Title: And Keys Cut While You Wait
Summary: Daniel buys a calculator. His name is John.
Fandom: Stargate SG-1/Stargate: Atlantis
Word Count: 1483
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, AU, slavefic, surprisingly not non- or dubcon (IKR?)
Pairing: Daniel/John
A/N: For the roleplay/au (master/slave) square on my
kink_bingo card. And that, my children,
makes a line! I may do more in this AU, because the stuff happening in the background turned out more interesting than the stuff in the foreground.
There was just no getting around it: Daniel was going to have to buy a calculator.
Realistically, it was going to take him six months or longer to get through all the translation projects he had lined up. Over half of them were mathematical treatises that he really understood nothing at all about, and he was so tired of having to borrow Jack's for every little thing- he could tell that it was starting to piss Jack off a little, too. So, cursing the expense all the while and wondering if it would be faster just to teach himself, he made the call.
Atlantis Chattels came very highly recommended. Their website went into a lot of detail about how they were non-profit, working towards freeing what it quaintly referred to as "our specialists," which did wonders for Daniel's conscience. And the woman he spoke to was very nice, carefully clarifying each part of his order: did he need one that read Ancient, or just spoke it? What branches of mathematics would he be focusing on? Did he have a preference for eye color? He'd specified seven months- would he like to add a month for only a hundred dollars more? She tried to sell him any number of special packages on top of it, but he'd told her no, thank you, he knew some people were into that sort of thing, but math and household chores were the only things he needed it to do.
He strongly considered adding the massage package, though.
Honestly, he'd all but forgotten about calling until the alarm on his phone went off, telling him it was time for delivery. Not thirty seconds later, there was a knock at his front door; he opened it, only to be greeted by an absolutely giant man with dreadlocks.
Daniel gaped for a moment. "You're the calculator?"
The man didn't say anything; he pushed into Daniel's house, obviously sweeping the place. After a thorough investigation, he finally seemed satisfied.
He shoved a clipboard at Daniel. "No refunds after thirty days. Damage to property and unauthorized uses will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." The giant gave him a look that clearly said that "to the fullest extent of the law" could be freely translated to mean "with my fists." "Sign here."
Meekly, he took the pen and scribbled down his signature. The big man went away, and his brand new calculator sauntered in.
He was still not exactly what Daniel had been expecting. All the calculators he'd ever seen- except Jack's, but, well, Jack was a special case- were either quite young or pretty old, but this one looked right around prime. He was fairly muscular, too, in a wiry sort of way, and far too pretty to be crunching numbers.
Daniel wondered what was wrong with him. Maybe he was a eunuch.
"I'm John," he said, slouching a little against Daniel's wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
Daniel continued to study him critically. "No points for creativity."
John shrugged. "They keep trying to change it, but it never sticks."
There was a long silence.
"You should come and see my research," Daniel offered, hooking a thumb over his shoulder towards his study.
John smirked. "Thought you'd never ask."
After the initial awkwardness, he and John settled into a pretty normal routine. John just sort of slotted in, like he'd always been missing and Daniel just never noticed it before. Daniel's house stopped constantly looking like a tornado had just hit it, though the study only got worse; his work went so much faster with John pointing out his errors and making snide comments. Even though John was just a slave, Daniel honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd had a working relationship that went so smoothly.
It took two months for Daniel to find out that, despite what he'd asked for, John was almost fully trained- housework, cooking, combat, languages, mathematics, sciences, therapeutic massage, the oh-so-euphemistically named "arts of relaxation."
"But I failed music and hospitality outright," John told him, as they bent together over a crumbling manuscript. "And I got sent back a lot, doing most of that stuff. I may have a slight authority problem."
"I never would have guessed," Daniel deadpanned, trying not to notice how John's thigh pressed against his underneath the table. "Now this, here, is this text or notation, do you think?"
It wasn't as if it mattered, anyway. He didn't really entertain, unless Jack counted, and Jack always brought his calculator along to keep John out of the way. He didn't know what John and Sam had in common, really; probably they smoked cigarettes and talked about how much they didn't like Jack and Daniel, though, honestly, that seemed unlikely given how attached to her master Sam seemed to be.
No, most evenings, it was just him and John sitting around the house. John always worked all the hard crosswords before Daniel could get to them, but otherwise, Daniel was starting to like it. It was... restful. And if he was getting more and more suspicious about what John was doing with him, well, that was just misplaced paranoia talking, and Daniel knew he had plenty of that.
And then, one Saturday morning, John set his paper aside and very calmly said, "You look like a man who could use a blowjob."
Daniel nearly upset his cereal bowl. "What?!"
"Do you want me to put my mouth on your penis?" he said very slowly and clearly, complete with explanatory hand gestures. "I don't want to get rusty."
"Is this some kind of plan to make me pay extra?" Daniel asked suspiciously. "Because I was very clear on the phone-"
John laughed. "Who's going to show up and make you pay for something you already own?"
"But, but, I-" he sputtered. "I don't- I mean, it isn't that I wouldn't- but, the thing is-"
"Look," John said patiently, cutting off his rambling. "It's not complicated. You're hot, I need practice, you need to get laid, I give good head. You in?"
Daniel was too busy being flabbergasted to respond.
"Or you could fuck me," he offered amicably, like he was offering to pass the salt. "Or I could fuck you." Daniel may have gulped at the very thought of that; he hoped it wasn't obvious, but the way John grinned, he'd definitely noticed.
"You don't have to do this, you know," Daniel said, covering badly. "I haven't paid. I don't have that kind of right to you."
"Yeah, I know," he said, giving him a very odd sort of smile. "C'mon," John cajoled, already tugging him away by the wrist. "It'll be fun."
Fun wasn't really the right word to describe it. Fun was such a wholesome word, really, appropriate for things like zoos and slow-pitch softball games. There was something clean and innocent about it.
There was definitely nothing wholesome about sitting on John's lap, sinking down around him inch by amazing inch while John's teeth found tender spots on his neck to torment. And it wasn't very clean, the way Daniel kept swearing and blaspheming while John fucked him, his head thrown back against John's shoulder. And innocent? Better just forget about it.
Mind-blowing, yes. Fun? Daniel didn't really think so.
"Thank you," he sighed, as they lay together in the afterglow.
"My pleasure," John replied.
Daniel snorted. "Literally."
And all of a sudden, like the world had just shifted a few degrees and locked into place, a whole lot of things suddenly became very clear to Daniel.
"You've figured it out," he said, half accusing, half impressed.
"Hmm?" John answered, rolling over to look at him.
"You figured out how to beat the system," Daniel said, and John got very, very still. "If anybody hires you for something you don't like doing-" John looked like he was about to protest, so Daniel revised that- "something you don't like being coerced to do- you screw it up. But as long as you keep bringing in money, they won't sell you."
"It's mostly because Elizabeth has a soft spot for me," John replied. It wasn't as snide as it should have been, to be a cutting remark; mostly it just made him sound sad. "What are you going to do about it?"
Daniel thought about it. "I'm pretty sure I just bought the cow and got the milk for free," he observed. "So, nothing, I don't think."
John's relief was palpable; Daniel had the distinct feeling that neither one of them would ever bring it up again. "Now that we cleared that up" he said, his voice going rough and sly. "How about that blowjob?"
"Oh, I suppose. If you insist," Daniel sighed theatrically.
John grinned. "Oh, I do."
--
"An additional year? No, not a problem at all, Doctor Jackson. Will there be anything else?
"...A donation of how much?!"