Many thanks to Green Grrl and Destina for their wonderful beta reading
of this fic.
"Daniel?" Jack put a reprimand inside the name, a rock inside a
snowball, and gestured with a sweat-sticky hand he'd had to peel off
the butt of his P-90.
Boots. Socks. Off. And now Daniel was rolling up the legs of his BDUs,
damn it.
"If we have to leave in a hurry, there's a lot of ground to cover, and
doing it barefoot would suck," Jack pointed out.
Daniel gave him one of his puzzled, hurt smiles, as if he thought there
was a joke he was missing, because surely Jack couldn't
mean it. "You told me it was important to keep my
boots dry," he reminded Jack. "Said you once had yours on your feet,
soaking wet, for four days, and you couldn't walk for a week
afterwards, because the blisters you got were worse than the bullet
hole in your leg."
"We're heading home in an hour. An hour in wet boots won't hurt you."
Jack frowned, something his muscles did without thinking around Daniel
these days, bunching here, furrowing there, bit of work with the
eyebrows. "And why would they get wet? Why the sudden urge to paddle?"
The trees around the lake rustled in the warm breeze and Jack's
attention split between Daniel and the forest. This world felt empty,
felt safe, had since they stepped through the 'gate.
Worried the hell out of him. And even though he could see Carter and
Teal'c half a mile away, small figures getting samples from the rocky
ridge that formed one wall of the valley, he still wished they were
closer.
"I saw something. Something in the water." Daniel waved vaguely at the
wooded hill behind him, the sun glancing off his glasses, hiding his
eyes as effectively as Jack's sunglasses shielded his. "From up there.
It looks like a statue or something, a fallen statue, half-buried. The
water's shallow; I want to take a look." He stood, the soft white sand
of the narrow beach slippering his bare feet. "This lake could have
been formed when a river flooded the plain." Daniel smiled at Jack,
blindingly bright. "There could be a whole city under there."
"Yeah, and there could be the local equivalent of Jaws."
Daniel shrugged, took out a piece of stiff, fluff-covered beef jerky
from his jacket pocket, and hurled it out into the limpid blue. The
water swallowed it with a silent, undramatic gulp and the ripples died
away a moment later. "See?"
Jack nodded a grudging assent and moved, trying to find the place where
he could do the impossible and look in two directions at once. Daniel
discarded his pack and vest and waded out, water rainbowing up around
him, his arms held out to the side as if he was fighting a strong wind.
"It is a statue," he called back. He spread his feet wider and bent
over. "Broken, though, not buried."
He was close enough to the shore that Jack could see the dark streaks
the kicked-up water had left on the green of his pants, clinging
fingermarks, touching Daniel in places Jack's hands had never been,
pressing greedily against the hidden skin.
Jack blinked, and punished himself for staring by looking steadfastly
at a boring bush for a full thirty seconds. It didn't move, burn, or
disgorge a hidden army. Fair enough. Daniel's turn again.
Daniel had moved out far enough in the time he'd looked away that Jack
felt a tug of panic, left over from when Charlie couldn't swim but
loved the water. Stupid; Daniel swam well enough, the water was only up
to his knees, and if the bottom dropped away sharply, he'd only get wet.
"You have to come and see this, Jack…"
"Really don't."
"I'm going to…" Daniel didn't finish his sentence just headed back for
the shore, leaving a turbulent roil of churned-up water in his wake.
"Going to what?" Jack asked when Daniel was beside him again, bare
calves beaded with water, gritted with sand.
"Swim. I need to go out just a little more and it's too deep for me to
-- I'll need to go under."
"No."
Daniel dropped his boonie in the sand, sending up a puff of glittering
grains, and tugged off his T-shirt. His BDUs were half-unbuttoned when
Jack clamped a restraining hand over Daniel's busy ones. "What part of
'no' did your trained ears interpret as 'Yes, Daniel, go and do a
mermaid impression for me?'"
Daniel glanced down significantly and Jack tightened his mouth and his
hand, refusing to back down. "Jack, I want to bring some of the
artifacts up to the surface. I need to get wet to do that, but I'm not
even going to be out of my depth. Don't you think you're being a little
overprotective?"
"Then wade in and get them! Just don't see why you're skinny-dipping!"
Jack stepped back with a huff of frustration and Daniel's BDUs dropped
to the floor.
"I'm not." Daniel tapped a finger against the white briefs he wore.
"See?"
Jack reached out and hooked a finger in the waistband of the briefs,
pulling the elastic out and releasing it with a snap. "Yeah."
Daniel's mouth hung open, his eyes wide. Jack bent, picked up the
discarded boonie, and jammed it on Daniel's head. "That stays on, okay?
It's hot out here."
"Want to put some sun screen on my back as well?" Daniel sounded
curious, not offended, even though Jack was sweating plenty over what
he'd just done. His finger had found the hollow of Daniel's hip, slid
over warm, secret skin, and there'd been a moment, before he let go,
when he'd seen a flattened dark shadow of hair against the pale flesh.
Way out of line. Way.
"You won't be out there long enough to need it." Jack tapped his watch.
"Ten minutes, and I'm calling it."
"Jack --"
"Nine minutes, fifty-five seconds."
Daniel, in briefs, a boonie, and a scowl, waded back out. Wet, the
briefs turned all but transparent. Jack concentrated on smiling at the
incongruous sight of the boonie perched on top of Daniel's brown hair
and mostly naked body, and turned to scan the shore when his gaze
dropped south for the third time in as many minutes.
He could hear Daniel puffing and splashing, mingled noises of
satisfaction and frustration floating over on the empty air. Had to
look, just had to… And he picked the exact moment when Daniel dived
under, ass up, thin white cotton plastered to the spare curves,
delineating the divide of his backside with a mouth-drying attention to
detail. Daniel's boonie floated beside him, filled, and sank. Now, that
was coming out of his wages, dammit.
Daniel's feet waved briskly in the air and an automatically counted
eighty-four seconds later, just as Jack was contemplating the dubious
joy of needing to give him mouth-to-mouth, he turned right way up. His
raised hands were filled with a piece of shaped, carved stone and the
water lapped at his shoulders.
"Jack! Look!"
Jack sketched a bored wave of the hand because Daniel would expect that
reaction, before giving the shoreline a quick, dutiful once-over.
Daniel was going to be walking towards him through the shallows soon,
wet briefs both sagging and clinging, and he didn't want to miss any of
that crowded, glorious minute.
And while he was studying a bird, preening and squawking on a branch,
the sultry drowse of the afternoon was broken by a pained cry from
Daniel and -- more worrying -- a splash as he dropped what he was
holding.
"Daniel? What the hell?" Jack was running a moment later, sand spurting
up as his boots skidded, his P-90 bumping his hip.
"Fine! I'm fine," Daniel called. He hadn't got far; the lake was
smacking kisses against his nipples. "Just got my foot stuck and I
think --ow. Ankle. Ow."
"Well, get it unstuck, and get your ass on dry land," Jack snapped,
relief making him terse.
"Working on it…" Daniel took a deep breath and ducked under. He emerged
a few moments later, gasping and shaking his wet hair back. "Okay,
little bit of help here?"
"I knew it. I knew this would lead to trouble--" Jack gave the forest
behind him an irresolute glare and thumbed his radio. "Carter? Wrap it
up, and meet us at the lake. Daniel's hurt his foot paddling, and we're
due back soon, anyway."
"Sir? Is he all right?"
"He's in the middle of the lake, Carter. Foot stuck, don't ask me how.
You know Daniel. No immediate danger. I'm going to investigate. O'Neill
out."
He looked up at the ridge and saw Teal'c begin to gather up their
equipment and the flash of light as Carter took a look through her
binoculars. Waving to show they were fine, he stripped off his vest --
no point getting his spare ammo wet -- laid it on a rock, and propped
his P-90 beside it. Kept his boots on, though.
Walking away from his weapon was hard to do, but Daniel's face was
screwed up in a mixture of pain and panic and that made it easier.
"Just relax," he called out, as the water rose around him, blood-warm
and fresh. "Worst comes to the worst, I've got a knife. And a grenade.
I'll get you out."
"Comforting thought."
"I like to look on the bright side."
He reached Daniel, smiling without feeling amused about anything much,
to paper over the weirdness of holding a conversation in the middle of
a lake.
"Actually, the knife might be useful." Daniel licked damp lips wetter.
"There's a crack in the rock -- my fingers won't fit."
That didn't make a lot of sense. Jack took a breath, frowning again,
and ducked under. The water was surprisingly buoyant considering it was
fresh, not salt, and he popped back up again before he had time to
register more than a dazzle of sun-lit water and the wavering lines of
Daniel's body. Daniel grimaced. "That happened to me, too, and I
usually sink like a stone. Hold onto me," he suggested. "Use me as an
anchor point."
He could use all the technical phrases he wanted, but it still meant
that Jack was going to have to put his hands on Daniel's near-naked
body. He stood, biting his lip, and studying Daniel's face for any
signs of indecision to match his own.
"Jack? I'm not very comfortable like this."
"What? Oh. Sure." Jack nodded, and then, on an impulse, reached out and
slipped Daniel's glasses off his nose. The water on them had dried and
left them smeared and smudged. Jack huffed on them and used his wet
T-shirt to polish them. It made them worse, but he wasn't going to
admit that. "Better."
He expected Daniel to take them off him, but Daniel stood quiescent,
waiting for Jack to replace them, which he did, awkwardly, getting
Daniel's hair caught under the hook of the arms, and having to slide
his fingers along the thin skin covering Daniel's skull to tug the hair
free. He felt the faint tremor as Daniel clenched his teeth, a signal
transmitted through bone and flesh to vibrate against his fingertips,
cryptic and barely there.
The slow relaxation of the skin as Daniel sighed in an elongated
exhalation punctuated by a throaty 'Oh…' was even less easy to
decipher, because Jack wouldn't let himself go for the obvious, the
simple. This was Daniel, after all.
As he pulled his hands back, his fingers brushed the curve of Daniel's
ears sequentially, each finger mapping the arched whorl until he had
the shape captured in the echoing curve of his hand.
The water lapped between them in small, contained waves as he placed
his hands on Daniel's hips, thumbs rigid, fingers stiff, and felt the
answering, helpful pressure as Daniel put his hands on Jack's shoulders
and pushed him down to his knees.
It brought back strong, visceral memories, the sort that could hurt or
heal as potently a decade later as a day. He'd gone to his knees like
this in a prison, in a bedroom, in an alley. Hating, willing, needing,
in that order. Three different pairs of hands, three different men.
All of them had left bruises, bitten into the thin flesh of his
shoulders. Daniel was being careful, being kind. Jack wanted bruises,
Daniel-made bruises, wanted something he could remember, and touch with
his idle hand as he worked aching hardness soft again in the refuge of
his own bed.
He let Daniel's hands send him under, his descending mouth inches away
from Daniel's body, glassed-over temptation, out of reach, out of
range, out of bounds. He had time to triangulate the distance between
his lips, pursed, leaking air, and Daniel's right nipple, hard and
tight even in this warm water, the dark dent of his navel, the sharp
point of his hip…
His knees struck sand in a hollow, soundless thud and he lurched
forward, fighting to keep his head upright on his neck. It wanted to
bend, offering up the nape of his neck for Daniel's curious fingers,
taking his mouth to where it could shape itself usefully to a circle, a
hole to be fucked, filled, taken.
He should have been moving, pivoting, one hand braced on Daniel's hip,
the other fumbling out the knife sheathed at his waist. Should be
visually assessing the problem, quick, quick, fast, before his lungs
protested, and he had to rise to break the surface. It might be a scant
foot above his head, but his lungs didn't care how close the air was;
it was still out of reach.
And he wasn't doing any of that, because his blurred, blinking eyes
were watching the amorphous shape of Daniel's dick uncurl, straighten,
stiffen, fill.
When it was flat against Daniel's belly, angled to the left, rising
from the heavy, tight balls, Daniel's hands flexed on Jack's shoulders
without adding an ounce of downward push, telling him:
See. Look. This is what you do to me.
Clear as a bell.
Jack looked up into blue on blue on blue. Water, sky, and Daniel's
eyes. Daniel was staring down at him, lips parted, the way they always
were when he was thinking.
Time to look away. Time to do his duty. Jack twisted and glanced down,
eyeballs washed dry by the water, stinging. He could see what had
happened. Daniel's foot had slid, gloved hand snug, between two pieces
of rock, his forward momentum dislodging a baby boulder, part of a
statue, that looked like this world's version of a bunch of grapes. The
carving had fallen across Daniel's ankle, trapping him. And Daniel had
been unable to free himself without Jack's help because -- because --
For no damned reason at all.
Jack shifted the boulder with one hand and eased Daniel's foot free.
The abraded skin across the top of Daniel's ankle welled blood, strands
and filaments of scarlet winding upward through the glassy-clear water,
and Jack saw the faint blue of nascent bruises scattered across and
under the pale skin. One of Daniel's toenails was torn, jagged. Tender,
hurting skin and bone, cradled in his palm. He released Daniel's foot
and Daniel planted it down firmly in the sand and let it take his
weight. His toes curled and spread, digging into the granular surface,
sending flurries of sand rising in a cloud.
Jack's hand cuffed Daniel's ankle, his fingers not quite meeting around
it, tendon and bone flexing experimentally under his grip. Not broken.
Good --
Blood thrummed insistently in his ears, matching, amplifying, the throb
of blood in his dick. He rose to his feet and gained the surface,
dragging his hand up the long, wet-sleek length of Daniel's leg, as his
reward for freeing him, feeling Daniel's hands slide away from his
shoulders.
Jack panted silently, water coursing down his face as he replenished
his lungs. He'd been down there longer than he'd thought. His ears
drained as he shook his head, water droplets spinning out from his hair
and flashing bright in the sunlight, and he heard the distant sound of
people approaching fast. Carter would've been worried, Teal'c
concerned. They'd be hurrying.
"Rain check?" Short, choppy words, because Daniel filled in the blanks
better than anyone Jack had ever met.
God, Daniel's mouth could get stubborn fast. "No."
"Why?"
"You won't do it. You'll find so many reasons why it's impossible that
--"
"Find?" Jack shook his head. "I don't need to look;
they're right there."
"See?" Daniel rolled his eyes and then stepped a few inches closer, too
close. "Now. It won't take long."
God, sometimes Daniel, sweet, thoughtful Daniel, according to most of
the females at the SGC, could be a sadistic little bastard. Jack
thought about what it'd take to make Daniel come; a touch, a word, a
smack, a kiss?
"I'm in uniform." Jack felt it hanging heavy on him, government-issue,
weighed down with water. Add guilt, and his knees would buckle. Really
didn't want to send a mixed message like that.
"And I'm almost naked." Daniel pursed his lips. "I could make that
completely naked. We've got time. Thirty seconds. I promise it's all
you'll need, and no, that's not normal for me; I'm just very aroused
and I've been waiting a very long time."
"No!" Jack breathed in and out twice before he trusted himself to speak
again. Daniel was aroused? Daniel
had been waiting? "You get your ass out of here and get dressed before
the rest of my team get back, you hear me?"
Daniel sketched a mocking salute that made Jack want to hit him, and
turned towards the shore, his hand managing to find, caress, and
torment Jack's erection in the space of the quarter-turn. "Yes,
sir."
"Daniel…" Jack splashed after him, wading in his wake, a roar of anger
and outrage he couldn't voice swelling his chest painfully. "Dammit --"
He launched himself forward, tackling him, plastered to Daniel's back
as they fell forward into shallow water, inches deep.
He expected Daniel to fight, ass squirming, grinding, against Jack's
erection the whole fucking time. Instead, Daniel was thrashing around
under him, uncoordinated as hell, and Jack realized that with his
weight on Daniel, and given the depth of the water, Daniel couldn't
lift his face clear of it enough to breathe.
Jack braced himself on one hand, levered up enough to give himself
room, and flipped Daniel over, dropping back down on him at once.
Daniel's eyes opened, staring up through the water, drowned blue.
Jack filled his lungs and ducked under, sealing his mouth to Daniel's
and feeling the strong, stubborn, sulky lips part under his. The water
ran through his short hair like fingers, like Daniel's would, lifting
it from his scalp in a delicate caress.
Okay, Daniel would probably be more likely to tear and snatch at it,
just to hear Jack howl, then blame it on getting carried away by
whatever Jack's mouth had been doing to him.
The shared air took the edge off Daniel's need enough that as Jack
began to pull back, after a warning touch of his hand to the spur of
Daniel's jaw, Daniel had calmed enough to lick inside Jack's mouth. It
was intrusive, rather than sexual; an attack, not a come-on, and it
still had Jack's wet body jerking, heating, singing.
The blue eyes held satisfaction and a little triumph when he looked at
them next.
The next exchange of air was slower, more deliberate. They knew what
they were doing, and Daniel lay trustingly still under Jack, bare skin
gleaming, mouth greedy, water-dark hair floating in thick strands.
Third time, Jack made him wait, just to see --
Daniel smiled up, secure, smug, safe. A double-dare smile.
Too easy, Daniel? Okay. Daniel's fingers curled and
clung as Jack pinned his hands to the sand, Daniel's legs kicked,
Daniel's head shook side to side, a clear no…
And Jack made him come anyway, one hand free, Daniel's wrists bony and
hard against his palm, and watched Daniel's borrowed air burst out of
his mouth, silver bubbles, rising fast, as Jack's hand palmed Daniel's
cock roughly.
Come clouded the water and dissipated fast.
Jack transferred both hands to Daniel's face, cupping it, gripping it,
and hauled him up out of the water in a flurry of splashes and curses
and blows.
Daniel was gasping, nose streaming, gulping air and using it to chant
obscenities.
Okay. He could talk. No damage done.
Jack stood, eyes on the as-yet-empty shoreline, and held out a hand to
Daniel, warning him, "Pull me in, and I'll hurt you, Daniel. Playtime's
over."
"You weren't playing."
Daniel's shoulders were red and scuffed by the sand he'd lain against
as he limped away, Jack following. Carter and Teal'c were close now.
Had to be. And Jack's dick was one sullen, throbbing ache of protest
and it could stay that way because he wasn't taking care of it. Not
here.
Daniel began to dress, with sharp jerking tugs when his clothes stuck
on his wet skin. Still in one hell of a temper.
Jack pulled his vest back on, and picked up his P-90, feeling less
naked "You got what you wanted."
He hadn't meant to say that; hadn't planned to mention what had
happened at all until they were back home and alone, but Daniel had
just bent over to pick up his socks and Jack could have sworn he'd
wriggled his ass.
"What?"
"You got to come," Jack clarified, lowering his voice and feeling
awkward about the whole damn mess.
"That wasn't what I wanted." Daniel didn't sound pissed now; just
tired. He sat on the rock Jack had used and put on one boot, tying it
with a careful, exhausted attention to detail. The second boot he held,
staring at it, before working the laces wider.
Oh, yeah. That was going to hurt going on.
Jack knelt in front of him. "Let me get that."
Daniel wouldn't let go of the boot.
Jack glared at him, his hand clamped around the heel of the boot. "Let
me do it."
"I can do it myself."
"I want to do it."
"I don't care!"
An amused, slightly breathless voice interrupted them. "If Daniel's
Cinderella, guess that makes us the Ugly Sisters, Teal'c."
Carter was loaded down with equipment, sweating, and still looked fresh
and ready for anything. Go figure.
"We are not related, Major Carter, and you are not ugly."
And good timing, because he'd just been about to beat Daniel to death
with a piece of his uniform, and there were regs about that, he was
sure of it.
"His ankle's swollen," Jack told them. "Might need to make him a crutch
or something."
"I'm fine." Daniel took advantage of Jack's divided attention and took
possession of his boot, jamming it onto his foot and going two shades
paler with the pain.
"Daniel --" Jack gave up and shook his head. "Fine." After knocking
Daniel's hands away, he tied the bootlaces, making sure they were tight
enough to give some support, and then got to his feet, stretching his
hand down and hooking it under Daniel's elbow. "And we're moving out,
people."
Daniel made it solo for about five minutes and then let Jack help him.
Not that Jack had given him much choice; Daniel was starting to fall
behind and that wasn't going to happen. Not when he was the
slowest-moving of the party. Teal'c and Carter were too laden with
equipment to have a shoulder spare, and Jack was closest to Daniel's
height anyway. They ended up falling into a forced unison of a march,
matching their steps and finding a rhythm, their arms moving from
shoulders to waists as they tried to find the best hold.
"I wanted to," Jack told him after a while. The other two were out of
earshot, though not out of sight. Daniel's hand tightened its grip on
Jack's jacket, pulling it down so that the seam on the shoulder cut in.
"What? Drown me? Good job."
"Fuck you," Jack said mildly. Sometimes he thought that the universe
couldn't cope with Daniel and him both being pissed off at the same
time; Daniel only had to get that tight-lipped snippiness going for
Jack's own peevishness to melt like snow in rain.
"Don't count on it."
Jack could hear Cassie drawling, "Whatever," in his
head and wondered if Daniel would roll his eyes the way Janet had if he
borrowed Cassie's favorite response. Probably.
"Your timing…" Okay, he couldn't say 'sucked'. Not without both of them
thinking what it would've been like if he had. Daniel would've been hot
in his mouth, clean and tasteless at first, lake-washed, with Jack's
nose out of commission under the water, his ears dulled, all texture
and shape, so Jack could've got acquainted slowly, one step at a time.
Daniel's cock in his mouth when Jack could see, hear, taste, and smell
would have been overwhelming.
"Sucked?"
"Big time."
"You want an apology?"
"Would be nice."
"Fuck you"
"You can do that." Jack made the next slide of his hand down Daniel's
back to his waist slower, more of a drag, pushing the touch through
layers of fabric and smiling at the cat-stretch arch Daniel gave him
back. "You always could have. If you'd asked at the right time."
"There never was a right time. There never is. I got tired of waiting."
"You? Mr. Take-his-time, let's do it right?"
There was sweat dripping through Daniel's hair now as well as water,
and his face was flushed. He looked a mess, bedraggled and panting, and
Jack wanted him doing that when he was naked, properly naked, with an
intensity of need he found terrifying because of how vulnerable it left
him.
"When it's important, I'm not always patient."
"Now, see, that's not right," Jack told him. "Big stuff, well, you're
always good at hanging on in there. And this is -- oh. This isn't
important?"
Daniel's eyes slanted him a look, half sympathetic, half annoyed. "It's
important. Of course, it is. It's just -- this has been going on for
months, Jack. It's too long when neither of us is saying anything about
it. I'm not stupid. I know it's a problem for you. I've probably come
up with reasons why it's a disaster in the making that you haven't even
thought of."
"Somehow, I doubt it."
"Well, I don't plan on comparing notes." Daniel missed a step and their
hips bumped, the jarring contact bringing them together and then
pushing them apart. "But we just did… something, and the sky didn't
fall, and now --"
"Now we're going to talk." Jack let Daniel set the pace and fell into
step. "Not right now, now. Later now."
"Promise?"
"What? Yeah, I promise."
"You'll have to drive me home," Daniel said thoughtfully.
"Okay…" Jack wasn't sure where Daniel was going with this, but, yes, he
could do that.
"Then stop for a beer. It's the least I can do."
"I suppose I --"
"And there's bound to be a game on that you want to watch."
"It's not the hockey season."
"It's always the hockey season."
"Good point."
"And you won't be watching it, anyway. I don't have a television in my
bedroom."
"Ah."
"Which is where you'll be."
"Of course I will," Jack said agreeably. "Talk a little louder, why
don't you? I don't think the two in front heard you."
In fact, Daniel was doing a good job of not whispering -- which always
carried -- and not mentioning names -- which always made people pay
attention. His voice was a low tickle in Jack's ear, no more. It didn't
mean Jack wasn't uncomfortable as hell. He had an exhibitionist streak
in him, sure, but not about sex. Sex was private. He couldn't believe
he'd just jerked Daniel off outside, with the rest of his team close
by. God.
"You think I can't be discreet."
"No." Jack sighed. "No, you can. I know that. It's just safer if
there's nothing to be discreet about."
"Then you'd better knock off the longing looks at my ass."
"I don't." Jack hitched Daniel's weight up a bit higher and got them
over a fallen log. "Really. Seriously. If you expect me to get
flustered by that, I won't. Because I don't."
"Do."
"I'm not doing this," Jack said. "It's tempting, and it would be kind
of reassuring on a day that hasn't turned out the way I expected at
all, but I'm not doing the did/didn't, do/don't routine with you right
now."
"Just the fucking, then? That's still going to happen?"
"Don't think I've got much choice about that, have I?"
Daniel was silent for three steps. "I can be pushy."
"Yes, you can."
"A lot of people don't get that about me."
"Huh. No kidding? They actually miss the bone-deep stubbornness, the
way you argue until the other guy drops dead of old age, the fact that
you're a total fucking spoiled brat at times? What, are they blind?"
"They think I'm shy."
"Now, see, I find that hard to believe after that little stunt you
pulled back there."
"But I'd never push you into something this big if it wasn't what you
wanted."
It was Jack's turn to be silent. Want. Want was easy. Need was easy,
too. It was giving in and taking that was hard. Well, okay, saying no
was hard, too…
He sighed. "Daniel, if you don't push me, it's not going to happen.
Trust me on this. I just… I can't. I'm not supposed to, and I can't get
past that."
"You want seducing? Persuading?"
"No." Jack stared ahead, watching Carter and Teal'c's backs move from
sunlight to shadow. "Skip that part. It's a done deal."
"I don't understand, then."
"Work it out," Jack told him. He let his hand lift to stroke through
Daniel's damp hair, combing it roughly into neatness. "You know where I
live. You know when it's safe. You know what we can do and what we
can't. I'll teach you how to be careful about leaving marks."
He felt the shock race through the body he was supporting and smiled
grimly, though his voice sounded gentle enough. "You gave a lot away
back there, Daniel."
"So did you."
Jack nodded and picked up the pace. It wouldn't be tonight, no matter
what Daniel had planned, not when Daniel was hurt, but Jack still
wanted to get back home.
And wait to give up even more than he had. Wait, with the patience he'd
learned, been taught, for Daniel to come to him again.
And push.
It wouldn't take much.
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