Within Arm's Reach (The USAF Remix)
Title: Within Arm's Reach (The USAF Remix)
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A remix of Within Arm's Reach, by Green_Grrl.
Content/warnings: Tentacle!fic. And as Green_Grrl said, "…take that as a warning or enticement."
Words: 5,327
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Can you believe I couldn't find a Matrix entry for this?! I'm tempted to use "Writer's Choice: Tentacles."
Beta: zats_clear read it on a crazy RL day and said, Yup! Looks pretty good to me! (I paraphrase.)
Daniel groped for the brush that should have been by his right knee.
"Here," Jack said shoving it into his hand.
Daniel saw the tentacle and screamed. It wasn't a girly panicked scream at all. Very manly.
He whirled around to see that Jack, too, had leapt up to face whatever threat had caused Daniel to yell. Yes. Yell.
Jack's hands held his P-90, which tracked around the room looking for a target. Two of his tentacles scooped up Daniel's discarded weapon. Another tentacle held Jack's sidearm. One tentacle had his knife. One tentacle held his zat. One tentacle had his other knife. Yet another tentacle had his other knife. And his three remaining tentacles flailed in the air, ends balled up into hard, dangerous-looking knots.
Faced with this vision of his friend, Daniel gave another girly scream manly yell. Teal'c and Sam came dashing in through the broken arch, as Jack twisted around again to see the enemy that must have somehow gotten around him.
That was when he noticed the tentacles himself.
Jack let out a yelp. The tentacles released their small arms with a clatter, and retracted back under Jack's tac vest almost faster than the eye could follow.
Jack turned to face his team, face pale, eyes wide.
"It would have been much more impressive, O'Neill, had they returned your weapons to their proper places," Teal'c intoned, eyeing the fallen knives and guns with mild disapproval.
Jack scowled at Teal'c. One tentacle tentatively emerged from behind him, waving slowly in front of his face.
Daniel moved carefully toward his friend, hands extended in a don't-freak-out-and-pummel-me-with-your-scary-tentacle-fists posture. Jack nodded acknowledgement, or perhaps permission, and Daniel circled around - far - behind him.
Jack quickly and efficiently stripped out of his gear, until Daniel could see that his t-shirt was untucked. One tentacle was already out, helping Jack get out of his stuff. As Daniel watched, seven more tentacles unfurled from below the shirt. Two rolled around the hem of the shirt to grasp and raise it, as easily as Daniel might grasp the front edge of his t-shirt to pull it up.
Just above Jack's pants waist, eight tentacles sprouted from his back, four on either side of his spinal column.
Daniel watched with a kind of horrified fascination as they unwound out to each side, to a length of about five feet. Six of them were about the width of a finger at the very tip, and tapering to about four times that at the base. The two growing from the lowest point in the small of Jack's back were thicker, with suckers.
Jack's new appendages snaked out, each errant tentacle deftly scooping up its former weapon and tidily returning them to their proper homes about Jack's person. Two of them even reached around behind to where Daniel was standing and clipped his P-90 back onto it's strap, arranging his tac vest with quick twitches and a final, smoothing swipe.
"I seem to, uh, I seem to have complete control over moving them" Jack noted.
"Can you, well, put them away?" Daniel asked, trying not to hyperventilate as the two sucker covered tentacles hovered around him, as if trying to decide what other parts of his uniform needed adjusting.
The base of each tentacle retracted into Jack's back, leaving soft folds of skin in concentric circles, then the remaining part spiraled around neatly on top.
Daniel warily reached towards Jack's shirt, then in one swift move tugged it down and stepped back. Jack turned.
"Infirmary!" they said in unison.
"Carter, dial it up," Jack barked. Her eyes were wide and startled. Teal'c looked a little green around the gills.
As Teal'c fell in step behind them, he commented, "My symbiote is disturbed by the presence of Kali's arms."
"Junior and me both," Jack muttered.
Daniel hopped up next to Jack on the examination table, resolved to sit with him through his adventure in "Doc Fraiser's Shop of Horrors," despite the fact that the tentacles were, well, disconcerting, to say the least. However, to his mind, Sam and Janet were a little too excited about their new experiment, and Jack was not the best patient even in the best of times. Daniel stayed to give moral support and possibly be the voice of reason if things got out of hand as his fellow scientists put Jack through his paces.
Janet started with blood samples.
"What am I supposed to do with these things?" Jack complained, as his tentacles seemed to drift aimlessly around them, mostly staying just out of Jack's peripheral vision behind him, possibly explaining why he had failed to notice them for so long. "I can't get comfortable."
"You could just retract them, Colonel," Janet suggested, raising her eyes to regard them with a mixture of distrust and curiosity. One of the slender appendages came to rest gently against Daniel's upper arm, twining around him, then squeezing tight briefly like a blood pressure cuff as the doctor slipped the needle out of Jack's arm and placed the gauze pad over the puncture wound. The other tentacles all pulled back behind their owner, presumably retracted under Jack's infirmary gown.
"If you would hold that there, Colonel," the doctor said absently as she handed the vial of blood to her nurse.
"Yadda, yadda," Jack replied as he did as instructed, the tentacle that had squeezed Daniel's arm now petting him apologetically.
"Now, Colonel, if you could," the doctor tentatively reached forward. "I'd like to get a tissue sample." The squeezing tentacle was suddenly gripping Daniel tight around the forearm. Daniel shifted a little and touched it gently with his other hand. Jack startled, apparently realizing for the first time what he was doing.
"It might be easier if you lie on your stomach," Janet suggested. Daniel got up to make room for Jack to swing his legs onto the table. Jack made a show of arranging his hospital gown, drawing a small smile of amusement from Janet. His tentacles came out to hold everything in place while he lay down and rolled over. Though the doctor exchanged a quickly suppressed, completely unprofessional smirk with the archaeologist when the gown fell open to show Jack's naked ass. The tentacles quickly grabbed for the gaping fabric when Jack felt the breeze. The business of resettling seemed to have brought them all out again.
"Alright, Colonel," Janet said. "I'm going to touch one of them now."
"Go for it," Jack said, but one tentacle snaked over towards Daniel again. Before it could grab him, Daniel reached out and took it. It wrapped around his hand gratefully, and Jack's body visibly relaxed as Janet began the procedure of wiping down an area of skin with antiseptic, then injecting the anesthetic. As she took the tissue sample another tentacle caught Daniel's ankle and gripped tightly, as the tentacle in Daniel's hand trembled. Daniel stroked it gently with his thumb, which caused Jack to turn his head to look at him in surprise. The tentacle around his ankle withdrew, but before Jack could pull back the one in his hand, Daniel gripped it, trying to smile reassuringly. Jack blushed in embarrassment and planted his face in the pillow, but the tentacle stayed where it was.
Sam and Janet spent a long time in the lab, during which Jack napped fitfully, and Daniel slouched in the hard chair beside him, trying to concentrate on his backlog of low priority translations, but really trying to figure out how Jack had gotten tentacles in the first place.
Teal'c had referred to them as "Kali's arms." Which made Daniel think of that monument on P4X-389, Kali's research facility. He pulled up some notes on his laptop and thought.
Eventually, Sam and Janet showed up, practically bursting with excitement.
"Well, Colonel, they're more like invertebrate tentacles than a vertebral structure; there's no bone or cartilage in them," Janet said. "There is a small alteration in one of your DNA markers that probably accounts for this change, which I'd like to study more closely. But the appendages themselves are part of you, a fully integrated part of your body."
Jack made an exasperated face that said "duh" without him actually having to say, "Duh."
Sam jumped in eagerly, "Even more fascinating, sir, is the way they seem to be fully integrated into your brain. You have perfect control of them, to the point that you use them unconsciously, the way you scratch an itch without thinking about it."
Jack made a slightly annoyed grunt in response to that, though he cut a shifty glance toward Daniel. Daniel had been trying not to read too much into the touchy-feely comfort-seeking of Jack's new body parts. Jack was freaking out and Daniel was doing exactly what he had hoped to do. Providing moral support.
"It really shouldn't be possible. Infants spend months, years, perfecting their motor control," Janet continued. "You certainly didn't have these during your physical when you returned from P4X-389, yet within seventy-two hours you have managed to grow and develop your use of these without even being aware of them."
"So, what do we do to fix me, then, doc? Cut 'em off?" Jack sounded casual, matter-of-fact, as if it were a foregone conclusion and he was just getting perfunctory confirmation.
"I think it's too soon to talk about a treatment until we can figure out how you got them," Janet replied. The fearful grip of the tentacle that had slipped down under the sheet and behind the bed to rest on Daniel's knee eased a bit as talk of amputation was dismissed as premature.
"In addition, I'd want to look more into the nervous connections with the spinal cord, especially given their location, though I suspect it would be no more difficult than any other amputation," she mused, causing the tentacle to grab on with a redoubled strength. "However, since you have already come to expect and rely on the use of these limbs very much as your native arms and legs. Removing them would certainly cause a psychological feeling of loss, and you might end up with painful phantom limbs."
"Maybe we should think of that as a last resort," Daniel suggested, stroking the frightened tentacle gently. Jack turned to him, blushing again with embarrassment, but also looking very, very grateful.
"And you had no idea?" asked General Hammond, giving Jack a somewhat astonished look. Jack shrugged uncomfortably.
"I'm not really in the habit of looking at my back in the mirror every day, sir. I knew my appetite was up, and I was having restless nights, but I just didn't realize I'd, you know, sprouted new body parts." Daniel wasn't surprised to feel a tentative touch on his leg. Daniel would never have guessed how much anxiety underlay Jack's tough-guy demeanor.
"At this point," Janet put in, "we're not sure whether the Colonel's mastery of his new limbs is something completely instinctual or something worked out with his unconscious mind during sleep, but his abilities were developed without his awareness, until he actually saw one of the ... tentacles."
"All right Doctor, thank you; that's a good baseline of information. Please keep me apprised of anything else you discover. Meanwhile, I want to know how the hell this happened." No matter how much they saw come through the gate, there would always be something new to give the general that incredulous tone. Jack's wince of sympathy showed he knew how the General felt.
Daniel stood to begin his part of the briefing. Jack's worried tentacles stayed under the table.
"Well, sir, there was that obelisk in Kali's facility on P4X-389 that Sam said gave off an brief energy reading, that we couldn't get to repeat. The text I read on it referred to a 'striving for perfection'-which, in the context of the rest of the projects we discovered, I took to mean research for the perfect weapon." Even Jack had thought there might be some possibilities there, but a week of "babysitting" a science team on the planet hadn't yielded any results. "Now," Daniel continued, "I wonder whether she might not have been doing some genetic research as well, seeking to make improved hosts."
"Like Nirrti," the general observed.
"Exactly," said Daniel. "Hindu representations of Kali portray her with either four or ten arms. To actually occupy a multi-limbed host would have given the goa'uld a tremendous psychological intimidation factor, plus, an actual tactical advantage. I'm not sure whether Nirrti and Kali were in a biological arms race-uh, no pun intended-or whether Nirrti appropriated Kali's idea of genetic manipulation of potential hosts after Kali's defeat."
"Unfortunately," Teal'c said, from the far end of the table, "I do not know. Nirrti was of little concern to Apophis, and he had no interest in biological sciences."
"Well, she's Cronus' problem now," said Jack with a grim smile, a couple of his tentacles making little balls at the ends and knocking with satisfaction against the tabletop before he realized what he was doing and pulled the things back in. General Hammond looked non plussed.
"We may never know the full history of the goa'uld," the general said, "but what I do want to know is whether we can do anything with this machine now we know what its purpose was, and fix Colonel O'Neill." Daniel caught the tightening of Jack's features out of the corner of his eye. Maybe his talk in the infirmary about amputation really had been all bluster.
Carter fielded the question. "It's possible it could give us a new way to look at the obelisk. I'd like to take a team back and check it out again."
"I agree. And Doctor Fraiser, what about the possibility of removing these surgically?" the general pressed.
This time Daniel fought to suppress a wince himself, and he wasn't surprised to feel a tight, panicked grip on his knee.
"As I have already discussed with the colonel, I believe it is too early to consider such a radical approach to treatment. You know how serious the amputation of a limb can be, General. This would be the amputation of eight limbs."
The general nodded slowly in thoughtful understanding, but his face was very serious.
"I see. Unfortunately, I can't allow Colonel O'Neill to freely leave the base in this condition. The first time one of these tentacles catches a falling can from a supermarket display on reflex, there'll be a panic."
"Yeah, but sir," Jack protested, "I just found out I have these things. With a little practice, I'll be able to keep them to myself, and not accidentally pick my nose like a little kid or something!"
Daniel, Sam, Teal'c and Janet all gave him the same incredulous look.
"Oh, fer cryin' out loud," he muttered, putting on a petulant face.
"Perhaps a binding, such as the one I wear to prevent inadvertent glimpses of my symbiote pouch, would assist in protecting your secret," Teal'c suggested.
The general nodded thoughtfully. "All right. We have some options to consider. Major Carter, you'll take a team back to P4X-389, and Dr. Fraiser, I'd like you to look into a training protocol for the Colonel. We'll leave amputation on the back burner for now. In the meantime, however, SG-1 is long overdue for some downtime. Forty-eight hours. Dr. Jackson, I'd feel better about Colonel O'Neill being out and about with his new… well… if I knew you were keeping an eye on him."
"Of course, sir," Daniel responded, hiding his relief. He'd feel a lot better keeping an eye on Jack, too.
"Hey! I don't need a …" Jack began to protest.
"No offense, Colonel," the general cut him off, "I'd just rather not find out you'd been lynched by a mob or sold to the circus just after getting off the Mountain."
"If that's an order, sir," Jack replied with bad grace. Daniel was going to have to figure out whether he was really seething at being assigned a minder, or secretly relieved to have the company.
"All right, people, dismissed."
Teal'c invited them by to borrow a binding.
"How about that thing with Junior?" Jack asked.
"My symbiote's discomfort is not great, and I believe with time and kel'no'reem it will pass. If not, I will endure. In the end, O'Neill, you are my team mate and my friend; I do not find it acceptable for my symbiote to dictate your absence from my life."
Daniel blinked in surprise. Jack looked stunned.
"Uh. Thanks, big guy. I'd hate to lose you, too," he finally stammered. Teal'c just bowed with his usual dignity and began assisting Jack with winding the wrap around his torso.
The binding had come off as soon as they walked through the door of Jack's house.
"Gah!" was all Jack said.
But as they cooked dinner, ate, then settled in front of the television, Daniel kept feeling little touches for reassurance. Sometimes Jack would look and catch himself doing it, and pull his tentacle back, embarrassed, but Daniel couldn't help thinking, as he had wondered for years, about what it meant that Jack couldn’t seem to keep his hands - tentacles, whatever - to himself where Daniel was concerned.
Like scratching an itch, Sam had said.
So Daniel tried something. He made sure to touch Jack when he was within reach, too- bumped hips, knocked elbows, standing close at the sink. Daniel even laid his hand on Jack's back as Jack rummaged through the fridge looking for dinner ingredients, newly assisted by eight extra arms. Daniel had never responded to Jack's touching - never broken through the barrier of personal space, as Jack took the liberty of doing often. Or had done, though he had seemed to drop the habit recently as Daniel had become more soldierly. And although Daniel had never known if return touches would be welcome, Daniel knew how much he missed them. How important they had been to him.
Now, Jack was flailing out for contact, probably feeling like a carnival sideshow, and Daniel wanted Jack to know that he wasn't going to shrink away from him. That Daniel wanted to touch him. Which was kind of a surprise to Daniel, too-because, tentacles: weird-but they really did seem so natural to Jack that once Daniel had gotten over the shock, they kind of fit.
As they watched the game, Daniel had to laugh as Jack flung a hand at the television in exasperation over the Viking's complete lack of a pass defense, while his tentacles gesticulated in indignation.
"What?" asked Jack, stopping mid-rant.
"Your ..." Daniel waved at his display. "It's, uh, cute."
Jack blushed and pulled his tentacles in.
"I don't even realize I'm doing it. It's not that they have a mind of their own, but they seem to tap into my subconscious more clearly than my conscious mind. Or something. Like the doc said," Jack replied, flustered into self-defensive sci-fi speak. Huh. And Daniel thought only Sam did that.
"You'll get better at it," Daniel assured him. "But still, I kinda like it-it's very 'you, extra-gesturing edition.'"
Jack mock glowered at him, then smiled and reached out with one tentacle and gently shoved Daniel's glasses back up his nose.
Jack grinned at Daniel's obvious surprise.
"Okay, then!" he declared buoyantly, "Free-tentacle zone at mi casa!"
"O-kay," drawled Daniel, as Jack stretched his tentacles out in a fan, then relaxed them and settled back on the couch. Okay. Definitely. Tentacles: weird.
After the Vikings lost pathetically, they switched to the classic movie channel, and settled in with popcorn and beer. They both had a fondness for old black and whites. It was a while before Daniel realized there was a tentacle snaked across his shoulders-not until it actually started rhythmically stroking his upper arm. And then he noticed the one lying lightly across his thigh. It was almost like ...
"Jack?" he whispered.
"Hmm?" Jack was still glued to the screen.
Daniel cleared his throat lightly. "Um, subconscious mind?" Daniel ventured, deciding it was now or never.
Jack turned, then saw where his tentacles were and whipped them back, face turning scarlet. "Uh ..."
"No, wait!" Daniel closed the gap between them and put his hand on Jack's knee.
"It's okay to touch me, you know," Daniel said softly. Jack looked mortified.
"You used to touch me all the time," Daniel continued. Jack raised his finger, all eight tentacles echoing the motion, hovering in the air behind him. He was poised to "aht" him, but Daniel beat him to it, raising his own hand and saying, "Let me finish."
Jack seemed to deflate, his tentacles even going a bit limp. Daniel reached out and shaped his own hand around Jack's, catching the raised finger and gently folding it back down.
"I could never figure out if you were just that kind of guy - you know, affectionate, touchy - or if you were affectionate towards me. I could never collect enough data to be certain. So I never touched you back."
He continued to hold Jack's hand, stroking over the captured fingers with his thumb.
"Then, you stopped touching me. And I couldn't decide if that was because you realized you were touching me all the time and people might get the wrong idea and you wanted to nip that in the bud… or if you were worried they were going to get the right idea, and you wanted to stop giving them evidence."
Jack was watching him warily, leaning away a little, all his usual body language indicating that he wanted to escape. But his tentacles, just out of his peripheral vision, were all reaching out to Daniel, from all sides.
Daniel smiled and nodded towards them.
"Don't play chess with Teal'c until you get those things under control," he suggested. "Heck, don't play chess with that cute, ditzy night shift nurse."
The tentacles jerked briefly as Jack remembered them.
Daniel tugged gently on Jack's hand. When Jack refused to come to him, Daniel gave a small exasperated huff and leaned forward, past their joined hands, and oh so gently touched his mouth to Jack's lower lip.
Daniel fully expected Jack to finally snap out of it and shove him away.
Instead, it was like a floodgate breaking.
Jack's arms went around him. Suddenly Jack was touching him everywhere. His hands were in his hair. Tentacles were snaking up the arms of his shirt, and down the collar to smooth over his back. Tentacles were twining around his ankles. One ripped off first one sock, then the other, then wrapped gently around the arches of his feet in turn, exploring his plantar region as if it were a small piece of paradise. Daniel was pretty sure that the one groping his groin area and struggling to work his pants open was one of the ones with suckers.
It was definitely one of the ones with suckers mapping out his chest.
And all the time, Jack was kissing him as if his life depended on it. He ravished Daniel's mouth with is tongue, the fingers tangled in Daniel's hair holding Daniel almost brutally in place, head tilted at just the right angle.
Daniel tried to give back as good as he got, though he was outnumbered five to one, as it were. He carded his own fingers through Jack's soft short hair, learned the shape of his soft palate, ran both hands over the sweet curve of his spine and the soft, smooth skin of his back.
A ripping sound behind him brought him up short, though, as his t-shirt was suddenly just gone.
He pulled back in surprise.
"Hey!" he protested breathily.
Jack himself looked a bit startled. Even so, a couple of tentacles still seemed intent on getting into the waistband of his pants.
"Not the jeans, Jack. I like these jeans."
The tentacles retracted reluctantly.
"I tell you what," Jack proposed, "Why don't we move this down the hall, and see exactly how fast four hands and eight tentacles can get all our clothes off?"
As it turned out, it was really, really fast.
In no time at all, Daniel was flat on his back on Jack's bed, gloriously naked, with Jack equally gloriously naked on top of him. Skin everywhere. Daniel's hands and Jack's tentacles were all doing their own exploring. Daniel reached between them, taking hold of both of them together, and they bucked in unison into the grip.
"Jack," Daniel rasped, and it was a thanks and a prayer and a blessing all at once. He pumped them steadily, and time became lost in a blur.
Daniel watched in amazement Jack's face, gone in pleasure, from his touch. He saw the tip of a tentacle slip into Jack's mouth. He strained up to try to watch it as it slid down and around behind them. Jack's legs spread wider, and he felt the surge as Jack pushed harder against him, biting back a moan.
"Oh, god, are you ...?"
"Yeah," breathed Jack, glassy-eyed. "You want one?"
"Oh, yeah," said Daniel, and Jack raised another tentacle to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel licked the tip, then sucked it in and pulled back, leaving it slick and shiny. He spread his legs, and felt wet firmness enter. A steady press soon had him opened wider than a fingertip, but it was a smooth glide, and it aimed unerringly towards ... there. Oh god. Daniel bucked, his hips lifting as his neck arched back, while Jack's head fell against his shoulder.
Daniel took up an achingly slow rhythm with his hand, matching it with the prostate massage Jack was using to generate an exquisite bliss, building incrementally with each tug. Jack's hand was stroking Daniel's face, and Daniel stroked their cocks together, and it didn't matter-it was all swirling in a haze of sensation.
Jack lifted his head to watch as he ran his hand down Daniel's cheek. There was such a look of transparent joy and ... tenderness on Jack's face that a swell of emotion spread from Daniel's heart outward, magnifying the physical glow and taking him over completely.
Daniel raised up and was met with an unbearably sweet kiss.
That connection of hearts through mouths, and the feel of Jack against him, rocking in rhythm with him, around him, inside him-every part of him-was too much. Daniel came and came and came, a gentle tug on his balls prolonging the ecstasy until he whited out.
When Daniel came to his senses, slippery and sated and comfortably resting under half Jack's weight, he was feeling the kind of peace he normally felt on a desert night, listening to night sounds and enjoying the dry cold against his face. The beat of Jack's heart and the soft, short strokes against various parts of his skin made him feel calm and safe and loved.
He raised his head to give Jack another kiss, and was greeted with a smile of radiant happiness, a look he wasn't sure he had ever seen on Jack's face.
A tentacle snaked Jack's discarded T shirt from the floor and pushed between them to wipe the worst of the wet off.
Daniel reached out a tentative finger to stroke it. "You have to admit, they're handy," he commented.
"Yeah," said Jack. "I'm kind of spoiled already. I'm not really looking forward to getting them chopped off."
"It'll be okay," Daniel promised. He settled into a more comfortable position, nestled against Jack, and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Daniel found himself spooned against Jack's back. He pulled away and took a look at what he'd been pressed against. The tentacles were mostly quiescent, retracted and curled, with one unfurled to idly rub against what must have been an itch on Jack's leg. Daniel watched, fascinated, as it finished and coiled itself back into place.
He traced a light finger around the soft wrinkled skin at the edge of retracted area. It felt thin and velvety, and pulsed a little in response to his touch.
He stroked it again, a little harder.
"Hmmm." Jack stretched into the touch in his sleep.
Curious, Daniel scooted down and ran his tongue firmly around the soft wrinkles surrounding one of the tentacles. It tasted just like regular skin, but it had the feel of a sensitive area.
"Mmmm," Jack moaned again, and relaxed into a boneless pose, half on his stomach. Oh, yeah.
With that encouragement, Daniel got on all fours over him, and started laving around all eight circles. The tentacle tips started fluttering in appreciation, so Daniel took one into his mouth to suck and give a gentle nip.
"Nnngh. Oh god." Jack had the sleepy sound of someone possibly not quite awake, but his hips were starting to grind against the mattress and Daniel wasn't about to stop now.
He experimented with lips, tongue and teeth around the edges, along the curls, at the tips. Jack and the tentacles both wriggled happily. One snaked around to Jack's front and started moving with an obvious rhythm. Two wrapped around Daniel's back and hugged him, stroking him encouragingly to continue. He took the top two, now extended, and held them apart while he licked from the base of one to the other across the vertebra between them.
"God, Daniel!" Jack was definitely awake now, and humping away in earnest.
Daniel licked the length of one of the limbs, and pulled its tip into his mouth, sucking it and tonguing it for all his was worth.
"Oh, yeaaa-" Jack tensed and shook beneath him, then slumped, breathing heavily.
Daneil kissed his way up Jack's spine to his neck. Jack rolled over and gave him a sleepy smile.
"Nice wakeup call."
"I just couldn't resist a little tentalingus in the morning."
Jack snorted appreciatively and stretched. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch you eat calamari again without getting a hard on."
"Nope, no more calamari. You're the only squid for me," Daniel teased.
Jack gave a mock growl and flipped Daniel onto his back. Tentacles reached around Daniel's wrists and pinned them over his head.
"Octopus and squid jokes are only gonna get you into trouble, Jackson," Jack growled.
"What about other members of the class Cephalopoda?" Daniel teased, as he felt tentacles twine around each of his thighs and pull them wide.
"I have excellent ways to reward you for good behavior," Jack said.
"I can be good," Daniel promised with a heated look.
Jack replied with a dangerous grin, then bent his head and sucked Daniel's remaining free appendage into his mouth. And what a mouth. With Daniel pinned down, Jack's hands were free to work Daniel's balls and shaft, with tentacles left over to find Daniel's sensitive spots, Jack had him shooting down his throat in no time.
"Jesus Christ," Daniel gasped, completely spent.
"Hmm, more like Shiva." Jack crawled up for a kiss. Sure there was some smug mixed in with the happy, but he'd earned it.
Daniel held him tight. "We're keeping these," he said, petting the nearest appendage.
"Daniel," Jack replied, tensing.
"We'll make it work." Daniel rolled him over and kissed him. "You'll work on your conscious control or you'll bind them when you need to; or we'll build you a house on the Mountain; or the two of us will transfer to the Alpha Site or somewhere else offworld ... something. I promise. These are part of you, now. We can't ... we can't mutilate you."
"Maybe. We'll see," Jack replied, but the gratitude in his face was real. Then he asked, surprisingly tentatively, "You'd move offworld with me?"
"In case you haven't noticed," Daniel gave him a squeeze, "you've gained another appendage."
Jack shook his head, and smiled. "More than an appendage, Daniel." He took Daniel's hand in his and laid it over his heart.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A remix of Within Arm's Reach, by Green_Grrl.
Content/warnings: Tentacle!fic. And as Green_Grrl said, "…take that as a warning or enticement."
Words: 5,327
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Can you believe I couldn't find a Matrix entry for this?! I'm tempted to use "Writer's Choice: Tentacles."
Beta: zats_clear read it on a crazy RL day and said, Yup! Looks pretty good to me! (I paraphrase.)
Daniel groped for the brush that should have been by his right knee.
"Here," Jack said shoving it into his hand.
Daniel saw the tentacle and screamed. It wasn't a girly panicked scream at all. Very manly.
He whirled around to see that Jack, too, had leapt up to face whatever threat had caused Daniel to yell. Yes. Yell.
Jack's hands held his P-90, which tracked around the room looking for a target. Two of his tentacles scooped up Daniel's discarded weapon. Another tentacle held Jack's sidearm. One tentacle had his knife. One tentacle held his zat. One tentacle had his other knife. Yet another tentacle had his other knife. And his three remaining tentacles flailed in the air, ends balled up into hard, dangerous-looking knots.
Faced with this vision of his friend, Daniel gave another girly scream manly yell. Teal'c and Sam came dashing in through the broken arch, as Jack twisted around again to see the enemy that must have somehow gotten around him.
That was when he noticed the tentacles himself.
Jack let out a yelp. The tentacles released their small arms with a clatter, and retracted back under Jack's tac vest almost faster than the eye could follow.
Jack turned to face his team, face pale, eyes wide.
"It would have been much more impressive, O'Neill, had they returned your weapons to their proper places," Teal'c intoned, eyeing the fallen knives and guns with mild disapproval.
Jack scowled at Teal'c. One tentacle tentatively emerged from behind him, waving slowly in front of his face.
Daniel moved carefully toward his friend, hands extended in a don't-freak-out-and-pummel-me-with-your-scary-tentacle-fists posture. Jack nodded acknowledgement, or perhaps permission, and Daniel circled around - far - behind him.
Jack quickly and efficiently stripped out of his gear, until Daniel could see that his t-shirt was untucked. One tentacle was already out, helping Jack get out of his stuff. As Daniel watched, seven more tentacles unfurled from below the shirt. Two rolled around the hem of the shirt to grasp and raise it, as easily as Daniel might grasp the front edge of his t-shirt to pull it up.
Just above Jack's pants waist, eight tentacles sprouted from his back, four on either side of his spinal column.
Daniel watched with a kind of horrified fascination as they unwound out to each side, to a length of about five feet. Six of them were about the width of a finger at the very tip, and tapering to about four times that at the base. The two growing from the lowest point in the small of Jack's back were thicker, with suckers.
Jack's new appendages snaked out, each errant tentacle deftly scooping up its former weapon and tidily returning them to their proper homes about Jack's person. Two of them even reached around behind to where Daniel was standing and clipped his P-90 back onto it's strap, arranging his tac vest with quick twitches and a final, smoothing swipe.
"I seem to, uh, I seem to have complete control over moving them" Jack noted.
"Can you, well, put them away?" Daniel asked, trying not to hyperventilate as the two sucker covered tentacles hovered around him, as if trying to decide what other parts of his uniform needed adjusting.
The base of each tentacle retracted into Jack's back, leaving soft folds of skin in concentric circles, then the remaining part spiraled around neatly on top.
Daniel warily reached towards Jack's shirt, then in one swift move tugged it down and stepped back. Jack turned.
"Infirmary!" they said in unison.
"Carter, dial it up," Jack barked. Her eyes were wide and startled. Teal'c looked a little green around the gills.
As Teal'c fell in step behind them, he commented, "My symbiote is disturbed by the presence of Kali's arms."
"Junior and me both," Jack muttered.
Daniel hopped up next to Jack on the examination table, resolved to sit with him through his adventure in "Doc Fraiser's Shop of Horrors," despite the fact that the tentacles were, well, disconcerting, to say the least. However, to his mind, Sam and Janet were a little too excited about their new experiment, and Jack was not the best patient even in the best of times. Daniel stayed to give moral support and possibly be the voice of reason if things got out of hand as his fellow scientists put Jack through his paces.
Janet started with blood samples.
"What am I supposed to do with these things?" Jack complained, as his tentacles seemed to drift aimlessly around them, mostly staying just out of Jack's peripheral vision behind him, possibly explaining why he had failed to notice them for so long. "I can't get comfortable."
"You could just retract them, Colonel," Janet suggested, raising her eyes to regard them with a mixture of distrust and curiosity. One of the slender appendages came to rest gently against Daniel's upper arm, twining around him, then squeezing tight briefly like a blood pressure cuff as the doctor slipped the needle out of Jack's arm and placed the gauze pad over the puncture wound. The other tentacles all pulled back behind their owner, presumably retracted under Jack's infirmary gown.
"If you would hold that there, Colonel," the doctor said absently as she handed the vial of blood to her nurse.
"Yadda, yadda," Jack replied as he did as instructed, the tentacle that had squeezed Daniel's arm now petting him apologetically.
"Now, Colonel, if you could," the doctor tentatively reached forward. "I'd like to get a tissue sample." The squeezing tentacle was suddenly gripping Daniel tight around the forearm. Daniel shifted a little and touched it gently with his other hand. Jack startled, apparently realizing for the first time what he was doing.
"It might be easier if you lie on your stomach," Janet suggested. Daniel got up to make room for Jack to swing his legs onto the table. Jack made a show of arranging his hospital gown, drawing a small smile of amusement from Janet. His tentacles came out to hold everything in place while he lay down and rolled over. Though the doctor exchanged a quickly suppressed, completely unprofessional smirk with the archaeologist when the gown fell open to show Jack's naked ass. The tentacles quickly grabbed for the gaping fabric when Jack felt the breeze. The business of resettling seemed to have brought them all out again.
"Alright, Colonel," Janet said. "I'm going to touch one of them now."
"Go for it," Jack said, but one tentacle snaked over towards Daniel again. Before it could grab him, Daniel reached out and took it. It wrapped around his hand gratefully, and Jack's body visibly relaxed as Janet began the procedure of wiping down an area of skin with antiseptic, then injecting the anesthetic. As she took the tissue sample another tentacle caught Daniel's ankle and gripped tightly, as the tentacle in Daniel's hand trembled. Daniel stroked it gently with his thumb, which caused Jack to turn his head to look at him in surprise. The tentacle around his ankle withdrew, but before Jack could pull back the one in his hand, Daniel gripped it, trying to smile reassuringly. Jack blushed in embarrassment and planted his face in the pillow, but the tentacle stayed where it was.
Sam and Janet spent a long time in the lab, during which Jack napped fitfully, and Daniel slouched in the hard chair beside him, trying to concentrate on his backlog of low priority translations, but really trying to figure out how Jack had gotten tentacles in the first place.
Teal'c had referred to them as "Kali's arms." Which made Daniel think of that monument on P4X-389, Kali's research facility. He pulled up some notes on his laptop and thought.
Eventually, Sam and Janet showed up, practically bursting with excitement.
"Well, Colonel, they're more like invertebrate tentacles than a vertebral structure; there's no bone or cartilage in them," Janet said. "There is a small alteration in one of your DNA markers that probably accounts for this change, which I'd like to study more closely. But the appendages themselves are part of you, a fully integrated part of your body."
Jack made an exasperated face that said "duh" without him actually having to say, "Duh."
Sam jumped in eagerly, "Even more fascinating, sir, is the way they seem to be fully integrated into your brain. You have perfect control of them, to the point that you use them unconsciously, the way you scratch an itch without thinking about it."
Jack made a slightly annoyed grunt in response to that, though he cut a shifty glance toward Daniel. Daniel had been trying not to read too much into the touchy-feely comfort-seeking of Jack's new body parts. Jack was freaking out and Daniel was doing exactly what he had hoped to do. Providing moral support.
"It really shouldn't be possible. Infants spend months, years, perfecting their motor control," Janet continued. "You certainly didn't have these during your physical when you returned from P4X-389, yet within seventy-two hours you have managed to grow and develop your use of these without even being aware of them."
"So, what do we do to fix me, then, doc? Cut 'em off?" Jack sounded casual, matter-of-fact, as if it were a foregone conclusion and he was just getting perfunctory confirmation.
"I think it's too soon to talk about a treatment until we can figure out how you got them," Janet replied. The fearful grip of the tentacle that had slipped down under the sheet and behind the bed to rest on Daniel's knee eased a bit as talk of amputation was dismissed as premature.
"In addition, I'd want to look more into the nervous connections with the spinal cord, especially given their location, though I suspect it would be no more difficult than any other amputation," she mused, causing the tentacle to grab on with a redoubled strength. "However, since you have already come to expect and rely on the use of these limbs very much as your native arms and legs. Removing them would certainly cause a psychological feeling of loss, and you might end up with painful phantom limbs."
"Maybe we should think of that as a last resort," Daniel suggested, stroking the frightened tentacle gently. Jack turned to him, blushing again with embarrassment, but also looking very, very grateful.
"And you had no idea?" asked General Hammond, giving Jack a somewhat astonished look. Jack shrugged uncomfortably.
"I'm not really in the habit of looking at my back in the mirror every day, sir. I knew my appetite was up, and I was having restless nights, but I just didn't realize I'd, you know, sprouted new body parts." Daniel wasn't surprised to feel a tentative touch on his leg. Daniel would never have guessed how much anxiety underlay Jack's tough-guy demeanor.
"At this point," Janet put in, "we're not sure whether the Colonel's mastery of his new limbs is something completely instinctual or something worked out with his unconscious mind during sleep, but his abilities were developed without his awareness, until he actually saw one of the ... tentacles."
"All right Doctor, thank you; that's a good baseline of information. Please keep me apprised of anything else you discover. Meanwhile, I want to know how the hell this happened." No matter how much they saw come through the gate, there would always be something new to give the general that incredulous tone. Jack's wince of sympathy showed he knew how the General felt.
Daniel stood to begin his part of the briefing. Jack's worried tentacles stayed under the table.
"Well, sir, there was that obelisk in Kali's facility on P4X-389 that Sam said gave off an brief energy reading, that we couldn't get to repeat. The text I read on it referred to a 'striving for perfection'-which, in the context of the rest of the projects we discovered, I took to mean research for the perfect weapon." Even Jack had thought there might be some possibilities there, but a week of "babysitting" a science team on the planet hadn't yielded any results. "Now," Daniel continued, "I wonder whether she might not have been doing some genetic research as well, seeking to make improved hosts."
"Like Nirrti," the general observed.
"Exactly," said Daniel. "Hindu representations of Kali portray her with either four or ten arms. To actually occupy a multi-limbed host would have given the goa'uld a tremendous psychological intimidation factor, plus, an actual tactical advantage. I'm not sure whether Nirrti and Kali were in a biological arms race-uh, no pun intended-or whether Nirrti appropriated Kali's idea of genetic manipulation of potential hosts after Kali's defeat."
"Unfortunately," Teal'c said, from the far end of the table, "I do not know. Nirrti was of little concern to Apophis, and he had no interest in biological sciences."
"Well, she's Cronus' problem now," said Jack with a grim smile, a couple of his tentacles making little balls at the ends and knocking with satisfaction against the tabletop before he realized what he was doing and pulled the things back in. General Hammond looked non plussed.
"We may never know the full history of the goa'uld," the general said, "but what I do want to know is whether we can do anything with this machine now we know what its purpose was, and fix Colonel O'Neill." Daniel caught the tightening of Jack's features out of the corner of his eye. Maybe his talk in the infirmary about amputation really had been all bluster.
Carter fielded the question. "It's possible it could give us a new way to look at the obelisk. I'd like to take a team back and check it out again."
"I agree. And Doctor Fraiser, what about the possibility of removing these surgically?" the general pressed.
This time Daniel fought to suppress a wince himself, and he wasn't surprised to feel a tight, panicked grip on his knee.
"As I have already discussed with the colonel, I believe it is too early to consider such a radical approach to treatment. You know how serious the amputation of a limb can be, General. This would be the amputation of eight limbs."
The general nodded slowly in thoughtful understanding, but his face was very serious.
"I see. Unfortunately, I can't allow Colonel O'Neill to freely leave the base in this condition. The first time one of these tentacles catches a falling can from a supermarket display on reflex, there'll be a panic."
"Yeah, but sir," Jack protested, "I just found out I have these things. With a little practice, I'll be able to keep them to myself, and not accidentally pick my nose like a little kid or something!"
Daniel, Sam, Teal'c and Janet all gave him the same incredulous look.
"Oh, fer cryin' out loud," he muttered, putting on a petulant face.
"Perhaps a binding, such as the one I wear to prevent inadvertent glimpses of my symbiote pouch, would assist in protecting your secret," Teal'c suggested.
The general nodded thoughtfully. "All right. We have some options to consider. Major Carter, you'll take a team back to P4X-389, and Dr. Fraiser, I'd like you to look into a training protocol for the Colonel. We'll leave amputation on the back burner for now. In the meantime, however, SG-1 is long overdue for some downtime. Forty-eight hours. Dr. Jackson, I'd feel better about Colonel O'Neill being out and about with his new… well… if I knew you were keeping an eye on him."
"Of course, sir," Daniel responded, hiding his relief. He'd feel a lot better keeping an eye on Jack, too.
"Hey! I don't need a …" Jack began to protest.
"No offense, Colonel," the general cut him off, "I'd just rather not find out you'd been lynched by a mob or sold to the circus just after getting off the Mountain."
"If that's an order, sir," Jack replied with bad grace. Daniel was going to have to figure out whether he was really seething at being assigned a minder, or secretly relieved to have the company.
"All right, people, dismissed."
Teal'c invited them by to borrow a binding.
"How about that thing with Junior?" Jack asked.
"My symbiote's discomfort is not great, and I believe with time and kel'no'reem it will pass. If not, I will endure. In the end, O'Neill, you are my team mate and my friend; I do not find it acceptable for my symbiote to dictate your absence from my life."
Daniel blinked in surprise. Jack looked stunned.
"Uh. Thanks, big guy. I'd hate to lose you, too," he finally stammered. Teal'c just bowed with his usual dignity and began assisting Jack with winding the wrap around his torso.
The binding had come off as soon as they walked through the door of Jack's house.
"Gah!" was all Jack said.
But as they cooked dinner, ate, then settled in front of the television, Daniel kept feeling little touches for reassurance. Sometimes Jack would look and catch himself doing it, and pull his tentacle back, embarrassed, but Daniel couldn't help thinking, as he had wondered for years, about what it meant that Jack couldn’t seem to keep his hands - tentacles, whatever - to himself where Daniel was concerned.
Like scratching an itch, Sam had said.
So Daniel tried something. He made sure to touch Jack when he was within reach, too- bumped hips, knocked elbows, standing close at the sink. Daniel even laid his hand on Jack's back as Jack rummaged through the fridge looking for dinner ingredients, newly assisted by eight extra arms. Daniel had never responded to Jack's touching - never broken through the barrier of personal space, as Jack took the liberty of doing often. Or had done, though he had seemed to drop the habit recently as Daniel had become more soldierly. And although Daniel had never known if return touches would be welcome, Daniel knew how much he missed them. How important they had been to him.
Now, Jack was flailing out for contact, probably feeling like a carnival sideshow, and Daniel wanted Jack to know that he wasn't going to shrink away from him. That Daniel wanted to touch him. Which was kind of a surprise to Daniel, too-because, tentacles: weird-but they really did seem so natural to Jack that once Daniel had gotten over the shock, they kind of fit.
As they watched the game, Daniel had to laugh as Jack flung a hand at the television in exasperation over the Viking's complete lack of a pass defense, while his tentacles gesticulated in indignation.
"What?" asked Jack, stopping mid-rant.
"Your ..." Daniel waved at his display. "It's, uh, cute."
Jack blushed and pulled his tentacles in.
"I don't even realize I'm doing it. It's not that they have a mind of their own, but they seem to tap into my subconscious more clearly than my conscious mind. Or something. Like the doc said," Jack replied, flustered into self-defensive sci-fi speak. Huh. And Daniel thought only Sam did that.
"You'll get better at it," Daniel assured him. "But still, I kinda like it-it's very 'you, extra-gesturing edition.'"
Jack mock glowered at him, then smiled and reached out with one tentacle and gently shoved Daniel's glasses back up his nose.
Jack grinned at Daniel's obvious surprise.
"Okay, then!" he declared buoyantly, "Free-tentacle zone at mi casa!"
"O-kay," drawled Daniel, as Jack stretched his tentacles out in a fan, then relaxed them and settled back on the couch. Okay. Definitely. Tentacles: weird.
After the Vikings lost pathetically, they switched to the classic movie channel, and settled in with popcorn and beer. They both had a fondness for old black and whites. It was a while before Daniel realized there was a tentacle snaked across his shoulders-not until it actually started rhythmically stroking his upper arm. And then he noticed the one lying lightly across his thigh. It was almost like ...
"Jack?" he whispered.
"Hmm?" Jack was still glued to the screen.
Daniel cleared his throat lightly. "Um, subconscious mind?" Daniel ventured, deciding it was now or never.
Jack turned, then saw where his tentacles were and whipped them back, face turning scarlet. "Uh ..."
"No, wait!" Daniel closed the gap between them and put his hand on Jack's knee.
"It's okay to touch me, you know," Daniel said softly. Jack looked mortified.
"You used to touch me all the time," Daniel continued. Jack raised his finger, all eight tentacles echoing the motion, hovering in the air behind him. He was poised to "aht" him, but Daniel beat him to it, raising his own hand and saying, "Let me finish."
Jack seemed to deflate, his tentacles even going a bit limp. Daniel reached out and shaped his own hand around Jack's, catching the raised finger and gently folding it back down.
"I could never figure out if you were just that kind of guy - you know, affectionate, touchy - or if you were affectionate towards me. I could never collect enough data to be certain. So I never touched you back."
He continued to hold Jack's hand, stroking over the captured fingers with his thumb.
"Then, you stopped touching me. And I couldn't decide if that was because you realized you were touching me all the time and people might get the wrong idea and you wanted to nip that in the bud… or if you were worried they were going to get the right idea, and you wanted to stop giving them evidence."
Jack was watching him warily, leaning away a little, all his usual body language indicating that he wanted to escape. But his tentacles, just out of his peripheral vision, were all reaching out to Daniel, from all sides.
Daniel smiled and nodded towards them.
"Don't play chess with Teal'c until you get those things under control," he suggested. "Heck, don't play chess with that cute, ditzy night shift nurse."
The tentacles jerked briefly as Jack remembered them.
Daniel tugged gently on Jack's hand. When Jack refused to come to him, Daniel gave a small exasperated huff and leaned forward, past their joined hands, and oh so gently touched his mouth to Jack's lower lip.
Daniel fully expected Jack to finally snap out of it and shove him away.
Instead, it was like a floodgate breaking.
Jack's arms went around him. Suddenly Jack was touching him everywhere. His hands were in his hair. Tentacles were snaking up the arms of his shirt, and down the collar to smooth over his back. Tentacles were twining around his ankles. One ripped off first one sock, then the other, then wrapped gently around the arches of his feet in turn, exploring his plantar region as if it were a small piece of paradise. Daniel was pretty sure that the one groping his groin area and struggling to work his pants open was one of the ones with suckers.
It was definitely one of the ones with suckers mapping out his chest.
And all the time, Jack was kissing him as if his life depended on it. He ravished Daniel's mouth with is tongue, the fingers tangled in Daniel's hair holding Daniel almost brutally in place, head tilted at just the right angle.
Daniel tried to give back as good as he got, though he was outnumbered five to one, as it were. He carded his own fingers through Jack's soft short hair, learned the shape of his soft palate, ran both hands over the sweet curve of his spine and the soft, smooth skin of his back.
A ripping sound behind him brought him up short, though, as his t-shirt was suddenly just gone.
He pulled back in surprise.
"Hey!" he protested breathily.
Jack himself looked a bit startled. Even so, a couple of tentacles still seemed intent on getting into the waistband of his pants.
"Not the jeans, Jack. I like these jeans."
The tentacles retracted reluctantly.
"I tell you what," Jack proposed, "Why don't we move this down the hall, and see exactly how fast four hands and eight tentacles can get all our clothes off?"
As it turned out, it was really, really fast.
In no time at all, Daniel was flat on his back on Jack's bed, gloriously naked, with Jack equally gloriously naked on top of him. Skin everywhere. Daniel's hands and Jack's tentacles were all doing their own exploring. Daniel reached between them, taking hold of both of them together, and they bucked in unison into the grip.
"Jack," Daniel rasped, and it was a thanks and a prayer and a blessing all at once. He pumped them steadily, and time became lost in a blur.
Daniel watched in amazement Jack's face, gone in pleasure, from his touch. He saw the tip of a tentacle slip into Jack's mouth. He strained up to try to watch it as it slid down and around behind them. Jack's legs spread wider, and he felt the surge as Jack pushed harder against him, biting back a moan.
"Oh, god, are you ...?"
"Yeah," breathed Jack, glassy-eyed. "You want one?"
"Oh, yeah," said Daniel, and Jack raised another tentacle to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel licked the tip, then sucked it in and pulled back, leaving it slick and shiny. He spread his legs, and felt wet firmness enter. A steady press soon had him opened wider than a fingertip, but it was a smooth glide, and it aimed unerringly towards ... there. Oh god. Daniel bucked, his hips lifting as his neck arched back, while Jack's head fell against his shoulder.
Daniel took up an achingly slow rhythm with his hand, matching it with the prostate massage Jack was using to generate an exquisite bliss, building incrementally with each tug. Jack's hand was stroking Daniel's face, and Daniel stroked their cocks together, and it didn't matter-it was all swirling in a haze of sensation.
Jack lifted his head to watch as he ran his hand down Daniel's cheek. There was such a look of transparent joy and ... tenderness on Jack's face that a swell of emotion spread from Daniel's heart outward, magnifying the physical glow and taking him over completely.
Daniel raised up and was met with an unbearably sweet kiss.
That connection of hearts through mouths, and the feel of Jack against him, rocking in rhythm with him, around him, inside him-every part of him-was too much. Daniel came and came and came, a gentle tug on his balls prolonging the ecstasy until he whited out.
When Daniel came to his senses, slippery and sated and comfortably resting under half Jack's weight, he was feeling the kind of peace he normally felt on a desert night, listening to night sounds and enjoying the dry cold against his face. The beat of Jack's heart and the soft, short strokes against various parts of his skin made him feel calm and safe and loved.
He raised his head to give Jack another kiss, and was greeted with a smile of radiant happiness, a look he wasn't sure he had ever seen on Jack's face.
A tentacle snaked Jack's discarded T shirt from the floor and pushed between them to wipe the worst of the wet off.
Daniel reached out a tentative finger to stroke it. "You have to admit, they're handy," he commented.
"Yeah," said Jack. "I'm kind of spoiled already. I'm not really looking forward to getting them chopped off."
"It'll be okay," Daniel promised. He settled into a more comfortable position, nestled against Jack, and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Daniel found himself spooned against Jack's back. He pulled away and took a look at what he'd been pressed against. The tentacles were mostly quiescent, retracted and curled, with one unfurled to idly rub against what must have been an itch on Jack's leg. Daniel watched, fascinated, as it finished and coiled itself back into place.
He traced a light finger around the soft wrinkled skin at the edge of retracted area. It felt thin and velvety, and pulsed a little in response to his touch.
He stroked it again, a little harder.
"Hmmm." Jack stretched into the touch in his sleep.
Curious, Daniel scooted down and ran his tongue firmly around the soft wrinkles surrounding one of the tentacles. It tasted just like regular skin, but it had the feel of a sensitive area.
"Mmmm," Jack moaned again, and relaxed into a boneless pose, half on his stomach. Oh, yeah.
With that encouragement, Daniel got on all fours over him, and started laving around all eight circles. The tentacle tips started fluttering in appreciation, so Daniel took one into his mouth to suck and give a gentle nip.
"Nnngh. Oh god." Jack had the sleepy sound of someone possibly not quite awake, but his hips were starting to grind against the mattress and Daniel wasn't about to stop now.
He experimented with lips, tongue and teeth around the edges, along the curls, at the tips. Jack and the tentacles both wriggled happily. One snaked around to Jack's front and started moving with an obvious rhythm. Two wrapped around Daniel's back and hugged him, stroking him encouragingly to continue. He took the top two, now extended, and held them apart while he licked from the base of one to the other across the vertebra between them.
"God, Daniel!" Jack was definitely awake now, and humping away in earnest.
Daniel licked the length of one of the limbs, and pulled its tip into his mouth, sucking it and tonguing it for all his was worth.
"Oh, yeaaa-" Jack tensed and shook beneath him, then slumped, breathing heavily.
Daneil kissed his way up Jack's spine to his neck. Jack rolled over and gave him a sleepy smile.
"Nice wakeup call."
"I just couldn't resist a little tentalingus in the morning."
Jack snorted appreciatively and stretched. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch you eat calamari again without getting a hard on."
"Nope, no more calamari. You're the only squid for me," Daniel teased.
Jack gave a mock growl and flipped Daniel onto his back. Tentacles reached around Daniel's wrists and pinned them over his head.
"Octopus and squid jokes are only gonna get you into trouble, Jackson," Jack growled.
"What about other members of the class Cephalopoda?" Daniel teased, as he felt tentacles twine around each of his thighs and pull them wide.
"I have excellent ways to reward you for good behavior," Jack said.
"I can be good," Daniel promised with a heated look.
Jack replied with a dangerous grin, then bent his head and sucked Daniel's remaining free appendage into his mouth. And what a mouth. With Daniel pinned down, Jack's hands were free to work Daniel's balls and shaft, with tentacles left over to find Daniel's sensitive spots, Jack had him shooting down his throat in no time.
"Jesus Christ," Daniel gasped, completely spent.
"Hmm, more like Shiva." Jack crawled up for a kiss. Sure there was some smug mixed in with the happy, but he'd earned it.
Daniel held him tight. "We're keeping these," he said, petting the nearest appendage.
"Daniel," Jack replied, tensing.
"We'll make it work." Daniel rolled him over and kissed him. "You'll work on your conscious control or you'll bind them when you need to; or we'll build you a house on the Mountain; or the two of us will transfer to the Alpha Site or somewhere else offworld ... something. I promise. These are part of you, now. We can't ... we can't mutilate you."
"Maybe. We'll see," Jack replied, but the gratitude in his face was real. Then he asked, surprisingly tentatively, "You'd move offworld with me?"
"In case you haven't noticed," Daniel gave him a squeeze, "you've gained another appendage."
Jack shook his head, and smiled. "More than an appendage, Daniel." He took Daniel's hand in his and laid it over his heart.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.