Waking Up Nicely

by Berty

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asb/berty/wakingup.php
Summary: "The ninth night, I slept fully clothed, on top of his quilt. Daniel is a smart guy; he never said a word - no quick movements, nothing to scare me off - just a soft "Hey" when he woke. Then he stretched, got up and put on coffee. Like I said, Daniel is smart."

"We're going to have to discuss this at some point, you know," he murmurs.

"I'm happy not to," I offer helpfully.

I don't open my eyes - can't - it's too dangerous.

I know that if I open my eyes, I'll see his; that piercing blue stare that I think might just have a direct line to my soul. And that's just...unnerving. To have a genius nose to nose with you, sharing the bed, your breath and knowing everything about you; it's just not right.

Besides, it's nice here; I don't want to spoil it with a conversation that I know I'm going to suck at. Even through closed eyes, I can tell it's early; too early to talk. There's no noise coming from the street and only the palest morning light filtering through my eyelids. My bliss soaked brain even manages to dredge up that we're both off today, so I do the only sensible thing I can do, and pretend to fall back asleep.

It would be so easy; it's warm in here and it smells good...of him and me and...coffee? Huh! Well, I guess it must make up a sizeable chunk of his physiology by now. Janet has tried to explain to him that coffee is not one of the basic food groups...only time I've ever seen her back-down, although I wouldn't have wanted that glare directed at me either.

Yep, it would be heaven just to drift back to sleep; his arm under my neck, mine under his waist...probably completely bloodless by now as I haven't been able to feel anything from those fingers in a good thirty minutes. But it's a small price to pay - one arm for the chance to be this close to Dr. Daniel Jackson. In his bed, no less. In something close to heaven, I breathe in his warm breath and my skin soaks up his heat like a desert welcoming rain.

Except...he's looking at me. I know he is, I don't need eyes to feel that intelligent scrutiny.

He wants to talk; something that he finds so easy and enlightening, and that I find so impossible and frustrating. I guess I owe him really, but I know he knows already what I am going to do my pathetic best to explain. He knows me and, let's face it, I'm not so complex. I'm sure he thinks it would be good for me to actually say the words, so I understand it myself...this thing...this...thing...we have between us.

He knew I had feelings for him before I did; he's that smart. It all came to the boil after the NID incident, when I'd been forced to tell Daniel that he meant nothing to me. Afterwards I'd taken him to one side to explain, quietly and succinctly that if he ever believed that I could do something like that to him again, I would kick his ass. He'd just looked at me and smiled.

"Why?" he'd asked, his eyes expectant and hopeful.

"You know why," I'd replied sullenly.

"Yes, but do you??"

And I did - I finally did.

I knew that Daniel was the missing part of my life, the reason I did what I did, the cream in my coffee, the icing on my cake, and every other damn cheesy song lyric I've ever heard. And it took me long enough to realise it.

Months of ignoring my feelings for him had made me a little inconsistent around him. I'd veer from hugging him and taking him home to feed him, to shouting him down and ignoring him totally. I couldn't explain it, even to myself. Why Daniel put up with it, I will never know - I was an ass, and he's never hesitated to tell me so before. But he stuck around.

So when it dawned on me, at last, that I was in love with the guy, I suddenly knew why he bugged the hell out of me and why I couldn't get enough of him.

I also knew there was no way we could be together.

Several weeks of a tension you could have measured with one of Carter's doohickies culminated in me getting utterly shitfaced and cabbing it over to Daniel's place to tell him all the embarrassing poetic crap that I deny with every sober breath.

Then, through my drunken haze, I watched his face as I told him that despite how much I felt for him, the SGC and Earth had to come first. I saw those happy, shining blue eyes dim as he understood the choice I had made. You see miraculously, and worryingly for a genius, he'd said he loved me as soon as I'd started speaking.

I guess, on some level, I must have known Daniel loved me. But it didn't mean I could say it back to him.

When I'd finished ineptly explaining myself, I kissed him, just once - the sweetest, softest kiss that quickly became the hottest most desperate kiss I'd ever known. Then I walked away...well staggered really...and I think I may have taken out some of his rocks on my way by.

Next morning it was business as usual...other than the slight hangover. Daniel is a grown-up and I can do that too, when I have to. And if my eyes lingered on his face a little longer than was strictly necessary, if his voice softened a little when we spoke, no one noticed. Except us.

I have this ability to compartmentalize my life - it's how I got to Colonel. I don't let life stuff and work stuff get in the way of each other...well, not often.

So we continued our merry jaunt through the unsuspecting universe. We never discussed it again, he never alluded to it: only the occasional glance or touch ever gave away that it had ever happened. It's what makes SG-1 the team we are - the professionalism, the belief in what we do. This job has no second chances; we screw up - game over. I can't afford distraction. That's why I thought the team always had to come first.

Until now.

It's been ten minutes; he has to be asleep by now. I crack open my eyes and am instantly pinned by that endless summer sky gaze - I swear I could just float away into all that blue. It's the same blue as when you punch through cloud cover, dazzling and breath taking. It's the same blue as when you're right on the edge of space, when Earth is just a distant, indistinct smudge below, and the stars are just starting to show above.

And there we go again with the poetic crap - I really need to work on keeping that suppressed.

But no, he's wide-awake and waiting. If I kiss him now, I might get away with one more day, but the gaze will just be there tomorrow and every other morning when I've sneaked into his bed during the night.

Playing to my strengths, I'd call it if he asked, but he never does. And I know it's just cowardice. I only ever come really late and he's always asleep already. Sometimes he wakes and reaches for me. Other times I manage to crawl in without disturbing him and I ease my body against his so slowly and settle my lips against the skin of his back where it's softest, and drift off to sleep pretending I live in a world where this is okay.

He searches my face for a moment, willing me to speak, hoping I'll crack and tell him what this is.

You know that I would, if only I knew how.

He sighs silently, I feel it rather than hear it. And I can't blame him. How long has it been now? Three months? Four? I kid myself that I don't know exactly how many times I have slept here. I do know.

For Daniel, it must have felt a bit like gaining the trust of a stray mongrel. The first night, I slept on his couch, and the second and the third. On the fourth night I slept on the floor by his bed. His eyes, the next morning had registered brief surprise to find me there - even more so than that first night I snuck into his apartment.

The ninth night, I slept fully clothed, on top of his quilt. Daniel is a smart guy; he never said a word - no quick movements, nothing to scare me off - just a soft "Hey" when he woke. Then he stretched, got up and put on coffee. Like I said, Daniel is smart.

It took me seventeen visits to get into bed with him - not every consecutive night, you understand. Not even every night we were on Earth - only on the nights where I couldn't stop myself drifting to his place, pretending to drive somewhere else, but somehow always ending up here.

And it was twenty-six nights until I got undressed before I got into bed. Thirty-three nights until I touched him. Forty-eight nights before we got to here - sleeping in each other's arms.

So, yeah. I owe him.

He never pushes, he never asks. He just looks at me, like he is right now; waiting, giving me the opportunity to do the right thing, just in case today I grow a pair of balls and tell him what the fuck I am doing here.

But he's only human. I can feel how very human he is against my thigh and it's not the first time. I inadvertently brushed against his rigid cock on the fourth night of naked and he'd frozen - thinking he'd made some terrible error by getting hard because I was in his bed. But I took a cue from him and said nothing - not even a look. It's another thing that became normal for us by familiarity - he gets hard, I get hard. A few times one or the other of us has had to make a dash to the bathroom to relieve the situation, other times we've ignored it and slept it off.

His lips part and he licks them, partly in hunger, partly in preparation. We kiss now - have done since night fifty-three and I know that the kissing has brought my eventual downfall that much closer. But FUCK, he was right there, soft and warm and sleepy and his mouth was open, just so, and I took it - the kiss that meant the end of this thing we have going on came one step closer.

Now suddenly, it's here - like I said, he's only human.

He's not preparing to kiss; he's going to say something. He's taking a breath, his eyes clouding with doubt.

And...I'm...I'm not ready.

I lunge at him and capture his lips with mine. A hard, demanding kiss. He capitulates, opening to my insistence, sucking my tongue into his mouth with a similar intensity, stroking, deep and hot and wet.

Desperate.

Like he expects this to be the last one.

I need more time - he's been so patient, so fucking understanding - but still I need more. I'm a worthless coward, just postponing the inevitable words that have to be spoken.

I need a little more time - I'm close, I'm so close. I have to find a way to buy those few more moments of silence.

I need more time.

I...

I run my free hand down his ribs, my finger tips grazing the rise and fall as he breathes, and then my touch drifts lower to caress the hardness of his hip beneath the smoothness of his skin. His eyes snap open - something new - I've done something new. We don't touch below the waist, we've only been kissing for six nights and this is more...much more than that. The lust must be dripping from my fingers, I want him so badly.

His eyes betray the panic in his mind, and the longing. He wants this as much as I do, but the stumbling block thwarts us and keeps us from taking this from each other.

If I release his mouth, I'm done for, but we both need to breathe. He's groaning into my mouth, wanting to stay, but having to stop.

I spread my fingers through the crisp hair at his groin, release his lips and he gasps, rolling onto his back. Careful not to touch his cock yet, I scratch my nails on his skin, tangling my hand in his hair and tugging softly. He closes his eyes briefly and shivers.

God, he's so beautiful. He's losing it, at the feel of my hand on him. And I want more...I want it all.

Very deliberately, very confidently, I close my fingers around the bottom of his shaft where the curls fade and the smooth, warm skin juts up. He arches his back and the groan that tears from his lips is so needy, my own cock rears against my belly in response.

I run an inquisitive thumb up the underside of his penis, feeling the differences between his and mine. His is thicker, smoother and cut, the head dry and silky. The only moisture is the bead of pre-come that glistens at his slit. I slide my hand up and capture it with a finger, swirling the viscous fluid all around the crown.

"Jjjjjjjjjjjjaaaaaaa..." Daniel moans, rolling his head, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Jaaack, we have to...ugh...we...have..." Even now, even in the throws of pleasure he has been wanting for months, he can't but be honest. He still won't give it up until he's sure.

He's...he's amazing.

And infuriating.

And stubborn.

And so fucking incredible, I can hardly breathe.

I slide down his body; skin on skin, hair against hair, muscle and sweat and sinew and strength. I have to taste him.

I take his cock into my mouth until my lips kiss my fist, and he bucks up with an inarticulate cry of surprise. I press him back to the mattress with my arms across his hips and start to explore.

Hollowing my cheeks makes him pant. Licking a broad stripe up his length makes him gasp, and swirling my tongue around the head gets me a moaning sigh that has me grabbing hard for the base of my own cock. I've never come just from the sound of another's pleasure and I'm not going to start now - although it would be so easy, he sounds so abandoned.

And I can't stop. Suddenly it's open season and all my tiny incremental steps towards giving Daniel what he wants are blown to hell. There's nothing I don't want to give him, nothing I don't want to do to him or have him do to me. It all comes tumbling down in a wave of heat and want and need -things I thought I could do without - things I thought I couldn't bring myself to do - things that made me wonder why anyone would want that, crash down on me and I'm possessed, almost sobbing, wanting it, wanting him, more, harder, faster, all of it NOW!

I suck two fingers into my mouth beside his dick, letting my saliva coat him and me with wet heat. Roughly, I roll him onto his hip and without a second's hesitation I move my slick fingers to his ass. I press against him, needing to feel like I'm part of his body.

He stiffens in surprise and squirms, panting hard and I take my fist from his cock and swallow him down until I feel him hit the back of my throat. His muscles impossibly tighten, then go slack in shock and my fingers slide into him - not easily, he's tight and tense, but they are in and I start to slide soothingly at the hot, taut channel. I stretch him gently, softly mouthing his penis all the while, until I'm up to my knuckles and he's accepting my invasion and pushing back to meet my deep, gentle thrusts.

With small twists of my wrist, I search within him for something I've read about but never experienced. I want him to know first, I want him to come for me like he's never come before. I want to break him apart and put him back together - just the same but inextricably mine.

He's close; one hand is fisting the sheets and the other is raking at my hair. He shakes as he struggles not to fuck my mouth as hard as he needs. Next time, I'll let him, but this time I'm learning.

My gentle touch brushes over that which I have been seeking and he gasps. Smiling to myself, I take my mouth from his cock and steal a glance at his face. He's sweaty and kind of wrecked, and he's never looked better to me. I stroke it again, that tiny lump within him.

"Fuck," he whispers as his body spasms.

I study his cock, so close to my face, slick and shiny with my kisses. Rationally, I know it's just a penis, all guys have one, but I'm just blown away by his. It's perfect, delicious, and beautiful actually, and I can't believe I waited so long.

I still my hand on the nub inside him, just the lightest contact, so I don't lose it. I lick my lips and consider him. There's a spot just below the crown, where the head meets the shaft, a little ridge of skin, and whenever I catch it with a kiss or a swipe of my tongue, he shudders.

Daniel is panting, flexing, desperate to get off, his hips shift restlessly searching for some friction to finish him. Instead I press the tip of my tongue hard against that sweet spot on his dick and rub my fingers over his prostate. Flicking my tongue across that same point, fast and rough and circling my fingers, he arches his neck.

"Ah...ah...ah...ah...ah...ah," Daniel pants, thrashing his head back and forth and then with a gurgled shout he comes, shooting onto his belly and groin and my cheek. I catch the second pulse with my mouth and slurp greedily trying to catch every drop. The third and fourth pulses hit the back of my throat as I take him deep in my mouth, sucking softly as he shudders and moans. As the tremors subside and his cock stops jerking, I caress him gently with my tongue, soothing him through the aftershocks and don't relinquish him until he's softening.

"Oh God," he moans, "Jack." He flops an arm over his eyes. "I love you. That was..." And he stills - utterly frozen as he realises what he's said. He's motionless and there is nothing more unnerving in the whole world; Daniel says more with an eyebrow or a raised finger than I could express in a thousand words.

I slip my fingers from inside him and wipe them on the sheets, which are already damp from the come trickling off his belly. I sit up slowly and watch his face when he rolls onto his back and pulls his arm away.

For a second I think he's going to apologise, he looks utterly shocked. Sated, well-fucked and relaxed... but shocked. Then his eyes harden somehow and become challenging. "I love you," he says again, clearly and deliberately.

He looks so fragile, determined, and so fucking brave. Daniel doesn't lie, and he won't pretend that he is here for any other reason than love - not even to keep me around. Not lust, nor need, nor want, not even as a favour to someone who is more than a friend.

My eyes slide to the window to avoid the gut-churning honesty in his face.

Time's up.

The pale yellow light filters around the blinds and I stare at the bright rectangle it makes in the soft shadows of Daniel's room.

There are people out there, places, opportunities, choices; a million, million different decisions I could make. And I know with a certainty that is both terrifying and exhilarating that he's the right one. There's not a single thing outside that window that can compare to him.

I turn my face back to him. My gaze travels slowly up his body, the washed out light making his skin seem impossibly flawless and by the time my gaze reaches his face, Daniel's cheeks are stained and his eyes are wide - a mixture of desire and discomfort at my scrutiny.

He waits.

I smile into his eyes. " I know."

Still he waits.

He looks so... noble... and I have no idea how. Christ, his hair is dishevelled, his dick spent and soft, he looks thoroughly debauched and I can still taste his come on my lips. How can he look so dignified?

He loves me, he wants me, he needs me, but he won't accept what I'm offering until he knows for sure that it's reciprocated.

"I love you," I murmur. It sounded stronger in my head. He should know I mean it; that I'm not ashamed of it.

I clear my throat. "I love you," I repeat louder.

Funny, now I come to say it, it's easy; it just rolls off my tongue like it was waiting there all along for its chance to be heard.

But it's not enough. 'I love you' - such a little phrase. How can three words contain everything I want to say? How can I tell him, as verbally challenged as I am, what he is to me? That he's the only option that makes sense. The only fucking thing in my life that does make sense.

"Why now?"

Stupidly, I stare back at him, desperately casting around for something... anything to say to put me back in control of this.

"It's been fourteen months since I told you I loved you, and four months since you started sleeping here. Why now?"

Isn't that just classic Daniel Jackson? I finally said the words, the ones he was waiting for; he heard me. Those same three words that last year sent me reeling from his apartment when he said them to me. But it's not enough for him. Oh no! He has to know why as well. Go figure.

"Time loops," I mutter, avoiding his eyes.

He blinks a couple of times and sits up, so we are the same height and he angles his head to capture my gaze. "What happened?" he asks softly but insistently.

"You...died," I whisper, wanting to wrench my face away, so he can't see the pain, but he won't let me. His eyes compel me, make me honest.

"I did?"

"Over and over. Every time we went back to the beginning, Malikai would shoot you, and you'd...you'd..." I close my eyes but the image of Daniel's body, limp and still, follows me there.

"It didn't matter what I did, how I tried to protect you, where I put you, even when I ordered you...ordered you to stay at the gate."

When I open my eyes again, he's reaching out a hand to me. I take it in mine, twine my fingers through his and hold on tight.

"It didn't matter how many times we did it, it didn't matter that I knew you'd be alive again when the loop reset, I couldn't...couldn't..." I breathe a sad little laugh. I'm career military, I've seen men die; more men, more deaths than even Daniel knows, but seeing him dead, so still and...something snapped inside me.

"How many?"

"Twenty-eight," I admit. Twenty-fucking-eight times I watched Malikai shoot him. And then I stopped going through the gate for a long time. Refused - point blank. Went and played golf or just took off in my truck and drove until the loop reset pulled me back to the mountain and Daniel eating waffles.

A few times...okay seven times, I got him alone in his lab and kissed him 'til his lips were swollen and his eyes were unfocussed - it's a good look on him. I even kissed Carter once, but I made sure it was at the end of the loop. I just wanted to see, one last time, if I was sure it was Daniel I needed. Of course it was. Kissing Carter was like kissing my Mom, love and all that stuff but not the kind of love I feel for him. One kiss from Carter was enough, one kiss from Daniel never would be.

When I couldn't get out of it and we had to go back there for more information, I'd already be on my way back to the gate when Daniel tried to stop Malikai. It wasn't any better hearing it rather than seeing it, but I'd be in the centre of the energy burst - I kidded myself that I would get back to the commissary sooner that way.

You see this was a place that I could love him. No consequences, nothing to lose. I could tell him what he was to me and I could show him too. Not like in his apartment that night; not I love you and goodbye. Here I could drop all the saving the world, cosmic truth crap and accept my own truth - that I loved Daniel and whether we were together or not, he was the reason I lived.

And Teal'c would watch me. He could see how watching Daniel die over and over was fucking me up and he added two and two. With a surprising amount of tenderness from a Jaffa, he wished me well and suggested I try telling Daniel of my feelings when the loops were over.

After that T would find excuses to leave Daniel and I alone for some time in every loop. Sometimes we'd discuss the Ancient, working on the knots, other times he'd ask the same questions he asked last loop and sometimes I'd persuade him to come for a walk with me and even though he knew that I was playing hooky, he'd come up onto the mountain.

Those were good days - it was always a sunny afternoon...well the same sunny afternoon actually. We'd walk and talk and sit and look. I never tried anything - only those times in his lab and that was when watching him translating and sucking his pens made me demented and horny. But the mountain wasn't about that. It was about being in his company and knowing there wasn't a single other thing I could do that was better in the whole world.

You see, looping? It makes a man think.

It makes a man think what a stupid son of a bitch he's been.

So when we stopped the loops and I couldn't just take Daniel out walking anymore, I had to make a decision. He'd have come with me if I'd asked - of course he would - but it wouldn't have been fair until I'd made this choice. Daniel had already admitted he loved me, I couldn't take advantage of that by leading him on - making him think I'd changed my mind when, in reality, I was still bitching inside.

And it's not that I'm afraid of being gay, it's not even my career that made me hesitate. It was nothing so mundane. It was the security of the fucking planet that made me think twice. I mean, you do the math. Jack gets the thing he most desires on one hand - the planet bites it on the other. Tough choice, eh?

I'm not the only man who can lead SG-1, despite my posturing. There are a dozen or more people working on the base right now who could take over and do the same job. But I'm the only one who looks after Daniel the way he should be; see, I'm the only one who knows that there's no one else who can do what he does. The SGC can afford to lose me, but they can't lose Daniel.

So that means that I have to lead SG-1 every time he's going through the gate. Can't trust anyone else do the job right - not even Carter and Teal'c even though they're the best of the bunch. So I have to carry on being Colonel O'Neill, and that means rules - the ones I've lived my life by for too many years to think about. He's my civilian consultant and he's under my command and that means - no touchy!

But he wants me. And I want him. And today, I've decided.

"I'm gonna speak to Hammond," I blurt.

"And say what?" He looks surprised.

"Off the record. That we're together and that's the deal. We'll keep it quiet, we'll be sensible. George is a good man, I'll see what he says. But if they want you - which they do - they have to take me and the fact that we're..." I stumble over the word and look to him for help, but he's blinking at me in stunned silence. "...partners...lovers...married?" I offer hopefully.

His mouth drops open.

Shit.

"This has all been about regulations?" he asks. "But you break the rules all the time."

"Yeah, but only in little bitty ways. This one's a BIIIIG one. And it's there for a reason. So I don't favour you over T and Carter and put them in danger."

"You'd never do that,"

"No." But I'd want to.

He looks thoughtful and idly scratches his belly where the come is drying on his skin.

"We could leave..." he says uncertainly.

"It might come to that," I tell him quietly. " You'd be chained to a desk, translating for the programme but never getting to see any of the places you're reading about." I know he could never totally walk away - Uncle Sam wouldn't let him.

"I could switch teams..." he muses further.

I want to shout 'NO' and shake him. Is he insane? Has he heard nothing that I've just said? I love him! As in I can't lose him. And I know I'm a controlling, uptight, anally retentive bastard when it comes to the welfare of myopic, allergy-ridden archaeologists, but...shit...BITE ME!

"...but then I wouldn't be able to...then I couldn't...and you might need..." he flails.

"What?" I ask a little harshly. He looks sulky, a little frown on his face.

"Look, I'm not happy about you going through the gate without me, okay?" he huffs. "What if your anthropologist encounters something he's not qualified for? What if he makes an error? What if...?" he trails off and his frown becomes an all out scowl as I beam at him.

"I love you," I tell him. He snuffs ruefully and the scowl melts away in place of a sheepish grin.

"I love you too."

"Together then," I say and it's not a question - it's a statement of intent.

"Together," he agrees and his eyes tell me that he means that in every sense of the word. He reaches out a hand to where my cock has softened against my thigh and gently caresses its length, waking it up nicely. He leans in for a kiss, but I pull back a little.

"Daniel?"

"Hmmmmm?" he smiles trying to chase down my lips.

"After, can we go out walking?"

"Sure." He goes left, I go right.

"On the mountain."

"Yep, whatever you like..."

And I let myself be caught.

Fin