Is There An Honest Purpose?

by Ellison Wonderland

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ase/ellison/purpose.php
Summary: In honour of International Daniel Jackson Week, I wrote this short PWP that is really all about who and what Daniel is - oh, and there's sex!

Daniel pursed his lips and tried to tune out the whistling. If he tilted his head in a more thoughtful-looking manner, maybe Jack would get the hint and stop bugging him. Wander off, maybe. Two, three miles should do it. Nah, with those powerful lungs, make it five. Ten.

"So, what's it mean, Daniel?"

"I don't know, Jack."

Daniel remembered the first time a professor had used an exaggeratedly patient tone with him. It had taken him all year to prove the man wrong, and he'd almost failed the exam in doing it. But he had learnt one thing from that piece of academic deadwood - how to talk down to someone, and piss them off while doing so.

"I know you don't know, Daniel," said Jack, obviously trying a little condescension of his own. "That's cos you're not doing anything. You've just been standing there for the last hour, staring at it. Maybe you've translated it wrong."

Daniel stiffened and glared at Jack over his shoulder, his head whipping round so fast he thought it might give Jack whiplash. Only because Jack was standing so annoyingly close, peering over his shoulder and whistling. Did the man have no sense of personal space? Lately, he'd been crowding Daniel all the time, standing too close, backing him into corners, practically sharing the same underwear. It didn't seem impossible to think that Jack might one day just grab Daniel's boxers in the locker room, stretch them out a foot or so, and inquire: "room in there for two?" And then probably let the elastic snap back on Daniel's ass, before wandering off, snickering at the geek. And always with the annoying whistle, the self-satisfied smirk, that seemed to say that Jack knew what was going on and Daniel didn't. Frankly, it was fucking annoying. Daniel knew exactly what was going on.

"I haven't mistranslated it Jack. At least I don't think so," Daniel's innate honesty forced him to add. "It still says what it did an hour ago. I'm thinking."

"Is there an honest purpose?" mused Jack. "Purpose to what? Of what? And honest about what? And who's doing the honesty? Them? Us?"

"I don't know, Jack." Wow. Even Professor Asshole had never managed that much exaggerated patience in just four words. It was all in the way you drew out the word Jaaaack, rolling it around on your tongue, savouring it in your mouth.

Daniel felt hungry, all of a sudden.

"What time is it?"

"A new question?" wondered Jack. "And one I can answer, for a change. You've been staring at that wall since breakfast. It's now 12pm on this planet, whatever the hell it's called. Lunchtime."

But Daniel wasn't really bothered about lunch. He tuned Jack out again and resumed his study of the baffling inscription.

Is there an honest purpose?

Is there ever?

They had found the building a day ago, its smooth granite walls the only sign of civilisation within reach of the stargate. It loomed up out of the early morning haze like a big fat question mark, mocking him with its strangeness. There was such a sense of not-belonging. They were the first humans, maybe the first beings, to walk this world for a long time, of that Daniel was certain. No sign of any kind of habitation or disturbance of the environment was picked up by the MALP or on their subsequent exploration. Just this one huge square box, sitting on the top of a hill as if dumped there by a giant and forgotten long ago. They didn't belong here; neither the building nor the explorers from Earth. Teal'c had felt it to be so, shaking his head gravely at Jack before marching off to do a perimeter search, and Daniel agreed with him.

Not that he could say as much to Colonel Jack O'Neill. A lot was riding on this mission.

"The stargate program has got to start getting results, colonel. Otherwise, Washington is making serious noises about shutting us down."

Daniel hadn't meant to eavesdrop. He'd dropped the file by accident, honestly. And if he'd lingered outside General Hammond's office a little too long, it was a complicated file and had to be reordered as he picked up the loose sheafs of paper. Find new technology, find allies, or give up the stargate. That was the imperative, delivered to the general in the honeyed tones of Major Paul Davis. Not that Davis had come right out and said it. He was far too smooth for that, but even Sam, the least political member of SG-1, could see the writing on the wall. If they didn't start paying for themselves, the "free ride" was over. It wasn't good enough that they were finding priceless cultural treasures and knowledge, and managing to destroy a few Goa'uld along the way. The Pentagon wanted weapons, the President wanted allies, and between them they might decide to just bury the stargate and the whole mountain complex if it didn't start producing the goods.

"No," he decided at last, addressing his stern tone to the wall in front of him. "There isn't an honest purpose."

"Talking to yourself again, Danny?"

Shit. Jack was so close Daniel could feel his breath stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. How did he do that, sneak up on someone who was so clearly paying attention to the world around him? Must be a special ops thing.

"Carter and Teal'c just reported in. They found some trees or something. Carter's really excited."

Daniel traced the obscure runes with his fingers, trying to ignore Jack's palpable amusement. Finally, he caved and turned away from the cold granite, giving Jack his full attention.

"Excited about what?"

Jack was whistling again, poking at the ground with a big stick that seemed suspiciously like Tealc's staff weapon. He looked like a small boy, hopeful that the school holidays are about to start, unable to contain his excitement and anticipation.

"You are not going to try blasting a hole in this wall, Jack. What's got Sam excited?"

"Aw, Daniel, you never let me have fun any more. How about a small hole? Right about here?"

Jack leaned over Daniel to point at the word "purpose". He was so close that all Daniel could smell was aftershave and sweat. For a brief second, it was so heady he thought he might drown in it. Actually choke for breath. Jack seemed to suck the oxygen out of the air around him, leaving him gasping, and he didn't even know why. His cock knew why, though. It had been achingly hard all morning, making it more difficult than usual to relegate Jack to the status of white noise. His cock wanted Jack. It wanted Jack to get down on his knees, dirtying his fatigues in the mud, and eat it for lunch. Daniel's hands wanted to rest on Jack's shoulders, gently at first, before pulling him inexorably forward. Jamming Jack's face into his balls. Showing Jack the strength of an archaeologist's hands as he sucked the come right out of Daniel's cock.

None of which was very professional, nor likely to get the sort of results that would make General Hammond proud.

"No holes, Jack."

It seemed prophetic. Neither of them moved for a few seconds, Jack leaning over Daniel, his hand resting on the runes behind Daniel. And then Jack was moving backwards, his hand pausing to squeeze Daniel's shoulder briefly before joining the rest of him in his retreat.

"You'll work it out, Daniel. I'll make us some lunch."

Daniel really meant to ask about the trees again, but his sense of self-preservation was starting to kick in. Don't engage Jack in further chitchat. Don't lean towards him, trying to inhale his scent for a brief second longer. And, most of all, do *not* stare at his groin like that.

Daniel turned back to his wall. It seemed that he'd spent half his time on SG-1 looking at this very wall or a hundred like it, puzzling over the messages and instructions that the ancients had left for him like pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. No two pieces alike, but always forming the same picture. Especially when it was a Goa'uld doing the inscribing. "Apophis is the mightiest. Call within." "Ra is the mightiest. Call within." And on it went.

Maybe Major Davis was right. What had they really achieved, when it came down to it, apart from a terrible case of blue balls?

"I want you to fuck me," he called over his shoulder.

Oh God. What he had meant to say was, "These Norse runes are probably Asgard in origin." Had his cock somehow taken over his brain?

Jack paused, the tromping of his boots suddenly silent, cut-off in mid-stomp. Daniel was scared to look over his shoulder. He had just wrecked the most important relationship in his life, not to mention his career on SG-1, which was his entire purpose for being since his exile from Abydos.

"Okay," said Jack, before resuming his tuneless whistle.

"Okay?" Daniel was outraged. He had just outed himself to his best friend and asked to get fucked, too scared to even turn around and look him in the eye, and he got an "okay"?

"Well, not okay as in right now. Obviously," said Jack, spluttering a little. "But okay as in maybe later. Yeah. Definitely later. When we get home. I'll fuck you so hard you can't walk tomorrow. Um. You do have tomorrow off, right? I'm not dragging my feet on a mission cos you needed to get screwed."

"Yes, I have tomorrow off," said Daniel blankly. "You want to have sex with me?"

"Well, you did offer," said Jack. Exasperation was creeping into his tone, as if unsure about why this was a big deal.

Daniel stared at the only words carved in stone on this planet. A single line of runes, pointing to a truth that he couldn't grasp.

"We need Teal'c here," he said, deciding that the last five minutes hadn't really happened and that, if he tried hard enough, he could put Jack back in the box.

"Why?" snapped Jack. "You want *him* to fuck you too?"

The day had started out as a normal one, stepping onto the surface of an alien world, trying to imagine living his life under a green sky like the one above him. Where had it taken a turn into the bizarre? Oh, that's right, when he'd asked Jack to fuck him.

"No, I don't want Teal'c to fuck me," mumbled Daniel, pressing his forehead against the unyielding wall.

"Why not, DanielJackson?" asked a deep, sonorous voice. "Do you find me unattractive?"

Oh shit. Looked like Teal'c was already here. When would these trained killers stop sneaking up on the archaeologist? And if Teal'c was back, Sam must be as well. How much of his unfortunate conversation with Jack had they heard?

"It's an expression, Teal'c," he ventured, still not turning around. His fingers traced the runes that spelt out `honest', or at least he thought they did. "It's like, I don't want Maybourne to fuck with me. It means that I don't want to be messed with."

"I see," said Teal'c, who clearly didn't. Jack's smirk would be offensive enough to send entire armies scurrying for their weapons, Daniel was sure of it. "Then I will not fuck with you, DanielJackson."

"I want you to approach me slowly, Teal'c. One step at a time," instructed Daniel.

"Daniel, what's going on?" asked Jack.

Oh right. Team leader. He needed to know shit like that.

"I think this is an Asgard monument, Jack, set up to protect this world, like the one we found on Cimmeria. But that one was right next to the stargate, so that Goa'uld who came through the gate were zapped immediately."

"Okay, stay where you are Teal'c. So what do you think this one does, Daniel?"

"I'm not sure. One of its effects is clear. It seems to force honesty from people, *makes* them say what they're thinking. I think that's what the runes are about. The intention was probably to ensure that only people with an honest purpose could enter the structure and obtain the Asgard knowledge stored within. There's some kind of power in these runes that I can't even begin to fathom."

"So it could be an Asgard treasure trove?" asked Sam.

Daniel turned to face his comrades, nodding at Sam's impish grin. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"I'm not gonna fuck with you either, Daniel."

"Thanks, Sam."

Daniel noted that Jack's hand was on Teal'c's arm, arresting his forward progress. He felt a surge of jealousy, as irrational as it was hot, and cursed the runes behind him. Biting his lips to keep the words sealed tightly in his mouth, he beckoned Teal'c forward.

"If you approach slowly, your symbiont will react if this is Asgard technology at work here," he explained, when he could finally trust himself to speak without scalding them all with stupid jealousy. "It should react in time to prevent any harm."

"I feel nothing, DanielJackson," said Teal'c, approaching slowly until he stood only inches away from Daniel.

"Okay," said Daniel. "Touch the runes and try telling me a lie."

"Major Carter's hair is unattractive," said Teal'c solemnly.

Daniel froze. That was true, wasn't it?

"That was a lie, DanielJackson."

Sam stalked off, her shoulders rigid. "There's no Asgard technology in that wall," she called. "I'm going to take some more samples of that tree sap."

"Sap?" asked Daniel.

"You said it," smirked Jack.

Daniel watched Sam go with some bewilderment, before shrugging at Jack and Teal'c and turning back to his runes. He would work it out. All he needed was time.

**********

Daniel took the beer that Jack was holding out with barely concealed distaste.

"I don't drink beer, Jack."

"Indulge me," said Jack. "I like to watch you tip your head back and swallow, while little beads of ice water trickle down your fingers. Yeah, that's it."

Daniel drank and blushed, ignoring the sharp, unpleasant taste of the beer for the sake of giving Jack what he wanted. When had Jack gotten so verbal about his wants, anyway? Maybe Jack had stood too close to the Asgard runes as well.

"Good news about that sap," added Jack, taking a swig from his own bottle.

"Oh?" asked Daniel coldly. The wall had been a washout. He'd stared at it for six more hours, trying to figure it out, before Jack finally called a halt and shepherded them all back through the stargate. Whatever mysteries there were inside the structure, SG-1 was never going to find out.

"Yeah, turns out it's some kind of powerful coagulant with 1001 medical and industrial uses. Should be quite a lucrative crop for our Pentagon boys, once we harvest some seeds and start growing it here in Colorado."

"Jack, you can't just take a tree out of its ecosystem and start growing it on Earth. There could be all sorts of dangers to *our* ecosystems, let alone all the reasons why it might not work."

"You raining on Carter's parade?" asked Jack, real curiosity evident in his voice.

Daniel flushed and tried to hide it behind his bottle of beer, emptying the contents in a long chug that earned him an admiring whistle from Jack.

"The scientists know what they're doing," added Jack. They exchanged a pointed look. Neither of them really believed that.

"Sure, Jack."

Daniel's eyes closed of their own accord. One beer. Shit. It had been a long, fruitless day.

A weight settled next to him on the couch, and Daniel felt strong arms go round him, pulling him down to settle against Jack's broad chest. He was tempted to put his feet up and go with this, lying in Jack's arms like a child in need of comfort. For all of sixty seconds, he was tempted. Then he bit Jack's nipple through his thin t- shirt, almost causing him to levitate off the couch.

"Shit, Daniel," gasped Jack, and something rather solid poked Daniel in the ribs where he half lay on top of Jack. Felt like a pretty big cock, all things considered.

"I just don't understand," he said, sticking his head under Jack's shirt, bunching it up round his armpits before licking the light sworls of hair that dusted Jack's chest.

Jack stroked Daniel's head lightly, the fingers both soothing him and yet making his cock jerk against Jack's leg. It was one of the many contradictions of being with this man. His acts of friendship, his many touches and gestures of affection, had taken on such a sensuality to Daniel that even the faintest of brushes from Jack's fingers gave him an instant erection. When had this happened? When had Daniel gone from seeing Jack as out-of-bounds to him in his on- base closet, to being worth any kind of risk for the sake of a little skin on skin?

"I want to touch you," whispered Jack, running his fingers down Daniel's back to tug at his jeans. "I want to fuck you."

"I failed you today. Let down the team. Really fucked it up," murmured Daniel. He knew that he shouldn't be talking about this now, that it would kill the mood and maybe any chance of getting Jack inside him. But it came bubbling up and he couldn't stop it.

"So you didn't get through the wall. There'll be other walls, Daniel."

"I know. It's just - I'm sure there was some kind of Asgard technology. And we need it desperately. You know we do."

Daniel felt his hips being lifted, his jeans eased down, finally freeing his stiff cock to the warmth of Jack's fingers. It seemed like Jack had touched him everywhere else in the past, even patted his ass on occasion. But this was the first time the colonel had touched him so intimately. Daniel strained into the contact, half- desperate to feel Jack's hand enclose him. He needed this so badly.

"You wanna know what I think?"

"Sure, Jack."

Daniel closed his eyes, letting himself ride the waves of pleasure as Jack stroked his ass and cock. When a single, slippery finger slid inside him, Daniel barely jumped. Okay, so he was a little nervous. But Jack soothed him with soft words and caresses, till he was taking three fingers and begging for more. He wanted, needed, Jack's cock inside him.

"Fuck me, Jack, please please fuck me."

"Since you asked so nicely, Dr Jackson," laughed Jack, slipping his fingers out of Daniel's ass, leaving him with a feeling of emptiness so profound he nearly cried.

"Please."

Something thick and blunt nudged at his ass, slowly forcing its way in. It was years since Daniel had been fucked, and it hurt a little, but he gritted his teeth and urged, demanded, that Jack fuck him. Now. Hard and fast. Please.

Jack ignored his incoherent cries, buried balls-deep in Daniel, stretched out on top of him on the couch so that their bodies were touching from head to toe. Fingers twined together, Jack kissed Daniel's neck and shoulders, licking him gently, and then teasing an ear with his teeth. He didn't move his cock, letting Daniel get used to the fullness, the pressure, waiting for the initial pain to recede.

"Daniel, you know there was nothing magic about those runes. No Asgard technology. Nothing we could have used."

"But I asked you to fuck me," protested Daniel, pushing up with his hips, trying to get Jack moving. "Which I'm still asking, by the way, without much result."

Jack didn't take the hint. Daniel lay still beneath him, enjoying the heaviness of Jack on his back, the pressure of having a man draped over him, arms around him, joined together by a cock buried deep inside his ass. Jack's chest rubbed against him, slick with sweat, sliding with enough force to push his cock a little deeper.

"Daniel, you spent hours staring at that wall, thinking about what it said and what it meant. And, in the end, you acted on it. You thought about what it meant to have an honest purpose. And you did. You do. The only magic was inside you, Daniel. You told me the truth. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here, now. I could never have done that, Daniel, taken that risk."

"So, um, is this just sex?"

Daniel could hardly get the words out, his heart was pounding so hard, and he regretted it the instant he said them. But Jack just started to move inside him, pulling his big cock backwards, feeling like it was taking Daniel's stomach with it. And then he was all the way in again, rubbing himself all over Daniel, arms clenched tightly around him. Daniel leaned into it, trying to swallow Jack whole, and to touch as much of him with his body as he could.

Jack fucked him long, slow, and very hard. Slamming into Daniel. Ramming him with his cock. Making him hurt so good. Daniel whimpered, forcing Jack in deeper, matching him thrust for thrust. In the end, the mind-fuck of having Jack O'Neill inside him was too much for Daniel's excited cock, and he came all over Jack's couch, coating the leather fabric with his pleasure. He knew that Jack was unloading inside him soon after, jabbing his cock in so deep that Daniel thought he might never get it out again. Which would be hell on missions, but wonderful for Daniel's sense of being loved.

Not that he dared mention the "L" word. There was only so much honesty that Jack O'Neill could take in a single day.

"That was great, Jack," he murmured instead, letting the sleepy contentment curl his lips in a smile. "Really great."

"Just great?" chuckled Jack, nuzzling Daniel's ear and still pinning him to the couch. "I'll try to do better next time."

There was going to be a next time. More moments to savour, to store up against the inevitable winter.

"Can I stay the night, Jack?"

Daniel tried not to tense up while he waited for the answer. Jack seemed unaware, dozing off on top of him.

"Sure, Danny. Bought you a toothbrush. Las' week."

Last week. Daniel Jackson exulted. Jack had bought him a toothbrush. Jack wanted him, needed him, even before Daniel had risked everything and told him the truth.

Hang on a minute. Last week? What an asshole. Why did Daniel have to do all the work?

Jack was no doubt surprised to find himself lying on the floor, rubbing his ass and looking up at Daniel in some confusion.

"I'm going to bed," said Daniel sweetly. "And in the morning, *I* am going to fuck *you*." If he was going to do all the work, he might as well get the benefits of it.

Daniel wasn't sure, but he thought he heard the words "yeah, sure, you betcha" following him all the way to bed.

The End