Serial Rediscovery, December 15
Gentle Readers:
It's been awhile since I posted on this one. You may recall that at the beginning, I warned that this could become one of those WIPs that seemed like a good idea at the time, but then never got finished. Well, as I was last writing this in December 2005 and it is now April 2006... Um. Yeah.
Anyway, I would like to reiterate my Stern Warning™.
I have no clue if I'll ever really finish this, the main problem being that I have no idea how it's going to end, exactly. I'm plotting way over my head with this one. Therefore, there seems to be a reasonably good chance that I will run out of story before the story is over leading to a WIP that dies before it is "finished."
So, if you just can't stand it when an author does that, then you probably should skip right past this entry.
However, if you are willing to put up with me, I can promise serious smut in the chapter that will follow this one (whenever it gets written), and a couple more chapters, at least, after that, probably with lots of torture for the boys and maybe more smut before I’m done.
With kind regards and best wishes, I remain,
Very truly yours,
CK
Title: Serial Rediscovery, December 15
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: Daniel has a run-in with the NID, and can't remember anything about the SGC, particularly not SG-1
Content/warnings: I feel a strong need to warn for amnesia!fic. Cause it is SOOOOO lame. But it's also fun. :)
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
For my loyal rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
Previous chapters located here.
December 15
Daniel groggily resurfaced from sleep in the dim light of a tiny bedside lamp. His shoulder and arm and wrist all hurt.
He snapped awake. He remembered traveling - hotels - being tied to the bed. His attention turned to his bound wrist. He immediately began searching for a way to get free.
He realized his stupidity when a soft voice said, "You left yourself a note."
Under the note were a knife and a handgun. The woman in the chair at the foot of the beds watched him calmly as he cut himself loose and checked the weapon.
"I'm going to take a walk," she murmured, apparently trying not to wake the person in the next bed. "Back in ten."
Then she was gone and it was just him, the sleeping man, his journal, and his note to himself.
Daniel shoved the notebook away and shut his eyes tightly. His face felt hot with humiliation, but his fingers tingled and his toes curled, as if his body still had the sensory memory of the kisses and touches he had so palely described to himself on the lined pages.
He struggled for some way to deny that the journal had anything to do with him. Some other person had written the entry in 26 different languages. He didn't kiss men he'd known for just a day. Hell, he didn't kiss women he'd known for just one day. What was wrong with him?!
He stole a sidelong glance at the person sleeping in the bed next to him, both relieved that the man was still asleep, and frustrated that all that could be seen of him was a few tufts of hair poking out from the top of the comforter. He went back though the pages, carefully not reading them again, looking for the photographs. The happy, dirty one. There he was, laughingly clinging to a tall, smiling man on one side, the attractive blond woman who had gone for a walk on the other, with a massive third man just beyond her, his arm overlapping Daniel's across her slender shoulders. On the back he had written Jack Daniel Sam Teal'c.
He stared at Jack's face. The smile, the laugh lines, the warm brown eyes.
He shut his eyes again tight. The little thud-flip his heard did looking at that photo was more persuasive than his own handwriting in the journal.
Sam stood in an out of the way spot down the balcony from their room, watching the parking lot and keeping an eye out for Daniel. She had wanted to give him some privacy - show him she trusted him. She hoped they had thought this through enough last night that he wouldn't run again.
She felt a wave of disappointment as she saw the door open and Daniel stepping out into the cold, crisp night air. But he wasn't running. He looked around, spotted her, and walked over, looking confused and nervous. Behind him, the door he had closed open soundlessly. She saw Jack look out, assess the situation, and just as silently retreat back into the room and shut the door again.
Daniel leaned against the railing next to her.
"That was an interesting read," he muttered, mindful of possibly sleeping neighbors.
"I can imagine," she replied.
"We were... are... friends? All of us?" He was holding the picture from Jack's cookout, not looking at it at the moment, just holding it like a precious thing.
"Yep," she replied, turning so that her hip rested against the rail and she could see him as he spoke.
He smiled that nervous smile she remembered from their early acquaintance.
"Considering the fact that apparently some covert government agency has damaged my brain so that I won't help a super-secret national space travel and research program to translate a mysterious encoded document..." he trailed off, taking a deep breath.
"You feel like a complete idiot, because all you want to talk about is Colonel O'Neill?" she prompted, with a sly smile
He snorted at her comment, but apparently couldn't stop his answering bashful grin.
"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" he asked.
"No!" she denied it even as the laugh escaped. Daniel blushed furiously.
"Great. Never mind..." he muttered, nervous smile flickering again, and he turned away.
"Daniel!" she said, a little louder than she had intended, catching his arm and stopping his retreat.
"Honestly. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at him." She managed to suppress her chuckles, even as Daniel gave her a more genuine smile. She almost laughed again, seeing that the noise they were making had drawn Jack to the window. He was now watching them through a slight parting in the curtains.
"Does he deserve it?" Daniel asked.
"Probably not," Sam conceded. "But I refuse to feel guilty when he's got the man of his dreams crawling all over him."
"So I did... do... I have some sort of... personal relationship with him?" Daniel asked.
Though she had been anticipating the question, she found that she didn't know exactly how she should answer.
"What makes you ask?" she replied.
Daniel laughed shortly.
"You're the one who said I was crawling all over him. But mainly because my journal entries describe me doing things that don't make any sense to me," he replied. "Maybe in those four years I can't remember I have become the kind of person who would climb into a handsome stranger's lap. But somehow I'm thinking not." That twitch of a smile again. Daniel wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Did you ask the colonel?" she asked gently.
"I want to know what you think," Daniel countered.
"Alright," she agreed. "No, I don't think the two of you had quite fumbled your way to a personal relationship." She couldn't help laughing again, watching the window, willing herself to make direct eye contact with her hidden CO, as Daniel flushed and looked away.
"Great," he muttered.
"That said..." she continued. "You flirt. You fight. The colonel gets bored, he ends up in your office. You're doing a multi-team briefing, you get nervous, your eyes go to him. The colonel has been known to change whole battle plans in the field because you asked him to. You have him completely wrapped around your littlest finger."
She laughed quietly.
"Or at least, that's what nearly every person on the base, possibly including General Hammond, just assumes." She chuckled to herself.
He was blushing again.
"That's insane."
She snorted.
"I'm not sure which part you think is insane, but you guys will work it out."
Breakfast was excruciating. Daniel had refused to go back to sleep, only to have to go through the trauma of waking up twice in one day. He'd just have to write down everything that Sam had explained to him before he could go to sleep, anyway, and by then, it would be time to get up again. So they decided to get started moving early and checked out of the hotel as soon as they could get packed.
They ate at the diner next door. They took a booth away from the few other patrons and Sam and Jack talked quickly and quietly about plans for the next few days.
Then, with a last few reassuring words, and quick hugs, Sam left.
Daniel realized miserably that he would be spending the next three days, maybe longer, all alone with Jack.
They ate quietly. Or rather Jack ate. Daniel pushed his food around while his stomach tried to reject what it had already eaten.
"I've been thinking about what to do now that Carter's gone," Jack said through the last bite of his pancakes. "I don't think we should sleep together."
Daniel set his coffee cup down very carefully. Well, considering how he must have been behaving the night before, he could hardly blame Jack for being blunt.
"Okay," he said meekly, pushing the cold eggs on his plate around some more.
"But you can't sleep in the car," Jack continued. "Every time a bump wakes you up, we might have to go through the whole no-you're-not-being-kidnapped thing all over again. So I'm thinking you should do the driving today, I'll sleep, then I can take the watch after we get there tonight."
Daniel looked up at him stupidly. Jack sighed. "The NID?" he said. "I don't like the idea of them catching us sleeping." Daniel nodded and Jack continued.
"We could split the night watch, but it's so much more efficient if you only have to wake up once a day."
"Right," Daniel said, suddenly feeling a wave of anger that he couldn't wake up next to Jack in the sunlight in the afterglow of a long night of lovemaking.
"Shit!" He breathed, blushing furiously in the heat the image created.
Jack gave him an odd look over the top of his coffee cup.
"What?"
Daniel just shook his head and shrugged.
"Okay," said Jack, stretching out the vowels and watching him carefully. "Here. Pay the check," he said, dropping cash on the table. "I'm gonna hit the head, then we can get on the road."
He nodded, and stared down at his uneaten breakfast again, refusing to let himself watch Jack walk away, in his old, worn, well-fitting...
He swore to himself again as he waved to the waitress.
He was going to end up in Jack's lap all over again before the day was over, if he didn't get a grip on himself. Sam had been clear. He and Jack weren't lovers. Which meant Jack was right. Considering the force of what Daniel felt, he must have been resisting these feelings for years. There must have been a good reason. He swallowed the last of his coffee and resolved to try to be true to the greater wisdom of his missing self.
It was going to be a grueling drive. Kansas to Montana in one long shot. Jack gave him directions before stretching out on the floor of the van under the seats and going to sleep. Jack and Sam had agreed that they had given the NID the slip. There had been no sign that they had been followed yesterday and the night had been quiet. Now he wanted to go to ground as fast as possible and sit tight somewhere safe so that Daniel could concentrate on the code.
The question was where to do that, and Sam had come up with the answer. She knew a real estate agent up in Montana, in Billings, who managed vacation properties. They could get a cabin, hide out in the woods. So that became their destination.
Jack climbed back into the van with a key and some paperwork.
"I called in takeout Chinese at a place she recommended," Jack said. "Let's grab that and find this place before it gets dark."
"Jack, I think I've done it," Daniel replied, voice tight with excitement.
"Done what?" Jack asked, climbing over to take the driver's seat when it was clear that Daniel was engrossed in his computer and not paying him the slightest bit of attention.
"That paper I was hoping to send to Linguistics Today, what do you think?" Daniel replied. Jack eyed him in the rearview mirror. "Well, actually, that too, But the code, Jack. I think I've cracked it."
"What, in the half hour I spent in there getting the place?!" Jack asked in amazement.
"Well, no, I've been working on it for a couple of days now, plus, I need to try out a few ideas to see if I've really done it, but somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, it just hit me, how the code symbols must fit to the Goa'uld underneath. Definitely."
Jack watched him shove his glasses up his nose and lean in closer to the hard copy of the text, then turn his attention back to the computer screen, typing furiously, murmuring to himself. Jack shook his head and pulled out of the space to get their dinner.
Daniel wondered for the tenth time that day if he had just abducted himself. He hardly even remembered the trip up the hill. He had been engrossed in testing his theory about the pattern of symbols. Jack had driven down the street, and stopped for their dinner, as well as picking up a few other items in the strip mall, Daniel was fairly certain.
Now, he was standing in the woods at the end of a barely passable dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, with some guy he didn't know, but who certainly seemed to have a lot of interest in him. Nobody knew where he was. And now nobody would ever find him.
He was even planning to let himself be tied to the bed for the night. He shivered and tried to pretend that it was apprehension at the realization of the stupidity of his situation. Not anticipation of Jack's strong, warm hands binding him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself, as he trailed after Jack into the tiny cabin.
It had three rooms. A large front room, with a huge fireplace that seemed to take the entire end wall. There was a kitchenette with a rough table and benches, a cozy area to sit with couches and arm chairs. Through one door was a room almost completely filled by a massive bed and through the other, a tiny bathroom with a shower.
Clearly a warm place to crash and eat after a day spent outside. Perfect for newlyweds, Daniel thought. It was going to be tight with four of them. He couldn't imagine how they were going to pass weeks and weeks there.
He shook his head, trying to push away the slightly panicked feeling of knowing he was alone here with a stranger, as Jack dumped the food and other bags on the table and began looking the place over carefully. Daniel found an outlet near one of the armchairs for the laptop, then went back to the van for more of their stuff. He always preferred paper and pen while translating. A computer keyboard didn't let him get close enough to the text.
When he came back inside, Jack was putting the cooled food into the microwave for a quick warming. The table was set, Daniel noticed, and couldn't quite put his finger on why that seemed odd.
"This looks like the honeymoon cabin," Daniel commented, breaking the long silence between them. "The agent didn't think it was unusual that you wanted this place?"
"I told her there were four of us, but this was all she had for a long term rental," Jack replied. "The sofa apparently converts to a very comfortable sleeper."
Jack shrugged.
"Trust me, this is only gonna feel weird to you. This is luxury living compared to some of the places SG-1's been stuck together. But if you've really cracked this thing, we might not be here that long after all."
With a belly full of dinner, Daniel knew he should be ready to sleep. After the day's long drive, his early waking this morning seemed like days ago. But the urge to work on the code was an overwhelming need. He set his dishes in the kitchenette sink and resettled at the table with a legal pad and the printout.
"Don’t start with that," Jack said quietly.
Daniel looked up at him, a little startled at the interruption. Dinner had been quiet. Daniel had been lost in thought, having deliberately set aside his qualms about the situation and turned his attention back to the day's discovery. He hadn't even been paying attention to what Jack had been doing.
"I thought you wanted this thing cracked and translated pronto?" Daniel replied.
Jack nodded, but shrugged.
"It's been a long day. I know what you're like when you get started on these things. You'll work until you collapse face-down on the table in a puddle of your own drool. Before you start down that path, maybe you should write in your journal first. For the morning."
The comment jerked Daniel right out of translation mode, refreshing the feeing of humiliation and stupidity from his conversation with Sam that morning.
"Um. Yeah. About that…"
But Jack was standing up, somewhat abruptly.
"I'm going to get the lay of the land before it gets completely dark out there. Try not to do the drool puddle thing before I get back."
Then he was gone with a blast of frosty night air.
Daniel hardly knew what to write in his journal. He summarized his conversation with Sam. Made a few comments about the drive. Outlined his thoughts about how the code was structured and how it would related to the underlying Goa'uld text.
He refused to look back over his own comments about Jack. He couldn't even remember what had happened. Why should he have such a deep feeling of shame - that he had done something irretrievably stupid? He felt the repercussions deeply.
But all he had to do was destroy those journal pages he would never have to feel this again.
He contemplated it for a moment - just ripping them out and replacing them with a stern warning not to let his feelings for Jack run away with him. Before he could reconsider, that was exactly what he did. Tore out the pages and let them fall into the trash can on top of the bag of spent carryout food cartons. He ripped out his first few pages about what Sam had said, too, and wrote a new paragraph, keeping what he needed to remember and leaving out the gory details.
Jack returned from his walk to find Daniel buried in the translation. He smiled at the curved back and bent neck. Everything just as it should be. Sort of. He went and rummaged though his afternoon's bag of purchases and found the new Field and Stream and settled down on the long soft couch, where he could keep an eye on Daniel while he read.
But he wasn't able to focus on the glossy pages, distracted by Daniel's little mutterings and shiftings. Not to mention that he was on edge knowing that their only real protection here was secrecy. He was jumpy, normal night noises from the nearby woods startling him. He felt he should be out there, walking a perimeter and watching for the enemy, but that would mean leaving Daniel alone inside the cabin. If the enemy's goal was to steal Daniel back, as soon as Jack left the cabin, the whole thing might be over.
In the face of this complete lack of options, Jack forced himself to accept that the NID didn't know where they were or how to find them. Teal'c and Carter would be here in a couple of days, and they could run this thing a little more professionally. Until then... well, if the secrecy thing didn't hold out, there wasn't much more Jack could do about it anyway.
He was just getting into an article about a nearby wildlife area when Daniel suddenly shoved back from the table and flung down his pencil, swearing. Daniel turned on him and pointed accusingly.
"This is a CIA white paper!" he shouted.
Jack blinked at him stupidly.
"It's confidential intelligence! You... you..." Daniel as stammering in anger and shock.
"Really?" Jack asked thoughtfully, sitting up and walking over to the table to look down at the pages, now covered with Daniel's notes and comments in the margins and between the lines. "That's what I thought."
"So this is about some kind of espionage, after all?!" Daniel shouted. "You've got top secret government documents and you've tricked me into helping you get information you want. I'm not doing any more than I've already -"
Jack turned around, taking in Daniel's fury with some surprise.
"I thought we made it very clear what you were doing," Jack replied. "We told you your lab had been raided by the NID to prevent you from finishing this project."
"So?!"
Jack rubbed his eyes wearily.
"Daniel. Did you not understand that the NID is the United States government?"
Daniel just scowled at him.
"Look. I need to know what that thing says."
Daniel scowled harder.
Jack sighed and turned to look over the work Daniel had already done. Daniel took a step forward as if he would try to stop him. But only one step. Jack could tell he didn't know what to do.
Looking over Daniel's rough notes was nothing like looking at a finished translation. But taking in the whole, Jack got the idea.
"This is a plan for infiltration and an attack from within."
He turned his gaze back to Daniel, who was now slumped in place, hugging himself, watching Jack cautiously.
He didn't answer him.
"Daniel, this is a white paper, generated by the CIA, to help some snakehead take over the US government. A goa'uld asked for this report and somebody used CIA resources to put it together. You have to see you need to translate this. We have to know what we're dealing with here."
"Who's 'we,' Jack?" Daniel asked, hugging himself tighter. "All I have is you to tell me what this means and who the enemy is. How am I supposed to know that you, or for that matter, even you and I, aren't the enemy?"
Jack took in the stubborn set of Daniel's mouth. The determination in his eyes. He scrubbed his hand over his face again and sighed.
"Fine," he said. Daniel looked surprised.
"Here's what I suggest. Hopefully, Carter and Teal'c will be here in a couple of days. We'll figure out a way to get you inside the mountain so that you can meet with the General and you can get everything sorted out so that you can finish the translation."
"So, you're not going to try to make me do this?"
Jack shrugged.
"There's no point. If you don't want to do it, you won't."
Daniel just stood there looking at him in confusion.
"Come on Daniel. You're tired. Let's set everything up for the morning so you can get some sleep."
Daniel smiled weakly.
"OK. Thanks, Jack."
Jack shrugged again.
"I'm just going to get a shower first."
Jack nodded and sat back down with his magazine.
He pretended to pay no attention as Daniel got ready for his shower. He was amused as Daniel retrieved sweatpants and t-shirt and modestly retreated into the tiny bathroom fully-clothed.
Once the water was safely running, Jack flipped through the pages of his magazine until the three pieces of notepaper slipped out. He ran his fingers over Daniel's quick, cramped handwriting. He could pick out the Latin, the French, a little of the Goa'uld. Enough to know what the pages were. He ran his tongue over his lips and put them back between the glossy pages.
A few minutes later Daniel reappeared from the bathroom in a puff of steam, hair damp and spikey, arms full of his other clothes. Jack stood up from the couch and collected Daniel's journal from the table, and another of his afternoon's purchases. He found Daniel standing in the bedroom, his dirty clothes piled on the top of the dresser, looking lost in thought.
"Come on," said Jack, "Let's get you tucked in."
"I can't help feeling like an idiot, agreeing to this," Daniel confided, as he turned back the covers and slipped under them. Jack could see just a hint of suppressed panic in Daniel's expression. He looked like a new green recruit, stepping though the gate for the first time, wondering if there would be a platoon of Jaffa waiting on the other side of the galaxy for them.
Jack smiled as disarmingly as he knew how.
"So which arm, then?"
"I suppose it should be on whichever side the journal is on," he said uncertainly.
Jack shuffled around the foot of the bed to the other side of the room, where there was a tiny bedside table. He put the journal there, with the weapon underneath, and the morning's note on top. Daniel watched him wide-eyed from under the covers.
"Couldn't we just lock the door tonight?" Daniel asked hopefully. "I'm not looking forward to waking up with another sore shoulder."
Jack grimaced sympathetically.
"It's the same argument as yesterday. We have to be sure no matter when you wake up, you find the journal before you can go anywhere. If you wake up in a panic sometime later tonight, you might just put on your clothes and make a break for it out the window without ever reading anything."
Daniel nodded and extended his left arm from under the safety of the comforter.
"I did, however, do some shopping this afternoon while you were busy deciphering. At least you might not have to wake up with a sore arm." He set the bag down on Daniel's chest. Daniel shoved up on his elbows and opened the bag. He made a slighted strangled sound as he saw the contents.
"Where did you buy these?" he asked, voice a little shaky. He pulled out the cuffs, which were joined by a long piece of chain, enough to let Daniel rest comfortably. Jack tried not to smile at the way Daniel first paled, then flushed as he examined them briefly.
"Guns and Ammo shop, two doors down from the place I picked up the Chinese food."
Daniel took a deep breath.
"You do have the key?"
"Two!" said Jack brightly, and he took one, waved it dramatically at Daniel, and laid it under the journal.
Daniel nodded and to Jack's surprise, instead of just locking himself into the cuffs, he handed them back to Jack. He swallowed hard as Jack took them, and relaxed back into the pillows, left hand resting by his head. With another deep breath, he shut his eyes and waited.
"Daniel, are you afraid of me?" Jack asked softly.
Daniel nodded, not opening his eyes to look at him.
Jack made a noncommittal noise and carefully took Daniel's proffered wrist and gently shut the first cuff around it. Jack felt the shiver that ran through Daniel's arm. He then quietly attached the cuff to a segment of the iron bedstead. Daniel blew out a breath.
"You know the key is right there," Jack said softly.
Daniel nodded.
"Then what are you afraid of?"
"Give me a break, Jack. All you have to do is take the key away, and that's it. Look where we are. Think how I left. If you took the key away, nobody would ever know I was here. This is beyond a leap of faith. This is like a free fall in the dark."
Daniel swallowed hard again. He still hadn't opened his eyes to look at Jack.
"Why did you tear out those pages from your journal?"
Daniel opened his eyes, startled. He moved to sit up. Jack stopped him with an open palm, pressed firmly to his chest.
"I didn't need them," Daniel replied, licking his lips nervously. "I made a few related notes. More to the point."
"What if I said I know what was on those pages?"
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"You read Cuneiform and Mandarin Chinese and Arabic?" he asked defensively.
"No. And no. And some. I'm not very literate, but I do speak it relatively well. Also French. And I learned Latin from you. Sort of."
Daniel's momentary bristle vanished as quickly as it had come.
"Look," he said quietly, his eyes on the ceiling. "I probably owe you an apology."
"What did Carter say to you, anyway?"
"Carter?" Daniel replied, confused being interrupted mid-stride.
"She said something, didn't she? Warned you off."
"Um. Not exactly. She seemed surprisingly pleased, actually. But what she said made it clear to me that..." he paused a moment, eyes shutting and opening, tongue stealing out again to lick dry lips. "She, uh, made it clear that everything you said the other night must be true, and that I had probably made a complete and utter fool of myself, in addition to putting you in a very awkward and embarrassing position. So I really am sorry about the whole thing. As well as feeling completely and abjectly humiliated. I tore out the pages, quite frankly, because I didn't want to remember the exact details of what I did, if I didn't have to. It's a little cowardly, I guess, but I don't see that there's anything wrong with just letting the whole experience be summarized by my follow-up, replacement, you-acted-like-an-idiot-don't-do-it-again entry."
The words tumbled out and Jack just let them. When Daniel had finally talked himself through it, he met Jack's gaze again with a weak smile.
"What if I asked you to take those pages and put them back?" Jack said softly. "What if I said I really wished you wanted to remember, and that I'm really, really sorry that what I said and what Carter said, and what I did made you feel so awful that you preferred to forget. Because I don't want to forget."
As he spoke he felt himself blushing, but he refused to look away from Daniel's face. He leaned down slowly, his hand still resting on Daniel's chest, but gently now, not holding him, just feeling his heart pounding through the layers of shirt and sheet and blanket and comforter. Or maybe that was his own pulse, racing as he did something so, so stupid he couldn't remember the last time he did something even remotely this idiotic, even under the influence of alcohol.
He kissed Daniel Jackson.
A feather light touch at first. Daniel actually twitched away, turning his head slightly to avoid Jack's lips. The kiss landed just wide of the mark, gentle on the corner of Daniel's mouth. His eyes still tracked Jack, even as he turned his head away, so he looked at Jack sidelong. Jack couldn't read Daniel's expression well, but he thought there was surprise and suspicion there, and a health dose of fear.
"Jack?" Daniel could barely whisper his name.
He pulled away long enough for Daniel to turn back to face him again, then Jack said, softly and gently and with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, "I'm going to try that one more time, okay?"
Then he did.
And this time Daniel didn't flinch.
It was different from the previous night. Daniel wasn't confident and predatory. Instead, he was hesitant and tentative. Jack could feel the tension in Daniel's body under his hand. He had to coax him carefully, persuade him with sweet gentle kisses and little begging laps of his tongue that everything was alright. That he could open his mouth and let Jack touch his tongue gently, then delve deeper to explore. Jack was good at this, believe it or not. Good at patient and careful and persuasive.
When it seemed that Daniel might have calmed down enough to allow it, Jack shifted and rearranged himself until he could lay down between Daniel and the edge of the bed. Never letting their lips come apart long enough for Daniel to protest. Laid his body along the long length of Daniel's, and settled in comfortably, fingers finding their way up from Daniel's chest, covered by bedclothes, to Daniel's exposed neck, the hinge of his jaw, the curve of his ear, the softness of his hair, still slightly damp from the shower.
It was Daniel's whimper, hardly audible, that brought Jack back to reality. He found that he was half sprawled onto Daniel, who was still safely hidden under the covers, except that Jack's thigh was now positioned strategically, and there was no missing the cause of the whimper. Jack pulled back to meet Daniel's eyes, and there was only one way to describe the expression there. Daniel was terrified.
"It's alright, Danny," he whispered, nudging Daniel's hip with his own erection, just in case the other man had somehow failed to notice.
"No, Jack," Daniel croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It is not alright." This time his voice was low and rough and sultry. He shut his eyes and shook his head and swallowed visibly. "I think we need to stop this right now before it gets completely out of hand."
Jack sighed and began to disentangle himself and sit up.
"Yeah, probably," he agreed, running a shaky hand through his hair.
He noticed that Daniel's restrained hand was clenched tightly around the chain. He flinched a little at the realization.
He stood abruptly and tucked the torn pages into the later part of Daniel's notebook, carefully not looking at any of the rest of the contents.
He walked to the door.
"Jack, I need a pen," Daniel said. His voice sounded as wobbly as Jack felt.
"No you don't," Jack said.
"If you want me to remember... anything..." he pressed, "you know I need to write."
"Let me remember this for both of us," Jack replied.
Daniel had a key to the cuffs, and he had pens in his bag at the foot of the bed.
"Good night, Daniel. I'll see you in the morning."
He switched off the light and walked out to sit on the couch and watch the dying fire.
He waited for Daniel to get his own pen. But the room stayed quiet.
Daniel lay there in the dark, his heart pounding and his whole body shaking. He was drenched in sweat and his cock was throbbing for release that he absolutely was not going to give himself.
He did not want to admit to himself, even indirectly, how much he liked being at Jack's mercy. He wanted to forget as quickly as possible the electric charge he had felt when Jack had locked the cuff around his wrist. He would definitely deny how devastatingly good it was to have Jack draped over him, pressing him down, holding him in place. He really didn’t think he was gay - they couldn't have made him forget something that fundamental to his very being, could they? - but it would have taken very little to have changed his plea for Jack to stop into pathetic begging for Jack to do more.
Jack had done this. Jack had even salvaged their earlier encounters from the trash - stuffed them back into Daniel's repertoire of Jack-memories even when Daniel had been ready to let the whole thing go. Suddenly it frightened Daniel to the core to think that the choice he made in the next few minuets would determine whether he kept this new frightening, disturbing, luscious set of erotic memories of Jack, or just let them wash away like a twisted wet dream that you only knew you must have dreamed because you woke up sticky and grumpy and had to change the sheets.
And what exactly did Jack mean when he said he would "remember" for both of them? Did that mean that he, himself, wanted to give the memory back to Daniel one day? Maybe Sam was right, and Jack really was in love with him. But maybe Jack only wanted as much as he could get without consequences. Maybe he would take what Daniel would give as long as he never had to face reality the next day.
But if that was the case, why didn't he just leave those pages in the trash?
Daniel was exhausted by the day. The adrenaline crash was sapping what last bit of energy he had left for thinking. It would be easy to just get a pen from his bag and make whatever comments he wanted to in his journal. But he was so confused, and Jack had asked him not to.
Daniel shut his eyes and began declining the noun "idiot" in Russian. He was asleep before he reached the genitive plural.
December 16
It's been awhile since I posted on this one. You may recall that at the beginning, I warned that this could become one of those WIPs that seemed like a good idea at the time, but then never got finished. Well, as I was last writing this in December 2005 and it is now April 2006... Um. Yeah.
Anyway, I would like to reiterate my Stern Warning™.
I have no clue if I'll ever really finish this, the main problem being that I have no idea how it's going to end, exactly. I'm plotting way over my head with this one. Therefore, there seems to be a reasonably good chance that I will run out of story before the story is over leading to a WIP that dies before it is "finished."
So, if you just can't stand it when an author does that, then you probably should skip right past this entry.
However, if you are willing to put up with me, I can promise serious smut in the chapter that will follow this one (whenever it gets written), and a couple more chapters, at least, after that, probably with lots of torture for the boys and maybe more smut before I’m done.
With kind regards and best wishes, I remain,
Very truly yours,
CK
Title: Serial Rediscovery, December 15
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: Daniel has a run-in with the NID, and can't remember anything about the SGC, particularly not SG-1
Content/warnings: I feel a strong need to warn for amnesia!fic. Cause it is SOOOOO lame. But it's also fun. :)
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
For my loyal rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
Previous chapters located here.
December 15
Daniel groggily resurfaced from sleep in the dim light of a tiny bedside lamp. His shoulder and arm and wrist all hurt.
He snapped awake. He remembered traveling - hotels - being tied to the bed. His attention turned to his bound wrist. He immediately began searching for a way to get free.
He realized his stupidity when a soft voice said, "You left yourself a note."
Under the note were a knife and a handgun. The woman in the chair at the foot of the beds watched him calmly as he cut himself loose and checked the weapon.
"I'm going to take a walk," she murmured, apparently trying not to wake the person in the next bed. "Back in ten."
Then she was gone and it was just him, the sleeping man, his journal, and his note to himself.
- There's something wrong with your short-term memory. You trust these people. Read your journal starting with December 14 before you do anything else.
- He told me we shouldn't because he knew it was something that the "real" me wouldn't want. He said we shouldn't because I wouldn't recognize him in the morning. He never said we shouldn't because he didn't want me. I asked him what he wanted and he said it didn't matter.
When I kissed him, it took him about three seconds to give in. Then he put his hands on me. His tongue in my mouth. Amazing. Unlike anything I can ever remember doing. When I licked the skin on his throat he made the most incredible noises.
Daniel shoved the notebook away and shut his eyes tightly. His face felt hot with humiliation, but his fingers tingled and his toes curled, as if his body still had the sensory memory of the kisses and touches he had so palely described to himself on the lined pages.
He struggled for some way to deny that the journal had anything to do with him. Some other person had written the entry in 26 different languages. He didn't kiss men he'd known for just a day. Hell, he didn't kiss women he'd known for just one day. What was wrong with him?!
He stole a sidelong glance at the person sleeping in the bed next to him, both relieved that the man was still asleep, and frustrated that all that could be seen of him was a few tufts of hair poking out from the top of the comforter. He went back though the pages, carefully not reading them again, looking for the photographs. The happy, dirty one. There he was, laughingly clinging to a tall, smiling man on one side, the attractive blond woman who had gone for a walk on the other, with a massive third man just beyond her, his arm overlapping Daniel's across her slender shoulders. On the back he had written Jack Daniel Sam Teal'c.
He stared at Jack's face. The smile, the laugh lines, the warm brown eyes.
He shut his eyes again tight. The little thud-flip his heard did looking at that photo was more persuasive than his own handwriting in the journal.
Sam stood in an out of the way spot down the balcony from their room, watching the parking lot and keeping an eye out for Daniel. She had wanted to give him some privacy - show him she trusted him. She hoped they had thought this through enough last night that he wouldn't run again.
She felt a wave of disappointment as she saw the door open and Daniel stepping out into the cold, crisp night air. But he wasn't running. He looked around, spotted her, and walked over, looking confused and nervous. Behind him, the door he had closed open soundlessly. She saw Jack look out, assess the situation, and just as silently retreat back into the room and shut the door again.
Daniel leaned against the railing next to her.
"That was an interesting read," he muttered, mindful of possibly sleeping neighbors.
"I can imagine," she replied.
"We were... are... friends? All of us?" He was holding the picture from Jack's cookout, not looking at it at the moment, just holding it like a precious thing.
"Yep," she replied, turning so that her hip rested against the rail and she could see him as he spoke.
He smiled that nervous smile she remembered from their early acquaintance.
"Considering the fact that apparently some covert government agency has damaged my brain so that I won't help a super-secret national space travel and research program to translate a mysterious encoded document..." he trailed off, taking a deep breath.
"You feel like a complete idiot, because all you want to talk about is Colonel O'Neill?" she prompted, with a sly smile
He snorted at her comment, but apparently couldn't stop his answering bashful grin.
"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" he asked.
"No!" she denied it even as the laugh escaped. Daniel blushed furiously.
"Great. Never mind..." he muttered, nervous smile flickering again, and he turned away.
"Daniel!" she said, a little louder than she had intended, catching his arm and stopping his retreat.
"Honestly. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at him." She managed to suppress her chuckles, even as Daniel gave her a more genuine smile. She almost laughed again, seeing that the noise they were making had drawn Jack to the window. He was now watching them through a slight parting in the curtains.
"Does he deserve it?" Daniel asked.
"Probably not," Sam conceded. "But I refuse to feel guilty when he's got the man of his dreams crawling all over him."
"So I did... do... I have some sort of... personal relationship with him?" Daniel asked.
Though she had been anticipating the question, she found that she didn't know exactly how she should answer.
"What makes you ask?" she replied.
Daniel laughed shortly.
"You're the one who said I was crawling all over him. But mainly because my journal entries describe me doing things that don't make any sense to me," he replied. "Maybe in those four years I can't remember I have become the kind of person who would climb into a handsome stranger's lap. But somehow I'm thinking not." That twitch of a smile again. Daniel wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Did you ask the colonel?" she asked gently.
"I want to know what you think," Daniel countered.
"Alright," she agreed. "No, I don't think the two of you had quite fumbled your way to a personal relationship." She couldn't help laughing again, watching the window, willing herself to make direct eye contact with her hidden CO, as Daniel flushed and looked away.
"Great," he muttered.
"That said..." she continued. "You flirt. You fight. The colonel gets bored, he ends up in your office. You're doing a multi-team briefing, you get nervous, your eyes go to him. The colonel has been known to change whole battle plans in the field because you asked him to. You have him completely wrapped around your littlest finger."
She laughed quietly.
"Or at least, that's what nearly every person on the base, possibly including General Hammond, just assumes." She chuckled to herself.
He was blushing again.
"That's insane."
She snorted.
"I'm not sure which part you think is insane, but you guys will work it out."
Breakfast was excruciating. Daniel had refused to go back to sleep, only to have to go through the trauma of waking up twice in one day. He'd just have to write down everything that Sam had explained to him before he could go to sleep, anyway, and by then, it would be time to get up again. So they decided to get started moving early and checked out of the hotel as soon as they could get packed.
They ate at the diner next door. They took a booth away from the few other patrons and Sam and Jack talked quickly and quietly about plans for the next few days.
Then, with a last few reassuring words, and quick hugs, Sam left.
Daniel realized miserably that he would be spending the next three days, maybe longer, all alone with Jack.
They ate quietly. Or rather Jack ate. Daniel pushed his food around while his stomach tried to reject what it had already eaten.
"I've been thinking about what to do now that Carter's gone," Jack said through the last bite of his pancakes. "I don't think we should sleep together."
Daniel set his coffee cup down very carefully. Well, considering how he must have been behaving the night before, he could hardly blame Jack for being blunt.
"Okay," he said meekly, pushing the cold eggs on his plate around some more.
"But you can't sleep in the car," Jack continued. "Every time a bump wakes you up, we might have to go through the whole no-you're-not-being-kidnapped thing all over again. So I'm thinking you should do the driving today, I'll sleep, then I can take the watch after we get there tonight."
Daniel looked up at him stupidly. Jack sighed. "The NID?" he said. "I don't like the idea of them catching us sleeping." Daniel nodded and Jack continued.
"We could split the night watch, but it's so much more efficient if you only have to wake up once a day."
"Right," Daniel said, suddenly feeling a wave of anger that he couldn't wake up next to Jack in the sunlight in the afterglow of a long night of lovemaking.
"Shit!" He breathed, blushing furiously in the heat the image created.
Jack gave him an odd look over the top of his coffee cup.
"What?"
Daniel just shook his head and shrugged.
"Okay," said Jack, stretching out the vowels and watching him carefully. "Here. Pay the check," he said, dropping cash on the table. "I'm gonna hit the head, then we can get on the road."
He nodded, and stared down at his uneaten breakfast again, refusing to let himself watch Jack walk away, in his old, worn, well-fitting...
He swore to himself again as he waved to the waitress.
He was going to end up in Jack's lap all over again before the day was over, if he didn't get a grip on himself. Sam had been clear. He and Jack weren't lovers. Which meant Jack was right. Considering the force of what Daniel felt, he must have been resisting these feelings for years. There must have been a good reason. He swallowed the last of his coffee and resolved to try to be true to the greater wisdom of his missing self.
It was going to be a grueling drive. Kansas to Montana in one long shot. Jack gave him directions before stretching out on the floor of the van under the seats and going to sleep. Jack and Sam had agreed that they had given the NID the slip. There had been no sign that they had been followed yesterday and the night had been quiet. Now he wanted to go to ground as fast as possible and sit tight somewhere safe so that Daniel could concentrate on the code.
The question was where to do that, and Sam had come up with the answer. She knew a real estate agent up in Montana, in Billings, who managed vacation properties. They could get a cabin, hide out in the woods. So that became their destination.
Jack climbed back into the van with a key and some paperwork.
"I called in takeout Chinese at a place she recommended," Jack said. "Let's grab that and find this place before it gets dark."
"Jack, I think I've done it," Daniel replied, voice tight with excitement.
"Done what?" Jack asked, climbing over to take the driver's seat when it was clear that Daniel was engrossed in his computer and not paying him the slightest bit of attention.
"That paper I was hoping to send to Linguistics Today, what do you think?" Daniel replied. Jack eyed him in the rearview mirror. "Well, actually, that too, But the code, Jack. I think I've cracked it."
"What, in the half hour I spent in there getting the place?!" Jack asked in amazement.
"Well, no, I've been working on it for a couple of days now, plus, I need to try out a few ideas to see if I've really done it, but somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, it just hit me, how the code symbols must fit to the Goa'uld underneath. Definitely."
Jack watched him shove his glasses up his nose and lean in closer to the hard copy of the text, then turn his attention back to the computer screen, typing furiously, murmuring to himself. Jack shook his head and pulled out of the space to get their dinner.
Daniel wondered for the tenth time that day if he had just abducted himself. He hardly even remembered the trip up the hill. He had been engrossed in testing his theory about the pattern of symbols. Jack had driven down the street, and stopped for their dinner, as well as picking up a few other items in the strip mall, Daniel was fairly certain.
Now, he was standing in the woods at the end of a barely passable dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, with some guy he didn't know, but who certainly seemed to have a lot of interest in him. Nobody knew where he was. And now nobody would ever find him.
He was even planning to let himself be tied to the bed for the night. He shivered and tried to pretend that it was apprehension at the realization of the stupidity of his situation. Not anticipation of Jack's strong, warm hands binding him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself, as he trailed after Jack into the tiny cabin.
It had three rooms. A large front room, with a huge fireplace that seemed to take the entire end wall. There was a kitchenette with a rough table and benches, a cozy area to sit with couches and arm chairs. Through one door was a room almost completely filled by a massive bed and through the other, a tiny bathroom with a shower.
Clearly a warm place to crash and eat after a day spent outside. Perfect for newlyweds, Daniel thought. It was going to be tight with four of them. He couldn't imagine how they were going to pass weeks and weeks there.
He shook his head, trying to push away the slightly panicked feeling of knowing he was alone here with a stranger, as Jack dumped the food and other bags on the table and began looking the place over carefully. Daniel found an outlet near one of the armchairs for the laptop, then went back to the van for more of their stuff. He always preferred paper and pen while translating. A computer keyboard didn't let him get close enough to the text.
When he came back inside, Jack was putting the cooled food into the microwave for a quick warming. The table was set, Daniel noticed, and couldn't quite put his finger on why that seemed odd.
"This looks like the honeymoon cabin," Daniel commented, breaking the long silence between them. "The agent didn't think it was unusual that you wanted this place?"
"I told her there were four of us, but this was all she had for a long term rental," Jack replied. "The sofa apparently converts to a very comfortable sleeper."
Jack shrugged.
"Trust me, this is only gonna feel weird to you. This is luxury living compared to some of the places SG-1's been stuck together. But if you've really cracked this thing, we might not be here that long after all."
With a belly full of dinner, Daniel knew he should be ready to sleep. After the day's long drive, his early waking this morning seemed like days ago. But the urge to work on the code was an overwhelming need. He set his dishes in the kitchenette sink and resettled at the table with a legal pad and the printout.
"Don’t start with that," Jack said quietly.
Daniel looked up at him, a little startled at the interruption. Dinner had been quiet. Daniel had been lost in thought, having deliberately set aside his qualms about the situation and turned his attention back to the day's discovery. He hadn't even been paying attention to what Jack had been doing.
"I thought you wanted this thing cracked and translated pronto?" Daniel replied.
Jack nodded, but shrugged.
"It's been a long day. I know what you're like when you get started on these things. You'll work until you collapse face-down on the table in a puddle of your own drool. Before you start down that path, maybe you should write in your journal first. For the morning."
The comment jerked Daniel right out of translation mode, refreshing the feeing of humiliation and stupidity from his conversation with Sam that morning.
"Um. Yeah. About that…"
But Jack was standing up, somewhat abruptly.
"I'm going to get the lay of the land before it gets completely dark out there. Try not to do the drool puddle thing before I get back."
Then he was gone with a blast of frosty night air.
Daniel hardly knew what to write in his journal. He summarized his conversation with Sam. Made a few comments about the drive. Outlined his thoughts about how the code was structured and how it would related to the underlying Goa'uld text.
He refused to look back over his own comments about Jack. He couldn't even remember what had happened. Why should he have such a deep feeling of shame - that he had done something irretrievably stupid? He felt the repercussions deeply.
But all he had to do was destroy those journal pages he would never have to feel this again.
He contemplated it for a moment - just ripping them out and replacing them with a stern warning not to let his feelings for Jack run away with him. Before he could reconsider, that was exactly what he did. Tore out the pages and let them fall into the trash can on top of the bag of spent carryout food cartons. He ripped out his first few pages about what Sam had said, too, and wrote a new paragraph, keeping what he needed to remember and leaving out the gory details.
- I seem to be surprisingly attracted to Col. O'Neill. So much so that I decided to ask Maj. Carter if - before my memory was tampered with - if Col. O'Neill and I had any kind of personal relationship. Sam said no. I have torn out a few pages, the content of which was too horribly humiliating to have to reread day after day. The essence of which was that the Col. is not interested even if I might be. My advice to myself during this time when I can't remember Col. O'Neill from day to day, is that I should keep my hands to myself and stop embarrassing us both.
Jack returned from his walk to find Daniel buried in the translation. He smiled at the curved back and bent neck. Everything just as it should be. Sort of. He went and rummaged though his afternoon's bag of purchases and found the new Field and Stream and settled down on the long soft couch, where he could keep an eye on Daniel while he read.
But he wasn't able to focus on the glossy pages, distracted by Daniel's little mutterings and shiftings. Not to mention that he was on edge knowing that their only real protection here was secrecy. He was jumpy, normal night noises from the nearby woods startling him. He felt he should be out there, walking a perimeter and watching for the enemy, but that would mean leaving Daniel alone inside the cabin. If the enemy's goal was to steal Daniel back, as soon as Jack left the cabin, the whole thing might be over.
In the face of this complete lack of options, Jack forced himself to accept that the NID didn't know where they were or how to find them. Teal'c and Carter would be here in a couple of days, and they could run this thing a little more professionally. Until then... well, if the secrecy thing didn't hold out, there wasn't much more Jack could do about it anyway.
He was just getting into an article about a nearby wildlife area when Daniel suddenly shoved back from the table and flung down his pencil, swearing. Daniel turned on him and pointed accusingly.
"This is a CIA white paper!" he shouted.
Jack blinked at him stupidly.
"It's confidential intelligence! You... you..." Daniel as stammering in anger and shock.
"Really?" Jack asked thoughtfully, sitting up and walking over to the table to look down at the pages, now covered with Daniel's notes and comments in the margins and between the lines. "That's what I thought."
"So this is about some kind of espionage, after all?!" Daniel shouted. "You've got top secret government documents and you've tricked me into helping you get information you want. I'm not doing any more than I've already -"
Jack turned around, taking in Daniel's fury with some surprise.
"I thought we made it very clear what you were doing," Jack replied. "We told you your lab had been raided by the NID to prevent you from finishing this project."
"So?!"
Jack rubbed his eyes wearily.
"Daniel. Did you not understand that the NID is the United States government?"
Daniel just scowled at him.
"Look. I need to know what that thing says."
Daniel scowled harder.
Jack sighed and turned to look over the work Daniel had already done. Daniel took a step forward as if he would try to stop him. But only one step. Jack could tell he didn't know what to do.
Looking over Daniel's rough notes was nothing like looking at a finished translation. But taking in the whole, Jack got the idea.
"This is a plan for infiltration and an attack from within."
He turned his gaze back to Daniel, who was now slumped in place, hugging himself, watching Jack cautiously.
He didn't answer him.
"Daniel, this is a white paper, generated by the CIA, to help some snakehead take over the US government. A goa'uld asked for this report and somebody used CIA resources to put it together. You have to see you need to translate this. We have to know what we're dealing with here."
"Who's 'we,' Jack?" Daniel asked, hugging himself tighter. "All I have is you to tell me what this means and who the enemy is. How am I supposed to know that you, or for that matter, even you and I, aren't the enemy?"
Jack took in the stubborn set of Daniel's mouth. The determination in his eyes. He scrubbed his hand over his face again and sighed.
"Fine," he said. Daniel looked surprised.
"Here's what I suggest. Hopefully, Carter and Teal'c will be here in a couple of days. We'll figure out a way to get you inside the mountain so that you can meet with the General and you can get everything sorted out so that you can finish the translation."
"So, you're not going to try to make me do this?"
Jack shrugged.
"There's no point. If you don't want to do it, you won't."
Daniel just stood there looking at him in confusion.
"Come on Daniel. You're tired. Let's set everything up for the morning so you can get some sleep."
Daniel smiled weakly.
"OK. Thanks, Jack."
Jack shrugged again.
"I'm just going to get a shower first."
Jack nodded and sat back down with his magazine.
He pretended to pay no attention as Daniel got ready for his shower. He was amused as Daniel retrieved sweatpants and t-shirt and modestly retreated into the tiny bathroom fully-clothed.
Once the water was safely running, Jack flipped through the pages of his magazine until the three pieces of notepaper slipped out. He ran his fingers over Daniel's quick, cramped handwriting. He could pick out the Latin, the French, a little of the Goa'uld. Enough to know what the pages were. He ran his tongue over his lips and put them back between the glossy pages.
A few minutes later Daniel reappeared from the bathroom in a puff of steam, hair damp and spikey, arms full of his other clothes. Jack stood up from the couch and collected Daniel's journal from the table, and another of his afternoon's purchases. He found Daniel standing in the bedroom, his dirty clothes piled on the top of the dresser, looking lost in thought.
"Come on," said Jack, "Let's get you tucked in."
"I can't help feeling like an idiot, agreeing to this," Daniel confided, as he turned back the covers and slipped under them. Jack could see just a hint of suppressed panic in Daniel's expression. He looked like a new green recruit, stepping though the gate for the first time, wondering if there would be a platoon of Jaffa waiting on the other side of the galaxy for them.
Jack smiled as disarmingly as he knew how.
"So which arm, then?"
"I suppose it should be on whichever side the journal is on," he said uncertainly.
Jack shuffled around the foot of the bed to the other side of the room, where there was a tiny bedside table. He put the journal there, with the weapon underneath, and the morning's note on top. Daniel watched him wide-eyed from under the covers.
"Couldn't we just lock the door tonight?" Daniel asked hopefully. "I'm not looking forward to waking up with another sore shoulder."
Jack grimaced sympathetically.
"It's the same argument as yesterday. We have to be sure no matter when you wake up, you find the journal before you can go anywhere. If you wake up in a panic sometime later tonight, you might just put on your clothes and make a break for it out the window without ever reading anything."
Daniel nodded and extended his left arm from under the safety of the comforter.
"I did, however, do some shopping this afternoon while you were busy deciphering. At least you might not have to wake up with a sore arm." He set the bag down on Daniel's chest. Daniel shoved up on his elbows and opened the bag. He made a slighted strangled sound as he saw the contents.
"Where did you buy these?" he asked, voice a little shaky. He pulled out the cuffs, which were joined by a long piece of chain, enough to let Daniel rest comfortably. Jack tried not to smile at the way Daniel first paled, then flushed as he examined them briefly.
"Guns and Ammo shop, two doors down from the place I picked up the Chinese food."
Daniel took a deep breath.
"You do have the key?"
"Two!" said Jack brightly, and he took one, waved it dramatically at Daniel, and laid it under the journal.
Daniel nodded and to Jack's surprise, instead of just locking himself into the cuffs, he handed them back to Jack. He swallowed hard as Jack took them, and relaxed back into the pillows, left hand resting by his head. With another deep breath, he shut his eyes and waited.
"Daniel, are you afraid of me?" Jack asked softly.
Daniel nodded, not opening his eyes to look at him.
Jack made a noncommittal noise and carefully took Daniel's proffered wrist and gently shut the first cuff around it. Jack felt the shiver that ran through Daniel's arm. He then quietly attached the cuff to a segment of the iron bedstead. Daniel blew out a breath.
"You know the key is right there," Jack said softly.
Daniel nodded.
"Then what are you afraid of?"
"Give me a break, Jack. All you have to do is take the key away, and that's it. Look where we are. Think how I left. If you took the key away, nobody would ever know I was here. This is beyond a leap of faith. This is like a free fall in the dark."
Daniel swallowed hard again. He still hadn't opened his eyes to look at Jack.
"Why did you tear out those pages from your journal?"
Daniel opened his eyes, startled. He moved to sit up. Jack stopped him with an open palm, pressed firmly to his chest.
"I didn't need them," Daniel replied, licking his lips nervously. "I made a few related notes. More to the point."
"What if I said I know what was on those pages?"
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"You read Cuneiform and Mandarin Chinese and Arabic?" he asked defensively.
"No. And no. And some. I'm not very literate, but I do speak it relatively well. Also French. And I learned Latin from you. Sort of."
Daniel's momentary bristle vanished as quickly as it had come.
"Look," he said quietly, his eyes on the ceiling. "I probably owe you an apology."
"What did Carter say to you, anyway?"
"Carter?" Daniel replied, confused being interrupted mid-stride.
"She said something, didn't she? Warned you off."
"Um. Not exactly. She seemed surprisingly pleased, actually. But what she said made it clear to me that..." he paused a moment, eyes shutting and opening, tongue stealing out again to lick dry lips. "She, uh, made it clear that everything you said the other night must be true, and that I had probably made a complete and utter fool of myself, in addition to putting you in a very awkward and embarrassing position. So I really am sorry about the whole thing. As well as feeling completely and abjectly humiliated. I tore out the pages, quite frankly, because I didn't want to remember the exact details of what I did, if I didn't have to. It's a little cowardly, I guess, but I don't see that there's anything wrong with just letting the whole experience be summarized by my follow-up, replacement, you-acted-like-an-idiot-don't-do-it-again entry."
The words tumbled out and Jack just let them. When Daniel had finally talked himself through it, he met Jack's gaze again with a weak smile.
"What if I asked you to take those pages and put them back?" Jack said softly. "What if I said I really wished you wanted to remember, and that I'm really, really sorry that what I said and what Carter said, and what I did made you feel so awful that you preferred to forget. Because I don't want to forget."
As he spoke he felt himself blushing, but he refused to look away from Daniel's face. He leaned down slowly, his hand still resting on Daniel's chest, but gently now, not holding him, just feeling his heart pounding through the layers of shirt and sheet and blanket and comforter. Or maybe that was his own pulse, racing as he did something so, so stupid he couldn't remember the last time he did something even remotely this idiotic, even under the influence of alcohol.
He kissed Daniel Jackson.
A feather light touch at first. Daniel actually twitched away, turning his head slightly to avoid Jack's lips. The kiss landed just wide of the mark, gentle on the corner of Daniel's mouth. His eyes still tracked Jack, even as he turned his head away, so he looked at Jack sidelong. Jack couldn't read Daniel's expression well, but he thought there was surprise and suspicion there, and a health dose of fear.
"Jack?" Daniel could barely whisper his name.
He pulled away long enough for Daniel to turn back to face him again, then Jack said, softly and gently and with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, "I'm going to try that one more time, okay?"
Then he did.
And this time Daniel didn't flinch.
It was different from the previous night. Daniel wasn't confident and predatory. Instead, he was hesitant and tentative. Jack could feel the tension in Daniel's body under his hand. He had to coax him carefully, persuade him with sweet gentle kisses and little begging laps of his tongue that everything was alright. That he could open his mouth and let Jack touch his tongue gently, then delve deeper to explore. Jack was good at this, believe it or not. Good at patient and careful and persuasive.
When it seemed that Daniel might have calmed down enough to allow it, Jack shifted and rearranged himself until he could lay down between Daniel and the edge of the bed. Never letting their lips come apart long enough for Daniel to protest. Laid his body along the long length of Daniel's, and settled in comfortably, fingers finding their way up from Daniel's chest, covered by bedclothes, to Daniel's exposed neck, the hinge of his jaw, the curve of his ear, the softness of his hair, still slightly damp from the shower.
It was Daniel's whimper, hardly audible, that brought Jack back to reality. He found that he was half sprawled onto Daniel, who was still safely hidden under the covers, except that Jack's thigh was now positioned strategically, and there was no missing the cause of the whimper. Jack pulled back to meet Daniel's eyes, and there was only one way to describe the expression there. Daniel was terrified.
"It's alright, Danny," he whispered, nudging Daniel's hip with his own erection, just in case the other man had somehow failed to notice.
"No, Jack," Daniel croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It is not alright." This time his voice was low and rough and sultry. He shut his eyes and shook his head and swallowed visibly. "I think we need to stop this right now before it gets completely out of hand."
Jack sighed and began to disentangle himself and sit up.
"Yeah, probably," he agreed, running a shaky hand through his hair.
He noticed that Daniel's restrained hand was clenched tightly around the chain. He flinched a little at the realization.
He stood abruptly and tucked the torn pages into the later part of Daniel's notebook, carefully not looking at any of the rest of the contents.
He walked to the door.
"Jack, I need a pen," Daniel said. His voice sounded as wobbly as Jack felt.
"No you don't," Jack said.
"If you want me to remember... anything..." he pressed, "you know I need to write."
"Let me remember this for both of us," Jack replied.
Daniel had a key to the cuffs, and he had pens in his bag at the foot of the bed.
"Good night, Daniel. I'll see you in the morning."
He switched off the light and walked out to sit on the couch and watch the dying fire.
He waited for Daniel to get his own pen. But the room stayed quiet.
Daniel lay there in the dark, his heart pounding and his whole body shaking. He was drenched in sweat and his cock was throbbing for release that he absolutely was not going to give himself.
He did not want to admit to himself, even indirectly, how much he liked being at Jack's mercy. He wanted to forget as quickly as possible the electric charge he had felt when Jack had locked the cuff around his wrist. He would definitely deny how devastatingly good it was to have Jack draped over him, pressing him down, holding him in place. He really didn’t think he was gay - they couldn't have made him forget something that fundamental to his very being, could they? - but it would have taken very little to have changed his plea for Jack to stop into pathetic begging for Jack to do more.
Jack had done this. Jack had even salvaged their earlier encounters from the trash - stuffed them back into Daniel's repertoire of Jack-memories even when Daniel had been ready to let the whole thing go. Suddenly it frightened Daniel to the core to think that the choice he made in the next few minuets would determine whether he kept this new frightening, disturbing, luscious set of erotic memories of Jack, or just let them wash away like a twisted wet dream that you only knew you must have dreamed because you woke up sticky and grumpy and had to change the sheets.
And what exactly did Jack mean when he said he would "remember" for both of them? Did that mean that he, himself, wanted to give the memory back to Daniel one day? Maybe Sam was right, and Jack really was in love with him. But maybe Jack only wanted as much as he could get without consequences. Maybe he would take what Daniel would give as long as he never had to face reality the next day.
But if that was the case, why didn't he just leave those pages in the trash?
Daniel was exhausted by the day. The adrenaline crash was sapping what last bit of energy he had left for thinking. It would be easy to just get a pen from his bag and make whatever comments he wanted to in his journal. But he was so confused, and Jack had asked him not to.
Daniel shut his eyes and began declining the noun "idiot" in Russian. He was asleep before he reached the genitive plural.
December 16