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itsallovernowYeah, story!
I stayed up way too late editing this last night. I started incorporating beta changes, got halfway through, lost the document, retrieved it, and lost it for good. I swore, turned off the laptop, tried to sleep and decided, "Fuck it," and got back up to finish it. So I'm tired, but yeah, finished story.
Title: Three Card Monte Can Only End in Tears
Author: Thea
Rating: NC-17
Notes: SG-1, S9, pre-Beachhead. No redeemable plot. Seriously.
Thanks so much to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kernezelda and cofax7 for beta, and to the fabulous rubberneck for encouragement and plot advice. And for the dogtags:)
This was written forcrankygrrl who wanted Vala porn. That was a request I was happy to oblige.
*
Almost dying - almost dying that doesn't take place at 30,000 feet, that is - tends to make him a little bit pissy. A little bit over-enthused and breathless, also, but these days, mostly a little bit pissy. Almost dying and being in charge is proving a hell of a lot less fun than the reports had led him to believe.
Cameron expects to find the lower mess hall empty, expects to be able to sit and eat and not think about the mounds of paperwork or whether he's gonna tell his mom about the almost dying or how much he'd like to go out and get laid instead of contemplating any of this.
But when he gets there, he discovers he's not alone.
He's not sure where Vala got the cards, but they're spread in neat rows across the mess table. He has an urge to run his hand through them, scatter them to the floor. He doesn't. He's tired and hungry and antsy and mostly doesn't want to contribute to her brand of chaos. He's got enough of his own to manage.
The lights are low, but he's not entirely surprised to find her here. The kitchen staff cut her a lot of slack since she'll try anything once, although she did have to be convinced that she couldn't put it back after she'd bit down and found it wanting. Mitchell's reminded of stories of great whites, of sharks sampling a surfer's leg to check for tastiness, spitting the flesh out in disgust, a gaping hole left behind. She's like that, reaching in to take, snatching back her hand and still leaving a gap.
"There's meatloaf left." Vala doesn't look up, her hands flicking over the cards, slipping them into place. "It's…meatloaf. Every world I've been to has meatloaf. Different meat, always in a loaf. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"
His stomach growls, and he makes his way through the dark hall to the back. She's right – meatloaf and mashed potatoes and small china plates of brownies. He takes one of those, too.
She's still there when he returns from microwaving the food and he sits down on the far end of her table, away from her cards.
"Where's Jackson?" he asks, sipping lukewarm coffee, wishing he wasn't too tired to go find the milk.
"Elsewhere." She looks up at him, eyes glittery and dark, shadowed like a bruise. "Something dank and moldy captured his attention and I didn't feel much like losing out to garbage."
"Could be priceless garbage." She grins and he has another flash of the shark, of gleaming teeth and glossy eyes. "One alien's trash is another's treasure?"
She snorts. "Only Daniel really believes that trash is treasure. The rest of us know value when we see it."
"Priceless knowledge?"
"Won't buy you a seat on a transport or a bed for the night," Vala flips back.
He should leave. He still feels like crap, has a headache, and the meatloaf is sitting like a lump in his stomach. Then he remembers the piles of paperwork, the report he has to write and the bright, harsh lights of the infirmary. Almost dying also makes him practical. And not a little bit grateful.
His eyes flick to the cards. "Solitaire or Madame Blavatsky?"
She raises an eyebrow.
"You telling fortunes or just entertaining yourself?"
Her mouth flattens out and for a moment, she's not a pretty girl, looks odd and angular and tired. In that moment, he likes her better. "Would you like me to tell you your future?"
Her voice is soft now, less coaxing than curious. "Sure," he says, and his stomach twists.
***
She lays out the cards, three rows of seven, with a precise concentration that verges on prim.
"Past, present, future." She touches each row as she goes.
"Know my past, livin' the present, so let’s hear about the future."
She arches her eyebrow, taps the cards. "They all go together," she says. "One might even say they're inseparable, intertwined. Like Daniel and I." She waves with a theatrical flourish and rolls her eyes just the tiniest bit, mouth twitching in amusement.
He pushes away the plate of meatloaf. "Didn't die, didn't die, hoping to continue that."
Vala shrugs. He follows the rise of her chest, the pale expanse of skin and curve of her breast and shakes himself for looking. Almost dying hasn't made him that stupid. He hopes.
She turns over the first card in the final row. "Wanting to fit in. Looking for answers. Failing at both."
"Nice."
"You can ask the cards a question."
"But you've already laid 'em out."
Her mouth quirks. "I never said I was good at this."
The rest of the cards follow suit, leaving him facing a row of numbers and the sloe eyes of the queen of hearts.
"You'll go on a long journey, meet fascinating people, and help them gain a priceless treasure."
He shakes his head. "You never take anything seriously, do you?"
"On the contrary, I take the future very seriously."
Glancing back down at the cards, she points to the rows "You've gone on a journey, met a beautiful dark-haired woman,…and there was treasure. Perhaps I'm better than I thought."
Her hair slips over her shoulder and he fights the urge to push it back, to touch the skin of her neck, to rest his thumb against the beat of her pulse. He can feel his own heartbeat thudding in his wrist, against his ankle, hard inside his chest. The fluorescent lights flicker, hum and throb, matching his internal beat.
"Still sounds like the past," he murmurs.
"The past can look a lot like the future." She slips the cards back together with a neat twist of her hand. "Unless you make certain to change it."
Despite the after-effects of his illness, he's itchy, antsy, jonesing for something. The fortune-telling has shaken him out of thoughts of paperwork and tapped into that earlier impulse to affirm his status as a guy still living. If he were anywhere else, he'd grab a beer, find someone warm and soft and sweet, spend some time working out his itches against clean cotton sheeting. But he isn't anywhere else. He's here, lost in the midst of his dream job, in a dark kitchen with this woman he's not sure he likes, knows he doesn't trust, and yet… he stays.
"Well?" she prods, flipping her hair back herself, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Her lashes shadow her cheek and she looks very… innocent. It's weirdly nice dichotomy. His eyes drift over her collarbone, the curve of her shoulders, her mobile mouth. She raises her eyebrow, tilts her head at his deliberate regard and puts down the cards, waiting.
"Well," she says, and this time it's not a question, it's acceptance. It's a catch and he's the one netted.
He licks his mouth, wondering now what the hell he's just committed to. It's not so much that she's pretty, it's just that she's so very… alive. And alone. It slips home, hard in his gut. For all her gratuitous vibrancy, her flip sexuality and pain-in-the-ass troublemaking, she's alone here, too.
"Tell me your future," he orders softly, wanting to see what she'll do.
She shuffles the deck, lays down three in a row. Past, present, future.
"So what's it all mean?"
"That you don't have anything to offer me and the future is up for grabs."
His voice is low, even to his ears. "You sure about that?"
She looks up at him under her lashes, sultry and sly. "The future or what you have to offer?"
"Both," he murmurs.
Eyes resting on his hands, her gaze flickers up to his mouth. "Hmmm, I'd have to see some evidence first. So far, you haven't been particularly adept at… helping."
"We helped you get all that stuff back," he protests. "And you didn't actually get executed."
"No thanks to you." The barb doesn't catch, the ends filed smooth. She bites her lip. "Besides, you were dying not so long ago and I prefer my partners… rigorous. And wealthy."
He leans forward, strokes his finger along the collarbone at the edge of her tank top. Her skin is silky, clean and smooth. "I can be plenty rigorous."
Lips pursed, she raises her eyebrow. "Really." It's almost a question, and presses his case.
"Besides, how do I know you aren't all worn out? You were busy healing people left and right, paying penance for past sins, helping the sick." His words are whispery soft, risky as a fast pass through enemy air space. "Hard work being selfless. Can't go in cold. You've gotta train for it, or else it's gonna burn like hell in the morning."
She grabs his wrist, eyes dark and furious, her grip stronger than he'd expected. For a moment, he thinks he's misjudged. His wrist tingles where she holds it, warming him all the way up.
"I've paid my penance, paid obeisance to a false god that used me as well. That I extracted a little of my own reward isn't such a crime," she continues, flushed and furious. "And I helped those people because…" she snaps her mouth shut. She doesn't need to continue, he knows why she helped them. It's part of why he's sitting across from her now, baffled and horny.
He shakes out of her grip, moves the card around on the table, tries to dial things back down. "According to Jackson, in some cultures, taking advantage of a foot rub is a capital offense. That not-as-dead-as-he-looked guy seemed to agree."
Her mouth curves, eyes dark, expression intent. She lets go of the anger. The heat remains. "According to Daniel, getting peanut butter on one of his precious books is a capital offense."
"According to Jackson, you walking and talking most days is a crime."
Vala winks. "Daniel can't fit me into his neat little cultural tropes." She makes a boxy motion, pinching her fingers together in a passable imitation of Jackson. Cam stifles a snort at "cultural tropes", mouthing them back at her. Girl’s been doing a little homework, at any rate.
"It makes him crazy. That making him crazy is fun just makes him crazier."
She fans out the cards like a Vegas dealer, and he teases one out of the middle while she continues amused, a little perplexed. "He wants me to have a tortured childhood. He wants there to be a reason that I do what I do."
"So your childhood was all fun and games until somebody stole your body?"
"My childhood is my business, and not Daniel's. Or yours. It's mine to do with as I wish."
"Jackson just wants to save you from yourself," he pauses. "When he doesn't want to kill you."
She smirks, shrewd, a little sad. "He wants a reason to want me. He can't justify it if it's just sex and longing, and he absolutely must justify it."
Cameron rubs the back of his neck. "Jackson's got a … singularity of focus."
"Makes him easy to manipulate, if one cares to take advantage."
"But you don't," he answers softly. "You push, you tease, you get his dander up, but you don't really… lead him." He picks up his coffee cup. The liquid inside is lukewarm, but he drinks it anyway.
"As you said, he'd like to save me." There's something vaguely wistful in the tilt of her head. "Sometimes a girl likes to be saved. Likes that someone wants to save her."
The mood shifts again. She leans forward, hair a dusky curtain, providing a false intimacy in the big empty room. "And sometimes a girl wants other things."
It's fear and relief in equal parts. He's not playing this game alone. There's want on her side, too.
"Sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll?"
"Adventure, treasure, security…"
"Mutually exclusive?"
"Not always."
"Takes a lot to balance all that. Takes brains, guts…" His eyes slide down, take in the cream of her skin, the swell of her breasts. He takes another sip of coffee. "Other talents."
"I'm more than the sum of my parts," she says, mouth a wry curve.
"I'm gettin' that."
"What, you thought I was all sunshine and rainbows and blowjobs?"
He spits coffee across the table onto the cards and she grimaces, fastidious. Heat spreads up his face.
"Blowjobs?"
She grins.
"Gotta stop lettin' you watch cable."
"I'm thinking of going on one of those game show thingies. Those people are terribly inept. I'd like to drive one of those automobiles."
"No game shows. No more TV. No blowjobs…wait, forget I said that." Christ, his cheeks must be igniting by now. Did he think he could win this game? "Jackson's gotta get you a hobby."
She licks her lips. "Perhaps I've found a hobby."
"I'm not a hobby, darlin'."
"Who said it was you? I'm fairly certain Teal'c knows how to do things I can't even put a name to, and I haven't ruled Daniel out completely. Sometimes the quiet ones surprise you…"
"What do you want?" He interrupts, almost says her name, holds back at the last minute, drops his tone. "What do you need?"
Her mouth is a moue of want, but she forces laughter into her voice. "Sex, darling. What I want is lots of sweaty, grappling sex." She pauses while he flushes head to toe. "But I'd settle for some ice cream."
***
He buses his dishes, washing them in the sink while she waits impatiently. The light in the kitchen is dimmer than in the mess and the ambient noise louder. The fluorescent light in the back flickers and fitzes as the walk-in freezer hums with a steady, circular buzz.
She leans up against the large metal workstation, cotton pants riding low on her hips, and he takes pity, gets the vat of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, hands her a spoon.
Carefully, she works open the top, trying not to get any of the melted stickiness on her fingers until he nudges her aside, aware of her heat as he presses into her with his hip. He pops open the plastic lid, sets it down and sucks the ice cream off his thumb and fingers.
"I could help you with that," she says, tone low and very far from helpful.
He arches his eyebrow, slowly offers her his other hand. She cradles his hand, fingers delicate on the wrist, secure against the palm. Her tongue flicks against his skin, sliding into the vee, sweeping up his thumb, and her lips close around it. She sucks against the skin, and he moans. She repeats the action and he curls both fists, arousal throbbing through his body.
Letting go of him, she licks her lips, "Vanilla. Always vanilla. You'd think they'd buy persimmon, or artichoke, or at the very least chocolate." Her voice is far too steady
He tries to marshal his thoughts. "I think all the desert choices are reserved for jello."
She takes the spoon from him, dips it into the unmarred surface of the ice cream and turns to rest her ass against the table. Something thunks as she settles into place. He steps in front of her, bodies mere inches away and angles his head, assessing, peeks around her back. She arches, rolls her pelvis forward. It barely brushes him, but the contact vibrates all the way through to his toes. In her boots, they're nearly of a height. He tries not to take that thought further, tries not to think that he's already flicked on the engine, that right now he's just revving it up. He can't see much in the dim light, so he relies on other senses, tactile sensation, one hand gripping the edge of the counter, wrist against her hip. With the other, he brushes the curve of her ass as he fumbles at her back pocket. She shivers, rocks against him and he gains purchase to pull a flask out from behind her back.
The silver glints as he unscrews the top and sniffs, winces, then smiles. "Landry's?"
"Mmm."
He leans forward, lips against her ear. "Just can't keep your hands off other people's stuff, can you?"
"Not," she murmurs, hands slipping behind her, bracing against the table, "when it's right there for the taking." She hikes herself up onto the counter and he follows like a magnet, pulled towards the opening of her thighs, standing between them, standing too close.
"At least it's the good stuff." He takes a long swallow.
The whiskey burns his mouth, burns all the way down to his belly and he wipes his lips, hands her back the flask as heat steals through him. She takes it, still holding the spoon with the ice cream. Slipping it into her mouth, eyes closing in pleasure, she washes it down with a slug of whiskey. He swallows hard, imagines the taste of peat and vanilla on her mouth, imagines sucking it off her collarbone, her belly, further down… he's hardening now and when she opens her eyes, he wants to laugh. She looks like a kid, greedy and sated with sweetness and bitter, looks like she's waiting for the next best thing.
"Got the ice cream," he says, low and rough. "How 'bout we give that other thing a try?"
"All right," she says, and setting down her burdens, peels off her shirt.
***
Cam's close enough to smell the warm musk of her skin, the scent of her hair mingling with the vanilla, the burn of the alcohol. Her breath is warm against his cheek, and he feels that now or never throb, that rush of just-about-to-break-gravity.
Her fingers unsnap her bra from behind. Shrugging her shoulders forward in that delicate universal gesture, she tosses it on the floor.
He must be gaping, mouth open like a startled fish as the lights cast odd shadows on her pale body. "You're not the only one who almost died," she says and he's not sure if she means herself or the others on the planet. Frankly, he's only got about 30 seconds of coherent thought left anyway and it really shouldn't matter. He stalls for purchase.
"It doesn't bother you that anyone could walk in here?"
That almost stops him. Fuck, it sure should be bothering him. The Air Force… frowns upon senior officers caught in sexual liaisons. Hell, he frowns on being caught in a sexual liaison, but the pull is too strong, the risk too enticing. He's pretty sure he couldn't turn away from the sight and the scent and the feel of her, even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to.
"No," she purrs. "Does it bother you?"
"Fighter jock," he drawls, bravado and false fronts. "Live fast, die young, and all that." And so what if it's sort of a lie? He doesn't want to die young.
"And all that," she agrees. She leans back on her hands, lets him stare, lets him take her in. She's thinner than he expected, ribs prominent underneath the skin, but her breasts are fuller, softer. He's never been one to look and not touch and he cups her breasts, earns himself a wide smile.
"Good," she says, low and warm. "You're not going to stand there all night wasting time with verbal foreplay." His thumb brushes her nipple and she breathes deep.
"I think I'm going decidedly non-verbal," he says and then laughs, her husky chuckle curling around his, curling around his groin.
He lets go long enough to haul his own shirt off his body, then picks up the spoon, dips it back into the ice cream. Holds it out, close to her mouth. He's hard, aching, but he wants to drag this out, enjoy it -momentum and the moment. It's what's kept him sane this long - living in the moment. Her tongue steals out, sweeps along the spoon, takes it back in.
The ice cream is softening, melting off the spoon, and as she swallows, it drips down onto her chest. He ducks, licks the droplets off her skin, tilts the spoon, lets the rest of the ice cream slide onto her breast. Drops the utensil with a clatter as she holds his head to her hardening nipple. Her flesh is sweet, cold, and she arches under his mouth, thighs closing tight around his hips as he sucks, as he jerks her close. Her center presses up against his cock. She’s limber, nimble, twisting so that she can rub and thrust, and he switches sides, taking the warmer nipple between his teeth, pressing his hand against the base of her spine, making a feedback loop of pleasure. She links her arm around his neck, pulls him skin to skin as she shudders against him, clinging, and then gasps, pulling back.
"What?" He's blurred, dazed with her taste, with her fingers on him, with the daunting imminence of sexual release.
She holds his dog tags loosely and gives him a questioning look from beneath sweeping lashes. "They're … cold," she says, rubbing them between her fingers, warming them up, making it a question. She moves to take them off, but he shakes his head, stills her hand.
"They're…if I die…someone'll know it's me." He swallows hard. Her hand closes tightly around the tags, and then she slides them gently around to fall against his back. The metal is warm from the friction of her touch. Her fingernails scrape along his back and then her fingers settle at his waist.
"Someone will know," she says, low and husky. "Someone will know it's you."
He kisses her then, can't help himself, not sure he wants the tenderness, but knows he wants the moment of sweetness to linger.
Her mouth is cool from the ice cream, tingly from the whiskey and he's reminded of hot and humid southern summer days, of sweet tea and sweaty couplings in air-conditioned rooms that barely dull the heat, dust and sun filtering in on slicked bodies. The hum of the fridge buzzes like gnats, and he sinks into her mouth, starved for the taste, for this type of heat.
She works her hand between their bodies, gripping him, wringing a long, shuddery groan from his throat.
"Too many clothes," she chuckles, and catches his zipper. The metal teeth part in a rush as her tongue slips back into his mouth, and suddenly his cock is free, cooler air hitting his naked flesh like a shock, her mouth a parry, his brain MIA. The surprise is quickly met by the curve of her grip on him, confident as a pilot, flying him like a joystick. She hadn't been lying about her… agility. He gasps into her mouth.
Her thumb circles the tip, pressing, taunting, drawing him out. He’s gotta make a decision and that decision isn't going to be to come in her hand like a horny cadet. He jerks back, slips free of her grasp and yanks her off the table, tearing at her pants, shoving them down around her knees and sinking down, planting his mouth against her sex. She cries out, uninhibited, and he feels his own sex jerk, tongue sliding between her folds, slipping inside her and holy shit, he's going down on an alien in an empty kitchen in the basement of Cheyenne Mountain. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or cheer, does none of that, sucks her into his mouth, replacing his tongue with his fingers, and she jerks on his hair, tugs, nails scraping against his skin as she fumbles towards her climax. He can feel how near she is in the subtle tremors of her thighs pressed to his cheek, in the sheer, musky dampness against his mouth and chin, most intimately in the pulse and squeeze of her sex around his fingers. He's about to hit bottom, about to make her come, clawing against his neck…
The lights in the back of the mess flick on. Cam freezes, looks up. Her head's thrown back, eyes closed, biting onto her lip, and anger wells hot and hard inside him, anger at the goddamned insomniac in search of a midnight snack, anger at himself for being in this position. He forces himself to his feet, grabbing her shirt on the way up, trying to haul up her pants as well.
"Hurry," he hisses. Her eyes are glazed, but she's a creature of survival, knows - on occasion – how to follow an order for her own good. She buckles her pants while he pulls on his shirt and tucks himself back into place, willing his erection to die down. Counting backwards from a 100, he thinks of Antarctica, feels himself flag as she tugs on her shirt. He glances down, sees her bra on the floor, and kicks it under the table.
The lights in the kitchen proper flick on and Jackson stares at both of them, glances at the ice cream. Cameron's first reaction is relief. Jackson's better than an alternative – another soldier, his C.O., Teal'c. Man's not a soldier, has seen him prostrate with an alien illness, has himself been inexorably linked with the woman that Cam was about to fuck on a metal kitchen counter. Cameron wipes his mouth and chin, tries not to shiver at the scent on his hands and the anger rushes back in. Fucking Jackson, absent when he's wanted, and now standing here in the kitchen, blinking against the scene that he's maybe reading right and maybe reading wrong, but is definitely reading, and it's not like Cam can even order him back to bed, order him on a two-day hike for interrupting them. He wouldn't, but he could, and instead, it's Jackson and he can't.
"I, uh, started to get the we've-been-separated-too-long headache," Jackson says, voice sort of flat. "It was hard to tell at first since I'd only just lost the why-won't-you-leave-me-alone headache."
"It's the I-can't-live-without-you headache, Daniel," Vala taunts. "You don't have to pretend around Colonel Mitchell." His title its own sort of taunt. "I'm sure he understands."
"Couldn't sleep," Cameron offers, resisting the urge to kick her in the ankle, or alternately slap her on the ass. "Came down for a snack. Found out she can read fortunes."
"Read, steal, what's the difference?" Jackson says and the crack smacks against the ease that he and Vala had built up. Cam lets his gaze flit over her. Flushed cheeks, lush ripe mouth, spoon in hand, digging at the half-melted ice cream. She looks… beautiful, looks rosy, and… looks like her shirt's inside out as she concentrates on the ice cream.
.
"Well," Vala begins, voice drawn out in a parody of purveying information, "When one steals, one takes something that ostensibly doesn't belong to one, even though it may serve a higher purpose in one's possession and…"
Jackson frowns, ignoring her. "Are you… is that the ice cream they serve everyone?" His mouth twists in disgust.
"Bet you two kids need your beauty sleep," Cam interrupts, trying not to sputter at Jackson's look of frustration, his long-suffering indignation, and the tinge of something that might be jealousy riding along his mouth, "Guess I'll just have to turn to paperwork to cure the insomnia. I think the ice cream just gave me a bellyache."
Jackson nods, eyes still shrewdly on Vala. She waves at Mitchell with her spoon as he leaves.
He falls into bed, half hard, still confused, and wakes up to chaos.
***
P8X-412 is a barren rock. Four days ago, it was a rock with people – dying people, people wanting to execute Vala, people converted to worship of the Orii, but people. And some agriculture. And of course, a gate.
Now there was… nothing. Empty houses, empty temples and a hell of a lot of dust. And, well, the gate.
Vala stands in an open doorway, hands shoved in her pockets, scarf wrapped around her throat. "Where did they go?"
Jackson shrugs, turns over some charred remains in the fire pit in the center of the houses. "Maybe the Prior gave them another option, showed them another world."
Cameron doesn't think that's the case, and he's betting no one else does either. Why doesn't even enter the equation.
Teal'c comes over the radio. "Daniel Jackson, Colonel Mitchell, I think you should come see what we have found."
*
It’s a cave, and Vala's voice shakes as she stands outside the edge. "Why? Why would they do that?"
Cameron wants to hold onto her, wants to leach some comfort from her. Hell, at this point he'd hug Teal'c if he thought it'd offer up some comfort from the sight of that grouping of bodies in the cave.
It was Jackson who finally spoke. "I don't think that's all of the villagers. We should keep searching in the morning, but if we're not going back, we should set up camp."
No one suggests sleeping in the empty houses or the temple.
Cameron nods, leads the rest of his team away to an open clearing at the edge of the forest, leaves Jackson behind to study the bodies, to take notes, and draw conclusions, to do whatever the fuck he can do with bodies arranged like people waiting for a train, eyes empty, flecks of something at the corners of their mouth.
He checks in with SG-4, agrees that they'll fan out, continue to search and record data until dusk sets in. When it's clear they've got everything under control, and that answers will be few and far between, he returns to his own camp to find Teal'c and Vala bickering. Well, Vala's bickering and Teal'c is responding with careful sentences.
"It's absurd, completely unfair. I shouldn't have to cook simply because I'm the woman." She stands, throws a tin pot to the ground, her two tails of hair bouncing vigorously. Teal'c looks up impassively from his place cross-legged on the ground.
"You're cooking because the last time you set up tents, we ended up sleeping outside in the rain," Mitchell answers, trying to forestall further arguments.
She hrrmphs, tosses her hair, but it's all nerve and bravado. "I don't know why we're even staying here," she mutters. "We could come back in the morning."
He doesn't want to say that if they leave, he's not sure he can persuade himself to come back. He's gotta weather this. Instead, he shrugs. "I wanna be here at first light, in case anyone returns."
Her eyes are steady, narrowed and Teal'c turns that impassive gaze on him, but neither says anything. Vala starts to pull out ration packets and set up pots of water and Cameron moves to help with the tents.. In the midst of it, Vala comes back and offers them some water. It's an unexpected kindness, and he thinks it's more from a need to be near other people than any sort of thoughtfulness.
She's left her scarf behind and he sees faint bruising on her neck. He cocks his head, lifts an eyebrow as he hammers home a stake. "See you found an alternate hobby."
Shrugging, she rubs at her neck, eyes bleak, and leaves water bottle. He thinks of going after her, apologizing, isn't quite sure what for. Teal'c clears his throat, tugs on his side of the rope, and Mitchell returns to the job at hand.
*
He almost volunteers to share the tent with her, if only to stop the scathing bitterness that rises up between Vala and Daniel over dinner. Something's rubbing at Jackson and he's taking it out on Vala. Sure she's a pain in the ass, but she doesn't deserve to bear the weight of the good doctor's wrath. She stomps off to bed after the latest barb.
"Cut her some slack," Mitchell says, keeping his tone easy. "She didn't do this."
"They killed themselves," Jackson says flatly. "Probably because they couldn't face the total loss of their faith. She may very well have caused this."
"She's…" Cameron lets his voice trail off, wonders why he's trying to defend her. It's not the sex, he doesn't think. Maybe it's the way she looked around when they stepped through the gate, like she was getting another chance, like she had a purpose. To find that purpose shot to shit was a hell of a thing. Maybe he could relate.
It only takes Jackson half an hour to relent. He slips away from the camp while Mitchell and Teal'c are doing the dishes in a plastic tub.
They wait for the two to come back, but they never do. "Wanna sing campfire songs? Tell ghost stories?" he offers to Teal'c.
"No Colonel Mitchell. I think we should retire."
"Yeah," he sighs, "Probably."
*
He takes first watch, switching with Teal'c, his attention drawn to soft footsteps outside his tent. The visitor is hardly… subtle. The bigger man sleeps like the dead, unmoving and silent, and it kind of freaks Cam out.
Lacking a response, she walks away, towards the forest.
Cam gives a signal over the radio Baker across the way, indicating that he's going to leave his post, that he'll call if he runs into trouble. The other soldiers have all been warned to be on their guard. His post is almost a formality. Cameron zips up his coat, his breath puffing white in the dark, and follows her.
She's waiting at the edge of the clearing, hesitating like she's trying to work up her courage. He says her name, softly. It feels strange in his mouth. She stiffens, tilts her head and he reaches for her, hand clasping her bare arm. Her skin is chilled. Lookin, he sees pale bare feet peeking out from the hem of her pants.
"Couldn't sleep?" he whispers, sliding his hand up and down her arm in an effort to warm her. She doesn't move away.
"Daniel snores." Her reply is too flip.
"Teal'c doesn't. Wanna trade?"
The silence is punctuated by night sounds, insects and the trees stirring.
"Or," she answers finally, husky and thick, looking down at the blanket, "we could finish what we started." It's a question, but there's certainty in her gaze. She looks up at him like she can read his mind, like she knows that he too wants to wash the sight and scent of death out of his body.
He doesn't think about it, just leans in and kisses her, hot and hard. She makes a noise of surprise. He pulls back, confused.
"Not what you meant by finishing what you started?"
She's shorter than she was, seems smaller, slighter in her bare feet, arms bared to the cold. "We didn't start that way last time," she whispers, but she doesn't look angry or amused, just… surprised. He's suddenly cognizant of being watched, of other soldiers awake and aware, listening for unknown noises and activities.
He shrugs off his coat, pulls it around her shoulders. She holds it close with one hand, gives him a puzzled smirk, and he leads her further into the forest. "You're far too nice to be having sex in the woods with me." Her murmur is low, throaty, contrasting her words, teasing at his sensibilities.
"No one's that nice," he whispers in her ear, fingertips grazing over her ass, and the bright flash of her teeth in the dark warms him as they continue on.
"Stop," she orders, 50 feet in and he remembers her bare feet. She lets go of his coat, and reaches for him, kisses him hard and fierce. Her lips are cold, fingers chilly against his skin. She tastes like desperation, like salt and whiskey. Smells like pine trees and expensive cream. His arms go around her waist, pulling her tightly to him. The jacket falls to the forest floor.
She undoes his belt, slips his pants around his knees, her fingers careful on his flanks, coaxing in the dark, in the open air, brushing against him as he hardens. Want tingles in his limbs, a mixture of now and wait, of what the hell and god yes, and he reaches for her hair as she kneels before him in the leafy forest cover, loosing her hair out of its bindings. When they come together, he doesn't want childish remnants, he wants her hair like silk on his skin, spilling over her shoulders.
Her mouth closes over him, hot, wet, fingers working, slipping between his thighs, around his cock. He's shaky with need and his ass is freezing, but his blood's on fire. He curls his hand into the hair, tries to follow and not lead. Vala pulls off him with a wet pop, and he shudders, mutters, "Oh god," at the cold air on delicate skin. She guides him down to kneel with her in the dirt.
"Lay down," she says, and shuffles out of her pants. He pulls off his t-shirt. She leaves hers on, and she's half naked in front of him, legs long and perfect and pale. She reaches between her thighs, strokes herself as he watches, as his hands fist tightly against the dead leaves and the soil. He can smell the scent of her arousal in the cool air. She steps over him as he lets his head thunk against the ground with a muffled groan of relief.
She kneels down, takes his cock in hand, slips it against her sex and he reaches for her hip with one hand, her face with the other, sitting up to kiss her, abdominal muscles burning with the strain of holding the odd position. She lifts her hips, then sheathes him inside her. His grip on her neck tightens. He bites his lip, tastes blood as he tries not to cry out at the heat, the tight, wet heat. His hips jerk up and a startled burble escapes her lips. His dog tags are taking on the chill of the air where they don't press against his skin and she leans forward, wraps her hand around them, presses her fist to his heart, thrusts down with her hips and rides him.
He needs to feel more of her, rucks up her shirt to reach her breasts, suckling as his spine bends, as he tries to fuck into her, as he gets fucked in return, and it's heat and suction, muscles tightening, his cock throbbing, her nails against his back. He comes with his face pressed to her neck, inhaling pine and shampoo and wood smoke, feeling wood chips and loam and leaves pressed into his back.
She rocks against him, keening low and he realizes she hasn't come yet. Reaches between their bodies, fumbling for her cunt, trying to stroke her lips. She won't let go of his dogtags, won't move from the place where her mouth is scraping against his collarbone, but he gets a little purchase, fingers slipping in the slickness, rubs at her, strokes and fumbles and finally gets a rhythm going, presses hard, breathes in relief as she grabs his hand, guides him home, comes in his arms.
He collapses back onto his jacket and the ground covering, tugging her forward to lie on top of him. Her lashes flutter against his cheek, and he presses his hand to the dip or her spine as he slips free of her sex.
His shoulder is damp, from tears or sweat or spit, he doesn't know, but he holds her tight and doesn't think about death or life or commanding his dream team or the dead bodies sitting wide-eyed in a cave. He closes his eyes, lashes his other arm around her, rests for just a minute.
*
"Get up." Her elbows are sharp, features far more clear now than they were when he… shit, when he fell asleep. She's sitting up, sex pressed against his belly, searching for her pants and he reaches for her blindly, pushing hair out of her eyes, curling his fist against her hip.
She cants back and part of him is already up.
"We need to get back," she hisses, and she's right, but goddammit, she's right there and he wants her again, wants one more chance at sex and comfort before he has to go back into that open field and face all that absence.
He sits up, kisses her, grabs her shirt and hauls it off her body. He's still got his pants twisted around his ankles, boots still on, but he's bigger, has more leverage. She kisses him back, biting and sucking, and suddenly the want bursts fiercely. His teeth scrape her throat and he rolls them over, rolls her to her back, thrusts one of her legs up on his shoulder. She's nodding, rolling her head in a way that's both begging and insisting and he slips a finger between her lips, rubs and thrusts.
She cries out and he lines himself up with her sex, thrusts inside. More friction this time, more desperation. She frees her other leg, hikes it up onto his shoulder and grabs his hips, the curve of his ass. He thrusts hard and fast and she scratches at his back, hips slamming up to meet his, whimpering until he realizes that with his feet bound, he needs a better angle. He withdraws and she rolls over onto her hands and knees and then his hands are on her hips, cock inside her, thrusting deeper, hitting home and she comes with a shout, mouth buried against her forearm. He pounds himself into starry oblivion and comes clutching at her hips, falls onto her back, his cheek against the bony ridge of her spine.
Using the last of his strength, he sits back on his heels, pulling her with him to hold her tightly to his chest. Neither of them have signed on for anything more than lust and release, but in this moment, he wants to offer her some quiet and some gratitude and grace. Wants to offer it to himself.
She holds onto his forearm with a death grip, dark silky hair against his cheek as they breath in time, and then her voice is low, lax, breaking the spell. "Those bloody dogtags are still cold."
He drops his head onto her shoulder, laughs as he shudders.
"I've been gone too long," she murmurs.
"Yeah," he says. "It's time to go back."
***
"Why'd you leave your shoes behind?" he asks as he pulls himself together.
"I decided a long time ago to never again sleep in my boots," she says, enigmatic.
"Oh."
They walk back to camp in silence, and if he'd been five years younger, he'd have begged her to run away with him and if he'd been five years older, he'd have held her hand regardless. Instead, she gives him back his jacket and he watches her slip back into the larger tent with Jackson, wonders briefly how she'll explain the leafy detritus she's brought with her. Wonders if she'll bother, or if Jackson will just wake up to the scent of loam and earth and sex and wish it were him or be equally grateful that it wasn't.
He contacts Baker who gives him the all clear, suggests that he get some rest instead of finishing his watch. For a brief moment, Cameron panics, thinks the radio was on. Then he remembers almost dying on this planet. He knows he should refuse, should sit the rest of his watch. But the thought exahusts him.
He undoes the flap on his own tent, steals inside and comes face to face with one white eyeball. He swallows a girlish shriek, and sits on the edge of the cot to remove his boots.
"You almost gave me a heart attack," he chides Teal'c.
The open eye is illuminated by a raised brow and then Teal'c resumes his dead to the world posture that precludes rising to face the day, night, whatever the hell time it is.
"Colonel Mitchell, I do not believe that…It seems that your actions may…" Teal'c swallows the rest of the sentence. "I believe O'Neill has made reference to a man not being led around by his sexual organs. That is perhaps pertinent advice here."
"I know," Cameron says, wriggling into the sleeping bag. "I really do know." He sighs again. "I just wish I knew who was leading who."
I stayed up way too late editing this last night. I started incorporating beta changes, got halfway through, lost the document, retrieved it, and lost it for good. I swore, turned off the laptop, tried to sleep and decided, "Fuck it," and got back up to finish it. So I'm tired, but yeah, finished story.
Title: Three Card Monte Can Only End in Tears
Author: Thea
Rating: NC-17
Notes: SG-1, S9, pre-Beachhead. No redeemable plot. Seriously.
Thanks so much to
kernezelda and cofax7 for beta, and to the fabulous rubberneck for encouragement and plot advice. And for the dogtags:)This was written for
crankygrrl who wanted Vala porn. That was a request I was happy to oblige.*
Almost dying - almost dying that doesn't take place at 30,000 feet, that is - tends to make him a little bit pissy. A little bit over-enthused and breathless, also, but these days, mostly a little bit pissy. Almost dying and being in charge is proving a hell of a lot less fun than the reports had led him to believe.
Cameron expects to find the lower mess hall empty, expects to be able to sit and eat and not think about the mounds of paperwork or whether he's gonna tell his mom about the almost dying or how much he'd like to go out and get laid instead of contemplating any of this.
But when he gets there, he discovers he's not alone.
He's not sure where Vala got the cards, but they're spread in neat rows across the mess table. He has an urge to run his hand through them, scatter them to the floor. He doesn't. He's tired and hungry and antsy and mostly doesn't want to contribute to her brand of chaos. He's got enough of his own to manage.
The lights are low, but he's not entirely surprised to find her here. The kitchen staff cut her a lot of slack since she'll try anything once, although she did have to be convinced that she couldn't put it back after she'd bit down and found it wanting. Mitchell's reminded of stories of great whites, of sharks sampling a surfer's leg to check for tastiness, spitting the flesh out in disgust, a gaping hole left behind. She's like that, reaching in to take, snatching back her hand and still leaving a gap.
"There's meatloaf left." Vala doesn't look up, her hands flicking over the cards, slipping them into place. "It's…meatloaf. Every world I've been to has meatloaf. Different meat, always in a loaf. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"
His stomach growls, and he makes his way through the dark hall to the back. She's right – meatloaf and mashed potatoes and small china plates of brownies. He takes one of those, too.
She's still there when he returns from microwaving the food and he sits down on the far end of her table, away from her cards.
"Where's Jackson?" he asks, sipping lukewarm coffee, wishing he wasn't too tired to go find the milk.
"Elsewhere." She looks up at him, eyes glittery and dark, shadowed like a bruise. "Something dank and moldy captured his attention and I didn't feel much like losing out to garbage."
"Could be priceless garbage." She grins and he has another flash of the shark, of gleaming teeth and glossy eyes. "One alien's trash is another's treasure?"
She snorts. "Only Daniel really believes that trash is treasure. The rest of us know value when we see it."
"Priceless knowledge?"
"Won't buy you a seat on a transport or a bed for the night," Vala flips back.
He should leave. He still feels like crap, has a headache, and the meatloaf is sitting like a lump in his stomach. Then he remembers the piles of paperwork, the report he has to write and the bright, harsh lights of the infirmary. Almost dying also makes him practical. And not a little bit grateful.
His eyes flick to the cards. "Solitaire or Madame Blavatsky?"
She raises an eyebrow.
"You telling fortunes or just entertaining yourself?"
Her mouth flattens out and for a moment, she's not a pretty girl, looks odd and angular and tired. In that moment, he likes her better. "Would you like me to tell you your future?"
Her voice is soft now, less coaxing than curious. "Sure," he says, and his stomach twists.
***
She lays out the cards, three rows of seven, with a precise concentration that verges on prim.
"Past, present, future." She touches each row as she goes.
"Know my past, livin' the present, so let’s hear about the future."
She arches her eyebrow, taps the cards. "They all go together," she says. "One might even say they're inseparable, intertwined. Like Daniel and I." She waves with a theatrical flourish and rolls her eyes just the tiniest bit, mouth twitching in amusement.
He pushes away the plate of meatloaf. "Didn't die, didn't die, hoping to continue that."
Vala shrugs. He follows the rise of her chest, the pale expanse of skin and curve of her breast and shakes himself for looking. Almost dying hasn't made him that stupid. He hopes.
She turns over the first card in the final row. "Wanting to fit in. Looking for answers. Failing at both."
"Nice."
"You can ask the cards a question."
"But you've already laid 'em out."
Her mouth quirks. "I never said I was good at this."
The rest of the cards follow suit, leaving him facing a row of numbers and the sloe eyes of the queen of hearts.
"You'll go on a long journey, meet fascinating people, and help them gain a priceless treasure."
He shakes his head. "You never take anything seriously, do you?"
"On the contrary, I take the future very seriously."
Glancing back down at the cards, she points to the rows "You've gone on a journey, met a beautiful dark-haired woman,…and there was treasure. Perhaps I'm better than I thought."
Her hair slips over her shoulder and he fights the urge to push it back, to touch the skin of her neck, to rest his thumb against the beat of her pulse. He can feel his own heartbeat thudding in his wrist, against his ankle, hard inside his chest. The fluorescent lights flicker, hum and throb, matching his internal beat.
"Still sounds like the past," he murmurs.
"The past can look a lot like the future." She slips the cards back together with a neat twist of her hand. "Unless you make certain to change it."
Despite the after-effects of his illness, he's itchy, antsy, jonesing for something. The fortune-telling has shaken him out of thoughts of paperwork and tapped into that earlier impulse to affirm his status as a guy still living. If he were anywhere else, he'd grab a beer, find someone warm and soft and sweet, spend some time working out his itches against clean cotton sheeting. But he isn't anywhere else. He's here, lost in the midst of his dream job, in a dark kitchen with this woman he's not sure he likes, knows he doesn't trust, and yet… he stays.
"Well?" she prods, flipping her hair back herself, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Her lashes shadow her cheek and she looks very… innocent. It's weirdly nice dichotomy. His eyes drift over her collarbone, the curve of her shoulders, her mobile mouth. She raises her eyebrow, tilts her head at his deliberate regard and puts down the cards, waiting.
"Well," she says, and this time it's not a question, it's acceptance. It's a catch and he's the one netted.
He licks his mouth, wondering now what the hell he's just committed to. It's not so much that she's pretty, it's just that she's so very… alive. And alone. It slips home, hard in his gut. For all her gratuitous vibrancy, her flip sexuality and pain-in-the-ass troublemaking, she's alone here, too.
"Tell me your future," he orders softly, wanting to see what she'll do.
She shuffles the deck, lays down three in a row. Past, present, future.
"So what's it all mean?"
"That you don't have anything to offer me and the future is up for grabs."
His voice is low, even to his ears. "You sure about that?"
She looks up at him under her lashes, sultry and sly. "The future or what you have to offer?"
"Both," he murmurs.
Eyes resting on his hands, her gaze flickers up to his mouth. "Hmmm, I'd have to see some evidence first. So far, you haven't been particularly adept at… helping."
"We helped you get all that stuff back," he protests. "And you didn't actually get executed."
"No thanks to you." The barb doesn't catch, the ends filed smooth. She bites her lip. "Besides, you were dying not so long ago and I prefer my partners… rigorous. And wealthy."
He leans forward, strokes his finger along the collarbone at the edge of her tank top. Her skin is silky, clean and smooth. "I can be plenty rigorous."
Lips pursed, she raises her eyebrow. "Really." It's almost a question, and presses his case.
"Besides, how do I know you aren't all worn out? You were busy healing people left and right, paying penance for past sins, helping the sick." His words are whispery soft, risky as a fast pass through enemy air space. "Hard work being selfless. Can't go in cold. You've gotta train for it, or else it's gonna burn like hell in the morning."
She grabs his wrist, eyes dark and furious, her grip stronger than he'd expected. For a moment, he thinks he's misjudged. His wrist tingles where she holds it, warming him all the way up.
"I've paid my penance, paid obeisance to a false god that used me as well. That I extracted a little of my own reward isn't such a crime," she continues, flushed and furious. "And I helped those people because…" she snaps her mouth shut. She doesn't need to continue, he knows why she helped them. It's part of why he's sitting across from her now, baffled and horny.
He shakes out of her grip, moves the card around on the table, tries to dial things back down. "According to Jackson, in some cultures, taking advantage of a foot rub is a capital offense. That not-as-dead-as-he-looked guy seemed to agree."
Her mouth curves, eyes dark, expression intent. She lets go of the anger. The heat remains. "According to Daniel, getting peanut butter on one of his precious books is a capital offense."
"According to Jackson, you walking and talking most days is a crime."
Vala winks. "Daniel can't fit me into his neat little cultural tropes." She makes a boxy motion, pinching her fingers together in a passable imitation of Jackson. Cam stifles a snort at "cultural tropes", mouthing them back at her. Girl’s been doing a little homework, at any rate.
"It makes him crazy. That making him crazy is fun just makes him crazier."
She fans out the cards like a Vegas dealer, and he teases one out of the middle while she continues amused, a little perplexed. "He wants me to have a tortured childhood. He wants there to be a reason that I do what I do."
"So your childhood was all fun and games until somebody stole your body?"
"My childhood is my business, and not Daniel's. Or yours. It's mine to do with as I wish."
"Jackson just wants to save you from yourself," he pauses. "When he doesn't want to kill you."
She smirks, shrewd, a little sad. "He wants a reason to want me. He can't justify it if it's just sex and longing, and he absolutely must justify it."
Cameron rubs the back of his neck. "Jackson's got a … singularity of focus."
"Makes him easy to manipulate, if one cares to take advantage."
"But you don't," he answers softly. "You push, you tease, you get his dander up, but you don't really… lead him." He picks up his coffee cup. The liquid inside is lukewarm, but he drinks it anyway.
"As you said, he'd like to save me." There's something vaguely wistful in the tilt of her head. "Sometimes a girl likes to be saved. Likes that someone wants to save her."
The mood shifts again. She leans forward, hair a dusky curtain, providing a false intimacy in the big empty room. "And sometimes a girl wants other things."
It's fear and relief in equal parts. He's not playing this game alone. There's want on her side, too.
"Sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll?"
"Adventure, treasure, security…"
"Mutually exclusive?"
"Not always."
"Takes a lot to balance all that. Takes brains, guts…" His eyes slide down, take in the cream of her skin, the swell of her breasts. He takes another sip of coffee. "Other talents."
"I'm more than the sum of my parts," she says, mouth a wry curve.
"I'm gettin' that."
"What, you thought I was all sunshine and rainbows and blowjobs?"
He spits coffee across the table onto the cards and she grimaces, fastidious. Heat spreads up his face.
"Blowjobs?"
She grins.
"Gotta stop lettin' you watch cable."
"I'm thinking of going on one of those game show thingies. Those people are terribly inept. I'd like to drive one of those automobiles."
"No game shows. No more TV. No blowjobs…wait, forget I said that." Christ, his cheeks must be igniting by now. Did he think he could win this game? "Jackson's gotta get you a hobby."
She licks her lips. "Perhaps I've found a hobby."
"I'm not a hobby, darlin'."
"Who said it was you? I'm fairly certain Teal'c knows how to do things I can't even put a name to, and I haven't ruled Daniel out completely. Sometimes the quiet ones surprise you…"
"What do you want?" He interrupts, almost says her name, holds back at the last minute, drops his tone. "What do you need?"
Her mouth is a moue of want, but she forces laughter into her voice. "Sex, darling. What I want is lots of sweaty, grappling sex." She pauses while he flushes head to toe. "But I'd settle for some ice cream."
***
He buses his dishes, washing them in the sink while she waits impatiently. The light in the kitchen is dimmer than in the mess and the ambient noise louder. The fluorescent light in the back flickers and fitzes as the walk-in freezer hums with a steady, circular buzz.
She leans up against the large metal workstation, cotton pants riding low on her hips, and he takes pity, gets the vat of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, hands her a spoon.
Carefully, she works open the top, trying not to get any of the melted stickiness on her fingers until he nudges her aside, aware of her heat as he presses into her with his hip. He pops open the plastic lid, sets it down and sucks the ice cream off his thumb and fingers.
"I could help you with that," she says, tone low and very far from helpful.
He arches his eyebrow, slowly offers her his other hand. She cradles his hand, fingers delicate on the wrist, secure against the palm. Her tongue flicks against his skin, sliding into the vee, sweeping up his thumb, and her lips close around it. She sucks against the skin, and he moans. She repeats the action and he curls both fists, arousal throbbing through his body.
Letting go of him, she licks her lips, "Vanilla. Always vanilla. You'd think they'd buy persimmon, or artichoke, or at the very least chocolate." Her voice is far too steady
He tries to marshal his thoughts. "I think all the desert choices are reserved for jello."
She takes the spoon from him, dips it into the unmarred surface of the ice cream and turns to rest her ass against the table. Something thunks as she settles into place. He steps in front of her, bodies mere inches away and angles his head, assessing, peeks around her back. She arches, rolls her pelvis forward. It barely brushes him, but the contact vibrates all the way through to his toes. In her boots, they're nearly of a height. He tries not to take that thought further, tries not to think that he's already flicked on the engine, that right now he's just revving it up. He can't see much in the dim light, so he relies on other senses, tactile sensation, one hand gripping the edge of the counter, wrist against her hip. With the other, he brushes the curve of her ass as he fumbles at her back pocket. She shivers, rocks against him and he gains purchase to pull a flask out from behind her back.
The silver glints as he unscrews the top and sniffs, winces, then smiles. "Landry's?"
"Mmm."
He leans forward, lips against her ear. "Just can't keep your hands off other people's stuff, can you?"
"Not," she murmurs, hands slipping behind her, bracing against the table, "when it's right there for the taking." She hikes herself up onto the counter and he follows like a magnet, pulled towards the opening of her thighs, standing between them, standing too close.
"At least it's the good stuff." He takes a long swallow.
The whiskey burns his mouth, burns all the way down to his belly and he wipes his lips, hands her back the flask as heat steals through him. She takes it, still holding the spoon with the ice cream. Slipping it into her mouth, eyes closing in pleasure, she washes it down with a slug of whiskey. He swallows hard, imagines the taste of peat and vanilla on her mouth, imagines sucking it off her collarbone, her belly, further down… he's hardening now and when she opens her eyes, he wants to laugh. She looks like a kid, greedy and sated with sweetness and bitter, looks like she's waiting for the next best thing.
"Got the ice cream," he says, low and rough. "How 'bout we give that other thing a try?"
"All right," she says, and setting down her burdens, peels off her shirt.
***
Cam's close enough to smell the warm musk of her skin, the scent of her hair mingling with the vanilla, the burn of the alcohol. Her breath is warm against his cheek, and he feels that now or never throb, that rush of just-about-to-break-gravity.
Her fingers unsnap her bra from behind. Shrugging her shoulders forward in that delicate universal gesture, she tosses it on the floor.
He must be gaping, mouth open like a startled fish as the lights cast odd shadows on her pale body. "You're not the only one who almost died," she says and he's not sure if she means herself or the others on the planet. Frankly, he's only got about 30 seconds of coherent thought left anyway and it really shouldn't matter. He stalls for purchase.
"It doesn't bother you that anyone could walk in here?"
That almost stops him. Fuck, it sure should be bothering him. The Air Force… frowns upon senior officers caught in sexual liaisons. Hell, he frowns on being caught in a sexual liaison, but the pull is too strong, the risk too enticing. He's pretty sure he couldn't turn away from the sight and the scent and the feel of her, even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to.
"No," she purrs. "Does it bother you?"
"Fighter jock," he drawls, bravado and false fronts. "Live fast, die young, and all that." And so what if it's sort of a lie? He doesn't want to die young.
"And all that," she agrees. She leans back on her hands, lets him stare, lets him take her in. She's thinner than he expected, ribs prominent underneath the skin, but her breasts are fuller, softer. He's never been one to look and not touch and he cups her breasts, earns himself a wide smile.
"Good," she says, low and warm. "You're not going to stand there all night wasting time with verbal foreplay." His thumb brushes her nipple and she breathes deep.
"I think I'm going decidedly non-verbal," he says and then laughs, her husky chuckle curling around his, curling around his groin.
He lets go long enough to haul his own shirt off his body, then picks up the spoon, dips it back into the ice cream. Holds it out, close to her mouth. He's hard, aching, but he wants to drag this out, enjoy it -momentum and the moment. It's what's kept him sane this long - living in the moment. Her tongue steals out, sweeps along the spoon, takes it back in.
The ice cream is softening, melting off the spoon, and as she swallows, it drips down onto her chest. He ducks, licks the droplets off her skin, tilts the spoon, lets the rest of the ice cream slide onto her breast. Drops the utensil with a clatter as she holds his head to her hardening nipple. Her flesh is sweet, cold, and she arches under his mouth, thighs closing tight around his hips as he sucks, as he jerks her close. Her center presses up against his cock. She’s limber, nimble, twisting so that she can rub and thrust, and he switches sides, taking the warmer nipple between his teeth, pressing his hand against the base of her spine, making a feedback loop of pleasure. She links her arm around his neck, pulls him skin to skin as she shudders against him, clinging, and then gasps, pulling back.
"What?" He's blurred, dazed with her taste, with her fingers on him, with the daunting imminence of sexual release.
She holds his dog tags loosely and gives him a questioning look from beneath sweeping lashes. "They're … cold," she says, rubbing them between her fingers, warming them up, making it a question. She moves to take them off, but he shakes his head, stills her hand.
"They're…if I die…someone'll know it's me." He swallows hard. Her hand closes tightly around the tags, and then she slides them gently around to fall against his back. The metal is warm from the friction of her touch. Her fingernails scrape along his back and then her fingers settle at his waist.
"Someone will know," she says, low and husky. "Someone will know it's you."
He kisses her then, can't help himself, not sure he wants the tenderness, but knows he wants the moment of sweetness to linger.
Her mouth is cool from the ice cream, tingly from the whiskey and he's reminded of hot and humid southern summer days, of sweet tea and sweaty couplings in air-conditioned rooms that barely dull the heat, dust and sun filtering in on slicked bodies. The hum of the fridge buzzes like gnats, and he sinks into her mouth, starved for the taste, for this type of heat.
She works her hand between their bodies, gripping him, wringing a long, shuddery groan from his throat.
"Too many clothes," she chuckles, and catches his zipper. The metal teeth part in a rush as her tongue slips back into his mouth, and suddenly his cock is free, cooler air hitting his naked flesh like a shock, her mouth a parry, his brain MIA. The surprise is quickly met by the curve of her grip on him, confident as a pilot, flying him like a joystick. She hadn't been lying about her… agility. He gasps into her mouth.
Her thumb circles the tip, pressing, taunting, drawing him out. He’s gotta make a decision and that decision isn't going to be to come in her hand like a horny cadet. He jerks back, slips free of her grasp and yanks her off the table, tearing at her pants, shoving them down around her knees and sinking down, planting his mouth against her sex. She cries out, uninhibited, and he feels his own sex jerk, tongue sliding between her folds, slipping inside her and holy shit, he's going down on an alien in an empty kitchen in the basement of Cheyenne Mountain. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or cheer, does none of that, sucks her into his mouth, replacing his tongue with his fingers, and she jerks on his hair, tugs, nails scraping against his skin as she fumbles towards her climax. He can feel how near she is in the subtle tremors of her thighs pressed to his cheek, in the sheer, musky dampness against his mouth and chin, most intimately in the pulse and squeeze of her sex around his fingers. He's about to hit bottom, about to make her come, clawing against his neck…
The lights in the back of the mess flick on. Cam freezes, looks up. Her head's thrown back, eyes closed, biting onto her lip, and anger wells hot and hard inside him, anger at the goddamned insomniac in search of a midnight snack, anger at himself for being in this position. He forces himself to his feet, grabbing her shirt on the way up, trying to haul up her pants as well.
"Hurry," he hisses. Her eyes are glazed, but she's a creature of survival, knows - on occasion – how to follow an order for her own good. She buckles her pants while he pulls on his shirt and tucks himself back into place, willing his erection to die down. Counting backwards from a 100, he thinks of Antarctica, feels himself flag as she tugs on her shirt. He glances down, sees her bra on the floor, and kicks it under the table.
The lights in the kitchen proper flick on and Jackson stares at both of them, glances at the ice cream. Cameron's first reaction is relief. Jackson's better than an alternative – another soldier, his C.O., Teal'c. Man's not a soldier, has seen him prostrate with an alien illness, has himself been inexorably linked with the woman that Cam was about to fuck on a metal kitchen counter. Cameron wipes his mouth and chin, tries not to shiver at the scent on his hands and the anger rushes back in. Fucking Jackson, absent when he's wanted, and now standing here in the kitchen, blinking against the scene that he's maybe reading right and maybe reading wrong, but is definitely reading, and it's not like Cam can even order him back to bed, order him on a two-day hike for interrupting them. He wouldn't, but he could, and instead, it's Jackson and he can't.
"I, uh, started to get the we've-been-separated-too-long headache," Jackson says, voice sort of flat. "It was hard to tell at first since I'd only just lost the why-won't-you-leave-me-alone headache."
"It's the I-can't-live-without-you headache, Daniel," Vala taunts. "You don't have to pretend around Colonel Mitchell." His title its own sort of taunt. "I'm sure he understands."
"Couldn't sleep," Cameron offers, resisting the urge to kick her in the ankle, or alternately slap her on the ass. "Came down for a snack. Found out she can read fortunes."
"Read, steal, what's the difference?" Jackson says and the crack smacks against the ease that he and Vala had built up. Cam lets his gaze flit over her. Flushed cheeks, lush ripe mouth, spoon in hand, digging at the half-melted ice cream. She looks… beautiful, looks rosy, and… looks like her shirt's inside out as she concentrates on the ice cream.
.
"Well," Vala begins, voice drawn out in a parody of purveying information, "When one steals, one takes something that ostensibly doesn't belong to one, even though it may serve a higher purpose in one's possession and…"
Jackson frowns, ignoring her. "Are you… is that the ice cream they serve everyone?" His mouth twists in disgust.
"Bet you two kids need your beauty sleep," Cam interrupts, trying not to sputter at Jackson's look of frustration, his long-suffering indignation, and the tinge of something that might be jealousy riding along his mouth, "Guess I'll just have to turn to paperwork to cure the insomnia. I think the ice cream just gave me a bellyache."
Jackson nods, eyes still shrewdly on Vala. She waves at Mitchell with her spoon as he leaves.
He falls into bed, half hard, still confused, and wakes up to chaos.
***
P8X-412 is a barren rock. Four days ago, it was a rock with people – dying people, people wanting to execute Vala, people converted to worship of the Orii, but people. And some agriculture. And of course, a gate.
Now there was… nothing. Empty houses, empty temples and a hell of a lot of dust. And, well, the gate.
Vala stands in an open doorway, hands shoved in her pockets, scarf wrapped around her throat. "Where did they go?"
Jackson shrugs, turns over some charred remains in the fire pit in the center of the houses. "Maybe the Prior gave them another option, showed them another world."
Cameron doesn't think that's the case, and he's betting no one else does either. Why doesn't even enter the equation.
Teal'c comes over the radio. "Daniel Jackson, Colonel Mitchell, I think you should come see what we have found."
*
It’s a cave, and Vala's voice shakes as she stands outside the edge. "Why? Why would they do that?"
Cameron wants to hold onto her, wants to leach some comfort from her. Hell, at this point he'd hug Teal'c if he thought it'd offer up some comfort from the sight of that grouping of bodies in the cave.
It was Jackson who finally spoke. "I don't think that's all of the villagers. We should keep searching in the morning, but if we're not going back, we should set up camp."
No one suggests sleeping in the empty houses or the temple.
Cameron nods, leads the rest of his team away to an open clearing at the edge of the forest, leaves Jackson behind to study the bodies, to take notes, and draw conclusions, to do whatever the fuck he can do with bodies arranged like people waiting for a train, eyes empty, flecks of something at the corners of their mouth.
He checks in with SG-4, agrees that they'll fan out, continue to search and record data until dusk sets in. When it's clear they've got everything under control, and that answers will be few and far between, he returns to his own camp to find Teal'c and Vala bickering. Well, Vala's bickering and Teal'c is responding with careful sentences.
"It's absurd, completely unfair. I shouldn't have to cook simply because I'm the woman." She stands, throws a tin pot to the ground, her two tails of hair bouncing vigorously. Teal'c looks up impassively from his place cross-legged on the ground.
"You're cooking because the last time you set up tents, we ended up sleeping outside in the rain," Mitchell answers, trying to forestall further arguments.
She hrrmphs, tosses her hair, but it's all nerve and bravado. "I don't know why we're even staying here," she mutters. "We could come back in the morning."
He doesn't want to say that if they leave, he's not sure he can persuade himself to come back. He's gotta weather this. Instead, he shrugs. "I wanna be here at first light, in case anyone returns."
Her eyes are steady, narrowed and Teal'c turns that impassive gaze on him, but neither says anything. Vala starts to pull out ration packets and set up pots of water and Cameron moves to help with the tents.. In the midst of it, Vala comes back and offers them some water. It's an unexpected kindness, and he thinks it's more from a need to be near other people than any sort of thoughtfulness.
She's left her scarf behind and he sees faint bruising on her neck. He cocks his head, lifts an eyebrow as he hammers home a stake. "See you found an alternate hobby."
Shrugging, she rubs at her neck, eyes bleak, and leaves water bottle. He thinks of going after her, apologizing, isn't quite sure what for. Teal'c clears his throat, tugs on his side of the rope, and Mitchell returns to the job at hand.
*
He almost volunteers to share the tent with her, if only to stop the scathing bitterness that rises up between Vala and Daniel over dinner. Something's rubbing at Jackson and he's taking it out on Vala. Sure she's a pain in the ass, but she doesn't deserve to bear the weight of the good doctor's wrath. She stomps off to bed after the latest barb.
"Cut her some slack," Mitchell says, keeping his tone easy. "She didn't do this."
"They killed themselves," Jackson says flatly. "Probably because they couldn't face the total loss of their faith. She may very well have caused this."
"She's…" Cameron lets his voice trail off, wonders why he's trying to defend her. It's not the sex, he doesn't think. Maybe it's the way she looked around when they stepped through the gate, like she was getting another chance, like she had a purpose. To find that purpose shot to shit was a hell of a thing. Maybe he could relate.
It only takes Jackson half an hour to relent. He slips away from the camp while Mitchell and Teal'c are doing the dishes in a plastic tub.
They wait for the two to come back, but they never do. "Wanna sing campfire songs? Tell ghost stories?" he offers to Teal'c.
"No Colonel Mitchell. I think we should retire."
"Yeah," he sighs, "Probably."
*
He takes first watch, switching with Teal'c, his attention drawn to soft footsteps outside his tent. The visitor is hardly… subtle. The bigger man sleeps like the dead, unmoving and silent, and it kind of freaks Cam out.
Lacking a response, she walks away, towards the forest.
Cam gives a signal over the radio Baker across the way, indicating that he's going to leave his post, that he'll call if he runs into trouble. The other soldiers have all been warned to be on their guard. His post is almost a formality. Cameron zips up his coat, his breath puffing white in the dark, and follows her.
She's waiting at the edge of the clearing, hesitating like she's trying to work up her courage. He says her name, softly. It feels strange in his mouth. She stiffens, tilts her head and he reaches for her, hand clasping her bare arm. Her skin is chilled. Lookin, he sees pale bare feet peeking out from the hem of her pants.
"Couldn't sleep?" he whispers, sliding his hand up and down her arm in an effort to warm her. She doesn't move away.
"Daniel snores." Her reply is too flip.
"Teal'c doesn't. Wanna trade?"
The silence is punctuated by night sounds, insects and the trees stirring.
"Or," she answers finally, husky and thick, looking down at the blanket, "we could finish what we started." It's a question, but there's certainty in her gaze. She looks up at him like she can read his mind, like she knows that he too wants to wash the sight and scent of death out of his body.
He doesn't think about it, just leans in and kisses her, hot and hard. She makes a noise of surprise. He pulls back, confused.
"Not what you meant by finishing what you started?"
She's shorter than she was, seems smaller, slighter in her bare feet, arms bared to the cold. "We didn't start that way last time," she whispers, but she doesn't look angry or amused, just… surprised. He's suddenly cognizant of being watched, of other soldiers awake and aware, listening for unknown noises and activities.
He shrugs off his coat, pulls it around her shoulders. She holds it close with one hand, gives him a puzzled smirk, and he leads her further into the forest. "You're far too nice to be having sex in the woods with me." Her murmur is low, throaty, contrasting her words, teasing at his sensibilities.
"No one's that nice," he whispers in her ear, fingertips grazing over her ass, and the bright flash of her teeth in the dark warms him as they continue on.
"Stop," she orders, 50 feet in and he remembers her bare feet. She lets go of his coat, and reaches for him, kisses him hard and fierce. Her lips are cold, fingers chilly against his skin. She tastes like desperation, like salt and whiskey. Smells like pine trees and expensive cream. His arms go around her waist, pulling her tightly to him. The jacket falls to the forest floor.
She undoes his belt, slips his pants around his knees, her fingers careful on his flanks, coaxing in the dark, in the open air, brushing against him as he hardens. Want tingles in his limbs, a mixture of now and wait, of what the hell and god yes, and he reaches for her hair as she kneels before him in the leafy forest cover, loosing her hair out of its bindings. When they come together, he doesn't want childish remnants, he wants her hair like silk on his skin, spilling over her shoulders.
Her mouth closes over him, hot, wet, fingers working, slipping between his thighs, around his cock. He's shaky with need and his ass is freezing, but his blood's on fire. He curls his hand into the hair, tries to follow and not lead. Vala pulls off him with a wet pop, and he shudders, mutters, "Oh god," at the cold air on delicate skin. She guides him down to kneel with her in the dirt.
"Lay down," she says, and shuffles out of her pants. He pulls off his t-shirt. She leaves hers on, and she's half naked in front of him, legs long and perfect and pale. She reaches between her thighs, strokes herself as he watches, as his hands fist tightly against the dead leaves and the soil. He can smell the scent of her arousal in the cool air. She steps over him as he lets his head thunk against the ground with a muffled groan of relief.
She kneels down, takes his cock in hand, slips it against her sex and he reaches for her hip with one hand, her face with the other, sitting up to kiss her, abdominal muscles burning with the strain of holding the odd position. She lifts her hips, then sheathes him inside her. His grip on her neck tightens. He bites his lip, tastes blood as he tries not to cry out at the heat, the tight, wet heat. His hips jerk up and a startled burble escapes her lips. His dog tags are taking on the chill of the air where they don't press against his skin and she leans forward, wraps her hand around them, presses her fist to his heart, thrusts down with her hips and rides him.
He needs to feel more of her, rucks up her shirt to reach her breasts, suckling as his spine bends, as he tries to fuck into her, as he gets fucked in return, and it's heat and suction, muscles tightening, his cock throbbing, her nails against his back. He comes with his face pressed to her neck, inhaling pine and shampoo and wood smoke, feeling wood chips and loam and leaves pressed into his back.
She rocks against him, keening low and he realizes she hasn't come yet. Reaches between their bodies, fumbling for her cunt, trying to stroke her lips. She won't let go of his dogtags, won't move from the place where her mouth is scraping against his collarbone, but he gets a little purchase, fingers slipping in the slickness, rubs at her, strokes and fumbles and finally gets a rhythm going, presses hard, breathes in relief as she grabs his hand, guides him home, comes in his arms.
He collapses back onto his jacket and the ground covering, tugging her forward to lie on top of him. Her lashes flutter against his cheek, and he presses his hand to the dip or her spine as he slips free of her sex.
His shoulder is damp, from tears or sweat or spit, he doesn't know, but he holds her tight and doesn't think about death or life or commanding his dream team or the dead bodies sitting wide-eyed in a cave. He closes his eyes, lashes his other arm around her, rests for just a minute.
*
"Get up." Her elbows are sharp, features far more clear now than they were when he… shit, when he fell asleep. She's sitting up, sex pressed against his belly, searching for her pants and he reaches for her blindly, pushing hair out of her eyes, curling his fist against her hip.
She cants back and part of him is already up.
"We need to get back," she hisses, and she's right, but goddammit, she's right there and he wants her again, wants one more chance at sex and comfort before he has to go back into that open field and face all that absence.
He sits up, kisses her, grabs her shirt and hauls it off her body. He's still got his pants twisted around his ankles, boots still on, but he's bigger, has more leverage. She kisses him back, biting and sucking, and suddenly the want bursts fiercely. His teeth scrape her throat and he rolls them over, rolls her to her back, thrusts one of her legs up on his shoulder. She's nodding, rolling her head in a way that's both begging and insisting and he slips a finger between her lips, rubs and thrusts.
She cries out and he lines himself up with her sex, thrusts inside. More friction this time, more desperation. She frees her other leg, hikes it up onto his shoulder and grabs his hips, the curve of his ass. He thrusts hard and fast and she scratches at his back, hips slamming up to meet his, whimpering until he realizes that with his feet bound, he needs a better angle. He withdraws and she rolls over onto her hands and knees and then his hands are on her hips, cock inside her, thrusting deeper, hitting home and she comes with a shout, mouth buried against her forearm. He pounds himself into starry oblivion and comes clutching at her hips, falls onto her back, his cheek against the bony ridge of her spine.
Using the last of his strength, he sits back on his heels, pulling her with him to hold her tightly to his chest. Neither of them have signed on for anything more than lust and release, but in this moment, he wants to offer her some quiet and some gratitude and grace. Wants to offer it to himself.
She holds onto his forearm with a death grip, dark silky hair against his cheek as they breath in time, and then her voice is low, lax, breaking the spell. "Those bloody dogtags are still cold."
He drops his head onto her shoulder, laughs as he shudders.
"I've been gone too long," she murmurs.
"Yeah," he says. "It's time to go back."
***
"Why'd you leave your shoes behind?" he asks as he pulls himself together.
"I decided a long time ago to never again sleep in my boots," she says, enigmatic.
"Oh."
They walk back to camp in silence, and if he'd been five years younger, he'd have begged her to run away with him and if he'd been five years older, he'd have held her hand regardless. Instead, she gives him back his jacket and he watches her slip back into the larger tent with Jackson, wonders briefly how she'll explain the leafy detritus she's brought with her. Wonders if she'll bother, or if Jackson will just wake up to the scent of loam and earth and sex and wish it were him or be equally grateful that it wasn't.
He contacts Baker who gives him the all clear, suggests that he get some rest instead of finishing his watch. For a brief moment, Cameron panics, thinks the radio was on. Then he remembers almost dying on this planet. He knows he should refuse, should sit the rest of his watch. But the thought exahusts him.
He undoes the flap on his own tent, steals inside and comes face to face with one white eyeball. He swallows a girlish shriek, and sits on the edge of the cot to remove his boots.
"You almost gave me a heart attack," he chides Teal'c.
The open eye is illuminated by a raised brow and then Teal'c resumes his dead to the world posture that precludes rising to face the day, night, whatever the hell time it is.
"Colonel Mitchell, I do not believe that…It seems that your actions may…" Teal'c swallows the rest of the sentence. "I believe O'Neill has made reference to a man not being led around by his sexual organs. That is perhaps pertinent advice here."
"I know," Cameron says, wriggling into the sleeping bag. "I really do know." He sighs again. "I just wish I knew who was leading who."
