"Hey, is that Janet?"
"Daniel, sit down!" Sam grabbed the back of Daniel's jacket and yanked him back into his chair. "She doesn't need you yelling at her across the mall."
The fervent tone in Sam's voice caught Daniel's attention. Elbows on the table, he leaned forward and asked, "Why not?"
"Because she's not alone."
Deciding to ignore the subtextual you idiot tagged onto the end of that statement, Daniel took another look across the food court. Janet was standing by a camera shop, pointing out some part of the Christmas display to... "Tall. Reddish hair. Kind of skinny?"
"That's him." Sam pushed her empty coffee cup to one side and leaned forward in turn. "She's been seeing him for about three weeks now. His name's Nick Richards and he's a proctologist from Memorial Hospital."
"Is it serious?"
"He's been home to meet Cassie."
Cassie was... critical of anyone Janet dated from outside the SGC. "And he survived the experience?"
Sam nodded toward the camera shop where Janet was laughing up at something Dr. Richards had said. "He's going to be there for Christmas."
"Wow. That is serious."
"What's serious?" They moved apart as Jack slid a tray onto the tiny table. "Daniel, I brought you an éclair."
Daniel stared at the desert; the whipped cream and chocolate and nearly a foot of puff pastry overwhelmed the tiny paper plate. "I asked you to get me a blueberry muffin."
"Muffins are girly."
"Sir!"
"Except yours, Carter." He sat down and passed her a plate identical to Daniel's but considerably less overloaded. "Yours are tough, manly muffins."
"That sounds vaguely obscene," she murmured, cupping protective hands around her cranberry bran. "And what makes a muffin more girly than..." A nod toward Daniel's side of the table. "...that? It's all..."
"Longer than it is wide," Daniel sighed.
"Sir!"
"What?" Jack took a swallow of coffee and looked at her over the cardboard rim, his features arranged in the should-be-patented Jack O'Neill expression of wounded innocence.
"It's two weeks to Christmas and this mall is filled with children! There's a Santa no more than thirty feet away! You can't give Daniel a... a..."
"Pastry?" Jack offered then turned to Daniel. "You seem to be losing filling at one end, there. You might want to get it."
"Sir!"
"Mind out of the gutter, Carter. That's an order."
"I hate you, sir."
"Glad to hear it."
Daniel wished there were fewer children around because he knew damned well that Jack had taken one look at the éclair and thought culinary sex toy. The urge to go down on the pastry in such a way that one annoying Colonel would be squirming in his seat was intense. Almost impossible to ignore. And Jack knew it would be. Knew Daniel couldn't give in to the urge sitting in the food court of shopping mall two weeks before Christmas.
Knew that Daniel knew that he knew and was clearly pleased with himself at being able to yank two chains with one pastry.
"So," he said after another smug swallow of coffee, "you never answered my question."
"What question?"
"What's serious?"
Daniel rolled the last few moments back, past cream filled phallic symbols and manly muffins. "Oh, right. We saw Janet over by the camera store."
Jack snorted. "Doc Fraser shopping; yeah, that's serious."
"She was with the guy she's been seeing. A proctologist from Memorial Hospital." And because he actually was hungry and was clearly not getting a muffin, he picked up the éclair and took a bite.
"A proctologist?"
"You have a problem with that, sir?"
"I don't know about a guy who spends all his time with his fingers up another guy's..."
Bits of éclair coming back out Daniel's nose cut off the last word.
"Oh thank God..." Sam stood and waved as Daniel groped for a napkin. "...Teal'c finally finished shopping."
"Oh no."
The dread in Jack's voice drew Daniel's attention away from getting the last of the chocolate sauce out of his sinuses. He half rose so he could see Teal'c making his way toward them through the crowd, a bulging shopping bag in each hand. A red fuzzy arm poked out of the bag on the left.
"I thought they stopped making Tickle-me Elmo," he muttered sinking back into his seat.
"It's Hokey-pokey Elmo this year. Sir, should we warn SG-3?"
No one at the SGC had forgotten the Tickle-me Elmo debacle of two years before.
Jack considered it for a moment then his lips curled into what was only approximately a smile. "Hell no, they're Marines. They can take it."
"So, my pastry too much for you to handle, Daniel?"
"You don't know about a guy who spends all his time with his fingers up another guy's ass, Jack?"
"I'm just saying it's an... interesting professional choice." Jack floored it out of the parking lot and didn't so much ease into traffic as expect traffic to adjust to his presence. It was a pilot thing. Sam drove the same way; only faster.
When it looked like they were going to survive the experience, Daniel released his grip on the dashboard. "You're in a weird mood today."
"It's the snow."
Daniel glanced out the window at the bare concrete and dead grass. "What snow?"
"Exactly. It's only two weeks, fourteen days to Christmas and there's no snow. There's nothing I hate worse than a green Christmas. This is Colorado for Christ's sake. We've had a foot of snow on Labor Day."
"It was the weekend after Labor Day."
"Whatever. There was snow then. There isn't now." Jack sighed, took a corner on two wheels, inserted the pickup into the wholly inadequate space between two SUV's and accelerated. "Every year, first snow fall in December, I go out into the yard and make a snow angel. Half the time it's gone in an hour or so, buried under more snow but that doesn't matter. It's kind just my way of, I don't know, anchoring one end of the season."
"A snow angel."
"Yeah, you lie on your back and wave your arms and legs and..."
"I know what a snow angel is Jack. I'm just..." He was about to say having trouble seeing you making one and then he realized, he wasn't. It was exactly the sort of thing he could see Jack Scourge of the Galaxy O'Neill doing. A little childish, a little romantic in the old fashioned pre-Harlequin way, and very probably something he'd started doing with Charlie. Instead of finishing the sentence, he pulled off his glove, laid his hand on Jack's leg and squeezed gently.
Jack sighed again. "It doesn't seem like Christmas without a snow angel."
"Well, it's not Christmas yet."
"Uh, Jack..." Daniel set aside the sticks of grease paint bought to age Sgt. Siler into the role of Scrooge in the SGC production of A Christmas Carol and pulled the pair of flannel pajamas out of the bags Jack had left in the living room. "...these are going to be way too small for Cassie. Not to mention way too childish. I mean, she's a young woman now as much as you hate to admit it and..."
"And these aren't for Cassie." Jack bounded into the room and snatched them from Daniel's hand. He stared down at the pajamas then up at Daniel, frowning. "What made you think these were for Cassie?"
"Well, we don't know a lot of kids and..."
"Take another look."
Daniel sighed and did as he was told. Then he looked up at Jack. Then he looked down at the pajamas. Then he looked up at Jack again. "They're not..."
"They are."
The soft flannel had been printed with alien heads. Big, grey, alien heads with dark almond-shaped eyes. Each head had been outlined in glow in the dark fabric paint. Jack was grinning so broadly now that Daniel hated to point out the obvious. "Jack, the Asgard don't wear clothes. Thor doesn't wear clothes."
"Hey, come on, it's cold in space. I want the little guy to be comfortable."
"Doesn't wear clothes," Daniel repeated.
"Could."
"But doesn't."
Jack pulled out the emergencies only communicator that Thor had given him while the Asgard were in system for little grey reasons of their own. As far as Daniel was concerned, giving Jack the communicator and telling him it was for emergencies only was like giving a teenager a credit card and telling them the same thing. "Why don't you put those in a gift bag while I'm on the phone."
Daniel opened his mouth. Closed it again. And pulled a gift bag from the pile. He'd barely got the pajamas tucked inside when the familiar beam of white light filled the living room.
"What is the emergency, O'Neill?" The Asgard had very little tonal range in their voices but Daniel clearly heard the sound of weary inevitability in Thor's. It seemed they'd both had the same opinion of Jack's ability to stick with that whole emergencies only thing.
Jack took the bag from Daniel and passed it to Thor. "Merry Christmas!"
"We do not celebrate this holiday, O'Neill."
"Doesn't matter. We do and I'm giving you a gift."
Head cocked to one side, Thor stared down at the bag. "I do not understand."
"Open it!"
"It is..." The faintest of frown lines creased the grey forehead as he pulled out the flannel pajamas. "I still do not understand."
"They're pj's. Pajamas. You wear them to keep you warm at night."
"The Asgard do not wear clothing O'Neill."
"Told you," Daniel muttered.
Jack ignored him, keeping his attention on Thor. "But you could."
After a long pause, Thor nodded. "Yes."
"There." Jack spread his hands in triumph.
Thor looked at the pajamas for a long moment then he smiled fondly up at Jack -- it was subtle but both men had learned to read Asgard expression. "Yes. There. Thank you, O'Neill, for the gift. I will treasure it."
"That was touching," Daniel murmured blinking away afterimages. He'd always found the transportation beam to be uncomfortably bright. "Should I be jealous?"
"Of Thor?"
"He really likes you."
"We're just friends."
"Isn't that what we tell people?"
Jack's back arced up off the bed as Daniel dribbled the chocolate sauce over his dick. "Jesus!"
"Shhhh...." Another dribble of chocolate, slightly wider. "...he's a baby at this time of the year. Don't bring him into it."
"You're insane. And that's hot!" He strained against the Air Force ties holding him to the bed but Daniel had learned to tie packs on a pissy mastod in a sandstorm and his knots were solid.
"It's barely warm," Daniel murmured and bent to lick an errant drop of chocolate off Jack's thigh. Reaching down beside the bed, he picked up a can of whipped cream.
Jack lifted his head enough to stare down the length of his body at his chocolate covered penis. "This is payback isn't it?"
"For?"
"Not bringing you that damned blueberry... GOD! FUCK!"
The chocolate sauce had been slightly warmer than body temperature. The whipped cream had just come out of the fridge. Daniel sat back on his heels, stared at his handiwork for a moment, then sprayed another thick line of thick cream down the opposite side. Then he grinned, met Jack's gaze and held it, and licked his lips.
"Daniel..."
It was almost a prayer.
So Daniel answered it.
He did everything to Jack's dick that he'd wanted to do to the éclair. He licked and he sucked and he teased and he kept Jack writhing for as long as he could. When the chocolate and the whipped cream were finally gone, he slid two fingers slick with high fat dairy product up into Jack's ass as he swallowed the éclair whole.
Metaphorically speaking.
Jack pumped once, twice, and came with a shout that Thor probably heard without the communicator.
Daniel pulled back slowly, finally, reluctantly letting Jack slide out of his mouth. He sat back on his heels between spread legs and waited, watching with satisfaction as Jack, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, struggled to catch his breath.
Finally, he managed to lift his head. "Smug bastard," he gasped. "You look like the cat who swallowed the cream."
Which was, more or less, the cue Daniel had been waiting for. He held up the spray bottle. "Funny you should mention cream...."
"You're not..."
"Oh yes, I am." Filled his hand, he stroked the whipped cream onto himself, thankful that the cool was taking the edge off. He wasn't sure how much longer he could last and he wanted to make it memorable for Jack. When he was covered, and the cream was already starting to... melt?... he lowered the nozzle between Jack's legs, carefully keeping it a good two inches from the entrance to his body.
"Daniel..."
As the last of the cream filled the crack of Jack's ass, Jack's legs came up until his feet were planted on the bed by his butt and his knees were spread.
"Daniel..."
An edge of desperation now.
Beginning to feel a little desperate himself, Daniel lowered himself onto Jack's body. Thrust into Jack's body. Tried not to think about fucking that damned éclair. Couldn't. Went with it. Waited a heartbeat or two to be sure the other man had relaxed around him and that the less than usual lube was up to the job, then he couldn't wait any longer.
Tight silken heat around him and Jack underneath him. Jack rising to meet him. Harder. Faster. He fastened his mouth onto the curve of Jack's neck as Jack mixed his name with profanities and slammed his hips forward. Sheathing himself completely. All but climbing inside.
Later, when their hearts had stopped pounding and things had started drying to a less than appetizing consistency, he untied the knots and rubbed Jack's arms. Jack blinked blearily up at him, one hand rising to cup his cheek.
"You're not tired."
Daniel grinned and turned his head just enough to kiss Jack's palm. "Too much sugar."
"If I'd known you'd got this turned on by pastry, I'd..."
"You'd what?"
"Well, you're never getting a muffin again."
He was working at the dining room table wearing Jack's ratty bathrobe when the sudden light of Thor's arrival almost blinded him.
"Dr. Jackson. I am glad to find you alone. O'Neill is asleep?"
"He is."
Thor nodded, looked around like he expected Jack to appear at any moment, and stepped up to the table. "O'Neill gave me a Christmas gift and I wish to give him something in return."
"That's not necessary."
"I am aware of that, however, as I understand your culture gifts are exchanged at Christmas and that implies a reciprocal action."
"That's true but..."
"So I wish to know what O'Neill desires..."
Daniel was fairly certain he imagined the pause.
"...that I am capable of giving him. Perhaps something that no one else is able to provide. I have vast technology at my..."
Daniel raised a hand, cutting him off. "I get it. Let me consider it for a minute, okay?"
Trouble was, Jack didn't want much -- as far as material objects were concerned away - and what he did want had been covered. Well, he didn't actually want a chia pet but neither Daniel nor Sam had been able to convince Teal'c of that. Teal'c was big on traditional gifts of the season.
Traditional...
"I don't suppose you could make it snow?"
Thor blinked. "Snow?"
"See Jack likes to make snow angels around Christmas time but there's no snow. Not here, anyway. We're having what we call a green Christmas."
"It is more brown than green."
"That's not really important. What's important is the lack of snow."
Thor thought about it for a moment - at least Daniel assumed he was thinking about it - then he shook his head. "I can not adjust the weather patterns in this hemisphere so that O'Neill may have snow."
"Of course... not." The last word was said with his eyes squinted shut as Thor beamed back to his ship. "And the Glory of the Lord shone round about them," he murmured as the light faded, "and they were sore afraid." Daniel closed his laptop with fingers still slightly sticky even after a shower and sighed. "Nope. Not going there."
"Uh, Daniel..."
"Jack?" Daniel turned from the coffee maker and shuffled over to where the other man was standing just inside the back door. "Is something wrong?"
"Not wrong... exactly." He stepped aside to give Daniel a clear view of the back yard. "Know what this means?"
In the middle of Jack's backyard, glistening in the early morning sunlight, the dead grass around it dark and damp, was an exact replica of the archangel Michael from the south face of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. It looked like white marble. Daniel was willing to bet a year's salary that the fourteen foot statue was actually packed snow.
"It means Thor really likes you."
"It's from Thor?"
"Yes." Daniel enunciated each word with exaggerated care. "It's a Christmas present."
"What is it?"
"It's a proctologist with wings, Jack. What does it look like? It's a snow angel."
"A snow angel? He did this for me?"
"Yes, he did this for you." Daniel rolled his eyes, slipped one arm around the other man's waist and murmured, "So, when you say you guys are just good friends... How good are we talking? Exactly?"
--end--