Highwayman Series 2
A Midnight Assignation
by Berty
URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asb/berty/highwb02.php
Summary: After a dark, windy walk across the moor, Dr Jackson has only a cold, lonely bed to welcome him. Jack O'Neill, highwayman and all-round cad knows just the thing to cheer Daniel up.
Info: For Pepe. With Love.
Dr Daniel Jackson stared at his reflection in the mirror. By the light of his single candle he looked confused, his face almost unrecognisable to himself. How many times had he looked at his image like this? It must have been a thousand times and more, so how could he now not recognise the man who stared back at him?
Once again Daniel's eyes strayed to the dresser and to the pocket watch that sat there. It was a fine instrument, its detail and craftsmanship obvious to the most ill educated observer. The gold glimmered faintly in the low light, mocking him and baffling him still further.
It wasn't his.
It belonged to a man Daniel had met earlier that night under the most inauspicious of circumstances. A man who had seduced him, then ridden off into the dark leaving Daniel to walk the two and a half miles to the nearest village. Daniel had made it to the inn with only minutes to spare before the landlord closed up. He'd been offered a bed for the night and he'd taken out his purse to pay. But inside the soft leather pouch he'd found, alongside his own money, this beautiful pocket watch.
Jack's watch.
He didn't know if that was really his name or some figment, designed to protect the man's identity. Nor did he understand the gesture. Why would a thief take Daniel's outmoded timepiece and replace it with one of greater worth? It made no sense. But then, nothing had made sense that evening. Ever since he'd stepped aboard the coach to take him home as the first rumbles of thunder had growled, his life had become some surreal burlesque. Perhaps that was why he didn't recognise the man in the mirror - it wasn't really him, merely a part he was playing.
An owl shrieked from outside, interrupting Daniel's wandering thoughts and making him realise that he was bitterly cold sitting in just his shirt. He stood, stretched and walked to the bed. The room was simple and small but cheap, clean and adequate for his needs. Daniel extinguished the candle and slipped between the cool covers, curling on his side into a ball until the chill came off the sheets.
The inn was silent now, within and without. The storm had moved on and only the sounds of the building settling and the gusting wind broke the stillness.
Daniel cursed himself for his unquiet mind and tried to calm himself sufficiently to rest. This was not so simply accomplished. With his eyes open, he pondered Jack's gift and puzzled over the man's actions that evening - and his own acquiescence. But with his eyes closed, Daniel recalled the sensations he'd experienced, remembered each feeling, each touch as if storing them up against a lifetime of solitude to come. Finally, with thoughts of Jack's mouth, he began to drift, slipping into the comfortable lassitude between sleeping and waking, his body humming comfortably with the memory of sweet kisses.
The sound, when it came, was soft; so soft that Daniel didn't react at first. He wrote its irregular cadence down to some trick of the wind and opted to stay perched on the edge of dreams. When it became more insistent however, he roused himself and listened. The wind still whistled and murmured around the building, but the tapping bore no relation to the ebbs and flows of the night breeze.
Daniel threw off the covers and flinched as his feet touched the cold, wooden floorboards. He shuffled the few steps to the window and opened the shutters. The clouds still raced across the sky, shredding the starlight and making the little light there was brittle and insubstantial. Daniel squinted out into the square courtyard, watching for a clue to the uneven rhythm he'd heard.
As he watched, a dark shadow in a sheltered corner beneath his window shifted and resolved itself the shape of a man. He stepped further into the yard, clearer now outlined against the slivery reflection of the wet cobbles.
Jack - his coat tugging fitfully around him as the wind blew.
For the longest time they stared at one another, an entire conversation in the silence. Daniel felt paralysed by the conflicting beliefs his mind provided - he had no idea why Jack had followed him, and yet he knew it with a certainty that was undeniable. It was as if his head and his body were things utterly unrelated. His rational mind had no comparison on which to form a reason for the man's behaviour, but Daniel's body had recognised the pull of Jack's, and even now craved his touch.
With aching slowness, Daniel fumbled with the window fastenings and held on to the frame as he finally pushed it open, waiting for the wind to snatch it from his fingers. He looked along the outside wall, noting the few other windows that overlooked the courtyard, then back down at Jack.
Very deliberately Jack nodded in understanding, then disappeared into the shadows of the long porch beneath Daniel's window.
If Daniel hadn't been listening for it, he'd never have distinguished the sounds of Jack's climb over the wind and the natural noises of the inn. He leaned out, trying to gauge Jack's progress, but only caught glimpses of a dark shape, intermittently lit by the fitful moon. It seemed to take an age before Jack's hand caught the sill and he clambered in.
Daniel quickly stepped around him and sealed the small window, before turning to face Jack.
"Dr. Jackson," Jack murmured quietly in deference to the hour and the sleeping patrons. He inclined his head politely.
Daniel found himself stifling a laugh at the ridiculousness of their meeting. He himself stood shivering in only his shirt, and Jack was fully dressed, including his hat and his gloves, the coldness of the night outside and the scent of damp leaves and storm winds rolling off him like an invisible mist. And now they were exchanging polite greeting as if this were a smart salon in London or Bath.
"I see you found The Crown. I trust you're finding it comfortable." Jack made a slow, exaggerated show of inspecting Daniel's plain room.
"I suspect you're accustomed to better," Daniel replied in a loud whisper, wondering what it was about this man that made him feel defiant. There was definitely something about his manner that brought out the sarcasm Daniel habitually kept hidden.
Jack laughed softly, a slightly unsettling sound that had nothing to do with amusement. "At one time, perhaps," he said and pulled off his hat. "So, I believe you have something of mine."
Daniel didn't miss the calculated change of topic, or the blatantly appraising way Jack's eyes slid from his head to his toes. He stiffened, realising belatedly that he should have pulled on his breeches at the very least. Everything about his behaviour around Jack was uncharacteristic, from his unusually sharp tongue and scattered wits to the display of wantonness in the coach earlier that night. The thud his heart gave at the memory of that betrayed how very affected he'd been by the act, and he was in no position to pretend that it was shame that he felt - not with the man in question within reaching distance, and himself in a state of undress.
Daniel pulled himself together as far as he could and walked the few steps to the dresser. The pocket watch was cold in his hand as he picked it up and offered it to Jack. "I hope you still have mine to return the favour."
Jack looked at the gold timepiece, its lustre muted in the moonlight, without interest. "That's not what I came for," he stated flatly.
Daniel blinked and tried to make out more of the man's expression, looking for some clue as to what was expected of him. "I don't understand," he admitted.
Jack pulled off his gloves, put them aside with his hat, and blew into his cupped hands. "Oh come, Dr. Jackson, let's not beat about the bush. I hardly think it's something you'd forget."
Daniel fought the blush that tried to creep up his neck, glad for the first time that it was so damnably dark in his room. Was the man being deliberately insulting or was he hoping to provoke Daniel into a repeat of their earlier madness?
Jack regarded him calmly, that assured smirk plainly visible on his face. When Daniel opened his mouth to reply, closed it, then opened it again - all without uttering a single sound, Jack leaned slowly forward to put his lips beside Daniel's ear. Daniel shivered as the chill of Jack's skin rested only a hair's breadth from his own.
"My pistol, Daniel," he breathed warmly into Daniel's hair.
Embarrassment and desire twisted in Daniel's gut as Jack leaned back smiling. He'd forgotten about the small silver pistol Jack had given him for his walk across the moors. And this was the first time Jack had used his Christian name - without being invited to do so, Daniel noted - in the same over-familiar manner he'd kissed Daniel in the first place. When was he going to cease to be surprised by anything the highwayman did? And why did he even think that Jack would play by the same rules as everyone else?
Feeling foolish, he walked quickly across the room to where his clothes had been neatly folded for the morning, and searched through his coat pocket until he found the cold metal handle of the tiny pistol.
"Thank you," Jack murmured when Daniel dropped the thing into his hands.
"Was that all? Because I've had a rather trying day and I'm getting frozen to the bone while you're retrieving your personal effects." Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and concentrated on looking as disgruntled as a man who was whispering and without his drawers on could look.
The expression on Jack's face was both amused and thoughtful, Daniel thought, although it was difficult to be sure. "Should I bid you goodnight then?" he asked softly, making no move to pick up his hat.
The little room seemed to shrink even further. Daniel was acutely aware of Jack's personality filling the available space - confident, provocative and intensely masculine. Despite the cold, despite the late hour and regardless of the fact that he knew Jack to be a fugitive from the law, Daniel felt his heart rate increase and the prickle of awareness and arousal scrape down his spine. He'd never before recognised in himself a tendency to daredevil stunts or a love of danger, and it rocked him a little to think that tonight's unusual encounter may have cracked open a part of him that might not be so easily closed off again.
Daniel's experience of earthly pleasures was relatively limited - a situation he'd never really bothered about sufficiently to remedy. He knew that, as a country physician, it would seem a little strange to not take a wife at some point, but that point had been easily and repeatedly postponed due to the passion and effort he poured into his learning and his work. In the meantime, he was a practical man, and he knew how to take care of the occasional demands of his body. To find himself now, reacting so obviously to Jack's unsubtle attraction was surprising, and made him wonder if his previous disinterest in the joys of the flesh had more to do with some latent gender requirement than with opportunity. It was something he would have to consider at length when leisure allowed.
For now, Jack was closing the space between them, carefully and slowly. The floorboards squeaked beneath his boots, but he didn't seem perturbed.
Daniel inhaled the scent of wet grass, sweat and leather greedily, his mind instantly making the connection between the smell of Jack and sex. He hardened quickly beneath his linen shirt, a single, delicious point of heat on his chilled body.
"You're not going to bid me goodnight, Daniel?" Jack tipped his head and lifted his eyebrows, his smile becoming broader the more discomfited Daniel became.
Daniel lifted his chin and met Jack's insolent eyes. "What would you have me say?"
"Well, I have to admit that I have a certain reluctance in leaving. The wind is frigid tonight, and my horse is tired. I cannot help but wonder how much more comfortable it would be to rest somewhere warm and safe for an hour or two."
"Comfortable?" Daniel asked archly.
"Pleasant."
"Pleasant?"
"Desirable," Jack clarified, licking his lips and allowing his eyes to stray from Daniel's face to his chest and lower.
Daniel was under no illusions about Jack's intent this time, and although his heart was hammering insanely within him, he resolved to show no fear or hesitation. "I see," he said slowly. He tipped his own head to match Jack's rather theatrical pensive look, then lifted his hands to his collar and began to undo the buttons on his shirt.
When he was half way down, he dared a peek at Jack's expression of intent concentration, his eyes following the deliberate exaggeration of Daniel's fingers. With his hands beginning to tremble and a corner of his mind approaching a fugue state at his shameless behaviour, Daniel stepped away from Jack and walked around to his bed.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he paused to pull the garment over his head, dropped it beside the bed and climbed in between the icy cold sheets.
Unnervingly, Jack hadn't moved, although he had turned his head to follow Daniel's progress. As he lay there, trying not to shiver, Daniel had never felt more uncertain in his life - he had expected Jack to take the lead once he had shown that his own desires matched Jack's. He had anticipated being kissed as he unfastened buttons, being dragged from his clothing and tumbled to the bed - he ached for the sensation of that rough, hungry touch. He didn't know what the next move was - and he had no words to instigate it that didn't sound faintly ridiculous. To be honest, faintly ridiculous was exactly how he was feeling.
"You have not answered my question, sir," Jack said, his teasing voice curling around Daniel's skin like the caress he was craving.
"You will do as you wish regardless of my response, I'm sure," Daniel answered stiffly.
"Not in matters such as this, Daniel," Jack murmured, stepping closer to the bed. For the first time, Daniel could see a flicker of uncertainty in Jack's behaviour. "You don't know me. I would not have presumed earlier tonight, if you had not shown willing."
Daniel could not help but take exception to that. "Willing? Sir, you held a pistol to my head and demanded a kiss."
"And then I hope I made it very clear that any further favours you bestowed on me were yours to give or withhold as you wished." Jack straightened and took the last two strides that brought him to Daniel's bedside. "I am many things, Daniel, and not many of them honourable, but for all my sins, I am not a man who would force his desires on one unwilling."
Daniel's patience with this uncomfortable preliminary was at an end. "And have my actions thus far persuaded you that I am anything but willing?"
Jack smiled, his teeth an unexpected lightness in the shadow of Daniel's room. "Happily, they have not, but I would have you say the words regardless."
Daniel lay back in his pillow and turned his head so his expression and meaning was fixed on Jack without room for misinterpretation. "Then I will not bid you goodnight, Jack. Not yet."
Jack made shorter work of his layers of clothing than Daniel had with his simple shirt. Daniel wished for a candle to see better by and a warmer night, that Jack should not have to rush as he did. His glimpse of Jack, cast in moonlight was tantalisingly short - enough only to see that the man was spare and with a fine covering of dark hair on his thighs, his chest and his belly. Of his sex, Daniel could see nothing but shadow.
The bed dipped as Jack slipped beneath the sheets, letting in a blast of cold air. He rearranged the blankets and the comforter, then settled at Daniel's side, rolled to face him.
Daniel resolutely stared at the ceiling, his body alight to the sensation of Jack's skin, warm at his belly and icy at his feet. He held himself rigid, shocked beyond anything he'd imagined at the soft prickle of the hairs on Jack's shin against his knee.
"Oh, Daniel," Jack said softly after a few minutes had passed without comment or action on either side. "You have never in your life done such a thing as this, have you?"
He had been a fool to believe that he could have had Jack think him anything but a novice in such matters. Of course it must be painfully obvious to a man such as Jack that Daniel had no idea of what he was doing. Rendered stupid by the surprising feelings of desire, Daniel had assumed that Jack would once again take the lead and reveal to Daniel what pleasures two men were capable of sharing. Instead Jack had inconveniently discovered his most understanding nature, and had allowed Daniel to explore at his own pace. Which could only be measured in numbers of nought or less.
With a rush of embarrassment that made him almost dizzy, Daniel sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. "I'm sorry... I'm not... This isn't something..."
The touch of Jack's hand against his bare skin made Daniel suck in a sharp breath. Jack's fingers were surprisingly warm already as they curled around the curve of his hip, his thumb rubbing soothing circles.
"It was not meant as a criticism. On the contrary, I find it deeply touching that you are prepared to trust me in this way. I just need to know what it is you want."
Daniel's face flamed and he closed his eyes against the rush of images that assailed him. How could he not have known that he was capable of such wanton thoughts and such base desires until tonight? Where could such imaginings as these have hidden all these years? Just the idea of Jack's hands on him, Jack's mouth swallowing him in or... God help him... Jack's cock...
He couldn't speak. His body was a thing apart from him, so hard and wanting and needy. Such desires he had, such powerful feelings, and yet putting the same into words was an impossibility for him.
Jack's hand slid slowly up Daniel's side, taking time to fit itself around every swell of muscle or angle of bone. Daniel felt the bed dip and creak behind him, and then the warm gust of air on his shoulder before Jack's cool lips brushed a kiss there.
Daniel swallowed the moan that welled up in his chest and rolled his neck which Jack correctly interpreted as an invitation to further kisses.
"Can I trust you?" Jack whispered, his mouth leaving a tingling trail across Daniel's shoulders and back.
"T...trust you?" Daniel asked, his voice having become deeper and more broken than he had ever known it to be.
"Yes. You will tell me if our... pastime displease you? If you are discomforted..."
"Yes, yes. I will tell you," Daniel agreed, his mind on the slow, circuitous path that Jack's hand was taking around his hip and onto his belly.
"Promise me."
"I promise," Daniel gasped as Jack spread his palm into the sparse hair on his lower abdomen, inching lower and lower to where Daniel's body most needed his touch.
Suddenly the hand was withdrawn and Jack was turning him, pushing him back to the bed and covering him with his body. Jack's mouth was wet and warm now, demanding that Daniel surrender control. Daniel was happy to comply, opening his lips to Jack's tongue and giving up his own mouth as sweetly as he knew how.
Jack was hairy - hairier than Daniel - and the subtle scratch of his body pressed against Daniel's was a thing of wonder. He was lean and hard, and Daniel squirmed, trying to press more of himself against that delicious sensation. His dick was trapped against Jack's thigh which set up shivery explosions of need through every nerve in his body.
Daniel's mind was adrift on Jack's tide, but his hands seemed to instinctively know that he had to hang on, that he could touch, and that he could make this even better. Without hesitation, he sank one hand into Jack's hair and settled the other on Jack's cool, slightly hairy arse, pulling him in closer.
Jack grunted into the kiss, pulling back with a short barked laugh that assured Daniel that he hadn't done something wrong, merely something unexpected.
"You learn very fast," Jack said, somewhat breathlessly.
Although Jack's comments were gratifying, Daniel had no time for idle conversation. If Jack was talking, he wasn't kissing or sucking, which seemed a terrible waste to Daniel. With his hand anchored in the hair at the nape of Jack's neck, he pulled him down hard, feeling the flare of heat where their mouths came together with a bruising intensity.
Jack's arse was a thing of beauty, and Daniel once again cursed his luck that he should have met Jack on such a dark, cold night where he had not the opportunity to see what his fingers were mapping - tight muscle, short, soft hairs and smooth skin. Each cheek of his behind was a handful in itself, and the intimate pathway that ran between was warm and enticing.
Jack murmured encouragement to Daniel, unintelligible words that he felt as a quiet rumble through Jack's chest. Fumbling a hand between them, Jack's fingers ghosted over Daniel's cock before grasping at his thigh, pushing and pinching until he had parted Daniel's legs and rolled himself to lay within the cradle of Daniel's hips.
This time Daniel could not stifle the moan. Jack was a genius. If rutting against Jack's thigh had been pleasure, feeling his dick snugged up alongside Jack's was beyond compare. With each roll of Jack's hips, with each pull of the muscles in his arse, he pressed their groins together, sparking waves of sensation that threatened to undo Daniel.
Jack's pace was even and relentless, each slide of skin dragging whispers of pleasure from Daniel's lips as he rose closer and closer to his peak. Jack's breath became ragged, his hips stuttering in shorter, shallower thrusts now, disrupting the flow of Daniel's pleasure. With a growl, Daniel hooked a leg around Jack's thigh, pulling him in, straining up into Jack's rhythm. The sudden flood of heat between them and the new slipperiness told Daniel that Jack was replete even before Jack's grateful, muffled groans. Daniel was too close for Jack to stop now, and with a grunt, he pulled Jack tighter still. "Jack," he pleaded.
Jack kissed him sloppily and rolled to the side. "I have you," he muttered. He took Daniel in hand, his fingers slicked with his own seed, and rubbed a rough thumb around the crown of Daniel's cock with such possessive confidence that Daniel found himself convulsing, spilling in long intense pulses that stole his breath and his sense.
~~::~~::~~
The chill of the air awoke Daniel when Jack rose, disturbing the blankets.
"What is it?" Daniel asked, roused from warm, contented dreams.
"I should go," Jack murmured, moving quietly around the room, searching for his clothing.
Daniel's feelings of sleepy happiness evaporated instantly, and he sat up slowly, the coldness of the air barely cooler than the chill in his gut. He watched as Jack picked up and discarded items of clothing, putting on his breeches and shirt, then bending to pull on his boots.
Jack straightened and paused when he caught sight of Daniel, huddled miserably in the middle of the bed. He said nothing but never took his eyes off Daniel as he pulled on his coat and moved to the window.
Daniel could see little more than Jack's silhouette against the most tentative lightening of the sky. Of course, this part of the affair was the only part Daniel knew was truly inevitable. Jack was leaving; going off to do whatever it was he did when he wasn't robbing coaches or seducing innocents.
"Why do you do this?"
Daniel was as surprised as Jack if his sudden intake of breath was anything to go by. Daniel hadn't meant to say that. He hadn't meant to say anything at all, not trusting himself to utter lest he made even more of a fool of himself than the morning had already found him to be.
"This?" Jack asked, and Daniel already knew the smirk that accompanied that tone.
"This life of theft and hiding and lies?"
Jack seemed to consider Daniel's question for a long time while he pulled on his gloves. Daniel thought that he wasn't going to get an answer, so silent was his erstwhile bed-partner.
Finally, Jack stepped quickly back to the bed and stroked Daniel's hair with his gloved hand. "That is a very long story," he said, then grinned, "but a good one." He leaned down and Daniel wanted to turn his head away to deny this final kiss, but his body failed him, and he leaned up eagerly into Jack's mouth, telling himself he was an idiot even as he did it.
"Thank you. And don't travel by night, Dr. Jackson. Keep... keep safe," Jack whispered against Daniel's lips. Then with a squeak of a floorboard and a rush of frigid air, he was gone.
Daniel pushed off the covers and walked to the window. He closed it, leaning against the glass to try to catch sight of Jack, but the shadows were too deep and the highwayman too skilled. A dog barked in the distance, a lonely, sad sound that made him shiver, so Daniel went back to his bed, searching for some of the warmth that had been there in abundance so recently.
He still hadn't found a shred of it by the time the cocks began to crow the sun into the sky.
Fin
