Thanks to Nightshae for being the only one to review – you give me hope. -wink-
This is where things are gonna get a bit squickier on the slash front – you've been warned. In addition, things might be slightly out of canon in this chapter, especially in Blair's case. Again - warned.
Enjoy. And review!
Sunset came quickly, as they had spent the better part of the day getting to the site. They set up camp in the shadow of the pyramid, on the stone pavement that surrounded the structure. Blair stretched a tarp over the area and sprinkled a powdered bug repellent around the edges as Daniel pitched the tent and built a fire, protected by a makeshift fireplace created from loose stones.
After a simple dinner, Daniel and Blair set about their translations.
"The carvings on the bottom are a prayer." Blair said. "Well, a pair of prayers, really. The first is asking for blessing – bless us, our children and our fathers, our crops and animals and our land blah blah blah. The second one is all about 'protect us'. Protect us from flood, from fire, from famine and war, etcetera." He frowned, scribbling in his notebook. "I think they're directed at Ixchel and Ixtab."
Daniel cocked his head. "The Mayan goddesses of fertility and suicide? Odd combination."
"No kidding. Quechua is a derivative of ancient Incan – why are these Mayan goddesses?"
"Good question." Daniel's tone was noncommittal. Blair threw him a look.
"What have you got?"
"Well..." Daniel said slowly. "The hieroglyphs at the top are pretty simple. One line says 'For the love of Queen Hathor.' The other says 'For the glory of Queen Nephthys.'"
"The Egyptian goddesses of fertility and death," Blair breathed. "Danny, they've got to be related. This is incredible." He bit his lip as soon as he said it. Daniel didn't look excited at all – in fact, he looked worried.
"The other language?" he asked gently, not wanting to upset his friend. Daniel frowned in the general direction of his notebook.
"It looks like a big ol' compass. There's 32 symbols spaced evenly around the Eye, and I recognize four of them as north, south, east and west. My guess is the rest translate to north-northwest and the like."
Blair chewed on his pen thoughtfully. "Why would anyone put compass directions on top of a pyramid? Astronomical aides?"
"Maybe."
There was silence for a while.
After a few minutes, Daniel shut his notebook with a snap. He stood up and came over to Blair, sitting beside him and resting his arms on the younger man's shoulders. He sighed.
"I'm sorry, B. I've been a dick today," he said dolefully. Blair smiled and turned his body towards Daniel's, snuggling closer.
"It's alright, Danny. I think I sort of understand where you're coming from. Some of this is classified, isn't it?"
Daniel sighed again, relieved, and nodded. "Blair, this is a really big discovery – bigger than you know. I'm really, really glad you told me about this. But it causes some problems for me."
Blair looked at him, concerned. "How so?"
Daniel snuggled himself even closer. "Blair, I have to call my bosses. They have to know about this."
Blair sat up straighter, looking down at Daniel, who rested his head on Blair's shoulder and didn't meet his eyes. "Why?" Daniel didn't answer. Classified, Blair thought. Son of a bitch. "Daniel, this is our site."
"I know." Daniel turned his face up to look into Blair's. "Believe me, I would much rather it was just the two of us. The last thing I want is to have a bunch of military types running around. But I don't have any choice."
"Why?" Blair practically wailed.
"B, I can't tell you."
Blair huffed and fell silent, but not for long. "Can I at least stay on-site? Help you out? Danny, you don't speak Quechua."
Daniel pursed his lips, thinking.
"It would take some serious maneuvering. I could try it...you'd have to get some high-level security clearance, sign a non-disclosure form...maybe if I pulled a few strings...and pouted a lot," he mumbled. He was cut off by Blair's furious hugging.
"Thank you so much, Danny."
"Blair, don't thank me. If I do manage to get you clearance, you're probably going to wish I hadn't."
"Don't feed me that 'ignorance is bliss' crap, Dannyboy. I've been working as a cop for the past three years." Blair snorted. "I've probably been in more scrapes in the past few years than you have your entire life. I can handle it." Danny pulled back to look him in the eye.
"You asked about my scars, Blair?"
He let the implication hang as Blair searched his face, laughter gone.
"Blair," Daniel said as an idea occurred to him. "Do you really want to become a police officer?"
Blair cocked his head, considering how to answer the non-sequitor . "Not for police work itself, I guess. I have a life with Major Crimes – people who like and respect me, a partner I trust. Since a career in anthropology is out, I guess it was really my only option."
"What if I could get you another job?"
Blair stared at him in shock. "You mean...work with you? For the military?"
Daniel grimaced to himself. He'd forgotten about Blair's decidedly anti-establishment upbringing. He tried a different tack. Now that he had the idea in his head, he wasn't about to let it go very easily.
"Blair, what I do...It's an anthropologists dream. I swear," he added at Blair's skeptical look, "there have been so many times when I would think, 'I wish B were here to help me figure this out' or 'B would love this'."
Blair looked like he was genuinely considering it, and Daniel looked at him hopefully. Blair met his eyes, but then shook his head.
"I can't leave Jim," he said softly. "He needs me."
Daniel's lips twitched. "Because you're his Guide."
Blair nodded, and Daniel let his smirk show. Caught.
Blair must have realized it immediately, because he looked up with horror all over his face. Daniel gentled his smirk into a small, reassuring smile.
"Blair, it's alright. I'm not going to tell the world."
"D, it only takes one! If you could figure it out so easily, who's to say no one else will? Damn it, I gave up my career to protect him! I can't fuck it up now."
"That's the real reason you're joining the Force, isn't it?" Daniel asked gently. Blair nodded unhappily.
"Jim really does need me. I've been his unofficial partner for years, and after the press conference, it seemed like the only thing to do."
"He's lucky to have you." Daniel said with certainty. Blair snorted.
"Heh, ya right. Sometimes I wonder if he would have been better off if I had never stumbled into his life."
"Blair, don't say that," Daniel said quickly. "You're his Guide. Like you said, he needs you."
"Yeah, you're right. He needs me, whether he wants me or not."
Something in the way he said it made Daniel look closer.
"Blair...he appreciates what you do for him, doesn't he?"
Blair's silence gave Daniel the answer he needed. "That sonofabitch," Daniel breathed. "What did he do?"
Blair shook his head, his curly hair flying wildly about his face. "He didn't do anything. It's what he hasn't been doing..." He stopped.
Daniel frowned, reaching up to rub Blair's back reassuringly. "Tell me."
Blair bit his lip, as if trying to hold the words back. That didn't last long – he stared into Daniel's crystal blue eyes and the dam broke. He found himself pouring out the emotion he'd kept repressed for months.
"Danny, I died. Jim brought me back. He used our spirit guides – the wolf and the jaguar – and he brought me back from the dead. That's how close we used to be. But he shattered that right after. He – he – oh, Danny, I found him making out with the woman who'd killed me." Daniel sucked in a shocked breath. Blair continued as if he couldn't stop. "I realized, later, that it had been a Sentinel thing, that he hadn't really been in control, but it hurt so much, and I didn't realize until right then that I loved him, and I could never, ever be with him. Then he had the nerve to say that I'd betrayed him even though I had no idea she was going to turn out to be psycho – she was just another Sentinel who needed Guiding and Danny she killed me and he kissed her!"
Blair stopped to take a few breaths and Daniel numbly realized that somehow Blair had migrated into his arms. Blair was close to tears, and Daniel was stroking his hair and rocking, silent, waiting for Blair to start again. He didn't have to wait long.
"I thought we'd gotten all of that behind us, but nothing was really right after that. Then Naomi sent my diss to the publishers and Jim accused me of betraying him. Made it seem like I cared more about money and fame than him. That's why I had to do the press conference, I had to prove to him how much he meant. How much I would do for him. And then I decided to join the force. But Danny, it's not the same, he doesn't treat me like an equal, he doesn't trust me to watch his back anymore. I hate it more than anything but I have to stay with him because he needs me and I need him. I'm trapped, Danny, I'm trapped..." and at that Blair fell into sobs, the deep, wracking kind that signaled years of not letting oneself cry. Danny held him and rocked some more, whispering soothing words and digesting the information.
Something here didn't ring true. From what Blair's research had implied, a Sentinel's Guide was his most trusted friend. From what Daniel had been able to gather, there wasn't much that could drive them apart for long; they always seemed to find one another again. On top of that, many of the older texts had described the Sentinel-Guide relationship as a sexual one, a life-mate, someone who knew the other from the inside out.
Daniel thought hard about the situation Blair had described. It seemed Jim had started to push Blair away after he had died. He'd seen similar behavior before, at the SGC. Not on SG1 – they all knew each other too well for that – but on other teams. Lieutenant Meyers of SG4 had gotten mortally wounded on a mission, and Sam had brought her back from the brink of death with the Goa'uld healing device. On subsequent missions she had reported Major Lincoln deliberately keeping her out of combat situations. She'd thought he didn't trust her anymore, since she'd been careless enough to get injured. An analysis by Mackenzie had revealed that Lincoln had harbored feelings for his subordinate, and was keeping her out of action for his own peace of mind. Daniel couldn't help but wonder if that was the case here.
Looking down, Daniel realized Blair had cried himself to sleep in his lap. He continued to stroke the younger man's head, his eyes habitually scanning the immediate area for threats as he let his mind wander.
Lincoln had been removed from command. It was a warning Jack had taken very seriously, squashing his feelings for Sam. Daniel knew how hard that had been for him. It had been even harder for Sam, who didn't have anyone to go to. Jack did, not that anyone but SG1 needed to know that.
Daniel's nights with Jack were few and far between. It had started right after the second Abydos mission. Jack had taken him home, gotten him drunk, and learned more than he ever intended to about mating customs on Abydos.
Learning that Daniel was bisexual hadn't shocked the Colonel. Learning that Sha're had known, and even encouraged, his random trysts with men had. It was not uncommon for Abadonian men to find release with each other, as the women were expected to remain virgins until they married and completely monogamous after that. It wasn't healthy for a woman to be constantly pregnant, and there was no contraception, so men only lay with their wives in the traditional sense when they were attempting to have children. Daniel had just gotten to that point a month or two before Jack's arrival; it had taken him that long to get settled to the point where he was comfortable raising a family.
Learning that Daniel had been with Skaara had completely thrown Jack for a loop. He'd done a passable imitation of a fish for several minutes after Daniel had drunkenly dropped that bomb. Once he'd gotten over his initial shock, he was all curiosity, and Daniel had found himself telling Jack everything, in great detail. As he'd suspected, Jack wasn't so much homosexual or heterosexual or even bisexual as he was just sexual. Jack had an appreciation for beauty that went beyond gender, and there was no doubt that Skaara was beautiful. Daniel had found that speaking of Skaara that way had helped him to deal with his infestation. And Jack wanted to know everything.
Talk led to demonstration and the next morning he had awoken wrapped around the Colonel.
They never spoke of their relationship, not even outside the base. It was an unspoken agreement. When the going got rough, when they'd suffered a bad scare, when one or the other or someone they loved had been pulled from the edge of death, they'd give each other a look, and once out of surveillance, would find themselves in each other's arms.
Sam and Teal'c knew. They had no choice – Urgo had been curious, and with his access to their minds and his influence he'd unwittingly let them in on the secret when he'd coerced Daniel and Jack into sex in the team's private locker room. Sam accepted it with good grace, never speaking or even alluding to it. Teal'c went beyond acceptance into approval, his warrior training lending him an understanding of the unique bond Daniel and Jack shared. Daniel suspected the Jaffa had had a similar partner at least once in his past.
Daniel knew that some day, he would step aside for Sam, the day she and Jack were able to act on the obvious love they shared. Until then, he'd be there for all of them. For Teal'c when he needed someone who understood his cultural background. For Sam when she needed chocolate or booze or a shoulder to cry on. For Jack, when he needed a night vegging in front of the TV with pizza and beer or a night of wild sex. They were a family, and he knew any one of them would – and had – do the same for him.
Blair shifted in his arms, bringing Daniel back to the present. He studied the young Guide's face, which was finally relaxed in sleep, the tears dried into streaks down his cheeks.
He'd loved Blair once. Really, truly loved him, in every sense of the word. And he knew that Blair had reciprocated. The two years they had spent together had been some of the best of his life – when they were both young and full of enthusiasm for the work they were determined to do. That was before life had hit them both full in the face.
The Blair he held now was no less loved, but that love had turned another way. The dream last night had cemented it in his mind. He and Blair were packmates – physically closer than brothers, emotionally closer than lovers. They were so much alike.
But it had been too long, and they had changed too much. They could never go back to the physical relationship they had shared a decade ago. Not that Daniel wasn't willing to try, of course. Maybe a one night stand was what Blair needed?
Daniel looked up sharply, willing his eyes to focus. There had been movement outside the camp.
When his eyes got used to the darkness outside the range of the fire, he spotted it. A black jaguar. What's more, a black jaguar with blue eyes.
Jaguars did not have blue eyes.
Those haunting blue eyes studied his deliberately. Daniel focused his own on them, unwilling to back down, even as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Something weird was going on here.
Suddenly he realized what was going on. Blair had said Jim's spirit guide was a jaguar, hadn't he? He knew exactly what a spirit guide was...somewhere in his mind. He knew he did. In any case, he knew instinctively that this jaguar represented the consciousness of a man far away – namely, one Jim Ellison.
"Sentinel." he said quietly, knowing the animal would hear him. The jaguar lifted one side of its muzzle disdainfully, baring a single fang. Daniel smirked. If he needed any confirmation, that was it.
"Listen here, you dick." The fang slid out of view. The animal looked...confused? Hah. A silly look for a jaguar. "You have no idea what you're doing to him. You're ripping him apart. You need him, he needs you, get used to it." He gave the animal his best stern 'I-mean-it' look. "I don't want to watch him cry himself to sleep ever again."
The man in question shifted slightly. Daniel looked down for a moment, reassuring himself that his friend was still asleep. When he looked up again, the jaguar was gone. In its place, a hawk sat in a tree, regarding him coolly. He didn't have time to say a thing before the hawk took off with a cry. Daniel watched it, realizing it was circling overhead.
Feeling somehow safer, Daniel laid back on Blair's bedroll, arranging the still-sleeping man on top of him. He'd figure the rest out in the morning.