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Summary: During a random routine scouting mission, Jack muses on his forced realization that he’s attracted to Daniel, all thanks to some alien hooch.
Notes: Unbetaed
(full size map is here)
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Jack stood by the MALP, fiddling with the tie that held the rolled pack of tools used for routine missions. He was taking his time, not really paying attention to what he was doing. He was stalling. He didn’t want to hit the rack yet. Or in Daniel’s parlance, and every civilian on Earth, go to bed.
For the first time in ages, he and Daniel were sharing a tent. He and Teal’c had gotten into the habit, but Jack had decided that if Teal’c was going to continue to ignore him about eating figs before bed (having snuck the damn things in his pack), Jack would no longer share a tent with him. The man had lethal gas when he ate figs. But give Teal’c a taste of Carter’s wrath and the man would stop eating the damn things on missions.
“Goddamn it, Teal’c!”
Carter. On cue. Jack’s grin was colored with guilt.
“Get out. No, never mind. I’ll get out. Jesus, I can’t breathe!”
Jack looked over at her as she left the tent and caught her gaze. She narrowed her eyes at him, tossed her roll pack by the fallen log, and came marching his way. He winced. Before she opened her mouth, he held up a mollifying hand. She halted mid-step.
“I get it, Carter. I’ll do penance later. But he ignores me. He won’t ignore you.”
She grumbled under her breath and went back to her bedroll to get settled, sleeping out in the open.
It was a nice sidetrack; her temper be damned. Jack would rather put up with that than go into the tent with Daniel. There was nothing wrong with sharing one with him, per se. But they’d come to a realization in the infirmary the day before, and they’d both been avoiding each other until mission time.
There was an attraction between them.
It was Ferretti’s fault. Or rather, the stupid hooch Ferretti had brought back from P2-whatever-the-hell. A present from the locals. The Major had come into the infirmary during pre-mission testing and started handing it out in these little clay cups that had apparently come with it.
There’d been no alcohol in it whatsoever. Jack should’ve known better, but they were in the infirmary. What could go wrong? No, scratch that. He’d figured they were in the right place if something did go wrong. And it had.
Only not openly. And it wasn’t wrong exactly. Just odd. Weird. Whackadoo.
“Tastes like Tang,” Daniel had said.
“I don’t get that. It tastes like watered-down OJ to me,” Jack had argued.
Carter and Teal’c had missed the little hooch party, and so had SG-5. Meanwhile, SG-3 had dribbled in for their check-up. Jack had set the cup down on a cart and waited while the nurse finished taking his blood. She had just finished with Daniel while Ferretti was going on about the natives. Something to do with a fertility festival and Jack had started to tune him out while Daniel was raptly listening. Jack found himself feeling annoyed for no reason. Why be fascinated over something he’d never have time to investigate himself? Jack hated those thoughts. Hated that he started arguments with Daniel over his chosen career. Maybe he was just too jaded to fake interest in something. He knew it grated on people, but he couldn’t be bothered about that either.
As Daniel asked Ferretti questions, Jack had decided that was long past time for a stretch at the cabin. When his interest in things were relegated to periods of crises, it was time to take a load off and pretend to fish. Just get away from all the noise.
And just as he’d been thinking that he looked up from staring at the floor during his quiet introspection to meet Daniel’s gaze. The man was staring at him.
“What?” Jack had started to say, but the word had faded before the ‘t’ sound. He’d simply known what Daniel’s gaze meant. And then Daniel’s eyes had widened.
“Seriously?” Daniel had asked.
“Seriously back,” Jack had said.
They’d just known. There hadn’t been any innuendo. No mental invasion. Nothing. They’d just … known. He liked Daniel. Daniel liked him.
It had been batshit crazy.
And then they’d gone about the rest of the day avoiding each other because … now what? He couldn’t not think about him, about the psychic-crazy knowledge. It was a shock. Not a fright or anything, but a shock nonetheless.
To make matters worse, the libido had kicked in out of nowhere. There was this feeling of wanting that Jack hadn’t experienced in a very long time. It was a young man’s want. He thought he’d been done with all that. The want had Daniel’s name written all over it. The last time Jack had been involved with a man had been at the academy, and that had been bad. Arguing, hormones, immaturity up the yin-yang. It had left such a sour taste in his mouth, so to speak, that he’d given up the idea of being with another man. Of course, he’d met Sara not long after, so that had been that.
Till yesterday. He wondered if Daniel was feeling the same things he was. Going through whatever after-effects that damn hooch had caused. Reynolds had coined a phrase the year before to excuse ‘alien hooch’ shenanigans: Aliens Made Me Do It. Hammond had been beside himself with having to tell people to Get Over It and Move On. He didn’t want to deal with that crap. Who would? The Group Captain Jack had met years ago would’ve summed it up perfectly: “You can’t have blokes shagging each other and every other blasted thing that comes along. It’s decorum thrown into the bin.”
Or something like that. Jack had a feeling he was messing up that quote. Whatever. It hit the nail on the head.
“Colonel?”
Jack was shaken out of his reverie by Carter’s voice. He blinked at her. She was sitting on the log, poking at the fire embers with a stick. All she needed was a few marshmallows. God, his mind was wandering. “Carter?”
“Something wrong, sir?”
Jack frowned and closed up the compartment with the tool bag, then brushed off his hands unnecessarily. “Nope. Why?”
“You were staring into space.”
Jack made a face and waved an airy hand. “I’m tired, Carter. It’s time for a month’s leave. How about you?” It was as if he’d told her she’d won the lottery. She smiled and looked both happy and relieved.
“I’d really like that, sir. I have two months saved up.”
Jack held up three fingers. “I have that many. And I’m not gonna get to use them unless we find something spectacular on our scouting missions. Like a Yellowstone-sized cache of naquadria.”
Carter scrunched up her face. “Agreed, sir.”
They both sighed. “But I’m insisting on a week, at least,” Jack said. “I’m getting just a bit …” He waggled his hand. She winced. He winced in return. “That bad?”
“Not …” she began. “Terrible. Not compared to other times, but you’re getting there, sir.”
Jack sighed and nodded. He looked at the tent.
“You and Daniel fighting again, sir?” she asked in an undertone.
“No. It’s just …” He couldn’t finish.
Carter nodded. “Cabin time,” she said.
Jack took the rescue. “Exactly. Bear with a sore head, I guess.” Carter settled her gear and sat down. He made another face. “Sorry, Carter,” he said, waving at Teal’c’s tent. “He needs some handling.”
“Or a smack,” she said, making Jack grin.
He smoothed his hands over his trousers, bit at his lip, and took a deep breath. He really was tired. Maybe they could ignore each other for another day. Long enough for Jack to escape to the cabin. “Night, Carter.”
“Sleep well, sir.”
“Your lips to god’s ears, Carter,” Jack said and headed for the tent.
When he entered, he found it dark. Annoyed, he fished out his pocket flashlight and aimed it in the direction of his gear. He walked over and aimed the beam of the flashlight onto the camp light that he’d hung from a hook on the center pole and turned it on. Switching off the flashlight, he tossed it on his pack and divested himself of his jacket. Daniel said nothing and as he sat down to take off his boots, Jack paused. Daniel’s breathing told him he was asleep. Irrationally, he was annoyed. He wanted Daniel to be in the same state of mind, dammit. On the other hand, he might just be as tired as Jack was.
He couldn’t decide which emotional exhaustion he preferred as he removed his trousers, slid his bare feet into the sleeping bag, and lay down. Something dug at his back and he swore under his breath and got up. Lifting both the sleeping bag and the half-inch foam pad underneath, he found a clump of weeds that was too stubborn to pull out entirely. With a sigh and an eye roll at the ceiling, he grabbed the knife on his trouser belt and dug the infernal thing out of the ground. It left a six-inch hole, but it wasn’t enough of a depression to make a difference.
Tossing the knife on his trousers, he lay back down and stared at the tent’s ceiling, telling himself to turn off the lamp. But he just stared upward, mind too busy all of a sudden, with an uncomfortable feeling in his muscles. It occurred to him that his fifty-four-year-old body just wasn’t suited to outdoor life anymore. He really should retire, for good this time, but just the thought of leaving the SGC without fulfilling the mission mandate nixed the idea.
And then, of course, there was life without Daniel. While he’d only just gotten the man back from the dead (six months’ ago, his mind reminded him), Daniel had his own renewed life to experience. On the other hand, Daniel only lived ten minutes away anyway. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t see him again.
As a civilian, his traitorous mind whispered.
A whole new vista of possibilities opened up. Gay (or Bi, technically) relationships weren’t anathema anymore. Marriage was now equal.
Marriage? Where the hell had that come from? They weren’t even in a relationship, for fuck’s sake.
Relationship.
Relationship?
He wasn’t even facing the very real fact that he was attracted to the man. How the hell did relationship enter into it?
Jack had to admit that this attraction hadn’t been caused by the hooch. It had been brewing for eight years, give or take, and he’d been fighting it. He just wasn’t someone who liked upsetting the apple cart where his personal life was concerned. He liked routine. He liked safe. He liked comfortable …
Daniel’s lips came to his mind’s eye on the heels of that last word. How soft they looked. How kissable. On the heels of that thought came the inevitable: going into territory he’d steadfastly locked away all these years: imagining sex with Doctor Daniel Jackson. Though no one could see, his cheeks heated up all the same when he wondered if Daniel was a top or bottom. Just imagining sliding into that body made his own skin pebble with goosebumps and his entire groin heat up. Next came the hardening of his nipples and deep warmth in his belly. His hands twitched when he imagined gripping the man’s hips. His waist. His back. His cock.
Jack immediately slammed the door shut on that image … but the door rebounded instead, hanging there off the hinge so it could lure him back inside the room labeled cock.
Memory allowed him to remember the taste of that kind of skin. Warm, slightly spongy, with the odd, slightly metallic taste of semen. Then memory plunged him into the heady and intoxicating motion of plunging up and down on that cock, saliva coating the flesh as well as his lips and chin as the organ swelled to magnificent hardness before erupting in orgasm. He imagined that long-ago experience repeated with Daniel. His own cock began to swell and stiffen.
Jack reached up and turned off the lamp, then slid his hand into his shorts to grab his stiffening cock. Long and thick, he wondered if Daniel could take it. Then imagined he could. Next, he thought about Daniel getting up and coming over to him, naked, breathing hard, and lowering himself onto him to ride his body until they were both sweating and panting, on the verge of—
“Jack,” came Daniel’s soft voice.
Jack’s hand froze. He began to panic, then strangled that feeling because it was both stupid and immature.
He swallowed. “Daniel,” he said, not quite a whisper but not fully spoken either.
“I … love you.”
Jack blinked a few times. A pulse of heat washed over him.
“I knew it long before,” Daniel went on. “But yesterday, that stuff Ferretti gave us …”
Love. Not “I’m attracted to you.” I love you.
Something relaxed inside Jack, like the settling of a lock as a key slid into it, though relaxed wasn’t the right word. It was more like …
“I … love you too.”
He heard Daniel move and Jack began to panic in truth for very good reasons. “No. Stay there.”
Pause. “Why?”
“Because sound travels. And I’d rather not inform Carter and Teal’c that way.” Daniel snorted and moved anyway. Typical.
Jack heard the footsteps on the ground, the whisper of dirt. Then felt the closeness as Daniel came to him. Jack sat up and unzipped his sleeping bag all the way. The night was warm anyway. But just as he moved over to allow for Daniel to lay down next to him, Daniel sat down instead. Jack could just barely detect his outline. He couldn’t see. He could only smell. He could only feel.
And he felt Daniel’s hand search for his face and cup his cheek.
“I don’t mean to start anything,” Daniel said. “Not here. I just want you to know that this is real. And I don’t intend to ignore it.”
Then Jack felt another kind of heat as Daniel’s face came up close just before his lips brushed over Jack’s. Slowly. Cautiously.
No. Not cautiously. In exploration. Seduction of a sort.
That fit him. Fit the situation, too. His lips were parted. So were Jack’s. Their breathing was even, almost calm. A hunger overwhelmed him. Then Jack reached up with both hands, cupped Daniel’s face, and brought their lips together in an all-consuming act of want.
His tongue slid into his mouth and Daniel’s met him. Not stiffly. Not passively. Just … perfect. An eager, and equal, hunger as they tasted and lightly wrestled. Daniel’s arms went around his neck and Jack didn’t like the awkward way they were sitting. He slid his arms around Daniel and in one fluid, sensuous movement, pulled him in and down onto his back so that he could feel more of him and deepen the kiss at the same time.
It was perfect.
Apart from a hike in arousal and the demands his body flooded his mind with. They couldn’t do more. Not here. Jack sensed Daniel was on board with that assessment since his hands and arms didn’t go exploring. Just this much contact with their bodies and lips was enough.
For now.
Jack broke the kiss and then smiled when Daniel rubbed their noses together. It was sweet.
Part of Jack wanted to eat the man alive, right there. Just slither down his body and take him whole. But waiting was a better idea, if not one his body agreed with. There was a reason foreplay was a thing.
He didn’t kiss him again. Daniel didn’t try either.
“Home?” Jack asked.
“Home,” Daniel agreed. His voice was sleepy.
Jack’s was too.
As he closed his eyes and relaxed against the man he knew he’d spend the rest of his life with, he thought randomly about the way the universe messed up the routine of the random mission. And how he planned to thank Ferretti.
End