"What the hell?" Jack asked, picking himself off the floor. A cold marble floor, no less.
"Must have been some kind of transport device," Sam observed. "The gate is gone."
Jack looked glumly around. No doors. The only window was an opening in the ceiling about thirty feet above, directly above a reflective pool which cast strange light patterns on the walls. One wall had some kind of metal plaque with writing on it. "Daniel?" Jack indicated the plaque and sat back down on the floor. "You're on."
"Oh." Daniel stood and walked over to the plaque. It was below eye level, so he had to lean over to get a good look.
"Can you read it?"
"It's Latin." Daniel leaned closer and kept reading. The letters were small, and the light wasn't very good. "Kind of a weird dialect."
"What does it say?" Jack asked, voice full of sarcastic pseudopatience.
"Um, it says that the people of this world want to know what kind of people we are before they greet us, so they have given us a gift." He scowled, and leaned even closer, kneeling, fingers brushing the metal of the plaque. "Something about getting us in touch with our thoughts?"
"An alien encounter group? I am NOT going to sit around telling you guys about my toilet training!"
"Thank Goodness," Daniel commented blandly, leaning over further. He was reading the text at the bottom of the plaque now. "Um, I don't think they mean 'our thoughts' as in our individual thoughts."
"Huh?" Jack asked.
"I think they mean 'our thoughts' as in all of our thoughts. As in each other's thoughts." He looked suspiciously over his shoulder, as if distracted by some noise behind him.
"Sir, are you checking out Daniel's butt?" Carter asked, voice full of disbelief.
"Oh, like you weren't, Carter," Jack said defensively. "Hell, even Teal'c was."
Daniel blushed. "Oh." He sat down, thus obscuring the view he had been providing. *I really did NOT need to know that everyone was looking at my butt.*
Jack thought that it was a nice butt.
*Thank you.*
{This is bad,} Jack thought. {This is really, really bad.}
Jack thought, {That whole butt-checking-out thing was all Daniel's fault.} He was the one sticking his butt in their faces. Waving it around. Wiggling it. Besides, how were they to know Daniel would notice their checking out his butt? Danny was oblivious when he was checking out an artifact, and he'd been in full fondle-the-old-rock mode, feeling up that metal plaque. {Lucky plaque.}
"Hey!" Daniel protested indignantly. "'Feeling up'?"
"Just an expression," Jack said innocently.
It couldn't have been anything as exciting as the Stargate, though. The first time Daniel saw the Stargate, Jack had been worried that Daniel might lick it, and Jack hadn't noticed any impending porno tongue action with the plaque...
"I heard that, too! I was NOT in danger of licking the Stargate the first time I saw it! In fact, I'll have you know that I would never lick an artifact until I knew what effect saliva would have on it!" Daniel crossed his arms and huffed.
"Exactly how many artifacts have you licked, anyway?" Wouldn't Jack like to know? No, as a matter of fact, Jack... well, maybe out of idle curiosity. Morbid curiosity. That's it.
Daniel calculated a few alternate meanings for the phrase "fondle-the-old-rock mode," eyeing Jack speculatively. After all, Jack was the one imagining him "feeling up" artifacts and indulging in "porno tongue action."
"Jesus, I had no idea archeology was so obscene. It's like the menu at McBrothel's!" Jack protested.
*Jack started it.*
{Did not.}
*Did so.*
{Did not.}
*Denial's not just a river in Egypt, Jack,* Daniel thought.
Sam considered that /This could beat out Barnum and Bailey for the title Greatest Show on Earth./
[We are not on Earth, Major Carter,] Teal'c observed.
/Details,/ Sam answered. She imagined a little circus music. And Jack in a clown suit.
Jack gave her a dirty look. Daniel, damn him, was just amused.
Then Sam thought, /Daniel has a great butt, and he's perfectly welcome to wave his butt in my direction any time./
[It is indeed aesthetically pleasing,] Teal'c said solemnly.
{Hey! Show him a little respect! We love you for your mind, Daniel.}
/And not his butt?/ Sam prodded.
{Shut up, Carter!}
Daniel then surprised Jack by not retreating into a quivering little mass of shyness, but instead being... flattered. Shyly thrilled. Quietly pleased as punch at actual proof that people really liked his butt. Actually briefly considering standing up and waving his butt around for a minute by means of saying thanks before deciding he lacked the confidence to ever pull that one off. It was cute.
Daniel, upon hearing that he was cute, fixed Jack with one of his inscrutable looks. The mental images and theoretical meanderings that went with the inscrutable look, however, were pretty darned scrutable. Jack hoped that wasn't what Daniel was always thinking when he looked at Jack that way.
*Wouldn't you like to know?*
{This is bad. Really, really bad.}
*Wuss.*
Daniel continued to eye Jack appraisingly. *Jack has pretty eyes.*
{Pretty?}
/Absolutely,/ Sam concurred. /Pretty. Deep./
*Chocolaty. Nice hands,* Daniel observed. *You can tell a lot about a person by their hands. Hands are underrated. They're very important in a lover...*
{Stop that train of thought right there, Space Monkey.}
/Actually, continue that train of thought./ Sam was enjoying it.
{Are you TRYING to embarrass me?} Jack thought.
Daniel observed, *Jack's uncomfortable in the lust object role. Too passive? Perhaps Jack thinks that he should be the pursuer, not the pursued.*
Sam considered that /The colonel has a nice butt, himself, not that I can see it now because he's sitting on it./ Daniel agreed, letting his eyes settle on Jack's lips...
"Daniel, do me a favor. Look at Carter instead of me."
Daniel looked at Sam. *Bright, intelligent, sparkling eyes. Nice mouth. Pretty hands.*
"Wow! Thanks, Daniel!"
{Oh, for... look wherever you like!} Jack thought.
Daniel looked mischievously at Jack. *Jealous? I'd understand if we were...* A sudden flood of suggestive mental images headed Jack's way.
"Teal'c, Daniel is an animal. Will you protect me?"
"I doubt an army of Jaffa would be up to the task... DanielJackson, I meant no hidden meaning when I used the phrase 'up to the task.'"
{Sure you didn't.}
*Call me Daniel, Teal'c,* Daniel thought flirtatiously.
[It would be an honor, Daniel,] Teal'c thought.
Jack ground his teeth.
"We seem to be having a kind of avalanche effect, sir."
"You mean, we're egging each other on."
"Exactly." /It's like a feedback loop./
{Oh, like this is so different from what we usually think. It's just that some of us are in denial.}
*Some of us, being archeologists, know enough about rivers in Egypt including De Nile to know that WE'RE not the ones floating downstream,* Daniel retorted. *Maybe on a reed barge, wearing nothing but transparent linen. Yeah. Nice mental image. Stay with it for a moment. Be sure and bring enough to share with the rest of the class. Actually, on second thought, maybe he should be wearing those sunglasses and a smile.*
/Whoa./ Sam liked that image.
*Mmm. Nice smile.*
"Obviously, we never should have gotten Daniel started. Is there any way to turn him off? Double meaning intended." {PLEASE, God!}
*Oscar Wilde once said that the only way to get rid of temptation was to yield to it.*
"Daniel?" {Please, try to help before we explode.}
*You know, explode is a common metaphor for...*
{We know!}
*Is that why you always want to blow things up?*
{No! Besides, I do not!}
*Do so.*
{Do not!}
*Do so.*
{Do not!}
"I was just thinking..." Daniel started.
"We noticed!" Jack retorted. "Kind of getting the technicolor, surround sound version."
"If there's a mental feedback loop, I have to wonder if there's a feedback loop when it comes to physical sensation as well. Perhaps we should investigate. Strictly in the interests of science of course."
"Absolutely, Daniel. Science." /And the colonel in those sunglasses and a smile./
"No way. No. Absolutely not." {In that order. That goes double for you, Teal'c.}
*I don't think he sounds like he hates the idea, Sam.*
/Me either./
"I bet if we ganged up on him he'd cave. What do you think?"
"I bet you're right."
"Cave"? {I would NOT 'cave'! I... OH MY GOD! That - that has got to be the most spectacularly filthy thing any human being has ever thought. Who'd've thunk a couple of scientists would come up with something like that?}
"Argh! Teal'c, Daniel and Carter are trying to kill me! Protect me!"
"I am more interested in saving myself, O'Neill. It has been at least fifty years since I was, as you Tau'ri phrase it, this horny."
{How can I read your mind and still have no idea what you're thinking?}
*Try what I'm thinking, Jack.*
"That was a little too vivid a mental image, Daniel."
[Actually, I found it most instructive, O'Neill.]
{Easy for you to say. I think I just clawed my own palms open. In a minute I'm going to be clawing up marble floor.}
"Sorry, Jack." Daniel batted his eyelashes innocently.
{Are not.}
{Well, I hope you two are happy now that we're all horny and miserable!}
[Still your thoughts, O'Neill.]
"I had no idea Carter and Daniel were such unrelenting perverts. I need a cold shower and NO, you may NOT join me. Either of you! Geez, if we ever get out of here I'm never wearing less than a full spacesuit around Daniel..."
The corner of Daniel's mouth curved up mischievously.
"Argh! how can you have a spacesuit fantasy?"
"That was really creative, Daniel. I'm impressed." Although Sam still liked sunglasses and a smile.
Did Jack mention this was bad? {This is really, really bad.}
"Sir, with your knees I doubt you could get into that position."
"Shut up, Carter."
"You know, in the interest of scientific curiosity..."
"Shut up, Daniel."
Teal'c eyed Jack inscrutably. Or it would have been inscrutable, if it weren't for this damned "gift" of scrutability. You know, that was probably more than Jack wanted to know.
"Shut up, Teal'c."
Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar.
Sam wanted some.
Daniel moved closer and sat next to her, breaking off part of the bar and handing it to her, sharing his chocolate conspiratorially. Sam was his ally.
*Chocolate. Mmm. Yeah.*
"Okay, you two kids stop masturbating over there!"
"It's just chocolate, sir."
"How can you use 'just' and 'chocolate' in the same sentence?" Daniel complained. *Chocolate. Almost as good as sex. And this is Swiss!*
{Y'know, if Daniel doesn't stop orgasming over his damned candy bar...} "Why is he worse than you, Carter?"
"Maybe Daniel's more oral than I am."
The resultant mental image and associated feelings left no doubt in anyone's mind.
"Oh, GOD, you HAD to phrase it that way, didn't you, Carter?" {Tryin' to kill me! I KNOW it!}
*Linguist. From the Latin root "lingua," meaning language or tongue.*
{Thanks for sharing.}
*Aren't you the one interested in "porno tongue action"?*
{Don't start.}
"There's still a little chocolate left, Jack." *Of course, if you want it, you'll have to lay your head in my lap and let me feed it to you, piece by piece.*
"Stop licking your fingers." {I can FEEL that!}
*Oh, really?* "You'd rather I be all sticky?"
{Oh GOD that mental image...} "So help me, if you don't stop licking your fingers like that..."
"...you'll come do it for me?" *Yeah. Come do it. For me.*
/I'm more than willing to lick chocolate off your fingers, Daniel,/ Sam offered. /It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and since you were kind enough to share your chocolate.../
Daniel broke off a piece of chocolate and held it out to Sam. She leaned over to take the chocolate with her mouth... thinking... projecting... smouldering...
"Argh!" As one they turned to look at Jack, who was staring. {Hands OFF, bitch! He's mine!} "Back off, Carter!" Jack growled, scrambling threateningly to the other side of the room and tossing Daniel over his shoulder, much to Daniel's amusement. Jack carried him to the other side of the room and pulled him into a searing kiss.
Sam burst out laughing. "It took you long enough, sir! Another minute there and I thought I was going to have to... you know. 'Hands off, bitch, he's mine!'" Sam chortled, then started laughing even harder.
*You are SO busted,* Daniel sing-songed into Jack's mind.
Jack blushed. He'd been set up. Shamelessly ambushed.
[A spectacular display, O'Neill.]
"Shut up, Teal'c!"
"'Hands off, bitch, he's mine!'" Sam giggled.
"Lay off, will ya, Carter? Geez."
"Am I really?" Daniel asked innocently, batting his eyelashes.
Jack sputtered helplessly.
*And you're mine. You just proved it.*
Jack blushed.
*That's SO cute.*
Jack sighed. "Okay, boys and girls, time for some ground rules. Rule number one: You touch him, you die."
"What if DANIEL and I wish to arm-wrestle?" Teal'c asked.
Jack bared his teeth and growled at Teal'c. Teal'c raised an eyebrow in amusement.
"What if he needs medical attention, sir?" Sam asked.
"Okay, necessary medical touching is okay. But that's it!"
"What if Major Davis accidentally bumps into me in the hall?" Daniel teased.
"Then I might accidentally drop Major Davis out the observation window onto the gate room floor, right after I accidentally C3 the glass."
"So... just to avoid confusion, sir..." Sam started, "what you're saying is that if I need to hand Daniel a file folder, I should be careful to keep my hand on the opposite end of the folder."
"Precisely, Major."
"What if he drops his glasses, sir?"
"What if one of the marines grabs my butt, Jack?" Daniel asked.
"Then I'll lock his IDC code out of the computer and see how he likes bumping into the iris."
"What if Daniel breaks his arm again and needs help getting dressed?" Sam asked. "You could be off-world! You don't want Daniel wandering around naked, do you?"
"I think General Hammond would object to my showing up at work naked," Daniel commented.
"He'd better!" Jack seethed teasingly.
"I presume you're exempt from that 'no touch' rule?" Daniel asked Jack, batting his eyelashes.
Jack, knowing Daniel, knew EXACTLY what went through his mind at that point, and blushed. Spectacularly. "Can we go home now?" Jack announced to the room at large...
...and found himself sailing through the Stargate back towards home.
Well, this was the single longest debriefing of all time. Or so it seemed to Jack.
Jack looked across the table at Daniel, wondering what he was thinking. Daniel returned his gaze with one of his inscrutable looks, and Jack really hoped that meant what it had meant back on the planet. Not being telepathic any more, they kind of needed to have a talk.
Daniel's inscrutable look never wavered.
Jack wondered how quickly they could get back to his place.
