Rock Candy

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=120 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="01078642egerdp.jpg"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=428 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="00f64643.jpg"> <div> <B>Rock Candy</B></div> <div>  <A NAME="rock_candy"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> Anyone who tells you living in the mountains means it's always cool, green and shady is wrong.  Dead wrong.  It's so hot right now I can hardly breathe.  Colorado Springs is in the throws of a heat wave and I'm out in it.  At four o'clock.  Hottest part of the day.</div> <bR> <div> I never minded the heat when I was in college.  Especially when I went to digs in Central America or Egypt.  I soaked it up like a sponge.  Must be the absolute zero cold of traveling through a wormhole - it declimatizes you somehow.  I'll have to ask Sam about that when we get back to work.  Maybe.  Or not.</div> <bR> <div> I smile and the lady next to my Jeep just stares at me.  Oh yes, smugness, thy name is Daniel.  For some reason, people don't think I realize what I look like.  I know.  I know perfectly well.  Hell, I use it - pretty much on a daily basis.  I'm a born flirt . . . got that shy thing down to a science.  Most people would be shocked to hear this - they think I'm some sort of clueless wonder.  Far from it.  FAR.  Let's see if I can still do this.  I turn and look at the lady, slip my sun glasses down a little and give her a wink.  Oh yeah - I've still got it.  Oops, light's green.  Gotta go.</div> <bR> <div> There are lots of people out today.  Traffic's pretty heavy for a Tuesday afternoon.  A person loses touch with what goes on at home when they're always off on missions.  It's hard to believe it's the middle of August when I was just on another *planet* that was covered in ice and snow.  Spent three weeks there getting to know the natives, setting up a trade agreement to mine their naquada, understanding their culture.  And then I come back to this and . . . wow.  Have I mentioned it's hot?  I pass by a reader board and see the temperature flash up.  One hundred and three degrees.  No wonder my balls feel like they're laying down on the floorboards of my Jeep - it's just stupid hot out here.</div> <bR> <div> Let's see what's on the radio.  I can tell Jack's been here - contemporary country is currently pouring out of my speakers as I slow for the next light.  I'm grinning like an idiot and I know it.</div> <bR> <div> Jack.</div> <bR> <div> Who would have thought?</div> <bR> <div> Jack.</div> <bR> <div> And me.</div> <bR> <div> Me and Jack.</div> <bR> <div> Allllll night long.  Every night we can manage it.  I wiggle around in my seat, feeling the slight tingle in my ass from this morning's wake up call.  I push one of the presets and an old tune - Rock Candy by Sammy Hagar - takes over and I crank up the volume.  When you're riding around in a bright red 2004 Jeep Wrangler with the top off and the sun and wind in your hair, you *cannot* play a song like this quietly.</div> <bR> <div> It makes me laugh . . . *songs* remind me of Jack.  Smells make me think of him . . . hell, even colors.  If you had told me even two years ago that I would be like this over another *man* I would have knocked you six ways of Sunday.  Sure, I fooled around in college . . . even had the offhanded tryst after I moved to Chicago . . . but there was never any emotion behind the act.  It was just a way to get off - no strings.</div> <bR> <div> Then along came Jack.  Smart-mouthed, arrogant bastard that he can be . . . for *years* we harped and picked at each other like an old married couple, but I never felt anything . . . romantic.  Cared about him.  Loved him even, just not *that* way.  </div> <bR> <div> Then I died.  Again.  Well, that last time.  And I ascended.  Got kicked out of the glowy floater club, too.  Typical.  When I came back, I had no idea about anything from my past - it was all just a big blank.  Jack walked into that tent on Vis Uban and I felt it hit me - like a surge of electricity going through my guts and in that moment I fell in love.  I don't mean the 'you're so hot I wanna drop my pants and let you ride baby ride' sort of thing.  Nope.  This happened with a clarity so strong it scared me.  Scared me right down to the core of everything I was.  He's the reason I went back with them.  Not the persuasive words of Sam, or the curiosity to know who I was before I . . . reappeared.  Him.  I came back because of him.</div> <bR> <div> One would think it would be difficult to say something.  It should have been impossible for me to confront Jack and have any hopes for reciprocation.  I mean, I remembered Shau're first - in my dreams I remembered that I loved her very much and how special and wondrous she was.  To go from knowing that to showing up on Jack's doorstep a few weeks later and just laying it all out there for him - it should have been really, really difficult.  It wasn't.</div> <bR> <div> Oh, damn, I just missed my turn.  Okay, back around the block and try again.</div> <bR> <div> Jack knew why I was there before I even said a word.  I remember the look in his eyes - this look of inevitable doom and sadness.  He didn't want to face it - have to come to terms with it.  I wasn't going to lose another chance, though.</div> <bR> <div> I'd done my homework, reacquainted myself with the rules and regulations governing his life.  Jack's not just *in* the Air Force . . . the Air Force is in him, and to ask him to just toss all that aside . . . that would have been very wrong.  Jack took an oath when he joined the service - he gave his word that he'd uphold a code - and to Jack O'Neill, his word is everything he is.  For me to go to him and say, "don't ask don't tell is a stupid rule, disregard it so we can be together" would have been ludicrous.  Jack's an honorable man.  He bends rules to the point of breaking all the time - but he won't blatantly disregard something that's important just because it happens to be inconvenient to his present circumstances.  He's not built that way.</div> <bR> <div> There are a lot of things I don't like about the military - and that's been the cause of some pretty heated and passionate arguments between Jack and I in the past - and I'm sure it will be again in the future.  When I did go to him and tell him what I felt, I did it with the full knowledge that I may not get any return on my feelings - for several reasons.  Jack loves being in the service.  How could I ask him to give that up?  I couldn't - it wouldn't have been right.  Jack also has feelings for Sam and he has for a very long time.  To discount that as unimportant would have trivialized his emotions in general.</div> <bR> <div> So what I did was tell him how I feel and tell him that I thought, if he was willing, that we could have something, but that it was up to him.  I wasn't going to walk around pining, I wasn't going to stop fighting him when I thought he was wrong, I wasn't going to change who I was just because he knew how I felt.  I also told him I didn't want him to change how he treated me in the field, or on base . . . or off base for that matter.  The feelings were real, they were there, and they were available to him if he decided that it was worth the risk - but I wasn't demanding anything in return.</div> <bR> <div> It was a long year.  Awkward, hesitant.  He didn't know how to act around me.  And then - it changed.  I'd almost like to say it was thanks to that alien brain download, phase two.  I'm not quite sure what it was, but he turned to me for support.  At the time he needed someone most - it was me he came to.  Wasn't Sam.  Wasn't Teal'c.  It was me.  He'd come to my office and just sit.  Do crossword puzzles, doodle, fiddle with things.  Snipe.  Bitch.  I understood it, though.  I got it.</div> <bR> <div> <I>Aveo amicuse</I>.  His eyes never left mine when that Ancient sleep pod put him into stasis.  And I didn't look away either.  <I>Goodbye, beloved male companion</I>.  He shouldn't have been able to talk at all at that point.  But he did.  To me.  With a phrase *I* would understand.  In that moment he made his decision - he gave me a promise - and he charged me with the task of saving him.  So that this time, he could come back to me.</div> <bR> <div> The first night he was back and whole and alone with me, we didn't even so much as hold hands.  We talked.  I was stunned.  Jack O'Neill is really very eloquent when given half a chance.  He explained his almost obsessive need to be in the Air Force when he was a young man - the need to fly and to explore.  He wanted to go into space - wanted to cross frontiers - to be a hero.  The Air Force turned him into an assassin instead.</div> <bR> <div> He met Sara on leave just after having graduated from the academy.  She was a school teacher and he was a brash and cocky Lieutenant ready to take on the world.  In her eyes, he was already a hero.  He got carried away on having someone look at him in that way.  He married her.  They had a son and for the first time, Jack realized what unconditional love was all about.  Through that marriage, he carried a dark secret though.  Jack liked men - more than a little.  Jack wasn't particularly faithful when he was away from home and Sara would be shocked to know that it wasn't just women he was unfaithful with.  He's ashamed of that fact - not that he was with other men . . . but that he was with anyone.  Like I said, he's an honorable man and infidelity isn't honorable.</div> <bR> <div> Having a great blowjob by the latrines is one thing when the guy on his knees stands to lose just as much as you . . . relationship doesn't come into it because you may have to order that man to give up his life in the service of his country the next day.  The fact that he had your dick in his mouth the night before can't enter into your command mentality.</div> <bR> <div> It never happened often, but those encounters did happen . . . and he tried to be careful.  Never say anything, never show any sign that any kind of contact had been made.  He didn't deny that side of himself, but he kept it discrete, kept it quiet, never let his heart get involved.  And he had Sara at home - waiting for him - that was where his heart belonged, even if his dick couldn't go along with the program.</div> <bR> <div> He'd never loved another man.  Never let himself feel anything for the ones he'd been with.  I could understand - I'd done the same thing.  This was new territory for the both of us.  The fact that we were talking about letting these feelings be manifest in a relationship was only a small step really.  He had these feelings for me for awhile - and he'd been in the field and had made decisions that put my life in direct danger; would consummating things really have that much impact on the way things went between us?  Would us being together suddenly take away his ability and skill for command?  No.</div> <bR> <div> The last thing I told him that night before I went home was this.  You kill me if you have to.  If it comes down to it, you treat me like any other person under your command, you make the hard decision and you kill me.  I would allow no less.</div> <bR> <div> We didn't talk or see each other for awhile after that.  Things got crazy - as they usually do.  But somehow, things were different.  They were easier with us.  I felt . . . connected.  He felt . . . safe, I guess.  Centered.</div> <bR> <div> It's been six weeks now since we *finally* got together.  Six weeks of complete and utter hormonal teenage euphoria.  There goes the grin again - I've been smiling like an idiot since that first, blazing, incendiary night.  Jack's an absolute *champion* in bed.  The man can go for hours.  Top or bottom, doesn't matter - he has impeccable control.  Outlasts me every damn time.  I don't know how the hell he does it.  Must be from being married for so many years . . . either that or he just really is that good.</div> <bR> <div> There's my house.  I can't believe I almost got lost on the way to my own home . . . but I've only lived here a few weeks.  Jack's truck is in the driveway and his little 'do-it-yourself' project is currently scattered all over my yard.  He's decided I need shelves . . . in the basement.  So, we're building shelves.  Not that I'm complaining - it gives me a reason to 'legally' spend days at a time with him.  He strolls out of the house, sweaty, covered in little bits of saw dust, and the line from that song from earlier jumps into my head.</div> <bR> <div> <I>You're rock candy, baby.  Hot, sweet and sticky</I>.</div> <bR> <div> Shelves be damned.  I've got a sweet tooth to satisfy.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> - finis -</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="mailto:claforce@plotexpo.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:claforce@plotexpo.com"><U>Give the author's ego a marshmallow . . . please feed the bear.</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id3_sg1_slash.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Stargate SG1 Slash Fiction"><U>Back to Fic List</U></A>     <A HREF="id2_directory.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Directory Listing"><U>Back to Directory</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=120 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="01178643.jpg"> <bR> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=52 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="00f64643.jpg"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="161" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 45 ><NOBR><div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="39" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="29"></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Plotexpo.com"><U><IMG SRC="0181d270.jpg" border=0 width="29" height="39" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="15"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="45" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="15" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id45.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bound to Be Free"><U><IMG SRC="017271d0.jpg" border=0 width="39" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Formal Dress"><U><IMG SRC="016271d0.jpg" border=0 width="39" height="29" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>