Clarity

By: sharilyn

EMAIL: sharilyn

The nightmares weren't even the worst of it, Daniel thought morosely to himself as he stood on his balcony watching the dawn, a steaming cup of coffee forgotten in his hand. Those he could deal with now, now that he knew for certain they WERE just dreams. He hadn't reached this stage overnight, of course; there was no question that those first few days after returning through the gate had been no picnic. With both Jack and himself immured in a state of complete, raving psychosis, poor Janet had had her hands full--and then some. And more than once during the terrible interval between their homecoming and the first shaky steps toward a return to lucidity, Daniel had almost convinced himself that there WAS no returning to sanity, no way to be sure he could EVER trust his own mind and senses again.

But reason, logic, rationality--all of it HAD resurfaced, tentatively at first and then in a steadily increasing stream of normality...a blessed normality, to be sure, and one that was initiated by each comforting look and reality-grounding touch, by every calm, gently encouraging word spoken to the both of them by their concerned friends and coworkers. He and Jack were very lucky to have recovered at all, and he needed to just put it behind him now and get back into his usual routine...But as he stood here now in the cool of early morn, safe at home again, his thoughts kept insisting on dragging him back to those first, abysmal days after the mission that had ended so quickly and disastrously.

The first seventy-two hours had been a veritable waking nightmare, complete with vivid visual and aural hallucinations that had necessitated the use of restraints on both affected men. But with each passing hour after their return, dribbles of rationality, of sanity, had returned until Daniel had come to feel that maybe his treacherous senses really were reliable, after all. The immediacy of the astringent odors of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol that were such an olfactory staple in the infirmary suddenly held great comfort for him; and in the same vein, just seeing the blessedly familiar environs of the SGC infirmary around him had him realizing--believing--that there was no way a still-delusional mind could have filled in so accurately the exacting details of every object his eyes were taking in there in the ward. His observations of all that was usual and normal in his familiar environment went a long way toward reassuring him that he truly was back in the REAL world--that the things he had thought to be so horrifyingly true had never happened at all.

Over and over Janet Fraiser had assured him of that fact, as had General Hammond and a sympathetic, mostly-recovered Samantha Carter; Teal'c's silent, stolidly comforting presence at odd moments during Daniel's waning bouts of hysteria had also contributed to the sense that everything was going to be okay, that he really wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life in a rubber room.

And then there was Jack. Waking up one day--REALLY waking up--and finding a shaky but grimly determined Jack O'Neill sitting by his bed had been almost more than Daniel's raw psyche could handle. The sight of the other man alive and in one piece--his lean colonel's face strained and drawn but his brown eyes calm and intensely alive on Daniel's--had caused Daniel to be overcome by a sudden, nauseating wave of vertigo, had led him in the next instant to violently flinch away from Jack's cautiously outstretched hand. The younger man had felt an immediate rush of terrible guilt and regret at the quick flash of pain his action had surprised in Jack's pale, unguarded face, but he couldn't seem to help himself; it was all too much, right at that moment. Seeing this man who'd died over and over in his incoherent raves, murdered in each horrendous installment in the cruelest and ugliest of ways--seeing him sitting here now, alive and whole and reaching grimly for the call button that would summon Janet and lots of calming drugs along with her, was more than Daniel's tormented nervous system could take. His shakily gathered composure shattered, and he was plunged back into a brief, terrifying madness.

With every traumatized cell in his body still shrieking in outrage, every breath in his lungs still inhaling the remembered miasma of the stench of violent death--Jack's death--Daniel had pulled away then from the familiar, terrible spectre of the man at his bedside and had begun to scream for help, to scream for Jack to go away, to please die for good, just stay dead...

Distantly he'd heard someone's---Sam's?--stunned cry of dismayed incredulity, had felt rather than seen Jack's rapid retreat in the face of Daniel's own shameful hysterics. Janet's hurried arrival and the administering of the mysterious contents of the syringe in her hand had saved him, had made it all just go away again for awhile...But then he was awake once more, stiff and sore and depressingly lucid; and when he turned his head this time--his gaze sane and quietly weary--Jack wasn't sitting by his bed.

The feeling that had slammed into Daniel at the realization that he was alone--that his atrocious and shocking behavior earlier had driven Jack away--had almost been enough to plunge the linguist back into a form of traumatic catatonia. He had been so afraid to believe before, had been so ravaged by grief and pain, that he knew his soul couldn't take one more episode of watching Jack die again, of discovering that maybe he was still back in that place and it would never stop happening, never...

But he WASN'T back there, he was HERE, Daniel realized in a flash of complete stability and sanity; he was here at Cheyenne Mountain in the infirmary, with machines beeping steadily and quiet voices murmuring on the other side of the room. And he knew--he remembered clearly--that he'd shouted that he wanted Jack to die, to STAY dead...and oh, God, none of them would understand WHY he'd said that, how such terrible words could ever have left his lips. None of them had been there in his mind, in the midst of the horror and the loss; they'd never comprehend what it had cost him, seeing Jack suffer and die like that. Real or not, it had devastated his soul, had damaged him in areas he wasn't certain could ever be mended again...Because it WAS possible, a terrifying little voice whispered somewhere far back in his mind. Jack COULD die like that someday, just lie there and bleed out with no one able to save him, no one allowed to touch or hold him as he gasped his last breaths into the indifferent air...

"Daniel."

Jack's voice sounded at his elbow now, very soft and placatory, very carefully neutral; and Daniel couldn't bear it, couldn't bear to turn his head and see the hurt, the dismissal he was sure would be glinting coolly at him from his friend's dark gaze. He really couldn't blame Jack; he knew he'd screamed awful things at him before...But there was no apology he could offer now, no amends he could make, and he merely closed his eyes and willed the other man to leave him, to abandon him to his self-imposed purgatory of guilt and shame.

It was then that the Colonel's long, oddly graceful fingers settled, hesitant and feather light, on the top of Daniel's head...it was in that moment that those same gentle fingers began to stroke the matted tufts of Daniel's hair, smoothing and soothing each short, greasy strand with infinite, methodical care.

"It's okay, you know," the older man whispered then to the younger, his voice strangely hoarse as he leaned in close enough for his breath to puff warm air along Daniel's jaw. " It's okay."

Daniel shook his head once, unable to turn his eyes to Jack's, to see their expression; but Jack wasn't done, wouldn't stop. "And you're wrong," the older man continued with quiet intensity. "I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. If I HAD died there, I wouldn't have died alone. You're always with me, you and Sam and Teal'c; I'll never be alone now, no matter what. So if it HAD happened, I would have felt you there, felt you holding my hand, cradling my head...just like you feel me now, here with you, touching you. You're my friend, Daniel, and I'm yours; so I think I understand what this is, what you're feeling now. And even when I don't understand everything--which is too damned much of the time--it doesn't make a difference. At least it shouldn't. I never want ANYTHING to make such a difference between us that we lose sight of what we are, HOW we are with each other. Are you getting this?"

As he murmured quietly, Jack's agile fingers kept stroking, sliding down to glide along the side of Daniel's face and curve, curve so softly but stubbornly around the side of the younger man's neck; beneath the insistent brushing of Jack's skin against his own, Daniel felt a slight, broken nod tremble from his head down into his throat and lodge there on a choked half-sob. And then Jack was pressing his head tightly against Daniel's, using the light but inexorable pressure of his fingers on Daniel's neck to turn the younger man's face to his.

"It's okay," he repeated, his brown eyes impossibly close, their honeyed irises large and liquid with his own inexpressible emotion. "We're both gonna be all right, Daniel. I've got you; I'm here, I won't be going anywhere. You can rest now, just rest."

And Daniel had wanted to cling to him and cry, to wrap his arms tightly around the Colonel's neck and dig his fingers into the other man's broad shoulders, just holding him there, keeping him close, keeping him alive...But he had done neither; with tears burning hotly in the depths of his own blue gaze, Daniel had merely nodded once, shaking all over with reaction, aquiver with tremors of silently intense emotion. Jack held his fingers against the back of the younger man's neck for a moment more, his restless caress continuing to press the linguist's face close, so close, to his own. Daniel could feel the heat of Jack's breath, smell the faint hint of stress and illness coming from Jack's pores. Almost he imagined he could taste the bitterness of all they had endured together, salty on Jack's skin, skin that was so pleasantly raspy against the smooth column of his own throat...

And then Jack had released him, had slowly and regretfully withdrawn his fingers from their possessive, protective hold on Daniel's neck; sudden exhaustion had drawn dark shadows across the Colonel's stubbled jaw, and Daniel was overcome by remorse as he realized just how much Jack himself must have suffered during their joint spell of psychosis.

Daniel strained upward as Jack tried to retreat, his hands wavering uncertainly, apologetically, in the vicinity of Jack's chest; with fingers longing to curl into the thin fabric of Jack's hospital scrubs and pull him close,lips aching to whisper "I'm sorry" for Jack's ears alone, Daniel could only bite back a tired and anguished moan of frustration as Janet suddenly appeared behind Jack's left shoulder, her sternest doctor's face firmly in place.

"Back in bed...NOW," was her unyielding demand; and with the smallest phantom of the old, naughty-Jack obstinacy lurking in his eyes, Jack reached to give Daniel's cold fingers one quick, furtive squeeze before being summarily hauled off to his own lonely bed, his half-hearted protests cut short by Fraiser's impatient snort of displeasure.

That had been what...three weeks ago, now? And since that time there had been no more touches like that, no more instances of the quiet intimacy between the two of them that Daniel had begun to crave more and more once it was denied him. It's perfectly understandable, he argued with himself now, taking an absent sip of his fast-cooling coffee; I mean, after everything we THOUGHT we went through--doesn't really matter that none of it ever really happened--it's only natural that I might feel a bit...clingy...where Jack's concerned. Just a bit more anxious than usual, a bit more needful of having him in closer proximity...

Crap, Daniel; that is pure crap, and you know it, a sardonic voice drawled in his head. You're not nuts anymore; you know Jack's not going to just disappear in a puff of smoke or vanish into thin air while you're standing there talking to him. Everything's back to normal; you're both safe and well, and so there's absolutely no reason to be standing here brooding at six-freaking-thirty a.m., pensive and at odds because it's been almost twelve hours seen you've seen Jack.

Twelve hours away from him, Daniel thought disgustedly to himself; twelve hours, and he felt he could just jump out of his skin with the almost overwhelming need to be in the other man's presence. He literally ached to hear Jack's voice, to watch the negligent gesticulations of the Colonel's strong, blunt-fingered hands, to meditate on that certain glint of silver in Jack's short hair...What the hell is wrong with me, Daniel fumed silently now; why was this whole chemically-induced insanity thing still reaching its tenebrous fingers across the weeks to mess with his bewildered mind?

"Dr. MacKenzie cleared me," he muttered stubbornly now, glaring accusingly down into his coffee cup at the now-cold liquid within. "And if Mr. Mental Health himself couldn't come up with any new psych tests to run to prove I'm a total head case, then I MUST be okay. Right?"

Sighing, Daniel turned away from the beauty of this new day's unveiling, his distracted gaze unable to appreciate the truly lovely visual extravaganza taking place beyond his balcony; his senses all turned inward,instead, locked onto the disturbing conundrum of what he should do about this new, unnatural dependence on Jack O'Neill, how to rid himself of this recent, overriding need to be as close to his laconic friend as possible during every waking hour...

"I can't tell anyone about this," he fretted half-angrily to himself as he retreated to his kitchen and poured the remains of his coffee down the sink. "Janet would have me back in MacKenzie's office before I could even blink once, and if I mentioned anything about this to Sam, she'd just go all solicitous and protective and hover over me till I really would go nuts. Teal'c would just rumble some anecdote about what warriors on Chu'lak do to recover from the psychological and emotional aftereffects of capture or battle, and Jack...oh, God, I can never let Jack know I'm feeling like this! I have to be self-sufficient, independent, able to pull my own weight and take on my share of the responsibilities and duties of any missions we go out on; if Jack knew I've been having some sort of lingering panic attacks and feeling this embarrassing need to be close to him..."

A low growl of despair slipped from Daniel's throat as he flipped off the kitchen lights and moved through his apartment to finish dressing for work. He was furious with himself for the way his heart began to beat harder at the very thought of seeing Jack again in less than two hours, for the half-nervous, half-happy clutch of nerves jumping in his stomach as he imagined Jack's lean form slouched against the open doorway to Daniel's office, waiting to bid him good morning.

"I have to get over this," Daniel sighed resignedly as he stepped into his shoes and fumbled on the dresser for his keys. "There's got to be a logical explanation, some stray remnant of a chemical imbalance in my body left over from that planet, maybe...it will wear off if I just give it some time, if I just hold it all together and get with the program..."

But as the frustrated linguist left his solitary apartment for the ride out to Cheyenne Mountain and SG-1's first scheduled offworld mission since their last disastrous step through the gate, he couldn't quite squelch the fear that he would end up doing something disastrously stupid or WORSE before all was said and done.

"Are you all right, Daniel?"

Sam's quiet voice drifted across the open air to brush feathery wings against the window of Daniel's distracted thoughts, and the disheveled archaeologist lifted reluctant eyes to squint down at her in half-hearted recognition.

"Um...huh? Oh, Sam; yes, I'm all right. Fine, actually. Sorry. I...I was just concentrating, didn't hear you the first time, I guess."

"Well, just be careful up there," Samantha Carter replied, shading her blue eyes with one hand as she studied her friend's sweaty, dust-smeared figure crouched uncomfortably on a narrow temple ledge some eight feet above her head. "The Colonel wants you down from there and back at camp within the hour; he says he's not gonna be responsible for you blacking out from hunger and dehydration and falling on your head. He also said for me to remind you that Dr. Fraiser still has PLENTY of sharp needles back at the SGC and would love a chance to jab them right--"

"Uh, I get it, Sam," Daniel interrupted her, a slight gleam of dry humor entering his tired eyes. "Tell Jack I'll be back in plenty of time for one of his delicious gourmet meals; he IS cooking, I assume?"

"Yeah, if that's what you want to call it," Sam snorted wryly. "Heat and eat, Daniel," she reminded him mournfully. "Heat and eat. And I think Jack's in an adventurous mood; he's brought along some of the 'new and improved' MRE's for us to sample."

"Well,if that doesn't get me down off here within the hour, nothing will," Daniel retorted; and with Sam's fond chuckle announcing her departure back to her own esoteric soil studies, Daniel turned his attention back to the barely legible swirl of runes carved into the ancient stone shelf before him.

"Concentrate, you idiot," he mumbled irately to himself now as the meaningless series of sqiggles in front of his eyes seemed to dance and waver erratically in the heat haze of late afternoon. For the most part he'd managed to pay attention to his work today, had grimly set his mind on the task at hand and lost himself in hours of brushing away, gently and carefully, the accumulated grit and grime and sand of thousands of years from the inscriptions on this small temple.

"I can do this, I AM doing this, doing just fine," Daniel repeated doggedly to himself, the almost mindless litany serving as aural accompaniment to the work of his hands. "In an hour I'll go back, sit down across the fire from Jack, take an MRE from his hand, eat, wash up, go to bed; in the morning we'll finish here and go back home, and that will be one more step down the road to full recovery, one more day of rebuilding my life back the way it was..."

But as his hands continued their automatic, repetitive movements under the waning arc of the planet's pale sun, his eyes stayed dark with silent misgivings; and the appointed one hour mark came and went with the distracted archaeologist making no move to come down from his elevated perch and head back to camp a quarter of a mile away.

He was still up on the manmade ledge of ancient rock, the brush he used for swishing dirt aside clutched absently in one cramped and grimy hand, when Jack found him an hour and twenty minutes after Sam had first come to warn him. His lean shadow elongated and distorted by the slanting rays of the lowering sun, Jack O'Neill stood below Daniel's cozy little ledge with both hands planted on his hips and gazed up at the still figure of his best friend slumped on his little bit of crumbling shelving. A spate of aggravated words died aborning in the older man's throat as he caught the essence of something quietly desperate, something forlorn and lost and bewildered, in the dejected huddle Daniel made against the runes; and with his irritation turning to concern, the Colonel moved soundlessly to stand just beneath his best friend's unheeding figure.

"Hey...supper's getting cold," Jack murmured conversationally, and the mute shape above him gave a startled grunt and jerked reflexively, almost tumbling off the edge of the shelf.

"Steady, there!" Jack warned, raising both arms over his head in preparation for catching the errant linguist should he fall. But Daniel managed to right himself and grasp onto the time-eroded corner of the ledge, his fingers curling into the ancient stone with white-knuckled strength.

"Jesus, Jack; a little warning might be nice," came his quietly shaken voice, and Jack grimaced apologetically.

"Um...yeah, sorry. But the thing is, Daniel, you were due back twenty minutes ago. And you know me; stickler that I am for strict adherence to military regulations, I decided to come and give you holy hell for once again ignoring my orders." Daniel remained silent, obviously unmoved by the sardonic humor in Jack's voice; and with a longsuffering sigh the Colonel lifted his arms once again and said firmly:

"Daniel? DOWN...now. C'mon, I'll catch you."

"I don't need your help, Jack," Daniel muttered stubbornly, the pale,dirtied oval of his face peering down over the edge of his perch. The lenses of his glasses glinted briefly in the dying rays of sunlight that were turning the sky rosy all around them, and the glare prevented Jack from reading the expression in the blue eyes behind those lenses. But he didn't need to see Daniel's eyes to interpret the linguist's body language; Daniel was definitely uptight about something, and Jack--instinctively knowing what that something might be--made the instant and somewhat discomfited decision that the talk he had been putting off for days now would be put off no longer.

"Okay, no help, do it yourself. Whatever," Jack muttered with some asperity now; but as Daniel shifted his body and slid himself somewhat laboriously off the edge of the rock shelf jutting out from the temple ruins, Jack couldn't help hovering nearby, muscles primed for action just in case the other man slipped. When the rumpled body of his friend stood safely on two feet before him, Jack bit back a relieved sigh and ran assessing eyes down Daniel's grubby form.

"Get a lot done today, Daniel?" he asked diffidently, casually, his eyes unnervingly perceptive as Daniel shifted one foot sideways and allowed his elusive gaze to drop down and follow the movement.

"Enough; I did enough," Daniel bit out mulishly; and as he lifted a challenging stare to Jack's again, a sudden wave of light-headedness swept through him. Black spots danced crazily across his vision, and with a helpless start he felt himself sway and tip forward alarmingly, blood rushing to his head in a deafening torrent.

"Dammit, Daniel!" Dimly he heard Jack's sharp outcry, the older man's voice a mix of alarm and half-angry concern; woozily Daniel tried to stay upright but couldn't seem to get his jellied legs to stay firm beneath him. Rather bonelessly he collapsed against the support of Jack's chest, felt Jack's strong arms close like steel bands first around his upper arms and then adjust to slide, more carefully and gently, around Daniel's upper torso, cradling his friend's limp body against him as the younger man struggled to regain his equilibrium.

"Easy...easy..." Jack murmured softly, lifting one hand to cup the back of Daniel's neck. "Take your time, find your balance; you were in the same position for so long, your muscles probably just locked up...How long has it been since you had some water?"

"Just let go of me, Jack."

Daniel's voice, muffled against Jack's chest, was low and fierce, and his two clenched fists pushed weakly but insistently against the muscles of Jack's shoulders. Jack frowned, briefly resisting Daniel's efforts to push him away; troubled by the slight tremor of weakness still running through Daniel's frame, he feared the linguist might fall flat on his face if he released him. But something in Daniel's voice--some dire hint of an imminent and explosive emotional eruption churning just beneath the younger man's desperate control--had the Colonel grimly setting Daniel back on his feet, even giving the disoriented scholar a slight push away from him.

"Sit down before you fall down, then," Jack ordered gruffly, and forced himself to watch without interfering as Daniel weaved his unsteady way to a nearby boulder jutting up from the sandy earth. As Daniel slid down onto it, his head hanging and his shoulders bowed dejectedly, Jack pulled his own canteen from a pocket of his bdu pants and sauntered over close enough to extend it in Daniel's direction. For a moment the other man gave no indication that he was even aware of the gesture; but Jack stood patiently waiting, and after a long breath Daniel reached without looking and accepted the canteen from Jack's fingers.

"Stop fussing at me, clucking over me, telling me what to do," Daniel muttered after he'd swallowed several thirsty gulps of the tepid water. "I'm an adult, dammit; stop treating me like I'm...stupid or incompetent...or SOMETHING."

"You're welcome. For the water," Jack elucidated drily as Daniel shot him an uncomprehending scowl. "And before you go biting my head off again for invading your space, I'm giving you a heads-up that I'm going to sit down right here next to you..whether you like it or not. We need to talk, Daniel."

"So, talk," Daniel rasped, staring morosely down at the canteen in his hand. His body bristled with antagonism, and Jack halted his tentative approach to the boulder the archaeologist was sitting on. "I'm not stopping you."

"Just what in the flying fuck is wrong with you, Daniel?" Jack replied without heat, without inflection. "You managed to pass under MacKenzie's radar, even slithered past Janet's eagle eye...but you can't pull that shit with me."

When Daniel refused to look up, refused to answer, Jack sighed and finally moved somewhat stiffly to settle himself with infinite care next to Daniel on the boulder. He made sure no part of him touched any part of Daniel; but he sat close nonetheless, close enough to sense every agonized quiver of emotion trying to fight its way past the archaeologist's defenses. Deliberately settling his hands over his own knees so that Daniel could see he wasn't going to touch him, the Colonel continued somberly.

"At first I thought you were getting over...what happened, back on that planet...I thought you were adjusting again, getting better. Working past it all. But over the past few days you've been tensing up, closing yourself off; dammit, Daniel, if you wind yourself up any tighter, something's gonna blow. So tell me. Are you still having flashbacks?"

"No, Jack; no, I am not still having flashbacks." Daniel turned his head and leveled a dark, humorless smile on the other man, his lip curling in mild disgust and some version of challenge. "What about you? Are you still dreaming dreams, Jack, still waking up thinking you're dead, thinking I'm insane, thinking we're..." Daniel's voice trailed away, his resentful gaze dropping as his hands closed tightly around the canteen, squeezing and squeezing its sides with impotent anger, choking back emotions he dared not voice aloud.

"What? Thinking we're what, Daniel?" Jack urged quietly after a moment,pressing gently when it became apparent that the younger man wouldn't finish the thought. "Thinking--dreaming--that we're...more than just friends?"

He thought he heard a low, tortured groan from deep in Daniel's chest, imagined he felt an almost imperceptible frisson of trembling anguish vibrate from his companion's huddled body. But Daniel remained obstinately silent, his breath rasping harshly on the sedate evening air; and Jack closed his eyes and surrendered his soul to the truth he hadn't wanted Daniel to realize, the truth he hadn't wanted the younger man to be forced into confronting and dealing with.

"I...uh...I wanted to spare you, Daniel," Jack murmured huskily now, his own troubled gaze riveted on the curve of his fingers over his kneecaps. "I thought all this was just me, just my own private and illusory reaction to things...I figured you had just gotten...caught up somehow in MY delusions. I thought it would all fade away, go away, cease to exist once we were...well again."

Daniel made no response, moved not one muscle from his position at Jack's side; but his entire body was hyper-alert, hyper-sensitive and acutely tuned in to every word leaving Jack's mouth. His heart beginning to pound dully in his chest, Jack drew in a deep but shaky breath and continued with dogged determination:

"I think about touching you...I think about it a lot. Almost all the time these days, dammit." He ignored the sharp intake of air at his side and spoke more words, his eyes never leaving his ten fingers grimly clutching at his own scarred, knobby knees.

"When I go home at night and you're...not there...not with me...It's difficult. It feels...wrong. Lost. I feel lost. Not to say that I would ever DO anything, try anything...I won't. I won't ever...pressure you...that way. I mean, neither one of us is, is--"

"Gay, Jack?"

For a moment Jack thought he'd imagined the other man's quiet, even slightly sardonic, response; but as he sensed the lifting of clear blue eyes to study his profile, he carefully raised his own brown gaze to meet Daniel's suddenly calm and considering stare.

"Yeah...I guess," Jack mumbled, a dull tinge of red warming the tips of his ears as he wondered with some chagrin just where and when the tide had turned, just how he'd lost the edge on this bizarre conversation.

"What do you want me to say, Jack?" Daniel sighed now, his fingers tracing the dented contours of Jack's canteen. "Do you want me to admit that I dream about you...that way...too? That I go through my days since we were released from the infirmary feeling like my guts are going to implode unless you're within hollering distance a good portion of my waking hours? Is that just a big old hoot for you to hear, Jack?"

A note of anger, of challenge, of hopeless desperation underlay the cynical rancor in Daniel's voice; and the hands that held the canteen trembled noticeably at the edge of Jack's vision.

"If...if I put my hand on you now, if I touch you...will you wig out on me, Daniel?" Jack said slowly, carefully, averting his gaze back down to the vicinity of his knees as he awaited the other's response. He heard Daniel utter a low, amazingly filthy epithet, felt the hard tremble of emotion shuddering through the linguist's tensed body. Unsure how to interpret these things, uncertain of his own motives and needs and wishes at this point, Jack froze and became as still, as inanimate, as stone.

For an eternity he did nothing, said nothing, did not breathe; in an agony of indecision he waited. And then--and then--he felt the solid, surprisingly commanding warmth of Daniel's right hand closing over his left, both felt and saw Daniel take that left hand and lift it and drop it down onto his own thigh. Jack felt the muscles in Daniel's leg twitch and jump and hum with mute longing beneath the lax pressure of his hand, felt his own heart speed up like a freight train in response; but he wasn't going to push, wasn't going to imperil one scintilla of one microsecond of what was happening here.

So he waited again, allowed Daniel to direct the flow of events the two of them had just set into motion. Slowly, tentatively, Daniel laid his own hand over Jack's, pressing--hesitantly forcing--Jack's palm to push more deeply against the solid flesh of his thigh. Jack obligingly pressed his hand more firmly against Daniel's leg, curved his fingers just enough to lightly dig his nails into the yearning skin, so hot and vulnerable, just beneath the fabric of Daniel's bdu's.

"Jack..." Daniel panted shakily, almost groaning, and Jack was stunned by the sudden, almost painfully vigorous surge of arousal that flamed like liquid heat into his groin. "Jack..."

Daniel's voice was a guttural whimper, and Jack tightened his fingers convulsively on the younger man's thigh, squeezing until he knew he was hurting, knew he'd most likely leave a bruise.

"Daniel..." he growled desperately, warningly, and he could feel the scorching heat coming off the other's body, could smell and almost taste the heavy essence of musk and desire wrapping itself around them both, as if they were helpless prey trapped in some unavoidable, incomprehensible web. Then Daniel turned toward him,his head dipping in and lowering till his breath fanned hot and wild on the side of Jack's neck, his hand reaching out and finding Jack's waist, pulling the older man in closer, closer...

"Jesus Christ...!" Jack leapt to his feet, mindlessly dragging Daniel up with him, and in an instant the two were plastered together, face to face, bodies pressed so tightly at chest and stomach and groin that it almost appeared that they had merged into one blended entity. Jack pressed his forehead hard against Daniel's, harsh gasps of air rising up from his chest as he lifted desperate hands to clutch Daniel's hair, to give himself leverage as he pushed his whole body as fiercely and forcibly as he was able into Daniel's.

"God, Jack...!" Daniel dug crazed, needy fingers into Jack's waist, pinched and pulled and hooked one knee around the back of Jack's calf to draw the Colonel even closer. "Oh, God..."

"Shh...shh, just be still. Daniel...oh, Jesus, just...like this, oh, like this..." Jack's whisper rasped lust and sex and unbearable pleasure into the curving shell of Daniel's right ear, his insistent fingers gripping strands of Daniel's dusty hair and grinding their foreheads together.

"Just...let me...let me feel you, feel this," Jack importuned roughly, trembling in every cell, every muscle, as every point of contact between his body and Daniel's burned with unbearable sweetness, with exquisite arousal. Daniel gave a strangled sob of desperation and slid his hands up to cup the back of Jack's neck, to roll his forehead from side to side against Jack's and brush his heated lips a scant millimeter away from Jack's parted hiss of desire.

"What are we going to do...what, Jack?" Daniel whispered, his voice slurred and drunken with need; the touch of his hands on the sensitized nape of Jack's neck sent a convulsive shiver of erotic pleasure down Jack's spine, and he groaned in extreme duress as his body came near to bursting, as his sex threatened to implode with frustrated longing.

"Dammit, Daniel...dammit! I didn't want to do this here, didn't want to get caught out, no privacy, no way to hash this whole thing out..." Jack's voice was an infuriated growl of deprived sensuality, his fingers sliding from Daniel's hair to clasp the younger man's jaw and hold his face close, so close, to his own.

"Fuck...fuck it! We can't do anything here, can't risk this, can't put Sam and Teal'c in the middle of a sticky situation...So this is it; this is what we're going to do." Jack's brown eyes were grim on Daniel's, his expression fierce and predatory as he held the other man's gaze. Daniel's slumbrous, impossibly dark blue eyes drew Jack down and down, hypnotized him and deprived him of the will to speak, to think...and it was all Jack could do to continue, to finish his line of reasoning.

"We're going to walk back to camp; we're going to eat those goddamned, tasteless MRE's and engage in some pointless, idle chitchat with Sam and Teal'c; we're then going to take our separate watches, sleep, get up and finish this frigging job in the morn and then get the hell out of here. That is what we're going to do. Comprende?"

Jack's eyes blazed into Daniel's, his frustrated anger directed not at the other man but at this whole impossible situation. Slowly Daniel nodded understanding, his eyes so dark with desire that it was hard to remember their true color. Jack gave a little nod and lightly slapped his hands against Daniel's cheeks, his silent stare promising the other that this wasn't over, oh no; not by a long shot. Just postponed, unavoidably shelved for now. But not over.

And as if determined to remind him that this was so, that there would be no evading or escaping this issue once they'd returned back through the stargate, Daniel pulled Jack's head forward and took the older man's mouth in a punishing kiss, his lips covering and devouring Jack's with a heated thoroughness that reignited every banked ember of unquenched fire in both men's bodies.

"For crying out loud, Daniel," Jack rasped hoarsely when he could force himself to pull away, to stop hyperventilating and remember how to breathe. "Dammit! Sam or Teal'c might have come, might have seen..."

"Let them find their own sex-crazed Colonel," Daniel muttered irascibly; and as Jack absolutely, positively TRIED to unglue himself from the seductive siren call of Daniel's hard body against his, he wondered dazedly if he was even going to survive the lovemaking that oh-dear-god-YES definitely lay ahead.