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The Value of Intelligence

Catspaw

Jack could think of one hundred and one things he'd like to do to Daniel when he got his 'Fuck off, asshole' face on and proceeded to get right under his skin with the geeky archaeologist, sorry, archaeo-linguist shit: one hundred and one ways to wipe that look right off his face. Trouble was, at least half of those ways involved naked, sweaty and vulnerable. Times like now, when he had nothing much to do except watch for non-existent danger and boredom turned to niggling, when he got pushed into getting really pissed at Daniel and Daniel got really pissed back, it always segued into out and out horny, like night followed day. And that always led him into the realms of speculation: what would Daniel be like in bed? What would it be like to be in bed with Daniel, to spar with him there physically and verbally, to push and be pushed, to encourage him to let go, to be encouraged in turn?

Top or bottom? He'd wondered about that often over the last few months. He reckoned it'd probably be a fifty-fifty call. And if Daniel fucked as well as he fought in their pissing contests, if he could give as good as he got in bed to the level that he did everywhere else, if he got as enthused and passionate about other things as he did about his damn rocks, it wouldn't really matter who came out on top, literally or metaphorically.

Idle speculation when he'd thought it wasn't gonna happen any time soon. It was gonna happen some time though, he was as certain of that now as he'd ever been of anything in his goddam life. Nothing that he could put his finger on, nothing concrete - nothing obvious that he could recall as he plodded along, speculating under a hot alien sun - just a scattering of little clues, each of them nothing much in and of itself, but all adding up to a honkin' great heap of conviction. Especially in the light of what he now knew. Sparkage was what they'd always had, even, or more accurately, particularly, when he was dishing out shit to Daniel and Daniel was dishing it right back. He sighed hugely, feeling a trickle of sweat roll down over his belly, its mirror image trickling down the space between his shoulder blades: yep, idle speculation still. But it sure helped while away the time while he was baby sitting on some dumb-ass deserted planet, even if it sometimes led to unscheduled, unnecessary and solitary perimeter checks. Like now.

"If you're so bored, can't you go and find something to shoot or blow up instead of just hanging around irritating the shit out of me?"

Jack had grinned internally. Find something to shoot, huh? Yeah, he could just about manage that, would pretty well have to, the familiar turn his thoughts were taking watching Daniel gear up to a major tantrum. Weird how many military terms had been hijacked as sexual euphemisms - shoot, blow, firing blanks, tail-gunner, yeah! The old ones were the best ...

His snort of ill-suppressed laughter at the last random thought had not gone down well. Daniel had gone from mildly exasperated to downright pissy in something under twenty seconds and he'd responded in kind - well hell, he couldn't help the half-assed way his mind worked, could he?

Maybe it was Freudian, or Pavlovian, or whatever. Or maybe it was his subconscious or libido or something telling him that other, more appropriate - or should that be 'inappropriate'? - responses were way overdue. Well, duh. Pop psych really wasn't his forte. Whatever it was, it didn't alter the fact that scrapping with Daniel never failed to turn him on. Whatever, now he had gotten pissed enough at the job and had surely been screwed enough by their so-called allies, not to mention their own paymasters, to be willing to possibly, literally, screw himself right out of the service, now he would act. Not today, probably not tomorrow, nor even the next day, but soon, when he'd figured out the angles. In the meantime...

"Just you and me, buddy. For a little while longer," he muttered, holding up his right hand and looking at it critically. Just an ordinary hand: crazy looking thumb certainly, but just an ordinary, workaday hand. Callused, work-roughened skin over bones and ligaments, currently sweating inside a scuffed, fingerless leather glove, nothing to write home about, hardly a thing of beauty, but capable of giving so much pleasure. He laughed at himself for waxing poetic over a hand, for crying out loud, but his gut started to flutter as he looked at it, turning it this way and that, knowing what he was going to do regardless of being off world, anticipating how it was going to feel.

As he moved to unbutton his fly, his thoughts turned to a different conversation, and despite himself, his lips thinned and his hand stilled. That asshole - that other 'him'. So convinced he was 'better'. Well shit. If 'better' equated to 'dead', he'd take what he had for now, thank you.

"You haven't even thought about it? Yeah, right. I know you better than that. Lyin' to yourself is a fuckin' bad habit, asshole. Fuck, what a loser! "

"Easy for you to say. I've got responsibilities. I took an oath. I follow orders."

"Yeah? Since when did ya ever follow an order that you thought was dumb? When did you get the pole up your ass and start buying into the regs when they didn't suit you? I know you. I am you. You tellin' me you've turned chickenshit now that the pension's in sight?"

"You? Don't make me laugh! You're not me - you're not even close! Just a bunch of circuits and hydraulic shit held together with plastics that thinks it's a man. You're nothin', buddy, nothin' at all, just a freakin' pod person. Pfft!"

"Maybe I am at that, but at least I've got a working dick and the balls to go for what I want. Geeze, when did ya get so gutless?"

"Yeah? And what did it get ya? In case ya hadn't noticed, dickhead, it got ya precisely squat. Your Daniel's dead, you're dyin'. How does that make you 'better'?"

The bastard had given him a strange look then, before saying quietly, "Maybe I'm the better for having known him inside and out. For having loved him. For knowing he loved me. You'll never know what that was like, you poor schmuck. Never know how fucking good it feels to have him writhing under you, drilling into you, coming all over you. Yeah, maybe that's the difference."

He'd wondered a lot about the other one's motivation. It was a puzzle, and he hated those, couldn't help but worry away at them until he'd worked them out. It hadn't been altruism certainly; their resentment of each other had been deep and mutual. When he'd looked a little further into himself, he'd recognised it for what it was, the mirror of his own desire to be top dog, to get one over on the opposition, to score points. To be 'better', or better still, 'best'. And he'd been satisfied that in the end, he'd come out on top, the real him, and he'd thought, 'Well, fuck you, pal - you might have been 'better' in your own estimation right then, but you aren't any more. You're - what? Not dead, 'cause you never were alive - just a copy, a fake, a counterfeit. A body snatcher. Pale shadow of a man.' And then dismissed it.

He couldn't deny it had rocked him on his heels though, just a little, to have finally had the clue thrust into his hand after all this time of covert watching and wondering, to finally find out that Daniel had the hots for him. He'd heard the rumours in the early days, of course, but dismissed them out of hand. There wasn't even a whisper of anything but straight in Daniel's file, and he'd made damn sure over the course of a long and varied career that there was no suggestion of anything other than the assumption of ramrod straightness in his own. It hadn't been hard, especially once he was married, and it got easier each successive year as he carefully fostered his rep and cultivated his contacts.

Their alter egos had been screwing like mink. He really wasn't surprised at the other him, him being the copy and all, he knew what made him tick. But Daniel? His Daniel? A problem, wrapped up in a puzzle, bound around with an enigma. Until now. Now he had his measure, now he had the intel he always required to calculate the risks, now he occupied the favourable ground. Now he had options. He liked options.

He was aware of his dick lying thick and heavy inside his pants as he popped his buttons one by one and he shivered as he sank into anticipation: what was it going to be like to have other, long-fingered, careful hands questing into his shorts as he and Daniel exchanged slow, sloppy-wet, tongue-rasping kisses, wrapping themselves round him in the perfect grip, pulling long and slow at his cock with a slight twist at the end, just the way he liked it?

The scene shifted as his leather-bound palm closed round his dick and he leaned forward, straight-armed against a rock, angling his body to avoid any spills. Daniel lay under him, gasping and writhing as he was sucked slowly into Jack's mouth, moaning and babbling as Jack worked him expertly, lips and tongue, teeth and hands all striving together, suckling and licking, grazing and palming; Daniel's fingers flexed against his scalp, carded through his hair, pushed at the back of his head, silently demanding more, harder, deeper, as his voice ground out yes, that's right, oh god, so good...

A different image: him and Daniel, sucking each other, a tangle of limbs, sweaty and salty, each drowning in pleasure received and given, really going at it, oh yeah, licking and slurping at assholes and balls and cocks, faces smeared with spit and pre-come...

And another: Daniel above him, brow wrinkled in concentration, slowly easing downwards, impaling himself on his cock, gradually opening and stretching to accommodate him, a small trickle of sweat wending its way down from behind his ear and over his throat as he watched its glittering progress. He felt wet, velvet heat over his dick, not soft, well-worn leather, and his balls drew up and tightened as his hand upped its pace and shifted its grip, as Daniel found his stroke, clenching his muscles as he rode his cock rhythmically up and down, over and over, drawing his climax out of him inch by unbearable inch, until he was coming like he'd rarely come in his life before...

He shuddered, head bent, gulping in breaths hard and fast like a diver breaking the surface as he gradually came down. A quick glance round the area assured him that he remained unobserved, reassured him that he'd been right to take the chance and he straightened up, noticing the streaks of come on the rock in front of him rapidly drying in the hot sun. His lips curved in a half smile as he tucked himself back into his shorts and cammos. Oh yeah. He knew it was gonna happen some time, as soon as the time was right. It was all gonna happen, he was as certain of that as of anything he'd ever been in his life: after all, he had the inside dope.

END

Applied Intelligence

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