Title: Primary Protocols

Authors: Kelex and Diannan

Pairing: Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson, Robot versions

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: Tin Man

Warnings: Nope

Summary: Jack and Daniel re-establish their primary operating protocols.

Primary Protocols

The wormhole closed with a dark sort of finality, casting them in shadow.

Harlan went on about his business, thrilled to pieces to have new worker bees to keep his enormous, spacious, technologically advanced prison up and running. Sam joined him, overjoyed at the possibilities, coping as she always did -- with work, work that would benefit them in the long run. Jack disappeared into the long corridors almost instantly, the ragged, robotic wound that had burned through his synthetic flesh ugly and scarring.

Daniel would not see him again for many days.

Daniel did what came natural to him -- he explored his jail. Every square inch was catalogued -- two to three times the size of the SGC, it was an impressive cell, but a cell nonetheless. Daniel did his best not to think about it -- about never seeing the sun again, never feeling the rain on his face, never touching his wife's skin again. That was not his life anymore. This was his life.

If he didn't think about it, it wasn't happening. If he didn't dig too deep, he could handle it.

It was two days before Daniel saw Jack again. It was an accident, almost -- he passed a storage room and extra boiler, and it was only because of his extra heat sensors inside that he noticed someone was there. He stopped mid-step. "Jack?"

Jack almost didn't answer.

He was lying on the floor, halfway under the boiler in question, wrench and sonic tuner in hand as he sealed a steam leak from the half-rusted piping that led to the wall, and then up to the surface.

It was easier, when he was working alone. He didn't have to face the still-hopeful look on Daniel's face, didn't have to look at the Teal'c that was still half-grown in Harlan's demonic workshop, didn't have to wonder what Carter was doing or where she was.

He didn't have to face the fact that he still felt the pain of losing a son he'd never had, didn't have to deal with Daniel's grief, which was twice his own. They'd all lost their lives, but Daniel had lost even more. He'd lost his life, and he'd lost the only thing that meant anything else to him--the quest to find his wife. Shau're wasn't even Daniel's any longer, and he knew, intrinsically, how much that had to be paining his friend, and Jack didn't even care.

He didn't even roll out from under the boiler, because he hadn't bothered to fix the rupture in his cheek. "What do you want, Daniel?" His voice sounded curt and brusque, but he couldn't bring himself to soften it.

The tone startled him, but were once Daniel would have asked, now he didn't. Things were different, now -- without the SGC behind them, Jack might very well come clean about how he really felt about Daniel and his work.

Daniel wouldn't think about that right now, though.

He crouched next to Jack's leg, in between the boiler and the pipe. "Need a hand?"

"I got it." Which was true; Jack actually didn't need a hand with the repair.

Nor did he want the company, but that he did actually keep to himself. "Almost done here, and then I'm moving over to B-22, because there's another rupture in the power line and Harlan can't climb that high. If you want to come, go see if he's got a pulley rig and we'll both go up and seal it, because I don't know how big it is."

"Okay," Daniel said, eager and... kind of pleased to be of some use. Any use. "Where's B-22?"

Jack gritted his teeth under the boiler as he tightened the last coupling, and had no choice but to push himself out. "Second level, up and over three corridors, across from the secondary data relay station," Jack answered, sliding out on his back and dropping the tools he'd been using into the toolbox.

Daniel nodded, and stood. "Where are the pulley rigs? And what do you need to seal it with?"

"I don't know if we've got rigs or not; you'll have to ask Harlan. I didn't find any in the equipment room but they could be stored somewhere else in this monstrosity. If he doesn't have any, we'll do it the old fashioned way by dangling off the catwalk." He looked in his toolbox. "Get the acetylene putty; that should seal it in place once the current melts it enough to spread over the breach."

"Harlan said something about not having much sealant left. We could do what the ancient Romans did, and use barley paste and mud to make a sort of terracotta type sealant. It won't let anything in or out," Daniel teased almost conversationally, as he picked up the tools Jack had spread everywhere and began to put them back in the box. "I've never been one myself for repairs that didn't include tents and camels."

Jack waved a hand around the facility. "Don't know about you, but I don't see a lot of barley and mud growing around here, do you?" he snapped. "If we're running low on the sealant, then find some scrap metal and we'll torch it in place."

The sharp tone and exasperated words told Daniel that his help was unwanted. He stood up after a long moment. "I forgot about some things Sam asked me to do. I'll, uh, see you later, Jack. Sorry I couldn't be more help."

"If you need me, I'll be dangling my ass in the air trying to fix this place before it falls down around our fucking ears."

- = - = -

Daniel was not seen for several days. He found a small room, with a desk, a box of blank legal-type pads and pencils, and he lost himself in his work, which he had no problem remembering. It was all there, on file, waiting for him to call up. He slept and awoke, as much as his situation could allow him to do so, as if he were still home. He woke at six sharp, was dressed and clean by six thirty, and working on his translations at seven. He didn't have to stop to eat, but it didn't stop him from pausing, at twelve and at six, to rest hands that no longer needed rest.

He didn't see Jack again for several days. For that matter, he didn't see Sam, or Harlan, either. It suited him fine.

If he didn't think about it, it wasn't happening.

- = - = -

Even though Jack's system didn't pump blood, it pumped other things. Lubricant mostly, that kept his inner joints from freezing, electrical current that jumped through his system like nerve impulses, delivering thoughts and directives where they needed to go.

And right now? Jack felt like the vein in the middle of his forehead was throbbing.

"What do you MEAN we're out of acetylene polymer!" he blasted at the top of his lungs. "Half the goddamned machines in here need that to be repaired with, and you're telling me we've run OUT?" He dragged his fingers through his hair. "How in the hell do you expect me to keep this place running if you don't even have the right parts to do it with!?" he demanded. "You give me a bunch of crap, old parts that I can't use, and two people who are more concerned with what's going on in their heads than what's outside around them, and now you're telling me we don't even have the basic supplies we need anymore?" He threw up his hands in disgust. "What do you want me to do? Spit on things and hope they hold?!"

Harlan squealed again and hid his face deeper in his shirt-jacket, fingers tucked tight into his pockets. "I do not know! I have relied on my supplies for many years, Colonel O'Neill. They cannot be depleted!"

"Well they are!" Jack roared at Harlan's squeaky little voice. His head was so deep in his collar that all Jack could see were his beady little eyes and his shiny bald head. "Did you ever even bother to think that with the three of us working to do the repairs, that there was going to be more of this crap used??"

"No! I do not think! I am sorry!" Harlan cried, whimpering loudly inside his collar and backing up another few steps. "I am thoughtless, I do not think, my brain, it's a mush pit inside my head!"

"You got that right!" Jack blasted, and threw up his hands. "What the hell are we supposed to do now? One of my team is gone, Daniel and Carter are buried in their own work, and you're tellin' me that the stuff I need to do my job and keep this craphole running is gone!?" He sighed.

O'Neill's screaming made Harlan scream, the hands in the air and the strange Earth ways of speaking terrified him, and with the last yell Harlan turned and fled, babbling something about 'finding more oil and acetylene polymer for the Colonel, yes', his whisking steps slap-slap-slapping away.

Jack just growled at Harlan's retreating back and snarled. Three months in this hell hole and they were already running out of supplies. Much longer, and he was going to have to start breaking down parts of the facility they didn't use to keep the parts they did use running.

He turned and scowled at the empty room, and stalked out.

- = - = -

Sam had never been much of a religious girl. Raised in a household with a Catholic mother and an atheist father, she'd always been at odds with faith. The part of her mind governed by science and logic told her there was no God, no heaven for Him to be in. The other part of her mind was ruled by this sense that they were not alone, that they had been created by something or someone, a life given a soul. Not even the knowledge of the Goa'uld as false gods could take away the idea of some all powerful being there to help her.

She felt ridiculous, and silly, but Sam had been thrust into a situation where if she didn't do something, she was going to lose her mind. It was that, and the part of her that understood faith, that prayed as she hadn't since she'd been a little girl. She kneeled on the edge of her bed, her fingers clasped, her head bowed and her eyes closed. "I know it's been a long time, Lord, but I'm calling on you because I need your help. God, I've been put into a situation where there is no right and wrong, there are no options, and where I'm not even sure if...if..." Her throat closed. "If I've got a soul. SG-1 and I are stuck on this planet, God, with no way to leave, no way to go back to our lives because they AREN'T our lives anymore. I'll never see my father again, or General Hammond -- I'll never have babies of my own, never get married. But God, I have two men who mean the world to me, and I'm talking to you because... because I need you to help them. I need you to let them know that I'll always be here, and that despite our current situation we're still as strong a team as we ever were. I need you to let them know I love them, God," Sam said, and looked up at Jack in the doorway, who she'd felt standing there for ten minutes already. "I need you to tell them I love them, and that they mean the world to me."

Jack just shook his head. "Don't waste your time, Carter. If the person you're praying to was really there? We wouldn't be here." He shrugged a shoulder, then. "I need your help with one of the relay couplings. I can't hold it together and seal it at the same time, and Daniel's... indisposed." Didn't mention that Daniel hadn't bothered answering the door.

Sam closed her eyes for a moment, looked back down, and kept speaking after Ciolonel O'Neill had walked away. "I need you to tell them I love them, God, because I'm not sure I can do it myself any more."

And with that she stood, crossed herself, and strode off down the hall.

- = - = -

Things were too quiet for Jack's tastes.

He was man enough to admit he was prowling. Like a caged animal, he couldn't stop moving from one side of the complex to the other, growling in his throat when someone got in his way. He stopped resting, only recharged when he had to, and his mind began to unravel. How robots hallucinated was beyond Jack's understanding, but he did -- he began to see things that weren't there, and had conversations with himself, his dead son, and the General Hammond of his mind.

They were watching him. He knew they were. Teal'c, and Carter, and Daniel, when he came out of his room, which was happening less and less. Watching him, staring at him, waiting for him to lose his mind and run up to the surface. End it.

And had Teal'c been anyone other than himself, with a hundred years of experience behind him, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to understand. Luckily Teal'c was himself, and had served in the bowels of hell itself -- he'd known anger, and hate, and betrayal, and a pain so deep it cut to the bone. This new life for him, without his symbiote, without his revenge, without a purpose to continue fighting, both relieved him and needled at him, everyday that passed.

Teal'c had a suggestion, in fact. However, that suggestion would wait until his Tau'ri friends were well.

And so Teal'c kept to himself, and followed O'Neill.

Not that Jack wasn't glad to have Teal'c back, but if the huge Jaffa didn't stop shadowing his footsteps like a dog, he was going to have to have a few words with him about it. As it was, he felt like if he stopped walking for even a moment, Teal'c was going to be stepping on his heels. "Teal'c? Not that I'm not thrilled to have you here, but please... find it in your heart to go and bother Carter or Daniel, okay? I'm fine, I haven't lost my mind, and I'm not going to kill anyone, all right?"

But he was about to snap, one way or the other. He'd finally given into Carter's relentless badgering and let her fix the ugly open scar on his face, returning it to unbroken smoothness. The cut on his arm, where he'd sliced himself open to look at the mechanical components that had replaced flesh and blood, that had sealed on his own, without even a scar to show where it was. He was very, very tempted to do it again, but didn't.

"I cannot," Teal'c intoned, hands clasped behind his back. He stopped when O'Neill did, straightening and arching a single brow.

"Yeah, you can. It's easy. You turn around, you stop following me, and you start following one of them. I promise, they do things that are just as interesting as watching me walk."

"Captain Carter is working with Harlan. DanielJackson has not been seen in many days," Teal'c said, without moving an inch.

Jack frowned at that. "Then it sounds like you should be checking on him and not me."

"He refuses to speak to anyone but you. As I have told you," Teal'c said. "I have told you this many times, O'Neill." If Teal'c had been anyone else, he may have added, but you've lost your mind. Fortunately, he was Teal'c.

Jack frowned again. Yes, Teal'c had told him that, but he had no idea that Daniel was being that seriously bratty. "Fine, Teal'c. Back off. I'll go talk to him."

Teal'c arched a brow again, glanced around the very small hallway they'd been passing when O'Neill came up from his self-induced fog, and glanced again at the Colonel.

"What?" Snapped as he glared at the Jaffa.

"I cannot in fact back off. Merely back forward."

Head in his hands. "It's a figure of speech, Teal'c. It means go away because I can find my own way to Daniel's quarters."

He did indeed know that, but harassing O'Neill was a highlight of Teal'c's day.

He stepped aside to let O'Neill pass.

If Jack didn't go nuclear and kill them all, it was going to be a fucking miracle. He sighed, squeezing past Teal'c and backtracking his steps until he came to the hallway the four of them now shared. He pounded on Daniel's door with his fist, rattling the metal partition in its casing. "Daniel! Open the door!" he bellowed.

No one quite understood what had happened to Daniel but Daniel himself. He was too intelligent, too thoughtful, too in tune with his own emotions to survive this. His wife, forever lost to him, was nothing but another shadow, another failure on his soul. Trapped in a tin-can hundreds of miles underground, he would never again see sunshine, feel the day, or do what he loved -- dig up the past. His training was worth nothing to them now. Daniel tried so hard to get past it, to use it to strengthen himself, but it was the straw that broke the camels back. No man could handle so much and retain his mind, and Daniel's entire life was his mind.

He did the unthinkable.

He lay in his bed, bleeding out the last of the oil and liquids from within.

Jack kept pounding. "Daniel!! If I don't get an answer, I'm kicking this place down!" He rattled the door again with his pounding, and when he couldn't hear anything from the inside, Jack did just what he'd promised to do.

He dug his fingers into the metal and yanked. It screamed loudly coming off the hinges, jamming halfway open like a tin can. He twisted the rest of the useless hunk out of the way, and wished he'd done it days ago as soon as he got into the room. "Oh, Christ." He shot back out into the corridor. "Teal'c! Go get Harlan, now!" He bellowed it out into the corridors, not knowing or really caring if Teal'c was close by or not. His own room was open--what use did he have for locks anyway?--and he yanked the toolkit out from under the bed, spilling half of it across the room as he pawed through it desperately.

Spanner, soldering iron, replacement tubing, and connectors. He bolted back to Daniel's room, kicking the crumpled door out of the way, raising sparks as it skidded down the metal and concrete hallway. "C'mon, Daniel, don't you do this to me," Jack grunted, dropping the tools on the bed as he tore the pillowcases apart, shredding them in his haste to make bandages.

He wrapped the sliced skin in the cloths, keeping what little lubricant remained inside the left arm while he looked at the mess of the right. Connections had been severed, conduits broken, circuits shorted out by leaking coolant and lubricant. "Goddammit! Where's Harlan!?" Jack used the last strips of pillowcase to wipe Daniel's arm clean, then followed the split skin upward, up his whole arm to the valve pump that rested where his heart was. "Jesus, Danny, you really did this one good. Why the hell didn't you say something? If you'd told me it was serious, I'd have come." Knew Daniel couldn't hear him and he didn't care.

Jack yanked off his own shirt, not even wincing as he used the end of the spanner to split his chest open, using the tubing to join his pump to Daniel's to start circulating his fluids through both their systems.

No, Daniel couldn't hear any longer -- that system shut down ten minutes after he made his cuts. He still had his sight, though, and he shifted his eyes to watch Jack as Jack tried to....save him. Save him for what, though? For what? Had Daniel had any strength, he'd have pulled away. As it was, he couldn't move, but tears came to his eyes.

Jack saw them; couldn't help but see them, leaning over Daniel as he was. He could feel his fluid draining into Daniel, trying to lubricate parts that didn't want to move or weren't connected any longer, and one hand held the severed skin together as the other took Daniel's glasses off, put them to the side, and gently wiped the tears. "You're gonna need these for later; don't cry. You're gonna need all the fluid you can get."

He could have cheered when he felt Daniel's valve pump start moving again, and he didn't dare disconnect himself. Instead, he just added more tubing to the connection between them. "I'm going to start soldering temporary connections," he said slowly, fairly certain Daniel still wasn't hearing him, but needing to explain anyway. "When Teal'c gets back with Harlan, he'll tell us how to get you repaired." Because Daniel not being repaired wasn't even an option, and he was prepared to stay permanently connected, if that's what it took.

When Sam came skidding into the room, Harlan and Teal'c at her back, she didn't scream. She wanted to. But she didn't. All she could see were Daniel and the Colonel, and Daniel's bed, covered in the oil that was vital to his systems, and the torn ravage of his arms and chest. She didn't scream, and she didn't cry, though she wanted to.

It had only been a matter of time. One of them would have done it, but that it was Daniel broke her heart into aching little shards.

She swept into the room, followed by Teal'c and Harlan, and set the repair kit she'd brought down at her side. She passed her hand over Daniel's forehead once so he knew she was there and looked down at the Colonel, his open chest panel, and Daniel's. "Okay," she said, opened her kit, and began to start emergency work.

Jack didn't move. "I'm trying to put together the connections down below his elbows," he answered softly, nodding to the soldering iron in his hand. "that's where it looks like the worst of it was done. The bandages seem to hold it together enough to let my stuff pump through and keep him going, for now. I'll stay hooked up as long as I have to, and if we have to recharge him, we do it together."

Sam would not cry. She would not scream, she would not panic. She would not look down at her little brother's chest and see anything other than a job, an effort to help him. She would not lose it, when it was obvious that Daniel had lost it enough for all of them. She just looked up into his almost soulless eyes and knew, immediately, through the conduit consciousness through Harlan, what she had to do. "Colonel, we've got to get him into the iso chamber. I can try to repair him there," Sam said, climbing to her feet immediately. She grabbed one of the pillows on the floor, pulled the case off of it, and with a towel she ran to get from the bathroom, packed the gaping chest cavity and all the circuitry tight, so nothing would get loose on their way. "Can you carry him?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, I can carry him." He knew he could; he knew that if Sam had stopped to think about it, she'd have realized that they all had servos instead of muscles and tissue and bone, and weight-bearing frames that allowed them to haul about the heavy machinery in their prison.

Daniel wasn't nearly that heavy and Jack picked him up carefully, making sure the tubing that connected them stayed together, feeling his pump pushing fluid through Daniel and back into himself. "C'mon, Daniel, don't let go."

He turned to squeeze out of the small doorway and turned again, shuffling sideways down the hallway until it opened up in the main corridor, following the blur of Sam's blond head as she moved ahead of them.

- = - = -

There was nothing Sam could do.

She toiled for days. Her body, machinery now, couldn't handle it. She grew tired, weak, exhausted, her energy depleted, her mind fading. But Sam kept at it as long as she could, and when she couldn't anymore, when four days had passed and she had worked so hard to help him, even she knew what Harlan already did -- Daniel was gone.

She pulled off her blow-torch mask, hot, oily tears clogging her eyes, her heart breaking over the body of the man in front of her. Open, his parts spilled everywhere, but there'd been too much damage. Daniel had known just what to cut and tear to end everything.

She was crying, bitterly, as she covered his body with a blanket up to the chin and collapsed into a chair.

Jack was sitting across from her, untangling the power cord to the portable battery charger they'd been keeping Daniel hooked up to.

He hooked up a second cord into the power source, and then passed it over to her. "Here, Carter. Plug in and recharge." He reached up and pulled the blanket down, he peeling it back to see his chest again. Their chest tubing was still in place, and they'd refilled Daniel's fluids, as much as they could, but there was still massive leakage. While Carter rested, Jack picked up the miniature torch and started at Daniel's wrists again, microbeam from the laser carefully sealing connective tubing to keep the flow of lubricant and oil, if nothing else. "Is the new body ready yet?"

Every time he asked, Sam just wanted to cry harder. She covered her face with her hand for a minute until the Colonel threw the recharger at her, and she hooked it up, averting her eyes from him. "Sir...please, stop asking me that," she said, softly. "There's nothing else we can do for him. He's losing the liquids faster than we can give them to him. His circuits are rusting with the chemicals, and there's nothing I can do. Sir, there's nothing I can do."

"Screw that, Carter," Jack said calmly. He wouldn't allow himself to be anything but. Not when everything else that mattered to him was falling to pieces around him, and it was his fault for sulking so damn long in the first place. "I'm not asking what you can do. I'm asking if Harlan can grow a new Daniel, just like he fixed Teal'c," he explained, for what felt like the tenth time. "I can keep pumping my hot lubricant through his system with both our valve pumps working for as long as I have to; I've got almost a full charge left, and I don't have a problem holding the fluid. I can hold him here until the new body is ready."

"Sir," Sam said, weeping openly now, "I already told you, sir, we can grow him a new body, but his mind, his thoughts, the things that made him Daniel would be gone. We can't put the mind stamp on the new body without the host body."

Somehow, Jack had expected the answer to change since yesterday, simply because that was the unacceptable alternative. "You and Teal'c start making sure we can divert enough power to run the Stargate, and see if we've still got one of the other team's GDO transmitters. If not, put one together. If I can't find a way to fix him, then I'll go and bring the other one back, whether he wants to come or not."

"Sir," Sam said, voice hitching terribly. "Jack, please. Don't make me do that. Daniel wouldn't have wanted it like this. There's nothing left for me to do -- we have to let him go."

"NO!" Jack's hand punched a hole through the wall. "I am not going to let him go, Carter. I refuse. I don't care what happened, he would not give up on any of us, and I will be damned before I give up on him." His eyes were almost sparking with the hard fury. "He brought me back once before. I'm not going to let him go this time."

"We're not giving up! Sir, he chose to end his life!" Sam said, her voice matching his in volume. "We can't ignore the fact that he WANTED to let go, that he chose this rather than live! He knew what he was doing -- he knew how to cut his wires so I couldn't fix him! Sir, I can't bring him back!" Oh, and she was sobbing. "I can't! I can't fix him! I CAN'T!"

"Then I will." That's the only thing Jack said in answer to that. "Go plug up somewhere else and tell Harlan that anything he needs done, it's going to be you and Teal'c for awhile. The parts I need, I'll take out of myself, and we can repair me later. But I'm not giving up, Carter. I refuse. Daniel might have given up on himself, but I won't."

Sam shook her head, tears trembling down her face. "No, sir, I can't let you do that. Our bodies are unique, our machinery unique. Your wires wouldn't fit him more than mine could. The only thing I could think of to save him would be to..." Her throat closed. She couldn't say it, couldn't even think it.

"To grow another one, and cut him to pieces to save ours," Jack said for her.

There was a silence, for a moment.

"He'd never forgive us," Sam said quietly.

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Jack answered, after looking into Daniel's open, blank eyes.

- = - = -

Daniel's first thought, as his systems came back online and his wires and mechanics within once again began to move on their own, was that he hated them all for doing this to him. Even awake again, whole again he didn't open his eyes. He couldn't, not to face the world he'd left. Had he been human, of flesh and bone and blood, maybe he'd have forgotten about his situation. But he was cursed with a perfect memory now, and his mind picked up where it had left, moments after he'd cut the wires leading to his chest cavity. His internal clock even told him how much time had passed.

Six months.

He lay there, perfectly still, and knew hell.

Jack knew Daniel was online again. How could he not, when he'd only seconds ago physically oiled Daniel's eyelids, closing them from their frozen, blank stare upwards as the optical systems whirred back to life.

Jack frowned at the soft clicking in one of Daniel's eye servos, and used a little gizmo who's name he couldn't pronounce to sweep over the socket, re-balancing the eye and getting rid of the soft click. "There's fresh saline in the ducts," Jack said softly, close to Daniel's ear. "You don't have to open them, just... tell me if you can move them okay."

Had Daniel still been a man, he may have thrown up at that. Instead all he did was swallow, hard, the rough sensation painful inside until it soothed and lubricated itself. Yes, he could move his eyes. He didn't want to, but he could. He didn't answer, though, just squeezing them shut a little harder, and turning his face the smallest bit away from Jack's voice.

That was enough of an answer for Jack. "That's good. We were worried that the corrosion might have damaged the optic circuits," he soothed. "Daniel... I know you hate me right now. And you should. Because I wouldn't let you go. This place, this planet, this prison... it's hell. I know it is. But it's a worse hell without you. Maybe I was selfish before, and wallowing in my own misery, but I won't make that mistake again. You, Carter, Teal'c, you're my primary objectives now. But don't hate them for following orders, all right? I was the one who couldn't let you go."

At that, Daniel finally opened his eyes, blurry with tears, and turned his head to look at him. When he spoke, his voice was a rasp of its former self, until the lubrication took hold. The almost robotic quality of it made the tears Jack had apparently just put in the ducts fill his eyes, made his throat tighten. "You should have let me go. I can't take it anymore. How could you have done this to me?"

"I told you, Daniel. I'm selfish. I can't exist in this place without you here," Jack explained simply. "I couldn't let you go."

"You're right. You are selfish. You couldn't obey my wishes, you couldn't, for once, think of what I wanted. I didn't want to be fixed. I didn't want this anymore," Daniel whispered, still so robotic. His chest, newly sealed, heaved with his pain. "I can't do it, Jack, I can't stay locked in this hell hole for the next hundred thousand years."

"You won't have to." Jack reached around under the edge of the bed until he found the lubricant, and held it up. "Lean forward; let me refill your nodes." They were lubricant nodes, either side of his neck, just like lymph nodes in humans. "You'll sound more like yourself."

Daniel lost it. Completely. Whatever game Jack was playing, Daniel was falling for it. He burst into heaving, agonized sobs, bringing his hands to his face as he curled to one side, wires and such still attached to various parts of him tugging but he didn't care, because he'd finally reached the bottom of the barrel. It was hell. Pure, undignified, unreal, hell. He could only think that he must have done something truly terrible in his life to deserve this.

Jack carefully put the lubricant back down on the floor and moved in, slowly disconnecting the wires that been Daniel's life-support. He was functioning on his own now, and Jack slowly threaded the wires out of Daniel's skin, letting the polymer seal up behind the pin-pricks as he moved on his own. "Don't cry, Danny," Jack said quietly, putting his hand on Daniel's shoulder and pulling him back over. His arms went around Daniel's shoulder and Jack held his sobbing friend.

- = - = -

It took a long time to get Daniel's systems back online. When one came on another failed, again and again, so that some days passed in a haze of wires, buzzing, Sam's muttering and the morbid sensation of being operated on while conscious. In the second month since he awoke he lost use of both legs and one of his arms, and spent the two weeks pressed close to Jack's body, where he refused to move.

His depression slowly lifted. In the presence of Jack's sardonic charm it was impossible to stay upset for long, and after three months had passed, he stopped wanting to die, and tried to live. He didn't cry again, but he didn't have to, when all he had to do was turn his face into Jack's shoulder and escape for a while.

And then one day, miraculously, Daniel was better. Sam fixed him, like they all knew she would, and for the first time in over four months, he was closed, whole, and... better. It didn't hurt anymore, he could think without gaps in his memory, and he could move. He was better.

But it was the strangest thing. He was better, but he couldn't leave Jack's side, or vice versa.

And strangely enough, Jack didn't have a problem with that. He didn't mind being that close to Daniel, and he didn't mind Daniel being that close to him.

Usually he would have; he wasn't big on having his personal space invaded, but this time... Daniel was different. Not because he had been sick, but because he was DANIEL.

When he wasn't helping Sam work on putting Daniel back together, he was working on small repairs, pieces of machines that he could work on without leaving Daniel's side, because he wasn't about to.

He still remembered how it felt to find Daniel in his room, wires and circuits cut, and sometimes when he was recharging, the memories cross-circuited with each other, making nightmarish "dreams" that Jack couldn't wake up from until the recharge was done and he could re-order his memories.

And he always, every time, made sure that Daniel was there beside him, touched his hair or pulled his shoulders closer, anything to remind himself that Daniel was there, and finally whole again.

"Penny for your thoughts," Daniel said.

They were crouched together by one of the circuit breakers for the mainframe of the computer, taking it apart and cleaning up the rust. A mundane task, a simple task, meant to keep him busy. He didn't mind it, so long as Jack was there, helping him, close.

Jack gave a low snort. "You don't have a penny. And even if you did, they're not worth it. I'd have to make change and you know how I suck with numbers." He was kneeling beside Daniel, working inside the computer panel itself, loosening rust from the inside of the cabinet and tower, so they could hook it back up to the environmental control panel in the wall, and add this part of the complex to what they could inhabit.

Daniel rolled his eyes and scrubbed the cotton-like swab over the panels Jack was undoing and handing over to him. "I do so have a penny. Or, well, Sam does. And a nickel, dime, and quarter. The..." he cleared his throat just a little. "The other Sam gave them to our Sam in case she needed to synthesize the metals."

"... I didn't know that," Jack said, pulling his head out of the panel enough to look at Daniel. "If that's the case? Remind me to tell our Sam to start synthesizing. There's a ton of these things we could use copper piping to replace, and it'd last a hell of a lot longer than the spit-and-pray system we've currently got going."

Daniel peeked at Jack from under his fringe, thought for a moment, and tapped his chest three times in a certain area. He listened for a moment, and said, "Yeah, it's me. Jack said to start on the copper wiring we were talking about." A pause. "Yeah, we'll see you in a bit."

Jack watched in surprise. "I need me one of those." He reached out and tapped on Daniel's chest. "Yoohoo?"

That earned Jack a small smile. He reached right back and tapped the spot beneath Jack's left nipple three times to open the com.

"--swear, sometimes he can be such an idio-- ...Sir? Can you hear me now?"

"Hello!" Jack nearly jumped out of his polymer skin when Sam's voice sounded in his ear. "Hi!!! Yes!! You're there!" Like a kid, Jack yanked his shirt open and peered down at his chest, trying to see through the skin. "When'd that get there?"

"We always had it, sir," Sam said.

"What she means to say is, she found it after I flipped out and she got to play Leonardo DaVinci."

"Funny."

"I thought so," Daniel said smugly, and pulled his eyes up from Jack's chest.

"This is neat," Jack said, poking himself and feeling the little clicks as the transmitter activated itself. He reached out and poked Daniel again, finding it in the same place. "We should do exploratory surgery more often if we're gonna find neat little gizmos like this."

If Daniel had still been made of flesh and bone, he may have flushed. As it was he ducked his head down with embarrassment and rubbed the spot where Jack had poked.

"Neat, but sucks at our energy reserves. And I'm busy. I'll see you both later," Sam said, and clicked out.

"... I think she blew me off." Jack poked his own transmitter again, and felt it turn off. "You okay?" he asked, looking up at Daniel. "Didn't poke you too much or damage anything, did I?"

Daniel shook his head. "No damage," he said, and kept cleaning. "You still haven't told me what you were thinking about."

Jack snorted. "No, I didn't, did I?" He gave Daniel a grin and slid back under the computer console to go back to work. Once he was under there, he gave a silent sigh. "I was thinking about how good it was to have you back."

Daniel heard it everyday from Jack, Sam, and Teal'c, but it was still good to be needed, and he felt a small thrill inside of him that made him smile a little. The guilt overwhelmed that feeling, but...well, still. "I'm sorry," he said, as always, when Jack told him that.

For once, Jack didn't brush it off. He pushed himself out from under the console again, and looked up at Daniel. "You should be," he said softly. "But not to me. To yourself. For not giving yourself enough credit. For not believing in yourself, and for underestimating how strong you are. You don't have to keep apologizing to me, Daniel. Just... knowing you're not gonna do it again is all I need to know."

"I won't. Not purposely, anyway," Daniel said quietly. They'd been through this a million times before, but instead of telling Jack just how ashamed he felt, he showed Jack how grateful he was.

He didn't think. Ironically, even as a robot Daniel had a compulsion problem. Because before he could stop himself, he leaned forward, wound a hand back to the nape of Jack's neck and the back of his head, and pulled him in to press a kiss against his forehead.

Jack closed his eyes at the kiss, and gave a kiss. His hand came up to rest on Daniel's forearm, and then when he felt Daniel pull away, he tightened the grip on Daniel's arm and held him close. His eyes opened, looking at Daniel's only a few inches away, glasses discarded. He blinked once, and then leaned forward to return the gentle little kiss. "I love you too, Danny," Jack said quietly, kissing Daniel on the cheek, then the forehead.

- = - = -

The things that are bad for you, the things that addict you, almost always start out innocently enough. Cigarettes, harmless teenagers trying to fit in. Drugs, kids who'd gone awry. Drinking, initiation to college.

Sex between two robots... seeing if their parts still worked.

Holy shit, did they work.

All the jiggly bits worked on the bed, on the table, on the floor, against the wall. They worked upside down, they worked tied up and bound down. They worked when sucked, they worked when licked, they worked when kissed.

God bless Harlan and his shiny bald mechanical head, because not only did the jiggly bits work... they worked WELL. No more limits of twice a night. Daniel spent nights of passion more intense than he'd ever experienced in true life, pleasure to intense that it made him lose consciousness more than once. Ecstasy the likes of which a normal human being could never reach.

With Jack.

And Jack was in a new phase of his existence. It was caught somewhere between heaven and whatever was beyond heaven, because not only could he stay up all night with Daniel, doing everything that they could think of and then a few things more, there was no letdown the next morning.

No exhaustion, no tiredness, no aches and no pains. Just Daniel, his mouth, his body, his hands and fingers and his hot kisses and his hard cock.

No more thoughts of what he should or shouldn't be doing, of authority or possibly having Daniel removed from the team if anyone found out.

Wherever the mood struck, Jack acted. If it was in the middle of repairing a blown conduit, he leaned over the tool kit to kiss Daniel. If it was dangling from a catwalk soldering wires in place, Jack shimmied up the rope to take Daniel's arm and swing him down for mid-air groping. If it was lying on the recharge slab, their bodies were joined, sharing the same power source as they lay there.

If a machine could be addicted, then Jack most certainly was. And he'd never been happier.

It had started innocently. A kiss on the forehead, a kiss on the cheek. Over the days and weeks they touched more, and more, until one day, Daniel had had enough, Jack had had enough, and they kissed so hard their teeth knocked. They made spectacular love against the wall, rutting against each other to an orgasm they weren't sure they were going to have.

Oh, they had it. If anything, it was better than Daniel could have ever imagined.

They rutted until they began to touch other places -- until their fingers slid in one another, and they found how perfect Harlan's gift of immortality had been.

Daniel could spend all day in Jack's body, and vice versa. No pain ever accompanied the initial breech -- only smooth, perfect pleasure.

He sighed and rolled his hips a little, just to remind him where Jack was, and pressed closer against the smooth length of Jack's chest, where they lay on their recharging beds, warm and cozy under all the soft material, and rubbed his lips against Jack's cheek.

Jack gave a deep groan of satisfaction as Daniel's hips thrust against him, and the erection that was still buried in Daniel's body thrust lazily into the roll. "Almost done," he murmured in Daniel's ear. He could feel the hum that surrounded him when he was fully charged and fresh out of the charger starting to build. When the charge was fully built up, he and Daniel would almost crackle together as they started to move again, the hum building between them and discharging as a burst of crackling blue static electricity as they came.

Daniel shuddered, rolling his hips again as he listened to Jack's voice. His legs, wound tight with Jack's, flexed and tightened with pleasure he could barely control. His cock slapped against his belly, wet and greasy from the oil he produced and the lubrication they used. "Yeah," he groaned, twitching as they waited for it.

Jack's hands slid down Daniel's arms, linking their fingers and squeezing them tightly. "Just a few more seconds," he said, feeling the crackle get closer. His hair started to stand on end, and he could see Daniel's doing the same as the charge built higher. "Get ready... get close, c'mon," he said, pulling Daniel even closer against him, twitching his hips to seat his cock more firmly in Daniel's body.

"Nnnn!" Daniel cried, teeth clenched, as the energy built higher, and higher, and higher, rough and painful and gloriously erotic and so good, so perfect, so absolutely, gut wrenchingly... he swallowed the scream and had to move, had to thrust, rolling into Jack's body, begging him to thrust into him, to make the pleasure sharper. "YES!"

Jack started moving split-seconds after Daniel did. Daniel had plugged in a second before he had, so Daniel would be seconds ahead of him in the energy charge, and Jack was damned determined they'd finish at the same time.

He raised his hips, thrusting into Daniel as every hair on his head rose and stood at attention, as did the hair on his arms.

His naked skin pressed tightly against Daniel's, hands still clasped together as the discharge finally hit.

Jack cried out, his body arching as the blue energy crackled over both their skins. His cock drove deeper into Daniel's body, throbbing and surging with fully-charged power as his servos clicked, channeling the recharge through his entire system, renewing the depleted systems.

With every thrust, Daniel cried out, until their love making was a chorus of wails, grunts, and groans. They moved as fast as lightening, racing to oblivion. Daniel grabbed Jack's hand bracing his hip and pulled it down to his cock as he arched his back and grabbed the back of Jack's neck, holding on as they moved, moved, moved.

The crackle of static danced over the polymer of Jack's skin, heating it in all the places where Daniel was rocking and touching him, coolant leaking out of the pores like sweat to cool him and keep him from melting.

He just surged harder against Daniel, answering the hard, fast rocking motions on his cock, his hands dropping Daniel's and locking around his waist as he raced to keep up.

His eyes were closed, eyelids protecting his optics from the coolant as it seeped down his face and forehead, and he ignored it. He just thrust against Daniel, grunting hard, feeling the energy popping between them as the recharge cables automatically withdrew back into the bed where they were so enthusiastically fucking.

All it took for Daniel to lose his mind was for Jack to wrap his fist around his cock and squeeze once. He shuddered from head to foot, back bowing, ass locking tight around Jack's thrusting cock and he came, and came, and came. Pleasure ripped through him, wrenching the scream he'd swallowed before out, ripping it from his throat as the pleasure doubled, and tripled, made better by the electric currents flowing through him. So erotic it made him sob out, saline tears falling down his face, and his body, once so completely broken at his own hand, felt so new and young and.... so very good.

Jack came nanoseconds after Daniel did, the energy current skipping between them carrying surges from Daniel's body straight into Jack.

He had no need to breathe, but he was panting anyway, because his synapses, even though they were artificial, remembered that's what he was supposed to do. His fist stroked Daniel's cock roughly, pulling out the orgasm, prolonging it as much as he could as his own fluids spilled inside Daniel's body.

His skin was sticky with lubricant and coolant, and he made no move to get up and do anything about it as he grinned up at Daniel. "Was it good for you too?"

Daniel's body shook, but not with tears. Exhausted laughter escaped him, shaking his shoulders, his body, as the pleasure zinged through him. He giggled helplessly, breathlessly, rolling his eyes and shoving Jack's head off him, even as he took Jack's hands and squeezed them tightly in his. "Rein it in, flyboy."

Jack's fingers wound easily through Daniel's as they laced together. "I take it that's a yes?" He couldn't help the snickers in answer to Daniel's laughter, and he looked entirely too pleased with himself.

"Yeah," Daniel said, grinning back at him and pulling him closer. "Harlan should have mentioned this months ago, you know. We coulda become the universe's first gay robots and ignored all the bad stuff."

"Somehow, I sincerely doubt that Harlan realizes how fully functional we are," Jack answered, rolling over onto his elbow and scooting closer to Daniel. His hand stroked through Daniel's hair gently, tugging the ends carefully. "I worry about you."

"You're right. Harlan doesn't strike me as the type to...er....even know what sex is," Daniel said, batting Jack's hand away and scratching where Jack had been tugging. His free fingers trailed through the mess he'd left on his belly. "We'd better not ever tell him, either, or he'll want to experiment, and my ass is off limits."

"Yeah. Harlan and sex do not go together in any sense." Jack's hand fell when Daniel batted it away, and he stroked it over the ass in question. "Off limits?"

"Completely," Daniel hummed, glanced at his fingers, and then trailed one over Jack's lower lip. The streak of white made his eyelids lower, his belly quiver. "Undeniably."

Jack's tongue snaked out and licked the trail of Daniel's fluids off his lower lip. "That's a shame. Guess that means we'll have to make do with mine for the time being."

Daniel's eyebrows curved wickedly. "Guess so. Shame, isn't it?" he asked, and with a knock of his knee and a shove of his hand he had rolled over Jack's long, twisting, scarred, gorgeous body. He smirked down at him, blue eyes on fire. "I'd like to see someone take a ride," he murmured, licking over Jack's lip to pick up what he'd missed. "Teal'c, maybe. All that dark skin, pressing you into this bed," Daniel whispered directly into Jack's ear, nipping at the lobe sharply. "Too bad I don't share."

Jack's arms rose, wrapping around Daniel's waist and pulling him down. "It is a shame," he teased back. "Just imagine yourself, sitting in the chair over there, watching him fuck me while you jack yourself off." His hands slid over Daniel's hips slowly, methodically. "Guess you'll just have to make do with fucking me yourself," he said with a mock sigh, grinning as he kissed the corner of Daniel's mouth. "See if Harlan's got any recording doohickeys hidden around here."

"Think the old perv is getting an eyeful?" Daniel asked, sliding his fingers through Jack's hair and kissing him, sweeter and softer than the teasing roll of his hips was implying.

"Nah. He wouldn't know what to do. But if he's got 'em... you could get the best of both worlds. Watching and fucking." Jack lifted his hips into Daniel's rolling. "Know what I mean?"

"I think I may have a clue," Daniel murmured back, licking Jack's lips and kissing down his neck. "I think maybe the old perv who wants an eyeful is you. And I think maybe I need to be fucking you while we get it," he murmured, snickering into Jack's neck even as he bit and nibbled it.

Jack gave a nod as he arched his neck, turning it just a little to give Daniel more of his skin to nibble. "Yeah... I think you're right," he agreed somberly. "In fact, I know you're right." He reached up and slid his hands over Daniel's bare ass, and then up his back to his shoulders. "I'd even be happy with mirrors."

Daniel snickered, looked up and got on one elbow. "I'll give you one better," he murmured. He looked down at Jack's furry, firm chest, touched the small spot beneath the left nipple, and part of Jack's chest piece opened. They always refrained from being..."roboty" as Jack called it during sex, but this was worth it. "We robots come with power supply units, coms, and the latest spy toys. James Bond would kill to be us," he smirked, and lifted out a very tiny little droid from the spot on Jack's chest. The chest piece slid closed again, and Daniel licked Jack's nipple softly. "This is the R310. It's as small as a house fly, but....well, activate it."

Jack took the little machine carefully in his hands, and turned it around and around until he found the little switch that activated it. Squinting, he used his fingernail to flip it, and the thing... grew legs.

He almost dropped it in surprise, and then gave a little grin when the legs turned into an obvious tripod-like arrangement, and he put it on the power console beside the recharging bed. "Oh, man. This is sweet."

Daniel smiled, shook his head, and murmured, "So uncreative."

He picked up the little machine again, tapped it, and with a little buzz it took off, flying on small electronic looking, silent wings. "Now tap your temple. You should be able to see through the camera."

"I come equipped with a camera?" Jack reached up and tapped his temple as Daniel instructed, and gave a little gleeful grin when his optics did a split screen, one eye watching real time and one eye watching the little buzzing camera. "Okay. Now this I like. Harlan should have told us about these babies."

Daniel's smile curved his face, as he looked over his shoulder at the little flying camera and shamelessly did a butt flex for it. "You're telling me. Though I should warn you, Sam said she'd rip my wires out of my ass if she ever so much as sniffed we were spying on her in the shower."

"Holy shit." Jack yelped it as he watched Daniel's ass flexing in the camera. "Carter? Spying on Carter? Why would I do that?" He squeezed Daniel's ass again, reveling in the camera getting it all. "I've got enough to watch right here."

Daniel grinned down at him and kissed him, hard, at the same time he tickled Jack's belly, just to get him laughing into his mouth, which Daniel loved more than life itself.

- = - = -

In the twelfth month, finally fully repaired and happy with Jack, Daniel found peace within himself.

But that had been a long time ago, a memory easy called upon but repressed. His life was with Jack, and Sam, and Teal'c now. They went through the Stargate, their curiosity unsated, their explorations wide. Their bodies, mechanical, filled with oil and grease and moving parts, provided for them in ways their flesh counterparts never could. Never hungry, never thirsty, never tired, they saved so many people.

And Daniel accepted his place.

Ever since Daniel had tried to terminate his function, Jack never let him far out of sight. Not that he thought Daniel would do anything like that again; no, he was certain that Daniel had come to terms with being who he was, just like all of them had. It had just taken Daniel the longest, and though he wished it, he knew that he could not have made that realization any easier, despite his constant presence in Daniel's life since that day.

Nor could he be anyone other than who he'd been created to be. He was Jack O'Neill. He learned, he grew, he experienced things and cross-referenced them, but he was still simply Jack O'Neill, who could never be the challenge that Daniel Jackson needed, who could never do anything for Daniel except love him.

And he did. Unlike the other Jack--he refused to think of himself as the fake Jack and the flesh one the real Jack--he did not come with the barriers that kept him from saying such. He loved Daniel, and he vocalized it when he could.

It had been his idea to dig up the Stargate and go exploring; it hadn't been a serious idea at first planted by Teal'c of all people, more a random, "You guys bored too? Let's go play with the 'Gate." And it had turned into a serious endeavor from there; the drive to help people had gone into full gear once the opportunity had presented itself, and he watched as Daniel thrived, finally able to find the challenges his mind needed at the same time he was occupied with new, exciting experiences that prevented them all from dwelling on the past.

He stepped through the Stargate first, brushing past a fussing Harlan, who was picking at the scorch marks on their clothes and pleading with them to stop going through the Gate because what if they were injured beyond his repair? "Harlan, enough!" Jack bellowed, turning to watch the rest of his team disembark from the Gate. "Daniel, Carter, Teal'c, let's go recharge."

Daniel brushed the bandanna from his head and stuffed it in his pocket, a scorched, beaming smile on his face. He hopped past Harlan down the steps and was all but whistling as he made his way down the hall behind Sam, who was babbling in rapid fire technobabble. He couldn't blame her -- he was nearly doing the same thing. The planet had been amazing -- all that culture and language and art, and who knew humans would biologically mutate into four eyes? He'd felt an instant kinship, even if it had been a little spooky.

Jack just shook his head, pausing to share a long, long look with the inscrutable Jaffa that traveled with them. "You want the babbling archaeologist or the babbling astrophysicist?" Jack asked.

"I believe you are offering me a kal-tak-dorn; a situation with no possible winning solution." A moment's pause. "I will take Captain Carter, as you seem to have a better kinship with DanielJackson."

Possibly because they were screwing each other, Jack reflected, but just nodded. "Yeah, you're right. My eyes glaze over whenever Carter gets on her soapbox; Danny, at least, I can follow for thirty seconds before the glaze happens." Not to mention he knew a few ways to shut him up. "Just don't run her battery down again, okay? When I say recharge, that's what I mean. Power supply's running low."

Teal'c inclined his head. "Of course, O'Neill. I will allow Captain Carter to recharge before her energy supply depletes," he answered with a private grin.

Daniel stripped on his way to his room. Sam, bless her mechanical blond noggin, had made it her first order of business during a time Daniel almost couldn't remember -- she'd given them private rooms to recharge, instead of the central room. They all needed their privacy, after all, to change, to get naked, to do all the things they'd done in life. Their flesh, made of a thick plastic polymer, was even washable. Daniel loved showering almost more than anything else -- so long as he blocked his ears with plugs he could do it anytime he wished.

He decided on it now. The fresh feeling of being clean was one that had followed him into this life. It was a simple matter of stripping as he went, unselfconscious as Teal'c did the same thing beside him, and dropped his filthy uniform in their laundry bin as he stepped into his bedroom.

Jack was doing the same thing, though less... obviously. He was picking up his gun, picking up Daniel's gun, taking Teal'c's staff, even catching Carter's weapon as it was tossed to him, and while Daniel was stripping and heading into the shower, Jack was stowing their weapons in the closet across from their rooms that served as their armory.

Rifles, automatic machine guns, zats, body armor, and uniforms. They were all stacked neatly in shelves and on racks, and Jack placed the weapons they'd chosen for their mission back where they belonged, and then followed Daniel's example.

Their rooms were four in a row; Daniel's first, then Jack's, then Carter's, then Teal'c's. They shared a bathroom; Daniel and Jack shared one, Carter and Teal'c shared a second, and it connected them to each other. The power source beds were the dominant personal effects in the rooms, and the decor matched each one of the occupants.

Daniel's was stacked with books and notebooks, sketches and drawings of things he'd made just to have something to look at outside of his head, things to touch and feel and hold and have to work with.

Jack's, on the other hand, were fairly spartan, with only a few personal touches here and there. Most of what mattered to him, most of what he would have kept, the other Jack had. He hadn't accumulated much of value since then, except for the hologram of the four of them, as a team, before their first trip through the Stargate.

"Sam, so help me, if you use all the hot water again I'm gonna be mad!" Daniel yelled down the hall, pleased at the middle finger he got in response, and stepped into his room, closing the door behind him. There he stripped out of the rest of his pants and underwear, socks and t-shirt, and was in the bathroom and under the hot spray in moments.

Glorious, hot relief.

Jack just chuckled at the bellow from Daniel's bedroom, and tossed his hat on the bed as he yanked off his own vest and everything else, kicking his boots under the bed.

At least his feet didn't stink anymore, and as far as he was concerned, that was a plus.

He picked up the little team hologram, and ran his fingers over each of the other three familiar faces. Daniel, Jack, Teal'c, and Sam, standing four in a row in front of the Stargate, Daniel and Sam waving at Harlan with smiles on their faces. Jack was rolling his eyes, and Teal'c was impassive as always. It never failed to give Jack a grin when he looked at it, and he put it back on the table by his bed before he finished stripping quickly, and went into the bathroom that he and Daniel shared, in more ways than one.

He made sure his ears were plugged as well, to make sure no water got into his components, and stuck his head into the shower. "Got room in there for me?"

Daniel glanced over his shoulder, soap running down his face, hands in his hair, and grinned. "No room. Go find your own shower to hog all the hot water," he hummed, and turned back, nearly wriggling at the wicked tease because he knew just how Jack would get even.

Jack just smirked. "Suit yourself, cowboy," he shrugged, humming to himself.

Instead of doing what he usually did--cramming himself in the shower anyway and plastering himself to Daniel--he did something very, very mean, which would probably get him killed.

He very, very silently removed the panel against the shower, where the water pipes flowed, and closed the hot water overflow, turning the shower to icy cold.

Daniel had to hand it to Jack, he hadn't hit that note since he was 12 years old.

Ice cold water, as cold as the frozen lake he'd fallen into one winter when he was a teenager, poured over him and he couldn't catch a breath as he turned and thumped Jack in the chest. "Bastard!"

Jack grinned, unrepentantly. "But I know a good way to warm you back up."

Daniel glared murder at him, pointing at what could only be termed 'shrinkage', and glared all the harder at Jack, soap dripping down his eyes.

Jack flipped the overflow switch again and let the hot water start back in the shower as he stepped in this time, reaching down with one hand and rubbing Daniel's groin briskly, stroking and rolling as he did. "I can kiss it and make it better?" Jack offered, as his teeth nibbled on a chilly ear.

Daniel glared fiercely and leaned back against the chilly tiles, snarling low in his throat even with Jack's hands in a very private place. "If I have to ask Sam to repair this, your ass is mine, you got that?" he growled, rubbing up against Jack's brisk fingers, one leg looping around Jack's thigh to hold him close.

Jack just nodded against the side of Daniel's face. "My ass is already yours, Danny," he reminded gently, the brisk stroking turning into a more purposeful teasing, cradling slowly-warming balls in his palm before cupping the length of Daniel's cock in his hand to stroke it warmly.

"You're damn straight it is. To do whatever I want with," Daniel said, arm slipping around Jack's neck to hold on as the hot water fell over them and Daniel's own hand slid down to the ass in question. He gave one firm globe a rough squeeze, stroking his fingers down the crevice to tease and touch.

"I don't have a problem with that," Jack agreed, arching into the stroking fingers as he turned Daniel's back to the warm water, letting it fall over both of their bodies. The plugs in their ears kept the water out, but he could still hear every little noise that Daniel made, and Jack switched sides of Daniel's neck, his mouth traveling down the other side now as he slid his own wet, slick groin against Daniel's.

"God, I could forgive you anything just for this," Daniel groaned. The zing of pleasure that raced up his spine when their wet, slick cocks touched was unparalleled to anything else he'd ever experienced, and he used the fondling of Jack's ass to bring them in, to rub them together. Jack was hard, and ready, and burning, while Daniel was still recovering from water shock, so he did what he loved to do -- he nudged Jack down and trapped Jack's hard cock between his thighs, under his balls, squeezing his legs around it. His fingers he slickened with the oily lubrication they loved for their shower play, and then they were circling Jack's opening, fingering it, playing with it as his thighs tightened on Jack's cock. "Thrust," he whispered into Jack's ear.

Jack gave a soft gasp as Daniel's thighs squeezed around his cock, and he couldn't help thrusting as Daniel ordered him to do. His hips moved forward of their own accord, his cock moving in the tight groove of Daniel's legs as he surged backwards into the fingers teasing his opening.

Grunts were the only thing he could give at the moment, shivering slightly as his body couldn't decide which direction to push in, and tried to rock both ways.

"Yeah," Daniel whispered under the rush of water. "Yeah, Jack." He squeezed firmly around Jack's cock, his thighs firm and taut and giving him just enough pressure to thrust against. Meanwhile, Daniel's fingers were busy at Jack's little hole, stroking across it, teasing around it, and finally, finally, stroking one finger in, slow and careful and gently, so Jack could fuck against it and then forward into his thighs.

Jack buried his face in Daniel's shoulder, slurping softly at the water running off his ear, licking at it pooling in the little concavity at his collar bone. His cock was thrusting madly against Daniel's thighs, his arms around Daniel's waist pulling him closer, harder into Jack's thrusts.

The easy glide of Daniel's finger entering Jack's body had Jack's toes curling against the metal floor of the shower, scraping across the wide drain as he arched his back, giving a deep rumbling in his throat as he pressed Daniel completely against the wall. The better leverage let Jack rock a little faster, and he nuzzled harder into Daniel's throat.

Daniel's eyelids lowered with pleasure, and had he had blood, he would have flushed. As it was he groaned deeply, finger sliding in all the way to stroke the inner recesses of Jack's gorgeous, ill proportioned, imperfect body that only made him all the perfect for it. Their imperfections made them human, made them alive.

He pulled back the finger and when Jack thrust back he was breeched with two, because Daniel knew how much he loved the sudden fill of being stretched open. He stroked in firmly, deeply, his free hand moving around Jack's waist to hold onto him and bring him hard into his thighs.

Jack cried out, and let go of Daniel's waist to slam his hands against the wall of the shower. There were dents there from previous shower sessions, and Jack dug his fingers into them, arching back into Daniel's fingers as they pushed into him.

Delicious feeling, spearing him open and filling him as he thrust forward, shuddering hard and grunting as Daniel's thighs clasped him tighter.

He could never hold out long for this, felt too good and Daniel was entirely too good with his fingers for Jack to hold on.

The arm around his waist dragging him in closer was the last thing that Jack could stand, and his cock exploded, spilling white fluid, thick and viscous, over Daniel's thighs. His mouth sucked hard on Daniel's shoulder, and his fingers dug into the metal wall as he shuddered.

"Oh yeah, Jack," Daniel groaned. Heat spilled over the backs of his legs, the tension through Jack's body spiraling into Daniel, and he moaned with Jack as his lover sucked on his neck and came between his thighs. He squeezed Jack's cock once more and opened his legs, letting Jack slump against him but not pull free, because Daniel's fingers were still in Jack's ass. He stroked in and out, teasing him through his aftershocks because he knew how much Jack loved it, mouthy busy on Jack's own throat. "Good?" he murmured into wet flesh.

"Better than good. You're the linguist. Insert synonym here." Jack shuddered against Daniel, moving weakly into the stroking fingers, squeezing them as he let his hands slide down from the wall. One hand fisted in Daniel's hair and pulled his head back for a kiss, which Jack took eagerly. His tongue pushed in, sucking and licking as he pressed Daniel back against the wall, his other hand going down to rest on his lover's hip, pulling together just so.

Daniel smirked into the kiss, letting his ego have a little fluff there as they made out like kids, soft and sweet. He slipped his fingers free from Jack's body finally to slide them around his lovers back and hips, pulling him in closer as they kissed so softly, so deeply. The eagerness of Jack's kiss, the eagerness of his body, always made Daniel smile with pleasure and pride and he responded to it, stroking over every inch of Jack's wet back, hips and thighs, his sides and belly and chest.

Jack closed his eyes for a long moment, letting Daniel's presence just wash over him, snuggled closely together as they kissed and touched. "You still intending to debrief us all on what we found when we went through the 'Gate?" Jack finally muttered, once he was able to pull himself away and look down at his lover.

"Sure am," Daniel said, smiling up at him. He rocked his hips none-too-subtly against Jack's. "As soon as I'm done with my shower."

Jack snickered. "Just making sure you hadn't fucked all my brain out," he answered, rocking back against Daniel's in answer.

"Jack, I've already fucked your brains out. What you're using now is a dried husk, or so you told me three weeks ago," Daniel hummed, rubbing in slow, throbbing beats.

"Well, yeah, but still, I have hope of the single remaining brain cell reproducing itself and creating more for you to fuck out at a later date," Jack amended, groaning softly at the end of it as he rubbed back against Daniel.

There was the smirk again, the proud little wriggle, and the wicked twinkle in his eye. "That could be arranged for tonight, you know. I sill have the ropes hanging around here. But see, the problem is, I can't walk around with," he bumped his hips forward. "I want you to suck me off, flyboy."

Jack groaned again at the little wriggle that rubbed all the right places in all the right ways. Damned bastard knew what he was doing. "Yes, sir, Dr. Jackson, sir," Jack murmured in answer.

There was no pain in his knee any longer when he slid down to them, and it made this entire experience so much better. The water was still sheeting down over them, and Jack nuzzled Daniel's damp cock carefully, nose and lips rubbing along the slowly-hardening shaft, tongue lapping playfully at Daniel's balls as he barely tasted his come from before on the back of them.

His hands rose to Daniel's hips, thumbs rubbing over that sensitive flesh right above his lover's cock as he teased him with licks.

Daniel's mouth fell open the smallest bit to breathe as he looked down, watching Jack… watching Jack's mouth. The pleasure he got from seeing that brown head, the playful mouth, the wicked eyes all centered on him was enough to make him shudder and arch up onto his nose, slamming his hand into the familiar groove in the shower wall. "Yesss, Jack!"

Okay.

So maybe Jack lived for hearing Daniel scream his name just like that. He gave a wicked grin when he got the result that he wanted, and then without further warning or foreplay, Jack opened his mouth and started to suck in the length of his lover's cock.

Head first, then the shaft, Jack inched his mouth down slowly, sucking in as much as he could, slathering every bit of the length with his tongue before moving to the next increment, eyes closed and thumbs sliding down to rub gently against Daniel's balls as he sucked.

"God, yes!" Daniel hissed, closing his eyes and sliding one hand through Jack's hair. He didn't pull or push, just held onto him so he wouldn't hit the floor, pleasure singing through him. He loved blow jobs -- giving them, receiving them, watching them. He loved the way it felt, the way it tasted, how it made his partner scream, how it made him scream. It was sharp pleasure -- not as good as real sex, but perfect in its own right. Too perfect. Addictively perfect.

Jack moved his head just a little, raising it enough to cement Daniel's grip in what was left of his hair. He didn't even have the brain cells to think that he wasn't going to be losing any more of it, thank God; all he thought was how good Daniel's fingers felt locked in the strands, pulling and tugging so lightly as he tried NOT to pull. Jack's toes curled again as his lips reached the base of Daniel's cock, and his nose gently nuzzled the thin sprinkling of brown hair that graced Daniel's groin. He swallowed hard around the shaft in his mouth, giving a little purr that vibrated down the entire length as he started to slide back.

God, oh God, God! Jack's mouth, the vibrating heat of it, was like...was like nothing Daniel had ever felt before, and he could forget about everything else but this sensation. Could crow with delight, with victory, in knowing his true double would never experience this pleasure, that this was only for this Daniel to experience. To feel this hot, aching, perfect, wonderful... "I love you," Daniel gasped.

Jack's grip on Daniel's cock tightened as he sucked just the head for a long moment, and then let it pop out of his mouth to look up at Daniel, his lips shiny with saliva and the clear lubricant that leaked as Daniel's precome.

One hand let go long enough to slide up to squeeze Daniel's wrist, and Jack smiled with sticky lips. "I love you too, Daniel," he answered, then kissed Daniel's stomach before returning to the delicious blow job he'd started.

They'd broken the barrier of the word. All the times Daniel wished he could have said it and never did came exploding out of him at warp speed. "I love your mouth," he moaned, struggling for breath. "I love your hair, your eyes, your scars. I LOVE YOUR TONGUE!" he roared, and lost the effort to keep his thrusts back as he pushed forward, cramming a hand in his mouth and screaming around it.

Jack reached up and yanked Daniel's arm down by the elbow, pausing for a second when his mouth popped off Daniel's cock again, this time leaving a strand of saliva leading from the head to his lips. "I love your screams," Jack answered with a smirk. "Especially when they're for me." He slid his mouth back along the shaft, swallowing it in a single stroke, urging Daniel to thrust into his throat as he sucked, synchronizing the motions of his head with his lover's hips.

"GOD!" Daniel wailed, hands flying out to grip the top of the shower door and the wall respectively, hanging on, head writhing, hips writhing, body writhing. He thrust forward and back, hoping to God he wasn't hurting Jack but unable to stop, unable to keep himself from jerking and twisting into Jack's hot, aching, gorgeous, beautiful mouth.

Jack was sucking hard as Daniel thrust into his mouth and his throat. His hands dropped to brace entirely on the shower wall, using the hard surface to push off from and move faster, swallowing Daniel's cock deeper with every stroke down.

He reached up, guiding Daniel's hands back to his hair, both of them, and used his grip on Daniel's wrists to show him it was okay to move Jack's head, and he closed his eyes, sliding his hand from Daniel's wrists to his hips, then down over his ass to squeeze and push him forward.

Daniel completely lost his mind. It was too much, just like Jack knew it would be. All it took was for Daniel to pull Jack's head in for one hard thrust to lose his mind to have him roaring with pleasure and coming like a freight train. He came so hard his knees wobbled, his mind winked out of existence for a half a moment, and he could do nothing but experience.

God, that was fucking good.

Jack kept his grip on Daniel's ass and his waist, holding him up by it as he swallowed hard and fast. Some spilled out of the corner of his mouth, and as Jack pulled away, he licked his lips.

His eyes were half-lidded as he looked up at Daniel, and he slowly slid up his lover's body, rubbing and squeezing and touching as he did, shivering under the spray which had long grown cold.

"Fuck yeah, baby," Daniel whispered, directly quoting Jack from the last time Daniel had done this exact same thing to Jack, and wrapped his arms tightly around Jack's shoulders. He hugged as hard as he could, squeezing close, exhausted and spent and mmmm.

Jack couldn't help snickering at hearing Daniel sound like him. "Next thing you know, I'll have you saying for cryin' out loud," he teased. He quickly turned himself and Daniel around under the cold spray, rinsing both of them off and rubbing his hands over Daniel's skin to make sure that he was clean before doing the same thing to himself and shutting the shower off.

"You know? We really need to talk Carter into building us a towel warmer."

"I think we've got a button for that, but I'm too lazy to find it," Daniel murmured, and hugged Jack closer, squeezing tight as their sensitive cocks brushed. "I do love you, you know," he murmured gently, stroking Jack's neck almost shyly before climbing out of the shower and briskly drying himself off.

Jack followed Daniel out of the shower, grabbing Daniel's towel and using it to pull him closer. "I know," Jack answered, wrapping the towel around both of their waists and tying them together for a brief moment. His hand came up, brushing over Daniel's cheek. "And you know I love you. This place... it really is hell without you." The backs of his fingers fell, and he untied the towel around their waists.

Daniel's dimples winked on. Too close to babble land for him, what with the emotions, so he changed the subject and poked Jack in the belly. "You only like me for my undeniable good looks," Daniel smirked, but it endeared Jack to him when he wrapped them together. "You big softy."

Jack just chuckled. "Nah. I'm completely selfish in that I really, really like the feel of your dick pressed up against mine like that." He snuggled them together for another second, rubbing his tingling cock against Daniel's. "And no, I like you not just for your good looks, but for your stamina, for your cock size, for your mouth that can suck my brain out through my balls, and for your heart," he ended, with a nip to Daniel's nose. "Who can make room for an old robot in there somewhere."

"Well, technically, you're a new robot, since you were just... er... born a year and a half ago, so we should be coming in on celebrating our second birthday pretty soon. It's when you get to 11,000 like Harlan that we should start to worry about 'old'."

Jack coughed. "We're a couple of perverted toddlers, if that's the logic you're gonna break out on me."

Daniel beamed. "Perverted toddlers who've just realized that their pee-pees can be used in fun and interesting ways," Daniel hummed, snickered, and stepped out of Jack's orbit before Jack did something like smack him or snatch him or any other Jack thing he was likely to do.

Jack, who still had a grip on the towel, quickly twirled it and snapped Daniel in the ass with it. "You know, while I'm thinking about it? Those ruins we just saw kind of remind me of the ones we saw back on PX3-995 last year, where the Rondans held their... solstice... thingie."

Daniel's valve pump nearly froze in his shock. "You... you actually noticed that?"

Another snap of the towel answered that, combined with masculine laughter. "Yes, I did! I pay attention, you know!"

Whatever Daniel's answer was, Sam missed it in her own musings. She was standing in the hallway, leaning against the door to Jack's bedroom. She'd stopped when she'd heard the loud shouts and the laughter, and it'd made her heart, which had still been filled with worry for Daniel, finally lighten.

The laughter, the sounds of lovemaking, the grins that he and the Colonel wore almost constantly, they all set her heart at ease, because finally, she was certain that Daniel was back to normal. Happy, comfortable with himself, and fully at ease with his new life.

"Samantha." Teal'c's deep baritone voice made Sam jump just a little as he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Listen to that, Teal'c," she said, gesturing towards the laughter still spilling out of the bathroom.

"How can I not?" he answered dryly, pulling her away. "Leave them to their... activities. They will call you when they are ready."

"I know," Sam said, linking her arm through Teal'c's. "I just... I'm glad that Daniel's happy again."

"As am I," Teal'c agreed, tugging Samantha away from the door.

The End

Kelex and Dianann
Copyright © 2005 (Imperfect Enjoyment). All rights reserved.
Revised: June 25, 2005 .