Make Up

by

Ruffle

Click for details and warnings

DISCLAIMER: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement isintended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without theconsent of the author.

Make Up

Closing the door behind me, I stand for a moment soaking in the blessed quiet. It’s been way too long a day at the salt mines – not literally, for a nice change of pace – and I’ve been longing to get back here to the comforts of home. One comfort in particular.

I tick off the day’s events in my mind: explore an alien planet, meet some new folks, shoot a few snakes, fight with Daniel, get stuck with Fraiser’s needles, have a standard debriefing, wrestle a stack of boring paperwork into submission. Same old same old. Not a single break in the routine.

I walk down and around to the living room wondering if maybe it’s time to shake up the routine a little. After all, it won’t be long before I run out of fresh spots for Doc to stick her needles. Okay, okay, it’s the fighting with Daniel part that needs to change. It wasn’t so bad at first, a gradual thing, no big deal… but lately it’s getting out of hand. I’ve been catching surreptitious looks from some of the base personnel – I’m a colonel, I’m trained to notice these things.

Gotta admit it’s starting to get to me, too. To us. We’ve been letting it slide too long. It’s so easy to get into a rut and go along without knowing how to get out. Guess it’s time to sit down with Daniel and talk this over.

And speaking of my archaeologist... “Hey.”

He’s standing by the glass doors staring out into the dusk, lost in contemplation of my back yard as if it was the most exotic planetscape he’d seen that day, but he turns around at my soft greeting. A smile lights his face, curving those lush lips, molding those indentations that in one of my rasher moments I called dimples (boy, do I know better than to repeat that mistake – “I do not have dimples, Jack. What do I look like, Shirley Temple?” – No, Dannyboy, not even if you broke into a tap dance and sang ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop,’ but what can I say, cute is cute). I can barely make out the way his eyes crinkle where the corners are almost hidden behind the frames of his glasses, and a glow shines from the blue depths that I’ll never stop feeling privileged to see directed at me – and only ever at me.

I can feel myself grinning back and probably lighting up with a little glowing of my own, but Daniel has denied this makes me look like a complete idiot despite my doubts, so what the hell. As long as he can put up with it, I’ll give him the full wattage.

“Hey,” he answers, opening his arms as he walks straight into mine.

Our arms go around each other simultaneously, our lips meet, and now I know I’m really home. This is the comfort waiting for me after gunfire and wormhole and infirmary and office – Daniel’s strong arms holding me, his groin pressed enticingly against mine. Daniel’s scent wafts around me, that heady flavor of sun and sand that always puts me in mind of the Abydos desert, hot and exotic. Soft lips open to let that inquisitive tongue tease its way into my mouth to tangle with mine. Daniel puts his entire self into the kiss, and I lose myself in the wonder of him, of us.

When we separate at last, I lean my forehead against his as I slide my fingers through his soft hair. “Sorry I’m late. I wanted to finish up my mission report before I left base.”

“That’s okay, it gave me time to think.” His hands stroke across my back as his forehead puckers into that little frown between his brows that means he’s worrying over something. “Jack, we need to…”

“Talk. I know.” I straighten up and rub his frown away with my thumb. “The fights. They’ve gotta…”

“Stop.” He nods. “I knew you’d understand.”

I do. Daniel and I are at polar opposites in our thinking a lot of the time, but we have just as many moments when we’re running in exactly the same track. Maybe that’s what makes our relationship comfortable and exciting at the same time.

I pull him gently to the couch, and we get settled, my arm around him as he leans his head against my shoulder. “So talk to me.”

“I’m getting tired of putting on an act, Jack. All that arguing… it seemed like a good idea at the time, but…” His fingers weave through the air, eloquently underscoring his spoken words.

“But you’re having doubts lately.”

He raises his head and gives me the full-on force of those baby blues. “It started out almost like a game, but it’s gone too far. We’ve gotten carried away.”

“Ya think?” I capture one of his gesturing hands with my free one and twine our fingers together. “Maybe we have gone a little overboard, but you gotta admit it had its advantages. Look at all the make-up sex we got to have.” I grin at him and get the result I’m aiming for when he chuckles.

“Granted, but since the fights weren’t real, we can’t really call it make-up sex.”

“Sure was fun pretending, though.”

“Mm hm.” He leans in and gives me a soft kiss, a feathery light, teasing touch of his lips on mine. “No one’s talking about changing the fun part.” The sparkle in his eyes gives way to a serious look. “It’s such a strain keeping up a pretense of being angry with you or distant. It’s been almost a year now. I miss you, Jack. I mean I miss our old working relationship. You know I wouldn’t trade what we have now for anything, but I really miss the good times we used to have on base or offworld.”

I rub his arm up and down as I mull over what he said. “I miss that too, Daniel, but remember why we decided on this course of action. If we don’t keep our distance in public, how can we help but show how close we’ve become?”

When Daniel and I discovered we loved each other, we were both so happy we figured our love would be blatantly apparent to everyone we knew. Yet we both agreed this was something we had to keep private. So we came up with the idea of throwing up a smokescreen by cutting down the buddy bit around other people, tossing in periodic fights to give a reason for the cooling off of our friendship.

“Jack, I think our disagreements are attracting more attention than our becoming closer ever would. They never fooled Sam or Teal’c.”

“We never expected to fool them. Lucky for us we didn’t try.” Lucky as well they tipped to what was going on before I had to engage in any embarrassing explanations. It’d no doubt be just as embarrassing for them to talk about any of this with me, or at least for Carter. Teal’c would probably take it all in stride. But they were good enough friends to let us handle it our own way, though even they’d been looking a little worried lately. “Maybe it was a bone-headed plan, but I’m still concerned about going back to our former friendly behavior. I’ll start off by patting you on the back, and end up forgetting and patting your sweet little ass. That’ll go over well.”

“Jack, plenty of couples work together in the business world and manage to maintain a professional relationship at work. Why should we be any different?”

“Yeah, but they’ve gotta slip up occasionally, except nobody thinks anything of it if they’re married, for example. Besides, none of them have the temptation of being in love with you, Dr. Jackson.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Flattering as that is, put a sock in it, O’Neill. You’re special ops trained – don’t try to convince me you have no self-control.”

“Of course I do, but anyone can break if they’re worn down every day by constantly testing their restraint. I’m not talking about throwing you down on the ramp and making mad, passionate love to you in the gateroom – although, come to think about it… and I do mean come…”

“Ja-ack.” His exasperated tone is belied by the gleam in his eye. Hm, we’ll have to have a nice, cozy chat about fantasies later.

“Okay, seriously I’ve come close to slipping a few times already. How about when you showed up in Jacob’s teltac to rescue Teal’c and me from that runaway glider? In those first moments after being transported on board, I had eyes for no one but you, not to mention the way I reached for you and the goofy smile I know was plastered on my face. Jacob would’ve gotten an eyeful of one smitten colonel if he hadn’t luckily for us been helping Teal’c. I’d rather not go advertising our feelings to any generals, even if he is working with the Tok’ra now.”

Daniel’s hand tightens in mine as if to reassure himself I’m here and real. “You almost died, Jack. Our actions could’ve been chalked up to the close call, including the way I rushed right past Teal’c straight for you. If you think about it, any future slip-ups would be explained more easily if we were observed behaving like close friends again. There’s no crime in caring about your teammates.”

“Good point. And if our arguments are creating scuttlebutt, it’s only a matter of time before Hammond calls me on the carpet.”

Daniel grins. “It’s also hard to account for the way I’ve picked up some of your habits if we’re not supposed to be spending time with each other any more. I explained my sarcasm on the sub in our mission to the Russian gate by saying I’d been hanging around with you, which would make a lot more sense if people saw us together more.”

He’s going to make me so proud, bless his smartass soul. “Right, you’ve got me just about talked into taking a chance on acting friendly again.”

“Just about? What else will it take?”

He looks at me with just a hint of a pout. God, I love how kissable he looks when he does that. “Talking only goes so far. I’m holding out for being seduced into agreeing. It’s the least I can get in return for giving up all that make-believe make-up sex.”

What I get is a flirtatious look from under his eyelashes and a slow sweep of his tongue across his lips. Okay, serious arousal alert here.

“I don’t know, Jack. Maybe we should practice being just friends so we can rehearse how to act at work. It might be better if we give up sex for a while.”

Whoa, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to work out at all.

He lets go of my hand and stands up, sinuously stretching the kinks out of that tall, muscular body.

I swallow. “How long a while?”

He starts to walk away. “Ohhhh… I’d say about five minutes ought to do it. I think that’s about all the abstinence you can stand. See you in the bedroom.” He shoots a grin over his shoulder before he rounds the corner.

Right. Like I’m the only one of us with a low tolerance level for going without regular rations. Hah. Well, no sense wasting time once the five minutes is up. I follow him towards the bedroom, pulling off my clothes as I go. He’d so better be naked when I get there… unless he’s looking for a fight. Hey, maybe there’s hope for make-up sex yet.

THE END