass forever. Five months – or two,
given his downtime on Edora – together, and the ONLY spot on Daniel he
hadn’t buried himself was Daniel’s ass. Jack had been ready on
day one, Daniel still wasn’t ready, and since it was Daniel’s virgin
ass in question, he had the final say. Jack was waiting with
patience for the day Daniel stopped tensing up when Jack’s tongue or a
careful finger slid inside him. Daniel enjoyed it, once he
relaxed, and Jack had learned he could coax Daniel into an incredible
gentle orgasm which just rippled through him endlessly if Jack was
careful, could hold Daniel just there. In the meantime, he had to
put up with shit like…balsamic vinegar.
Jack started wolfing
down his sandwiches and reading at the same time. Then he had to
stop wolfing in order to open up the Webster's dictionary Daniel had
stored on the hard drive. After reading the first few paragraphs
of the introduction, Jack opened the Oxford English too, just to be on
the safe side. Then he got back to wolfing and reading.
Carter could actually learn a lot from the way Daniel wrote his
research papers and reports. Daniel was in some ways a frustrated
teacher; he no sooner learned a thing than he wanted to share it.
It wasn't Daniel's fault Jack tended to shut him down. It wasn't really
fair, but Jack just couldn't get past the idea you didn't keep a dog
and bark yourself. It was wasteful. If he REALLY needed to
know something, he could always ask. Daniel always explained so
he could understand, and he wasn't giving Jack the Sesame Street
version, his written papers were just as clear, just as comprehensive.
The only problem was
Daniel knew too much for the rest of them to keep up with him, and he
used language very precisely, used one appropriate multi-syllabic
monster instead of ten sloppy sentence fillers to share all the things
he knew. Some of the vocabulary challenged had to look stuff
up. The guys on the base never got in slanging matches with
Daniel. One, he was a really sweet guy who remembered your pet
guppy was called Pete, and everyone knew he was. Two, when
sufficiently provoked, he tended to call people names they had to go
away and look up, which meant they either had to look dumb at the time
or come back later and admit they'd had to hit the dictionary to work
out they'd just been royally insulted. A snappy comeback was
impossible in either event. Three, Jack would kill them. It
was mostly one and two though.
Jack had the
dictionaries open because Daniel had a headache and he didn't want to
bother him if he didn't have to. Acting dumb was smart. It
was sometimes the smartest thing he could do. It led to
underestimation. Daniel was the exact opposite. He was smart, and
that led to underestimation too. Being smart didn't make Daniel
weak, any more than acting dumb and mouthy made Jack stupid. He glanced
up and grinned at the bowed head. Daniel certainly never confused
ignorance with inability.
Hmm. Jack
noted that Daniel was now the equivalent of three sandwiches and about
to be two beers into the story. He was very quiet. "This is
LOL stuff," Jack prompted.
"'LOL'?"
"Laugh out loud."
"I'm laughing on the
inside."
"Oh." Jack got
up to fetch another beer, slightly disappointed. When he strolled
back to the report, which was surprisingly fluent, given Daniel's
headache, Daniel was waiting, in what Jack realised was probably
full-on 'beta' mode.
"James Kirke?
You think that leaving out the 'T' and adding an 'e' will in any way
disguise your, for want of a better word, inspiration?" Daniel
drawled, shaking his head. "You have one 'Jim' too many for this
story and if one of you has to go, it won't be Big Jim. Frankly,
I think I'm getting off light with Jonathan. Which brings me to
my second point," he said smoothly.
Jack scowled.
"It was a graceful homage."
"It was a thinly
disguised attempt to work in a lot of bad Star Trek jokes."
"Make it Mac then,"
Jack snarled.
"Why?"
"No reason," Jack
said innocently.
"Mac what?" Daniel
asked, clicking on 'find' ready to begin the laborious process of
search and destroy on Jack’s alter ego. It could take some
time. Jack or rather James cropped up throughout the text.
Like a rash. “Big Mac?” he muttered sotto voce.
"Just Mac," Jack
said evasively. Daniel scowled at him. Jack scowled
back. "Mystique," he suggested sullenly. He wasn't sitting
here tearing Daniel's turgid report to shreds, was he? He wasn't
being petty. He was being helpful. Supportive.
Clearly alien concepts to Doctor Clever Dick Beta Shredder Jackson.
Daniel eyed the
brewing storm signs and sighed. "About 'Jonathan'?"
"Yes?" Jack snapped.
"There is a certain
- lyricism - to the physical descriptions suggesting - um…" Daniel
faltered. "Suggesting…"
"Suggesting
what? WHAT?" Jack snarled. He'd spent AGES getting that
just right. You would have thought it would be easy, what with
the primary source sitting there half-naked on the other side of a
laptop. "I left out 'prick' did I?"
"No-o," Daniel said
judiciously. He blushed. "Jonathan is - um -
blessed." Built was more accurate. He was also dazzlingly
beautiful, slender, sleekly muscled, graceful, and the possessor of an
enchantingly sweet, not to say shy, little smile, a lot of silken skin
and ludicrously long lashes framing huge sapphire eyes. All of
which suggested - well - he stared at Jack, shaking his head
despairingly. "Suggesting you're six feet two inches of
marshmallow with an MP5." Jack had it BAD. Bad enough to
plumb depths of sappiness even Daniel, the recipient of Jack’s
tenderest feelings, had never suspected. "Pert?" Daniel asked
abruptly, the blush deepening.
Jack caught the
sparkling eyes and the quivering lips and let the mushy crack go.
It was never wise to attack from a position of weakness. "And
perfect," he agreed softly. "Just…peachy, in fact." He
tried out a hopeful leer, just in case Daniel was becoming more
amenable to, say hauling the ass in question into the bedroom for a
little literary criticism.
"That level of
sappiness in a grown man, let alone a Special Ops colonel,” Daniel
sighed. “It’s tragic."
Or not. Jack
glared at Daniel's once again bowed head and ploughed into the report
again. He was annoyed not to find so much as a typo to
ostentatiously correct or a single out of place tongue twister in
Daniel’s report. The frigging story was his first EVER attempt at
creative writing. He'd thought Daniel would be more
sympathetic. Encouraging. And if Jack timed it right,
willing to try out the sex scene on page eleven. A snort made him
look up. That was LOL. "Page eleven?" he asked hopefully.
"Page fifteen."
"Oh."
Oh. "You didn't care for page eleven?"
"You'll have to
apply to me directly," Daniel said crisply. "If that's what you
have in mind."
"Oh."
O-oh. Jack cheered up.
"But not right now,"
Daniel added hurriedly.
"Oh." Jack
sagged and scrolled pettishly down a few pages. Then he felt
guilty and scrolled back up. He scowled at Daniel, industriously
beta-ing. And snorting from time to time with ill-suppressed
amusement. Sweet little Blair was looking pretty good right now.
Daniel looked at the
screen. He wasn't on page fifteen, he was on page nineteen, at
the point where Jonathan was comforting Blair. Blair was getting
in a little practice on what Jack had in mind for the climax - pun
obviously intended - of the story. Jonathan had been sharing
Blair's bed for less than two days and he'd - well - it was a little
troubling. Daniel had technically been sharing Jack's bed for two
months and he…hadn't.
Jack looked up as
Daniel quickly looked down, noted the sudden tension in the
shoulders…"It's not a hint, and believe me, it is NOT an issue,'" he
said briskly.
"But you want
it. You want me."
Jack looked at
Daniel's pensive face and decided the naked truth wouldn't hurt for
once. "Daniel, I wanted it the first night we made love. No
one was more aware than I that you didn't know what the hell you
wanted, and I was pretty sure if I'd pushed it, you would have given me
what I wanted while you worked it out," he said dryly. Once he'd
gotten over the initial shock of Jack's declaration, and the first
orgasm he'd had in his right mind for years, Daniel had been ready to
try anything. Daniel had been so fearless, so trusting, and so
shocked at the speed it had all happened, Jack had just sighed and let
it go, waiting for the right time. Three months stranded on
Edora, during which Jack had been unfaithful, and then, not to put too
fine a point on it, breaking up for the fascinated audience with the
surveillance equipment before they’d even begun to deal with what had
happened between Jack and Laira, meant they hadn't reached the right
time yet. Daniel had forgiven Jack freely for both betrayals of
trust, so Jack fucking Daniel by proxy in a parody while Daniel was
still edging up to the main event in reality was a pretty shitty thing
to do. It was a sweet scene, and a good time was had by all, but
still, it was shitty. He shot Daniel an apologetic look, guessing
he'd be waiting a while longer.
Daniel decided to
table the discussion for now. Jack had never put any pressure on
him, quite the opposite, and it would be foolish to allow himself to
become self-conscious over - well, he had an idea about how he wanted
his first time, and it didn't involve a bed. Maybe it was a
little kinky, but his fantasy involved his desk, the smell and texture
of the written word filling his senses as Jack slipped inside
him. And rain. Soft rain, deadening the noise of the city,
making Daniel feel like he and Jack were the only two people in the
world. Skin, and striving together, their sighing echoed in the
rain. He glanced up and realised Jack was watching him
intently. He smiled reassuringly and decided to tackle page
twenty-one, which was where Jack had started to run out of steam in the
post-orgasmic kidnap sequence. He really needed to speak to Jack
about the font too, the text was huge, hence the staggeringly prolific
output. Jack was clearly a stranger to writer’s block, and
apparently had eyestrain he was hiding from Janet.
"You've slipped up
in the action scene," Daniel announced, grinning as his colonel
stiffened alarmingly.
"I DON'T think so."
"You did," Daniel
insisted. "Blair is acting completely out of character.
Instead of bleating in terror and falling over his own feet, he stabs
one of the kidnappers with a table fork and kicks him in the balls
after the loveless bastard knocks him on his ass."
Jack was slightly
embarrassed. "Anybody would do that," he said defensively.
"I don't think
'anybody' would tackle an armed man with a table fork."
"Ha!" Jack crowed
triumphantly. "He didn't have the gun then, you'd - Jonathan had
disarmed him." He smirked at Daniel. "And you - Jonathan -
CAN do that. I've SEEN you - him." It occurred to
Jack belatedly that this might just come off as encouraging Daniel to
repeat an act which had taken ten years each off Jack, Carter and
probably Junior, come to think of it. Teal'c had looked like he
was sucking a lemon for days after. Daniel had brushed off a trio
of gently worded lectures on the theme of scaring the shit out of his
team, and none of them had been able to adequately answer some pithy
counter-questions about incidentals like being pinned down. "You
being a wuss would be much easier on my nerves," Jack coaxed.
"Give it a chance. You might like it."
"I could, but then
you'd need to give Robert another chance, because you'd be so incensed
you'd throw my ass off the team the first time I dropped you in the
shit by hiding instead of shooting," Daniel hooted. "And knowing
you, the fallout would not be pretty."
"It was worth a
shot," Jack shrugged philosophically. "And I'd kick your ass
before I did any throwing."
"It's always worth a
shot," Daniel encouraged. "It just won't happen."
Jack nodded
reluctantly and got back to his proof reading. He looked up after
a moment. "What do you mean, knowing me? Knowing me what?"
"Nothing." Daniel
lowered his head demurely, hiding a grin.
"'The fallout would
not pretty' isn't nothing. What?" Jack glared.
"Knowing me, WHAT?"
Jack threw up his
forearm and neatly blocked the out-flung arm before the blow could
land. He kept hold until Daniel relaxed, then gently lowered
Daniel’s hand back down to the cover. He peered up at the clock.
Dear God. Two am. Jack rubbed his gritty eyes and took a
calculated risk. No guts – no rest. He sat up and carefully
placed both hands on Daniel’s ribs and waited for a reaction. All
remained calm. It could be deceptive calm, or it could be actual
calm. He’d never know unless he…you know…tried it. Taking a
deep breath, Jack carefully nudged Daniel over onto his side, then slid
both hands round to the small of his back, gently urging Daniel onto
his front in nice, easy increments. Daniel sighed and snuggled
his face into the pillow.
Jack sighed too,
then slowly stretched himself out, keeping a wary eye on his restless
love. Daniel was NOT a happy camper. In this sleep mode –
as opposed to Sinus mode, which had its own way of murdering sleep -
Daniel demanded every scrap of alertness and combat training Jack could
muster. Delays cost ribs.
Jack was JUST
starting to relax when some unsettled head tossing told him Daniel was
about to happen to him, big time. Not embarrassed in the
slightest to be such a wuss, Jack instantly rolled off the edge of the
bed, demonstrating his usual flawless, stylish and frankly well
practiced dismount, vacating his spot a moment before Daniel rolled
rapidly into it, arms and legs splaying everywhere. Bitter
experience had proven if Jack delayed too long, Daniel would roll right
over him and fall out. He would then indignantly accuse Jack of
shoving him out of bed. Not bothering to hide his goofy,
reminiscent grin, Jack trotted around to Daniel’s side of the
bed. Sure as God made little apples, the moment Jack’s head
cautiously hit the pillow, Daniel rolled back, flinging his arm
violently across Jack’s neck.
“OOOF!”
Jeez! Slightly
hampered by being on his side, and slightly regretting all that time
and training he’d invested in Daniel’s self-defence skills, Jack tried
to pry loose the textbook chokehold, not at all softened by a few
random kisses scattered over his shoulder, or the soft sigh of
satisfaction, or the snuggling. After some ineffectual tugging,
he eventually had to peel each finger loose one by one, firmly holding
onto Daniel’s hand for good measure.
He sighed
heavily. He’d once slept on the couch when Daniel got like this,
and all it got him was a stiff neck and an equally stiff Daniel, who
was hurt AND self-conscious. Admittedly, helping Daniel to work
through his abandonment issues had been fun with a capital F-U-C-K, but
still…Jack shrugged. He was TOTALLY committed to Daniel, and on
nights like this, commitment meant possible concussion.
Daniel nudged at his
back. Jack hitched over. Daniel nudged again. Jack
hitched over again. Daniel shoved hard and Jack tumbled off the
edge of the bed, throwing his weight forward to roll smoothly onto his
back as he landed bonelessly on the carpet. Sleeping with Daniel
was honing his reflexes to perfection.
Jack cut his losses,
stretched out and pillowed his head on his hands. Hmm. He
was pretty comfortable right here. Maybe he could…
“Ja-ack?”
The plaintive,
sleepy mutter gave him a different idea. Maybe Daniel would sleep
better if Jack, say, wore him out.
“Jack?”
Daniel’s puzzled
face appeared over the edge of the bed, chin propped on balled
fists. Jack beamed up at him.
“Restless?” Daniel
asked sympathetically.
Jack eyed him
incredulously for some time, debating whether to say something or not,
then pulled himself together and shook it off. Plaintive could so
easily segue into pissy. “Horny,” he murmured huskily, trying out
the pantomime leer which never failed to - aah. He reached up for
the solemnly outstretched hand and tenderly kissed the veins at
Daniel’s wrist.
“Come up and see me
some time,” Daniel whispered just as huskily, cupping his hand over
Jack’s hungrily kissing mouth. “Any time,” he invited. Jack
was suckling each finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue sensuously
around each tip, then blowing gently on the dampened skin, making
Daniel shiver in the now blessedly cool night air. Daniel
swallowed hard. “No time like the present.”
“Mmmph?”
“Get UP here, Jack,”
Daniel ordered briskly. “NOW!”
Jack laughed when
eager hands yanked at him. Daniel seemed determined to literally
haul his ass into bed. Jack had no fault whatsoever to find with
that. In fact, he was happy to lend an assist, jumping to his
feet and diving enthusiastically onto the invitingly sprawled Jackson
welcome wagon. It took Daniel about three seconds to wrap every
limb around him and start licking his lips. Jack moaned
theatrically and licked Daniel’s lips in return. He DREAMED about
Daniel’s lips. Strictly speaking, he had dreams about each and
every part of Daniel, but the lips – or rather the pout – loomed large
in all of them.
Daniel shivered and
shook as Jack’s coveting hands roamed over every inch of him with
rough, possessive passion, greedy lips suckling at his nipples until he
ACHED inside. Jack’s encouraging groans of appreciation grew
hoarse as Daniel stroked and fondled Jack’s back and butt, skimmed over
his heaving flanks. Daniel clamped his hands to the back of
Jack’s head and dragged him down into a delirious kiss of clashing lips
and teeth, and warring tongues. Jack wrenched away from him,
froze, staring down into Daniel’s face for long seconds, his own harsh
with wanting. Daniel wasn’t fooled. Jack’s glittering eyes
were soft. Intense but soft, as always. Daniel strained up
under Jack’s weight and they touched tongues, flickering, teasing,
seducing, neither willing to cave and invite the other in.
Daniel broke the
deadlock with a tactic Jack loved. He wrapped his legs around
Jack’s back, not bothering to hide his grin as Jack hissed with
pleasure each time their straining erections kissed. Jack tumbled
into Daniel’s waiting embrace and thrust powerfully against him.
Daniel moaned his own appreciation, luxuriating in the glide and play
of sleek, taut muscles under his stroking hands, between his clenched
thighs, sliding over and over his stomach, his chest…Jack feasting on
his throat…God, he loved this. Didn’t know how he’d survived so
long without being loved, without desire.
Jack was devouring
all the quivering, sweat-dewed skin he could reach, delighting in the
helpless moans of the man beneath him as Daniel clung to him
desperately, head thrashing on the pillow as Jack drove into his body
again and again. He had no fear of letting himself go like this,
even though it wasn’t like them to go mental, found his own strength
met and answered as Daniel’s hips surged up, lifting them both from the
bed, Daniel laughing at Jack’s surprise.
“Oh YEAH!” Jack
howled, picking up the pace as Daniel nipped and worried at his
shoulder. “YEAH, B-mmmph!” he sputtered indignantly into the hand
Daniel had just slapped across his mouth.
“Don’t,” Daniel
warned softly. “Don’t say it. I can barely tolerate THAT in
the living room. He doesn’t come to bed with us.”
Jack made with the
big, hurt puppy eyes and the innocent ‘who me?’s. He also took
the opportunity to lick hungrily at Daniel’s palm. Sooner or
later Daniel’s arm would get tired…
Daniel lowered his
hand, glaring suspiciously. Jack LOOKED suitably cowed…
Jack lowered his
head and stole a kiss, nibbling on Daniel’s lips until they parted,
plunging his tongue deep into Daniel’s mouth, and having a fight on his
hands – so to speak - to keep it there. Danny was feeling
FEISTY. Jack’s tongue butted, jabbed, poked, pressed, prodded,
pushed, rammed, shoved and stabbed. Vigorously. Jack’s
tongue did ALL those things – vigorously - and the whole damn time
Daniel just lay there gazing up at him with his patented ‘Is this ALL
you’ve got? Wake me when it gets interesting…’ challenge.
Jack sullenly backed off from giving his all. He glared at
Daniel. “Yeah, BABY!” he drawled deliberately, insultingly.
“Bastard!”
Daniel bucked and heaved, cursing Jack in every language he knew, which
took some time, hoping to get Jack even more excited and out of
hand. Jack was heaving bawdily right back at him, driving into
Daniel harsh and fast, jolting him relentlessly up the bed.
Daniel tightened his legs encouragingly around Jack’s back, whimpering
through clenched teeth as the ecstasy slammed through him with Jack’s
every thrust. He scrabbled behind him for enough traction to sit
up before Jack’s implacable passionate onslaught concussed him against
the headboard.
“You awake
NOW? INTERESTING enough for you NOW?” Jack snarled as they wound
up sprawled against the pillows. “I got enough for you NOW?”
“I don’t know what
the hell you’re talking about Jack, but yes, yes, YES,” Daniel gasped
hoarsely as Jack’s fingers twined with his and pinned his hands against
the wall. The sweat was stinging his eyes, his throat was burning
as he gasped and fought for breath, losing as Jack stole the last of it
with a toe-curlingly wanton kiss. Daniel was dazed, shaking like
a leaf, poised on a knife’s edge between pleasure and pain when Jack’s
back arched violently and scalding slickness erupted against his
burning skin as Jack sobbed into his mouth. The pleasure exploded
in Daniel’s head and he came HARD, hips spasming violently, vision
dimming.
He was still
fighting for breath when Jack pulled himself together enough to yank
Daniel back down the bed and tumble down next to him. “Mmm,”
Daniel breathed, nestling into Jack’s cradling arms. “Mmm.”
“Mm hm,” Jack
agreed. They were both offensively sated, sweaty and sticky, but
as his spine seemed to have dissolved, he couldn’t do a damn thing
about any of it. He stretched luxuriously, gently petting every
part of Daniel he could reach as he got himself comfortable.
“For God’s sake,
Jack, lie still. I’m trying to sleep.”
On to Part Two
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