Tendencies
by Pares

Daniel burst through the gate shirtless and barefoot, executing a clumsy somersault down the ramp and ending up flat on his back. While he lay there trying to coax the oxygen back into his lungs, wondering why they didn't at least put a few gym mats down on the bare metal mesh, Jack's head floated into view. Daniel blinked, and kept blinking, but his eyes refused to focus on Jack's face. Oh yes. He'd lost his glasses, too.

"That's a new look for you," Jack commented, eyeing Daniel's loose silk pajama bottoms and offering Daniel a hand.

For a moment, Daniel considered taking it, but the ramp was becoming almost comfortable, and he realized he'd missed firm back support after all those days of sleeping on silk cushions. He waved Jack away, and caught the first glint of concern in his friend's eyes. Sam and Teal'c now loomed into his field of vision and he wiggled his fingers at them in greeting.

Once he'd inhaled enough air to form words, he said, "Hi. How've you been?"

Teal'c and Jack both took an elbow and hoisted him to his feet, and Jack steadied him with an arm around his waist.

"Oh, you know, keeping busy," Jack drawled. "Want to tell us what you've been getting up to?"

"You've been gone over a week," Carter added. Her eyes were bright with anxiety for him, and he could feel Teal'c's warm hand moving along his shoulder and spine searching for signs of injury.

"It took you that long to figure out the access codes," Daniel explained, taking his arm back from Jack so he could rub at his eyes.

"What?" She looked nonplussed.

"Well, not you you," he clarified. "Alternate Universe You."

"There was a quantum mirror on PX4-906?" Sam's face shone with ready interest.

"I'm going to say yes. Or something very much like it, anyway. The Veritus held it in great reverence. Fioril was showing me around, but if you remember, there was a Bacchanal going on at the time, and things got a little... uh. Rowdy." In point of fact, Fioril had gotten a little handsy, and when he'd tried to dodge her... "Somehow I got knocked into it, and when I woke up, I was somewhere... else. And when I tried dialing home..." Some residual flicker of suspicion made him focus on Jack.

Jack lifted his chin and squinted back at him.

"What?"

"Jack, what if I were to tell you that there is a reality where you were Goa'ulded by Tanith... and that together you and he took over the Earth?"

"I would ask you how many blows to the head you'd gotten while you were in Lollypop Land." Jack cautiously prodded the crown of Daniel's head. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Janet bustled in and tilted Daniel's chin up to peer at his eyes.

"Why don't you let me take care of that, Colonel?" she said.

"He's all yours, doc."

"I'm serious," Daniel insisted. "There is a universe where you got addicted to the sarcophagus about the time Shan'auc showed up and you and Tanith double-teamed the SGC... there was a whole thing. Anyway, there was no me in that reality so you... ah, well, suffice it to say, it was not even a nice place to visit."

"So. I was... evil?" Jack asked.

"Evil," Daniel confirmed.

"Just how evil, exactly?" After any other mission, Daniel might have enjoyed the speculative gleam in Jack's eye.

"Well. You had a goatee."

Jack still looked interested.

"Gentlemen, perhaps we can finish this conversation after I've had a look at Daniel. I want to get you to the infirmary right away," Janet said, leading Daniel out of the gateroom with a small no-nonsense smile.

*

After a bowl of oatmeal and a shower, Daniel was feeling almost at home in a fresh set of hospital scrubs. He was reclining on his cot with a new set of glasses and some Veritus translations when Jack showed up in the infirmary with two mugs of coffee and a rakish grin.

"Hey, tell me the truth, as ruler of the entire planet, did I at least get myself a sweet ride?"

"If memory serves, you had a bitchin' Camaro," Daniel said blandly. He took a sip of his coffee. Eriat kalika motur. The meat is dried and salted.

"What color was the Camaro?" When Daniel lifted his eyes to glare at him, Jack continued smoothly, "So I was the real deal, huh? The complete Evil Overlord?"

"The mullet and the gold lamé turtleneck pretty much gave it away, yeah."

"Mullet?" Jack looked faintly horrified. Finally.

Daniel nodded with some satisfaction.

"Evil!Me didn't, uh... hurt you or anything?" Jack's delicacy did little to hide his overriding concern.

Daniel felt himself flush and dropped his eyes to his translations before answering.

"Only my pride," Daniel admitted. "Did I mention that you had a harem in the alternate universe?"

Something smug settled back into Jack's expression.

"Do tell."

"Are you sure you want to know?" Telling Jack might almost be worth the price of... telling Jack.

Jack's confidence visibly faltered, and he raised one eyebrow.

"I don't know. Do I?"

Suddenly, the thought of telling Jack just what his eight days away had entailed seemed less fun and more exhausting; Daniel lay back in his cot and closed his eyes.

"You know what? I'll tell you tomorrow. Right now, I need to get some sleep."

"Sure." But Jack didn't sound sure, and that suited Daniel just as well.

*

The next morning, after a short and highly euphemized debriefing, Hammond sent Daniel home for three days of leave.

He'd hardly closed the door before Jack showed up.

"It's got something to do with the pants, doesn't it?" Jack wanted to know. "And the harem thing?"

"Well, as they were, in fact, harem pants, yes, it had something to do with them."

"You were in my harem?" Jack didn't sound as if this was quite as surprising as Daniel had found it to be.

"It was more of a seraglio, really," Daniel stalled. "It was fairly elaborate. Columns. Eunuchs. Bodypaint."

"Daniel. Harem?"

Finally, Daniel said, "Yup."

There was a long silence, and they didn't try to meet each other's eyes.

"So was Sam," Daniel offered, not sure if that made the harem in Jack's mind a better or worse place to be. "And Teal'c." Jack blanched a bit. "Although, if you want my opinion, I think that part was Tanith's idea."

"Any other surprises I should know about?"

"Well, for one thing, Harry Maybourne was there," he said accusingly. Daniel blinked, confused by his own intensity.

"Huh." Jack's expression had turned carefully neutral, and Daniel spared a moment to form an entirely new set of suspicions about Jack before continuing.

"Anyway, that turned out to be a good thing, because together we organized a rebellion and broke everybody out. Well, really, we just helped Sam organize the rebellion, but you get the idea."

"You organized rebellion with another guy?" Jack's face had relaxed and Daniel felt his own uneasiness evaporate.

"Does it help if I tell you that he meant nothing to me?"

"A little," Jack allowed. He scanned the apartment and collapsed on to the couch. "It seems to me... that you didn't actually mention any of that to the General."

"Well, I told him the truth, as far as it went," Daniel hedged. "I was detained with other prisoners in the SGC, we conspired to overthrow you, and their Sam helped me get back to the right version of Verit so that I could come home."

"But the whole 'Evil O'Neill made me his cabana boy' thing...?"

"Didn't seem... relevant."

"So... did I?"

"Did you what?"

"You know." Jack made some ambivalent gesture and Daniel frowned at him expectantly. "Make you my cabana boy!"

"What? Oh. Oh! No. No, you weren't around much, actually."

Jack closed his eyes, mouth soft with relief.

"Well, that's something at least." He opened his eyes again, and there was a question in them. "Did it bother you?"

"Being kept as someone's sex slave isn't really my idea of a good time, so I'd have to say... yes."

"I mean, that there were... guys in the harem?"

Daniel considered this, settling on the couch beside Jack while trying to guess the answer Jack was looking for as well as searching out his own true opinion.

"It wasn't entirely surprising that Tanith had... tendencies toward both sexes." He wondered if that was answer enough.

"And what if the... tendencies." Jack's voice was low and cautious. "Weren't all Goa'uld?" Well, then that was a whole different kettle of fish.

"I was okay with that," Daniel said. "I was... strangely relieved. That enough of you remained to color Tanith's preferences. I mean, I knew that you were still in there somewhere because you let Sam wear her fatigues-- and I'm really not making this any better at all, am I?"

Jack gave his head a slow, morose shake.

"Jack, the Tok'ra were able to remove Tanith in that universe. Sam radioed me on PX4-906 right before I left the gate to find the mirror. You beat him."

"Lucky me." Jack's voice was flat, and upon reflection Daniel would not have relished coming back to his team after having kept them as... as 'groupies'. That's what Jack had called them.

"'Evil doesn't overlord itself'," Daniel murmured.

"Huh?"

"That's what you'd say. You'd stop in, have a look around and then leave, usually."

A skeptical tilt to his eyebrows, Jack said, "You sure I was evil?"

"Now that you mention it, no." Leaning forward in sudden excitement, Daniel set his hand on Jack's warm kneecap. "I think you had more influence on Tanith than we had previously thought possible. I think that, in some way, you were redirecting Tanith's interests, keeping him out of the seraglio so we'd have the time to come up with a plan."

"You think so?"

"I do."

Jack gave him a slight crescent of a smile and patted his hand lightly.

"That's nice. Okay. Now that we've gotten that out in the open, I'll be on my way--" and he gathered himself to stand.

Daniel found himself reaching for Jack's hand, keeping him on the couch. For a moment, they merely looked at each other, and then Daniel leaned forward slightly and pressed his mouth against Jack's unresisting lips. When he leaned back, there was something watchful in Jack's face that prompted Daniel to say, "Um. Thank you. I just wanted to... thank you."

Jack raised his eyebrows fractionally, licked his lower lip and said, "You want to try that again?"

This time, Jack met him half way, sliding a hand into his hair and parting Daniel's lips with his tongue. This was a true kiss, nothing like the one Daniel had neglected to mention to General Hammond, nothing like the one Daniel had resolved to never speak of to Jack, nothing like the one Tanith/Jack had subjected him to on his first day in that universe, nothing like that, and Daniel cupped the back of Jack's neck and closed his hand on Jack's collar. Jack tasted like bad coffee, and not at all like lipgloss. His hair wasn't sticky with styling mousse, and he didn't smell like body-glitter. Instead, he smelled like a city mile of underground air conditioning, like industrial laundry soap, like gun oil. Like Jack.

The recognition kindled until Daniel flared like a match, sensation raising the hair on his arms, heat pooling low in his belly and rolling up his thighs. Jack's hand was heavy and almost familiar, closing on his firming dick through his pants. Daniel screwed his eyes shut and buried his nose against Jack's throat, inhaling deeply and lipping at the collar of Jack's T-Shirt, shuddering with every stroke.

*

Some time later, Daniel managed to sit up, inadvertently elbowing his companion.

"Uh, ow?"

Ignoring Jack's complaint, Daniel stretched elaborately before dropping his arms to lounge back against the now sweaty cushions.

"That was... nice."

"Nice?" Jack looked up from mopping his belly with his T-shirt. "You speak twenty-three languages and all I get is 'nice'?"

"Twenty-four. Well, twenty-five, if you count Ancient."

Jack gave him a sour smile, and Daniel ducked his head and made a show of casting about for a better compliment.

"It was great?"

"You're Tony the Tiger now?" Jack looked patently disbelieving.

"Um. How about earthshattering?"

"Now would be a very good time to shut up," said Jack.

"Too much?"

In reply, Jack held his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart before hauling Daniel down on the couch again.

"I'll work on it," Daniel promised.

"You do that."

And Daniel fell asleep somewhere between exquisite and sublime.

END
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