"Anyone strike your eye?"

Sam can't believe he's actually doing this. That she's contemplating this. The charge runs through her, straight through her veins, down to settle and tug at the heat between her legs. "Surprise me." She surprises herself by saying it.

Daniel looks startled for a second, and then the smile spreads across his face. He hadn't been expecting that. "Stay here," he says, and his fingertips brush the side of her cheek as he gets up to mingle with the crowd on the dance floor.

The haze, the low lights of the club, soften him. She can see, as she watches for it, the way he changes his body language. He's got two sets of cues: the ones that make your eyes slide over him, and the ones that pull your eyes in and leave you rapt to discover what he'll do next. He's using the second set now. It's always odd to see a variation on Daniel Jackson, Peaceful Explorer and Team Mouthpiece, here on Earth. But Daniel's good at making friends, when he needs to be.

He's also -- and this will never cease surprising her -- good at dressing to fit the crowd, when he wants to. She's not sure when he learned the trick, who he learned it from. But he's wearing a sleeveless black shirt, one that clings to every muscle she'd thought he didn't know he had, and a pair of jeans -- jeans -- that are old and worn and so soft to the touch. He'd caught her raised eyebrow when they'd dressed for the evening, and given her one of those self-deprecating smiles. "Protective camouflage," he'd said.

It's working. She can't take her eyes off him as he slides through the crowd like a fish slicing through water, his hips twisting and turning to wend his way past those he deems unworthy of his attention. Their attention. Heads are turning. Of course heads are turning. Daniel is lovely, has always been lovely, but he's grown out of his awkwardness and into the shape of his body; she hadn't been paying close enough attention to notice. Or she'd been paying too close attention, really. No perspective.

The air conditioning's struggling against the press of bodies on bodies, and the music's just loud enough for her to feel the bass-line vibrating up through the leather of the booth she's sitting in. She's gotten some sideways looks, but she's not the only woman here, just one of few. Maybe it's more normal for them than it is for her. She's in a gay bar and her teammate and sometime lover is cruising the crowd to find her a present. It's sweet. Somehow. It has to be sweet, because if it's not sweet, it's demented.

Daniel knows her tastes -- she's not sure how, since they've never discussed it. Not out loud. But his eye settles on a man who makes her mouth water. He's tall and lean and rangy, late twenties, early thirties, with short but wild brown hair. He's dressed like everyone else in the bar, in jeans and tight shirt, but he's added a black leather vest over the top of it. He wears it awkwardly, as though he's not used to the way it makes him have to move. She'll bet money he's got scars under those clothes, bet double that he's got a pair of tags sitting on a nightstand at home. Daniel couldn't have picked better if she'd told him.

Then again, maybe they're both just going for type.

She has no hope of hearing their discussion; the music's too loud. But Daniel slides up into the guy's space, puts hands on his hips and dances with him for a few brief seconds. She can see the spark, the pull. Daniel's lips move; the man looks startled. His eyes track across the room, search the booths and tables, settle on her. She suppresses the casual and instinctive urge to lift a hand, wiggle her fingers. Instead, she presses her thighs together tightly and lifts her drink in a subtle salute.

The man turns back to Daniel. Says something. Daniel smiles -- Sam knows that smile; it's the one that he uses right before there's blood in the water. She'd confessed this fantasy to Daniel when she'd been more than halfway on her way to drunk, when he'd had his hands between her legs and his mouth on her breast. She'd never imagined --

But Daniel's not interested in letting her stay the good little girl. It's why they're here. Hundreds of miles from anywhere anyone might know them. His idea, and she's still not sure why she went along with it, except the way he'd narrated the weekend plans to her had made her blush and squirm.

She's expecting him to bring the man back to the table with him, expecting him to make a set of introductions, lay down the ground rules. But instead she watches as Daniel slides his hands down to cup the man's ass, leans close to whisper something in his ear. Then he turns and walks away. His eyes are calm and quiet as he makes his way back to their table; he downs the rest of his water in a single draft when he gets back, not bothering to slide back into the booth.

"No luck?" she asks, and tries to hide the pang of disappointment.

He looks up, and the little puzzled frown right between his eyebrows is the most familiar thing she's seen all night. "Half an hour. In the hotel. Come on."

She looks down at her hands, which are still wrapped around the Scotch and soda she's been nursing for the past half hour. Unbidden, they lift the tumbler to her lips; she knocks back the last of her drink, feeling the spit and sparkle behind her eyes, and puts the glass down.

"Okay," she says, and her voice comes out completely even as she stands.

*

She still isn't sure how this started. They'd been friends first, lovers occasionally -- Daniel bright and lonely, Sam circling the concept of relationship and always backing away. They'd fallen into it, really. Late nights, mutual need, friendship and affection and respect.

And then Daniel had died. Had come back.

She wonders, sometimes, if Oma and the others sent him back -- wrong. Misshapen, somehow. He was still the same sweet, determined man she'd always known, but there was an edge under it now, something hard and sharp she'd never seen before. Or maybe it had always been there, and the Others had taken something away from him, taken away the checks and balances he'd always used to contain it before.

She should have cared, should have worried, but there's something terrifyingly freeing about having one person in your life you can tell anything: all the secret little fantasies, all the petty desires that never seem real outside of your head. He listens, now. Listens, and nods, and then goes away and makes them happen.

Like the way he's making this happen.

She's terrified, really. Had been since they walked into the club. What the hell does she -- past her prime, female, dull as dirt -- have to offer in a gay bar, what does she have that could draw anyone's attention? She's not like Daniel, who seems to be able to draw some strange magnetism around him. Nobody looks twice at her unless they already know who she is; they see her, think "good girl", and move on.

Daniel doesn't care if she's a good girl. Daniel wants her to be real. Daniel looks at her and sees the person she's always secretly wanted to be lurking under her perfect facade, and when she's with him, she almost feels as though she can be that woman. The one who has secrets; the one who has no shame.

They're barely inside the hotel room when he pushes her back up against the wall of the entryway, his lips on the column of her throat. "Do you like him?" he asks against her skin. "Did I choose well?"

It's a curious need for validation, but she runs her hands down his sides, squeezes his hips. "Yes," she says, and then it all catches up to her. She lets her head fall against the wall. "This is crazy. This is insane. If the -- if Jack finds out --"

She doesn't mean "if Jack finds out we're doing this", not exactly. She's thinking of all the times she's caught the colonel looking at Daniel, all the moments where they've paused just a second too long or lingered just a minute too much. Daniel and Jack have been fucking for a very long time, she thinks. Or if they haven't, they've been meaning to. And Jack doesn't play well with others. If Jack finds out that she and Daniel, that Daniel and some random stranger --

"Jack knows." Daniel slides his fingers up underneath the little black dress she's wearing, finds her already dripping wet. She's not wearing any underwear; he isn't either, and he wouldn't let her.

But the realization slams through her more than the sensation of his touch does. She pushes him back. "He what?"

There's a little smile playing across his face. "About me, I mean. And I'm pretty sure he's guessed about me and you. We don't talk about it. Not anymore. It's safer that way. He doesn't want to hear about it."

She inhales, sharply, starts to say something. Stops. No, she really doesn't want to go there. What Daniel and the colonel have is their business, and even if Daniel explained it from top to bottom she's pretty sure she wouldn't understand.

"Do you want to play?" Daniel asks. He sounds like he's asking her if she prefers coffee or tea. "Or just watch?"

There's no good answer to that question. This is crazy. This is crazy, and she wants it more than she's wanted anything she can remember in a long time. "Watch," she finally says, dropping her eyes. Looking anywhere but at him.

He cups her chin in one palm, traces her lips with his thumb. "Will you let me fuck you, after?" he asks.

She still gets an insane charge whenever she hears that kind of language from his lips. Just like the way it turns him on when she talks dirty, she thinks. He comes pre-programmed to get off on language, and she's starting to figure out how much fun talking dirty can really be. "Maybe," she says, because she's not sure if she's going to be wildly turned on or wildly embarrassed afterwards. And then, trying to hold on to the role she's playing, the role she wants to play, adds, "If you earn it."

He hums, lightly. It's crazy what turns him on; she's guessing three-quarters of the time, but this time she seems to have guessed right. He tips her chin up, claims her lips. Soft and gentle. His mouth never leaves bruises unless she wants him to.

He makes her feel beautiful. Cherished. Liberated. She's gasping for air by the time he breaks it off, and she realizes he's got the flat of one palm pressed up against her pubic bone. She's rocking against it, trying to nudge his grip down a little so it intersects her clit. But he's too good at teasing; all he does is mouth at one earlobe and slide his hand around to cup her ass, pulling her tightly against him. He's hard as bones, but she knows he can stay like that for hours when he wants to.

And then there's a knock on the door. He gives her a minute; she crosses the room on soft and unsteady legs, sits down in the oversized chair with a thump. Then he nods, and turns around to answer it.

Showtime.

*

Daniel shuts the door behind him, leads the man through the tiny hallway and into the room proper. Sam doesn't know what she's expecting -- drinks? Conversation? -- but the man falls to his knees right there in the narrow corridor between the king-sized bed and the desk. She watches as he noses Daniel's thigh, rubs his cheek against the softness of Daniel's pants. Daniel threads his fingers through the man's hair, abstract but reassuring.

"What should we call you?" Daniel asks. Not what's your name. He seems pretty comfortable with all of this. Sam wonders how many times he's done it.

"Mike," the man answers, readily enough. That's good. Mike's a good name; it doesn't carry unpleasant connotations. She kicks off her shoes, curls her legs beneath her in the chair, presses her thighs together again. Her cunt's throbbing, but she's not ready to actually touch herself yet; she's so on edge that all it would take would be the flick of her thumb to send her over, but it'd be one of the little baby ones, the ones that leave her too sensitized to go on and not satisfied enough to want to stop.

"Mike," Daniel repeats, soft and sweet. "I'm Daniel. That's Sam." Daniel nods over at her, and she catches his eyes. Shivers. There's something there that tugs at her, something wild. "Do you do girls, Mike?"

Mike swallows, heavily. "Sometimes," he says.

"Good. But you don't get to touch her. Only I get to touch her." Daniel traces his fingertips down Mike's jawline. "And I get to touch you. And you get to touch me. If you ask nicely enough."

Mike tips his head up. Sam can see, even silhouetted by the shadow of Daniel's hip, the need on his face. "Please," Mike says.

Daniel looks over to Sam and smiles. "Do you think that's nicely enough?" he asks. Polite, detached.

She nods. She can see a little of how Daniel's setting this up, a little of the complex power structures swirling around this room. Daniel's in charge, but he's deferring to her. Putting her in the position of power. It's alluring.

"She's nicer than I am," Daniel says, looking back down at Mike. "You'll want to please her. Put on a good show."

He slides a hand into his pocket, comes back with a condom, drops it on the floor. Mike doesn't need any more encouragement. Sam's eyes round, just a little, as he unzips Daniel's pants, fumbles with the wrapper. Swallows him down, all the way home, in one long glide.

She can see the look on Daniel's face; it's sublime. They're all still fully dressed. She remembers a few of the things she's done to Daniel to make him look that way; it's hotter, somehow, watching that look arise from what someone else is doing. Easier to concentrate on, at least. She wishes they'd brought some of the toys; she wants something in her, filling her, that she can rock against and ride the crest of her arousal.

Daniel closes his eyes, tilts his head back. Cups the side of Mike's face in one palm. "Mm," he says, just a little breathless. "That's what you want, isn't it? Just like that." Meaningless, really, but Mike seems to like the encouragement; he makes a soft noise and suckles harder.

God. Men are beautiful. Sam wonders how many times Daniel's done this. He's never confessed, not even when she asks. She wishes she'd had another drink; she didn't even make it past vaguely buzzed in the bar, and the alcohol is starting to wear off now. If she thinks too hard about what she's doing, she's going to want to sink through the floor.

Or maybe not. Daniel's watching her now; his eyes are slitted open, sweeping over her body, even as he's stroking his fingers through Mike's hair and muttering soft nonsense. She feels as though he's talking for her benefit, not Mike's, not his own. She presses her hand between her thighs, drops her head down against the back of the chair.

Daniel looks down at Mike. Sam wonders what it would be like to be beneath that casual dispassionate gaze; Daniel's always warmer with her, more affectionate. She shivers; she's imagining what it would be like to be kneeling in front of a stranger like this. The thought is fascinating and repelling all at once.

Maybe someday she'll do it. Except it's different for a woman, isn't it? All the baggage of cultural expectations and gender roles --

She's thinking the way Daniel does. Or thinking the way Daniel used to, at least. Did she ever think like this before she knew Daniel? She can't remember. It seems so long ago.

"Enough," Daniel is saying, easing Mike's head back gently. Sam can hear the wet soft pop of Daniel's cock sliding from between Mike's lips. Mike makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat -- oh, God, it's halfway between a whimper and a moan, and she's trying to imagine what he must be feeling, what it must be like to give himself over like this, abandon reason and rationality in pursuit of one singleminded goal.

Maybe that's what Daniel wants her to see.

"Shh," Daniel says, stroking Mike's lips, compassionate and benevolent. "You can keep doing that if you really want. But I brought you here to fuck you."

Sam shivers. She knows that tone -- it's the one where Daniel's feeling dangerous, the one where she always feels compelled to spread out over him and nip playfully at his ears and fingers until he relaxes enough to smile. She almost stirs, almost says something, but Daniel's eyes meet hers and tell her, wordlessly, to hush.

She hushes. Mike bites his lip. Then he stands up, crosses the room to stand in front of the bed. She watches as he pulls off his vest, his shirt, lets them fall. She's probably right about his occupation; the marks of his service are written across his skin, in scars and in muscle.

He'd left his tags on when dressing for the night. Sam wonders why. Act of rebellion? Self-destructive tailspin? Part of his identity he can't leave behind, even when he's doing something like this? She wonders where he's from, where he's stationed. Whether he came here intending to do something like this, or if it was a tiny bonus he'd never expected to find.

Daniel doesn't seem to care, or if he does, he's not showing it. He glides across the room, stands in front of Mike. Sam wonders if he's even seeing Mike as a person, or if in Daniel's eyes he's just a means to an end. Daniel reaches up, takes the tags in one hand. Raises an eyebrow. Mike doesn't say anything, but he gives Daniel a fierce glare, almost defiant.

Daniel smiles. Lets them fall again. "Leave those on," he says, and turns his back to undo his pants, let them slide to the ground.

Mike's eyes dart over to Sam's face, once, quickly. She wants to smile reassurance, but Daniel seems to want this man off-balance, and what Daniel wants, Daniel gets. Eventually. So she just nods, once, and he tenses his shoulders, forces them to relax.

Daniel seems comfortable as he strips himself naked, pulls off the condom, replaces it with another. Swift, practiced motions, as though he's done it a thousand times. It's almost more than she wants to know about him. The image of Daniel and the colonel -- of Daniel and Jack, together like this, swims before her eyes. Is this how they are when the curtains are drawn and nobody's looking? Does Daniel come up behind Jack like he's doing now, fasten his teeth on Jack's shoulder and reach around to stroke his cock, push him down against the bed with such easy grace?

She shouldn't picture it. Shouldn't want to close her eyes and imagine each tiny detail: the tense and release of Jack's thighs, the soft metal glint of tags lying against his chest, the way he'd rise up onto his hands and knees sideways on the bed.

"Look at her," Daniel says, softly, compellingly, and Mike does. She swallows, heavily. Not Jack. This isn't Jack.

She doesn't want Jack anyway. She wants the idea of Jack. The concept of what he stands for. She's not going to get it, not from him. She's not going to get it from Daniel, either. But at least with Daniel, she'd known that up front.

She can't see what Daniel's doing, kneeling behind Mike on the bed. But she can see what it's doing to Mike: the distant, unfocused look in his eye, the way he bites his lip, the way he hisses out his breath and leans back into Daniel's touch. The way his tags swing loose as he pushes back against what Daniel's offering.

It's her own personal porn show, in a way she never imagined. Never could have imagined. She can smell them, earthy and wet, and it stirs something deep in the pit of her stomach that makes her want to taste, to take. The bed's far enough from her chair that she couldn't reach them, but there's enough room for her to join in. If she wanted to. She could spread out beneath Mike, make him touch her while Daniel fucks him, take the edge off this crawling arousal that's just as uncomfortable as it is electrifying.

Daniel's eyes meet hers. He knows what she's thinking. She can read it on his face. And so she lets her legs fall from where she'd tucked them up beneath her, spreads her knees -- her eyes on his, holding them close -- and lets her dress ride up.

She's on display, she knows. It makes her want to squirm. Mike's eyes are on her, Daniel's eyes are on her, but Daniel's the only one who's smiling. Just the barest touch. Almost as though he's proud of her.

She rests her fingertips on the inside of her thigh, stroking the soft light fur she never bothers to shave, and Daniel's eyes narrow. An inch. A fraction. He circles Mike's hip with his fingers and rocks forward, sliding easily inside, but his eyes don't drop from her face while he does.

*

She's always admired Daniel's self-control. But oh, she'd had no idea. He reduces Mike to a quivering wreck -- with hands, words, cock, breaking him thoroughly into his component parts the way she might strip down an engine -- and leaves him there on the bed, shuddering and limp, while Daniel gets up, strips off the condom, and paces into the bathroom to come back with a washcloth and a bottle of water.

He hasn't come yet. Sam has no idea how he does it.

Daniel sits Mike up, cleans him, soothes him. It's one of Daniel's quantum shifts: from danger to care so quickly it would make Sam's head spin if she hadn't seen it a thousand times already. She watches as Daniel gets him steady again, back on his feet, and then Mike's reaching for Daniel's cock and Daniel is -- gently, calmly -- turning him aside.

"It's all right," Daniel says, and brings Mike's hand up to his lips. Nuzzles at the fingertips, ever-so-lightly, and lets it drop. "Be careful who you pick up. Some people can tell these aren't fake. I hope you're as far from home as we are." He taps Mike's tags, once, lightly.

Sam can see the panic shoot through Mike's eyes -- he'd thought he'd get away with it, then. Thought he could pass them off as a fashion accessory. She sees his head whip back and forth between her and Daniel -- looking at them, actually seeing them, finally recognizing the thousand subtle front-line cues she knows neither of them will ever lose. He swallows, heavily.

"I don't --" Mike says, and Daniel puts his fingers on Mike's lips.

"Shh," Daniel says. "Just some advice. For your future career."

Mike shivers, as though he's suddenly realized how close he's come to disaster. Sam realizes, finally, another facet of why Daniel chose him: because Daniel believes that when you do something stupid, it's best to do it in the smartest way possible. And Mike hadn't been. Now, thanks to Daniel, he knows.

Selfish altruism or altruistic selfishness; Sam isn't sure. Either way, it's pure Daniel.

Even if Mike had been thinking of a full night, of the other things they could do, that was apparently enough to kill his buzz. He dresses, lets himself out. Without saying anything else. Sam watches him slink off, watches Daniel finish off the water bottle -- still naked, still hard -- and shut the door behind him.

She should probably say something. But Daniel caps the empty water bottle and tosses it aside, and -- before she can react, before she can move -- drops to his knees between her spread thighs. He's pushing her hand out of the way before she can even say a word, and then his mouth closes over her clit and he slides two fingers into her, simultaneously rough and tender.

She's been on the edge for so long, even with the lull involved in getting Mike cleaned up and out the door, that it tips her straight over, the orgasm running through her veins quick and sharp and stealing her breath away. He lets her ride the waves, knows without her needing to tell him just when to stop moving and let her catch up. She's never needed to tell him when to stop, when to move, when to hold exactly where he is, still and perfect. She doesn't need to tell him now.

He shifts a little. For a second she thinks he might pull away, might move them to the bed, pull off her clothes -- but no, he's only settling his weight a little more comfortably; he lets his fingers slide deeper, and the angle of it would burn if she weren't so damn wet and ready.

"Daniel," she says, helplessly, and her hips are pushing against his hand, taking him deeper. She hooks one knee up over the arm of the chair. When he looks up, his mouth is wet and shiny with the taste of her, and she suddenly feels wanton, full of abandon, like the most compelling woman in the world.

It's addictive. She never thought of herself as frigid, but sex with Daniel is so different from anything she's ever done before that she's starting to wonder whether she's always been capable of this and just never had the chance to prove it before.

He drags his tongue over her clit again, lets his fingers flutter deep inside of her. The sensation starts to build again, deep and soothing and full of dark taut ache. It feels as though he's reaching for her very essence, as though he's touching something so deep inside her that she's never been able to see it by herself.

No. That's stupid. He's just finger-fucking her. It's not as though she believes in the soul, anyway. She's just a little weird these days. Eleven days ago she'd been hallucinating and dying on a spaceship countless light-years from home. It's a good thing Daniel could probably teach classes in how to come back from the dead.

He's good at this. He was good at this the first time they did it, and he's only better at it now that he's had a chance to learn all her sweet spots, figure out all the curves and twists and tiny idiosyncrasies. He knows she likes it when he concentrates on her clit, leaves his fingers deep and motionless, with only his fingertips flicking lightly back and forth against the spot inside her that almost makes her stomach cramp when he reaches for it.

This time it takes her longer to come, but when she does, it's more. Rougher. She thinks she can feel his teeth skim over her as her elbows and knees lock, her back arches. It's so much, so overwhelming, that for a minute she almost wants his teeth, wants more of his fingers, wants him in her and over her and -- yes, like that, as his fingers slide back and into her again, finally, as though he wants her to stay riding it forever, tensing and relaxing and coming again, and Daniel is fucking her and seems as though he will do so forever, feeling her coming and coming and yes, oh --

He looks up as she finally surfaces from the other side of the haze, and this time he seems content to let her ride just the tiniest of aftershocks, thumb skimming over her clit and making her thighs tense and jump reflexively every time she thinks she might have finally caught her breath. "Still with me?" he asks, calm and soft. There's something like razors in his gaze.

"Fuck," she breathes -- an answer, not a request; a benediction, a descriptor. She thinks about picking her head up from the back of the chair, but it's far easier to just slump, bonelessly, open and wet beneath him while he kneels between her thighs and worships.

He'd stay like this all night if she let him. Advancing and retreating and making her come over and over again until her eyes were crossing and her knees were weak. And when she'd finally had enough, he'd get them both into the bed, naked and warm, and he'd roll over and drop off to sleep, still hard, not letting her take care of him at all.

They've been fucking, on and off, for a while. Years, really. She's still not sure what Daniel gets out of it. Sometimes he's playful enough, sometimes he's relaxed. Sometimes they laugh with each other and tell stupid stories and trade footrubs and make love long and slow. But not when Daniel's like this. When Daniel's like this, it's almost as though he doesn't trust himself near her with anything more than lips and tongue and fingers.

She's always wondered how to make this mood go away when it comes upon him. Wondered whether anyone's ever been able to figure out a way to tend it, to treat it. It's been happening more now that he's back; she'd only seen him like this once or twice before then, but it's been going on too long since his return for it to be as simple as having problems remembering the way he used to be.

But now's not the time to think about it. And because this is supposed to be a weekend of pushing the edges, stretching her boundaries, she unhooks her knee from the arm of the chair, plants her heel in the curve of his pectoral muscle, and shoves.

He's stronger now than he was when they first met, but he wasn't braced for it, and so he goes back and over like a falling tree. She's kneeling over him before he can recover. God only knows how she managed to find the energy to move, because he's nearly worn her down to nothing, but her men always forget how strong she can be when she needs to be. He doesn't have time to protest before she's got one hand on the center of his chest and the other hand between her thighs, encircling his dick.

"Sam," he says, one quiet word of warning, but she shakes her head.

"Shut up," she says. Saying it feels better than even his mouth had. "You asked if I'd let you fuck me. No. But I want to fuck you."

He pushes himself up on his elbows, against the scratchy and probably-filthy hotel carpet, and his eyes narrow. She'd almost be scared, except it's Daniel, and he might be capable of being terrifying but she knows she's got the upper hand right now. So before he can say something, before he can stop her, before he can push her away -- not that he'd be able to, not for long, but she doesn't want to wrestle right now, not like that -- she squeezes his cock, slides down it with one hand to hold steady, and rocks her hips back to take just the head. Just at first.

She doesn't bother with a condom. She knows how stupid it is, but subdermal contraceptives are SGC standard for all women of childbearing age, and she trusts Daniel when he says he practices safe sex with anyone who's not one of them. And, well, since she doesn't think Daniel's sleeping with Teal'c, that means she trusts Jack. If Daniel's sleeping with Jack. She almost hopes he is; one of them should be and she's almost starting to come to terms with the fact it'll never be her.

"Sam," Daniel says again, but his hips are rocking up off the floor.

"Shut up," she repeats. This must be what goddesses feel like. She pulls her dress over her head and tosses it aside. Kneeling over him, naked, touching him only with the palms of her hands and the walls of her cunt, she says, "What would it take for me to make you lose that control?"

It's the question she's been wanting to ask for a very long time. She's never felt confident enough to risk it before.

He closes his eyes. "I don't think you could," he says. Honestly. It's not a challenge; she can tell the difference. She's heard him challenge Jack often enough to know what Daniel's challenges sound like.

She tightens her muscles, rocks a little further down on him. God, he always feels so good; not too long but thick enough to let her know she's going to be feeling pleasantly used in the morning if they get one-tenth as rough as she's willing to go. "Tell me anyway," she says. "What you want when you get like this. What you need. What you go off to find." He shakes his head, starts to say something, but she slides further, squeezes, and puts both of her hands on his shoulders. Leans. He could resist, but she knows there's a part of him that doesn't want to.

"Tell me," she repeats. She couldn't even say why she's pushing so hard, except that suddenly, violently, she wants to know. Talk to it, hallucination-Daniel had said to her. Maybe it's trying to communicate. Maybe all of this is Daniel's way of trying to communicate with her. She's always known he won't talk about anything unless it's dragged out of him.

Maybe the time to drag it out of him is when she's got him pinned to the floor with him deep up inside her and her still too mellow from half an hour of coming over and over again to care enough to be self-conscious.

"You don't need to know," he says, soft and dangerous. He tries to slide his hands up her thighs, slip one hand between to where they're joined, but she knocks him away with a strength she knows he never expects. His eyes narrow again.

She leans forward. "Does Jack fuck you like you fucked that boy?"

The words are out of her mouth before she realizes what she's saying. She wants to take them back as soon as she hears them, but Daniel's eyes have already gone flat, opaque, and the only way out is through. "Is that what you want?" she says -- God, where is this coming from, where could she even think something like -- "Spread out on the bed with a cock up in you? Fucking you? Is that what you need? Just like you're in me right now, just like that. Maybe next time you should bring home someone who can fuck you while you fuck me. Maybe next time I'll fuck you while you're fucking him. Maybe we should ask Jack. Does he fuck you? Do you fuck him? Would he like it if you came to him and asked him to fuck us? Or do you think he wouldn't want to share?"

Daniel snarls. Deep in the back of his throat, rough and ready, and for a second the fear shoots through her as he rears up -- he really is stronger now, and she isn't used to it yet, isn't ready to gauge her own abilities against his anymore.

Seven years ago she would have been able to throw him. Seven years had been a long, long time.

He flips them over without letting his dick slide free, settles himself over her and starts to reach between her legs again, but she's pissed off enough to make her stronger than he expects, too. She keeps them rolling through another turn, and he knocks his head against the side of the bed even as she sits back down on top of his hips and cock. Pushes him down against the floor, holding him down by the shoulders, and when he looks like he might struggle, by putting one hand against his throat.

He stops. Freezes. She feels the sudden rush and flush of power, but she knows if she exploits it too ruthlessly, she'll feel guilty in the morning.

Maybe. Daniel's been trying to train her out of guilt. Come to think of it, she hasn't felt guilty about much in a while.

"What do you want?" she murmurs, softly. Rocks on him again, grinding her pubis against him, feeling the snap and sizzle as the base of his cock and her clit intersect.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't fight her hand at his throat, just reaches up and closes his hands on her breasts, thumbs her nipples. The flick of his fingernails shoots right through her, makes her spine curl. But this isn't about sex. Not really. It's about control, and which one of them is going to win. And Sam really, really doesn't like to lose.

"Tell me what you want," she says again. Not even recognizing the sound of her own voice. She's not sure who this woman she hears is; she's never met her before, isn't even sure if she likes her.

"I want you to shut up," Daniel snarls.

"You taught me not to," Sam says, feeling triumphant. "You don't get to have it both ways."

"You don't get to push me. You're not allowed." His temper's up; she can tell. But his hands are gentle, or close to it, at least. He circles her nipples with his thumbs, traces over them with the edge of his nails. It's almost as though he can't bring himself to hurt her, not really. It's what she counts on.

She leans over. If her hair were longer, it would be falling in his face. But it's not. So instead she brushes her lips lightly against his and tightens her fingers around his throat a little more. "What do you need, Daniel?" she asks. "Tell me what it is. I want to give it to you."

He doesn't seem to even notice she's half an inch from choking him. Doesn't seem to notice that his dick's inside her. Has he always been like that? She doesn't remember. Dissociation, she thinks. Detachment from the body. The ability to ignore sensory input in favor of cerebral pursuit.

Maybe that's what Daniel gets out of sex. Maybe that's what Daniel needs out of sex. Something to drag him back and drop him inside his own skin.

Maybe she's read one too many pop psychology books.

"Let me go," he says, soft and dangerous, but she's come this far. She rocks her hips -- back and forth, not up and down; God, she loves the way he fills her, the deep thick stretch of him. She tastes his lips again. Clean salt, sheen of sweat, no alcohol. He hasn't had a drop of anything stronger than water all night. She sobered up a long time ago. It's just the two of them: no excuses to blame it on.

"You don't really want me to," she says, and works herself against him. She can see her climax sneaking up on the horizon, but the route to it isn't a sure thing yet.

Something moves in his eyes; for a minute he is again the same sweet man she's always known, soft with regret and shame. It armors over quickly. "Are you sure?" he asks.

She knows, can't tell how but she knows. He's not asking if she's sure she knows what he wants. He's asking if she's sure she wants to give him what he needs.

She doesn't have a fucking clue what he needs. She doesn't think anyone can. But this is her Daniel, and her love for him might not fit into the usual neat boxes, but none of them have ever fit neatly and whatever she can do, whatever it takes, he deserves some peace. Even if it's only for a minute. He's done it for her enough times.

His lower lip is right there, so she nips at it, less gently than she otherwise might. He doesn't draw back. For a second she wonders if she might have drawn blood, but no, it's only the sour taste of Scotch still lingering in her mouth. Somewhere in the last few minutes this stopped being about her, but that's all right. She doesn't mind. Maybe in some twisted way, it never was.

"Always," she says, and opens her fingers, resting them against the pulse fluttering in his neck.

He doesn't move for a minute, and she thinks, with absolute dreadful clarity, that somehow she's taken a wrong turn. Then his hands come up and sink into her hair so tightly as to be almost painful; his hips thrust upwards so roughly as to almost knock her over.

When Daniel loosens his control like this, the only thing to do is to hold on tight and ride through it. So she does. She lowers herself down to his chest, and he pulls her head down further even as he slides into her with short, sharp jerks. Her head winds up against his shoulder. It's easy enough for him to rasp out words into her ear. "He fucks me beautifully," he says, and the delight he seems to take in each syllable is filthy. "In his bed. On the couch. On the table, on the counter. Anywhere I want him to."

Sam closes her eyes. She's so aroused her head is swimming, and the sheer power he's radiating is enough of an aphrodisiac to keep her going even without the twist and spark of the pictures his words are painting behind her eyelids. She's never going to be able to look Jack in the eye ever again. "And you just bend over and take it when he does," she says. Because he likes hearing her talk. Because she likes being able to say it. She never could, before. "I bet you beg him for it."

"I don't have to." His fingers clutch at her hair again; her eyes are nearly watering, but the pain almost feels good, transmuted into pleasure by an overloaded limbic system. Times like these are the only times she even comes close to understanding masochism. "He gives me anything I want."

The reality of having her suspicions confirmed is hollower than she'd expected. Daniel slides up into her, rough and slow all at once, as though he's trying to crawl inside her skin. His mouth closes on her earlobe, hot and wet, and he pulls her even closer.

They all give Daniel anything he wants. Even when he doesn't ask for it. They always have.

"You give me anything I want," she says, against his neck. Because he does. Even the things she doesn't know she wants, or the things she thinks she wants but hurt like hell when she gets them. He makes a soft and startled noise, perhaps the closest thing to an unguarded reaction she's gotten out of him all night.

"Sam," he says -- desperate, yearning, curiously vulnerable -- and something inside her breaks open to hear her name naked and plain like that. It isn't often that any of them can see past Daniel's face to what he wears behind it.

Emotion spills over from the spot in her chest where she's learned to barricade it away so she can get through the day without breaking. "I love you," she says. Barely a breath.

He will know what she means. He will know it as a convenient shorthand for all the things they will never be able to address. She can only hope he understands that her love for him is a multiphasic variable so fierce, so faceted, that all she has ever been able to do is offer it up with open hands and then turn away before she can see how he responds.

It's another problem they all seem to have. She wonders if Daniel has any idea how thoroughly he is loved. Somehow, she doesn't think so.

"Fuck me," she says. Orders. Because it might not be what he needs, but it's what she can give him.

"I don't want to hurt you," he says, but it's academic, because he already has, just as she's hurt him, just as they all hurt each other, by the act of nothing more than existing in the same space.

She rolls over, pulls him on top of her, pulls him deeper inside her and around her. He opens his mouth to say something, but she's done with words. It's too easy for them both to retreat inside their own heads; sometimes she thinks that's why Daniel likes to talk dirty, likes to make her talk dirty to him, because it's a road-map from the cerebral into the physical. Physical like this: the slide of skin against skin, the tiny soft noises of his flesh against hers, the full ripe ache of him stretching and shifting and settling.

She rears up and catches his mouth with hers. Open, hungry, rapacious. She can feel something building inside of her, a tight knot of sensation and emotion and possibility: it feels like everything is drawing inward, coming into painful focus, raw and real. She wonders if this is what it's always like for him. If this is why he's so hyper-sexual and yet so detached at the same time, as though this sharpness is something to seek and something to retreat from at the same time.

His weight is heavy on her chest. He breaks away from her mouth and turns his head to the side, his cheek against her hair, so she can't see the expression on his face. He's breathing roughly; the sound stutters against the rhythm of her heartbeat. She locks her legs around him, nestles one heel in the back of his knee, and pushes back up against his body. The carpet drags across her ass as she moves with him.

"Sam," Daniel says, soft and broken, even as he presses himself into her, rocking back and forth. She can practically smell his need, transformed into the motion of his hips and his hands clutching at her shoulders, fingers tensing and releasing to match his long sure strokes. She plants her other foot against the floor and rises against him. The position sucks, but she manages to angle her hips so the head of his cock is hitting that sweet spot every other stroke or so. "Yes, like that, inti h'ilweh, zey ma bid'i, Sam--"

Once Daniel loses English, she knows he's close, and the summit of the long steep mountain her body is climbing suddenly seems so far away. She doesn't want to waste it, so she slips one hand between their bodies, but the pads of her fingertips have just brushed over her clit when he goes still against her and comes, near-silently, with nothing more than an exhalation of the breath he was holding.

The potential's still sizzling in her blood. She tries to catch it in time, the hard sure stroke she uses on herself when all she wants is to get off fast before she rolls over and goes to sleep. She's wet and slippery and the tips of her fingers bump against the base of his cock, still joined with her. When she comes, it doesn't blow her mind or take off the top of her head or any one of a thousand other clichés. It's a soft afterthought, curiously gentle, one of the tiny upswells that somehow leave her weak afterwards anyway.

She can sense the minute Daniel comes back to himself, the minute he realizes that she's the one lying beneath him. He always seems to forget he's not alone at the moment he comes. Or maybe it's just with her. But afterwards, he always seems to sense whether or not she followed, and he can tell, now, that she didn't. It takes him a minute to rouse, but he pushes himself up off her, rolls onto one elbow, and reaches for her even as his dick slides free.

She catches his wrist before he can touch her. She's starting to feel it now, chafed and a little bit bruised from the breathless rough intensity, and even though she could come again, knows that he knows her so intimately it would only be a moment's work before she was writhing under his hands again, she doesn't want to. Not right now.

He studies her face, asking without words if she's all right, if she's satisfied, but whatever he finds there must be enough. He sighs -- she can't tell if it's disappointment or contentment; she never can, really -- and drapes himself over her side, too wrung out to move much more.

The room's air conditioner finally kicks on with an asthmatic wheeze. A minute later, she can feel the cool air blowing over their sweat-damp bodies, chilling her skin everywhere but where he's sheltering her. She always forgets how nice it is to just have someone touching her.

His fingers trace small glyphs on her hip. It tickles, and she almost slaps him away. Then decides, abruptly, that the small irritation is counterbalanced by the warmth of his skin, the way he's touching her so absentmindedly she doesn't even think he realizes he's doing it. Daniel doesn't touch people. The thrill of his hand, unguarded, is the most real sensation she's felt all night.

"You okay?" he finally asks, against her shoulder.

It's not a formality; he genuinely wants to know. Sam considers all the answers she could possibly give. No, I'm as fucked up as any of us, I'm just better at hiding it. No, this is simultaneously the closest I've been to and the furthest I've been from a healthy relationship. No, I was hoping you'd fuck me until I was screaming and actually wear me out enough to let me get a good night's sleep. No, I want --

She has no idea what she wants.

"I'm fine," she says, and lifts a hand to play with a few strands of his hair that are tickling her cheek. If he notices she stole his usual answer, he doesn't say anything about it.

After another minute of silence, his body so close she can feel his heartbeat through her skin, he finally breathes out and pushes himself away from her. "We should get into bed," he says, and offers her a hand. She doesn't take it; she doesn't need his help to get to her feet.

He always sleeps on the left side of the bed, his back to her, facing the edge. She curls up against his back, presses her forehead to the back of his neck, and wonders again if there's anything more than this out there. Wonders if she'd really be trading away this newfound freedom if she looked for something with a little more safety and security. Daniel's not secure, and he's only safe if you squint at the right angle.

Maybe that's why she keeps coming back.

Mark keeps offering to hook her up with a friend of his. She's been saying no for a while. But she bets the guy, whoever he is, won't be carrying anywhere near this much damage around with him.

Sam's just not sure anymore if normal is anything close to what she wants. Chasing after it hasn't gotten her anything but humiliation so far.

*

On Monday morning, sitting around the conference table and going over the mission schedule for the week, Sam can feel the memories of the weekend written into her skin. She wonders if anyone else can sense what they did, can smell it or see some subtle cue.

The colonel doesn't give her a second look. She wonders if Daniel said anything, did anything, when they got back last night. Wonders if Daniel climbed into the colonel's bed in the darkness, held a hand over his mouth to keep him silent and whispered the details into his ear. Wonders if the colonel knew, beforehand, what Daniel had planned. She wouldn't put it past Daniel to have told him. Not out of cruelty. Out of Daniel's ever-present curiosity to see how someone will react to outside stimuli.

She can't stop thinking about it now: the image of Daniel fucking that man, so like the colonel and yet so different, is burned into her mind. Maybe that's what he'd intended. Maybe that's what Daniel had been looking for, why he'd chosen that man in particular. Maybe Daniel gets a thrill from knowing that every time she remembers this weekend, her imagination will superimpose the colonel's (Jack's) face. She can barely remember the man's name, but she remembers his body, spreading himself out beneath Daniel's onslaught and giving himself over to it.

Daniel doesn't treat her any differently than usual. He never does.

Maybe she'll call Mark after all.

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