Fic: Essence of Lilith for hoshi_reed
I'm so very sorry this is late. The story got longer than I anticipated (which isn't a bad thing, really, but...) and work was just a bitch.
Title: Essence of Lilith
Author: Courser shutthef_up
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Season 7 just to be safe, but nothing specific
Recipient: hoshi_reed
Prompt: Oh, how I loved both prompts, but I chose #1, because it's one of my favorites: Love potion cliche. Sam or Daniel dosed and the pair locked up (subsequent aftermath required).
Length: ~10,000 words - I just couldn't do it justice in less.
A/N: First of all much love and kisses for my beta, surrealphantast. She pretty much held my hand through this fic. katcorvi helped immensely in the earlier stages, when I was sort of flailing around with so many directions I could go. This is probably one of my top 3 favorite fanfic cliches and I was delighted I could write it for hoshi_reed. I have a few more notes at the end. hoshi_reed, I hope you like this story. I did a few different things with it, so...
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“I’m surprised we haven’t come across more matriarchal cultures over the years. To be fair, the Goa’uld seemed to prefer male hosts as a general rule. It’d follow that the cultures they ruled would also be male-dominated. This is fascinating…” Daniel said, trailing off as he became absorbed in the wall’s inscriptions.
“So we’re talking God-dess this time?” Sam asked. It’s about damn time, she thought. She’d seen enough posturing, self-aggrandizing males with delusions of godhood to last her several lifetimes.
“Not exactly,” Daniel said absently, his fingers brushing dust from the grooves as he read.
Leaving Daniel to his translations, Sam looked around at the artwork. Faded and flaking off in places, the figure of a dark-haired, dark skinned woman seemed to be a recurring theme, frequently accompanied by snakes. Must be the Goa’uld influence.
Sam was a little relieved that this little recon mission had come up while the Colonel and Teal’c were vacationing at Jack’s cabin. This kind of mission drove him nuts. Which resulted in Jack driving everyone else nuts. Most of Teal’c’s energy was spent keeping their CO occupied somewhere away from them.
General Hammond had sent the SG-12 Marines with them for security. At their first check-in, however, they were only too happy to be re-tasked with backing up SG-8 with an off-world medical emergency. Bored Marines were unhappy Marines. Seeing as the only civilization they encountered was a small village of women and children and that both Sam and Daniel were experienced members of the premiere team, they were allowed to remain behind alone.
“Lilith!” Daniel finally exclaimed.
“As in Lilith Fair?” Sam asked after a moment’s thought.
“What? No. Well, yes, but… not exactly,” Daniel replied as he processed and tried to answer Sam’s question.
“Lilith was a demon in Mesopotamian theology, but she crosses cultures and civilizations. According to some theologians, she was Adam’s first wife,” Daniel continued.
“First wife? Adam had a wife before Eve?”
“According to some scholars, yes. It’s sort of a hair-splitting reading, but supposedly God created both male and female out of clay. But Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam, refused to be subservient to him and left Eden. Then, when God saw that Adam was alone, created Eve from one of his ribs, ensuring that as a part of him, she would be subservient to him.”
“I suppose the ‘lie beneath’ wording isn’t accidental, is it?” Sam said.
“Nope, it’s not, though I suspect that wasn’t their only problem. Apparently, they argued constantly. What happened after that varies, depending on which stories you believe. Some cultures believed that Lilith became a demon who ate children. Perhaps the mother of demons. She’s a creature of the night and associated with vampires, owls, incubi, succubi - most of the terrors of the night. She’s also associated with Lamia, the Greek version, where she sometimes appears as half woman, half snake.”
“Explains why the Goa’uld would like her. But why would modern women name a festival after her if she was so evil?” Sam asked.
“Neo-pagan feminists embrace her for her resolve not to be subservient to Adam. She’s been quite literally demonized for that resolve.” Daniel answered as he documented the finding in his notebook.
“Couldn’t they find someone less… scary?” Sam said, now recognizing some of the more sinister aspects of the artwork.
“Not everyone thinks she was inherently evil. Granted, no one associates her with sunshine and buttercups, but that darker nature lies within all of us. Besides, who records history? Especially anything written, say, over 100 years ago. Hell, 50?” Daniel asked, looking at her over his glasses.
“Scholars, I guess. Theologians,” Sam answered.
“Right. And they were-?” Daniel continued.
Sam smiled fondly. This was her favorite part of her friendship with Daniel. They challenged each other, forced each other to think.
“Educated? Higher education hasn’t been common or attainable for most people until very recently,” Sam proposed.
“True. Not where I was going, but we might be able to get there this way. Who was educated?” Daniel asked. He’d stopped writing and was watching her think.
“The rich. The privileged. Members of religious orders,” Sam ticked them off on her fingers.
“Okay, also true. Let me approach this another way. Who wrote the majority of the books on astrophysics?” Daniel asked, leading her back on track.
“A lot of people. I can’t remember without checking who’s written the most,” Sam offered.
“You’re making this too hard, Sam. It’s really very simple. I’d venture to say that most of those authors have something in common with me.”
Sam stood back, looked around the room and thought hard. When Daniel posed questions like this to her, the answer was often something deceptively simple. So simple, in fact, that it was something she took for granted. He was sitting on a bench, notebook open on his lap, his eyes willing her to find the answer. It flashed to her like a bolt of lightening and she felt like slapping herself on the forehead at its simplicity.
“They’re all men,” she said, smiling at him.
“Exactly!” Daniel exclaimed, an index finger in the air. “Most of history has been recorded by men. Sure, there’s the occasional accounting of events from a courtesan or consort, but the vast, vast majority of history, mythology… everything, has been recorded by men. Often men who have some stake in how they’re remembered. Many a king or petty despot has hired his own biographer to whitewash his reign.”
“Okay. Right. I agree with you, but what does this have to do with Lilith?” Sam asked, bringing Daniel back on topic.
“Just that we shouldn’t be too hasty in judging her, or a culture based on her, simply on the basis of attributes men ascribed to her. I’m not up on my neo-paganism, but I’m betting that modern women have found some admirable qualities. I seem to remember something about the idea that Lilith didn’t really need to ‘lie above’ Adam,” Daniel made quotes in the air. “It wasn’t about sexual position, at least not wholly. She was created as his equal and simply wanted recognition of that fact. She wasn’t created to be a subservient creature, a servant. She was created to be an equal helpmate. There’s a big difference.”
Daniel suddenly looked solemn, his eyes on his hands and the corners of his mouth curved downward.
“Daniel?”
He looked up at her. “I was just remembering Sha’re... As assertive as she could be at times, she’d been taught to be totally submissive in… uh.” He broke off and waved his hand around in a vague motion.
“In the bedroom,” Sam finished for him, looking at her feet. She and Daniel were close and she probably knew more about his short married life than anyone.
“Yeah. She was just finding her own voice, so to speak, in that regard, when”-
“When Apophis took her,” Sam put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
Daniel took a deep breath and smiled up at her, his eyes clear. “You didn’t. It just creeps up on me sometimes, you know? I mean, God, it’s been almost ten years.
“It hasn’t been quite that long, Daniel. Maybe eight or nine, but… I like to think that she’d be happy to see you moving on and not just… existing after…” Sam broke off. This wasn’t really going where she intended.
They were both saved from further awkward discussion of the subject when a small contingent of robed women entered the building. Sam immediately stepped forward, protecting Daniel while he put his journal down, picked up his own weapon and moved to stand at her side.
The women arrayed themselves across the entrance to the temple. The three youngest looking wore rust-colored robes and carried daggers on their hips. Two wore blue and carried what looked a bit like sabers, but Daniel couldn’t be sure. They flanked an older, taller woman, who wore purple and stood with firm confidence. She took up the central position, slightly forward of her entourage. Her dark hair was streaked with gray and she had sharp, almost masculine features. She didn’t look pleased. As she came to a halt in front of Sam and Daniel, her retainers put their hands on their weapons, but didn’t draw them. Yet.
“Who has violated the sanctity of Lilith’s demesne?” She scowled at Daniel.
“I’m Daniel Jackson and this is-” he began, but the woman cut him off with an angry gesture.
“Be silent, man! Sara will be all too pleased to cut out your tongue for your blasphemy,” she said, gesturing to one of the rust-robed young women. Drawing her dagger from its sheath, she stepped forward, next to the leader.
Sam stepped in front of Daniel and raised her P-90, “Hey! I don’t think so. I’m sorry if we’ve given offense. It wasn’t intentional. We’re explorers, new to your world and don’t know your ways. We beg your forgiveness. I’m Major Samantha Carter.”
The speaker, clearly the leader, seemed to evaluate Sam with a calculating eye. “Very well, but keep your male silent or we will silence him for you. You must leave immediately. Males and outsiders are forbidden to view the sacred secrets of Lilith. Only the initiated may gaze upon Her wisdom”
“My apologies, of course we’ll leave,” Sam replied, lowering the muzzle of the gun, but keeping a close eye on the women. “Get our stuff, Daniel. Now.”
Daniel opened his mouth to either acknowledge or argue, but snapped it shut and gave a tight nod instead. He liked his tongue where it was. It took him only moments to stuff his journal and video camera into his pack. For good measure, he policed the area for anything they might have dropped. He found an energy bar wrapper and shoved it into his pocket then clipped his P-90 to his tac vest and returned to Sam’s side. Together they faced the women guarding the exit.
“If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way,” Sam said stiffly, moving forward to stand in front of the leader.
“We will accompany you.” The tall woman tipped her head and turned to the side to let them pass, falling into step with Sam as they walked out of the temple. The rest of the acolytes fell into formation around them and Daniel was forced into position following on Sam’s heels.
The moment they’d cleared the shadow of the building, the women drew their blades. Sam was held at saber-point, but the woman called Sara had her dagger at Daniel’s throat, her eyes glittering with the desire to spill his blood. Daniel was bent backward at an awkward angle, letting out a low groan as he tried not to struggle against the woman using him as a shield. Sam lifted her hands away from her weapon in capitulation. She might be able to keep their attackers from killing her, but Sara could cut Daniel’s throat in the blink of an eye. She looked like she’d enjoy it, too.
“What do you want?” Sam demanded. “We’re leaving - I don’t know what more we can do.”
“You must make recompense for the blasphemy you perpetrated on Lilith’s domain,” the woman replied, looking sternly down her nose at Sam. “You will be blessed with the nature of Lilith.”
Daniel made a choked sound of protest, but Sam didn’t see that they had much choice. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner they could leave.
“Take them to the Offering House. I will join you shortly,” the purple robed woman ordered.
“But Mother! This one is male,” Sara growled, her mouth close to Daniel’s ear, making his blood run cold
“Silence, Sara. Do as you’re told.”
“Yes, Mother,” Sara agreed. It sounded to Daniel as if she was heartily sorry she wouldn’t be allowed to spill his blood right here.
Wordlessly, they were stripped of their gear and weapons. Other robed women appeared to bear them away and bind their arms behind their backs. The were both grateful that Daniel was allowed to walk at Sam’s side.
“Any idea what this ‘blessing’ involves?” Sam asked Daniel quietly.
“Nope, not a clue,” he replied, receiving a poke in the ribs for his trouble.
“Sorry,” Sam apologized for asking Daniel to talk.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders and quirked a brow at her. It was nothing. I think we have bigger problems to worry about, he seemed to say.
They arrived at a long, low stone building and were shoved through the door. The walls were lined with benches, the seating providing an unimpeded view of the ornate altar in the center of the room. Representations of Lilith in all her many incarnations graced the walls in the form of tapestries and paintings.
“Wow, that must have been just a shrine. I think this is the actual temple,” Daniel remarked as he examined the walls, hands still tied behind him.
“Well… right now, I just want to get out of here, Daniel. These people are giving me the creeps. Sara wants you dead, if you haven’t noticed,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what’s up with that. I haven’t seen any other men, either, which sort of begs the question of how they get children,” Daniel wondered out loud.
“I don’t particularly care how they get children…” Sam began, but was interrupted as the temple door opened and women filed in and took their places on the benches.
Sam and Daniel stood back to back and when their fingers met, they twined them together. The tall, purple-robed woman entered last, again flanked by her armed acolytes. She held a silver ewer in both hands with great reverence. As she took her place at the alter, the woman named Sara took charge of Daniel once again, pulling him away from Sam and forcing him to his knees at a right angle to her. A smart-ass comment died in his throat when Sara’s dagger made another appearance.
The other two rust-robed acolytes pushed Sam down immediately in front of Mother Whoever. The room got very quiet.
“I am Leandra, Lilith’s most devoted servant, spiritual guide and Mother to this community. I believe you tell the truth about being Outsiders and unfamiliar with our ways. After careful consideration, I have decided to bestow upon you a great honor, Major Samantha Carter. You shall be blessed with the Essence of Lilith, the better to understand Her nature,” she intoned for all to hear and poured a small amount of the ewer’s contents into a small cup.
Sam looked at the cup with trepidation. This could not be good. She thought about channeling Jack and declining the offer with, uh, I’m not really thirsty, but thanks anyway, but knew that both their lives could well depend on her accepting. And it wasn’t like they were asking her to drink much of it. The cup was about the size of a shot glass back on Earth. Sam had downed shots of some pretty disgusting things over the years. How bad could it be?
“Uh, can I ask what it is? Other than the Essence of Lilith. How do you make it?” Sam asked, still eyeing the cup.
“That knowledge is forbidden to all but the most dedicated of Lilith’s servants,” Leandra replied, her eyes flashing.
Sam glanced over at Daniel. His head was bowed in apparent submission, but he was watching her from under his brows. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug that Sam read as, What choice do we have?”
“Do you accept this gift?”
Sam already suspected that this was no gift, but some form of punishment. On the other hand, it didn’t look like they were going to force the drink on Daniel and Sam trusted him. He’d take care of her and get her home ASAP, no matter what happened.
Sam nodded her acceptance, parting her lips and tilting her head back, prepared for the worst. Past the teeth and over the gums, look out stomach, here it comes, the old toast flitted through her mind. She prayed she wouldn’t choke or puke it back up.
Robes the color of old blood braced her on either side, fingers in her hair, holding her steady. Leandra poured the liquid into her mouth and the women clamped her jaw shut and covered her mouth with strong hands. Sam struggled against their grip and Daniel looked alarmed, but Sara’s knife was on his throat again. Sam swallowed quickly.
Leandra’s face split into a menacing grin. “My children will hold you, to prevent you from purging the Essence before it can make its way to your blood. Soon, you will burn with the need to mate. As it gains strength, you will be filled with the desire to dominate your male. Your most aggressive nature will present itself, making you thirst for his blood as well as his seed. Some males do not survive the experience.”
Still held tightly, Sam looked over at Daniel as she struggled for freedom. The taste of the drug lingered in her mouth. It was cloyingly sweet and alcoholic, but beneath it all was a rancid, oily taste that smelled faintly musky. She felt it reach her belly and deeply regretted not having taken the time to eat more. It had been hours since she’d had an energy bar, so her stomach was relatively empty. Sam expected the drug to work quickly.
Leandra’s voice became a drone in her ears. Something about the Nature of Lilith and how she’d have a deeper understanding of their culture. But Sam’s mind was focused on escape. They had to get out of here before she went berserk. Daniel might be strong and more experienced at hand-to-hand combat than the average civilian, but it wasn’t his strong suit. He was a better marksman and Sam regretted that they’d been stripped of their weapons. If she could, she’d tell him to shoot her if she began attacking him. Not mortally of course, but enough to disable her until they could get through the gate.
Feeling her body begin to relax, she chanced another glance at Daniel. Sara had at least removed her dagger from his throat. Sam had years at reading his face and right now his eyes were narrowed with anger, yet projected reassurance. Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll get through this.
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Daniel watched Sam pace the perimeter of the room. The change came gradually, but fast. Her precise military stomp morphed into an almost feline stalk within the space of a few steps. Sam’s eyes shifted from scanning for an escape to rest on him, hard and hot.
“Daniel?” She said, sounding somehow frightened and sultry at the same time. It sent a little shiver down his spine.
“I’m here Sam,” he responded softly, thinking hard. Running, trying to stay away from her was probably a bad idea, much as his instincts told him to do so. Fast movements only tended to incite a predator’s desire to chase.
Not that there was anyplace to escape to, anyway. As prisons went, it wasn’t bad. Luxurious even, compared with some of the places he’d been held. It was a very basic room with a small alcove set into one wall for basic hygiene. There was no furniture, nothing that could be used as a weapon or shield. Pillows and bolsters were scattered around the room, the only concession to human comfort.
Daniel sized her up. Sam was strong and quick, better at hand-to-hand than he was. But he had her when it came to reach and sheer mass. Pound for pound he was stronger, but women generally held nothing back, exploiting every advantage, no matter how small. Sam could injure him severely without coming close to killing him.
Sam felt herself slipping away and it scared the shit out of her. Except she really wasn’t slipping away so much as being shoved aside, much like Jolinar had done. Her senses were sharpening. She could smell Daniel, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall. They’d been stripped of everything except the clothes on their backs. Their captors had even taken Daniel’s glasses.
She had to keep moving. A hungry ache was building in her belly, but not for food. For the man across the room. A man she’d known for a long, long time. She’d always wondered about him, hadn’t she? What was he like in bed? She’d always thought he’d be noisy, since he had a hard time shutting up for long. Did he talk while he fucked? Did he whisper beautiful obscenities into a lover’s ear as he moved between her thighs? What did he sound like when he came?
“God, stop!” Sam said out loud, her hands flying up to clutch at her head.
“Stop what? I’m not doing anything, Sam,” Daniel asked.
“No, not… not you,” Sam replied. “The, uh… thoughts in my head.”
“Tell me,” Daniel said.
Jesus, even his voice did things to her. It was soft, even, compelling, urging her to give voice to all those dark thoughts. Thoughts she’d had on long, cold nights alone and locked firmly away in the morning.
“I don’t think so,” Sam growled, fixing him with her eyes. They were dark, the pupils dilated under the influence of the drug.
“Why not? It might help, Sam. Giving voice to those inner thoughts robs them of their power,” Daniel persisted.
“You a shrink now Daniel? Fuck you,” she snarled.
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Daniel had the audacity to look smug before his voice dropped into a lower, more dangerous register. “Exactly how would you like to fuck me, Sam?”
She moved so fast it caught him by surprise. Sam crouched on her heels at his side, rising over him. Daniel could hear her intake of breath, taking in his scent.
“Screaming. Screaming with pain and the pleasure of being inside me,” she whispered, ruffling his hair as she spoke.
Daniel didn’t move but his muscles were taut, prepared for a quick escape. Sam didn’t touch him.
“You know that really doesn’t sound as enjoyable as you might think,” Daniel replied without turning his head to look at her.
Sam snarled in his ear, chilling his blood and sprang away to resume her crouch across the room from him. One arm dropped between her spread thighs and she rubbed the palm of her other hand up and down the top of a leg.
“The being inside you part could be nice, but I’m not a big fan of pain,” Daniel continued.
“Have you ever thought of fucking me Daniel? Taking me, making me come?” Sam taunted.
“I’d be lying if I said it never occurred to me. Hey, I’m a guy,” he shrugged.
“Have you ever jerked off thinking about me? Wondering what I’d be like in bed?”
“Oh, I’m taking the Fifth on that one, Sam.” Daniel resisted the urge to squirm and smirked at her instead.
“Damn you, Daniel, you’re enjoying this aren’t you? Enjoying having me all wet and sweaty over you,” Sam said sharply.
“Okay, didn’t need to know that, but no, I’m not enjoying it one bit. I’m sorry if it seems like I am, but keeping you talking, engaging the part of your brain that’s still functioning just might keep you from hurting me,” he explained.
Sam’s face softened, “I’m sorry, Daniel.” She turned her head to look at one of the blank walls. “I… the stuff in my head - it’s so… you have to be mortified.”
Daniel rose up on his knees at her words, “I’m not mortified. Words are just words. Just keep talking Sam. Stay with me.”
She dropped her head in a hand, “I want you in all the wrong ways right now. I want to hurt you.”
“I know. It’s okay. Nothing that happens here will ever leave this room. You can count on that,” Daniel said softly.
Sam made a choking sound and flew at him again. Daniel just had enough time to drop down and curl up, protecting his belly. Her booted foot made contact with one of his kidneys. It wasn’t a powerful blow - his back was too close to the wall for her to get much momentum, but it still hurt like hell.
“Ah! Guess that was the wrong thing to say,” he groaned.
She straddled his legs and dropped down onto his hip, which didn’t feel particularly good either. Grabbing a handful of his hair, she forced him to look at her.
“Don’t tell me about leaving something in the room, Daniel. I’m the expert on that one,” she growled.
“All right. Okay. Sorry,” he replied tightly.
Her eyes half-closed and she made an almost purring sound in her throat. Daniel could feel her heat seeping into his hipbone through their clothes. Sam had eased up on the pressure and he was now uncomfortable in a whole different way. Sam was rubbing herself against him, her hips moving in an easy, fluid pace.
Daniel focused his eyes elsewhere and let her get on with it. This battle wasn’t worth fighting. He couldn’t be positive, but he was pretty sure all that ‘in the room’ stuff had been about something between Sam and Jack. They were both closed-mouthed, but even a blind man could see the sparks that flew between them sometimes.
Jack would have been all wrong for this situation, Daniel thought. Jack wouldn’t let Sam hump his hip in a bid for dominance, which was all it really was. Sam wasn’t going to get any real satisfaction from it - she was merely proving a point. There was a fine distinction here. Sam wasn’t possessed, she was drugged. Everything that came out of her mouth had its origins somewhere in her own mind. Her mind, not some alien entity’s. Daniel wasn’t overly worried about the here and now, as long as he didn’t let Sam hurt him too badly. No, he was far more concerned about the fallout later. As the changes had overcome Sam, he realized that he could neither capitulate too easily nor fight too hard.
“How many times can you get it up in one night, Daniel?” Sam’s voice cut into his thoughts.
“What? I, uh… I don’t know,” he replied. He really didn’t. There were too many variables and it had been a long time since he’d gotten laid. “Why do you care?
“Come on, Daniel, you must have some idea. I need to know if you’re worthy of me,” she whispered into his ear, her fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head.
“I’d think stamina would be more important than frequency in that case,” Daniel answered.
Sam’s temper flared. Why wouldn’t he give her a straight answer? She tightened her grip on his hair.
“How. Many. Times,” she ground out through gritted teeth, bouncing his head off the floor with each word.
“Ow! Sam, God! I don’t know, two, maybe three times? Jesus, stop! I won’t be able to do anything if you give me a concussion.”
Sam gave a chuckle, low in her throat, “Your head is hard enough to withstand a little abuse, Daniel.” She moved off him then, leaving his field of view.
Moving slowly, Daniel sat up, taking a mental inventory of the damage. While his back hurt where she’d kicked him, the bruise was superficial. He wouldn’t be pissing blood just yet. He had a few lumps on his skull where she’d banged his head against the floor, but they’d been barely enough to disorient him. It had been enough to screw with his vision and without his glasses he had to squint to bring her into focus.
“This your idea of foreplay, Sam? I gotta say, it’s not doing much for me, sorry,” Daniel said, a tight little smile on his mouth. She was pacing the room again and he tried to decide if her gait was a strut or a stalk. Maybe a little of both.
Sam growled at him.
Daniel wondered how much time had passed since they’d been tossed in here. More than an hour, probably less than two. Had the drug reached its full potential in Sam or was this just the beginning? No way to tell. If this was the worst of it, they could probably spar for hours. If it wasn’t, if this was only the opening act, things could get much worse for him.
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Sam opened her eyes to the darkened infirmary. She felt like a sailor the morning after a three-day leave in Hong Kong. Her head pounded and her body ached everywhere, even between her legs. She closed her eyes and the memory of the last 24 hours flooded in.
“Shit,” she murmured, closing her eyes against the inevitable questions and debriefing that would soon follow. Debriefing. Heh. Yeah, not so very funny right now.
“Sam. How’re you feeling?” Came a soft voice from the shadows next to her bed. The last time she’d heard that voice, it had been the sharp rasp of climax as she’d raped him. Jesus.
“Terrible,” she croaked, her throat painfully dry.
“Here, try this.” A hand appeared, holding a plastic cup with a straw. Beads of condensation glistened on the sides. Sam focused on them, rather than the bandages on the wrist holding the cup. She drank and the dryness eased. Her discomfort didn’t.
“Better?”
“Not really,” she replied, refusing to look at her visitor. She didn’t know how she’d ever be able to look Daniel in the face again.
“Yeah. A little water can’t fix everything. Think you can talk about it?” He asked.
Sam shook her head. There was so much she wanted to say. How sorry she was, how ashamed she felt, but it was all jumbled in her head and the words wouldn’t come.
“Okay, I can understand that. But I’m going to talk and I’d appreciate it if you’d listen. Think you can do that?” Daniel said.
Sam’s eyes slid to the side, if only to try to read his body language. He was a mere shadow, sitting on a stool next to her bed. It looked like his hands were folded in his lap. She nodded.
“I’ll, uh, get the technical details out of the way first. General Hammond met us coming through the gate and I managed to persuade him to agree to no… invasive exams. There’s no… direct evidence of the details that happened off-world. They know you were drugged, causing you to be altered and combative, but that’s it. Our injuries are consistent with that explanation.”
“Hammond agreed to that?” Sam asked, her voice still rough. She heard Daniel shift on his stool.
“I sort of invoked ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, as a starter, so no, he wasn’t happy about it at first, but it kept the medical team from doing an impromptu pelvic on you, so…” she heard him sigh. “Later, after I was released, I gave him a… somewhat more detailed explanation and he agreed that he didn’t need the specifics. He can still order us to psych evals if he feels it’s affecting our working relationship. I’m hoping we can avoid that.”
Daniel was quiet for a long moment. Sam wondered if he was waiting for her to say something. She wasn’t sure what she could say. Despite what she’d done to him, he’d protected her dignity and career. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach.
“A lot was said… and done, in that room. I don’t know how much of it you remember, but I need you to know that I meant it. All of it. While I hated the circumstances, you didn’t force me into anything I haven’t thought about over the years, so… I, uh, it’s okay. I’m okay, but I’m pretty sure you’re not so okay. I understand because I’ve been there, Sam.”
She blinked and looked down at her hands.
“I know it was a long time ago, but you have to remember the… Hathor incident. The first one. I know I didn’t talk about it much at the time and it was before we had all the trauma psych protocols in place, so I’ve never told anyone much about it. The facts pretty much spoke for themselves… except for one tiny detail.
I liked it, Sam. I liked it… a lot. There was plenty I hated about it too, but the sex itself was great. That’s what I felt shame about, not that I’d been drugged against my will and manipulated. That could have happened to anyone. But I was young and missing my wife and… being able to just forget all that for a while and let a beautiful woman do as she pleased, well, there was no way I could hate that. But I sure as hell felt guilt and shame about enjoying it.”
“What’s your point, Daniel?” Sam asked, the words coming out sharper than she’d intended.
“My point is that I don’t want you to feel that same shame and guilt over what happened, Sam. Yes, you can hate that you were drugged against your will and it made you do things you might not ordinarily. You can hate the people who did that to you, but I don’t want you to blame yourself for how it made you feel and the things you did. We’re both consenting, single adults, Sam.”
“You didn’t consent.”
“Yes, I did. I said I’d be happy to, er, fuck you, if that’s what you wanted. If that’s not enough, try to remember round two.”
She felt her skin flush at the vivid memory of being on her knees, one arm twisted behind her back as Daniel slid into her, hot, thick and strong. Sense memory sent a strong pulse through her sex, reminding her of just how good it had felt.
“I hurt you,” Sam replied, remembering how she’d kicked him and banged his head against the floor. She could still feel the texture of his hair between her fingers as she did it.
“And I hurt you in turn.” A long finger touched the bandage at the base of her neck. “I don’t even have the excuse of being drugged, Sam. Consenting adults Together, we can get past this.”
The sight of the white bandage around his wrist brought the memory of riding him hard, teetering on the edge of orgasm until he offered her his forearm. Of biting into it, the feel of his flesh against her teeth triggering her climax as her nails scored his chest. Daniel’s voice as he grabbed her hip, drove hard and came deep inside her. Of how she could feel each tremor that raced through him.
Sam shut her eyes in the vain hope that it could shut out the memory of those things as well.
“Sam?”
She said nothing. What the hell could she say?
“Sam. Don’t do this to me. Don’t shut me out. We can get through this, just listen to me. Please,” Daniel said, his voice quiet, but forceful.
“Not now,” she ground out. She wanted to scream at him, tell him to get out of her sight - that she’d never be able to come to terms with what had happened with him right there, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t the wounded party; Daniel was.
Sam heard Daniel take a long, deep breath from his spot next to her bed.
“Okay, I’ll go. Just… don’t assume you know everything, Sam. We need to work through this - we have to, and we will. But I understand if you don’t want to do it right now,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I want you to know just one thing, Sam. I could have stopped it. I have weight and reach on you, even if I’m not as good at the physical stuff as you are. I didn’t,” he said, his voice so quiet and rational that it infuriated her.
She felt him lean over her, his mouth close to her ear, “I didn’t want to stop you, Sam. Please believe me.”
Daniel’s breath was gone as quickly as it had come. His next words were spoken from the foot of her bed, his hand on her shin.
“Try to rest, Sam. If you need anything, I’m staying on base. I’ve told the duty nurse to wake me if you need to talk.”
Daniel gave her leg a squeeze and left the infirmary. By all rights, he should be there himself, in a bed next to her, but he’d assured Doctor Brightman that he’d be fine. For the first time in his career with SG-1, he’d refused to be examined beyond the most obvious of his injuries. Even so, she’d prescribed him some pain-killers and he had every intention of taking them now. She may not have been with them long, but there seemed to be things that she understood. Or, Hammond had instructed her to let him alone. He found he didn’t care, either way.
He stopped by the mess to grab whatever food was available at this time of night, not because he was hungry - he was anything but. But past experience told him that taking codeine-anything on an empty stomach was guaranteed misery and spending the rest of the night puking his guts up wasn’t Daniel’s idea of a good time. He was drained and exhausted and he realized that he probably wasn’t in the best shape to be talking to Sam anyway.
Daniel gulped down the sandwich practically without tasting it. Something-salad, he thought. Chicken, tuna, turkey, he couldn’t be sure. It just filled the empty space in his gut. He chased the food with two of the pain pills and a bottle of water. He figured he had somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes before he was incoherent and stripped off his clothes on his way to the shower.
Between the flurry of activity from the time he and Sam had come through the gate and waiting for news of her status, Daniel hadn’t taken the time to shower. They both had been pretty much tacked up when they arrived. Daniel had seen to it, though a forensics team probably would have noticed that Sam’s socks had been inside out and that her belt was fastened wrong.
The moment the hot water hit him, the scent of Sam and sex rose from Daniel’s skin, odors that really couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. He wondered if he’d been reeking of it the whole time. It brought everything back in vivid Technicolor. Sam, altered, violent and… dangerously sexual, yet retaining just enough of herself that she couldn’t cross that line with him. She could talk about it, threaten and posture, but… not quite bring herself to touch him. She hurt him instead, kicking him and banging his head against the floor.
You need it rough? I can do rough. Trust me, Sam. Daniel recalled his words with an accompanying twist in his guts. He wondered what kind of sick bastard he was to have taken pleasure from her altered state. Sure, she’d needed pain and aggression to satisfy the base compulsions the drug had induced, but he shouldn’t have gotten off on it so hard it was almost painful. Hell, it had been painful, Sam’s teeth sinking into his arm hard enough to break skin and yet…
Daniel tried to force the disturbing thoughts out of his mind as he carefully washed the various wounds on his chest and arms. Sam’s nails may be short, but they were strong and had gouged deep into his chest. While her teeth hadn’t broken the skin over his collarbone or shoulders, they’d left bruises, some livid. Some sense of self-preservation had kept Sam from marking him where they’d be seen. Daniel had been the one to offer her his arms, but those bites could easily be explained as defensive wounds. He had no similar excuse for the bite he’d left on her neck.
He tried to rationalize his actions. After she’d kicked, punched and bitten him enough times, it had raised his own aggressive tendencies. Her blatant sexuality had turned it against his better nature and it had been so damn long since he’d been with a woman. Part of him wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to see him again.
The Vicodin started working and Daniel found it harder to hang onto rational thought. Exhausted, the pain of his injuries fading to a distant ache, he got out of the shower, dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist. Using another towel, he wiped the steam off the mirror and checked himself out.
The damage was sobering. He’d known the scratches had been deep, but there were more of them than he’d realized and they were now oozing blood again. The bites on his wrists were bleeding again too, surrounded by purple shadows. Bruises decorated his collarbones and shoulders. When he turned around, there were more bruises on his back, including a particularly ugly one where Sam had kicked him.
Daniel cleaned and dressed his wounds, muttering and cursing as he did it. A bottle of antibiotics had been left for him too, his name conspicuously missing from the label. He took one. The last thing he needed was to develop an infection and human bites and scratches were notoriously nasty.
Clean, bandaged and well-drugged, Daniel pulled on a pair of clean shorts and lay down on the bed, hoping sleep would take him quickly. He was exhausted in every possible way. Emotionally and sexually drained, beaten and aching, he still had trouble forgetting what had happened. Random images and sensations played through his mind as he tried to relax.
The feel of sliding into Sam’s snug, slick heat. The way she’d tightened around him as she moved over him, her warm, smooth skin against his. It all brought back the longing he’d had for her back in the beginning. Back then, she’d always been there for him with a soft touch or kind word, sharing private jokes. It’d been a mostly innocent attraction. He’d still had hope that he’d be reunited with Sha’re and even if he had weakened, he knew Sam wasn’t the type to allow herself to get involved with a married man. All the same, they’d shared an easy familiarity that he missed in later years.
The worst of it was that Daniel only wanted her more now. He wanted to make up for the harsh, crudely carnal way they’d come together. He wanted to know what she was like when she wasn’t crazed by alien drugs. Despite his worries, exhaustion won over and he fell into an uneasy sleep.
In the infirmary, Sam was wresting her own demons. The night nurse had offered her something to help her sleep, but she refused. She needed to work this out for herself before Daniel came back. Or anyone else, for that matter. She could always fall back on the ‘I was drugged and don’t remember’ ruse, but it wasn’t true. She was pretty sure she remembered almost everything and it embarrassed and horrified her.
Sam needed to work things out on her own before she tried to fix things with Daniel. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d forgive her - hell, he’d already forgiven her, but he couldn’t have known that many of the things she’d said and done came from inside her. She’d always had an attraction to Daniel, stronger in the earlier years, when he’d still had hope of finding Sha’re. But even in later years, there were times when her feelings for him had gone way beyond simple friendship. Times when she’d wanted to drag him off to the nearest supply closet and screw his brains out. Now she finally had.
Back in that room on that damned planet, she’d done some of the things she’d thought about, but it had been twisted and all wrong. She’d never wanted to hurt him and even knew it was a crappy seduction technique with him. Even so, Sam remembered him growing hard beneath her as she sunk her teeth into his collarbone, pressing his erection against her heat. The way he kissed her, demanding and passionate.
But she’d also kicked Daniel, bitten him and slammed his head against the floor. She’d liked that, too. She’d been looking for a fight, felt the need to hurt him even after he’d told her he’d have sex with her. That had never figured into any of her fantasies.
Daniel’s words had surprised and confused her. She wasn’t surprised that he forgave her and didn’t want her to feel guilty and ashamed, but she was surprised at his insistence that he’d enjoyed it. It was hard to admit that she had too. Maybe that’s what shamed her so. The taste and feel of Daniel’s skin in her mouth had triggered an orgasm more intense than any she could remember. Sam hoped to God it had been the drug. It sickened her to think that’s what it took to get her off that hard. Of course, later, when Daniel had forced her to her knees and taken her roughly from behind… she hadn’t bitten him then and again, it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
If she closed her eyes, she could still feel him inside her, moving strong and steady, his teeth on her neck, his groans echoing in the small room.. Sam supposed she should be shocked at the revelation, but she didn’t have room for it. She was too shocked at her own actions to worry about Daniel’s.
Above all, she hoped she’d have the courage to face him tomorrow. It would be hard, but she owed him that much.
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Daniel woke when he tried to roll over onto his back. His chest burned and stung at the pull across the gouges Sam’s nails had left. Not to mention all the other aches he registered now that the pain medication had worn off. His morning erection throbbed insistently along with a vague twinge deep in his groin, adding to his litany of complaints. None of them were up for discussion with anyone, much less an SGC doctor. He was definitely on his own this time. Telling himself to suck it up, Daniel rose and swung his legs to the floor with a loud groan.
Taking a moment to get his muzzy head together, he remembered that he was dreaming just before the pain woke him. He’d been dreaming about Sam; how she’d looked, felt and sounded as she came around him and his own sense of awe at her passion. The twinge in his groin became a hollow ache and he recalled from times long past that it was the result of intense and repeated sex. Hell, a couple of times Daniel hadn’t been sure that his heart hadn’t stopped dead in his chest at the moment of climax. Probably why the French called it le petite mort. He felt way too damn old to be screwing like a teenager. Remembering his performance, a tiny spark of male pride tried to flicker to life. Daniel ruthlessly killed it before it could grow. He had nothing to be proud of.
Christ, what had he done? What you had to, you know that. But had it really, truly been necessary? Or had it simply been his less-honorable self, the angry and lonely man he resolutely ignored, who had given in so easily? Maybe he was no better than a horny frat boy faced with a pretty, drunk sorority girl? Sure, Sam was altered, but there’d been nothing wrong with him. He should have been able to resist, fend her off for a few hours and kept them both safe. Instead he’d given in and gotten off on it.
Last night’s sandwich tumbled uncomfortably in his stomach, as he recalled his words to Sam. Could he have been more arrogant, offering her his absolution? No wonder she didn’t want to discuss it. By all rights, she should have called the nurse and had him thrown out. He should beg for her forgiveness, but doing so would only remind her of something she’d probably prefer to forget. Some things were better left alone, at least until the bruises healed.
Daniel revised his plans for the day. Going to Sam now seemed a very bad idea.
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No one got the luxury of sleeping late while in the infirmary. Shift change at 0600 meant that every patient got a new set of vitals taken along with various pokings and proddings of tender areas. Sam got the additional pleasure of another blood draw. In exchange for bearing up with good humor, the nurse made sure she got one of the first breakfast trays and coffee. Decaf, sure, but it was better than nothing. Sam discovered she was ravenous and devoured her eggs, bacon and toast with relish.
With no small amount of surprise, Sam realized that things really did look better in the light of day. Her ravenous appetite was a sure sign. Yes, what had happened between she and Daniel complicated things, but only as much as they allowed them to. Daniel had given her everything she’d needed, both in that room and once they were home. He’d protected her honor and career, forgoing medical attention himself to ensure it. She was less than thrilled that he’d had to imply certain things to the General, but she was protected and Hammond would be true to his word.
“How are you feeling, Major Carter?” Doctor Brightman asked, reaching Sam’s bed on her morning rounds. Sam was still getting used to her rather flat bedside manner.
“Good. I feel fine,” Sam answered truthfully. Oh, she had some aches and pains, including the bite on her neck, but nothing that should keep her in the infirmary.
“Your blood work came back and you’re free of the chemical you were dosed with on the planet. The rest of your injuries are superficial and seem to be healing well,” the doctor said, flipping through her chart.
“So I can leave? I’m cleared?” Sam asked.
Doctor Brightman caught Sam’s eyes and held them. She dropped her head after a moment. “Yes, but I’d like to see you in my office before you leave. Drop by after you dress, okay?”
Sam felt a sliver of dread slip down her spine. “Sure. Just give me ten minutes,” she replied, covering her worry with a smile.
Sam found clean BDUs in the cabinet next to the bed and dressed quickly. As she buttoned her shirt, she saw something dark under her short nails and around her cuticles. Examining them, she realized it was blood. Daniel’s blood. She remembered him crying out beneath her as she raked his chest, satisfying her need to rend flesh. At the same time, he’d surged up beneath her, pushing deeper into her. Shit. Sam hit the bathroom and scrubbed her nails clean before going to Dr. Brightman’s office.
“You wanted to see me?” Sam asked, poking her head inside the office.
“Yes Major. Close the door, please.”
Sam’s sense of unease rose as she did it and took the chair next to Doctor Brightman’s desk.
“Major Carter. Sam, I understand that this is a sensitive matter, especially for a woman in the military, but I’m responsible for the well-being of the personnel under my care. When Doctor Jackson brought you through, you were unconscious and there was… evidence of sexual assault. Various bruises and bites. Someone had dressed you. I need to ask if you were sexually assaulted while off-world.”
Shit, shit and damn. Sam let none of it show on her face. She hadn’t been a military officer all this time without having learned to carefully school her features. “No, absolutely not. I was conscious the whole time, until right at the end. I was not sexually assaulted.”
Doctor Brightman looked at her hands and sighed, “Duly noted, Major. Now, off the record, woman to woman, were you sexually assaulted? I have a number of contacts in the civilian community I could refer you to-“
“No. Thank you, but it’s not necessary, I assure you,” Sam insisted.
“Sam, I undressed you myself. There was unmistakable evidence of sexual activity and the drug you were given, well, it appears to have had some properties of an aphrodisiac. While your contraceptive injections protect you against pregnancy, there are STIs to consider, perhaps even something we’ve never seen before. Are you sure you never lost consciousness while off-world? Any time that someone might have taken advantage of you?” Doctor Brightman continued.
“I’m positive. And while I appreciate your concern, it really isn’t necessary.” Sam thought carefully and decided to throw the poor doctor a bone for her efforts.
“Daniel never left my side the entire time we were there,” Sam explained, meeting the doctor’s eyes with a meaningful look.
“So you’re saying Doctor Jackson-”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, Doctor,” Sam said quickly before Brightman could even finish the thought, but she held the other woman’s eyes.
Doctor Brightman opened her mouth as if she was going to question Sam further, but shut it as she put the facts together.
“All right then, I guess we’re done here,” Brightman said, looking unsettled.
Sam remembered all that Daniel had done to protect her. “Doctor Brightman, I assure you, despite how it looks? This was not a non-con situation. Please believe me.”
Sam felt her cheeks warm at what amounted to the confession that she’d been complicit in whatever Brightman suspected, but didn’t look away from the other woman. The doctor’s eyes scanned Sam’s face.
“All right, Major. Thank you,” the doctor finally said with a nod, dismissing her. Sam wasted no time making good her escape.
Her first stop was the locker room, thankfully deserted for the moment, to wash away any remaining evidence and ease her aching muscles. After slipping into clean underwear, she took a moment to examine her upper body.
A chain of faint bruises spread across her collarbones. Touching them produced an almost sweet ache as she recalled the press of lips and teeth that made them. Daniel probably had a matching set. The bite where her shoulder and neck came together was tender, but not very deep. She re-bandaged it, as much to hide it from casual view as to keep it clean. Sam’s memory filled in the details.
They were both exhausted by then, neither of them strong enough for another round. Over-stimulated by hours of fighting, fucking and verbal sparring, yet the drug in Sam’s blood demanded it. She was sore, abraded, her thighs slick with Daniel’s semen and her own slippery essence. Nothing mattered but the burn and ache to be filled again.
Sam shook herself out of her reflections and hurried to dress before someone came into the locker room. She’d gotten one sock and boot on when she was overcome again recalling the last time she and Daniel had come together.
There was a little flutter in her belly and Sam felt her face heat at the things she’d done to coax another erection from Daniel’s sated body. Things she’d only read about in trashy novels or women’s magazines. Her mind wanted to shy away from it, but there was no mistaking the way she felt herself respond to the memory of the sounds Daniel made when she’d slipped a single, slender finger inside him.
I didn’t want to stop you, Sam. Please believe me.
She’d been on the downward slide of the drug’s influence when she got stalled at the precipice of climax. Daniel had put his mouth to her neck and bitten her, setting her off one last time. He’d offered to stop then, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t agree to that. It took a little time, but in the end she’d been rewarded by the way his face had been transformed as he came with her name on his lips.
Sam finally got her other boot on and went to her lab. Nothing like a few technological mysteries to take her mind off disquieting reflections. She was pretty sure that Daniel would seek her out as soon as he heard she’d been released from the infirmary. He’d seemed pretty determined to address the events head-on last night.
It was hours later and nearing lunch when Sam finally pulled her head out of her calculations and realized Daniel still hadn’t made an appearance. It seemed distinctly odd, but Daniel always had been one to deal with his demons alone. He was probably holed up in his office.
Sure enough, that’s where Sam found him, his nose buried in a mythology book and making notes on a coffee stained legal pad.
“Daniel,” she said, poking her head in the open door.
“Hey Sam. You’re out?” Daniel replied, squinting a little at her.
“Yeah, Doctor Brightman sprung me this morning.” Sam felt a thread of unease building between them. She didn’t like it one bit.
“Good… that’s great,” Daniel said, his fingers picking at a scrap of paper on his desk and looking away from her.
Sam came all the way into the room and sat down across from him. He wouldn’t look directly at her, his eyes flitting between the open book and something over her left shoulder.
“Daniel. If I can look at you, you can look at me. Right? You said it yourself last night. We can get past this,” she said softly.
Daniel let his eyes rest on her for a moment. “Yeah, I did. And I meant it and I do, but… Sam, I’m sorry. I’m such an arrogant ass.” Daniel looked at his hands, a worry line between his brows.
Arrogant? Where the hell is this coming from? Sam wondered. It shook her meager confidence at coming to him, but she wasn’t about to leave yet.
A lump was forming in her throat, but Sam swallowed it down. “Are you having regrets about…” she broke off, unable to find a neutral term for what had happened.
“No… Yes, that you were drugged and… but that’s not what it’s about,” he sighed and his hands started making motions in the air between them.
“Sam, it was arrogant and selfish of me to… assume that I could offer you any kind of comfort about what happened. I’m not the wounded party here,” he managed to meet her eyes. “Any blame belongs to me. I wasn’t the one dosed with some fucking mating potion. I’m the one who should be begging your forgiveness for…”
Sam quickly stood and shut his office door. She was getting angry and the entire base didn’t need to hear about it. She was too agitated to sit back down.
“Forgiveness for what, Daniel? For giving me exactly what I needed? Do you have any idea what I would have done to you if you hadn’t? Do you?”
Sam’s sudden anger had him looking up at her in surprise.
“I would have wiped the floor with you and you know it,” she continued. “Jesus, Daniel, I had to scrub your blood out from under my nails this morning. Can you even imagine how much worse it would have been if you hadn’t given in?”
Daniel nodded slowly. “I know, Sam. Believe me, I do. But… I didn’t have to enjoy it so damn much. Even in my more… exotic musings, I never dreamed it could be like that with you. But it wasn’t you, not really, and now…”
Sam plunked her ass down in the chair at his confession. It mirrored her own deepest worries. Now that she’d experienced just how… stimulating rough sex could be, would she be able to enjoy gentle love-making again? Or had she been indelibly marked with the desire for the heady combination of pleasure and pain. The incredible power she’d felt at the responses she’d caused, and yes, even forced from Daniel’s body. Sam crossed her legs tightly to silence the arousal building between her legs.
Sam bit her lip and looked at Daniel’s hands. “I know what you mean,” she finally said. “I’m not sure if it was the drug or… what, but it was very… intense.”
Daniel’s eyes flickered in a way that told her he knew exactly what she meant.
“You told me about Hathor last night. Were you able to go back to regular sex after that? If you don’t mind me asking,” Sam added quickly.
Daniel’s brows lifted. “I don’t mind you asking, but I’m not sure I have an answer. I haven’t had much sex since then and what there was of it…” he shrugged. “…I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, so I wouldn’t classify it as regular or normal.”
“Sorry, that was a dumb question,” Sam felt chagrined.
“No it wasn’t, Sam, it was a logical question. If I hadn’t been married, I might have done things… differently. I can tell you that it influenced my fantasies for a while.”
“Daniel, it’s okay, you don’t need to-” she said quickly. While some prurient part of her wondered what Daniel thought about when he got himself off, it felt…weird sitting across the desk from him as he talked. It was the kind of conversation she imagined having in bed.
He smiled at her, for the first time in days. “I’m just saying that it influenced the way I think about sex. Fantasy is one of the ways we work through all kinds of things, sexual and otherwise. What I choose to think about depends on my mood. Sometimes I want comfort, another time, passion. In the end those experiences are just incorporated into the whole repertoire of things I can recall to fit my mood.”
Sam thought about that, looking at her now-clean nails. Where did she and Daniel go from here? Obviously, they could remain friends and leave it all behind them. But her experience had awakened something inside her she wanted to explore, but only with the right person. Daniel had already proven to be the right person. Time for the tough questions.
“How do you want to handle this? Between us, I mean. I think you took care of all the official details,” Sam asked, keeping her voice neutral. She didn’t want anything from Daniel that he wasn’t willing to give.
Daniel cleared his throat and looked at her through his lashes. “That’s pretty much up to you, Sam. I’ve, uh, cared for you for a long time and I’d like to see where this… change, might take us. But if it’s not what you want, or feel it’d be to disruptive to the team as a whole, I’ll respect that.”
“Daniel, we’re all so deep in each others’ pockets on this team, I really don’t think it’ll make much of a difference. We’re all way over the line, sex or no sex,” Sam said.
“True, no doubt about it. So?”
“Yeah. I want to see where this could go too,” Sam met his eyes and grinned.
Daniel got up from his desk, wincing a bit as he straightened. “In that case, would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Sure, love to,” Sam replied, then leaned over to whisper to him, “I wouldn’t mind doing it sooner, but quite frankly, I’m a bit… sore.”
“Yeah, me too,” Daniel replied in a normal tone.
“I didn’t know guys got sore.”
“Oh, we definitely do. In a totally different way, but… I’ll explain later. Maybe give a demonstration,” he said teasingly.
“I look forward to it,” Sam said over her shoulder as she left his office. Oh yeah, he could demonstrate to his heart’s content
~~~ end ~~~
Notes: As you probably know now, I pretty much turned this cliche on its head by having Sam being the one dosed and including the aggressive and violent tendencies. It was surrealphantast who noticed that it had some interesting implications about personal empowerment.
I also started writing this story completely differently. About halfway through even I was getting tired of writing smut(!) and I thought readers would get bored with reading it, too. After awhile you just get oversaturated and it begins to lose its impact. There were also a few things I wanted to include, but which are really hard to write gracefully especially in the context of Sam being aggressively altered. I began on the aftermath and found that telling the story through flashbacks seemed hotter than the actual scenes I'd written because it leaves much to the imagination of the reader. And like horror, sometimes smut is better imagined than actually seeing it written out. I asked surrealphantast about it and she agreed. Hey! I learned something new about writing! Yay!
hoshi_reed, honestly, if you hate it, please let me know and I'll gladly write a story for your second prompt. I have plenty of ideas for that one, too and may write on it eventually anyway.
Title: Essence of Lilith
Author: Courser shutthef_up
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Season 7 just to be safe, but nothing specific
Recipient: hoshi_reed
Prompt: Oh, how I loved both prompts, but I chose #1, because it's one of my favorites: Love potion cliche. Sam or Daniel dosed and the pair locked up (subsequent aftermath required).
Length: ~10,000 words - I just couldn't do it justice in less.
A/N: First of all much love and kisses for my beta, surrealphantast. She pretty much held my hand through this fic. katcorvi helped immensely in the earlier stages, when I was sort of flailing around with so many directions I could go. This is probably one of my top 3 favorite fanfic cliches and I was delighted I could write it for hoshi_reed. I have a few more notes at the end. hoshi_reed, I hope you like this story. I did a few different things with it, so...
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“I’m surprised we haven’t come across more matriarchal cultures over the years. To be fair, the Goa’uld seemed to prefer male hosts as a general rule. It’d follow that the cultures they ruled would also be male-dominated. This is fascinating…” Daniel said, trailing off as he became absorbed in the wall’s inscriptions.
“So we’re talking God-dess this time?” Sam asked. It’s about damn time, she thought. She’d seen enough posturing, self-aggrandizing males with delusions of godhood to last her several lifetimes.
“Not exactly,” Daniel said absently, his fingers brushing dust from the grooves as he read.
Leaving Daniel to his translations, Sam looked around at the artwork. Faded and flaking off in places, the figure of a dark-haired, dark skinned woman seemed to be a recurring theme, frequently accompanied by snakes. Must be the Goa’uld influence.
Sam was a little relieved that this little recon mission had come up while the Colonel and Teal’c were vacationing at Jack’s cabin. This kind of mission drove him nuts. Which resulted in Jack driving everyone else nuts. Most of Teal’c’s energy was spent keeping their CO occupied somewhere away from them.
General Hammond had sent the SG-12 Marines with them for security. At their first check-in, however, they were only too happy to be re-tasked with backing up SG-8 with an off-world medical emergency. Bored Marines were unhappy Marines. Seeing as the only civilization they encountered was a small village of women and children and that both Sam and Daniel were experienced members of the premiere team, they were allowed to remain behind alone.
“Lilith!” Daniel finally exclaimed.
“As in Lilith Fair?” Sam asked after a moment’s thought.
“What? No. Well, yes, but… not exactly,” Daniel replied as he processed and tried to answer Sam’s question.
“Lilith was a demon in Mesopotamian theology, but she crosses cultures and civilizations. According to some theologians, she was Adam’s first wife,” Daniel continued.
“First wife? Adam had a wife before Eve?”
“According to some scholars, yes. It’s sort of a hair-splitting reading, but supposedly God created both male and female out of clay. But Lilith refused to lie beneath Adam, refused to be subservient to him and left Eden. Then, when God saw that Adam was alone, created Eve from one of his ribs, ensuring that as a part of him, she would be subservient to him.”
“I suppose the ‘lie beneath’ wording isn’t accidental, is it?” Sam said.
“Nope, it’s not, though I suspect that wasn’t their only problem. Apparently, they argued constantly. What happened after that varies, depending on which stories you believe. Some cultures believed that Lilith became a demon who ate children. Perhaps the mother of demons. She’s a creature of the night and associated with vampires, owls, incubi, succubi - most of the terrors of the night. She’s also associated with Lamia, the Greek version, where she sometimes appears as half woman, half snake.”
“Explains why the Goa’uld would like her. But why would modern women name a festival after her if she was so evil?” Sam asked.
“Neo-pagan feminists embrace her for her resolve not to be subservient to Adam. She’s been quite literally demonized for that resolve.” Daniel answered as he documented the finding in his notebook.
“Couldn’t they find someone less… scary?” Sam said, now recognizing some of the more sinister aspects of the artwork.
“Not everyone thinks she was inherently evil. Granted, no one associates her with sunshine and buttercups, but that darker nature lies within all of us. Besides, who records history? Especially anything written, say, over 100 years ago. Hell, 50?” Daniel asked, looking at her over his glasses.
“Scholars, I guess. Theologians,” Sam answered.
“Right. And they were-?” Daniel continued.
Sam smiled fondly. This was her favorite part of her friendship with Daniel. They challenged each other, forced each other to think.
“Educated? Higher education hasn’t been common or attainable for most people until very recently,” Sam proposed.
“True. Not where I was going, but we might be able to get there this way. Who was educated?” Daniel asked. He’d stopped writing and was watching her think.
“The rich. The privileged. Members of religious orders,” Sam ticked them off on her fingers.
“Okay, also true. Let me approach this another way. Who wrote the majority of the books on astrophysics?” Daniel asked, leading her back on track.
“A lot of people. I can’t remember without checking who’s written the most,” Sam offered.
“You’re making this too hard, Sam. It’s really very simple. I’d venture to say that most of those authors have something in common with me.”
Sam stood back, looked around the room and thought hard. When Daniel posed questions like this to her, the answer was often something deceptively simple. So simple, in fact, that it was something she took for granted. He was sitting on a bench, notebook open on his lap, his eyes willing her to find the answer. It flashed to her like a bolt of lightening and she felt like slapping herself on the forehead at its simplicity.
“They’re all men,” she said, smiling at him.
“Exactly!” Daniel exclaimed, an index finger in the air. “Most of history has been recorded by men. Sure, there’s the occasional accounting of events from a courtesan or consort, but the vast, vast majority of history, mythology… everything, has been recorded by men. Often men who have some stake in how they’re remembered. Many a king or petty despot has hired his own biographer to whitewash his reign.”
“Okay. Right. I agree with you, but what does this have to do with Lilith?” Sam asked, bringing Daniel back on topic.
“Just that we shouldn’t be too hasty in judging her, or a culture based on her, simply on the basis of attributes men ascribed to her. I’m not up on my neo-paganism, but I’m betting that modern women have found some admirable qualities. I seem to remember something about the idea that Lilith didn’t really need to ‘lie above’ Adam,” Daniel made quotes in the air. “It wasn’t about sexual position, at least not wholly. She was created as his equal and simply wanted recognition of that fact. She wasn’t created to be a subservient creature, a servant. She was created to be an equal helpmate. There’s a big difference.”
Daniel suddenly looked solemn, his eyes on his hands and the corners of his mouth curved downward.
“Daniel?”
He looked up at her. “I was just remembering Sha’re... As assertive as she could be at times, she’d been taught to be totally submissive in… uh.” He broke off and waved his hand around in a vague motion.
“In the bedroom,” Sam finished for him, looking at her feet. She and Daniel were close and she probably knew more about his short married life than anyone.
“Yeah. She was just finding her own voice, so to speak, in that regard, when”-
“When Apophis took her,” Sam put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
Daniel took a deep breath and smiled up at her, his eyes clear. “You didn’t. It just creeps up on me sometimes, you know? I mean, God, it’s been almost ten years.
“It hasn’t been quite that long, Daniel. Maybe eight or nine, but… I like to think that she’d be happy to see you moving on and not just… existing after…” Sam broke off. This wasn’t really going where she intended.
They were both saved from further awkward discussion of the subject when a small contingent of robed women entered the building. Sam immediately stepped forward, protecting Daniel while he put his journal down, picked up his own weapon and moved to stand at her side.
The women arrayed themselves across the entrance to the temple. The three youngest looking wore rust-colored robes and carried daggers on their hips. Two wore blue and carried what looked a bit like sabers, but Daniel couldn’t be sure. They flanked an older, taller woman, who wore purple and stood with firm confidence. She took up the central position, slightly forward of her entourage. Her dark hair was streaked with gray and she had sharp, almost masculine features. She didn’t look pleased. As she came to a halt in front of Sam and Daniel, her retainers put their hands on their weapons, but didn’t draw them. Yet.
“Who has violated the sanctity of Lilith’s demesne?” She scowled at Daniel.
“I’m Daniel Jackson and this is-” he began, but the woman cut him off with an angry gesture.
“Be silent, man! Sara will be all too pleased to cut out your tongue for your blasphemy,” she said, gesturing to one of the rust-robed young women. Drawing her dagger from its sheath, she stepped forward, next to the leader.
Sam stepped in front of Daniel and raised her P-90, “Hey! I don’t think so. I’m sorry if we’ve given offense. It wasn’t intentional. We’re explorers, new to your world and don’t know your ways. We beg your forgiveness. I’m Major Samantha Carter.”
The speaker, clearly the leader, seemed to evaluate Sam with a calculating eye. “Very well, but keep your male silent or we will silence him for you. You must leave immediately. Males and outsiders are forbidden to view the sacred secrets of Lilith. Only the initiated may gaze upon Her wisdom”
“My apologies, of course we’ll leave,” Sam replied, lowering the muzzle of the gun, but keeping a close eye on the women. “Get our stuff, Daniel. Now.”
Daniel opened his mouth to either acknowledge or argue, but snapped it shut and gave a tight nod instead. He liked his tongue where it was. It took him only moments to stuff his journal and video camera into his pack. For good measure, he policed the area for anything they might have dropped. He found an energy bar wrapper and shoved it into his pocket then clipped his P-90 to his tac vest and returned to Sam’s side. Together they faced the women guarding the exit.
“If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way,” Sam said stiffly, moving forward to stand in front of the leader.
“We will accompany you.” The tall woman tipped her head and turned to the side to let them pass, falling into step with Sam as they walked out of the temple. The rest of the acolytes fell into formation around them and Daniel was forced into position following on Sam’s heels.
The moment they’d cleared the shadow of the building, the women drew their blades. Sam was held at saber-point, but the woman called Sara had her dagger at Daniel’s throat, her eyes glittering with the desire to spill his blood. Daniel was bent backward at an awkward angle, letting out a low groan as he tried not to struggle against the woman using him as a shield. Sam lifted her hands away from her weapon in capitulation. She might be able to keep their attackers from killing her, but Sara could cut Daniel’s throat in the blink of an eye. She looked like she’d enjoy it, too.
“What do you want?” Sam demanded. “We’re leaving - I don’t know what more we can do.”
“You must make recompense for the blasphemy you perpetrated on Lilith’s domain,” the woman replied, looking sternly down her nose at Sam. “You will be blessed with the nature of Lilith.”
Daniel made a choked sound of protest, but Sam didn’t see that they had much choice. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner they could leave.
“Take them to the Offering House. I will join you shortly,” the purple robed woman ordered.
“But Mother! This one is male,” Sara growled, her mouth close to Daniel’s ear, making his blood run cold
“Silence, Sara. Do as you’re told.”
“Yes, Mother,” Sara agreed. It sounded to Daniel as if she was heartily sorry she wouldn’t be allowed to spill his blood right here.
Wordlessly, they were stripped of their gear and weapons. Other robed women appeared to bear them away and bind their arms behind their backs. The were both grateful that Daniel was allowed to walk at Sam’s side.
“Any idea what this ‘blessing’ involves?” Sam asked Daniel quietly.
“Nope, not a clue,” he replied, receiving a poke in the ribs for his trouble.
“Sorry,” Sam apologized for asking Daniel to talk.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders and quirked a brow at her. It was nothing. I think we have bigger problems to worry about, he seemed to say.
They arrived at a long, low stone building and were shoved through the door. The walls were lined with benches, the seating providing an unimpeded view of the ornate altar in the center of the room. Representations of Lilith in all her many incarnations graced the walls in the form of tapestries and paintings.
“Wow, that must have been just a shrine. I think this is the actual temple,” Daniel remarked as he examined the walls, hands still tied behind him.
“Well… right now, I just want to get out of here, Daniel. These people are giving me the creeps. Sara wants you dead, if you haven’t noticed,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what’s up with that. I haven’t seen any other men, either, which sort of begs the question of how they get children,” Daniel wondered out loud.
“I don’t particularly care how they get children…” Sam began, but was interrupted as the temple door opened and women filed in and took their places on the benches.
Sam and Daniel stood back to back and when their fingers met, they twined them together. The tall, purple-robed woman entered last, again flanked by her armed acolytes. She held a silver ewer in both hands with great reverence. As she took her place at the alter, the woman named Sara took charge of Daniel once again, pulling him away from Sam and forcing him to his knees at a right angle to her. A smart-ass comment died in his throat when Sara’s dagger made another appearance.
The other two rust-robed acolytes pushed Sam down immediately in front of Mother Whoever. The room got very quiet.
“I am Leandra, Lilith’s most devoted servant, spiritual guide and Mother to this community. I believe you tell the truth about being Outsiders and unfamiliar with our ways. After careful consideration, I have decided to bestow upon you a great honor, Major Samantha Carter. You shall be blessed with the Essence of Lilith, the better to understand Her nature,” she intoned for all to hear and poured a small amount of the ewer’s contents into a small cup.
Sam looked at the cup with trepidation. This could not be good. She thought about channeling Jack and declining the offer with, uh, I’m not really thirsty, but thanks anyway, but knew that both their lives could well depend on her accepting. And it wasn’t like they were asking her to drink much of it. The cup was about the size of a shot glass back on Earth. Sam had downed shots of some pretty disgusting things over the years. How bad could it be?
“Uh, can I ask what it is? Other than the Essence of Lilith. How do you make it?” Sam asked, still eyeing the cup.
“That knowledge is forbidden to all but the most dedicated of Lilith’s servants,” Leandra replied, her eyes flashing.
Sam glanced over at Daniel. His head was bowed in apparent submission, but he was watching her from under his brows. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug that Sam read as, What choice do we have?”
“Do you accept this gift?”
Sam already suspected that this was no gift, but some form of punishment. On the other hand, it didn’t look like they were going to force the drink on Daniel and Sam trusted him. He’d take care of her and get her home ASAP, no matter what happened.
Sam nodded her acceptance, parting her lips and tilting her head back, prepared for the worst. Past the teeth and over the gums, look out stomach, here it comes, the old toast flitted through her mind. She prayed she wouldn’t choke or puke it back up.
Robes the color of old blood braced her on either side, fingers in her hair, holding her steady. Leandra poured the liquid into her mouth and the women clamped her jaw shut and covered her mouth with strong hands. Sam struggled against their grip and Daniel looked alarmed, but Sara’s knife was on his throat again. Sam swallowed quickly.
Leandra’s face split into a menacing grin. “My children will hold you, to prevent you from purging the Essence before it can make its way to your blood. Soon, you will burn with the need to mate. As it gains strength, you will be filled with the desire to dominate your male. Your most aggressive nature will present itself, making you thirst for his blood as well as his seed. Some males do not survive the experience.”
Still held tightly, Sam looked over at Daniel as she struggled for freedom. The taste of the drug lingered in her mouth. It was cloyingly sweet and alcoholic, but beneath it all was a rancid, oily taste that smelled faintly musky. She felt it reach her belly and deeply regretted not having taken the time to eat more. It had been hours since she’d had an energy bar, so her stomach was relatively empty. Sam expected the drug to work quickly.
Leandra’s voice became a drone in her ears. Something about the Nature of Lilith and how she’d have a deeper understanding of their culture. But Sam’s mind was focused on escape. They had to get out of here before she went berserk. Daniel might be strong and more experienced at hand-to-hand combat than the average civilian, but it wasn’t his strong suit. He was a better marksman and Sam regretted that they’d been stripped of their weapons. If she could, she’d tell him to shoot her if she began attacking him. Not mortally of course, but enough to disable her until they could get through the gate.
Feeling her body begin to relax, she chanced another glance at Daniel. Sara had at least removed her dagger from his throat. Sam had years at reading his face and right now his eyes were narrowed with anger, yet projected reassurance. Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll get through this.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
Daniel watched Sam pace the perimeter of the room. The change came gradually, but fast. Her precise military stomp morphed into an almost feline stalk within the space of a few steps. Sam’s eyes shifted from scanning for an escape to rest on him, hard and hot.
“Daniel?” She said, sounding somehow frightened and sultry at the same time. It sent a little shiver down his spine.
“I’m here Sam,” he responded softly, thinking hard. Running, trying to stay away from her was probably a bad idea, much as his instincts told him to do so. Fast movements only tended to incite a predator’s desire to chase.
Not that there was anyplace to escape to, anyway. As prisons went, it wasn’t bad. Luxurious even, compared with some of the places he’d been held. It was a very basic room with a small alcove set into one wall for basic hygiene. There was no furniture, nothing that could be used as a weapon or shield. Pillows and bolsters were scattered around the room, the only concession to human comfort.
Daniel sized her up. Sam was strong and quick, better at hand-to-hand than he was. But he had her when it came to reach and sheer mass. Pound for pound he was stronger, but women generally held nothing back, exploiting every advantage, no matter how small. Sam could injure him severely without coming close to killing him.
Sam felt herself slipping away and it scared the shit out of her. Except she really wasn’t slipping away so much as being shoved aside, much like Jolinar had done. Her senses were sharpening. She could smell Daniel, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall. They’d been stripped of everything except the clothes on their backs. Their captors had even taken Daniel’s glasses.
She had to keep moving. A hungry ache was building in her belly, but not for food. For the man across the room. A man she’d known for a long, long time. She’d always wondered about him, hadn’t she? What was he like in bed? She’d always thought he’d be noisy, since he had a hard time shutting up for long. Did he talk while he fucked? Did he whisper beautiful obscenities into a lover’s ear as he moved between her thighs? What did he sound like when he came?
“God, stop!” Sam said out loud, her hands flying up to clutch at her head.
“Stop what? I’m not doing anything, Sam,” Daniel asked.
“No, not… not you,” Sam replied. “The, uh… thoughts in my head.”
“Tell me,” Daniel said.
Jesus, even his voice did things to her. It was soft, even, compelling, urging her to give voice to all those dark thoughts. Thoughts she’d had on long, cold nights alone and locked firmly away in the morning.
“I don’t think so,” Sam growled, fixing him with her eyes. They were dark, the pupils dilated under the influence of the drug.
“Why not? It might help, Sam. Giving voice to those inner thoughts robs them of their power,” Daniel persisted.
“You a shrink now Daniel? Fuck you,” she snarled.
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Daniel had the audacity to look smug before his voice dropped into a lower, more dangerous register. “Exactly how would you like to fuck me, Sam?”
She moved so fast it caught him by surprise. Sam crouched on her heels at his side, rising over him. Daniel could hear her intake of breath, taking in his scent.
“Screaming. Screaming with pain and the pleasure of being inside me,” she whispered, ruffling his hair as she spoke.
Daniel didn’t move but his muscles were taut, prepared for a quick escape. Sam didn’t touch him.
“You know that really doesn’t sound as enjoyable as you might think,” Daniel replied without turning his head to look at her.
Sam snarled in his ear, chilling his blood and sprang away to resume her crouch across the room from him. One arm dropped between her spread thighs and she rubbed the palm of her other hand up and down the top of a leg.
“The being inside you part could be nice, but I’m not a big fan of pain,” Daniel continued.
“Have you ever thought of fucking me Daniel? Taking me, making me come?” Sam taunted.
“I’d be lying if I said it never occurred to me. Hey, I’m a guy,” he shrugged.
“Have you ever jerked off thinking about me? Wondering what I’d be like in bed?”
“Oh, I’m taking the Fifth on that one, Sam.” Daniel resisted the urge to squirm and smirked at her instead.
“Damn you, Daniel, you’re enjoying this aren’t you? Enjoying having me all wet and sweaty over you,” Sam said sharply.
“Okay, didn’t need to know that, but no, I’m not enjoying it one bit. I’m sorry if it seems like I am, but keeping you talking, engaging the part of your brain that’s still functioning just might keep you from hurting me,” he explained.
Sam’s face softened, “I’m sorry, Daniel.” She turned her head to look at one of the blank walls. “I… the stuff in my head - it’s so… you have to be mortified.”
Daniel rose up on his knees at her words, “I’m not mortified. Words are just words. Just keep talking Sam. Stay with me.”
She dropped her head in a hand, “I want you in all the wrong ways right now. I want to hurt you.”
“I know. It’s okay. Nothing that happens here will ever leave this room. You can count on that,” Daniel said softly.
Sam made a choking sound and flew at him again. Daniel just had enough time to drop down and curl up, protecting his belly. Her booted foot made contact with one of his kidneys. It wasn’t a powerful blow - his back was too close to the wall for her to get much momentum, but it still hurt like hell.
“Ah! Guess that was the wrong thing to say,” he groaned.
She straddled his legs and dropped down onto his hip, which didn’t feel particularly good either. Grabbing a handful of his hair, she forced him to look at her.
“Don’t tell me about leaving something in the room, Daniel. I’m the expert on that one,” she growled.
“All right. Okay. Sorry,” he replied tightly.
Her eyes half-closed and she made an almost purring sound in her throat. Daniel could feel her heat seeping into his hipbone through their clothes. Sam had eased up on the pressure and he was now uncomfortable in a whole different way. Sam was rubbing herself against him, her hips moving in an easy, fluid pace.
Daniel focused his eyes elsewhere and let her get on with it. This battle wasn’t worth fighting. He couldn’t be positive, but he was pretty sure all that ‘in the room’ stuff had been about something between Sam and Jack. They were both closed-mouthed, but even a blind man could see the sparks that flew between them sometimes.
Jack would have been all wrong for this situation, Daniel thought. Jack wouldn’t let Sam hump his hip in a bid for dominance, which was all it really was. Sam wasn’t going to get any real satisfaction from it - she was merely proving a point. There was a fine distinction here. Sam wasn’t possessed, she was drugged. Everything that came out of her mouth had its origins somewhere in her own mind. Her mind, not some alien entity’s. Daniel wasn’t overly worried about the here and now, as long as he didn’t let Sam hurt him too badly. No, he was far more concerned about the fallout later. As the changes had overcome Sam, he realized that he could neither capitulate too easily nor fight too hard.
“How many times can you get it up in one night, Daniel?” Sam’s voice cut into his thoughts.
“What? I, uh… I don’t know,” he replied. He really didn’t. There were too many variables and it had been a long time since he’d gotten laid. “Why do you care?
“Come on, Daniel, you must have some idea. I need to know if you’re worthy of me,” she whispered into his ear, her fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head.
“I’d think stamina would be more important than frequency in that case,” Daniel answered.
Sam’s temper flared. Why wouldn’t he give her a straight answer? She tightened her grip on his hair.
“How. Many. Times,” she ground out through gritted teeth, bouncing his head off the floor with each word.
“Ow! Sam, God! I don’t know, two, maybe three times? Jesus, stop! I won’t be able to do anything if you give me a concussion.”
Sam gave a chuckle, low in her throat, “Your head is hard enough to withstand a little abuse, Daniel.” She moved off him then, leaving his field of view.
Moving slowly, Daniel sat up, taking a mental inventory of the damage. While his back hurt where she’d kicked him, the bruise was superficial. He wouldn’t be pissing blood just yet. He had a few lumps on his skull where she’d banged his head against the floor, but they’d been barely enough to disorient him. It had been enough to screw with his vision and without his glasses he had to squint to bring her into focus.
“This your idea of foreplay, Sam? I gotta say, it’s not doing much for me, sorry,” Daniel said, a tight little smile on his mouth. She was pacing the room again and he tried to decide if her gait was a strut or a stalk. Maybe a little of both.
Sam growled at him.
Daniel wondered how much time had passed since they’d been tossed in here. More than an hour, probably less than two. Had the drug reached its full potential in Sam or was this just the beginning? No way to tell. If this was the worst of it, they could probably spar for hours. If it wasn’t, if this was only the opening act, things could get much worse for him.
<><><><><><><><><><>
Sam opened her eyes to the darkened infirmary. She felt like a sailor the morning after a three-day leave in Hong Kong. Her head pounded and her body ached everywhere, even between her legs. She closed her eyes and the memory of the last 24 hours flooded in.
“Shit,” she murmured, closing her eyes against the inevitable questions and debriefing that would soon follow. Debriefing. Heh. Yeah, not so very funny right now.
“Sam. How’re you feeling?” Came a soft voice from the shadows next to her bed. The last time she’d heard that voice, it had been the sharp rasp of climax as she’d raped him. Jesus.
“Terrible,” she croaked, her throat painfully dry.
“Here, try this.” A hand appeared, holding a plastic cup with a straw. Beads of condensation glistened on the sides. Sam focused on them, rather than the bandages on the wrist holding the cup. She drank and the dryness eased. Her discomfort didn’t.
“Better?”
“Not really,” she replied, refusing to look at her visitor. She didn’t know how she’d ever be able to look Daniel in the face again.
“Yeah. A little water can’t fix everything. Think you can talk about it?” He asked.
Sam shook her head. There was so much she wanted to say. How sorry she was, how ashamed she felt, but it was all jumbled in her head and the words wouldn’t come.
“Okay, I can understand that. But I’m going to talk and I’d appreciate it if you’d listen. Think you can do that?” Daniel said.
Sam’s eyes slid to the side, if only to try to read his body language. He was a mere shadow, sitting on a stool next to her bed. It looked like his hands were folded in his lap. She nodded.
“I’ll, uh, get the technical details out of the way first. General Hammond met us coming through the gate and I managed to persuade him to agree to no… invasive exams. There’s no… direct evidence of the details that happened off-world. They know you were drugged, causing you to be altered and combative, but that’s it. Our injuries are consistent with that explanation.”
“Hammond agreed to that?” Sam asked, her voice still rough. She heard Daniel shift on his stool.
“I sort of invoked ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, as a starter, so no, he wasn’t happy about it at first, but it kept the medical team from doing an impromptu pelvic on you, so…” she heard him sigh. “Later, after I was released, I gave him a… somewhat more detailed explanation and he agreed that he didn’t need the specifics. He can still order us to psych evals if he feels it’s affecting our working relationship. I’m hoping we can avoid that.”
Daniel was quiet for a long moment. Sam wondered if he was waiting for her to say something. She wasn’t sure what she could say. Despite what she’d done to him, he’d protected her dignity and career. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach.
“A lot was said… and done, in that room. I don’t know how much of it you remember, but I need you to know that I meant it. All of it. While I hated the circumstances, you didn’t force me into anything I haven’t thought about over the years, so… I, uh, it’s okay. I’m okay, but I’m pretty sure you’re not so okay. I understand because I’ve been there, Sam.”
She blinked and looked down at her hands.
“I know it was a long time ago, but you have to remember the… Hathor incident. The first one. I know I didn’t talk about it much at the time and it was before we had all the trauma psych protocols in place, so I’ve never told anyone much about it. The facts pretty much spoke for themselves… except for one tiny detail.
I liked it, Sam. I liked it… a lot. There was plenty I hated about it too, but the sex itself was great. That’s what I felt shame about, not that I’d been drugged against my will and manipulated. That could have happened to anyone. But I was young and missing my wife and… being able to just forget all that for a while and let a beautiful woman do as she pleased, well, there was no way I could hate that. But I sure as hell felt guilt and shame about enjoying it.”
“What’s your point, Daniel?” Sam asked, the words coming out sharper than she’d intended.
“My point is that I don’t want you to feel that same shame and guilt over what happened, Sam. Yes, you can hate that you were drugged against your will and it made you do things you might not ordinarily. You can hate the people who did that to you, but I don’t want you to blame yourself for how it made you feel and the things you did. We’re both consenting, single adults, Sam.”
“You didn’t consent.”
“Yes, I did. I said I’d be happy to, er, fuck you, if that’s what you wanted. If that’s not enough, try to remember round two.”
She felt her skin flush at the vivid memory of being on her knees, one arm twisted behind her back as Daniel slid into her, hot, thick and strong. Sense memory sent a strong pulse through her sex, reminding her of just how good it had felt.
“I hurt you,” Sam replied, remembering how she’d kicked him and banged his head against the floor. She could still feel the texture of his hair between her fingers as she did it.
“And I hurt you in turn.” A long finger touched the bandage at the base of her neck. “I don’t even have the excuse of being drugged, Sam. Consenting adults Together, we can get past this.”
The sight of the white bandage around his wrist brought the memory of riding him hard, teetering on the edge of orgasm until he offered her his forearm. Of biting into it, the feel of his flesh against her teeth triggering her climax as her nails scored his chest. Daniel’s voice as he grabbed her hip, drove hard and came deep inside her. Of how she could feel each tremor that raced through him.
Sam shut her eyes in the vain hope that it could shut out the memory of those things as well.
“Sam?”
She said nothing. What the hell could she say?
“Sam. Don’t do this to me. Don’t shut me out. We can get through this, just listen to me. Please,” Daniel said, his voice quiet, but forceful.
“Not now,” she ground out. She wanted to scream at him, tell him to get out of her sight - that she’d never be able to come to terms with what had happened with him right there, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t the wounded party; Daniel was.
Sam heard Daniel take a long, deep breath from his spot next to her bed.
“Okay, I’ll go. Just… don’t assume you know everything, Sam. We need to work through this - we have to, and we will. But I understand if you don’t want to do it right now,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I want you to know just one thing, Sam. I could have stopped it. I have weight and reach on you, even if I’m not as good at the physical stuff as you are. I didn’t,” he said, his voice so quiet and rational that it infuriated her.
She felt him lean over her, his mouth close to her ear, “I didn’t want to stop you, Sam. Please believe me.”
Daniel’s breath was gone as quickly as it had come. His next words were spoken from the foot of her bed, his hand on her shin.
“Try to rest, Sam. If you need anything, I’m staying on base. I’ve told the duty nurse to wake me if you need to talk.”
Daniel gave her leg a squeeze and left the infirmary. By all rights, he should be there himself, in a bed next to her, but he’d assured Doctor Brightman that he’d be fine. For the first time in his career with SG-1, he’d refused to be examined beyond the most obvious of his injuries. Even so, she’d prescribed him some pain-killers and he had every intention of taking them now. She may not have been with them long, but there seemed to be things that she understood. Or, Hammond had instructed her to let him alone. He found he didn’t care, either way.
He stopped by the mess to grab whatever food was available at this time of night, not because he was hungry - he was anything but. But past experience told him that taking codeine-anything on an empty stomach was guaranteed misery and spending the rest of the night puking his guts up wasn’t Daniel’s idea of a good time. He was drained and exhausted and he realized that he probably wasn’t in the best shape to be talking to Sam anyway.
Daniel gulped down the sandwich practically without tasting it. Something-salad, he thought. Chicken, tuna, turkey, he couldn’t be sure. It just filled the empty space in his gut. He chased the food with two of the pain pills and a bottle of water. He figured he had somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes before he was incoherent and stripped off his clothes on his way to the shower.
Between the flurry of activity from the time he and Sam had come through the gate and waiting for news of her status, Daniel hadn’t taken the time to shower. They both had been pretty much tacked up when they arrived. Daniel had seen to it, though a forensics team probably would have noticed that Sam’s socks had been inside out and that her belt was fastened wrong.
The moment the hot water hit him, the scent of Sam and sex rose from Daniel’s skin, odors that really couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. He wondered if he’d been reeking of it the whole time. It brought everything back in vivid Technicolor. Sam, altered, violent and… dangerously sexual, yet retaining just enough of herself that she couldn’t cross that line with him. She could talk about it, threaten and posture, but… not quite bring herself to touch him. She hurt him instead, kicking him and banging his head against the floor.
You need it rough? I can do rough. Trust me, Sam. Daniel recalled his words with an accompanying twist in his guts. He wondered what kind of sick bastard he was to have taken pleasure from her altered state. Sure, she’d needed pain and aggression to satisfy the base compulsions the drug had induced, but he shouldn’t have gotten off on it so hard it was almost painful. Hell, it had been painful, Sam’s teeth sinking into his arm hard enough to break skin and yet…
Daniel tried to force the disturbing thoughts out of his mind as he carefully washed the various wounds on his chest and arms. Sam’s nails may be short, but they were strong and had gouged deep into his chest. While her teeth hadn’t broken the skin over his collarbone or shoulders, they’d left bruises, some livid. Some sense of self-preservation had kept Sam from marking him where they’d be seen. Daniel had been the one to offer her his arms, but those bites could easily be explained as defensive wounds. He had no similar excuse for the bite he’d left on her neck.
He tried to rationalize his actions. After she’d kicked, punched and bitten him enough times, it had raised his own aggressive tendencies. Her blatant sexuality had turned it against his better nature and it had been so damn long since he’d been with a woman. Part of him wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to see him again.
The Vicodin started working and Daniel found it harder to hang onto rational thought. Exhausted, the pain of his injuries fading to a distant ache, he got out of the shower, dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist. Using another towel, he wiped the steam off the mirror and checked himself out.
The damage was sobering. He’d known the scratches had been deep, but there were more of them than he’d realized and they were now oozing blood again. The bites on his wrists were bleeding again too, surrounded by purple shadows. Bruises decorated his collarbones and shoulders. When he turned around, there were more bruises on his back, including a particularly ugly one where Sam had kicked him.
Daniel cleaned and dressed his wounds, muttering and cursing as he did it. A bottle of antibiotics had been left for him too, his name conspicuously missing from the label. He took one. The last thing he needed was to develop an infection and human bites and scratches were notoriously nasty.
Clean, bandaged and well-drugged, Daniel pulled on a pair of clean shorts and lay down on the bed, hoping sleep would take him quickly. He was exhausted in every possible way. Emotionally and sexually drained, beaten and aching, he still had trouble forgetting what had happened. Random images and sensations played through his mind as he tried to relax.
The feel of sliding into Sam’s snug, slick heat. The way she’d tightened around him as she moved over him, her warm, smooth skin against his. It all brought back the longing he’d had for her back in the beginning. Back then, she’d always been there for him with a soft touch or kind word, sharing private jokes. It’d been a mostly innocent attraction. He’d still had hope that he’d be reunited with Sha’re and even if he had weakened, he knew Sam wasn’t the type to allow herself to get involved with a married man. All the same, they’d shared an easy familiarity that he missed in later years.
The worst of it was that Daniel only wanted her more now. He wanted to make up for the harsh, crudely carnal way they’d come together. He wanted to know what she was like when she wasn’t crazed by alien drugs. Despite his worries, exhaustion won over and he fell into an uneasy sleep.
In the infirmary, Sam was wresting her own demons. The night nurse had offered her something to help her sleep, but she refused. She needed to work this out for herself before Daniel came back. Or anyone else, for that matter. She could always fall back on the ‘I was drugged and don’t remember’ ruse, but it wasn’t true. She was pretty sure she remembered almost everything and it embarrassed and horrified her.
Sam needed to work things out on her own before she tried to fix things with Daniel. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d forgive her - hell, he’d already forgiven her, but he couldn’t have known that many of the things she’d said and done came from inside her. She’d always had an attraction to Daniel, stronger in the earlier years, when he’d still had hope of finding Sha’re. But even in later years, there were times when her feelings for him had gone way beyond simple friendship. Times when she’d wanted to drag him off to the nearest supply closet and screw his brains out. Now she finally had.
Back in that room on that damned planet, she’d done some of the things she’d thought about, but it had been twisted and all wrong. She’d never wanted to hurt him and even knew it was a crappy seduction technique with him. Even so, Sam remembered him growing hard beneath her as she sunk her teeth into his collarbone, pressing his erection against her heat. The way he kissed her, demanding and passionate.
But she’d also kicked Daniel, bitten him and slammed his head against the floor. She’d liked that, too. She’d been looking for a fight, felt the need to hurt him even after he’d told her he’d have sex with her. That had never figured into any of her fantasies.
Daniel’s words had surprised and confused her. She wasn’t surprised that he forgave her and didn’t want her to feel guilty and ashamed, but she was surprised at his insistence that he’d enjoyed it. It was hard to admit that she had too. Maybe that’s what shamed her so. The taste and feel of Daniel’s skin in her mouth had triggered an orgasm more intense than any she could remember. Sam hoped to God it had been the drug. It sickened her to think that’s what it took to get her off that hard. Of course, later, when Daniel had forced her to her knees and taken her roughly from behind… she hadn’t bitten him then and again, it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
If she closed her eyes, she could still feel him inside her, moving strong and steady, his teeth on her neck, his groans echoing in the small room.. Sam supposed she should be shocked at the revelation, but she didn’t have room for it. She was too shocked at her own actions to worry about Daniel’s.
Above all, she hoped she’d have the courage to face him tomorrow. It would be hard, but she owed him that much.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
Daniel woke when he tried to roll over onto his back. His chest burned and stung at the pull across the gouges Sam’s nails had left. Not to mention all the other aches he registered now that the pain medication had worn off. His morning erection throbbed insistently along with a vague twinge deep in his groin, adding to his litany of complaints. None of them were up for discussion with anyone, much less an SGC doctor. He was definitely on his own this time. Telling himself to suck it up, Daniel rose and swung his legs to the floor with a loud groan.
Taking a moment to get his muzzy head together, he remembered that he was dreaming just before the pain woke him. He’d been dreaming about Sam; how she’d looked, felt and sounded as she came around him and his own sense of awe at her passion. The twinge in his groin became a hollow ache and he recalled from times long past that it was the result of intense and repeated sex. Hell, a couple of times Daniel hadn’t been sure that his heart hadn’t stopped dead in his chest at the moment of climax. Probably why the French called it le petite mort. He felt way too damn old to be screwing like a teenager. Remembering his performance, a tiny spark of male pride tried to flicker to life. Daniel ruthlessly killed it before it could grow. He had nothing to be proud of.
Christ, what had he done? What you had to, you know that. But had it really, truly been necessary? Or had it simply been his less-honorable self, the angry and lonely man he resolutely ignored, who had given in so easily? Maybe he was no better than a horny frat boy faced with a pretty, drunk sorority girl? Sure, Sam was altered, but there’d been nothing wrong with him. He should have been able to resist, fend her off for a few hours and kept them both safe. Instead he’d given in and gotten off on it.
Last night’s sandwich tumbled uncomfortably in his stomach, as he recalled his words to Sam. Could he have been more arrogant, offering her his absolution? No wonder she didn’t want to discuss it. By all rights, she should have called the nurse and had him thrown out. He should beg for her forgiveness, but doing so would only remind her of something she’d probably prefer to forget. Some things were better left alone, at least until the bruises healed.
Daniel revised his plans for the day. Going to Sam now seemed a very bad idea.
<><><><><><><><><><>
No one got the luxury of sleeping late while in the infirmary. Shift change at 0600 meant that every patient got a new set of vitals taken along with various pokings and proddings of tender areas. Sam got the additional pleasure of another blood draw. In exchange for bearing up with good humor, the nurse made sure she got one of the first breakfast trays and coffee. Decaf, sure, but it was better than nothing. Sam discovered she was ravenous and devoured her eggs, bacon and toast with relish.
With no small amount of surprise, Sam realized that things really did look better in the light of day. Her ravenous appetite was a sure sign. Yes, what had happened between she and Daniel complicated things, but only as much as they allowed them to. Daniel had given her everything she’d needed, both in that room and once they were home. He’d protected her honor and career, forgoing medical attention himself to ensure it. She was less than thrilled that he’d had to imply certain things to the General, but she was protected and Hammond would be true to his word.
“How are you feeling, Major Carter?” Doctor Brightman asked, reaching Sam’s bed on her morning rounds. Sam was still getting used to her rather flat bedside manner.
“Good. I feel fine,” Sam answered truthfully. Oh, she had some aches and pains, including the bite on her neck, but nothing that should keep her in the infirmary.
“Your blood work came back and you’re free of the chemical you were dosed with on the planet. The rest of your injuries are superficial and seem to be healing well,” the doctor said, flipping through her chart.
“So I can leave? I’m cleared?” Sam asked.
Doctor Brightman caught Sam’s eyes and held them. She dropped her head after a moment. “Yes, but I’d like to see you in my office before you leave. Drop by after you dress, okay?”
Sam felt a sliver of dread slip down her spine. “Sure. Just give me ten minutes,” she replied, covering her worry with a smile.
Sam found clean BDUs in the cabinet next to the bed and dressed quickly. As she buttoned her shirt, she saw something dark under her short nails and around her cuticles. Examining them, she realized it was blood. Daniel’s blood. She remembered him crying out beneath her as she raked his chest, satisfying her need to rend flesh. At the same time, he’d surged up beneath her, pushing deeper into her. Shit. Sam hit the bathroom and scrubbed her nails clean before going to Dr. Brightman’s office.
“You wanted to see me?” Sam asked, poking her head inside the office.
“Yes Major. Close the door, please.”
Sam’s sense of unease rose as she did it and took the chair next to Doctor Brightman’s desk.
“Major Carter. Sam, I understand that this is a sensitive matter, especially for a woman in the military, but I’m responsible for the well-being of the personnel under my care. When Doctor Jackson brought you through, you were unconscious and there was… evidence of sexual assault. Various bruises and bites. Someone had dressed you. I need to ask if you were sexually assaulted while off-world.”
Shit, shit and damn. Sam let none of it show on her face. She hadn’t been a military officer all this time without having learned to carefully school her features. “No, absolutely not. I was conscious the whole time, until right at the end. I was not sexually assaulted.”
Doctor Brightman looked at her hands and sighed, “Duly noted, Major. Now, off the record, woman to woman, were you sexually assaulted? I have a number of contacts in the civilian community I could refer you to-“
“No. Thank you, but it’s not necessary, I assure you,” Sam insisted.
“Sam, I undressed you myself. There was unmistakable evidence of sexual activity and the drug you were given, well, it appears to have had some properties of an aphrodisiac. While your contraceptive injections protect you against pregnancy, there are STIs to consider, perhaps even something we’ve never seen before. Are you sure you never lost consciousness while off-world? Any time that someone might have taken advantage of you?” Doctor Brightman continued.
“I’m positive. And while I appreciate your concern, it really isn’t necessary.” Sam thought carefully and decided to throw the poor doctor a bone for her efforts.
“Daniel never left my side the entire time we were there,” Sam explained, meeting the doctor’s eyes with a meaningful look.
“So you’re saying Doctor Jackson-”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, Doctor,” Sam said quickly before Brightman could even finish the thought, but she held the other woman’s eyes.
Doctor Brightman opened her mouth as if she was going to question Sam further, but shut it as she put the facts together.
“All right then, I guess we’re done here,” Brightman said, looking unsettled.
Sam remembered all that Daniel had done to protect her. “Doctor Brightman, I assure you, despite how it looks? This was not a non-con situation. Please believe me.”
Sam felt her cheeks warm at what amounted to the confession that she’d been complicit in whatever Brightman suspected, but didn’t look away from the other woman. The doctor’s eyes scanned Sam’s face.
“All right, Major. Thank you,” the doctor finally said with a nod, dismissing her. Sam wasted no time making good her escape.
Her first stop was the locker room, thankfully deserted for the moment, to wash away any remaining evidence and ease her aching muscles. After slipping into clean underwear, she took a moment to examine her upper body.
A chain of faint bruises spread across her collarbones. Touching them produced an almost sweet ache as she recalled the press of lips and teeth that made them. Daniel probably had a matching set. The bite where her shoulder and neck came together was tender, but not very deep. She re-bandaged it, as much to hide it from casual view as to keep it clean. Sam’s memory filled in the details.
They were both exhausted by then, neither of them strong enough for another round. Over-stimulated by hours of fighting, fucking and verbal sparring, yet the drug in Sam’s blood demanded it. She was sore, abraded, her thighs slick with Daniel’s semen and her own slippery essence. Nothing mattered but the burn and ache to be filled again.
Sam shook herself out of her reflections and hurried to dress before someone came into the locker room. She’d gotten one sock and boot on when she was overcome again recalling the last time she and Daniel had come together.
There was a little flutter in her belly and Sam felt her face heat at the things she’d done to coax another erection from Daniel’s sated body. Things she’d only read about in trashy novels or women’s magazines. Her mind wanted to shy away from it, but there was no mistaking the way she felt herself respond to the memory of the sounds Daniel made when she’d slipped a single, slender finger inside him.
I didn’t want to stop you, Sam. Please believe me.
She’d been on the downward slide of the drug’s influence when she got stalled at the precipice of climax. Daniel had put his mouth to her neck and bitten her, setting her off one last time. He’d offered to stop then, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t agree to that. It took a little time, but in the end she’d been rewarded by the way his face had been transformed as he came with her name on his lips.
Sam finally got her other boot on and went to her lab. Nothing like a few technological mysteries to take her mind off disquieting reflections. She was pretty sure that Daniel would seek her out as soon as he heard she’d been released from the infirmary. He’d seemed pretty determined to address the events head-on last night.
It was hours later and nearing lunch when Sam finally pulled her head out of her calculations and realized Daniel still hadn’t made an appearance. It seemed distinctly odd, but Daniel always had been one to deal with his demons alone. He was probably holed up in his office.
Sure enough, that’s where Sam found him, his nose buried in a mythology book and making notes on a coffee stained legal pad.
“Daniel,” she said, poking her head in the open door.
“Hey Sam. You’re out?” Daniel replied, squinting a little at her.
“Yeah, Doctor Brightman sprung me this morning.” Sam felt a thread of unease building between them. She didn’t like it one bit.
“Good… that’s great,” Daniel said, his fingers picking at a scrap of paper on his desk and looking away from her.
Sam came all the way into the room and sat down across from him. He wouldn’t look directly at her, his eyes flitting between the open book and something over her left shoulder.
“Daniel. If I can look at you, you can look at me. Right? You said it yourself last night. We can get past this,” she said softly.
Daniel let his eyes rest on her for a moment. “Yeah, I did. And I meant it and I do, but… Sam, I’m sorry. I’m such an arrogant ass.” Daniel looked at his hands, a worry line between his brows.
Arrogant? Where the hell is this coming from? Sam wondered. It shook her meager confidence at coming to him, but she wasn’t about to leave yet.
A lump was forming in her throat, but Sam swallowed it down. “Are you having regrets about…” she broke off, unable to find a neutral term for what had happened.
“No… Yes, that you were drugged and… but that’s not what it’s about,” he sighed and his hands started making motions in the air between them.
“Sam, it was arrogant and selfish of me to… assume that I could offer you any kind of comfort about what happened. I’m not the wounded party here,” he managed to meet her eyes. “Any blame belongs to me. I wasn’t the one dosed with some fucking mating potion. I’m the one who should be begging your forgiveness for…”
Sam quickly stood and shut his office door. She was getting angry and the entire base didn’t need to hear about it. She was too agitated to sit back down.
“Forgiveness for what, Daniel? For giving me exactly what I needed? Do you have any idea what I would have done to you if you hadn’t? Do you?”
Sam’s sudden anger had him looking up at her in surprise.
“I would have wiped the floor with you and you know it,” she continued. “Jesus, Daniel, I had to scrub your blood out from under my nails this morning. Can you even imagine how much worse it would have been if you hadn’t given in?”
Daniel nodded slowly. “I know, Sam. Believe me, I do. But… I didn’t have to enjoy it so damn much. Even in my more… exotic musings, I never dreamed it could be like that with you. But it wasn’t you, not really, and now…”
Sam plunked her ass down in the chair at his confession. It mirrored her own deepest worries. Now that she’d experienced just how… stimulating rough sex could be, would she be able to enjoy gentle love-making again? Or had she been indelibly marked with the desire for the heady combination of pleasure and pain. The incredible power she’d felt at the responses she’d caused, and yes, even forced from Daniel’s body. Sam crossed her legs tightly to silence the arousal building between her legs.
Sam bit her lip and looked at Daniel’s hands. “I know what you mean,” she finally said. “I’m not sure if it was the drug or… what, but it was very… intense.”
Daniel’s eyes flickered in a way that told her he knew exactly what she meant.
“You told me about Hathor last night. Were you able to go back to regular sex after that? If you don’t mind me asking,” Sam added quickly.
Daniel’s brows lifted. “I don’t mind you asking, but I’m not sure I have an answer. I haven’t had much sex since then and what there was of it…” he shrugged. “…I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, so I wouldn’t classify it as regular or normal.”
“Sorry, that was a dumb question,” Sam felt chagrined.
“No it wasn’t, Sam, it was a logical question. If I hadn’t been married, I might have done things… differently. I can tell you that it influenced my fantasies for a while.”
“Daniel, it’s okay, you don’t need to-” she said quickly. While some prurient part of her wondered what Daniel thought about when he got himself off, it felt…weird sitting across the desk from him as he talked. It was the kind of conversation she imagined having in bed.
He smiled at her, for the first time in days. “I’m just saying that it influenced the way I think about sex. Fantasy is one of the ways we work through all kinds of things, sexual and otherwise. What I choose to think about depends on my mood. Sometimes I want comfort, another time, passion. In the end those experiences are just incorporated into the whole repertoire of things I can recall to fit my mood.”
Sam thought about that, looking at her now-clean nails. Where did she and Daniel go from here? Obviously, they could remain friends and leave it all behind them. But her experience had awakened something inside her she wanted to explore, but only with the right person. Daniel had already proven to be the right person. Time for the tough questions.
“How do you want to handle this? Between us, I mean. I think you took care of all the official details,” Sam asked, keeping her voice neutral. She didn’t want anything from Daniel that he wasn’t willing to give.
Daniel cleared his throat and looked at her through his lashes. “That’s pretty much up to you, Sam. I’ve, uh, cared for you for a long time and I’d like to see where this… change, might take us. But if it’s not what you want, or feel it’d be to disruptive to the team as a whole, I’ll respect that.”
“Daniel, we’re all so deep in each others’ pockets on this team, I really don’t think it’ll make much of a difference. We’re all way over the line, sex or no sex,” Sam said.
“True, no doubt about it. So?”
“Yeah. I want to see where this could go too,” Sam met his eyes and grinned.
Daniel got up from his desk, wincing a bit as he straightened. “In that case, would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Sure, love to,” Sam replied, then leaned over to whisper to him, “I wouldn’t mind doing it sooner, but quite frankly, I’m a bit… sore.”
“Yeah, me too,” Daniel replied in a normal tone.
“I didn’t know guys got sore.”
“Oh, we definitely do. In a totally different way, but… I’ll explain later. Maybe give a demonstration,” he said teasingly.
“I look forward to it,” Sam said over her shoulder as she left his office. Oh yeah, he could demonstrate to his heart’s content
~~~ end ~~~
Notes: As you probably know now, I pretty much turned this cliche on its head by having Sam being the one dosed and including the aggressive and violent tendencies. It was surrealphantast who noticed that it had some interesting implications about personal empowerment.
I also started writing this story completely differently. About halfway through even I was getting tired of writing smut(!) and I thought readers would get bored with reading it, too. After awhile you just get oversaturated and it begins to lose its impact. There were also a few things I wanted to include, but which are really hard to write gracefully especially in the context of Sam being aggressively altered. I began on the aftermath and found that telling the story through flashbacks seemed hotter than the actual scenes I'd written because it leaves much to the imagination of the reader. And like horror, sometimes smut is better imagined than actually seeing it written out. I asked surrealphantast about it and she agreed. Hey! I learned something new about writing! Yay!
hoshi_reed, honestly, if you hate it, please let me know and I'll gladly write a story for your second prompt. I have plenty of ideas for that one, too and may write on it eventually anyway.