SG-1 fic: Pride, Prejudice, and Beer, by kuonji (PG-13)
Pride, Prejudice, and Beer
by kuonji
Jack blocked his wrist with jarring violence. "Don't."
Daniel gaped, but he dropped his outstretched hand and turned aside for Jack to storm towards his kitchen. He felt his face reddening with anger, disappointment, and (goddammit) shame. Jack had come back with a fresh beer before Daniel could speak normally. "It didn't make a difference the last four years. Just because now you know..."
"Hey!" Jack held up a finger. "Don't underestimate the power of intel."
"I wouldn't have expected you to react this way." Even as Daniel said it, though, he knew he should have known better. Jack wasn't prejudiced in the typical way, but when he didn't like something, he made it obvious.
The thing to remember was, Jack had always been his friend in spite of Daniel being a 'geek'. He wasn't an accepting man. For all that he explored alien worlds for a living, he drove a pick-up, ate beer-drenched steak, and voted conservative just like most of the air force.
Jack scowled as if he'd heard Daniels thought. He threw his arms wide. "What do you want from me, Daniel? Huh? I'm fifty years old. I'm divorced. I don't need this politically correct get-in-touch-with-everyone's-feelings crap."
"I'm not leaving the team." Daniel didn't think it would come to that, but he wanted to make it clear. Get it out of the way if it was going to be the deal-breaker to what he'd thought was an unbreakable, well-tested friendship.
There was still a lot he thought he could contribute to SG-1. He refused to let one off-world indiscretion bar him from that -- even if 'indiscretion' might be too mild a word for what had happened.
"Good," was Jack's reply. He took a few swallows of his beer.
"Good?"
"Look, my whole damn life is screwy right now, but I don't want this," Jack gestured between the two of them, "to mess up the team."
"I don't want that either." Daniel let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He lowered himself down to the couch, across from Jack. Now that his flash of anger had dissipated, he felt awkward for having barged into Jack's house like this. Not that he hadn't had reason.
Jack had been a badly-contained boiler all the way back to the gate, and he'd hared off the base seemingly straight from the locker room. Daniel knew that this was something that shouldn't be allowed to fester.
"So was that all you wanted to say?" Jack grumbled now. "Some kind of weird-ass comfort for your commanding officer?"
"You know, you're actually taking this pretty well." Daniel tried to sound complimentary and not patronizing.
Jack snorted. "You haven't seen my recycling."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. That had been a little more cryptic than usual.
Raising his bottle to illustrate, Jack explained, "This wasn't the only six-pack I bought."
"Ah." Daniel tapped his fingers against his thigh. "Still, um, considering your--" Daniel gestured vaguely, trying to encompass career choice, personal history, temperament "--you're really very composed. Finding out a close colleague is gay could have been a lot more traumatizing."
Jack frowned. His grip on the neck of his beer bottle tightened infinitesimally. "Is it?"
"Isn't it?" Daniel gestured at the aforementioned beer bottle.
Jack cocked his head and half-opened his mouth. He set down the now-empty bottle. "You're doing fine, it looks like," he returned. It was Daniel's turn to be confused.
"Well. I've known for a long time."
Jack sat up. "What?!"
"I mean, I-- It's been pretty obvious to myself for years. I don't exactly, you know, date much. But I notice men. I always have."
"What?"
"What?"
"You're gay?"
"Um. Yes?" Daniel scratched his neck nervously. "What have we been talking about all this time?" He had expected the big blow-up to be over Daniel screwing an alien man six ways to Sunday in the public square.
Jack was shaking his head. "You're not gay. You were drugged." Daniel tilted his head and squinted, hoping that would help him understand.
"I remember thinking the other guy was smoking hot. I don't think drugs can do that much."
"You think I'm hot?" Jack asked, slack-jawed.
"What?" Being outed in a spectacular way in front of the team was one thing. Having one's deepest secret aired casually by his best friend was another.
Jack made an impatient sound. "Forget I asked. You were drugged."
"No, I just didn't under-- Oh my god." Daniel was glad he was already sitting down. The sense memory of warm/good/hard/familiar hit him like the leading edge of a dust storm.
Daniel couldn't believe he hadn't known. He reached out to Jack again, slow this time, and this time Jack didn't bat him away like some irritating insect. He rested just the tips of his fingers on the front of Jack's shoulder. Jack drew in a breath, but kept his eyes on Daniel's. "It was you." It wasn't a question.
"You didn't know." That wasn't a question either.
"No. I was pretty out of it."
"But you noticed that I-- that he was hot."
"I think... I think I must have recognized you. Subconsciously." Daniel wasn't the sort to have sex with strangers. He'd thought it'd been the drug, but he remembered how comfortable it had been, how right it had felt. "I knew you."
Jack's eyebrows went up. "You sure did."
In spite of the moment, Daniel laughed. "Don't be an ass. I don't mean in the 'biblical' way. I'm serious, I think I knew who you were. That's why I..." Daniel flushed, trying to find a good way to phrase, 'That's why I jumped your bones in public.' I thought it was my only chance.
Jack made a disparaging noise. "Of course. Because you always thought I was a hot catch."
Daniel didn't reply immediately. Not with words. He watched his own fingers as they travelled over Jack's bicep and around over his pectoral. His hand slid forward to full contact against Jack's chest. The skin was burning through the thin T-shirt, and Daniel could see his palm rise and fall with Jack's quickened breaths. "Yeah."
Jack flinched at the word, and Daniel dropped his hand, embarrassed.
"Sorry."
Jack fiddled with his beer. "You were drugged. I wasn't."
Daniel heard what Jack wasn't saying. Finally, he understood what this was all about. The slightest prick of hope threatened to overrun his caution. "Jack."
"You should go." Jack stood abruptly.
"No, we--"
"I can't do this, Daniel." Jack was already up and running, his long legs taking him around the coffee table to avoid touching Daniel as Daniel sprang to his feet himself.
"Jack!" Daniel threw his arms around Jack from behind, going with the instinct that told him that Jack would not hurt him. If Daniel let him get away, though, he would hurt himself. "It's okay. You can be attracted to other men. It's not anything wrong." God, he sounded like an inspirational pamphlet.
"Are you quoting self-esteem infomercials at me?" Or that. Daniel felt the bunched muscles slacken slightly, but Jack was still pushing away.
"Yeah. Horrible, isn't it? You're a bad influence." He hung on tighter.
"Not as bad as you've been on me."
"Really? I always thought I was improving your mind."
"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."
The silent tug-of-war continued as they spoke, until finally Jack exploded: "Would you let go already? Why can't I have a goddamn meltdown in private?"
"Because you don't need to."
"Oh, I beg to differ."
"No. Jack. I mean, you don't need to do this alone." And there went the infomercial spiel again. He winced but forged on. "I can help you. I'm here for you no matter what."
Daniel let go, incrementally, and when Jack didn't bolt, he gently herded him back towards the couch.
Jack slumped down and put his face in his hands. He muttered some oath, followed by a plaintive, "How could I not know?"
Daniel decided to take it as a rhetorical question.
"Now that you do, is it so bad?"
Jack heaved a sigh. "I thought I knew myself. I was the guy who lost his wife and his kid and couldn't get over it. There were other women, but nothing ever really stuck, and that was natural, because I wasn't over Charlie. I'll never be really over him. I thought I'd just spend the rest of my life coasting."
Jack revived enough to mime a plane gliding down without an engine.
"I never thought..." Jack growled in clear frustration. He picked up his beer, rediscovered that it was empty, and slapped it back down. "I've always been comfortable with who I was," he declared belligerently to the chess board at the edge of the coffee table.
Daniel nodded in support. Jack's easy self-confidence had always been a draw for him.
"Anyone who had a problem with me could just go take a hike. But now I realize that I didn't have the first clue about myself all along. Ain't that a kick in the teeth?"
Hesitating, then deciding to push forward after all, Daniel laid a careful hand on Jack's thigh. Jack hissed in a breath but didn't move.
"Is it such a bad thing?" Daniel asked again.
"Don't do that."
Feeling his heart sink, Daniel removed his hand.
"You don't know what will happen if you keep..."
Jack's voice was distinctly strained, enough to make Daniel look worriedly at him. "If I keep...?" Pushing? Talking? Refusing to leave?
"Touching me, dammit." Jack put the back of one hand to his mouth, caught in a gesture between wiping his mouth and covering it.
Daniel couldn't have imagined the need in that voice. He felt light-headed. "Jack?"
Jack scowled and looked angrily at Daniel, the way he did when all that stood between them and death was a faded line of maybe-hybrid-Gaelic on a wall and even though Daniel was the best there was -- they both knew that -- he wasn't goddamn fast enough.
Except that he always was. And they survived another day to bicker and scoff at each other.
"You said my name," Jack said softly, wonderingly.
"I-- I did?"
Jack grimaced. "But you weren't talking to me. There was some other me. In your head." He tapped his own forehead. "Hell, at first I thought you were calling for help. But then..." Jack huffed a breath. "God, it was the most... gorgeous thing. Your-- Your lips were open, and, and you were just writhing with it. But it was wrong. You were drugged. Totally gone! And I wasn't supposed to be that guy, but I..." His voice broke.
Giving in to reflex, Daniel put a hand on Jack's upper back and started a slow stroking motion. It seemed to help. Jack closed his eyes, but he kept talking.
"The whole way home, I couldn't stop thinking about it. You'd just turn around and I'd see your ass, or you'd lick your lips and I'd want to kiss you again. When we walked next to each other, all I could think about was how I could feel your body heat."
Daniel remembered how distant Jack had been, how he'd tried to put space between them. He'd thought it was plain old homophobia. Now, Jack was telling him he'd been thinking about this?
"Oh, god," Jack moaned. "I fucked you. I had sex with you. I can't--" Jack suddenly reached out and clutched him hard. His eyes were tight and needy. "It was the best sex I ever had. And I don't know what to do about it."
Daniel swallowed hard. He could feel himself trembling. He was hard, harder than anytime he could remember. "Jack." He reached out, tentative. "Jack." He tried to keep the yearning out of his voice, but he could see from the twist of Jack's face that he hadn't succeeded.
"Daniel, don't. Please."
"Not-- This isn't-- I've wanted you for forever, Jack. You have to believe me."
That only made Jack groan louder. "This isn't me," he said, his voice raspy with physical desire. "I'm out of control. This isn't me."
"Maybe it could be."
"No." Jack jerked away. "You don't even want me. Not the real me."
"I do!" It was Daniel's turn to grip Jack's arms hard. "I've always... Don't you know how much you mean to me?"
Jack stared at him, his expression wide open with fear. His mouth was slightly open, and Daniel couldn't take it anymore. He seized Jack's face and pulled him into a mind-numbing kiss. Jack whimpered, and Daniel thought he'd lose his mind.
Suddenly, hands were pushing at his shoulders. He tried to protest, but a firm shove separated him from the heaven of Jack's mouth.
Jack stared at him, his mouth working wordlessly. He looked shaken. "Not... Not now, okay? Give me some time."
Daniel, his head still whirling, could barely nod.
Jack rubbed his face briskly with his hands. When he looked at Daniel again, he had an air of decision to him. "I need another beer. You want one?"
Daniel didn't, not really. But something cold and distracting might be a good idea. "Okay," he said. Jack was already on his feet.
Daniel slouched down and laid his head back against the couch. He took some deep breaths, willing his body to cool down. By the time Jack returned -- after a longer time than it should take for the round trip to the kitchen -- he'd mostly gotten himself under control.
Jack handed him a bottle of Guinness, and Daniel straightened up in his seat to take it. He smiled slightly at how the cap had already been twisted off. Jack knew he was crap at opening bottles bare-handed.
Sighing out loud, Jack settled himself next to Daniel on the couch.
They were both silent in their thoughts for a long moment.
Daniel took a swig of beer, grimaced, and put it back down. He took Jack's hand instead. He could feel Jack's eyes boring into him as he in turn studied Jack's fine-fingered, slightly hairy hand. He ran his thumb over the knuckles, smiling slightly when he heard Jack take in a breath. He turned it over and traced Jack's life line, caressed the softer skin of his wrist.
"We build up images of ourselves," he observed gently. "We get so used to living up to that image that we forget."
"Forget what?"
"People change. And no matter how well you know a person -- even yourself -- there's always more to find out."
"That's very... philosophical."
"Yeah, I'm deep like that."
Jack chuckled. "Hey, Daniel."
"Yeah?"
"Next time you volunteer for some alien ritual, let's just stick with the dancing and feasting, okay? This identity crisis thing, it's bad for my heart."
Daniel grinned. He squeezed Jack's hand with his own. "No problem."
END.
A/N: The original title was "Prejudice", until I noticed that they seemed to be drinking an awful lot of beer. And once you've got prejudice and beer together, you might as well throw in a little Jane Austen, you know what'm sayin'?
If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:
Identity, or The Many Uses of Coffee (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji
Hold Your Breath (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji