(no subject)
Title: Water
Author: kuonji
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Jack O'Neill
Pairings: Jack/Daniel preslash
Category: alien ritual
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: none
Words: ~2150
Summary: Water was a metaphor for life. It nourished the body. It flowed like blood. Daniel... notices. And Jack enjoys himself.
A/N: For Cowardly Lion, who wanted schmoopless romance and an offworld epiphany. Many many many apologies for being late. Real life, angst, trashed first draft, blah blah (rolls excuses into a ball and drops outside). Anyway, here it is. I sincerely hope it was worth the wait. :)
A/N: Thanks to
melayneseahawk for once again having the patience and organization to put this ficathon together. Please check out the Master List for J/D Ficathon 2009.
Water
by kuonji
Water was a metaphor for life. It nourished the body. It flowed like blood. It had a visible cycle of change that touched the human race every day. Every culture that Daniel had ever studied had an ingrained, intrinsic reverence for it.
The Su were no different.
Their ritual was a simple one. It was a combination of an offering (no longer to a god that the people had cast off, but rather to life itself) and a display for all the people to see. We come in peace, and we give ourselves into your care, it said. It was a show of trust. It was an honor.
Daniel became aware of a stir, and he strained to look. People were backing quietly out of the way, forming a path from the edge of the plaza to the twelve-foot waterfall that dominated the space. The pervading hum of the water striking its receiving pool made its own hypnotic rhythm. The silver-bedecked priestess at the center of the plaza did not try to overpower the force of the water with her voice, simply raising one hand in a gesture: Come.
Jack, barefoot and wearing a deep blue robe of a shiny silk-like material, stepped out and walked slowly towards them.
Alone and on an alien planet, as vulnerable as he could get without being outright nude, Jack's body language was incongruously at ease. For a moment, Daniel was afraid that he might have been drugged after all, despite their emphatic insistence on skipping that part of the ritual.
His fears were belayed when Jack immediately searched them out with his eyes. Daniel saw Teal'c nod in the periphery of his vision, and a slight movement to the left from Sam. When Jack's sharp hazel gaze pierced his own, however, he could only stare. Flustered, he averted his eyes.
The next time he looked up, the priest was helping Jack up to the edge of the sided pool. Cool marble kept the water here at the source waist-deep, before funneling it out underground through the center of the city. The Su combined beauty with practicality. Daniel wondered for an idle instant if the Ancients had had any peripheral influence on them.
Latin, clearly linguistically rooted in Ancient, was the language of the Romans, who had built the soaring aqueducts. Yet Buddhism, an Asian religion, was just as clearly founded on the principles of ascension. It had cross-pollination written all over it. Maybe if he looked at--
All further academic inquiries were dashed by the sight of Jack casually unfastening his robe and slipping it off his shoulders. The material seemed to cling to his body as it slid down the broad shoulders. Defying gravity, it lingered along the narrow waist, the swell of buttocks, thighs, and calves, to pool around Jack's feet.
The man didn't even hesitate, just stepped out, matter-of-fact. There wasn't a trace of discomfort or embarrassment about him.
Daniel had never gotten used to communal showers, shared steam houses, and locker rooms. It unnerved him, all those people together, doing what people do everywhere -- sizing each other up while pretending not to notice.
When Daniel noticed, he couldn't help showing it.
Men, women, it didn't matter. It wasn't even necessarily sexual. He just had the tendency to stare.
Polite society had trained him to filter out awareness of other people's bodies as much as possible. All in all, it was easier to focus on people's minds and ideas. Then, even if (when) he offended people, at least it wasn't over something that might be considered crass.
He'd gotten close to the team, though. He didn't have the right guards anymore.
And Jack was...
Jack was looking his way, his eyes hard and focused, though his face was neutral of emotion. Daniel forced himself not to look away. It would send the wrong impression if he did, as if he had no right to look, just like everyone else here.
This wasn't the first time. Jack had caught him before, he was sure of it. Whatever Jack thought he was doing, he hadn't said anything about it. Daniel didn't quite understand it himself.
It was partly envy, he thought. At pushing fifty, Jack still turned heads. It made Daniel work harder when he imagined Jack's toned abs and strong biceps. He'd been a geek all his life, and unapologetic for it. Now he liked to feel that physical strength and to feel good about it, instead of like he'd somehow betrayed himself to the ultimate jocks of the world, which he hadn't. Sometimes Daniel wanted that reminder.
It was a bit pettiness, too, he supposed. Stripped of rank and authority, Jack had no power over Daniel like he did in the field. Jack's strong personality was a good counterweight to his own. Their skills complemented each other. Competitiveness innate to the both of them, however, demanded that Daniel occasionally feel he had an edge over the Colonel. Sometimes Daniel needed that assurance.
It was a lot fondness, he knew. Jack was his best friend. He could admit that. The look of his body was comforting. Without his uniform or weapons, Jack was a man with scars and blue veins and freckles. It made him real in a way that nothing else did. He was literally stripped down, open. It reminded Daniel that Jack didn't make himself vulnerable like that. It was against his nature. And yet he did. He had.
Sometimes Daniel like to savor the fact that he had seen Jack at his worst -- and they had both survived it.
Jack's intent gaze didn't change. But he tilted his head slightly, and one corner of his mouth lifted. He was, for a moment, the man of an hour ago who had said, flippantly, "I'll do it. I've got the least 'dignity' to be ogled at."
Sam had been relieved. They'd probably all seen her naked at one point or another by now, but being the woman on the team never changed some things. Daniel, too, had been relieved. Jack knew he was body-shy; otherwise the chance to not only observe but to participate in an off-world ritual would have been 'right up his alley', as Jack would put it.
It'd come down to Teal'c or Jack himself. Daniel wasn't sure how Jack had chosen, whether with a mental coin flip or according to a certain strategy. He'd probably decided that Teal'c was better as backup with Jack out of combat, rather than vice versa.
After a nod from the priestess, Jack stepped into the water.
The waves caused by the waterfall buffeted him. A startled look crossed his face, and he nearly lost his balance but regained it quickly. Mist blew past his body, frosting his hair and wetting his torso. Daniel was close enough to see it cling to Jack's lightly furred chest.
A gossamer veil of life-giving water, Daniel fancifully deemed it, smiling to himself at the scowl Jack would give him if he heard. Well, that veil was going to be something much heavier pretty soon.
Visibly gritting his teeth, Jack waded toward the waterfall. He didn't hesitate once he reached it, though, hauling himself up with his strong forearms onto the pedestal there. Carved from rough-hewn rock, it was doubtless the oldest man-made part of the plaza. It had a rounded depression in its center where the falling water had been striking it for countless generations.
Jack stepped within that ageless hollow. He shuddered once, as fifty gallons of cold water slammed into his shoulders for the first time, plastering his short hair to his head in the space of an instant, pressing his eyes closed. In just a moment, however, he was standing tall again, full under the spray, arms out for balance.
He opened his mouth, probably of a necessity to breathe, but with his back straight and arms out, Daniel thought he looked like an archetype of primal man, howling at the moon. It stirred something in him: like pride, like jealousy -- like lust.
Through the surprise he felt at his own thought, Daniel became aware that the howling wasn't just in his imagination. Even as he blinked in surprise, Jack let out another whoop, almost a roar. He wondered if it was in reaction to the cold, maybe the pain. Twelve feet of water was no pleasant massage.
Then Jack lifted his arms in a double arc, and he tilted his face upwards. His arms, providing shelter from the deluge, nevertheless dripped an uneven sheet of water across his face. He flung his head, spraying water out to the side, and yelled again, something incomprehensible. This time Daniel saw the grin on Jack's face.
Daniel caught his breath.
The water continued to hammer down. Jack's naturally pale complexion was beginning to show a ruddy glow from the cold and the pounding both. Water coursed down his long body, picking up the hollows and the shapes of the muscles, much as the robe had done earlier. It slid down the inside of Jack's thighs, spread slightly wider than hip-length, and it ran down Jack's groin and...
Daniel tore his gaze away.
He took the excuse to check the time. Jack had to stay under for the equivalent of eight minutes. He should be ready to call time if no one else did. Jack had to be hurting.
He certainly doesn't look it, observed his unconscious, only then alerting Daniel to the fact that his eyes had returned to his friend.
It was true. Jack looked to be, if anything, in bliss. He was smiling like he stood in a hot shower and not in a column of watery punishment. As Daniel watched, Jack raised his arms straight out in an overhead V, letting the water pour straight down on his unbowed head.
A jolt of sensation caused him to suck in a breath, a moment before he realized, Jack's eyes were not closed all the way. They were slitted and aware, and even across the misted space between them, Daniel could tell it was the same look that Jack gave him when Daniel... noticed.
God, Daniel swore, realizing abruptly what should have been obvious.
Jack liked to be noticed. Liked it a lot.
Are you kidding? Of course he does, his unconscious supplied again. Jack always liked to be the center of attention. Whether it was juggling or making smart comments, or acting as legitimate commander or instructor in the room, Jack was always in the center of things.
Jack had never been one to shy away from anything. He was the first to offer his opinion, the first to take charge. He was supremely confident. Unhesitating.
Hedonistic.
As if in answer to his thoughts, Jack shifted his stance, weight flowing to one side until he stood in a smooth contrapposto. The sluicing water gave the added impression of draped cotton on marble skin. Daniel shivered, as if he were the one under the falls.
Except he was running hot instead of cold.
A bell rang, its high tone carrying over the bass roar of the waterfall. Daniel felt the crowd shift, as if collectively letting out a held breath.
The ritual was over.
The official part of it was, anyway. There was an unofficial part, which they had been informed about. Daniel had volunteered without even thinking, taking the large, delicately patterned blanket from the priestesses. Now he stepped forward with it, opening it out as he went.
He supposed that he must have realized, unconsciously, that Sam couldn't do this, and since Teal'c needed to stay on the alert, it left only Daniel. Thinking over his reasoning now, though, it didn't seem to make as much sense as it ought to.
As he waited at the edge of the pool, he finally realized what it was.
He had chosen this. It wasn't because Sam or Teal'c shouldn't, but because he should. Just as, he was now sure, Jack had done the ritual because he wanted to. Jack, who was slogging towards him, face red with cold, lips pale with it, shaking visibly, but his face showing delight.
Daniel beckoned encouragement. The blanket was soft in his fingers.
Jack climbed out, dripping and stiff. He almost stumbled, but his face never stopped shining with exhilaration. "H-H-Hi," he said, then laughed at his own stutter, stuttered during the laugh, and laughed even more. "Damn, what a ru-rush!"
Daniel had meant to throw the blanket around him, but on an impulse, he stretched it out in his arms and threw his arms around Jack instead, enfolding him in a fluffy hug. He ruffled a corner of the blanket over Jack's hair, drying it in shapeless tufts.
"Seamonkey," he murmured into Jack's ear, and Jack's laugh rumbled through his chest straight into Daniel's.
END.
A/N: I think I had more flirting than romance, but hopefully the end makes up for it!
If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:
Satisfaction Guarantee (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji
I Don't Know Him (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji
You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression (Stargate SG-1), by princessofg