SG1 writing exercise: Unlooked-for Gift
Unlooked-for Gift
Jack/Daniel, soft NC-17, 2700 words.
No beta; please tell me if I have spinach in my teeth.
Jack reached out to straighten the shoulders of Daniel's tac vest, fix a buckle. They were easy, familiar touches, the kind he could get away with in front of SG-6 and SG-15 there in the gate room, because he'd always touched Daniel like this. Daniel, for his part, seemed a little more askew than normal-his tag didn't often stick up like that-almost as if he was deliberately asking Jack to touch him, inviting a little more of that low-key contact that they doled out so carefully.
Daniel pushed his glasses up and spoke in a very quiet but perfectly normal, conversational voice. "I'm a little pissed the Ashians invited us back so soon."
"What? I thought you were wild about the idea of studying those inscriptions?" Jack tucked Daniel's tag back in, feeling his fingernails run over warm skin and the knob of bone at the top of his spine. Very slightest of pats. Going to need to step away now.
"I am. I had just planned on coming to your house tonight and doing what we talked about. Then fucking you. Got a lot of pent-up energy; don't know what I'm going to do with it now."
Jack's heart thumped in his chest, jolted by warring surges of adrenaline and lust. He fought the urge to react, to grab Daniel and hiss a warning at him, to look wildly around. He knew without looking that Teal'c was still gearing up, knew that both other SG teams were out of earshot. He knew these things because he trusted Daniel. God help him, he'd decided to trust Daniel's discretion.
Daniel pulled his sidearm out of its holster, checked the clip and the safety, holstered it again, checked the snap and the buckle, all in a few brief seconds. The quick efficiency of his hands, his ability to carry on exactly like normal, was a little breathtaking. Daniel gave a slight twitch of his shoulder, just a flicker of muscle under the skin, like a horse dislodging a fly. Jack realized that his hand was still on the back of Daniel's neck, first two fingers curled into the collar of his shirt. He dropped his hand quickly and tried to remember his normal steps for checking his gear.
***
The ruins on Ashia were a bust. Apparently from at least a thousand years later than the first brief survey had led them to believe, and probably very interesting to the Ashians themselves in reconstructing their own heritage, but with no relevance whatsoever to the Goa'uld occupation of the planet or the war of independence that followed it. Daniel hadn't said as much, yet; Jack was getting his information from Dr. Levant in SG-15. Daniel would keep pushing for more time to wring every scrap of information out of the site, immediate relevance or not, and since they had promised the Ashians at least 120 man-hours of expert help, he was going to get at least one more full day.
The dissatisfaction was easy to read on Daniel, though. The way he trailed off every so often and seemed to have to force himself to keep talking into his little recorder. The way he let the other archaeologists handle the most significant artifacts and instead took on the scutwork of mapping and sketching himself. (Daniel had an interesting relationship with drawing sections, Jack knew. A boring exercise in care and precision, satisfying in and of itself only when the site was too dull for words. Just one in a long list of things about archeology that Jack was never going to let on he knew)
Daniel had tied on his bandana, trailing end covering the back of his neck as he crouched over in the harsh sun. The black t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders, stained even darker in triangle of sweat starting below his shoulder blades. The bottom half was soaked, plastered to the small of his back, outlining the ridge of his spine and the curves of his muscles.
Jack hauled his eyes back to the perimeter he was supposed to be watching, and radioed his scheduled check-in with Teal’c on the other side.
The military half of SG-6 came to relieve them a few hours later. Jack passed by Daniel’s trench on the way back in. Daniel pulled the bandana off his head and threw it up out of the trench, smacking Jack in the thigh.
“Problem, Daniel?”
“Pass me down the canteen. I don’t want to climb up.”
Jack crouched on the sandbags around the top of the hole and handed down the nearest canteen, and the bandana with it.
Instead of raising it to his lips, Daniel screwed off the top and lifted it to pour a long stream over his head. The patterns of sweat on his shirt disappeared, and now it clung to every line of him. Daniel’s shoulder blade stood out under the wet fabric as he lowered his arm, and when he turned back to face Jack, his nipples did too.
“Thought you weren’t supposed to get the trench all muddy,” Jack said, forcing it out through the tightness in his throat.
“Reached virgin sand here, so it doesn’t matter.” Daniel lifted the canteen to his lips, then rinsed out his bandana and retied it. He chucked the canteen back up and Jack caught it easily and started to get back to his feet.
“Jack.”
The sudden heat in Daniel’s voice was arresting. Jack looked without wanting to. “I meant what I said in the gateroom. Going insane down here.” Then Daniel lifted the bottom of his shirt and very deliberately wiped his forehead with it, holding Jack’s eyes mercilessly until the last possible second. The muscular ridges of his stomach tensed and shifted a little. His pants were riding low, just under his hipbones, and the trail of hair leading down was ruffled and standing up strangely. Jack could see himself clearly, nearly feel himself, licking down that trail, tasting sweat and smoothing the hairs flat with his tongue.
Jack swallowed hard and went back to the base tent.
The Marines of SG-15 hadn’t yet heard better than to play poker with Teal’c, bless their little hearts. Jack obediently won twenty bucks off Teal’c, then lost ten to Corporal Hirsch. When Teal’c gave the signal-just the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth, plain as a semaphore after years of doing this-Jack bitched loudly about how these low stakes were boring the crap out of him. Hirsch suggested upping the ante next pot, and threw in a substantial raise on this one.
The poor man never knew what hit him. It was almost enough to let him stop thinking about Daniel, at least until Daniel came in for dinner still sweaty, with a long streak of dirt highlighting the tendon on the side of his neck, and pressed himself right up against Jack’s back to reach around him for the food.
Bastard.
***
They shared a tent that night. After three years of habit, it would have occasioned far more comment to not share a tent, but it still made Jack feel like he was getting away with something.
Jack pulled first watch, and when he came in he found Daniel still awake. He was bare-chested, laying on his back and glancing over notes from the day.
“You’ll be tired tomorrow,” Jack said, and settled down on his bedroll.
“Like this site needs my full mental capacity anyway,” Daniel answered, finally admitting what had been obvious all day. He tossed the notes aside and tucked his left arm up under his head. “Was waiting for you. No point going to sleep just to get woken up again when you come tromping in.” The friendly exaggeration was softened by his slight smile. Jack didn’t bother to bristle or point out how easy it still was to sneak up on Daniel asleep. Instead, he just toed off his boots and pulled off his own shirt.
Then Daniel reached down and undid his button fly with a few quick flicks of his fingers. He spread his uniform pants open and drew out his cock to lay flat against his belly, and then gave it a few long, soft, strokes, fingertips sliding under his balls then all the way up until the heel of his hand caressed the head.
Jack froze, transfixed.
“No, seriously, I want to hear,” Daniel had said, trailing gentle fingers down Jack’s chest and over his stomach, pausing to swirl for a moment in the puddle of come low on his belly and spread it in a cool line.
Jack shifted uncomfortably and tried to roll on top of Daniel, only to be stopped by a firm palm over his sternum. “Jack, nothing you can say will shock me. I can’t promise to be into it, but I absolutely can promise I won’t even bat an eye. Trust me on that.”
Of course Jack trusted him on that one. It wasn’t that at all.
Daniel’s cock was filling and rising quickly under his gently rubbing hand, and he finally held it in a loose circle of fingers and gave a first, smooth thrust. A tiny sound escaped him, a harsh exhale with only the slightest voice in it.
That jolted Jack to action. “Daniel, not on a mission. You know we can’t.”
Daniel turned his head and fixed Jack with a careful gaze. “I’m not allowed to jerk off, now that I’m sleeping with you? Was I involving you in this at all?”
The obvious answer to that was “yes,” but Jack felt a sudden, completely unwarranted spike of excluded hurt at the words. “No.” He lay down, stretched out on his side facing Daniel with the bedroll pulled tight around him.
Daniel’s head tipped back, exposing the long, perfect lines of his throat and collarbones, and his eyes slid closed. The muscles low in his stomach flexed and fluttered with every smooth, easy thrust up through his loose fist. “Well, not overtly. But in my mind, you’re plenty involved.”
“I am?” Jack asked, knowing he could never keep his voice as carefully steady as Daniel could.
“Yeah.” Daniel didn’t seem to feel the need to elaborate.
It hadn’t been like he worried his fantasy life would scare Daniel off. There were some things, yeah, but nothing beyond the pale. But how could he tell Daniel the truth? You, Danny. Just you. Hell with the trappings and hell with the specific choreography, I just want you, any way you want it, any way you’ll have me. Just the feel of your lips, just the touch of your skin against mine, just the permission to look and to touch and keep touching without some thin excuse-it’s all I’ve wanted, all I thought I could never have, for three years now. As long as I can have you, I can’t imagine needing any fancy shit ever again. As long as I can see your face when you come, know that I can have that, watch you fall apart…
Jack could hardly get the words out. “I’d like-I’d really like to watch you. Touch yourself. See it.” His spent cock was trying desperately to fill again at the very thought, his complete exhaustion warring with the heat in his belly.
Daniel stilled his hips and started moving his hand more, speeding up to quick, tight strokes. Jack found himself transfixed by the flexing of his forearm, the iron-tense bunching of his quads. Daniel gasped and stilled suddenly, holding the base of his cock for a quivering moment before he started to stroke again slowly, playing his thumb around the head.
Jack saw him slide his thumb from his slit down to the underside of the head, then back up, a firm, simple caress that made him jerk a little. He thought, That comes from me, I did that to him, he didn’t do that to himself before me, and was suddenly aware that he was so hard it was physically painful.
Daniel’s cock was gorgeous, straight and thick and perfectly veined, and Jack had known for three years that Daniel’s hands were gorgeous, strong and tanned and sure. But his face-his face was a revelation, so far beyond gorgeous, eyes squeezed tight in concentration, lips spit-wet and parted slightly. Jack had turned almost all the way onto his stomach, pressing rhythmically against the ground, desperate for any relief. It took all his willpower to still himself.
Daniel had huffed a warm breath across his jaw, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, we should really do that,” he said, lips skating against the skin below Jack’s ear. Jack felt Daniel start to harden again, incredibly, against his hip. He started to reach down to it, knowing this last time would be all about Daniel, knowing he could never keep up. The desire he felt at the idea of stroking Daniel through another climax, even if he couldn’t stir again, was intense.
Daniel pushed his hand away gently. “Go to sleep, old man,” he said, and Jack could feel the smile against his neck. “The Ashians should take two days to get back to us. There’s time.”
Daniel was thrusting up again, his hand tightening and speeding up. He turned his head to the side and wrenched his eyes open with an effort. “Next time, Jack. Next time, gonna show you-Have you watch me finger myself open for you. Jesus, Jack, are you ready-Can I-”
“Yes,” Jack said, keeping his hands clenched outside his blanket, holding his hips still with a trembling effort. “Go,” and Daniel did, and his face when he let go was so far beyond beautiful.
Daniel striped himself all the way to his collarbone with a voiceless grunt. Jack didn’t remember sliding closer and closer to him in the tent, but he was so close now that he could reach to lick it with only the slightest movement. He could see himself rolling on top of Daniel, licking him clean, with complete clarity. His hands were shaking. Daniel could go again. Daniel would go again; all he had to do was lean over, lick him clean, close his teeth around that tight nipple and pull slightly, feel that gorgeous, muscled, responsive body arch up under him and give himself over…
Daniel reached over and grabbed his filthy t-shirt from the day before. He wiped himself, then balled it up and shoved it down to the bottom of his pack. With that temptation removed, Jack closed the distance between them. He pressed himself full-length to Daniel’s side, knowing Daniel could feel his erection hard against his thigh and the trembling in his hands. He pressed a kiss to Daniel’s lips, closed-mouthed, the most chaste kiss he could give.
“We’ve gotta reel it in, offworld,” he said. “For me to be on my game when we’re out here is important, Daniel. I can’t-I don’t know if I can cope.”
“Aw, come on,” Daniel murmured, lips against Jack’s temple. “Just putting myself to sleep.”
“I’m serious. As a heart attack, so help me God.”
Daniel reached up to smooth one hand over the back of his head and down his neck, gentle, soothing petting. “I know. But you can cope. You can cope with anything, Jack, you’re like some kind of superhero to me. I’d put my life in your hands even if you were ten times as distracted as you were today, and never think twice. You have no idea how much faith I have in you. But it’s your call. We’ll make it your call, offworld, and I promise to be good.”
Jack gave a jerky nod, pressing his face in harder to the curve of Daniel’s neck. Those long strokes through his hair and over his neck tingled and burned against his skin. He felt his hips roll hard against Daniel’s thigh, and bit back a whimper.
“Tomorrow night. At home. I’m gonna hold you to that thing you said, before.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t want it,” Daniel answered, with one last scrape of his fingernails over the sensitive skin of Jack’s nape. Jack groaned and pulled himself away, hefting his pack over to lie between them.
It took him a long time to get to sleep.
Jack/Daniel, soft NC-17, 2700 words.
No beta; please tell me if I have spinach in my teeth.
Jack reached out to straighten the shoulders of Daniel's tac vest, fix a buckle. They were easy, familiar touches, the kind he could get away with in front of SG-6 and SG-15 there in the gate room, because he'd always touched Daniel like this. Daniel, for his part, seemed a little more askew than normal-his tag didn't often stick up like that-almost as if he was deliberately asking Jack to touch him, inviting a little more of that low-key contact that they doled out so carefully.
Daniel pushed his glasses up and spoke in a very quiet but perfectly normal, conversational voice. "I'm a little pissed the Ashians invited us back so soon."
"What? I thought you were wild about the idea of studying those inscriptions?" Jack tucked Daniel's tag back in, feeling his fingernails run over warm skin and the knob of bone at the top of his spine. Very slightest of pats. Going to need to step away now.
"I am. I had just planned on coming to your house tonight and doing what we talked about. Then fucking you. Got a lot of pent-up energy; don't know what I'm going to do with it now."
Jack's heart thumped in his chest, jolted by warring surges of adrenaline and lust. He fought the urge to react, to grab Daniel and hiss a warning at him, to look wildly around. He knew without looking that Teal'c was still gearing up, knew that both other SG teams were out of earshot. He knew these things because he trusted Daniel. God help him, he'd decided to trust Daniel's discretion.
Daniel pulled his sidearm out of its holster, checked the clip and the safety, holstered it again, checked the snap and the buckle, all in a few brief seconds. The quick efficiency of his hands, his ability to carry on exactly like normal, was a little breathtaking. Daniel gave a slight twitch of his shoulder, just a flicker of muscle under the skin, like a horse dislodging a fly. Jack realized that his hand was still on the back of Daniel's neck, first two fingers curled into the collar of his shirt. He dropped his hand quickly and tried to remember his normal steps for checking his gear.
***
The ruins on Ashia were a bust. Apparently from at least a thousand years later than the first brief survey had led them to believe, and probably very interesting to the Ashians themselves in reconstructing their own heritage, but with no relevance whatsoever to the Goa'uld occupation of the planet or the war of independence that followed it. Daniel hadn't said as much, yet; Jack was getting his information from Dr. Levant in SG-15. Daniel would keep pushing for more time to wring every scrap of information out of the site, immediate relevance or not, and since they had promised the Ashians at least 120 man-hours of expert help, he was going to get at least one more full day.
The dissatisfaction was easy to read on Daniel, though. The way he trailed off every so often and seemed to have to force himself to keep talking into his little recorder. The way he let the other archaeologists handle the most significant artifacts and instead took on the scutwork of mapping and sketching himself. (Daniel had an interesting relationship with drawing sections, Jack knew. A boring exercise in care and precision, satisfying in and of itself only when the site was too dull for words. Just one in a long list of things about archeology that Jack was never going to let on he knew)
Daniel had tied on his bandana, trailing end covering the back of his neck as he crouched over in the harsh sun. The black t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders, stained even darker in triangle of sweat starting below his shoulder blades. The bottom half was soaked, plastered to the small of his back, outlining the ridge of his spine and the curves of his muscles.
Jack hauled his eyes back to the perimeter he was supposed to be watching, and radioed his scheduled check-in with Teal’c on the other side.
The military half of SG-6 came to relieve them a few hours later. Jack passed by Daniel’s trench on the way back in. Daniel pulled the bandana off his head and threw it up out of the trench, smacking Jack in the thigh.
“Problem, Daniel?”
“Pass me down the canteen. I don’t want to climb up.”
Jack crouched on the sandbags around the top of the hole and handed down the nearest canteen, and the bandana with it.
Instead of raising it to his lips, Daniel screwed off the top and lifted it to pour a long stream over his head. The patterns of sweat on his shirt disappeared, and now it clung to every line of him. Daniel’s shoulder blade stood out under the wet fabric as he lowered his arm, and when he turned back to face Jack, his nipples did too.
“Thought you weren’t supposed to get the trench all muddy,” Jack said, forcing it out through the tightness in his throat.
“Reached virgin sand here, so it doesn’t matter.” Daniel lifted the canteen to his lips, then rinsed out his bandana and retied it. He chucked the canteen back up and Jack caught it easily and started to get back to his feet.
“Jack.”
The sudden heat in Daniel’s voice was arresting. Jack looked without wanting to. “I meant what I said in the gateroom. Going insane down here.” Then Daniel lifted the bottom of his shirt and very deliberately wiped his forehead with it, holding Jack’s eyes mercilessly until the last possible second. The muscular ridges of his stomach tensed and shifted a little. His pants were riding low, just under his hipbones, and the trail of hair leading down was ruffled and standing up strangely. Jack could see himself clearly, nearly feel himself, licking down that trail, tasting sweat and smoothing the hairs flat with his tongue.
Jack swallowed hard and went back to the base tent.
The Marines of SG-15 hadn’t yet heard better than to play poker with Teal’c, bless their little hearts. Jack obediently won twenty bucks off Teal’c, then lost ten to Corporal Hirsch. When Teal’c gave the signal-just the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth, plain as a semaphore after years of doing this-Jack bitched loudly about how these low stakes were boring the crap out of him. Hirsch suggested upping the ante next pot, and threw in a substantial raise on this one.
The poor man never knew what hit him. It was almost enough to let him stop thinking about Daniel, at least until Daniel came in for dinner still sweaty, with a long streak of dirt highlighting the tendon on the side of his neck, and pressed himself right up against Jack’s back to reach around him for the food.
Bastard.
***
They shared a tent that night. After three years of habit, it would have occasioned far more comment to not share a tent, but it still made Jack feel like he was getting away with something.
Jack pulled first watch, and when he came in he found Daniel still awake. He was bare-chested, laying on his back and glancing over notes from the day.
“You’ll be tired tomorrow,” Jack said, and settled down on his bedroll.
“Like this site needs my full mental capacity anyway,” Daniel answered, finally admitting what had been obvious all day. He tossed the notes aside and tucked his left arm up under his head. “Was waiting for you. No point going to sleep just to get woken up again when you come tromping in.” The friendly exaggeration was softened by his slight smile. Jack didn’t bother to bristle or point out how easy it still was to sneak up on Daniel asleep. Instead, he just toed off his boots and pulled off his own shirt.
Then Daniel reached down and undid his button fly with a few quick flicks of his fingers. He spread his uniform pants open and drew out his cock to lay flat against his belly, and then gave it a few long, soft, strokes, fingertips sliding under his balls then all the way up until the heel of his hand caressed the head.
Jack froze, transfixed.
“No, seriously, I want to hear,” Daniel had said, trailing gentle fingers down Jack’s chest and over his stomach, pausing to swirl for a moment in the puddle of come low on his belly and spread it in a cool line.
Jack shifted uncomfortably and tried to roll on top of Daniel, only to be stopped by a firm palm over his sternum. “Jack, nothing you can say will shock me. I can’t promise to be into it, but I absolutely can promise I won’t even bat an eye. Trust me on that.”
Of course Jack trusted him on that one. It wasn’t that at all.
Daniel’s cock was filling and rising quickly under his gently rubbing hand, and he finally held it in a loose circle of fingers and gave a first, smooth thrust. A tiny sound escaped him, a harsh exhale with only the slightest voice in it.
That jolted Jack to action. “Daniel, not on a mission. You know we can’t.”
Daniel turned his head and fixed Jack with a careful gaze. “I’m not allowed to jerk off, now that I’m sleeping with you? Was I involving you in this at all?”
The obvious answer to that was “yes,” but Jack felt a sudden, completely unwarranted spike of excluded hurt at the words. “No.” He lay down, stretched out on his side facing Daniel with the bedroll pulled tight around him.
Daniel’s head tipped back, exposing the long, perfect lines of his throat and collarbones, and his eyes slid closed. The muscles low in his stomach flexed and fluttered with every smooth, easy thrust up through his loose fist. “Well, not overtly. But in my mind, you’re plenty involved.”
“I am?” Jack asked, knowing he could never keep his voice as carefully steady as Daniel could.
“Yeah.” Daniel didn’t seem to feel the need to elaborate.
It hadn’t been like he worried his fantasy life would scare Daniel off. There were some things, yeah, but nothing beyond the pale. But how could he tell Daniel the truth? You, Danny. Just you. Hell with the trappings and hell with the specific choreography, I just want you, any way you want it, any way you’ll have me. Just the feel of your lips, just the touch of your skin against mine, just the permission to look and to touch and keep touching without some thin excuse-it’s all I’ve wanted, all I thought I could never have, for three years now. As long as I can have you, I can’t imagine needing any fancy shit ever again. As long as I can see your face when you come, know that I can have that, watch you fall apart…
Jack could hardly get the words out. “I’d like-I’d really like to watch you. Touch yourself. See it.” His spent cock was trying desperately to fill again at the very thought, his complete exhaustion warring with the heat in his belly.
Daniel stilled his hips and started moving his hand more, speeding up to quick, tight strokes. Jack found himself transfixed by the flexing of his forearm, the iron-tense bunching of his quads. Daniel gasped and stilled suddenly, holding the base of his cock for a quivering moment before he started to stroke again slowly, playing his thumb around the head.
Jack saw him slide his thumb from his slit down to the underside of the head, then back up, a firm, simple caress that made him jerk a little. He thought, That comes from me, I did that to him, he didn’t do that to himself before me, and was suddenly aware that he was so hard it was physically painful.
Daniel’s cock was gorgeous, straight and thick and perfectly veined, and Jack had known for three years that Daniel’s hands were gorgeous, strong and tanned and sure. But his face-his face was a revelation, so far beyond gorgeous, eyes squeezed tight in concentration, lips spit-wet and parted slightly. Jack had turned almost all the way onto his stomach, pressing rhythmically against the ground, desperate for any relief. It took all his willpower to still himself.
Daniel had huffed a warm breath across his jaw, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, we should really do that,” he said, lips skating against the skin below Jack’s ear. Jack felt Daniel start to harden again, incredibly, against his hip. He started to reach down to it, knowing this last time would be all about Daniel, knowing he could never keep up. The desire he felt at the idea of stroking Daniel through another climax, even if he couldn’t stir again, was intense.
Daniel pushed his hand away gently. “Go to sleep, old man,” he said, and Jack could feel the smile against his neck. “The Ashians should take two days to get back to us. There’s time.”
Daniel was thrusting up again, his hand tightening and speeding up. He turned his head to the side and wrenched his eyes open with an effort. “Next time, Jack. Next time, gonna show you-Have you watch me finger myself open for you. Jesus, Jack, are you ready-Can I-”
“Yes,” Jack said, keeping his hands clenched outside his blanket, holding his hips still with a trembling effort. “Go,” and Daniel did, and his face when he let go was so far beyond beautiful.
Daniel striped himself all the way to his collarbone with a voiceless grunt. Jack didn’t remember sliding closer and closer to him in the tent, but he was so close now that he could reach to lick it with only the slightest movement. He could see himself rolling on top of Daniel, licking him clean, with complete clarity. His hands were shaking. Daniel could go again. Daniel would go again; all he had to do was lean over, lick him clean, close his teeth around that tight nipple and pull slightly, feel that gorgeous, muscled, responsive body arch up under him and give himself over…
Daniel reached over and grabbed his filthy t-shirt from the day before. He wiped himself, then balled it up and shoved it down to the bottom of his pack. With that temptation removed, Jack closed the distance between them. He pressed himself full-length to Daniel’s side, knowing Daniel could feel his erection hard against his thigh and the trembling in his hands. He pressed a kiss to Daniel’s lips, closed-mouthed, the most chaste kiss he could give.
“We’ve gotta reel it in, offworld,” he said. “For me to be on my game when we’re out here is important, Daniel. I can’t-I don’t know if I can cope.”
“Aw, come on,” Daniel murmured, lips against Jack’s temple. “Just putting myself to sleep.”
“I’m serious. As a heart attack, so help me God.”
Daniel reached up to smooth one hand over the back of his head and down his neck, gentle, soothing petting. “I know. But you can cope. You can cope with anything, Jack, you’re like some kind of superhero to me. I’d put my life in your hands even if you were ten times as distracted as you were today, and never think twice. You have no idea how much faith I have in you. But it’s your call. We’ll make it your call, offworld, and I promise to be good.”
Jack gave a jerky nod, pressing his face in harder to the curve of Daniel’s neck. Those long strokes through his hair and over his neck tingled and burned against his skin. He felt his hips roll hard against Daniel’s thigh, and bit back a whimper.
“Tomorrow night. At home. I’m gonna hold you to that thing you said, before.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t want it,” Daniel answered, with one last scrape of his fingernails over the sensitive skin of Jack’s nape. Jack groaned and pulled himself away, hefting his pack over to lie between them.
It took him a long time to get to sleep.