Dr. Jackson's Yoga Journal (Part 1 of 2)
Feb. 15th, 2009 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainofckTitle: Dr. Jackson's Yoga Journal (Part 1 of 2)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Jack O'Neill/OFC
Rating: G (This part. I promise NC-17 next! *crosses heart*)
Summary: Jack has an unexpected hobby and a new girlfriend.
Content/warnings: Mild het content. Um. Yoga porn?
Words: Approx. 3000 this part.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Sunrise. The Matrix is located here.
Thanks: Special thanks togreen_grrl, who possibly *is* Sunya (or personally acquainted with her); to zats_clear who provided dialog, as well as constant inspiration and moral support; and to everyone who commented in response to my request for help with Sunya.
It had been an odd night of insomnia. Daniel hadn't been working. He went to bed at a reasonable time for once – completely uncaffeinated – and totally failed to feel the slightest bit sleepy. So he gave up around two in the morning, and went outside to get some air. It was a warm night. The waning gibbous moon was high in the sky. The stars were glowing, despite some light pollution. After years of second and third watches, it shouldn't be a big deal to walk through the streets of Colorado Springs looking at the stars, but home is beautiful, too, and Daniel stepped in a few holes and bumped into a few car bumpers staring up at the midnight blue velvet of Earth's starry night sky.
Then he got a crick in his neck and so instead of staring up at home's stars, he decided he might as well run on the Earth for a while. Something he actually preferred to do only extra-terrestrially, but really needed to do here, if he wanted to keep winning in the run-for-the-Gate marathons and the make-it-to-the-DHD-first sprints. He ran at an easy jog, stopping at an all night convenience store for a couple of bottles of water after about fifteen minutes. Then he just ran.
Definitely an odd night, because running was weirdly almost the same as resting. Very meditative, until dawn started to grey the sky, and Daniel started to wake up, and at the end of his long, easy run, he decided to see how fast he could get to nowhere, and he raced the sun, running all out, as fast and as hard as he could.
He and the sun made it to the same hilltop at the same moment. The sun's disc kissed the horizon, and Daniel stopped to watch and catch his breath, then sweaty and suddenly exhausted, realizing he had been out for hours and hadn't slept in a day, he walked slowly down the hill, farther still from where he started, enjoying the rising breeze and the painted orange and red of the sun on the broken clouds scudding in. His weather sense said rain today, though he couldn't smell it in the summer humid air yet.
He came across the little park unexpectedly.
It was tiny, with no swings or slides, hardly more than a large open grassy space with a few benches. More of a scenic overlook than a park, really, but the view was wonderful, the sunrise over mountain peaks. He could forget how beautiful Earth was, sometimes, in the midst of the war. It was good to remember how important the fight was –what he was fighting for.
Daniel was amused to see a few local yogis out, saluting the sun. He remembered that from his days at UCLA. He'd done his share of yoga in his sordid youth, though the habits of early rising and careful eating it required meant that he was never found it that attractive and eventually he gave up on it. Not to mention the way yoga tended to attract the most annoying new age wackos, who mixed pyramids and astrology and the Kamasutras. He wondered if yoga in the 1990's still was wrapped up in that, even in the heart of Air Force country. Possibly it was worse here in the trend-following heartland, he thought, though he supposed he was probably being unfair to Colorado.
Anyway, as he sat slumped, collapsed on the park bench, his odd insomniac activities finally catching up to him, sipping the last of his water, wishing for coffee, it wasn't terrible to watch them - quiet, beautiful movement in the clear light of dawn.
The nearest man knealt on his mat in hero's pose, facing the dawn, with the setting moon, and coincidentally Daniel, behind him. His palms were open to the sky, in a mudra for wisdom and openness. Slowly he raised his arms to the side, lifting them over his head and interweaving his fingers, pressing his palms upwards, stretching his wrists and opening his shoulders.
He released his fingers and returned to the open-palmed mudra.
Then again, his raised his arms, interlacing his fingers again. Again he returned to simple hero's pose.
Daniel began to feel the flow of the vinyasa, as the man now rose on his knees, flexing his feet, and rotated his arms, first one, then the other, over and back, pressing his palms into his heels, lifting his chest, opening his heart to the sky, his head falling back.
Daniel startled as he suddenly recognized him.
When the hell did Jack O'Neill start doing yoga?
Not recently, Daniel realized, as Jack deepened the pose, his arms descended all the way, his head resting on the ground, chest rising and falling in long easy breaths, then he raised up again to kneeling, hands to namaste.
The image was so out of place, Daniel was stuck there on the bench, staring. He realized his mouth had fallen open. He shut it.
Jack lifted his torso on his arms and shifted his feet into a cross-legged position in front of him, then reclined back in to boat. He held the posture for a long pause, then folded up onto himself, balancing on his hips and pulling his knees in to his chest, before unfolding again and lowering himself all the way to the ground.
He continued his back bending, placing his hands by his head and his feet by his sitz bones. He pressed up strongly into a full wheel, rising up onto his toes, then planting his feet fully as he walked his hands in.
He gently lowered himself to the ground and rested quietly, knees bent and resting against each other, one hand on his belly and one on his heart.
As he lay there, a woman walked up to him. She said something quiet that Daniel couldn't hear, dropping a day pack onto the ground and placing a paper cup of coffee next to it, then sitting next to Jack, easy in half-lotus, hands coming to rest on her knees. Jack sat up and bent forward deeply over straight, extended legs, relaxing forward by degrees until his hands were clasped together around the soles of his feet. If she was meditating, she was cheating. Daniel saw her smile as she watched Jack through slitted eyes.
Jack sat up again and folded his knees in, also sitting easy in half lotus, hands again assuming the open-palmed mudra, rather than the Jnana Mudra adopted by the woman.
Jack folded his hands in Namaste and bowed to her in the classic greeting.
"So, IHOP?" he asked.
The woman smiled and rolled her eyes.
"Perhaps you should ask him," she said, nodding to Daniel.
Jack turned. The surprise on his face was almost comical. Probably a near mirror image of Daniel's earlier expression.
"Hello, Daniel," he drawled, recovering quickly.
"Daniel?!" the woman said, jumping to her feet and walking over. "Well, well. I never thought I would have the pleasure!" she said, extending her hand.
"Neither did I," Jack agreed, getting up to follow her. "What brings you here, Daniel?" As he sauntered over, he stripped off the sweat-drenched sun-yellow tank he had been wearing, replacing it with a plain blue t-shirt. He dropped an arm around the woman's shoulders as Daniel took her hand.
"Uh. I was running, believe it or not."
"Daniel," Jack said, drawing the syllables out, pausing meaningfully. "You are about, oh, ten klicks from your house."
"Well, I started…" Daniel began, then realized he had left without putting on his watch. He half stood and tilted his head so he could see Jack's, "…about four hours ago."
"Well," the woman said, slipping out from under Jack's arm and going back for her bag as Jack gave Daniel a suspicious, slightly squinty glare, "then you clearly need this more than he does."
She grinned at Jack as she handed Daniel the hot paper cup of – mmmmm he could smell it, really, really good Kona, black, just the way Jack liked it.
Daniel took the first sip without the slightest twinge of guilt or regret. He grinned at Jack, too.
"Okay," Jack grumbled. "Now we're really going to IHOP."
"I brought breakfast, too," the woman continued, speaking to Daniel, not Jack. "I will concede to Jack's atrocious eating habits on certain points, such as coffee, but I refuse to go to that disgusting diner and watch him bloat himself with animal products."
She went over and sat down on Jack's mat. She dumped a bunch of sealed containers out onto the ground. Daniel followed Jack over, and sat down next to her while Jack towered over them, then dropped to the ground next to her with a sigh.
"No IHOP, then?" he said wistfully.
"Oh, you love it when I feed you," she said, shoving him in the shoulder. "But you have to share today. Daniel gets yours."
"Here," she said, passing a bowl to Daniel. "Homemade soy yogurt, toasted almond cereal, and strawberries. With another concession to Jack. White sugar on them."
"Jack," Daniel whispered, sotto voce, "I think you're dating Dharma."
"Nah. Her name's Sunya," Jack said, taking the entire container of strawberries before Daniel could get any and starting to eat them with his fingers. When Sunya tried to take the bowl back, he just held it out of reach until she gave up and ate her yogurt and cereal without fruit. She didn't seem too put out about it, just lingered over a bite of her breakfast, sucking the spoon thoughtfully and watching Daniel eat.
Jack sat between them, eyes tracking first one, then the other, apprehensively waiting to see who would make the first conversational gambit.
"This is delicious," Daniel said, a little self-consciously. Because it really was. "I haven't had yogurt like this since… well, for years. I love it when it's fresh and warm, right out of the pot."
She smiled and nodded graciously.
"So," she said, stirring her yogurt absently while staring at him. "Who are you, Daniel?"
He looked over at Jack.
"Um. What has Jack told you about me?"
She smiled softly, as at a fond memory.
"You are a name he let slip once, and refused to ever discuss again," she said.
"Oh. Um…"
He looked back and forth between them. Jack with one eyebrow arched, otherwise giving nothing away. Sunya sucking her spoon again, looking expectant.
"I think I'm a guy who ran too far on no sleep and who is now completely out of his depth."
"Sounds like every day," Jack muttered. Sunya gave him a mildly disapproving look, then smiled at Daniel.
"I like that. You didn't reflexively identify yourself by your job."
"Daniel's a guy I work with," Jack filled in, clearly just to be contrary.
"Ah. Deep space radio telemetry," Sunya said with a knowing nod. "Where you hide under Cheyenne Mountain for weeks at a time and say you are away on work related assignments but yet never need a ride to or from the airport." Another disapproving look at Jack, this one slightly moreso.
"Sometimes we get caught up in the work," Daniel said lamely. He never had to make excuses to anyone about his absences, so he had never really thought up a good reason.
"You don't strike me as military," Sunya said.
"Civilian consultant," Jack said.
"Oh, really? And what do you consult about?" Sunya asked.
"I'm an archaeologist and a linguist," Daniel said.
"So since the past speaks to you, some people think the aliens will talk to you, too," Sunya said. She sounded pleased. Daniel couldn't help but smile back.
"Something like that," he said.
"If aliens are going to talk to anybody, it'll be Daniel," Jack agreed.
There was a long pause. Daniel felt awkward. Jack wasn't helping and Sunya seemed to have run out of questions. She had gone back to quietly watching, this time staring a Jack, who was just finishing off the strawberries.
Daniel figured it was probably his turn to ask some questions, but he was reluctant to pry, as Jack had never mentioned this woman to him. He was just going to ask something neutral and predictable, like maybe, what do you do? When Sunya gave him a blinding smile.
"Well, Daniel, I'm so pleased I had a chance to meet you. I have been eaten up with curiosity and jealousy for months, and it's good to finally know."
She leaned over and kissed a slightly surprised Jack. It began almost chastely, but the kiss deepened until they were plundering each other, Jack's hands tangled in her hair, her knuckles almost white where she was clinging to his shoulders.
Daniel looked away, bring to bear all his skills living in societies with no privacy and little thought for it. Except that he had been living alone for some time now, and they were making out right there.
Sunya broke off the kiss, delicately licking first Jack's lips, then her own.
"Too sweet," she murmured, "Goodbye, Jack."
Then she rose gracefully from where she had nearly crawled into Jack's lap and turned and walked away, down the path up to where the cars were parked, leaving Jack and Daniel both blinking after her in surprise.
Jack scrambled up and went after her, catching her at the edge of the little tree-circled clearing. Their conversation was brief, quiet and intense and then Sunya continued down the path, leaving Jack standing barefoot in the grass, looking more than a little peeved.
Daniel started cleaning up the picnic and had it all stowed away in Sunya's bag by the time Jack walked back over. He rolled up his mat in silence, and Daniel followed him to the truck with Sunya's bag over his shoulder. There was no sign of her in the parking lot.
"Sorry?" Daniel offered, as Jack backed out of the parking space.
"She adopted the name 'Sunya,'" Jack replied. "It was never going to end well."
Daniel nodded. Sunya meant 'zero' or 'nothing.' A woman who chose that name was on a path to unity with the vastness of the universe.
"I guess so. But I don't understand why it chose not to end well this morning over breakfast," he rambled before his sleep-deprived brain caught up with his mouth and he realized he might not have said the most tactful thing. "Sorry," he finished lamely. "How long were you guys dating?"
"About a year," Jack said. He sounded resigned. "Thai massage. Have you ever had Thai massage, Daniel? And she has the coolest, weird stuff in her kitchen."
Jack pulled into the parking lot of the International House of Pancakes.
"I don't know if I can stay conscious long enough for them to bring us food, Jack," Daniel said.
"You ate my breakfast and caused my very hot, very flexible, very creative girlfriend to dump me. You will suffer while I have my farmer's omelet. I'll even buy you one. The protein will bring your brain back online for a while longer."
Daniel grunted and unbuckled his seatbelt.
"How did you meet her, anyway?" Daniel asked him, staring blearily at the row of syrup bottles on their table and wondering not for the first time in his life when they were going to develop an intravenous delivery system for coffee. He was drinking it as fast as the temperature would allow.
"In the park," Jack replied. He was building a fort with Sweet-n-Low packets.
"In the park? Yoga pickup? Very mod, Jack. And not very you. At least, I wouldn't think so. And since when do you do yoga, anyway?" He echoed his earlier reaction, again with the sleep-deprived rambling. Usually Daniel did better than this.
"Since a physical therapist recommended it in the early '80's. I find I appreciate it more and more the older I get. Joints aren't what they used to be. Five klick sprints aren't either. Shut your mouth, Daniel, the flies will get in…"
Jack smirked at Daniel's gawping expression. Daniel snapped his mouth shut and glared at his friend. Jack grabbed the artificial sweetener from the next table and started roofing his fort.
"Well, I guess you wouldn't have done it because it was trendy," Daniel's tired brain supplied an image of a whole menacing Special Ops squad doing pilates in black body armor and smirked a little before he returned to being annoyed. "How, exactly, have I known you for five years and never realized this about you?" he demanded.
Jack shrugged and smiled at the waitress as she brought him his plate. She eyed his fort with disapproval, then smiled in response to Jack's mischievous grin.
"I'll put them away," Jack volunteered.
"You'd better," she said, "Or no more coffee for your friend, there."
She winked at Daniel as she left.
Daniel plowed into his own omelet and they were quiet for a while as they got down to some serious eating. Yes, Jack was right. The protein had an immediate impact, and the need to faceplant directly in to the eggs lost some of its urgency.
But the funny thing about sleep-deprivation was that sometimes the reduction in the usual mental filters and self-censorship lead to interesting moments of revelation. As he ate, he free-associated, their meeting with Sunya playing over in his head.
"Why was she jealous of me? She said you never said anything about me," Daniel wondered.
"She said…" Daniel began before Jack interrupted him.
"Daniel," he said warningly.
"Don't 'Daniel' me," Daniel replied back testily. "She said I was a name you 'let slip.' Just when, exactly, did my name slip out?"
Jack sat back, arms crossing over his chest.
"Not your business, Daniel."
And he was right. It wasn't Daniel's business.
Jack took him home, and Daniel collapsed in his bed and dreamed about Jack O'Neill, gracefully saluting the sun, with the moon at his back.
Sun Salutations on YouTube, if you have not seen it done.
Camel. This is a *fantastic* illustration of Camel, if you can ignore the irritating graphics…
On to part 2.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Jack O'Neill/OFC
Rating: G (This part. I promise NC-17 next! *crosses heart*)
Summary: Jack has an unexpected hobby and a new girlfriend.
Content/warnings: Mild het content. Um. Yoga porn?
Words: Approx. 3000 this part.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.
muck_a_luck and brainofckThe Matrix: Sunrise. The Matrix is located here.
Thanks: Special thanks to
green_grrl, who possibly *is* Sunya (or personally acquainted with her); to zats_clear who provided dialog, as well as constant inspiration and moral support; and to everyone who commented in response to my request for help with Sunya.It had been an odd night of insomnia. Daniel hadn't been working. He went to bed at a reasonable time for once – completely uncaffeinated – and totally failed to feel the slightest bit sleepy. So he gave up around two in the morning, and went outside to get some air. It was a warm night. The waning gibbous moon was high in the sky. The stars were glowing, despite some light pollution. After years of second and third watches, it shouldn't be a big deal to walk through the streets of Colorado Springs looking at the stars, but home is beautiful, too, and Daniel stepped in a few holes and bumped into a few car bumpers staring up at the midnight blue velvet of Earth's starry night sky.
Then he got a crick in his neck and so instead of staring up at home's stars, he decided he might as well run on the Earth for a while. Something he actually preferred to do only extra-terrestrially, but really needed to do here, if he wanted to keep winning in the run-for-the-Gate marathons and the make-it-to-the-DHD-first sprints. He ran at an easy jog, stopping at an all night convenience store for a couple of bottles of water after about fifteen minutes. Then he just ran.
Definitely an odd night, because running was weirdly almost the same as resting. Very meditative, until dawn started to grey the sky, and Daniel started to wake up, and at the end of his long, easy run, he decided to see how fast he could get to nowhere, and he raced the sun, running all out, as fast and as hard as he could.
He and the sun made it to the same hilltop at the same moment. The sun's disc kissed the horizon, and Daniel stopped to watch and catch his breath, then sweaty and suddenly exhausted, realizing he had been out for hours and hadn't slept in a day, he walked slowly down the hill, farther still from where he started, enjoying the rising breeze and the painted orange and red of the sun on the broken clouds scudding in. His weather sense said rain today, though he couldn't smell it in the summer humid air yet.
He came across the little park unexpectedly.
It was tiny, with no swings or slides, hardly more than a large open grassy space with a few benches. More of a scenic overlook than a park, really, but the view was wonderful, the sunrise over mountain peaks. He could forget how beautiful Earth was, sometimes, in the midst of the war. It was good to remember how important the fight was –what he was fighting for.
Daniel was amused to see a few local yogis out, saluting the sun. He remembered that from his days at UCLA. He'd done his share of yoga in his sordid youth, though the habits of early rising and careful eating it required meant that he was never found it that attractive and eventually he gave up on it. Not to mention the way yoga tended to attract the most annoying new age wackos, who mixed pyramids and astrology and the Kamasutras. He wondered if yoga in the 1990's still was wrapped up in that, even in the heart of Air Force country. Possibly it was worse here in the trend-following heartland, he thought, though he supposed he was probably being unfair to Colorado.
Anyway, as he sat slumped, collapsed on the park bench, his odd insomniac activities finally catching up to him, sipping the last of his water, wishing for coffee, it wasn't terrible to watch them - quiet, beautiful movement in the clear light of dawn.
The nearest man knealt on his mat in hero's pose, facing the dawn, with the setting moon, and coincidentally Daniel, behind him. His palms were open to the sky, in a mudra for wisdom and openness. Slowly he raised his arms to the side, lifting them over his head and interweaving his fingers, pressing his palms upwards, stretching his wrists and opening his shoulders.
He released his fingers and returned to the open-palmed mudra.
Then again, his raised his arms, interlacing his fingers again. Again he returned to simple hero's pose.
Daniel began to feel the flow of the vinyasa, as the man now rose on his knees, flexing his feet, and rotated his arms, first one, then the other, over and back, pressing his palms into his heels, lifting his chest, opening his heart to the sky, his head falling back.
Daniel startled as he suddenly recognized him.
When the hell did Jack O'Neill start doing yoga?
Not recently, Daniel realized, as Jack deepened the pose, his arms descended all the way, his head resting on the ground, chest rising and falling in long easy breaths, then he raised up again to kneeling, hands to namaste.
The image was so out of place, Daniel was stuck there on the bench, staring. He realized his mouth had fallen open. He shut it.
Jack lifted his torso on his arms and shifted his feet into a cross-legged position in front of him, then reclined back in to boat. He held the posture for a long pause, then folded up onto himself, balancing on his hips and pulling his knees in to his chest, before unfolding again and lowering himself all the way to the ground.
He continued his back bending, placing his hands by his head and his feet by his sitz bones. He pressed up strongly into a full wheel, rising up onto his toes, then planting his feet fully as he walked his hands in.
He gently lowered himself to the ground and rested quietly, knees bent and resting against each other, one hand on his belly and one on his heart.
As he lay there, a woman walked up to him. She said something quiet that Daniel couldn't hear, dropping a day pack onto the ground and placing a paper cup of coffee next to it, then sitting next to Jack, easy in half-lotus, hands coming to rest on her knees. Jack sat up and bent forward deeply over straight, extended legs, relaxing forward by degrees until his hands were clasped together around the soles of his feet. If she was meditating, she was cheating. Daniel saw her smile as she watched Jack through slitted eyes.
Jack sat up again and folded his knees in, also sitting easy in half lotus, hands again assuming the open-palmed mudra, rather than the Jnana Mudra adopted by the woman.
Jack folded his hands in Namaste and bowed to her in the classic greeting.
"So, IHOP?" he asked.
The woman smiled and rolled her eyes.
"Perhaps you should ask him," she said, nodding to Daniel.
Jack turned. The surprise on his face was almost comical. Probably a near mirror image of Daniel's earlier expression.
"Hello, Daniel," he drawled, recovering quickly.
"Daniel?!" the woman said, jumping to her feet and walking over. "Well, well. I never thought I would have the pleasure!" she said, extending her hand.
"Neither did I," Jack agreed, getting up to follow her. "What brings you here, Daniel?" As he sauntered over, he stripped off the sweat-drenched sun-yellow tank he had been wearing, replacing it with a plain blue t-shirt. He dropped an arm around the woman's shoulders as Daniel took her hand.
"Uh. I was running, believe it or not."
"Daniel," Jack said, drawing the syllables out, pausing meaningfully. "You are about, oh, ten klicks from your house."
"Well, I started…" Daniel began, then realized he had left without putting on his watch. He half stood and tilted his head so he could see Jack's, "…about four hours ago."
"Well," the woman said, slipping out from under Jack's arm and going back for her bag as Jack gave Daniel a suspicious, slightly squinty glare, "then you clearly need this more than he does."
She grinned at Jack as she handed Daniel the hot paper cup of – mmmmm he could smell it, really, really good Kona, black, just the way Jack liked it.
Daniel took the first sip without the slightest twinge of guilt or regret. He grinned at Jack, too.
"Okay," Jack grumbled. "Now we're really going to IHOP."
"I brought breakfast, too," the woman continued, speaking to Daniel, not Jack. "I will concede to Jack's atrocious eating habits on certain points, such as coffee, but I refuse to go to that disgusting diner and watch him bloat himself with animal products."
She went over and sat down on Jack's mat. She dumped a bunch of sealed containers out onto the ground. Daniel followed Jack over, and sat down next to her while Jack towered over them, then dropped to the ground next to her with a sigh.
"No IHOP, then?" he said wistfully.
"Oh, you love it when I feed you," she said, shoving him in the shoulder. "But you have to share today. Daniel gets yours."
"Here," she said, passing a bowl to Daniel. "Homemade soy yogurt, toasted almond cereal, and strawberries. With another concession to Jack. White sugar on them."
"Jack," Daniel whispered, sotto voce, "I think you're dating Dharma."
"Nah. Her name's Sunya," Jack said, taking the entire container of strawberries before Daniel could get any and starting to eat them with his fingers. When Sunya tried to take the bowl back, he just held it out of reach until she gave up and ate her yogurt and cereal without fruit. She didn't seem too put out about it, just lingered over a bite of her breakfast, sucking the spoon thoughtfully and watching Daniel eat.
Jack sat between them, eyes tracking first one, then the other, apprehensively waiting to see who would make the first conversational gambit.
"This is delicious," Daniel said, a little self-consciously. Because it really was. "I haven't had yogurt like this since… well, for years. I love it when it's fresh and warm, right out of the pot."
She smiled and nodded graciously.
"So," she said, stirring her yogurt absently while staring at him. "Who are you, Daniel?"
He looked over at Jack.
"Um. What has Jack told you about me?"
She smiled softly, as at a fond memory.
"You are a name he let slip once, and refused to ever discuss again," she said.
"Oh. Um…"
He looked back and forth between them. Jack with one eyebrow arched, otherwise giving nothing away. Sunya sucking her spoon again, looking expectant.
"I think I'm a guy who ran too far on no sleep and who is now completely out of his depth."
"Sounds like every day," Jack muttered. Sunya gave him a mildly disapproving look, then smiled at Daniel.
"I like that. You didn't reflexively identify yourself by your job."
"Daniel's a guy I work with," Jack filled in, clearly just to be contrary.
"Ah. Deep space radio telemetry," Sunya said with a knowing nod. "Where you hide under Cheyenne Mountain for weeks at a time and say you are away on work related assignments but yet never need a ride to or from the airport." Another disapproving look at Jack, this one slightly moreso.
"Sometimes we get caught up in the work," Daniel said lamely. He never had to make excuses to anyone about his absences, so he had never really thought up a good reason.
"You don't strike me as military," Sunya said.
"Civilian consultant," Jack said.
"Oh, really? And what do you consult about?" Sunya asked.
"I'm an archaeologist and a linguist," Daniel said.
"So since the past speaks to you, some people think the aliens will talk to you, too," Sunya said. She sounded pleased. Daniel couldn't help but smile back.
"Something like that," he said.
"If aliens are going to talk to anybody, it'll be Daniel," Jack agreed.
There was a long pause. Daniel felt awkward. Jack wasn't helping and Sunya seemed to have run out of questions. She had gone back to quietly watching, this time staring a Jack, who was just finishing off the strawberries.
Daniel figured it was probably his turn to ask some questions, but he was reluctant to pry, as Jack had never mentioned this woman to him. He was just going to ask something neutral and predictable, like maybe, what do you do? When Sunya gave him a blinding smile.
"Well, Daniel, I'm so pleased I had a chance to meet you. I have been eaten up with curiosity and jealousy for months, and it's good to finally know."
She leaned over and kissed a slightly surprised Jack. It began almost chastely, but the kiss deepened until they were plundering each other, Jack's hands tangled in her hair, her knuckles almost white where she was clinging to his shoulders.
Daniel looked away, bring to bear all his skills living in societies with no privacy and little thought for it. Except that he had been living alone for some time now, and they were making out right there.
Sunya broke off the kiss, delicately licking first Jack's lips, then her own.
"Too sweet," she murmured, "Goodbye, Jack."
Then she rose gracefully from where she had nearly crawled into Jack's lap and turned and walked away, down the path up to where the cars were parked, leaving Jack and Daniel both blinking after her in surprise.
Jack scrambled up and went after her, catching her at the edge of the little tree-circled clearing. Their conversation was brief, quiet and intense and then Sunya continued down the path, leaving Jack standing barefoot in the grass, looking more than a little peeved.
Daniel started cleaning up the picnic and had it all stowed away in Sunya's bag by the time Jack walked back over. He rolled up his mat in silence, and Daniel followed him to the truck with Sunya's bag over his shoulder. There was no sign of her in the parking lot.
"Sorry?" Daniel offered, as Jack backed out of the parking space.
"She adopted the name 'Sunya,'" Jack replied. "It was never going to end well."
Daniel nodded. Sunya meant 'zero' or 'nothing.' A woman who chose that name was on a path to unity with the vastness of the universe.
"I guess so. But I don't understand why it chose not to end well this morning over breakfast," he rambled before his sleep-deprived brain caught up with his mouth and he realized he might not have said the most tactful thing. "Sorry," he finished lamely. "How long were you guys dating?"
"About a year," Jack said. He sounded resigned. "Thai massage. Have you ever had Thai massage, Daniel? And she has the coolest, weird stuff in her kitchen."
Jack pulled into the parking lot of the International House of Pancakes.
"I don't know if I can stay conscious long enough for them to bring us food, Jack," Daniel said.
"You ate my breakfast and caused my very hot, very flexible, very creative girlfriend to dump me. You will suffer while I have my farmer's omelet. I'll even buy you one. The protein will bring your brain back online for a while longer."
Daniel grunted and unbuckled his seatbelt.
"How did you meet her, anyway?" Daniel asked him, staring blearily at the row of syrup bottles on their table and wondering not for the first time in his life when they were going to develop an intravenous delivery system for coffee. He was drinking it as fast as the temperature would allow.
"In the park," Jack replied. He was building a fort with Sweet-n-Low packets.
"In the park? Yoga pickup? Very mod, Jack. And not very you. At least, I wouldn't think so. And since when do you do yoga, anyway?" He echoed his earlier reaction, again with the sleep-deprived rambling. Usually Daniel did better than this.
"Since a physical therapist recommended it in the early '80's. I find I appreciate it more and more the older I get. Joints aren't what they used to be. Five klick sprints aren't either. Shut your mouth, Daniel, the flies will get in…"
Jack smirked at Daniel's gawping expression. Daniel snapped his mouth shut and glared at his friend. Jack grabbed the artificial sweetener from the next table and started roofing his fort.
"Well, I guess you wouldn't have done it because it was trendy," Daniel's tired brain supplied an image of a whole menacing Special Ops squad doing pilates in black body armor and smirked a little before he returned to being annoyed. "How, exactly, have I known you for five years and never realized this about you?" he demanded.
Jack shrugged and smiled at the waitress as she brought him his plate. She eyed his fort with disapproval, then smiled in response to Jack's mischievous grin.
"I'll put them away," Jack volunteered.
"You'd better," she said, "Or no more coffee for your friend, there."
She winked at Daniel as she left.
Daniel plowed into his own omelet and they were quiet for a while as they got down to some serious eating. Yes, Jack was right. The protein had an immediate impact, and the need to faceplant directly in to the eggs lost some of its urgency.
But the funny thing about sleep-deprivation was that sometimes the reduction in the usual mental filters and self-censorship lead to interesting moments of revelation. As he ate, he free-associated, their meeting with Sunya playing over in his head.
"Why was she jealous of me? She said you never said anything about me," Daniel wondered.
"She said…" Daniel began before Jack interrupted him.
"Daniel," he said warningly.
"Don't 'Daniel' me," Daniel replied back testily. "She said I was a name you 'let slip.' Just when, exactly, did my name slip out?"
Jack sat back, arms crossing over his chest.
"Not your business, Daniel."
And he was right. It wasn't Daniel's business.
Jack took him home, and Daniel collapsed in his bed and dreamed about Jack O'Neill, gracefully saluting the sun, with the moon at his back.
Sun Salutations on YouTube, if you have not seen it done.
Camel. This is a *fantastic* illustration of Camel, if you can ignore the irritating graphics…
On to part 2.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
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Date: 2009-02-15 02:20 pm (UTC)