Daniel And Gabe 2

Move Over, Evel Knievel!

by Sistine

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ass/sistine/gabe02.php
Summary: Gabe decides it's time for Daniel to learn how to ride

It was the perfect day for a ride, Gabe thought ruefully as he looked out the window. The sun was shining but he was stuck inside helping the missus with the house cleaning. However, he had a plan. "I betcha Daniel is studying," he said casually.

"Probably," Donna agreed. Daniel studied very hard, she had noticed.

"It's not normal for a kid of that age to be studying all the time," Gabe continued. "He needs to get out more, to experience life."

Donna suppressed a smile; she knew where this was heading. "And what would you suggest he do?"

"Well, I could always teach him how to ride," Gabe mused, scatching his beard and pretending the thought hadn't crossed his mind before.

"That bike weighs twice as much as he does!" Donna exclaimed. "If it falls on top of Daniel, he'll be crushed!"

"He'll be fine, woman," Gabe growled, ignoring the fact that she had a point. "Besides, it's your job to feed him up and mine to teach him to be a normal kid."

Donna shook his head. "He's eighteen years old."

"In age, yeah. But he's got an old head on his shoulders - way too old for someone his age," Gabe observed. He doubted that Daniel had had a normal childhood. "I'm just going to restore the balance."

As Gabe left the apartment, Donna smiled with amusement. She knew who the kid was out of the two.

****

Daniel threw down his pen and stared out the window. It was a beautiful day and he was stuck inside working on a paper for his anthropology class. It wasn't due in for another couple of weeks but he wanted to get it done early so that he could concentrate on his other assignments, so really it was his own fault that he was stuck inside. Not that he really could have gone anywhere anyway; at least, not with anyone else, and he hated visiting places by himself. He hadn't made many friends at university, and the ones he did have were more like acquaintances and they hadn't invited him anywhere yet. They were probably working too, Daniel thought ruefully, recognising that they were all driven workaholics like him. He absently mused about whether he would be like this if his parents were still alive; maybe he would have learnt how to have fun and to have more confidence in himself. Or maybe he still would have ended up burying his nose in books and forgoing everything else.

Ten years. One whole decade since his parents had died. The memories were beginning to fade, all except for one. He could still see the accident which had claimed their lives with perfect clarity. His mother's loving yet distracted expression as she tried to deal with him and with setting up the display. His father's look of concentration. The horror on their faces when the coverstone had started falling. Why couldn't he remember the good times instead of the one that changed his life so dramatically?

It would have been his mother's forty-fifth birthday today, exactly five months before his own birthday; his father's had fallen in between the two. Daniel couldn't remember any big celebrations when they had been alive, so he didn't imagine that ten years on that would have changed. But it would have been nice to find out.

His eighteenth birthday had come and gone last year without any fuss, and although he had told himself that he hadn't wanted anything special, it had hurt that not one person had remembered it, not even his foster parents. Considering he hadn't seen them as he had been holidaying in Egypt at the time, he shouldn't have expected them to remember. Maybe this year would be different. Donna liked making a fuss over him, that was obvious, so maybe she would remember his birthday. But that was still five months away - he probably shouldn't get his hopes up.

A knock on the door startled him out of his reverie. He walked over and opened the door to find Gabe standing there. "Hi."

"Hi. I thought I'd find you here. Feel like a ride?"

Daniel's head automatically turned to look out the window, then he forced it back. "I have a lot of work to do," he stated. Not that he was getting anything done at the moment. And if he stayed inside, then he might get some work done, but if he was outside, then nothing would get done.

"You've been cooped up in here for hours. A ride will do your head some good," Gabe argued. "So, get your jacket and shoes on."

"But I--"

"Ah! No arguments." Gabe used his gruffest voice. "You are going to have some fun whether you like it or not."

Looking at Gabe's determined face, Daniel gave in; there really was no use arguing. He went to get his thick windbreaker since the temperature outside would be chilly, and then put on a pair of runners.

Gabe was waiting patiently for him at the door when he was ready. He handed Daniel the spare helmet, and then the two men went down to the street where the motorbike was parked. Daniel got on the bike behind Gabe and held on as the biker revved the engine and then sped off.

Daniel had no idea where Gabe was taking him, so he was surprised when they pulled up at an empty parking lot on the outskirts of the city. "Uh, why are we here?" he questioned curiously.

"Today is the day when you're going to learn how to ride," Gabe told him, getting off the bike. He held onto the handlebars so that the motorbike didn't fall over. "Move up the front," he ordered.

Daniel shook his head. He wouldn't be able to control this bike and he would just end up injuring himself. It would be just his luck to break his right arm and not be able to do any assignments for the next couple of months, and then he would fail his course. "I don't want to."

"'Course you do. Every kid wants to learn how to ride a motorbike," Gabe argued.

"I don't." That was true too; Daniel would much prefer to be digging in an Egyptian tomb rather than risking life and limb on a motorbike.

"Come on," Gabe cajoled. "It's a great way to attract the chicks." That was how he had met Donna, actually.

Daniel wasn't sure he wanted to attract the kind of women who liked motorbikes. "It's too big. I'll never be able to control it."

"You'll manage just fine. Now stop making excuses and move up to the front." Gabe's voice was stern, as was his expression; people had run terrified from those.

Not Daniel however. He crossed his arms over his chest and repeated his earlier excuse. "I don't want to."

Gabe sighed; the kid was impossible. "Daniel, stop pouting like a child. Just think about what you could do if you didn't have to rely on either myself or on public transport to get you places. You could visit museums anytime you wished. You could head off to university any time you wanted to."

Daniel started to waver. He *did* like museums, and the thought of being able to get there by himself was appealing. There was one problem with the riding to university bit though: he was already being pushed around for being a geek - how much worse would it be if the bullies knew he owned a motorcycle?

"You could buy a cheap second-hand bike and I'd help you fix it up," Gabe offered, seeing Daniel's resolve wavering.

"But they cost so much to run," Daniel stated.

"They don't cost as much as you think," Gabe countered. "Now, are we going to sit here arguing all day, or are you going to try this?"

"I don't know how to ride," Daniel whispered so softly Gabe almost missed it.

"That's why we're here."

"No, I mean..." Daniel trailed off; this was so hard to say. "I don't know how to ride a normal bicycle." He had never been interested in learning how, and he didn't think that any of his foster parents would have ever given him a bicycle.

Oh, Gabe thought; that explains the reluctance. It also indicated what a deprived childhood Daniel had experienced. "You don't need to. Riding a motorbike is all to do with balance. Once you get that, you'll be fine."

Daniel wasn't sure about that. But he moved up to the front of the bike so that he could grip the handles, and made sure he kept both feet firmly on the ground. "Now what?"

Gabe showed him how to work the accelerator and the brake, and then said, "Now, as you slowly accelerate, take your feet off the ground and put them on the supports."

Daniel bit his lip nervously; that was the part he was the most worried about. "What if I fall off?"

"Then you try and make sure that the bike doesn't land on you," Gabe told him. He took some elbow and knees pads out of his jacket pockets. "Here, put these on. They'll help minimise the gravel burn."

Reluctantly, Daniel took them and put them on; wearing them was pretty much a guarantee that he was going to fall off.

"Now just take it easy and don't panic. Use the brake if you feel like you're going too fast or ease back on the accelerator," Gabe passed on some last instructions.

Very, very slowly Daniel pressed the accelerator on the bike and released the brake at the same time. As the motorbike started to move forward, he took his feet off the ground. Upon feeling the bike wobble, he put his feet back down and pressed the brake. "I can't balance," he said.

"That's because you're going too slowly," the biker said, moving up to where Daniel had stopped. "Speed up just a little more and you'll be fine."

"I don't know about this..."

"Come on, where's that fighting spirit? If you give up this easily now, how easily are you going to give up when someone puts down your theories on ancient languages?"

Daniel's expression hardened. "That's totally different."

Gabe shook his head. "No, it isn't. You've got determination and strength, Daniel, but if you give in or give up too easily, then it doesn't count for anything whether out here in a parking lot or in the academic world."

"If I continue this, then I'm giving in to you," Daniel pointed out.

There was a slight pause. "Okay, you got me on that one," Gabe admitted. "But I wouldn't be pushing this if I didn't think this was a good idea."

Daniel thought about that for few moments. "Okay, I'll continue. I just hope the nearest hospital isn't too far away," he muttered.

"Thatta boy." Gabe patted Daniel on the shoulder.

For the next hour, Daniel tried to ride the motorbike. He had several falls but none of them did anything more than graze the skin on his legs. By the end of the hour, he could ride around the parking lot at 18mph without falling off. Daniel pulled up to Gabe and took his helmet off, a huge grin on his face. "How did I do?"

"You did great, kid," Gabe praised him, the grin on his face almost hidden by his beard. "Move over, Evel Knievel."

Daniel ducked his head and laughed. "I don't think I'm that good yet." But he had done better than he had originally thought, and had actually started to enjoy it.

"But you will be." Gabe put his helmet back on and gestured for Daniel to move back. "For now, though, I'd better take you back so you can keep studying."

"Thanks for the lesson," Daniel said, moving to allow Gabe onto the motorbike.

"Anytime," Gabe replied. "Anytime."

~~~~~~~~~~

"So how long did it actually take for Daniel to learn to ride?" Jack asked, leaning forward to put his beer on the table. Then he leaned back and put his arm around Daniel again.

"He went for his licence about three months later," Gabe replied. He took another sip of his beer and grinned at Daniel. "The people at the testing centre were very surprised when this scrawny little kid turned up wanting a motorbike licence."

"They asked me for ID, and they weren't convinced when I showed them," Daniel said, sighing at the memory; he was very glad that he was no longer that 'scrawny little kid'.

"Fortunately, I was there," Gabe added, "and after I told them that Daniel was eighteen, they let him sit the test."

Daniel smiled at that. "The fact that Gabe had turned up in full biker gear and was cracking his knuckles meaningfully at the clerk had nothing to do with it, of course."

Jack laughed. "Oh, I would have loved to see that." The more he was learning about Gabe, the more he liked the older man. It was very clear that Gabe and his wife had looked after Donna pretty much like Jack and SG-1 did now, and that made them good people in Jack's eyes. "What about Daniel's motorbike?"

"Well, I didn't have that much money at that stage but I started putting some aside to buy one." Daniel leaned into Jack's side, enjoying the fact that he could snuggle up with his lover in front of someone else instead of having to hide their relationship.

"I bet you didn't eat very much during that time," Jack commented, playfully reaching up into Daniel's hair and ruffling it.

"Donna made sure he didn't starve," Gabe said with a grin. "What he didn't know, though, was that I had a little bit of money tucked away. And since Daniel's birthday was coming up..." He left the sentence hanging.

"Do tell..."