Work Text:
"If I've been hard on you,
I never chose to be;
I never wanted no one else.
I tried my best to be somebody you'd be close to,
Hand in hand, like lovers are supposed to."
-- "Hand in Hand" by Dire Straits
^^^^^
Jack himself meets Daniel's plane at National. Daniel still can't make himself call the airport by its correct name. Something inside Daniel relaxes when he sees the familiar figure, silvery hair over dark leather, leaning, arms folded, against the pillar in the baggage claim concourse. Daniel's stomach unclenches; muscles soften in his jaw and his lower back. He had not realized they were tensed until they lost their tension.
When Jack sees him, Jack stands up straight and unfolds his arms. He waits, arms at his sides, until Daniel is close, and then he smiles and reaches, without speaking, to take Daniel's carry-on. He knows without asking that they won't be waiting for any checked luggage. Then Jack slings an arm around Daniel's shoulders and Daniel tries to match Jack's smile, a little embarrassed, a little overwhelmed at Jack's ready affection, and at his eternal spontaneous ability to reach out. Jack's warm fingers brush his as Jack stretches to expertly divest Daniel of his bag.
Once Jack has his bag, Daniel transfers his grip to the strap of his computer backpack. Then he doesn't know what to do with his free hand, which is dangling oddly between Jack's body and his, so he fumbles it around Jack's waist. Jack's back is warm under his arm. As his arm settles, Jack's short jacket rides up a little and Daniel can feel his belt and his thin shirt.
But that may be too much contact. Almost inappropriate; over-friendly. He's always been shy about publicly responding to Jack's brand of affectionate touching, wistfully remembered though it always is. But it's been so long since he's been exposed to it in real time. He doesn't know how to feel about it, or how to react now. So he squeezes at the still-surprising softness above Jack's jeans (desk job; he was never happy with a desk job; how has he stood it so long?) and lets his arm drop. But Jack's arm stays firmly around Daniel's shoulders.
It feels awkward, walking pressed against Jack, something he's never really done with anyone else from the team, but of course Jack somehow never minded it. Jack used to touch him a lot. Hang on to him a lot. Back in the day. Back in the first team's era. Before Daniel has to do the work of putting the memories firmly aside, remind himself of all the water under all the bridges, they're at the tall glass exit to the parking garage, and Jack lets go of him to open the door. Jack, with his patented, expansive welcome. Jack, the gentleman. Daniel smiles again, just a corner of his mouth, and goes on through, then has to hesitate so that Jack can lead the way to his vehicle, which Daniel has never seen. Their heels echo smartly on the concrete.
The vehicle isn't a Ford truck. Jack has always driven some flavor of Ford truck, as long as Daniel has known him. But now, Jack walks up to a car -- a shining, charcoal gray, Jaguar sedan. Daniel's eyebrows stretch. Jack turns to him, finally speaking, as he pulls out his key fob and unlocks the doors and the trunk with the "chunk" of a button.
"It's really good to see you." Daniel stands there, his hand on his door handle. "It's been way too long," Jack continues, slinging Daniel's bag in the trunk and going around to the driver's side. Daniel gets over his surprise at the car and slides in, settling his computer bag between his feet. Leather seats. Tinted glass.
"Nice car," he manages, as Jack starts the engine purring and reaches toward Daniel, long arm and hand flat on the seatbacks, brushing Daniel's shoulder with his fingertips as he cranes around to see to inch out of the parking space.
"Thanks."
"It's not a truck," Daniel says, stating the obvious, and peers at Jack. Same old Jack. Same bomber jacket. Same grin.
"No; what's the point of a pickup truck in D.C., you know?"
"I see the logic there."
Jack smiles at him. Again.
Jack had a house and a yard in the Springs. He was often hauling drywall, or plywood, or mulch, or dimensional lumber. But apparently he's not doing any of that here, in what Daniel remembers Jack calling either his "place" or his "townhouse," when the subject of "home" has come up. Jack has a car now, not a truck.
The evening is overcast. Jack doesn't need the sunglasses in the case that Daniel noticed in the visor above Jack's head. There is a garage door opener clipped to the visor above his own. Jack has an attached garage at his townhouse, then.
Daniel, once again, notes the sadness hiding behind the fact that he has never been to visit Jack at home in Washington, until now. Things have been too busy, too crazy, too intense. Too many crises. They've talked on the phone a thousand times, and Jack has been back to the Springs several times, and has stayed with Daniel in the apartment he reinherited from Mitchell when Mitchell got his fixer-upper on the outskirts, but somehow Daniel has never managed to schedule a stay at Jack's when he has visited Washington. Until now.
Daniel sighs and settles back against the leather cushions as Jack pays the parking attendant and heads for the expressway, punching up a classical station as he swings onto the ramp. The sedan is nearly silent, extremely luxurious, and sweet smelling. Leather and spring air. The headrest is soft.
The next thing Daniel knows, Jack is nudging his shoulder. The car is parked, inside a smallish garage. Daniel starts upright.
"I dozed off. Very rude. Sorry."
"No problem. I saw your gate schedule for the last week." Jack squeezes his shoulder (Jack's hand is already on it when Daniel regains consciousness; maybe he shook Daniel awake?) and gets out of the car. Daniel scratches his head and rubs his eyes and reseats his glasses and follows, rather more slowly.
He stands there and watches Jack get his bag from the trunk. Then he realizes he's standing there and puts himself in motion, feeling more tired than he should, and bends and reaches into the Jaguar again and gets his backpack. He closes the door gently, admiring the heavy, perfectly balanced weight, the soft thud when the door meets the frame. Luxury. Craftsmanship. It makes sense, really. It fits Jack as well as the big Fords ever did, Daniel concludes.
"I guess a Jaguar is a good car for a major general," he says, not really thinking about it, but it's a non sequitur, and Jack smiles at him, fondly, over his shoulder, and then Jack is holding the door open for him.
The garage door leads to a tiny entryway that opens on the kitchen, and Daniel notices the warm spicy smells, and the indirect, welcoming lights at the same time. There's something baking or roasting, apparently, in anticipation of their return. Jack is still leading the way, through the kitchen, down the hall, and to a guest room. He puts Daniel's bag at the foot of the bed -- tightly smoothed white bedspread, simple and soft-looking. Daniel realizes just how tired he is.
Jack has folded his arms and is standing there, watching him. Daniel parks his backpack by his bag.
"You want to lie down? Dinner won't be ready for a while, and you look like a guy who's late for his nap."
"Some guest I am," Daniel says, ruefully, but unable to deny what Jack has already noticed. Jack claps him on the shoulder.
"I should probably roust you after an hour or so, right? Or you'll sleep until midnight and then be working on whatever you brought with you until dawn."
"Sounds wonderful. Because dinner smells too good to miss." Daniel is still staring at that bed. That soft, white, bed, that smells of Jack. Jack's place. How can this place, this new place, smell exactly like the house in Colorado Springs? But it does. Daniel closes his eyes. Ash from the fireplace, and laundry detergent, a faded scent of new carpet, and over it all, tonight, the delicious smells of food.
"It's a date." Another squeeze to his shoulder, and Jack is gone, closing the door behind him. Daniel falls on the bed, getting his shoes off his feet, his glasses on the nightstand, and is out in moments.
He wakes to Jack's hand on his shoulder. Jack shakes him gently, says his name (again?), and Daniel opens his eyes. Jack takes his hand away and waits. Daniel rubs his eyes.
"What time is it?"
"After seven. The roast is ready."
"I thought I smelled bay."
"And onions. And carrots. And potatoes."
Daniel finds his glasses, gets up, and follows Jack and his litany of ingredients down the hall, and it opens into the dining area, which is open to the kitchen. There are plates, and glasses, and placemats, and gleaming silverware, and a serving platter, and a tossed green salad, and balloon goblets, and a basket of bread and an open bottle of red wine.
"When did you become a chef?" Daniel says, frankly astonished. Dinner at Jack's house in the Springs was always predictable: It involved grilling, or it was takeout from the Thai place or the Vietnamese place, or it was pizza.
"Chef? I won't claim that. But a person can only eat in restaurants and commissaries for so many years, you know?"
Daniel, still amazed, sits down and puts his napkin in his lap and Jack sits down around the corner of the table from him. When Jack picks up the wine to pour him some, Daniel notices something in his glass. Frowning, he sticks in two fingers and fishes out a key.
Not meeting Daniel's puzzled frown, Jack pours cabernet into the glass.
Daniel looks at the key. It's attached to a diamond-shaped plastic fob that reads, "Ramada Inn."
"There's a key in my glass. Why is there a key in my glass?"
"Just in case."
Jack has put the bottle down and is serving himself roast beef and the vegetables that roasted with it, and then is pushing the platter toward Daniel and beginning to eat.
Daniel is hungry enough to go ahead and serve himself and pick up his fork, though he's not done with the puzzle.
"I thought I was staying here."
"I did, too."
"Then why is there a key in my glass?"
"Just in case." Jack still talks with his mouth full.
"You said that. Just in case what?"
"Just in case you get mad at me and want to leave. You have a place to go, all set up. A bolt-hole, if you will."
Daniel stares at Jack, chewing. The roast beef is buttery. The onions are an exploding quiet tang, the carrots are sweet and just barely tender.
"This is wonderful," he says, talking with his mouth full, too. Mitchell had dragged him home for Thanksgiving once. That food is what this reminds him of; simple and fresh and robust.
"It's hard to screw up pot roast."
"That's not what Mrs. Mitchell says." Daniel takes another bite, and does not let himself get distracted by the succulent pot roast, or by Mrs. Mitchell's reminiscing about various brides brought into the family who could not make pot roast. They'd all gone to church the Sunday after the Thursday banquet, and Daniel had gone along, too, because it was expected, and when they'd arrived at the house again, the kitchen had been full of this same smell. There was a hotel room key in his wineglass. It's a puzzle, and Jack is usually not about puzzles. "Why will I need a bolt-hole?"
Jack puts down his fork and his knife and picks up his wineglass and sips. "This is a good wine for the roast, right? I was going purely on memory here, though I did get a recommendation from the guy at the store."
"California cabernet is perfect for beef roast. You know that. You're evading my question."
"Yes, I am," Jack says, and he looks down and takes a bite of his salad, and so Daniel, reminded that the salad is there, does, too. It's caesar salad, and he tastes real lemon juice in the dressing.
"Why?" Daniel says again, eating salad.
"Because it will be answered by the events of the evening."
Jack's lecture voice. Daniel frowns. "You do want me to stay here."
"Yes, I do." Jack pins him with a sharp brown stare, just for a moment, and then he's eating again, precise and quick, looking at his plate.
The food is excellent, the day was long, and Daniel skipped lunch in his haste to get to the airport on time. He leaves the mystery for later and eats an embarrassing amount of roast beef and vegetables. He drinks not-quite two glasses of wine.
He helps Jack clear the table and put away the leftovers and load the dishwasher. Jack's turned on the bright overhead lights while they work, and they finish the last of the wine together, then wash the goblets by hand. Jack leans his hips against the counter in the small, shiny kitchen and dries his hands on a dish towel.
"If you're still tired, we can break out the ice cream and coffee now, but I thought we'd go out."
Daniel is pleasantly full, but alert, getting the second wind he always does in the second half of the evening, and his nap was refreshing. He feels ready for anything.
"Sure, we can go out, if you want, I guess." Go out? Jack never used to go out. Poker with the guys, team night at O'Malley's, the occasional hockey or baseball game. That was it. But there's a mystery afoot. Maybe this is part of it.
"Good." Jack wads up the dish towel and tosses it at him. Daniel catches it and wipes his own hands. Jack kills the bright lights on his way to the door, leaving the soft indirect light that Daniel had noticed earlier, and heads back down the hall. His own bedroom is at the end, Daniel sees.
Daniel goes to the guest room, and puts his shoes back on. Jack didn't say where they were going, or if he should change clothes. He pats his pockets and his hip, realizes that as the guest at a social occasion, he won't need keys or his computer or anything. Or his Beretta. Which is at the mountain, in any case. He smiles. He turns and goes back into the hall empty-handed. It feels strange.
Jack is waiting for him by the kitchen doorway, and it's back into the garage and then into the big quiet car.
Jack talks politics and budgets and program gossip all the way back into Washington. He doesn't say a word about where they are going. Daniel notes the landmarks, notes the turns, notes the sign announcing the point at which Maryland becomes D.C.
Jack drives to Dupont Circle. Jack parks in a public lot with an attendant. He pays. He stuffs the ticket in his pocket, still talking, and, walking like he knows exactly where he's going, he takes Daniel into a bar. A very clean, large, very expensive-looking bar, where the music pouring crisply out of the huge speakers is loud, but not too loud to kill conversation, and the music is old rock and its bassline has a melody, and the people at the bar and on the wide dance floor are all ... men. There is a cover charge. Jack pays it. Daniel is frowning; he is extremely puzzled. Is this where Jack thought he would want to go in D.C.? Why would Jack assume that now? Why would Jack bring him to a gay club?
He has to rush to catch Jack up; Jack is halfway to the bar. Daniel arrives at Jack's side. It's not crowded yet, but the place isn't empty either. There is space to stand at the bar, and Jack is leaning on his elbows, not in a hurry to grab a drink and move on, then. There are only a few bar stools, in widely spaced groups, and they're occupied.
"Jack," the bartender cheerfully says, as he catches sight of them, and without asking he pulls up a bottled Heineken from some hidden refrigerator. An opener appears in his hand, magician-like, and he pops the top of the bottle and puts it on a napkin in front of Jack. "And for your friend?" Jack turns to Daniel and raises an eyebrow, like they do this every day.
"Uh, vodka tonic. Please," Daniel sputters.
"With Gray Goose," Jack inserts, reaching for his wallet.
"Ahh, out to impress someone tonight. Hearts are breaking all over the room," the bartender says to Jack, while winking at Daniel. "Lime?"
"No, thank you," Daniel says. The bartender's hands are a blur, pulling up the frosted vodka bottle, the ice, yanking out the spray nozzle of tonic.
"No tab tonight?"
"No, Denny, thanks -- we won't be here too late," Jack answers, handing over a twenty and picking up his beer. Daniel puts a hand on his drink, but he looks at Jack, then at the bartender as he makes change, hands it back, and moves away to take another customer's order, but not before winking at Daniel again. Jack puts a five in the tip jar.
"Salud," Jack says, and drinks, and Daniel answers him automatically and lifts his glass and sips, and he's pretty sure Jack said the toast only to get a chance to check Daniel's eyes. Which are still stunned. The expensive vodka is smooth; the drink strong.
Jack is moving again, and Daniel carries away his glass and its napkin and follows him. He's heading around the dance floor, which is less than half full, and past the bank of tables next to it, to an archway that leads to an area of pool tables. The place is tall-ceiling'ed and modern-looking and there is no smoke at all. The music thumps along; something bluesy and very early seventies. People -- men -- are dancing. Daniel frowns, and realizes he's looked away from Jack. He finds him again; Jack has stopped. He's talking to someone who's greeted him -- several someones; a group of well-dressed, middle-aged men at a table. He's smiling, he's leaning in and accepting a kiss from one of the men, and the man drapes his arm around Jack for a comfortable moment. Another man in the group does the same, and then Jack turns to Daniel and indicates him by a jerk of his head. Daniel comes closer, gulping his drink to cover his confusion.
"--old friend Daniel," Jack is saying. "He's here for the weekend."
The men are nodding and smiling, and so Daniel does, too, but Jack is moving on, heading for the pool tables.
The same dance of greeting happens twice more before Jack arrives at their destination, an open table under its puddle of white light: men Jack knows approach him. Names are exclaimed, brief hugs are exchanged along with chaste kisses and friendly pats on the ass. Daniel watches, his tumbler cold in his fingers, and nods from afar.
And then Jack is putting quarters into the table, metal sliding on metal to release the avalanche of colored balls; Jack is turning to the wall to find the triangle to rack them and begin a game.
Daniel stares. Jack has brought him to a gay bar. Where he knows the patrons, knows the bartender. A gay bar. In his new hometown.
Jack has precisely placed the rack on the table, and is sorting the balls. Sam taught Daniel to play this game, long years ago, when Daniel was still married. He looks around, astonishment seeking an anchor, and he parks his drink on a mirrored ledge and finds the rack of cue sticks. He finds a nice straight one for himself (not that pun, not now), and finds one of equal length and weight for Jack.
Jack has arranged all the balls in a perfect triangle, stripes alternating with solids, the black eight behind the yellow one. Daniel walks up to him, still frowning, and hands him a cue.
"Regular eight-ball?" Daniel says, glancing at the balls.
"It was Teal'c's favorite," Jack says, as if that's an explanation for the choice.
Daniel almost smiles, and he moves to the head of the table.
"I guess you remember how, then?" Jack says, almost as if he's fishing, wanting Daniel to say more, to talk.
"Just don't order me any blue jello shots, okay?" Daniel says, and then he does have to smile, just for a second. He's looking for the cube of chalk that must be around here somewhere, while memories of nights in the back room of O'Malley's threaten to swamp him. And as he leans down over the table and lines up his stick to break, he's thinking of Teal'c's hats, Sam's passionate discussions of the physics of banking, and he exhales and settles his heels, and with one powerful stroke he breaks Jack's perfect triangle and sinks the twelve.
Two drinks and several more kisses and hugs from Washington friends for Jack later, they're back in the Jaguar, driving north again.
Daniel looks at Jack's profile, as it's revealed and concealed, over and over, by the highway lights. He wonders what to say. He wonders why Jack is showing and not telling. He wonders so many things. Finally, he starts with a question.
"How out are you?"
Jack sighs. Daniel knows he had to be wondering what Daniel would come up with as an opening gambit. "Not very? Depends who you ask? My family knows. Work, no.... You know there's still a line there. I'm trying to walk it."
Daniel settles against the soft leather and folds his arms over his seat belt. A piano concerto by Beethoven plays softly through the speakers. His ears are still ringing, a little, from the rock music at the Halo.
He realizes he is annoyed. Even angry. The key in his glass at dinner is starting to make sense. He tries to keep his breathing from speeding up. He watches the road rush by. He develops some additional annoyance that Jack would anticipate his anger. He's, furthermore, layer upon layer, annoyed that Jack would stage this production at all. He thinks about that; about how Jack has orchestrated the evening.
The silence stretches out. Finally Jack says, "Are we going to the Ramada? Because the exit's coming up pretty soon here."
Daniel shakes his head. He's clenched his jaw. He closes his eyes and wills his face to relax. "No, we aren't going to the Ramada."
"Ah."
"I didn't even bring the key. You know that. Why wait until now?" Daniel bursts out, unfolding his arms and turning to Jack. "Why show me all this tonight? Jesus, why now?"
"Well, D.C. isn't Colorado Springs, is it?"
Daniel is stunned at the total inadequacy of the answer. He blurts out the first thing that occurs to him, in contradiction. "But the Air Force is still the Air Force."
"You got that right."
"You're dodging the question."
"I know." Jack's voice is serious; his tone says he intends to answer; that he's not blowing off Daniel's question, only buying time. A familiar call-and-response. Daniel can breathe, now. He fidgets uncomfortably on the soft leather, trying to settle his shoulder. He listens, waiting.
Jack thinks for a little, and says, "I wish I had an answer. I don't have an answer. All the answers I have are ... not very good. When I was in Colorado, you know, it was different. Front-line team, frat regs. It wasn't that I couldn't...." He trails off, and Daniel braces himself. Then he starts again, and Daniel relaxes, because it's a change of direction. "And, you know, the stars on the shoulder do make a difference. I have a little more ... leverage ... now."
Daniel is conscious of a stab of pain, of regret, mixed in with the simmering anger. He concentrates on responding, on saying what Jack has only half said, what Jack perhaps can't say but wants to.
"So. The distance is what made it possible. To come out. And to show me that you have."
But Jack surprises him again.
"I've been in love with you for years, Daniel. It wasn't that I couldn't ... I always knew I liked men. Too, I mean. Also. --You know...." A wave of hand, and Daniel could fill in all the words that that hand wave had to cover. Words like marriage and Sara and duty.
During the pause, he watches Jack. There is no strain on Jack's face, only a serious, thoughtful expression. Daniel wonders what his own face shows. Jack continues, "You know there were times when I ... dabbled." A sidelong gaze, then, dark and shuttered. "If you want to call it that... But I never.... I'm being painfully honest here. I never tried to describe myself to myself. And I never made it a point to seek out the ... community, until now. And I really have to admit I'm finally doing that because of you. I just finally thought, dammit. It's Daniel I love, it's Daniel, not anybody else, never anybody else, and so..."
Again the spike of emotion -- regret and pain and all the wasted years. He shoves it aside. His voice is sharp. "So to get to that, you had to be gay? You had to start acting gay, publicly?"
Jack has both hands on the wheel, now. He tightens them; Daniel sees his knuckles whiten in the highway lights. "It's not like you to oversimplify."
"No. But, you are you who are, you know? It's not like you to pull the rug out from under my assumptions, like this, either."
"Well. Yeah."
Daniel realizes he has folded his arms again. He looks out the windshield at the dim road, the headlights picking up the reflective colors in the striping, the lights on the shoulder that come and go. He closes his eyes. He hears Jack clear his throat.
"Um, did I imagine that I said the L word, there? Because I think I did. Out loud and everything. "
Daniel holds himself tighter. He is still angry. Very. Maybe I should have had him drop me at the Ramada after all. And Jack, damn him, echoes his thought exactly.
"Maybe that Ramada idea is sounding--"
Too close. They are too close for comfort now. Daniel can't listen to this. He breaks in, interrupting, and he's chagrined at the quaver in his voice. "I never knew you were out. I never got a whisper of gossip. In, what, in the last year?"
"Two."
Not immediately upon him moving here, then. It took him some time to test the waters. Buy the car. Hire the decorator. Daniel snorts to himself.
Jack is saying, "Carter got a whiff of it. Told me to be careful in the fishbowl. Asked me if I planned to retire any time soon... What?" Jack says, reacting to the snort.
"Nothing... She always had better political connections than I did. Do."
"Well, she's had to." Jack's voice is reasonable, even casual.
"Yeah."
"And, you know, gossip is way different from a formal investigation. So I can let the gossip go. At this point, it can actually be useful, in a way. To track the politics, who's in bed with whom.... Another thing you need to know: I think George had my number years ago."
Daniel stirs uncomfortably. He doesn't want to think about what that really means in terms of the general's evaluation of his own complicated friendship with Jack. So many hard decisions, through the years. So many judgment calls...
"And yet, he still kept you on," Daniel muses, following his train of thought back to Jack, to marginally safer ground. "After you brought me back here, and all that time. He endorsed your promotions. He's always recognized your value..." to the program--planet--galaxy. Several galaxies. Daniel looks to his left again, at Jack's familiar profile -- sharp nose, soft lips. Eyes that could burn a hole through you or make you want to cry with their bottomless empathy. Daniel purses his lips. The Asgard had once named a ship after this man. And Sam and Thor had blown it up, sacrificed it, without hesitation. Somehow, that feels way too appropriate.... A pang of sadness, for the Asgard....
Silence. Jack doesn't say any more about Hammond, or his record. As always, Daniel figures, that speaks for itself.
Daniel suddenly feels very, very tired. The two mixed drinks are making him stupid, draining him. He has no stamina for night life any more. He can feel his careful denial fraying and blowing, coming loose like a tent in a thunderstorm.... He'd been angry, a minute ago. Now he feels flat.
He goes back, flees, to the only thing, apparently, that he can talk about. "This is just so risky for you -- being out."
"Duh. Why do you think I waited so long? To do it, and to tell you?"
".... Yeah."
"Plus it's pretty selfish of me. And so is telling you. I realize that. Hill of beans, yadda yadda."
"You're quoting Casablanca."
"I know. Corny."
"No. Not corny."
Daniel bestirs himself, rubs his eyes, looks around. They are leaving the big highway, coming back into Bethesda, into Jack's neighborhood. They will be home soon.
Jack said he loved me. He said it, out loud, just like that.
Daniel turns his head, carefully, and studies the man beside him. How many years has it been, now, since the day Jack marched into the mountain, that first time, Charlie's death still an open wound, and warned Catherine that he was the insurance for her success?
Nearly fourteen years, he'd fought and bled beside this man.
Daniel says, "I'm sorry I snapped at you before. It's just...."
"It's a lot. I know."
Jack reaches, and Daniel flinches, but Jack is only reaching for the garage door opener. Daniel's glance follows his hand up, and Daniel smiles again, his hair-trigger start replaced with amusement. Garage door opener. G.D.O.
Memories. So many memories.
Jack is pulling into his driveway, easing the Jaguar into the small, impeccably organized garage. He's not looking at Daniel, and not waiting. He's holding his keys in his hand, and he looks a little stiff, and he's going inside the townhouse. Daniel follows. Jack stops in the kitchen. He's uncomfortable. He's jingling his keys. Daniel hesitates beside him. Jack looks up, meets his eyes. Daniel frowns.
This is it, then. The moment that Jack must be expecting something to happen, expecting that Daniel will pick up the cue given in the car, take Jack's declaration, and translate it into invitation.
"You, uh, want a nightcap? Coffee?" Jack looks more uneasy, more awkward, than he has all night.
"I'm pretty beat. I think I'll just go on to bed."
"Okay." Jack is looking at him, his face schooled to calmness, as if he's feeling the same storm Daniel is, underneath, but he's said what he needed to say, dropped his bombshells, and he must know Daniel won't be able to react to this instantly.
Always pushing, Daniel thinks, irritably, unfairly, always pushing me, and he starts to cross his arms, and he realizes what he's doing and he stops. He drums his fingers on the pale granite countertop. Jack is still standing there. Daniel takes a breath, as if to speak, and Jack is instantly aware of it, and Jack looks so eager, wondering what Daniel will say, wanting....
The want was always there. The love was, too, probably, except he was always too stubborn to say it. And I was too fucked up to see.
Daniel holds the breath. He closes the distance between them with one slow, deliberate step and puts his hand to Jack's cheek. Jack is still, watching him as if through crosshairs. Finally exhaling, Daniel slowly takes his glasses off and lets that hand drift down to hang at his side. He moves carefully, tilting his face, and pressing gently to tilt Jack's. Daniel leans, still slowly, as if Jack might be jumpy. Their lips touch and press. Jack waits, waits to see what Daniel's offering, where Daniel will take this. Of course, now, Jack waits. Daniel smiles on the inside, bitter and sardonic.
Daniel kisses. Jack kisses back. And the memories flood in again. Years, since they've done this. And they've never done it with words like the ones Jack just offered hanging in the air around them. What Jack has offered has angered Daniel, staggered him.
They kiss, carefully, sweetly. Giving less than they had given, once upon a time.
They keep kissing, not quite tasting. Just touching. Not daring? Daniel wonders. His anger is still there, but it feels thin, like paper. Like it won't hold up, and could be easily crumpled and discarded.
Daniel pulls away. I have no idea how to feel about this, he thinks. Without the anger, which seems to have all diffused into Jack's kiss, all he has left is fear. He opens his eyes. Jack's are closed; his face shuttered again. Daniel whispers, "Just because you're finally ready doesn't mean I am."
Jack's lips curve -- irony, resignation. He says, softly, his eyes still closed, "First Casablanca, now Gone with the Wind?" Jack's voice is light, but when he opens his eyes, they are heavy with pain.
Daniel doesn't answer. He lets his hand fall from Jack's face, and looks at the floor. He walks slowly past Jack, and down the hall to the guest room, and closes the door.
The hall bath is next door to his room, and so he doesn't have to feel like he's anywhere near Jack, anywhere inside Jack's personal space, in order to wash up a little, brush his teeth, use the toilet. Jack, he notes, distantly, as if they're in a hotel, is taking a shower in the master-suite's bathroom.
He goes back into the impersonal guest room, trying not to notice how it smells of Jack, of home. He notices that the photos of Mars that used to hang in the living room of the Colorado house are on the wall over the bed. He strips to his boxers and gets under the covers. He lies on his back, hands clasped under his head under the pillow.
It was after his second descension that it had all come back to him. After Oma had agreed to help remake him as a human the first time, he had limped through nearly two years of missions, with fragmentary memories of ascension and of his old life before Kelowna blowing and buffeting around him like leaves in a storm. He'd remembered some, pieced together more, from mission reports and from conversations, but he'd never felt he'd quite gotten all of himself back, or had quite become whole.
He coped. There was a lot to do, after all. He had little time for introspection or confusion.
It wasn't until his second descension, after the replicator made in Sam's image had fatally stabbed him and he'd watched Oma trap herself forever with Anubis, a self-imposed, eternal sentence, that he'd gotten all his memories back. Or most all of them. There was, really, no certainty about a slippery, fragile thing like memory, after all.
One of the big things, he discovered, that had been missing from his recollections was the fact that he and Jack had been lovers. If you could call it that.
He remembered thinking, Well, that explains a lot. It had surprised the shit out of him, and reassured him, both.
He had often wondered which of the Others had had enough of a sense of humor to send him naked, to the floor of Jack's office at the SGC, that second time.
The catalog of his regained memories held the truth that his intimate relationship with Jack had been reluctant, even at times tortured. It had also been passionate, intense, surprising, gentle, and surreal. He had told himself, he learned from those memories, that it had mostly been about need. He had told himself a lot of half-true things like that. And he had tried to believe them.
Jack had been relieved, in a way, when Daniel had come to his old house late one night not long after the Office Flag Incident and confessed. Jack had made a lot of lousy jokes about makeup sex, during a very thorough and detailed and satisfying exploration of same. In the months since Jack had brought an amnesiac Daniel home, Jack had been reluctant, it turned out, to bring the subject of their relationship up, and had been counting on Daniel to do it first. Because Jack was pretty sure Daniel had had a lot of holes in his memory and was doing a lot of faking it, and once again, Jack had been right.
The second descension had been very, very different than the first one. He'd gotten it all back, then -- at least, he now thought he had. Pretty sure, anyway. Many more memories of both his time ascended and his life before Kelowna. And he also believed he had more control now over his mind, his emotions, his... he supposed the word was psyche, in the old-fashioned sense. He's pretty sure he would never have survived the Merlin thing, or the Prior thing, otherwise.
But none of it had helped him solve the puzzle of Jack's heart. Jack had, apparently, done that all on his own.
When Jack had taken his promotion to major general and Homeworld and left the SGC, it had made sense and been inevitable and been what was best for the program. It was beside the point that it had also left Daniel lonely and numb. But that had been better, he supposed, than continuing to watch Jack struggle, caught as Jack was between wanting Daniel and not being able to allow himself to truly have him.
Before, they had tried to find a way to be together, but had failed, Daniel believed, even as they continued to try. Repeated failure was not only crazy and unscientific, but painful, in the way a chronic illness was painful. Daniel would try to stay away, but then he'd find himself driving those familiar streets, letting himself into the house. He'd appear in the night in Jack's basement or bedroom and force the issue, talk Jack into bed, into sex. Or, during the times when Daniel was the one pulling away, Jack would seduce him, all over again, pulling out all the stops and all the charm.
Daniel wondered if it wasn't mostly mission stress, or alcohol, or lust. It was never easy. It was never simple. Even after he got all his memories back. It brought them nothing Daniel could depend on. Only stolen moments of peace, and communion. As far as Daniel could tell, neither of them, in fact, ever really gained anything. Only a surcease from frustration. Or from yearning. An achingly temporary fulfillment.
Even before Daniel had been killed, ascended and descended a second time, he had decided the thing to do was to try for assignment to Atlantis. Although he understood better, now, why Jack had kept refusing to let him go, he had never really stopped believing that moving himself to a distant galaxy would be for the best. Even before he knew the full extent of what he and Jack had been to each other, when he had chosen to go to Atlantis he had felt an inexplicable relief. That decision was something he could stand on, despite the continuing whipsaw of his feelings.
That ideal of Atlantis had not changed for him after his memories returned, although events kept conspiring to keep him in the Milky Way. And, in fact, when Jack had moved to Washington, taking part of the decision for separation away from him, Daniel had gained a reluctantly embraced peace.
He still keeps telling himself that.
He pulls down a pillow and clutches it to his stomach. The ceiling of his room is white and flat. It shouldn't look so soft, so peaceful.
Jack has gained something bigger than a conscious attempt at peace from their present distance. Daniel has felt anger and annoyance and shock, tonight. Now is he going to feel jealousy as well? Jealousy of Jack's ... certainty? His easy declaration of love?
That simple sentence still has Daniel reeling. It's replaying in his head, now. He hugs the pillow harder. He doesn't want to see Jack's lips, so clear in his mind, shaping those words. He opens his eyes.
So. Jack, finally, is clear on who he is and what he wants, from himself and from Daniel.
Finally, you get it? Finally you agree with what, with at least some, of what, I'd been saying all that time? Finally you find a line you can actually walk, instead of torturing yourself with the back-and-forth -- wanting what you shouldn't have, having it, not having it? Can you finally balance duty with your personal life?
"Goddammit, Jack," Daniel says, out loud, and he pulls his hands from under the pillow and fretfully heaves to his side. He doesn't ask the corollary to that unspoken question. He doesn't. He won't.
Can I?
"Goddammit," he whispers. He closes his eyes and decides the best thing will be to try to sleep.
Like that's gonna happen, a little, distant voice insists.
He ignores the voice and the question. He breathes. He consciously goes through the steps of relaxing his body, from his neck down to his toes, and then he goes through the steps again, all the way back up, toes to neck.
He opens his eyes and turns to lie on his back. The ceiling is still dark, white, and soft-looking.
He sits up and squints at the digital clock on the bureau.
He lies back down.
"Goddammit," he says again, and he gets up, out of bed, leaving his glasses on the nightstand, and pads down the hall, down the gorgeous expensive silent cream-colored carpet to Jack's closed door.
He doesn't knock. He turns the knob and it opens. He knew it wouldn't be locked. A soft light is on in the bath, its door half open in the far wall.
Jack is on his side in the big bed, his back to Daniel. Daniel notices the room contains the same old dark, dated bedroom furniture from the Colorado house, and his heart squeezes. His fingertips go cold, and he almost turns and flees, out the door, down the hall.
Jack half turns to his back, getting up on an elbow.
"You're waking me up," he says, in a conversational, calm voice. Or, it would sound like that to a stranger. Daniel hears the slight gravel of sleep, confirming that Jack, unlike Daniel, actually had been asleep, and also the tight-drawn quality that signals Jack is not all that relaxed about greeting Daniel in his bedroom in the middle of the night.
Daniel grabs his spinning thoughts, ties them down, and answers, trying for insouciant, "At least it's not your pager or your cell phone, telling us to get our asses to the mountain because a mothership just dropped out of hyperspace inside Saturn's orbit."
"There is that."
Daniel is now sitting on the bed. Daniel, not looking at Jack's face, reaches for the covers and pulls them down in one smooth flip. Jack is wearing boxers, too.
Daniel hitches closer, gets up on the bed, and folds his legs under him. He reaches with both hands, and smooths warm skin. Jack is still for a moment, then he eases his elbow flat, sliding it along on the sheets, and lies on his back. He is watching Daniel. Daniel avoids his eyes.
One palm on a thigh, one on ribs. Leave the hand on Jack's thigh still, for the moment -- good to feel the curve of the long important muscle, the prickling of hair. Jack is warm.
Let the other hand drift north, firmly (Jack is ticklish), counting ribs. Up, scrunching into chest hair, the curve of a pec, the drag of a nipple against palm. Jack is warm here, too. Down again, same route, and further, across stomach, that thickening trail of hair, and the boxers are in the way, so it's time to drag them down. Two hands for this, and Jack is biting his lower lip, raising up, pressing with his hands, getting his hips off the bed.
Daniel gets Jack's boxers off and tosses them, not noticing where they land.
Both hands petting now, stroking, touching, relearning. The tightly wrapped, fragile strength where muscles knit into knee. The jut of a hip bone. The deceptive softness of the skin over the bicep. Jack's head falls to one side when Daniel skates a hand up, over the collarbone, the hollow of the throat, fingertips brailling the three parallel wrinkles that lead up to the jaw. Back down -- the ridge of collarbone, curling fur, the second nipple, the ribs. Softness, again -- stomach. The way Jack's eyes fall closed when Daniel gently scratches the knot of hair, resolutely continuing to ignore the already-full erection.
That's the last straw, apparently, because Jack chokes off a growl and surges up, pressing Daniel's shoulder, making Daniel lie back, gentle yet relentless. Daniel's boxers are tugged off and tossed, and Jack has two hands on his hips, pushing, then holding, immobilizing, and Jack goes right down on him, his hot wet mouth engulfing Daniel's own extremely awake erection, and Daniel moans and puts his hands softly at Jack's temples, and lets it happen. Lets it wash over him.
Jack's technique is not rusty at all. But Daniel won't think about that. He lets it go, lets it all go -- the jealousy, the anger, the remembered and present pain, and Jack tastes him, sucks him, and eventually drinks him down, and it's only ... good. Simple, and immediate, and familiar and safe and ... beloved.
The word surprises him.
Daniel's lying there in his afterglow, and Jack's always been patient with that, never seeking his own quick release, always seeming to enjoy Daniel's enjoyment. Jack -- familiar -- has his head on Daniel's belly, his hand cupped over Daniel's cock, and Daniel can feel the heat and firmness of Jack's erection, undiminished, against his leg.
He breathes, slowly, easily, a hand in Jack's hair, still stroking. He clears his throat. "What do you want, now?"
"Whatever," Jack returns. "You know it's all good. You know what I like."
Daniel smiles. Jack's in the moment. Jack's willing to ignore the wider implications of his question, and that works. For now.
He doesn't bother looking in the sliding panel in the headboard for lube. He's pretty sure that's where it would be. Instead, he raises his hand to his mouth, wets it generously, and he reaches down and Jack stretches up, and Daniel's jerking him, firmly, maybe a little roughly, and holding him tight around the shoulders with his other arm, and kissing him.
Jack always loved this -- Daniel's tongue in his mouth, while he was coming. And Jack's on the edge immediately, on the edge like it's been awhile, like it's been a long, long time, in fact. Not like when Daniel first came back from the exploding replicator ship and the Waffle House on the Edge of Forever -- not like that.
Daniel kisses him, deep and hard, and squeezes and strokes, and right away Jack is squirming against him, and Daniel holds him tight. Daniel speeds up his strokes, moaning a little himself; he can't help it. He bends his leg, trapping Jack's under his knee. Jack is straining against him, his mouth soft and open. Daniel knows Jack's enjoying the fleeting illusion of being pinned to the bed. Daniel moans some more and holds him close, holds him hard, and Jack groans and shudders. Their legs tangle. Then Jack tenses, Daniel doesn't let up, and Jack shoots between their stomachs, his heel digging into Daniel's calf, his mouth sealed tight to Daniel's. Daniel swallows the stunned sounds he makes.
Then Daniel lets his head fall back, panting, and Jack follows him, puts his mouth against Daniel's neck and presses in and licks. He's panting, his breath ragged and hot against Daniel's skin. Jack's weight is half on him, now, and Daniel is sleepy, finally. Jack is heavy and relaxed. Daniel's still holding him, an arm around his back.
"I love you," Jack mutters into Daniel's collar bone. "So fucking much."
Daniel tightens his arm around Jack's ribs, and lets sleep take him.
He wakes to a gray dawn, and to a Jack who's clearly half asleep but already hard and interested all the same. Daniel's hard, too. They are twined together, Jack pressed against Daniel's back, his erection already nudging between Daniel's cheeks. Daniel groans and shuffles a hand under the tangled blankets and finds Jack's hip and urges him to press in harder.
Jack says, "Daniel," and it's part question and part affirmation. He tries to keep his pelvis pressed against Daniel's ass while he searches for the lube in the headboard. Aha, Daniel was right about that, and he smiles and writhes luxuriously against Jack's body. So long. Been so long....
"I haven't been with anybody since ... since before," Jack says, lamely, trying to make his point without explaining. He's found the lube. His mouth is against Daniel's ear; he's whispering and breathless.
"It's okay," Daniel says, distracted, weighing the degree of mess this might result in and deciding they've both been less prepared, and that it was worth it then and that it's going to be worth it now.
He hears the snick of the cap, the wet sound of lube being applied to skin, and then there are cold fingers in his crack and he eases a little further onto his stomach and bends a knee. Maybe, he thinks distantly, he'll find a pillow in a minute, to lie on, but then Jack is testing how tight he is, gently pressing in, opening him.
All his pent up, walled off yearning for this, needing for this, crashes down on him all at once, and he moans and shoves his ass toward Jack's hands. Jack swears and braces his arm on the mattress, not quite prepared for Daniel's enthusiasm.
"God," Daniel says, and Jack puts a hand on his shoulder and adds another finger.
It's soon, soon, soon enough, that Jack's pulling his hips up, getting Daniel on his elbows and knees, and it's a been a long time, but the body remembers, the body doesn't forget who it loves, and so Jack slides in fairly easily, and if Daniel has to argue with his muscles a little to make them yield, it's a short argument.
"Oh, god yes," Jack is saying. "Like that, just like that."
Daniel lets his forehead drop to the mattress and braces himself and pushes back. And Jack fucks him.
It's like no time has passed at all. Even the creak of the headboard is the same.
It's a blur, the stretch of his body, his muscles inside and in his thighs and stomach -- muscles getting a workout they haven't had in years. He's moaning, Jack's moaning and cursing. It's wonderful. It hurts so good.
Jack gets harder inside him, and his strokes speed up, his fingers clutching hard at Daniel's hips. He's trying to be careful, but he's a strong man, and his body know this, too, knows how strong Daniel is, just exactly how much Daniel can take.
Jack groans, and holds on tighter. It's fast, and deep, and it breaks something loose inside Daniel. The anger's back, and the jealousy.
"I waited for you, you bastard," Daniel says, the words torn out of him. "All this time."
Daniel groans, and groans again, Jack's strokes jolting him. Jack's fingertips soften on his hips. He feels Jack's weight shift, feels his knees spread a little, his body sink a little lower. Then -- soft and deadly and more painful than the stretch of his muscles: Jack's lips on nape. He's kissing, and whispering something Daniel can't quite catch. Apology? Denial?
"You knew I'd wait," Daniel whispers, his head down between his hands. He doesn't know if Jack can hear him or not. "You knew I'd wait forever."
"I love you, Daniel. I'm going ... to be saying that a lot.... I hope it's enough. I hope you believe me."
"God," Daniel says again. Jack is driving into him steadily, slick and hot, and it's driving all the thoughts away, now, now that he's said the words, confessed. It's hammering to bits all the angry heat, leaving behind only passion, and exposing the buried demands of his neglected body.
Jack slows, sliding in and pulling out with excruciating care, and he gets harder. Daniel knows this means he's close, and that he wants to make it last, draw it out as long as possible. Jack especially loves it if Daniel comes first, comes while Jack's still inside him, and so Daniel leans on his left elbow and reaches for himself. Jack feels it, feels what he's doing to himself transmitted through his flesh, and Jack manages to synch up his strokes with the movement of Daniel's hand. Daniel is falling now, falling fast, and he's admitted everything, given up everything, and there's really nothing left to do but to fall. Jack is pressing his hips and his thighs against Daniel's ass, chanting, "Yeah, baby, that's it," while Daniel finishes himself off, his ass closing in spasms around Jack for a vague, blissful sometime. Jack comes inside him, then, Daniel's orgasm triggering his own, just like always.
They collapse sideways, Daniel holding himself with one hand and holding Jack's arm tight around his middle with the other. He dozes.
When he wakes, all of a sudden, like someone had shaken him, the morning is bright in the room and Daniel is hot and sweaty and the bed smells like sweat and sex and musk and he wishes to god he hadn't dozed off. He's a mess. Jack is still plastered against his back, but they're not joined anymore. They're just ... together. Daniel sighs. He finds the edge of the ruined blankets and pushes at them. He's shifting his weight to sit up, but Jack's arm tightens.
"I know you can't move out here yet," Jack says aloud. He's been awake for a while; his voice isn't sleepy. How can he stand it, stuck to Daniel's ass like that? Jack's hand tightens on Daniel's arm. "But I want you to. Whenever. If you want to. I'm just saying, I think I can make it right, finally. That's what I'm hoping, anyway. To make it right. "
Define right, Daniel thinks, and he wonders what he can say now, if there's anything he can say now, to make Jack turn away. But he knows he doesn't want to. He thinks about politics, and the current lull in their endless war, and the new administration, and the chances of the program going public. He wonders if he can remember how to hope.
He gets an elbow under him and turns and squirms and kisses Jack's temple, and Jack turns his head up and offers his mouth and Daniel kisses it. Lingers there. Then he does get up, and staggers down the hall, and showers in the hall bath.
Daniel goes into his guest room to dress, and when he emerges, damp hair, bare feet, old sweats, there's coffee made and he can hear the washing machine running in the alcove off the kitchen.
Just like home. Or, more accurately, just like he imagines home might be.
^^^^^
Three days later, when Daniel gets back to Colorado Springs again, there's a note in his luggage.
He finds it as he's pulling Oxford-cloth shirts and boxers and chinos and sweatpants, wrinkled and fragrant, out of his bag, and piling them in the "dirty" basket in the laundry room.
He unfolds the note, and lays it on the top of the washer and smooths it flat. Yellow paper with dark green lines. Curving words in black ink, in Jack's aggressive, familiar hand.
"Love you, Daniel. Always. Jack"
Tangible. Evidence. Fragile, yet enduring. Worth more, much more, than the paper it's printed on.
And after all, Daniel tells himself, reevaluating the past -- after all, that's what he does. He smiles, and he folds up the note, and slips it in the pocket of his jeans. When he gets this load in the washer, he'll find his cell phone. It's around here somewhere, and there's someone he wants to talk to.
End