He’s groveling, which is not his favorite activity.
Most of the SGC hates training days – it makes their day-to-day job harder as they remember to play the roles that have been proscribed for them, while still keeping the base running. Jack likes to set up the elaborate scenarios and get a feel for their new recruits, and he knows Teal’c also enjoys the challenge of keeping trainees on their toes. Carter hasn’t ever seemed to express an opinion one way or another, but he thinks she secretly enjoys it.
Daniel’s a whole other story.
His partner understands the value of the simulations in testing the mettle of the new recruits; he even mostly understands why Jack likes to be personally involved. What he constantly complains about, however, is Jack’s need to keep Daniel involved. He asks every time why Jack can’t play his “war games” with the soldiers and leave Daniel to his backlog of translations and artifacts.
Jack has lots of reasons. Amongst his favorites are ‘everyone knows you’re part of SG-1 so it’s not believable without you’ and ‘we’re using it as extra training time for SG-1’. Hammond has taken his side every time Daniel brought it up, and so this time the archaeologist didn’t bother to take his objections to the General.
That hadn’t kept him from complaining about it for a solid week leading up to the main event. Jack had assured him that his role would be fairly small, allowing him to spend most of his time sitting in the General’s office working on whatever he wanted.
He’d also told Danny this morning that the recruits would have orders to capture, not shoot, the invasion’s leader. But the colonel has to admit, he let his annoyance with his partner’s complaints all week about how much he hated these exercises get to him; when the time came, he let them plan to take out Daniel and even had them completing all of their tasks with their Intars on max power.
Daniel hadn’t seen the humor in it – at all. While Jack tied up loose ends around the base and got things set back to rights for the coming days, he’d gone home. Without a word to Jack. To his apartment, not Jack’s house.
He didn’t pick up any food, not because he’s not hungry but because when Daniel’s mad, he often cooks. So if Jack can talk his way inside, he’ll get something home cooked and delicious instead of takeout. Coming empty handed wasn’t a good plan either, so he’d stopped for wine. Standing in the aisle he realized that he didn’t know what Daniel was cooking, and if Danny was really mad, the wrong type of wine would just be an excuse to refuse the peace offering. In the end he grabs a red and a white and gets back in the truck.
His first knock went unanswered, but he can hear someone moving around inside. Jack knocks again, harder, and calls through the door. “Daniel, c’mon.”
A moment, and then footsteps. The door swings inward, but Daniel doesn’t immediately step out of the way so that Jack can come in. “Jack.”
“Daniel.”
His linguist frowns at him, those deep lines appearing between his eyebrows, wrapping his arms around his body; but he says nothing.
Jack lifts the bag from the liquor store and holds it up, giving it a little swing. Daniel doesn’t even look at the bribe; his eyes are still on Jack’s face, assessing. Not breaking eye contact, Jack waits him out. He’s rewarded a moment later when Daniel reaches out and takes the bag and disappears into the apartment.
Suppressing a satisfied smirk, Jack follows him inside, shutting and locking the door behind him. The house is mostly dark, but there are lights on in the kitchen. There’s not a lot of room in Daniel’s strange little kitchen, so he props himself up against the opening in the wall and waits.
Instead of answering, Daniel keeps making whatever it is he’s making, slamming his pots and pans and utensils around just a little bit too forcefully. He successfully ignores Jack until he needs something from the fridge. By the time he goes to walk past, Jack’s lost his patience for the waiting game and grabs his shoulders, holding him in place. “Daniel.”
He just shakes his head, still frowning.
“C’mon, Danny. It was a one Intar blast.” A pretty mild toll, all things considered. These scenarios typically take a lot more out of them. “What’s got you so worked up?”
“Jack, it’s not just today.” He pushes away, but even as he retrieves the tupperware-style container and the package of pita pockets out of the fridge and goes back to the counter, he keeps talking. “Today was just the tipping point. If you had told them to capture me, they would have. But you didn’t. For whatever reason, you wanted them to stun me.”
The look he throws Jack briefly over his shoulder punches him in the gut, because he can’t deny that he’d gotten a sort of perverse entertainment out of it – and he’d be damned if he knows why. If anyone else had suggested that they stun any member of SG-1 – but most especially Daniel – for no real good reason, he’d have been pissed.
“I shouldn’t have even really been on this exercise. I know you’ve got this thing about SG-1 doing everything together, but I need our mission-free time to work on all of the translations and studies that nobody else can handle, not to mention supervising my department and helping them when they get stuck.”
Daniel’s leaning forward a bit over the counter, takes a deep breath that Jack can see from behind and turns around to stare hard at him. “That’s the norm, now, Jack, more often than not. You actively find things for us to do when we’re on base that cut into my ability to do my work. And when we’re off-world, you’ve been quicker and quicker to growl and belittle and accuse.”
He can’t find the words to deny it, and realizes with a sense of acute discomfort that that’s probably because there’s a lot of truth to what Daniel is saying. Which was absolutely never his intention – the last thing he wants is to push his best friend and lover away. That he’s been doing so subconsciously is something he’ll need to examine closely later.
“Daniel…” he trails off, shaking his head, and walks over to box his partner in against the counter. Daniel’s not looking at him, still frowning and chewing his lip, unsure of the reception of his accusation. Clearly he’s had it bottled up for a while, and Jack’s treatment of him today was just too much. Jack lifts a hand and lays it against Daniel’s cheek, lifting his face up so their eyes meet again. “I’m sorry,” he leans in slowly, pressing his lips to his partner’s forehead. “I didn’t realize.”
It’s endearing that even with everything they’ve done behind closed doors, that simple action is enough to make Daniel flush bright red. “Well, now you know,” he mumbles, and he ducks his chin as soon as Jack lets go of his face.
Pressing his advantage, Jack runs his hands down Daniel’s sides with light pressure, and is glad that his lover only gives the slightest flinch when his hand skims over his hip – probably just some bruising from where he fell when he was stunned. Leaning in again, he lowers his voice so Daniel can’t pull away and hope to hear him. “I can kiss it better later.”
“Dinner first,” Daniel says firmly, but he’s a little out of breath and still flushed. He’s easy – and fun – to get flustered. Jack lets himself be shoved away and then accepts the dish of Shawarma ingredients he is handed and takes them to the table. Later is fine – no reason to waste what promises to be a tasty dinner.
