Gigi Sinclair

He looked like Pavarotti.

I think that's what annoyed me the most. I mean, if you have to have a sentient computer program running in your head 24/7, and apparently we did, it should at least have the decency to appear as a desirable singer. I probably could have kept a lot more of my sanity if Urgo had looked like Paula Abdul. Or Celine Dion.

"Celine Dion?" Daniel stared at me like I'd announced an attraction to Thor.

"What's wrong with Celine Dion? She's hot." Great singer, too. My heart will go on. Yeah, sure. You betcha. "And that accent…"

Daniel was unimpressed. "She looks like a mummy."

"I don't know if that fat old guy would be up to it…" Although he had given hope to fat old guys everywhere.

"Without the sarcophagus."

"All right then, Mr. Smartass, who do you want me to put as an example? Nick Carter? This is supposed to be an official report. Bordering on don't ask, don't tell there."

"Nick Carter?" Daniel hooted. "Why not?" Sure, he was a little young, but then so was Daniel. And Nick Carter seemed a hell of a lot less complicated. Richer, too.

"I'm not going to even going to say anything." Daniel said, serenely, then kind of wrecked the serenity by snorting. "Go with Celine. There'll be enough you're leaving out of that 'official report' anyway."

This was true. I was, for example, not going to mention that, while an affinity for yogurt was a new experience for me, I was no stranger to the munchies.

I hadn't had them for years, though, and anyway, the Urgo-munchies were way more intense than anything I'd ever had in the back of Jimmy Brody's shag-carpeted van. It was amazing. I felt like I'd been eating Styrofoam, or my ex-wife's cooking which is practically the same thing, for the last forty-cough years. It was like I'd woken up tastebuds that had been dormant since I was born. I wasn't eating food. All of a sudden, I was experiencing it, like I'd experience sex (although not recently.) It's impossible to try and explain that to someone who didn't go through it, so I made to with putting:

"It was like the best orgasm you've ever had every time we put something in our mouths." I figured George could relate to that. He looks like he was a player in his day.

And it was easier than explaining the other Urgo-induced oral stimulation, the one that resulted in the best orgasm *I've* ever had. Eventually.

It started when Urgo was off harassing Carter. It was the first "break", if you could call it that, Daniel, Teal'c and I had had in days, but I was too busy stuffing my face to enjoy it.

I was, however, enjoying stuffing my face. When Daniel came in, I was working my way through a hunk of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a small bunch of bananas. Call it my Elvis phase. Daniel wandered up and absently stuck his finger in my peanut butter. Before I could growl or pull it away or otherwise get possessive of it (the peanut butter was mine, after all, and I'd had to some convincing-not to mention flattering of the commissary staff-to get it all to myself) Daniel put his finger in his mouth and sucked. Suddenly, the Elvis sandwich was the last thing on my mind.

The feelings weren't new. I swung both ways, although my pendulum had been forcibly held to one side since I joined the Air Force. That didn't mean I was blind, though. I'd noticed the way Daniel looked. And sounded. And acted. And all of it turned me on faster than Celine Dion, Paula Abdul and Nick Carter put together.

I'd never done anything about it, though. I couldn't, not with things the way they were. Even if Daniel was interested, I told myself, year after year, even if he was willing to help me break the rules, it would be incredibly inappropriate for me to get involved with a member of my team. Even a civilian member. Even Daniel.

That's what I told myself. It was really a cover-up for cowardice. If I'd thought, really thought, that Daniel could begin to feel for me the way I felt for him, I would have taken the chance years earlier. I was never scared of taking a chance, not when I was reasonably sure of the outcome. In this situation, though, I wasn't at all sure. I'd heard rumours about Daniel's sexuality, but I'd seen the proof with my own eyes. Sarah. Kera. Sha're. I didn't want to lay it on the line only to be told Daniel was strictly straight.

Now, though, all those doubts disappeared, along with my sense of moderation and most of my sanity. I didn't think about rejection, or anything, really, beyond how Daniel's tongue would feel on to my extra-sensitized body. From the look in Daniel's eyes, he was thinking the same thing.

Just to be sure, though, I said: "Daniel?"

He lowered his finger and replied, "Jack," and I knew we understood each other perfectly.

I grabbed the peanut butter on our way out the door. Hey, you never know. We'd almost made it back to the isolation rooms when Carter sent for us.

Of course, this turned out to be a good thing. Caught up in the peanut butter and smouldering looks and the years of sexual tension as Daniel and I were, we would probably have done the deed right there in front of the armed guards. With Sam and Teal'c joining in halfway through, thanks to the neurological Intranet.

Carter's explanation of her new solution to our problem was enough to kill the urgency (nothing kills a hard-on like Carter technobabbling, by the way. I can't imagine how my alternate universe counterparts ever managed to get it up while married to her) and to give us a little perspective on things.

Still, it was painful when Hammond told us we had another week of armed guards and cameras. I exchanged a look with Daniel, who looked right back. Nothing we could do. And, given my luck, by the time the week was up, Daniel would have thought the whole thing through and decided he would be better off exclusively dating women attractive to the Goa'uld.

Then Urgo showed up again. And suggested a rousing game involving a dictionary.

A dictionary, I thought lasciviously before I could think better of it, would probably be what I needed after having sex with Daniel, if we ever got there. He seemed like the kind of guy who would be creatively verbal in that kind of situation. Not that I minded. I liked a little intellectualism in the bedroom. I didn't mind a little culinary art, either, which was of course entirely the wrong thing to think.

"What's sex?"

Carter stared at us all, like she was trying to figure out which one of us had thought it. As if she had to wonder. We're guys. Even Teal'c probably had at least forty-seven percent of his brain devoted to wondering what Carter and Fraiser would look like wrestling naked in pudding.

It was, actually, Teal'c who recovered enough to answer. Daniel had immediately dropped his pen and was futzing around under the table, and Carter was staring at me suspiciously. Teal'c though, just said:

"It is an act of physical and emotional intimacy between two people."

Hammond looked at him sharply. Urgo was unimpressed. He shuddered. "Ugh. You make it sound so boring. That's not at all what Colonel O'Neill was thinking."

"Sir!" Carter scowled.

I shrugged, trying to look innocent. "I don't know what he's talking about." Hammond and Fraiser looked between us like they were dying to know, but didn't want to ask.

Urgo had no such qualms. "You were thinking about spreading peanut butter over…"

"OK!" I stood up, banging on the table for emphasis. "Meeting over. Carter, keep trying. Sir," I looked at Hammond. If he'd had a hairline, his eyebrows would have disappeared into it. "You're doing a damn fine job. Daniel, you're with me." I left the room before Hammond had recovered enough to stop me.

I could escape the General, but I couldn't escape Urgo. See, that's the thing about having someone implanted in your brain. You can't get away from them. I could make comparisons to Daniel, but that would drastically reduce my chances for sex in the near future. And now that I've gotten rid of the more unpleasant of my brain-dwellers, that's something I'm planning to enjoy, frequently at for a good long time to come. Or short time to come, either way works for me.

Urgo followed Daniel and I down the hall.

"You should have said something. I didn't know you were sweethearts."

"Sweethearts?" Daniel spat the word like it was an Abydonian swear.

"You know, 'an act of physical and emotional blah blah blah.'" He lowered his voice and sounded nothing like Teal'c. But even more like Pavarotti with a head cold. "Can I watch?"

"No!" Daniel was so loud in his protest, he scared the shit out of a passing airman. Who then carried on his way, doing a half-decent job of pretending he hadn't just jumped a mile and possibly soiled himself. "Look, Urgo," Daniel continued, a little more calmly, "There's nothing between Jack and me."

Yet, I added silently. Daniel glanced up and suddenly, he wasn't Daniel to me. He was like a gigantic piece of pie with glasses and the weirdest, sexiest eyebrows I'd ever seen. I wanted to kiss him. I had to kiss him, immediately, because if I didn't, I was pretty sure my life wouldn't be worth living anymore. Not that it was exactly a bowl of cherries to begin with, but you know.

Thinking about cherries, bowled or otherwise, just made the feeling more intense. I stopped in the middle of the hall, putting a hand on Daniel's shoulder. He turned to face me, and I leaned forward, my tongue sneaking out to wet my lips in anticipation of wetting Daniel's.

"Jack," Daniel began in his warning tone, but I ignored him. I knew it was Urgo's fault, the same way I'd known it was Urgo making me stuff myself like a seventeen-year-old football player with an eating disorder. I just didn't care.

Daniel didn't either. He reached out to put his hands on my shoulders. I inched even closer, poised to finally do what I'd wanted to for years.

Until I felt someone who wasn't Daniel nudge my shin, and I dragged my eyes away from Daniel's beautiful, slightly flushed, face to see Urgo sitting on the floor between us, looking up expectantly and smiling.

And I remembered that we were standing in the middle of the hallway on a top-secret base of an institution that wasn't known for sexual open-mindedness.

And I remembered that when I'd been eating, the rest of the team had shown up hungry. I didn't want to think about what would happen if Daniel and I had sex. I'd never come across a horny Jaffa, but it wasn't on my list of must-sees.

I let go of Daniel, who looked disappointed. Join the club. Gritting my teeth, I stepped over Urgo and headed to the commissary, to dip a banana in yogurt and use my imagination. But not too vividly. I didn't want to distract Carter from finding a way out of this mess.

Not that Carter was willing to be distracted. I'd never complain about her work ethic, but when you're attached via mindlink, it gets a little irritating. At about 0300, when Daniel and I were about ready to pass out, we persuaded her to get some sleep, so we could hopefully do the same. I was lying in the isolation room, trying to get "Row Row Row Your Boat" out of my head, when the door opened and Daniel came in.

I sat bolt upright and looked around, but saw no sign of Urgo.

"He's Kel-No-Reeming with Teal'c," Daniel said, before I asked. "And I'm just here to get an extra blanket. I'm cold." He went over to the closet, an irony which did not escape me.

"I've already got them all." I'd been in that closet before Daniel was even born. And all I can say, it's no wonder the Goa'uld representatives were pissed off with us when they came to stay at the mountain. It's fucking freezing in that place at night. Something I'd been too busy Gating or trying not to die to notice before.

"Oh." Daniel paused. "Well, then I guess…I mean, we've shared a tent a thousand times."

"Right." But this wasn't a tent, and I didn't have any self-control anymore.

He pulled back the covers and slid in beside me. Thankfully, the cold meant that we were both fully dressed, in sweatpants, T-shirts and, in my case, fingerless gloves. Daniel was even wearing a toque, and his desirability was diminished not one bit.

"We can't do anything," he reminded me.

"I know." God, did I know. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to think about anything other than Daniel lying in bed next to me.

"Picture General Hammond in a bikini," Daniel advised.

"What?"

"Like on 'The Simpsons.' When Homer was stuck in the elevator with that hot nuclear scientist. 'Think unsexy thoughts.'"

"You watch 'The Simpsons?'" I'd known him for three years, and he'd never mentioned it.

"I'm not just about hieroglyphs and dead languages."

"I know," I soothed automatically, before he got seriously pissy. I tried to remember something else from the episode. "Imagine Janet shaving her legs." Probably with a cut-throat razor, knowing her. A rusty cut-throat razor.

"That's not unsexy," Daniel countered leaving me to once again question his sanity. As if apparently wanting to sleep with me wasn't crazy enough. "Imagine Paul shaving his legs."

"Davis?" Daniel nodded, grinning. "No way." That was just…ack. I shuddered in a vain attempt to shake that picture out of my mind.

Daniel laughed. "Come on, Jack. Nothing wrecks a Dior look like hairy legs."

"Arg!" I clamped my hands over my ears and rolled away from him. "I'm not hearing this." If there was one useful aspect to 'don't ask, don't tell', it was that innocent bystanders weren't nauseated by too much information. By blabbing, Daniel was violating one of the most sacred regulations of the Air Force. And taking a serious shot at getting me to upchuck all that yogurt and pie. It didn't help when he leaned on top of me, his weight compressing my stomach even further, and pried my hands off my ears. "Pauline is the belle of Washington." I bet. "Once, Paul had to forcefully dissuade a senator from taking him home."

"Kinsey?" I asked hopefully, half-rolling to face him.

Daniel shook his head. "Ted Kennedy."

"Bullshit," I claimed, even as I laughed. That, I could picture perfectly. I just hoped Davis didn't get into a car with him. Little shit's a damn good diplomat. It'd be a pain in the ass if his body got dragged out of the river. Wouldn't look too good for the Air Force, either. Or the Kennedys.

"It's true!" Daniel replied, convulsing beside me. "Ask him to show you his red Gucci slingbacks next time he comes out here."

I'm sure a lot of guys would have avoided the cheap shot. I wasn't one of them. I even raised an eyebrow, for emphasis. "Sounds like he's out already."

Obvious, crude, cheap, but funny. Daniel giggled and rolled away, taking me with him. We ended up hugging and laughing under the blankets, and I hoped Janet had fallen asleep at her monitors. If not, we always had the "Urgo made us do it" excuse to fall back on.

Except Urgo wasn't involved at all. I slowly forced myself to push the oh-so-amusing mental image of Davis swanning his way through the halls of power in cocktail dress and stilettos, turning the heads—both of them—of every homophobic prick in the Pentagon, out of my mind. Daniel was still chuckling happily, wheezing a little now and then, and I was struck by a sudden thought.

So what else is new, right? But this time, the thought wasn't lustful. That was still there, of course, shrivelled somewhere under a small bale's worth of cotton layers, but my main feeling was one of contentment. We weren't having hot and heavy sex, but we were together, and we were having fun. And, for once, that seemed almost better.

Not that I'd have turned down sex, if we could have, but it just wasn't on the agenda right now. Daniel had nearly recovered from his giggle fit, and we were still hugging, when there was a knock on the door. Daniel tried to sit up, but I pulled him back down. It had all been caught on video, anyway.

"Come in."

The door opened and Teal'c and Carter walked in. Carter was wrapped up, too, but Teal'c, in a tank top and shorts, was obviously not feeling the cold. Could have been the residual heat from all that coffee he'd chugged earlier.

"Sir, I…" Carter looked confused. "I can't sleep by myself."

"I, too, am having difficulty achieving a suitable level of relaxation."

I looked at Daniel, who hesitated for only a moment, then moved in closer. Urgo or no Urgo, I really didn't want to cuddle up to anyone but Daniel, so I moved to the edge of the bed. Carter slid in beside Daniel, and Teal'c got in beside her, turning he and I into the bread in a potentially kinky SG-1 sandwich. If we hadn't all fallen asleep within minutes.

***

"'In conclusion, while the inhabitants of P4X-884 were not willing to share their technology with us, thank Christ, the team benefited from our encounter. And Danny looks really hot when he's sucking down Jello. Colonel Jonathan 'Skippy' O'Neill for General George 'Hot Buns' Hammond, cc. Major Bette Davis."

"Skippy?" Daniel looked up from his book.

I sighed theatrically. "I knew you weren't listening."

"Of course I was listening." Daniel shook his head, like I'd accused him of not being able to name the pharaohs of Egypt in reverse chronological order. Not that I'd know it if he could. The only pharaoh I've ever cared about is Ramses. The Sheikhs and the Trojans are good people, too. "It's a brilliant report. Although it probably won't do much to convince Hammond that you're not a nutcase."

"Of course I'm a nutcase, Daniel." I blinked at him. "I waited three years to put the moves on you."

That was the cue for Daniel to get all misty eyed and fall into my arms. Again. For the, oh, fifth or fortieth time in the three days since we finally ditched Urgo and got Hammond to let us off the leash and off the base.

Daniel being Daniel, he naturally didn't go along with that scenario. "I was married for a significant portion of that time, Jack. And living on a different planet."

"Yeah. Well." I tossed the report, neatly arranged in a clear plastic folder for bonus brown-nose points, onto the coffee table and sat beside him. I took his book, nearly suffered a hernia trying to get the massive thing to the table, then took his hand onto my lap. "'Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that my heart will go on.'"

Daniel didn't swoon. He did, however say: "You'd better watch yourself, or you and Paul will end up catfighting for Queen of the Air Force."

"Nah," I shook my head. "I bagged that title years ago."

That got him. He laughed, and I took advantage of it to stick my tongue into his open mouth. It would have been a waste, otherwise.

When I pulled away, he said: "Jack, I love you, but Celine Dion?"

He loves me? He really loves me? I smiled, and joked: "Didn't you tell me you weren't just hieroglyphs and dead languages?"

"I still have my limits."

So did I. Fortunately, since the pain of Urgo had given me the gift of Daniel, most of them seemed to have gone into hiding.

As I demonstrated three more times before we had to go and deliver the heavily censored mission report to Hammond.