Ficlet Duo

[kellifer]

Title: "Burden"
Picture from: paian
Is: PG
Summary: But here, in this quiet room and in the dead of night, unwitnessed and unburdened, he can say it and mean it and not regret that it is out.


Jack can say the word Love very easily.

I love this beer

I love Hockey

I love this job

He doesn’t have a problem spouting it in a million different ways about inconsequential things, but he thinks it isn’t enough to really quantify the all-encompassing fervour that overtakes him when he looks upon a sneezy archaeologist with a tragic childhood.

I loved my wife

I loved my son

The past tense comes to him easily as well, tripping off the tongue without a second thought. These people who aren’t in his life anymore in any real way still maintain a pull on his heart but the weight lessens with each passing year and he is able to move away from it and hold it against him at the same time, safe and separate.

I love…

No.

Not quite there yet.

He knows he has Daniel’s love and it makes him feel cherished and terrified, the idea of it too bright, like looking into a sun for too long. He has to turn from it and every time he does, Daniel pulls away a little more, becomes a little more distant.

I love…

But here, in this quiet room and in the dead of night, unwitnessed and unburdened, he can say it and mean it and not regret that it is out, passing off his tongue and into the world beyond as easily as anything he has done in his life.

“I love you, Daniel,” he says, leaning over to press his lips on Daniel’s temple, his flesh too cool, skin pale and the purplish blush of bruising under his eyes.

“I do. I’ll tell you someday. I promise.”

In the infirmary, while Daniel sleeps, Jack confesses but instead of feeling better, he feels a little worse.

The burden of loving Daniel is heavy, but he shoulders it gratefully and will eventually, if he is ever brave enough, lay it down.

At Daniel’s feet.

Title: "Recovery"
Picture from: katcorvi
Is: PG
Summary: “Was I terrible?” she asks, looking at the glass in her fingers and not at him.


It takes a month to finally unwind.

She was tense and crabby and still in a lot of pain and besides, she’d been kidnapped, or so she claimed.

He’d smiled and bore it with good humour, knowing she would come around eventually.

Okay, so maybe he lost it a little when she stuck every piece of clothing he had in a bathtub full of bleach.

She wasn’t herself though, coming down from being imprisoned and offworld and at the mercy of a god-awful drug that made her pliant and not really Sam anymore. Her life was about controlling her surroundings and losing that completely had been a blow that no one was sure she’d recover from.

She did, of course.

It was her style.

She sits now, with a glass of wine in her hand on the overstuffed couch in front of the fire. She is wearing one of his black shirts, newly bought after the bleach fiasco.

“Was I terrible?” she asks, looking at the glass in her fingers and not at him.

“Not at all,” he says and although she had been, he wouldn’t ever admit it because even Sam at her worst was miles better than anyone else at their best.

“Are we going back?”

“Do you want to?”

“Not just yet,” she sighs, sliding down on the couch and digging her icy toes under his thigh and making a contented little cat noise.

“Not just yet,” her voice, barely above a whisper and her eyes sliding closed in the warm room.

He leans forward and plucks the wine glass from her hand when it dips.

Title: "Steak and BJ Day"
Picture from: sheri47
Is: PG
Summary: There was a squawk of protest and then Daniel came barrelling down Jack’s hallway, looking flustered and holding his pants closed with one hand.


There was a squawk of protest and then Daniel came barrelling down Jack’s hallway, looking flustered and holding his pants closed with one hand. He skidded to a stop in the sunken lounge room, looked at Jack and Sam, opened and closed his mouth a few times and then grabbed his keys from the coffee table, pelted to the front door and slammed out of it.

A moment later, the sound of his car starting up and peeling away from the driveway at great speed could be heard.

Sam had just taken a mouthful of beer when Teal’c appeared in the lounge room, looking confused.

Sam did the most dignified thing imaginable.

She snorted beer out her nose.

When she’d recovered and Jack had finished mopping up the beer that had sprayed across the coffee table, she cleared her throat and looked at Jack. “Ah, Sir?” she started, looking at Teal’c who was now on the back decking, pacing and looking mystified.

“Carter?” He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“You know that thing you were talking about today?”

Jack dropped into his seat, a fresh beer in hand but without one for her. “What thing?”

“You know, the male version of Valentine’s Day?”

“The BJ and steak day? Yeah, what about it?”

“You didn’t happen to tell Teal’c about it, did you?”

Jack paused, beer halfway to his mouth. “Yeah, but he knows I was joking,” Jack said, lifting a shoulder in a half shrug.

“Um, exactly how would he know you were joking, Sir? Did you tell him you were?”

Jack blinked. “No, I-“ Suddenly, Jack flushed beet red. “I…ah…oh!”

Sam snorted. “How exactly did you describe it to him?”

“Well, I was talking to the guys and I think I said that it was a time honoured tradition that an esteemed male colleague gets a…ah crap!”

Teal’c pushed the glass sliding door aside and moved back into the room, still looking perplexed.

“Teal’c buddy, I’m sorry. I was only joking about that thing today.”

Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “So DanielJackson would not see what I had offered as a sign of esteem?”

Sam slapped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to squash a severe attack of the giggles.

“Well, in a way, yes.” Jack allowed, smirking as well. He knew he would have to do some major grovelling the next day before Daniel would even talk to him. He had no doubt Sam would find a way to let Daniel know that would had happened was all his fault.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out,” Jack groaned, passing a hand over his face before taking another swig of beer.

“It is fine, O’Neill. It is nothing I have not done for a fellow brother at arms before.”

It was Jack’s turn to spray beer.