/ !\ I have to warn you before anything : This is my very first English written fic and no matter how hard I wish I was fluent in Shakespeare's language, I am SO not, therefore I'll ask you to please be indulgent. Thank you ! Also… Well no, that's pretty much it I think. On to the fic, shall we?
Title: Chapstick
Author: F0etus
Beta reader: Quarryquest (.com)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,607
Spoilers: Everything up to season 6
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from this story. All creative rights to the characters belong to their original creators.
Summary: When Daniel said in Abyss that he was "not here in the full physical flesh and blood sense" anymore, it wasn't entirely true.
A/N: I've never read anything about it so I started wondering: am I the only one to obsess over the obviousness that Daniel wears chapstick? I like to think our selfless, clueless Danny puts chapstick on his lips because he talks so much he finds it annoying when they're dry. Never mind that it'll make the pout weapon even more effective and lethal. It's not as if he's aware of the fact that every person he walks by swoon in his wake along the mountain hallways… But this is not what this story's about. You remember Breeze!Daniel caressing Jack's face and the Colonel knowing expression at the end of Revelations? Well I wanted to write about what it is he knows exactly… The result is somewhat bittersweet, but overall it's quite light for an ascended!Daniel story.
Chapstick
"Jonas came up with the idea really. I can't believe how fast he's learning, it's mental. When we came back from P9Y-193 I've recommended him a list of books about quantum physic and he read them all in less than a week. I don't even remember how many books were mentioned, but there has to have been something like fifty different authors on that list. Do you realize he's actually catching up with the decades gaping between Kelownan's science and Earth's? I was so stunned by his latest work I handed it to Doctor McKay, just to have a second opinion, but still, McKay. You should have seen this sir, he wrote a truly interesting paper about wormhole theory, I felt so… Colonel? Sir?"
Jack turned his head toward Sam, nodded and smiled, really hoping that his scarce and unenthusiastic 'hum hum' had each fallen in the right place at the right time.
"Have you even been listening to anything I said those past… say… fifteen minutes?"
Oops.
"Uh… Hum hum?"
Sam sighed and dropped in her plate the french-fry she had been holding and stressing every one of her words with.
So much for being passionate.
"Sir… may I ask if something's bothering you lately? I couldn't help but notice that we often seem to… lose you in down time conversation…"
God, there she was again. For the past three weeks Carter had been trying to corner him into – insert quotation fingers here – talking about his feeling. Meaning Daniel.
Somehow Jack was under the distinct impression the real issues were hers to work out, considering…
But hey! If projecting her grief on others, or sharing it in an odd Carter fashion, or whatever for that matter, was her way of coping, he felt more than happy to oblige.
Better that than having to face her hero worship. Losing Daniel seemed to have toned that down quite a bit actually.
"Now Carter, why would anything bo-"
"Oh my god! Is that… Are you wearing… chapstick Colonel?"
She was leaning toward him now, eyebrows almost touching her hairline as if she was scrutinizing some intriguing alien hi-tech artifact.
Jack breathed in slowly through his nose and let his back hit the plastic chair behind him.
He self consciously raised a hand to his mouth and, as awkward as it was, had to admit it was a bit sticky and in all probability a little shiny from up close.
Well, he had been looking for it now hadn't he? He knew it was only a matter of time before people start noticing the weirdness that governed his life lately. Then again weird didn't even begin to describe it properly… A little chapstick sounded like minor damages.
It didn't mean he wasn't going to give Carter hell for her inquisitiveness.
He was her superior after all, and if he woke up feeling like it was a good day to put on a little lip-balm it was none of her concern.
She was one to talk regarding the insane point she was making of always presenting a spick-and-span make-up, even on the field.
Feeling irrationally irritated, he crossed his arms firmly over his chest and threw her his meanest, hardest, toughest Colonel glare.
"And what if I did Major?"
As expected Sam flushed with confusion and busied herself with the cold and almost untouched French fries Jack was pretty certain she was not going to start eating suddenly.
"Well no- nothing. Just… Nothing. Lips' skin can be, like, fragile. Mucous membrane can be delicate and… better keep it… supple and… Huh… Soft?"
She looked more embarrassed by the second. Jack didn't know whether to take pity on her or to enjoy the show just a little bit longer.
In the end she'd feel so off balance by her own impudence she would have convinced herself all alone that she must have done something wrong. Then this all Colonel-hard-ass-O'Neill-was-blatantly-wearing-chapstick would be forgotten.
Pretty handy.
In the end, she chose for him.
"I… I think I'm gonna go now. I'm gonna- You know… head back to my lab and… work on… stuff."
"You do that Carter."
She offered him a tight smile, took her tray and left him alone at their table.
It was way past dinner time and the mess was almost empty except for a couple of air men in the far back of the room.
Jack would have almost gloated. It was not often that he got the opportunity to render Carter speechless. Or make her stammer. Whatever.
Make that disable her oral capacities.
He thought about it for all of one second before EWW was the only thing that came to his mind.
Or make that NOT… that!
Jack dismissively pushed his tray aside with one arm, took his head in his hands and let himself fall face forward on the table.
It wasn't his fault his mind was so far down in the gutter lately! It wasn't his fault and he certainly didn't want to be down there with Carter of all people.
Truth was, the woman was so besotted with him he could probably make her walk through the fire if he wanted to. No matter his reasons.
Well, that is, figuratively speaking.
And even then, he wasn't so sure she'd say no if he were to ask literally.
The fact was : He just had to ask.
And that scared him.
This was - apart from military regulations which, ironically enough, he wasn't so fond of these days – the exact reason why he had never acted on their mutual attraction throughout the years.
Jack knew Carter would get attached, and awfully so. He knew she'd made such a good job of it working together would soon prove to be impossible.
Let alone keeping it secret.
The woman wore her heart on her sleeve for crying out loud. No matter that she was military and had been judged apt for the task, every time something affected her, it was there for all to see, in her big round baby blue eyes.
Even if this was one of the traits that made her so enticing, it grew irritatingly cute very fast.
In the end, Jack had decided things were better left where they were between them. For both their sakes. He had a feeling it wouldn't have been the love story of a once in a lifetime kind she was expecting anyway. It would have turned sour and he didn't regret never figuring if it might have not.
Which was probably saying a lot about how much he must have wanted it. Yeah, try not that much.
And no, Jack was not some kind of emotionally disabled dick who feared commitment like death itself, thank you very much.
Quite the contrary.
In fact he was pretty old fashioned and even after Sarah, even after Charlie, after all the pain, the waste and the hurt, he still believed in Love with a capitalized L.
Sure he loved Carter, and he was attracted to her all right, her being a tall smart witty blonde and all, but he could never fall in love with her, even if he tried really hard.
At best giving it, giving them, a shot would feel like trying to pick up the pieces where he left them with Sarah.
He didn't need that. What good would it serve? It would only make him think about his first failure, failing his marriage, his son… About the courage it'd take to start all over again, and try as he might, he didn't want that anymore.
Sarah was losing him even before Charlie shot himself. She never really grasped the mystery of him and she was aware of the fact, she was okay with it. At the beginning. Then she started resenting him for keeping things from her, for closing up like an oyster every damn time she tried to enter and help. And he… He got tired of the pushing. Charlie's death just rushed things into the inevitable and ugly crash.
Now having another child, Jack knew he could never give it another try. He would never be a dad again, he couldn't do that to Charlie's memory. It would feel like betraying him.
He loved children, he understood them in a quirky way and he was patient enough. He was never superior or phony with them, he knew that now. Someone special taught him he would have made a wonderful dad had life not decided to play it differently. But that was just it, he loved other's children, children from the park, from other planets, but he would never be able to love like a dad again. That very special love reserve had dried when Charlie went away…
He was grateful enough to still have it in him to love period. It was pretty amazing that his perception of another human being as his potential soul mate wasn't stained.
More than that, it took some time but his romanticism recovered full force after his divorce, and he was left thinking, no matter how corny it might sound, he was after all nearly fifty now, that he would settle for nothing less than The Right One.
Yep. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now fortunately a search party wouldn't be necessary and he wouldn't have to lose a few more years looking for his special someone as Jack was absolutely sure he had already found his unique creature.
Settlement was just not in the picture. Yet.
There was still work to do on that part. A lot of work if you asked him, probably the rest of his lifetime if the current situation was any indication.
It did take nearly losing and then really half-losing his love to realize he was, well, in love with them.
But Jack was ready to fight like he had never been now that he knew. No matter how hard and messy it could get he knew it was all going to be worth it in the end.
He knew it with a solid and burning certainty coming from deep inside of him, a certainty like he had never experienced before.
He was perfectly aware that this love could be of a dark and totalitarian kind sometimes. It made an unknown power crackle under his skin, like something hot and velvety was running through his veins, filling him slowly with a single-minded conviction he didn't know he was harboring before.
Suddenly everything seemed possible, he felt so strong intoxicated with this certainty that he knew he was now capable of achieving anything he wanted to. There was no good or bad anymore, only his beloved and what it would take to keep them by his side.
He was possessed just like back during his black-ops days, except not. It was all better and worse at the same time. Much more beautiful and dangerous, it was pure art.
There was no mission here if for the one of never failing his love, nobody was thinking in his place and he wasn't trained for it. He was nobody's spawn expect love's. It was dark in a primitive way, instinctive and spontaneous…
And okay, if all that lyrical shit in his head wasn't the very definition of being in love then he didn't know what was. And he didn't care, it did it for him.
For all the times Carter flushed all over and didn't stand up on her position just because he was her commanding officer, his love was strong headed and their words never faltered when lit by the passion of the cause they were defending.
Jack knew the comparison wasn't fair.
Sam did what was expected of her, her behavior was the right one, and yet he didn't choose her. It wasn't her fault that she was military and that they met under those circumstances but that was the way life was.
After all, it was true he always had a thing for bad attitude and insubordination. It was even more of a turn on if his interlocutor didn't give a shit about his rank and only cared about being in their right.
Bad attitude just to piss him off tended to get boring. Now this, heartfelt stubbornness, it drove him mad, made him see red, passion red, and lose his temper.
He was so used to people complying to the orders he barked without asking question that the first time this soft intelligent voice told him in a delicate but I-won't-take-shit-from-you way to shove his misplaced authority up his ass, he almost literally shivered with anticipation.
Back then he should have known he was going to fall real hard for this one. A challenge made just for him…
He and his love? They were equals. In every sense of the term.
They completed each other. They understood each other.
Well most of the time for the later.
So they yelled at each other in the process of understanding, a lot, but it only served to make them love each other that much harder. If it was even possible.
The two air men finally got up and left the mess, saluting him on their way.
Jack straightened up and sighed. He could hear the last and distant dishes noises from the kitchen. The silence was disconcerting. He was half expecting an unscheduled offworld activation to blast through the speakers at any minute.
It had been so calm those last few days.
So calm he had the delicious time to almost get caught necking with an advanced human life form in a godamn supplies storage.
So calm his 2IC noticed he was still partially marked with the very evidence of his previous probably illegal and court martial material activities.
They had way too much time on their hands. But who was he to complain?
The lights in the mess went off.
Jack didn't even stir. It was not the first time the maintenance guy took off without bothering to check if there was anyone left in the mess at almost 2200. The guy didn't hear anything anymore, so he figured it was curfew time.
Jack didn't care really; it happened a lot since Daniel had left. He still remembered sitting at that exact same spot a week after his archeologist ascended.
The thought made him smile with nostalgia. He had been so depressed at the time.
Jack put his thumb and forefinger on his closed eyelids, waiting for the light spots behind them to dissipate. He couldn't even be angry at Daniel who picked him from all people to say good bye and ask that they let him go. Jack wasn't sure he could have watched him suffer like that any longer anyway.
At the time the mess had seemed like a peaceful and somehow strategic place to mourn. It brought back memories of Daniel, like any other place in the mountain, but less intense ones.
Memories of dragging him here to force some food down his throat, memories of his cute grumpiness and messed-up hair in the morning before his usual four cups of coffee. Memories of his goofy smile around the rest of pecan pie Jack would hand him over even though he could have just picked his own and kept pretending he would never finish it alone…
Jack would sit here and catalogue every little silly face, all the nice words Daniel always had for everyone, all the smiles, the boring anthropologic speeches Jack would go through just to see all the lines in his handsome face come alive with excitement… Then the lights would be turned off and…
"Jack, you sap, are you thinking about that first time I materialized in front of you to confess my undying love for you?"
Jack was laughing softly even before he had opened his eyes.
There he was, sitting right across from him, his head leaning a little on the right side and his piercing blue eyes dancing with mischief.
How he missed him whenever Daniel was not in his range of touch. The fact hit him more forcefully every time.
"I, for my part, remember you being not so concerned with surveillance cameras at the time…"
"I knew you'd come up with something."
Daniel worried his upper lips between his teeth.
"What if I hadn't been able to?"
"But you were."
The younger man bent forward over the table and tenderly caught the Colonel by the collar.
"Smartass" he breathed, his lips almost touching Jack's temple when he spoke.
Jack smiled devilishly and next thing Daniel knew he was being pulled over the table and right onto Jack's lap.
Content to have caught Mighty Danny The Ascended Boy off guard, he felt the need to brag:
"You may have grown some nice muscles here…"
Daniel squealed with manly delight.
"… or there Danny, but you still lack my black op trained high senses."
"You do realize I could take you apart just by blowing?"
Jack settled for some significant eyebrow action.
"The magician of Oz be damned Jack O'Neill! You need to get some action!"
"Tell me about it," Jack growled while burying his face in Daniel sweater, sneaking his arms around him and holding his waist as tight as he could.
The young man lovingly slipped his long fingers through Jack's silver hair and started scratching his scalp with light slow gestures.
When he heard him make that contented low-pitched humming in the back of his throat Daniel chuckles airily and dropped a kiss on the back of his neck.
He loved that. Jack's head was now so far bent his nape was offered to Daniel's pleasure, unguarded in a sign of trust so absolute he bit him lightly, exhilarated by it.
Jack slowly sat up straight and looked up at him, smiling sleepily with that unwary expression Daniel had discovered the day he told him goodbye. The same expression that brought him back every time he could since then.
He cupped the Colonel's jaw with reverence and put his lips on his scared eyebrow, trying to control the gigantic wave of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He draped his arms around Jack's broad shoulders and let himself go completely against him.
Soon it will be too much for them to cope and they couldn't let things come to that point so Jack poked him gently in the side and asked, his voice gravely:
"Hey, I've been wondering ever since you Obi-waned on us, how come you're supposed to be so much better than the rest of us plain flawed humans, and yet you're still shallow enough that you manage to look hot and lip-balmed, all of that ascended? Aren't you supposed to be above such preoccupations?"
"But Jack it's all for you of course, otherwise I wouldn't bother with any garment."
"Oh. Well in that case don't mind me Danny boy. Still, I can't help but ask myself: Wouldn't you say that you're interfering coming to me all fresh and pampered, like you're just mine to take?"
"Interfering? With what, the course of your sex hormones level?"
"I don't know, sounds like a pretty serious interference to me."
"Are you questioning the way of your superior lover, human?"
"Far be it from me, I'm barely… mocking?"
"You know I am just yours to take right?" Daniel felt the need to add.
Jack just kissed his chin and took his right hand to put it on his chest where the younger man could feel his slightly too fast heartbeat.
Daniel made a fist with the black tee under his hand and clenched his jaw, feeling on the verge of being drowned under the weight of their love once more.
Jack softly caught his wrist and squeezed, waiting patiently until Daniel's fist loosened.
Then he smiled at him. He smiled this sad, knowing, resolved smile and just like that, the moment was over.
Daniel smoothed the creased fabric where he had almost ripped it seconds ago and swallowed the big lump in his throat.
It felt like forcing his treacherous heart down behind the boned bars of its cage.
Hiding the gravity of the situation under the cover of their light banter was becoming more difficult with each day passing.
And on the other hand it kept them grounded, like a safeguard in the chaos of this imperious passion, reminding them that this very complicity was the core of their bond, born long before this indescribable mess.
They shared an intimacy so airtight there wasn't place for thinking about ending it. There was no beginning and no end anymore.
And when this whole philosophic circular theory made Daniel think about a specific sexual position he knew he was indeed too far into Jack O'Neill's pocket, and he had to laugh at himself, at the analogy and at the imagery conjured.
He winced comically and tried for a less difficult path of conversation.
"Hey, would you tell Carter not to bother with that McKay guy please? He may seem smart enough to be a catch for her, I understand the attraction here-"
Jack slipped a hand under his sweater and pinched the tender skin just beneath his ribs.
"You do?"
Daniel wriggled with half-convinced protest and smiled despite himself.
"Come on Jack, be serious for a second. He is promised to another pair of arms, it's very important. Arms much more… butch and… hairy if you catch my drift."
"You're so naughty Daniel, this is soooo interfering."
The young man swatted him lightly on the chest, looking as offended as he could manage.
"I will have you know, I am merely sparing her a useless heart ache!"
"Whatever. You know I absolutely revel in your devil-may-care attitude but they're going to kick you out of the cool kids group if you keep on acting like a moronic human of flesh, blood and burdens…"
He hadn't meant anything in particular by that, but the atmosphere between them grew from playful to downright serious. Again. This up and down business was getting old. The ice they were walking on during every one of their secret rendez-vous was thinning dangerously.
Daniel's first reaction was to try and disentangled himself from Jack, put some distance between him and the man who could irrevocably break him just closing his hand.
But he didn't really want to spare a single minute physically away from Jack, they were far too precious to him. And deep down he knew Jack wasn't blaming him for choosing ascension over death.
Then again, the choice was his this time… He knew Oma told him he could do good on a larger scale from where he stood now. But he also knew that every fiber of his being was being called by Jack's. He longed to wake up next to him, to see him fell asleep in front of the hockey game on a Saturday evening…
And even the knowledge that he could make a difference in the great battle to save Earth was not able to soothe that ache.
"Would that be so bad?"He asked in a voice so small he hardly recognized it as his own.
Jack stopped breathing.
"You tell me Danny."
When he looked down at Jack this time his eyes were like two pools of bottomless sorrow. Their usually sky blue had taken a shade of tormented dark grey. He seemed so distressed the Colonel couldn't stand it. He delicately framed that adored face between his hands and unhurriedly pulled it to him, until the side of his nose was touching Daniel's. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"I guess it'll come in handy. No one thinks about taping me the Simpsons when I forgot anymore. I miss that. I miss it like crazy."
"It is indeed a matter of the greatest importance" Daniel tried to joke weakly, his voice shaking.
"Cut it out. You sound like Teal'C doofus…" Jack replied affectionately, trapping the younger man's upper lip to worry it between his teeth this time.
Daniel took one of Jack's hands and put it back under his sweater, sensually and meticulously rolling out every finger on his stomach, palm right over his belly button.
He slowly stretched his own fingers over Jack's and indulged himself with a moment to just basked in the warmth spreading through his body from their joined hands.
He didn't like to think it might feel more real if he was still made of flesh and blood.
He was, technically.
For a short length of time he would cheat and borrow his former body.
But it was all deception. He didn't have a physical body anymore, it was dead, he was just volatile, inconsistent energy now, deprived of the delicious pettiness that were the five senses. All he could do was steal its remembrance and materialize a facsimile, hoping The Others would never notice. It was sad and unfair, it gave their meeting a taste of dirty urgency, as if what they were doing was wrong.
So in the end, it was wrong, and it was just a trick.
A perfectly pulled up one, granted, but a trick nonetheless; Manipulation of particles and human perception…
Was it really what their love was reduced to? Guilt and illusion?
No, he definitely didn't like to think about that at all.
Jack must have sensed his anguish for he grabbed his nape with his other hand and made Daniel meet his gaze with a stern expression.
"Now about that fucking chapstick Daniel, you do realize the stuff put me in a lot of trouble today. It's a horrible habit of yours, and plus it's girly."
Daniel snorted, all the drama of their tragic love story momentarily forgotten in yet another reprieve of an unpredictable length.
"So you keep telling yourself old man. I guess you must have been under my alien influence when you said this morning, what was it again? Let me recall the exact words… That my mouth was so soft it turned you into a god damn teenager all over again and the only thing you could think of all day was lazily making out with my annoying, charming and pompous self? Did I get it right?"
Jack grinned wolfishly and pecked the young man quickly on his still moving lips, just because he could, thus completely losing his case which had never been looking good anyway.
"Yep. Your sexy, overpowering alien influence, no doubt. Sounded strangely like me though…" Jack added falsely pensive.
"Ya think?"
They gazed at each other meaningfully. Jack traced the tiny lines at the corner of Daniel's right eye with a ghost-like touch, the tip of his fingers barely grazing the young man's skin.
They remained silent, every things known and unsaid hanging heavily in the air between them.
Daniel couldn't help sappily thinking even unspoken the love they shared was devastating.
He closed his eyes and leaned toward Jack until their foreheads touched.
He let his tongue out to moisten his lips and was almost surprised to meet Jack's first. It didn't keep him from licking. The taste was different and yet oh so familiar. A little peppery, with a touch of something sweeter. Like ginger bread maybe…
"Anyway," he murmured, "My dismissal can probably be arranged."
The Colonel tensed imperceptibly.
"Really?"
And by really he meant If you are just saying things don't bother. I can't take it. Don't break me. Don't make me ascend and virtually harass you. The semi real thing suits me, let's keep it semi simple.
"I'll just have to keep on doing as I please I suppose…"
And by that Daniel meant I won't live with myself knowing I did something selfish enough to jeopardize the safety of an entire people but I'm certainly not selfless enough to let them keep me away from you, I wouldn't survive this either.
"That's the reason why I fell in love with you in the first place. You should never have to stop."
FIN
I made it \o/ !
I think the common expression I often read while making my way through countless stories here is "feedback is love"? Well I wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy =)
Just… Be gentle.