Ficcy Update
Aug. 30th, 2006 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowOkay, the final (I think, maybe) Cam/Vala control story. Post-Counterstrike, mostly. Very NC-17. It is helpful to have read the earlier stories, mostly so you don't think I'm losing my mind:)
***
It's a relief, mostly, when Jackson comes back from England looking happily dazed and smelling like old books and must.
Cam 's pretty sure that the man hasn't actually gone to his own home yet. His shirt's wrinkled and his glasses look like he slept on them wrong. They crook up at an even more pronounced angle than usual.
"So," Cam leans forward over the desk, hands clasped together while Jackson lolls in the chair across from him. "Learn anything useful?"
Jackson's head lazes to the side. Any further and it'll take him down to the desk in a dead slump. "Maybe."
Maybe? Cam rubs his face with his hands, trying to rub the expression of you went to frigging Camelot and came back with a maybe off of his face. Doesn't think he can quite rub off the you went to England and left us alone with Vala. His cheeks flush at the runaway thought and he nods at Jackson to cover it up.
"You wanna define maybe," he starts to say, and is less than surprised at the knock on his door.
Carter comes in without waiting for him to holler, and gives Daniel a wide smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. He's glad, a little, that there's a false note there. Much as Cam gets the whole replacement part aspect of his job, every once in a while it stings. He's not the original model. And parts and labor were not included.
"You missed the bonding," she says to Daniel, who blinks like he just doesn't have an appropriate response for that. "And the interdimensional mutation causing parasite."
"I'm sor…" he switches tracks, doesn't bother to lie, "Yeah, no, I'm really not." He pauses, mouth set in an abstract line. "Oh, god, was there fish?"
Cam knows the other man must be exhausted. He's starting to slur.
"Nah. Bird calls."
"Oh." Jackson looks at him across the desk, Sam looks at him over Jackson's head, raises one of her shoulders. They're both watching him like he's going to offer some sort of response that'll change everything, throw out some sort of depth charge of command or direction. Instead, Cam just shakes his head and Carter puts her hand on Jackson's shoulder.
"Daniel, why don't you get some sleep. You look beat."
The man takes her advice, stumbling out of the chair, squeezing Sam's arm as he leaves without a goodbye, but he pauses in the doorway, brow furrowed. "Have you seen Vala?"
Cam rubs his thumb over his lip. Last time he'd seen Vala had been two days ago when they'd driven back from the cabin. Landry refused to travel with her, and Sam had left early, taking Teal'c along with her so that he didn't miss Grey's Anatomy.
He'd set the ground rules early - no eating in the car, no boots on the dash, no touching anything. She'd pouted and proceeded to skim her fingers over every surface. He'd slapped at her hands and she'd changed the game, brushing her fingers over his thigh, up near his ear until he'd grabbed her hand, held her tight, shaking her a little like a tiny dog run amok. She'd laughed, low in her throat, slipped from his grasp and proceeded to take off her boots, put her feet up on the dash. Cam rolled his eyes, and decided to pretend he couldn't see.
She switched on the radio and they cruised down the mountain to scratchy classic rock and the sound of tires on gravel and shaky roads. She'd been mostly quiet for the rest of the way, watching the scenery and it was kind of nice, the day turning into dusk, the way that the dust and the aspens and the car leather and her skin all blended into something that made him feel… settled, oddly happy like he could keep driving and driving, like he never needed to stop.
Of course, nature had a different game plan. They'd stopped for coffee about an hour outside of Colorado Springs so he could stretch his legs, use the head. He paid the waitress and Vala took the coffee back to the car while he used the bathroom. When he went outside, he saw her sitting on the hood, arms stretched out behind her like a pinup girl. Cam started to walk faster, ready to yell, but as he got closer, he realized that the gleam of white showing through the opening of her jacket wasn't a shirt, it was bare skin. His brain told him to stop in his tracks, order her back into the car, but his feet kept on going, taking him right up to the fight.
"What're you doing?" He barely recognized his voice. He'd thought that was going to sound way more like pissed off, less like want. She raised an eyebrow, slid off the hood and he stepped in front of her, legs on either side of hers, closing her in.
"I find a dent the shape of your ass on this car," he started to say, struggling to get back to pissed off in the face of beautiful girl and a beautiful car and a perfect fall night in the mountains.
She took his wrist, canted her hips and put his hand on her ass. "So you can know what you're looking for," she grinned, low and throaty.
He pulled her towards him, squeezing her ass and then ran his knuckles down the center of her bare chest. Her skin was impossibly soft.
"You're not afraid of anything, are you?" He didn't know why his voice cracked there at the end.
"Not of this," she said, and he fanned out his fingers, cupped the swell of her bare breast. She smiled like that was something that she really liked, something warm and good and he rubbed her nipple with his thumb, pressing and rotating, then stroking softly.
The parking lot was empty, the diner closing down for the and there was probably five minutes maximum before the waitress finished her shift and caught them.
He drew a hand up her back, grazing over her waist and hip, then up the front of her body, pushing aside the jacket and exposing her breast to his gaze. He bent his head, slid his tongue along her nipple, closing his lips around it, teeth grazing, tongue working the warm flesh. Her fingers touched his temple, his cheekbone, the back of his neck and it was too much, too gentle. He withdrew, blowing gently on the damp skin and she made a choked sound, hand closing into a fist against his collarbone.
Cam pushed the jacket off her shoulders, knocking her hand down, trapping her elbows, then moved to her other breast, teeth against her nipple, lips against the silky skin. Vala squirmed against him, but her arms are trapped by the jacket. She fumbled for the hood of the car, finding purchase, arching her body so he could get closer. He held her, palm splayed in the small of her back as he moved over her breasts, his cock hard against her flat belly.
She's incredibly beautiful in the moonlight, and it felt like a trade, a gift, her bare body for his, her own exposure when the night before it had been him, naked and vulnerable and sated.
But he didn't intend to leave her sated, remembered this finally when she groaned his name, said Mitchell like she wanted something from him. He brushed his mouth over the valley between her breasts, moved away, meeting her eyes, then drew the jacket back up over her shoulders and buttoned it tight.
Her mouth twitched, but she nodded, getting into the car, and fell asleep before they'd gone three miles, her head against the seat, facing him, mouth open, snoring a little as her lashes fanned her cheeks like a doll. When he pulled into the base, he couldn't help himself, touched her cheek, mouth gentle against her forehead to wake her up.
She said, "Daniel?" soft and low in her throat like he's something lost, and Cam used all his training, all his reserve to stay quiet, to gently shake her, and let her figure things out on her own.
"You should go," he said softly when she opened her eyes and she slipped from the car without saying goodnight.
Jackson stares at him as he sits there, tamping down that memory, and Cam shrugs, realizing he got lost in there somewhere, a distraction he can ill afford. He shakes his head, and Sam says something about the lounge, and the World Series of Poker, and then gives Cam a look that says a lot of things he's not about to interpret as she follows Jackson out the door. He could handle annoyance, condemnation. What he sees from Sam is something verging on understanding.
*
The next trip through the gate, he assigns Vala to Teal'c. She doesn't complain, but Teal'c has to haul her back home, filthy and sopping wet from a trek after a prior who turned out to be some joker in disguise. He was a joker with a zat though, and she was more than a little pissed off that her enthusiasm in following orders, adhering to procedure had gotten her zatted in the back and dumped in a swamp.
Cam relents, lets her pair up with Daniel after that.
He's not jealous, exactly, that Vala mostly ignores him now that Jackson's back. It's not like they've had a lot of downtime, like its high school and he has to watch his ex and her new boyfriend pass love notes in the hall. Vala's not his friend or his lover, but she's been… something. And maybe he misses the rush. Maybe he misses her proximity. It doesn't matter. He has dinner with Sam, and he and Teal'c find a PS3 and stay up all night for nearly a week like the fate of the universe isn't in their hands. And maybe that's the only way to go.
When Dakara falls, there's nothing to say. That last bright, false hope of allies and ancient weaponry and now he's left with a myth of a mystical weapon and Vala's maternal instincts. He's not quite sure which scares him more.
He scrubs at his face and soaks up Sam's look of empathy, hopes that it's not loss he's reading in her eyes. He needs her revved up, not defeated and he doesn't have any sort of words for Teal'c.
Days later and the mood under the mountain is still somber, still sort of stunted with the loss of Dakara. Goddammit, Cam had so not wanted to be the guy who lost.
When he comes into the briefing room, sees Jackson and Vala with their heads bent together, he starts to back up, hands raised. The scene is weirdly intimate. They aren't touching, but her head is tilted like she's listening with everything she's got and Jackson's hand is pressed hard against the table, like he's keeping himself back.
Cam really doesn't want to intrude, doesn't want to get that weird flare of lust when Vala looks at him, calm and solid and so much not the flirt, the girl in control. He doesn't want to examine his reaction. When he gets that look from Sam, he wants to hold her hand, give her his ring. From, Vala, that look makes him want to pin her to the wall, tell her to do very bad things.
And right now, like all of them, she's hurting.
He's not her go to guy for comfort. He's not sure Daniel's much good for that either, but the other man has a far greater sense of compassion, a reservoir of understanding that at some point in the last few months, he's opened up to include Vala. Cam himself isn't quite in that sphere, isn't quite sure he wants to be.
Daniel looks up as Cam back peddles into the doorway. "We were just talking," he says, and Cam nods. He can see that.
"Didn't mean to interrupt, just looking for a place to spread out."
Jackson quirks his eyebrow. "Don't you have an office?"
"Someplace where people don't walk in and tell me about their latest disaster," Cam qualifies. "Involving mud. And body parts. And the fact that they've replaced the jello temporarily with pudding."
"Wonderful."
"Yeah."
Jackson gives him a quizzical look but then gestures to the table. "All yours," he says and leaves at that. Vala doesn't follow. Instead, she folds her hands, meets Cams gaze. He hasn't really looked at her since the Orii ship. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and she suddenly looks much, much older than she had. Circles are bruises under her eyes.
"Can't sleep?" he murmurs, and takes a step forward, bending over to lean his hands on the conference table, puts down the files in his hand.
"Bad dreams," she says, like it's nothing, but she rubs one thumb over the back of her other hand. "You?"
"Crazy nightmares," he says, reaches for jovial, "Teal'c beats my ass in Star Wars Bounty Hunter every single time. The whole universe is out of whack."
She gives him a courtesy grin at that, and he leans forward, just a little more.
"I…, "he struggles for what to say. "I know you're not all right, but if you need…" What, someone to talk to? A friend. There's not a word for what they are to each other. Even in the chain of command, he knows her participation is … voluntary.
"And what, Colonel, do you want to offer me?" There's a smile there, the hint of a tease.
"Never mind," he says and stands straight, and her façade falls.
She gets up out of the chair, and moves around the table, taking her time, full of that focused intent that got him into so much trouble in the first place. Heat flares in his belly.
"I expected more," she says, low and rough. "But you disappeared."
"Didn't go anywhere," he says, almost hurt. He's not the one mooning after Jackson. That was last year's news.
"Daniel thinks he understands," she says, and reaches forward to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt. It's an unconscious gesture, something casual, something just as oddly intimate as her posture earlier, leaning into Jackson, soaking him up. "Perhaps he does."
"But," Cam prompts softly, mouth moving towards her cheek, taking in her scent, her sweetness, the faint trace of cosmetics and mint.
"Right now, I'm not so sure I want to be understood."
He chuffs a laugh, stirring the fine hairs around her temple. "I'm pretty sure I can guarantee you that."
She flattens her hand over his heart and her heat runs through his body.
"Take me somewhere," she says, and it is a request, not an order. "Somewhere you like."
She looks up at him from under her lashes, and when she says, "Please," he knows he's being played and he knows it doesn't matter. She's not a girl who knows how to beg.
"Okay," he says.
***
He remembers coming downtown to this bookstore as a cadet, reading through their history section, having coffee down the street. It's been there forever, dark and inviting with a kid's fort in the center and scrawled recommendations on the walls. There were always cute Colorado College girls working behind the counter and they'd smile, read the backs of the books he'd buy, flirt with their bright smiles and hippy hair until he'd pull out his military ID. Once in a while, instead of a stone face and a silent checkout, he'd get a long appraisal, the slow slide of a pink tongue over pouty lips like the fact that he was probably a war mongering asshole could be overlooked, given the right circumstances. God, he missed college girls.
Vala's swallowed up in a corner, fingers gracing paper spines. Her dark hair slips over her shoulders and as she reaches up to pull down a book, her sweater slips up to show off a strip of pale, pale skin. It's sexier than her s&m gear, that soft skin and he gives in to impulse, moves closer, puts his hand against her hip. She stretches further and he slides his hand up her back, then strokes down.
Any other girl and he'd have tugged her close, lips brushing her temple or her neck, stolen a quick kiss there in the middle of the book store, felt daring and virtuous. But she wasn't any other girl, and she wasn't looking for that kind of warmth. She was looking for something… more.
"I have to admit, I was expecting some place," she looks around, bites her lower lip, "different."
"You said someplace I liked."
She raises both eyebrows. "Remind me to be more specific next time," and there's a challenge in her gaze, hot and sulky and sultry.
He turns his body slightly, backs her further into the corner so that her body is perpendicular to his. "How quiet can you be?" he murmurs in her ear.
She cocks her head, looks at the book she's pulled down and he tries not to laugh. It's a book of Japanese woodcuts, the front picture deceptively innocent, a carving of two lovers, until one looks more closely at the way the bare skin peeks out between the robes, the way the details swirl into focus, show that the lovers are engaged in intercourse, the secrecy of the act even more arousing than bare bodies would have been.
"Depends on the reward."
He puts one hand on the shelf at the level of her shoulder, his coat mostly covering her back. The other, he slips under her sweater from the front, resting flat on her belly.
"Hmmm," she purrs. "This has potential…"
"Shhhh," he says, and unbuttons her jeans, sliding down the zipper. The only other patrons are at the front, looking at the novels. He and Vala are out of the immediate view of the girls manning the counter. Cam teases the bare skin he's just revealed and she shivers just a little.
"Gotta be quiet," he says. "Don't wanna get caught."
"So the sex in public thing is working for you, hmmm?" Her chuckle goes straight to his groin, and he slides his hand down into her jeans, gasps just a little.
"Jesus, you're not wearing underwear."
"You took me out so that we could have sex. Why would I bother with underwear?"
It's a legitimate point, and it makes him a little dizzy, hearing it out loud. But she's also warm, and damp and he's in a dark, tony bookstore that used to cause him equal thrills and anger and he's got his fingers squirming inside this woman who might be the key to saving the universe. He slips out slightly, rubs the pad of his finger between her lips as the teeth of the zipper scrape his skin and when she moans, low and quiet as can be, he forgets all the big stuff, can only think that he's holding Vala's sex in his hand. She throbs against him.
His dick is so hard it's all he can do to not grind against her, grind her into the books behind them, but this is about her, and this is about control. So he leans in, "Tell me when it feels good."
Her breath hitches and she puts the book on the lip of the shelf, fingers gripping the wood. "Thought I couldn't talk."
"Not talking, I'm looking for other signals."
She licks her lips and he pushes closer so that his erection presses against her hip. Vala angles her head so that she can look him in the eye and he pushes up and into her again. Her eyes widen and she nods, just a little. It's awkward, but he manages to rub the heel of his hand against her clit. She bites her lip, keeps his gaze. He adds another finger and her mouth opens, just the faintest hint of discomfort and then something shifts and settles and she sighs, just a breath that brushes his cheek, minty and floral.
"I'm gonna do this later," he murmurs, "when you're naked and I'm naked and I'm going to watch your face and think about this."
She comes so hard that his bones grind together, grabbing the collar of his jacket so he can feel her tremors against his body, against his wrist. He lets go of the shelf, holds her up until she sighs against his cheek. Cam slips free of her and turns her so that she can zip up her pants with shaking fingers. He pulls her against him again, wanting the heat of contact and she slips her hands under his jacket, rubs against his erection.
"Have they got somewhere more private?" She rests her lips against his throat. He's starting to get the shakes from wanting. He wants to see that look on her face again, something that raw and lovely to counter this constant pressure, this failure that's following him.
"Bookstore, not a brothel," he murmurs, but he's thinking hard, looking for a solution. She darts out her tongue and it scrapes against the stubble of his jaw. His knees go weak, inspiration strkies.
"There's a bathroom in the back, near the map section."
"All right," she says and lets go of him, walks towards the back while he turns towards the shelves, grabs a volume of something large enough to cover up his hard-on.
*
She kisses him before he locks the door, all tongue and teeth and warmth and he hikes her thighs up around his hips, turns and slams her against the wall, trying to figure out how to fuck her through their clothes.
"Lock," he's grunting into her mouth, and she tightens her thighs and he tries to laugh and thrust and fumble for the door, but he's just a little too far away and if he reaches any further, they're both gonna tip and who cares if someone walks in because if he doesn't get inside her right this minute, he's pretty damn sure he's going to die.
He shoves her shirt up, mouth hot on her collarbone and shoves his hand down the back of her pants. Vala gets a hand between their bodies, working him with a skilled frenzy as he squeezes the bare flesh of her ass.
"Let me down," she says and releases her grip on his hips. When she slides off him, he spins her around, hands on the waistband of her jeans, yanking them down as she works the zipper and then they're around her knees, and his own fly is open and he doesn't bother to check to see if she's ready because it doesn't matter and then he's inside her and she groans so low and deep in her chest than he almost comes from the sound.
His thighs slap up against the pliant flesh of her ass, and he holds her hips, tries for a little finesse, tries to do more than lose himself in how damned good she feels and the fact that anyone could walk in and she wriggles, thrusts back hard with her hips and squeezes.
"I want to see," she breathes. There's a mirror over the sink opposite, but he can't quite fathom hobbling them over there, being out of her for long enough to make the three step journey, so he cups her sex, keeps her tight, swings her around so her hands are braced on the door, flat against the giant New Yorker poster of the cat with the monocle. It stares down at them disapprovingly, and she starts to giggle, looks to the side to see their bodies moving hot and frantic. It's not so much a pretty sight, as the most erotic and fucked up thing he's seen in ages, him mostly dressed just his cock and his hipbones visible, her body bare from waist to knees, his cock sliding up into her, the rhythm shaking and exciting and kind of amazing.
He withdraws, bends her forward just a little more and slowly, as slowly as he can, slides back in so she can see exactly what he's doing. Her smile is absolutely wicked and she closes her eyes, lost in the moment and it's all he needs. He grabs her hips, fucks her in jerky, shaky thrusts until he comes, until she tightens around him and shakes with her own release, his name caught in her throat. She straightens as he slumps against her, pressing her against the poster, holding her sex, wet and sticky and kind of glorious in his hand.
"I think," she says, voice a little shaky, trying to catch her breath, "that we both win with that one."
The girls on the way out give him a smile, something innocent and sweet. "Sorry we didn't have what you were looking for," one of them called. Vala turned to them, cheeky, "No worries, darlings, we were just here to browse."
She's still grinning when he takes them to Jose Muldoon's, orders her a margarita, drinks Negro Modelo out of the bottle.
They don't talk much, even when he realizes that she's got the book of Japanese wood cuts tucked into the front of her pants.
She shrugs. "You felt the need to wash your hands," she says. He tries not to laugh. If they can't save the world, a little petty theft won't much matter. Besides, one of the girls had mentioned mournfully that the store was closing anyway. The owners were retiring, didn't want to sell.
"I'm sorry," Vala says suddenly, at the tail end of her drink. "That I … that things… oh hell. I'm sorry to have brought on the destruction of the universe." Her mouth is flat, but then it twitches and she starts to laugh, low and hollow, but full.
Cam smiles at her.
"Guess I'm not gonna be the man who saved the world, either. Barring a miracle."
"Sold," she corrects. "The man who sold the world."
He narrows his eyes. "You're not from Earth, you're supposed to let me have my puns."
She shrugs. "Supposed to let you feel sorry for yourself as well?"
Cam looks at her face, at the stolen book and the empty drink, and the pale skin, thinks about how she felt, coming around him. "No," he says. "No you're not."
He puts his hand on hers, rubs his thumb over her knuckles, earns himself a whole smile full of grace.
***
It's a relief, mostly, when Jackson comes back from England looking happily dazed and smelling like old books and must.
Cam 's pretty sure that the man hasn't actually gone to his own home yet. His shirt's wrinkled and his glasses look like he slept on them wrong. They crook up at an even more pronounced angle than usual.
"So," Cam leans forward over the desk, hands clasped together while Jackson lolls in the chair across from him. "Learn anything useful?"
Jackson's head lazes to the side. Any further and it'll take him down to the desk in a dead slump. "Maybe."
Maybe? Cam rubs his face with his hands, trying to rub the expression of you went to frigging Camelot and came back with a maybe off of his face. Doesn't think he can quite rub off the you went to England and left us alone with Vala. His cheeks flush at the runaway thought and he nods at Jackson to cover it up.
"You wanna define maybe," he starts to say, and is less than surprised at the knock on his door.
Carter comes in without waiting for him to holler, and gives Daniel a wide smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. He's glad, a little, that there's a false note there. Much as Cam gets the whole replacement part aspect of his job, every once in a while it stings. He's not the original model. And parts and labor were not included.
"You missed the bonding," she says to Daniel, who blinks like he just doesn't have an appropriate response for that. "And the interdimensional mutation causing parasite."
"I'm sor…" he switches tracks, doesn't bother to lie, "Yeah, no, I'm really not." He pauses, mouth set in an abstract line. "Oh, god, was there fish?"
Cam knows the other man must be exhausted. He's starting to slur.
"Nah. Bird calls."
"Oh." Jackson looks at him across the desk, Sam looks at him over Jackson's head, raises one of her shoulders. They're both watching him like he's going to offer some sort of response that'll change everything, throw out some sort of depth charge of command or direction. Instead, Cam just shakes his head and Carter puts her hand on Jackson's shoulder.
"Daniel, why don't you get some sleep. You look beat."
The man takes her advice, stumbling out of the chair, squeezing Sam's arm as he leaves without a goodbye, but he pauses in the doorway, brow furrowed. "Have you seen Vala?"
Cam rubs his thumb over his lip. Last time he'd seen Vala had been two days ago when they'd driven back from the cabin. Landry refused to travel with her, and Sam had left early, taking Teal'c along with her so that he didn't miss Grey's Anatomy.
He'd set the ground rules early - no eating in the car, no boots on the dash, no touching anything. She'd pouted and proceeded to skim her fingers over every surface. He'd slapped at her hands and she'd changed the game, brushing her fingers over his thigh, up near his ear until he'd grabbed her hand, held her tight, shaking her a little like a tiny dog run amok. She'd laughed, low in her throat, slipped from his grasp and proceeded to take off her boots, put her feet up on the dash. Cam rolled his eyes, and decided to pretend he couldn't see.
She switched on the radio and they cruised down the mountain to scratchy classic rock and the sound of tires on gravel and shaky roads. She'd been mostly quiet for the rest of the way, watching the scenery and it was kind of nice, the day turning into dusk, the way that the dust and the aspens and the car leather and her skin all blended into something that made him feel… settled, oddly happy like he could keep driving and driving, like he never needed to stop.
Of course, nature had a different game plan. They'd stopped for coffee about an hour outside of Colorado Springs so he could stretch his legs, use the head. He paid the waitress and Vala took the coffee back to the car while he used the bathroom. When he went outside, he saw her sitting on the hood, arms stretched out behind her like a pinup girl. Cam started to walk faster, ready to yell, but as he got closer, he realized that the gleam of white showing through the opening of her jacket wasn't a shirt, it was bare skin. His brain told him to stop in his tracks, order her back into the car, but his feet kept on going, taking him right up to the fight.
"What're you doing?" He barely recognized his voice. He'd thought that was going to sound way more like pissed off, less like want. She raised an eyebrow, slid off the hood and he stepped in front of her, legs on either side of hers, closing her in.
"I find a dent the shape of your ass on this car," he started to say, struggling to get back to pissed off in the face of beautiful girl and a beautiful car and a perfect fall night in the mountains.
She took his wrist, canted her hips and put his hand on her ass. "So you can know what you're looking for," she grinned, low and throaty.
He pulled her towards him, squeezing her ass and then ran his knuckles down the center of her bare chest. Her skin was impossibly soft.
"You're not afraid of anything, are you?" He didn't know why his voice cracked there at the end.
"Not of this," she said, and he fanned out his fingers, cupped the swell of her bare breast. She smiled like that was something that she really liked, something warm and good and he rubbed her nipple with his thumb, pressing and rotating, then stroking softly.
The parking lot was empty, the diner closing down for the and there was probably five minutes maximum before the waitress finished her shift and caught them.
He drew a hand up her back, grazing over her waist and hip, then up the front of her body, pushing aside the jacket and exposing her breast to his gaze. He bent his head, slid his tongue along her nipple, closing his lips around it, teeth grazing, tongue working the warm flesh. Her fingers touched his temple, his cheekbone, the back of his neck and it was too much, too gentle. He withdrew, blowing gently on the damp skin and she made a choked sound, hand closing into a fist against his collarbone.
Cam pushed the jacket off her shoulders, knocking her hand down, trapping her elbows, then moved to her other breast, teeth against her nipple, lips against the silky skin. Vala squirmed against him, but her arms are trapped by the jacket. She fumbled for the hood of the car, finding purchase, arching her body so he could get closer. He held her, palm splayed in the small of her back as he moved over her breasts, his cock hard against her flat belly.
She's incredibly beautiful in the moonlight, and it felt like a trade, a gift, her bare body for his, her own exposure when the night before it had been him, naked and vulnerable and sated.
But he didn't intend to leave her sated, remembered this finally when she groaned his name, said Mitchell like she wanted something from him. He brushed his mouth over the valley between her breasts, moved away, meeting her eyes, then drew the jacket back up over her shoulders and buttoned it tight.
Her mouth twitched, but she nodded, getting into the car, and fell asleep before they'd gone three miles, her head against the seat, facing him, mouth open, snoring a little as her lashes fanned her cheeks like a doll. When he pulled into the base, he couldn't help himself, touched her cheek, mouth gentle against her forehead to wake her up.
She said, "Daniel?" soft and low in her throat like he's something lost, and Cam used all his training, all his reserve to stay quiet, to gently shake her, and let her figure things out on her own.
"You should go," he said softly when she opened her eyes and she slipped from the car without saying goodnight.
Jackson stares at him as he sits there, tamping down that memory, and Cam shrugs, realizing he got lost in there somewhere, a distraction he can ill afford. He shakes his head, and Sam says something about the lounge, and the World Series of Poker, and then gives Cam a look that says a lot of things he's not about to interpret as she follows Jackson out the door. He could handle annoyance, condemnation. What he sees from Sam is something verging on understanding.
*
The next trip through the gate, he assigns Vala to Teal'c. She doesn't complain, but Teal'c has to haul her back home, filthy and sopping wet from a trek after a prior who turned out to be some joker in disguise. He was a joker with a zat though, and she was more than a little pissed off that her enthusiasm in following orders, adhering to procedure had gotten her zatted in the back and dumped in a swamp.
Cam relents, lets her pair up with Daniel after that.
He's not jealous, exactly, that Vala mostly ignores him now that Jackson's back. It's not like they've had a lot of downtime, like its high school and he has to watch his ex and her new boyfriend pass love notes in the hall. Vala's not his friend or his lover, but she's been… something. And maybe he misses the rush. Maybe he misses her proximity. It doesn't matter. He has dinner with Sam, and he and Teal'c find a PS3 and stay up all night for nearly a week like the fate of the universe isn't in their hands. And maybe that's the only way to go.
When Dakara falls, there's nothing to say. That last bright, false hope of allies and ancient weaponry and now he's left with a myth of a mystical weapon and Vala's maternal instincts. He's not quite sure which scares him more.
He scrubs at his face and soaks up Sam's look of empathy, hopes that it's not loss he's reading in her eyes. He needs her revved up, not defeated and he doesn't have any sort of words for Teal'c.
Days later and the mood under the mountain is still somber, still sort of stunted with the loss of Dakara. Goddammit, Cam had so not wanted to be the guy who lost.
When he comes into the briefing room, sees Jackson and Vala with their heads bent together, he starts to back up, hands raised. The scene is weirdly intimate. They aren't touching, but her head is tilted like she's listening with everything she's got and Jackson's hand is pressed hard against the table, like he's keeping himself back.
Cam really doesn't want to intrude, doesn't want to get that weird flare of lust when Vala looks at him, calm and solid and so much not the flirt, the girl in control. He doesn't want to examine his reaction. When he gets that look from Sam, he wants to hold her hand, give her his ring. From, Vala, that look makes him want to pin her to the wall, tell her to do very bad things.
And right now, like all of them, she's hurting.
He's not her go to guy for comfort. He's not sure Daniel's much good for that either, but the other man has a far greater sense of compassion, a reservoir of understanding that at some point in the last few months, he's opened up to include Vala. Cam himself isn't quite in that sphere, isn't quite sure he wants to be.
Daniel looks up as Cam back peddles into the doorway. "We were just talking," he says, and Cam nods. He can see that.
"Didn't mean to interrupt, just looking for a place to spread out."
Jackson quirks his eyebrow. "Don't you have an office?"
"Someplace where people don't walk in and tell me about their latest disaster," Cam qualifies. "Involving mud. And body parts. And the fact that they've replaced the jello temporarily with pudding."
"Wonderful."
"Yeah."
Jackson gives him a quizzical look but then gestures to the table. "All yours," he says and leaves at that. Vala doesn't follow. Instead, she folds her hands, meets Cams gaze. He hasn't really looked at her since the Orii ship. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and she suddenly looks much, much older than she had. Circles are bruises under her eyes.
"Can't sleep?" he murmurs, and takes a step forward, bending over to lean his hands on the conference table, puts down the files in his hand.
"Bad dreams," she says, like it's nothing, but she rubs one thumb over the back of her other hand. "You?"
"Crazy nightmares," he says, reaches for jovial, "Teal'c beats my ass in Star Wars Bounty Hunter every single time. The whole universe is out of whack."
She gives him a courtesy grin at that, and he leans forward, just a little more.
"I…, "he struggles for what to say. "I know you're not all right, but if you need…" What, someone to talk to? A friend. There's not a word for what they are to each other. Even in the chain of command, he knows her participation is … voluntary.
"And what, Colonel, do you want to offer me?" There's a smile there, the hint of a tease.
"Never mind," he says and stands straight, and her façade falls.
She gets up out of the chair, and moves around the table, taking her time, full of that focused intent that got him into so much trouble in the first place. Heat flares in his belly.
"I expected more," she says, low and rough. "But you disappeared."
"Didn't go anywhere," he says, almost hurt. He's not the one mooning after Jackson. That was last year's news.
"Daniel thinks he understands," she says, and reaches forward to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt. It's an unconscious gesture, something casual, something just as oddly intimate as her posture earlier, leaning into Jackson, soaking him up. "Perhaps he does."
"But," Cam prompts softly, mouth moving towards her cheek, taking in her scent, her sweetness, the faint trace of cosmetics and mint.
"Right now, I'm not so sure I want to be understood."
He chuffs a laugh, stirring the fine hairs around her temple. "I'm pretty sure I can guarantee you that."
She flattens her hand over his heart and her heat runs through his body.
"Take me somewhere," she says, and it is a request, not an order. "Somewhere you like."
She looks up at him from under her lashes, and when she says, "Please," he knows he's being played and he knows it doesn't matter. She's not a girl who knows how to beg.
"Okay," he says.
***
He remembers coming downtown to this bookstore as a cadet, reading through their history section, having coffee down the street. It's been there forever, dark and inviting with a kid's fort in the center and scrawled recommendations on the walls. There were always cute Colorado College girls working behind the counter and they'd smile, read the backs of the books he'd buy, flirt with their bright smiles and hippy hair until he'd pull out his military ID. Once in a while, instead of a stone face and a silent checkout, he'd get a long appraisal, the slow slide of a pink tongue over pouty lips like the fact that he was probably a war mongering asshole could be overlooked, given the right circumstances. God, he missed college girls.
Vala's swallowed up in a corner, fingers gracing paper spines. Her dark hair slips over her shoulders and as she reaches up to pull down a book, her sweater slips up to show off a strip of pale, pale skin. It's sexier than her s&m gear, that soft skin and he gives in to impulse, moves closer, puts his hand against her hip. She stretches further and he slides his hand up her back, then strokes down.
Any other girl and he'd have tugged her close, lips brushing her temple or her neck, stolen a quick kiss there in the middle of the book store, felt daring and virtuous. But she wasn't any other girl, and she wasn't looking for that kind of warmth. She was looking for something… more.
"I have to admit, I was expecting some place," she looks around, bites her lower lip, "different."
"You said someplace I liked."
She raises both eyebrows. "Remind me to be more specific next time," and there's a challenge in her gaze, hot and sulky and sultry.
He turns his body slightly, backs her further into the corner so that her body is perpendicular to his. "How quiet can you be?" he murmurs in her ear.
She cocks her head, looks at the book she's pulled down and he tries not to laugh. It's a book of Japanese woodcuts, the front picture deceptively innocent, a carving of two lovers, until one looks more closely at the way the bare skin peeks out between the robes, the way the details swirl into focus, show that the lovers are engaged in intercourse, the secrecy of the act even more arousing than bare bodies would have been.
"Depends on the reward."
He puts one hand on the shelf at the level of her shoulder, his coat mostly covering her back. The other, he slips under her sweater from the front, resting flat on her belly.
"Hmmm," she purrs. "This has potential…"
"Shhhh," he says, and unbuttons her jeans, sliding down the zipper. The only other patrons are at the front, looking at the novels. He and Vala are out of the immediate view of the girls manning the counter. Cam teases the bare skin he's just revealed and she shivers just a little.
"Gotta be quiet," he says. "Don't wanna get caught."
"So the sex in public thing is working for you, hmmm?" Her chuckle goes straight to his groin, and he slides his hand down into her jeans, gasps just a little.
"Jesus, you're not wearing underwear."
"You took me out so that we could have sex. Why would I bother with underwear?"
It's a legitimate point, and it makes him a little dizzy, hearing it out loud. But she's also warm, and damp and he's in a dark, tony bookstore that used to cause him equal thrills and anger and he's got his fingers squirming inside this woman who might be the key to saving the universe. He slips out slightly, rubs the pad of his finger between her lips as the teeth of the zipper scrape his skin and when she moans, low and quiet as can be, he forgets all the big stuff, can only think that he's holding Vala's sex in his hand. She throbs against him.
His dick is so hard it's all he can do to not grind against her, grind her into the books behind them, but this is about her, and this is about control. So he leans in, "Tell me when it feels good."
Her breath hitches and she puts the book on the lip of the shelf, fingers gripping the wood. "Thought I couldn't talk."
"Not talking, I'm looking for other signals."
She licks her lips and he pushes closer so that his erection presses against her hip. Vala angles her head so that she can look him in the eye and he pushes up and into her again. Her eyes widen and she nods, just a little. It's awkward, but he manages to rub the heel of his hand against her clit. She bites her lip, keeps his gaze. He adds another finger and her mouth opens, just the faintest hint of discomfort and then something shifts and settles and she sighs, just a breath that brushes his cheek, minty and floral.
"I'm gonna do this later," he murmurs, "when you're naked and I'm naked and I'm going to watch your face and think about this."
She comes so hard that his bones grind together, grabbing the collar of his jacket so he can feel her tremors against his body, against his wrist. He lets go of the shelf, holds her up until she sighs against his cheek. Cam slips free of her and turns her so that she can zip up her pants with shaking fingers. He pulls her against him again, wanting the heat of contact and she slips her hands under his jacket, rubs against his erection.
"Have they got somewhere more private?" She rests her lips against his throat. He's starting to get the shakes from wanting. He wants to see that look on her face again, something that raw and lovely to counter this constant pressure, this failure that's following him.
"Bookstore, not a brothel," he murmurs, but he's thinking hard, looking for a solution. She darts out her tongue and it scrapes against the stubble of his jaw. His knees go weak, inspiration strkies.
"There's a bathroom in the back, near the map section."
"All right," she says and lets go of him, walks towards the back while he turns towards the shelves, grabs a volume of something large enough to cover up his hard-on.
*
She kisses him before he locks the door, all tongue and teeth and warmth and he hikes her thighs up around his hips, turns and slams her against the wall, trying to figure out how to fuck her through their clothes.
"Lock," he's grunting into her mouth, and she tightens her thighs and he tries to laugh and thrust and fumble for the door, but he's just a little too far away and if he reaches any further, they're both gonna tip and who cares if someone walks in because if he doesn't get inside her right this minute, he's pretty damn sure he's going to die.
He shoves her shirt up, mouth hot on her collarbone and shoves his hand down the back of her pants. Vala gets a hand between their bodies, working him with a skilled frenzy as he squeezes the bare flesh of her ass.
"Let me down," she says and releases her grip on his hips. When she slides off him, he spins her around, hands on the waistband of her jeans, yanking them down as she works the zipper and then they're around her knees, and his own fly is open and he doesn't bother to check to see if she's ready because it doesn't matter and then he's inside her and she groans so low and deep in her chest than he almost comes from the sound.
His thighs slap up against the pliant flesh of her ass, and he holds her hips, tries for a little finesse, tries to do more than lose himself in how damned good she feels and the fact that anyone could walk in and she wriggles, thrusts back hard with her hips and squeezes.
"I want to see," she breathes. There's a mirror over the sink opposite, but he can't quite fathom hobbling them over there, being out of her for long enough to make the three step journey, so he cups her sex, keeps her tight, swings her around so her hands are braced on the door, flat against the giant New Yorker poster of the cat with the monocle. It stares down at them disapprovingly, and she starts to giggle, looks to the side to see their bodies moving hot and frantic. It's not so much a pretty sight, as the most erotic and fucked up thing he's seen in ages, him mostly dressed just his cock and his hipbones visible, her body bare from waist to knees, his cock sliding up into her, the rhythm shaking and exciting and kind of amazing.
He withdraws, bends her forward just a little more and slowly, as slowly as he can, slides back in so she can see exactly what he's doing. Her smile is absolutely wicked and she closes her eyes, lost in the moment and it's all he needs. He grabs her hips, fucks her in jerky, shaky thrusts until he comes, until she tightens around him and shakes with her own release, his name caught in her throat. She straightens as he slumps against her, pressing her against the poster, holding her sex, wet and sticky and kind of glorious in his hand.
"I think," she says, voice a little shaky, trying to catch her breath, "that we both win with that one."
The girls on the way out give him a smile, something innocent and sweet. "Sorry we didn't have what you were looking for," one of them called. Vala turned to them, cheeky, "No worries, darlings, we were just here to browse."
She's still grinning when he takes them to Jose Muldoon's, orders her a margarita, drinks Negro Modelo out of the bottle.
They don't talk much, even when he realizes that she's got the book of Japanese wood cuts tucked into the front of her pants.
She shrugs. "You felt the need to wash your hands," she says. He tries not to laugh. If they can't save the world, a little petty theft won't much matter. Besides, one of the girls had mentioned mournfully that the store was closing anyway. The owners were retiring, didn't want to sell.
"I'm sorry," Vala says suddenly, at the tail end of her drink. "That I … that things… oh hell. I'm sorry to have brought on the destruction of the universe." Her mouth is flat, but then it twitches and she starts to laugh, low and hollow, but full.
Cam smiles at her.
"Guess I'm not gonna be the man who saved the world, either. Barring a miracle."
"Sold," she corrects. "The man who sold the world."
He narrows his eyes. "You're not from Earth, you're supposed to let me have my puns."
She shrugs. "Supposed to let you feel sorry for yourself as well?"
Cam looks at her face, at the stolen book and the empty drink, and the pale skin, thinks about how she felt, coming around him. "No," he says. "No you're not."
He puts his hand on hers, rubs his thumb over her knuckles, earns himself a whole smile full of grace.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 10:34 pm (UTC)Can't wait to read when I get home tonight hon!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 06:35 am (UTC)This will take you to the three previous stories (well, it'll take you to the previous story which also has links for the two prior:)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:04 pm (UTC)(Is it hot in here, or is it just me? [g])
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Date: 2006-08-30 09:13 pm (UTC)(And besides, it couldn't be Daniel with the sex and the books because he'd get all distracted and they'd never get around to the sex!!)
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Date: 2006-08-30 09:25 pm (UTC)I've been reading all your Cam/Vala stories, although not commenting, for which I SUCK. I'm definitely enjoying them, though; I love your Vala (and I like where they've been taking her on the show too).
I should NOT read these at work, but I couldn't resist, for I am weak. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:55 pm (UTC)so delightful that teal'c didn't want to miss the show. and i love this: "and it was kind of nice, the day turning into dusk, the way that the dust and the aspens and the car leather and her skin all blended into something that made him feel… settled, oddly happy like he could keep driving and driving, like he never needed to stop."
what this says about all of them is very fine: "What he sees from Sam is something verging on understanding."
this image feels vital for them both, and makes me sad for cameron at the same time: "They aren't touching, but her head is tilted like she's listening with everything she's got and Jackson's hand is pressed hard against the table, like he's keeping himself back."
and the fact that cameron's not sure he wants to be in daniel's sphere of comfort is a wonderful layer of their relationship.
i love the idea of a courtesy grin. and vala not necessarily wanting to be understood. intriguing to think about that level of awareness and understanding carrying it's own threat. in the face of the orii and everything else that's going on its marvelous how they end up discussing everything, and vala apologizing.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 10:35 pm (UTC)*hugs series* You rock.
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Date: 2006-08-30 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 02:23 am (UTC)And beyond the sheer hotness of these two having sex in a bookstore(!!!!), such great insight into their characters, too: the different kind of intimacy that Cam and Vala can have because whether he understands her or not, he's not trying to figure her out like Daniel is. This isn't about happily ever after, and that's just fine.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 06:09 am (UTC)::faints::
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 04:22 am (UTC)dayum.
I can't believe you've sold me on a.. a... relationship with these two. But I am! I'm SOLD.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 08:04 am (UTC)It is teh awesome. And damn but Ben and Claudia are good together onscreen no matter what characters they're playing.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 04:37 pm (UTC)And dude, they are just so good together onscreen:)
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Date: 2007-02-27 05:13 pm (UTC)That was GREAT!! Oh, man, you get these characters down so well. I thought I loved them together enough onscreen and you make me love them even more! :D
I'm off to read your other stories now, great job! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 12:20 am (UTC)Just found this story as a rec at the Cam/Vala thread at Gateworld...
I know it's a lot to ask, but any chance you could point me in the direction of that thread? I'm totally unfamiliar with those forums.
whoa!!
Date: 2007-05-17 03:41 am (UTC)Re: whoa!!
Date: 2007-05-17 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 05:18 am (UTC)*blink*
Thank you. Yes. Very much. This was the perfect balance of incredibly hot and oddly sweet and I loved it, beginning to end! Just brilliantly done. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 04:38 pm (UTC)