Four Fours
by Keiko Kirin

The thing you have to understand about Daniel is that he's not submissive. Will he submit? Yes. Eventually. But is he submissive about it? Hell, no.

And that's the fun part.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. Some things are meant to be secret, stay private. Maybe I'm writing this as a final fuck-you, a posthumous middle finger to the people most likely to read it after I'm gone as they rampage through the remains of my life.

Or maybe I'm writing it because I have a hidden exhibitionist, show-off streak.

I know which explanation Daniel would choose.

But I digress.

The other thing you have to understand is that it was a bit of a shock to me to discover just how much I like getting Daniel to submit. This was not an area of my psyche in which I had spent a lot of time. I thought I knew myself, and the self I knew was predictable -- vanilla, some might say -- in his tastes. Oh, yeah, sure, there were murky areas. Fantasies that made me hesitate to look in the mirror the next morning. But I had become settled. I accepted my predictability.

What changed all that? Daniel did, of course. He's muttered a few times about how I've crashed his life, but the reverse of that is that he's turned mine upside down. He pretends not to know that, and I let him pretend.

But the specific event that sent me off into the wild, untouched jungles of my soul was something incredibly stupid. We were camped out on P-something, a miserable little planet of drizzle and damp and mud, stuck there after our meet-and-greet had failed to impress the natives. Back on Earth, SG-11 had brought back some nasty toxic residue and the SGC was locked down for 24 hours until the damage could be contained and the experts gave the all-clear. So there we were, wet and cold and unhappy, huddled in a leaky, abandoned barn that was crumbling around us.

Carter broke out the cards.

(Carter, by the way, is a cardsharp. She shuffles like a girl, but I think it's all an act.)

Carter had been teaching Teal'c how to play cards. Match made in heaven, you'd think, Teal'c having the mother of all poker faces. But I think he was bored. Little pieces of paper with hearts on them -- not exactly part of that whole Jaffa warrior-culture image, is it? However, he humored her, and it was good for killing time.

Carter began a lesson on five-card stud. She shot me a look to assess my mood then dealt me in. I was game. It was better than watching rain dripping through the roof onto Daniel's boot. Then she looked expectantly at Daniel.

He was playing back video on his camera. He glanced up, shook his head, and said, "No, thanks. Poker's not my game."

This is true. It's not my game, either, for that matter. But in that moment, several things started to coalesce, and I decided to make him join us. The first thing was that I was bored, and the game promised to be a nice distraction. And I didn't see why Daniel couldn't join in. I mean, it's simple courtesy. It's minimum expectation social behavior. One measly game.

The second thing was that three-handed poker is harder than four-handed. And poker is not my game. I wanted better odds.

The third thing was that I knew poker was not Daniel's game, because he'd told me so ages ago. And the reason he gave me was that it held no thrill for him. Why? Because he almost always won. He could out-bluff anyone. He found it dull and unchallenging.

Maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall way back when he'd told me this, but no, it wasn't until that miserable rainy day. I decided that I just had to see Daniel the bluffer in action. I mean, it's annoying, the way he casually overstates his abilities as matters of fact. "I speak 23 different languages," for example. Uh-huh. Ask him sometime how many of those languages are still living.

Don't get me wrong. Daniel's smart, no doubt about it. Sometimes the stuff that he comes up with scares me a little, because his mind is always working in strange and unexpected ways. He's so smart he doesn't have to prove a damn thing, and he knows it, but that doesn't stop him from dropping one of his little brags now and then. Like I said: annoying.

Back to the rainy day poker game. Carter, Teal'c, and I played one hand before I verbally nudged Daniel away from his video camera.

"Hey, Daniel. Come join us. It's no good with three people."

He didn't bother looking up. "Uh, no," he said slowly. "I don't like poker."

"So? You don't have to like it. You just have to play." I made the appeal to friendship. "It's for Teal'c." I ignored the look Teal'c gave me.

Daniel switched off the camera, and I'm sure he rolled his eyes, and he joined us. Carter dealt him in, and I started watching him. Master bluffer, my ass, I thought. Daniel's not always what you'd call expressive -- not in the sense that you can read his face and know what he's thinking -- but sometimes he has facial ticks. He slides his jaw out and back. He does that thing with his lips. He furrows his brow, raises his eyebrows, widens his eyes, scratches his cheek, opens his mouth, shuts his mouth, tilts his head, adjusts his glasses, and... well, you get the picture. Four and a half years of watching him from across the briefing room table had introduced me to the entire repertoire of Daniel Jackson quirks.

And there they all were. Quirks on parade. Poker face? Bluffing? Yeah, sure. We'd see about that.

I wasn't overconfident, mind, but two jacks isn't a bad hand in five-card stud. No way I was going to give it up for a bluff. I stuck to my guns. We had three betting rounds, nickel and dime bets. Carter and Teal'c caved after the first round. By the time we showed our cards, the betting was up to $1.50.

Daniel had three eights, the lucky little worm.

After that, well, it was a matter of principle. I was going to figure him out, and I was going to get him but good when he tried to bluff, and I was going to win my buck-fifty back.

Now here's the first insight into Daniel's personality for you. During that entire evening on P-whatever, when he was playing this game he supposedly finds boring, did he ever once fold? Ever? No, he did not. You see where I'm going with this. He never submitted. It was a stupid, lousy card game, one he professes to dislike. But he played it until the bitter end.

Did he lose? A few times, yeah, but by then I could see that wasn't the point. And winning over him because he bluffed didn't feel as good as I expected it to. No, as the evening wore on, I realized that what I really wanted to see him do was fold. I wanted him to be like a normal human being and admit that he had a crap hand and fold.

As I said, he never did. And that pissed me off. Not seriously, but in a kind of cold-and-soggy-and-irritated way. I was getting tired. I was down seven bucks. Daniel was only down two. (Carter was up by eight, and Teal'c by fifty cents.)

Carter yawned and dealt another hand. Teal'c arranged the cards in his hand, and Carter and I both told him to stop doing that. A total giveaway: he was obviously arranging them in numerical order. Daniel glanced at his cards and yawned. I glanced at mine and blinked.

Four fours.

Impossible. In five-card stud, the odds for four-of-a-kind are... well, I don't know exactly, but Carter probably does. It's something really high. A nearly unbeatable hand.

Teal'c folded first, then Carter. Daniel? Of course not. We went through another betting round, and I couldn't stand it.

"Why don't you just fold?" I asked.

"What?"

"You've got a crap hand. Admit it and fold. Why drag this out when it's only going to end in sorrow?"

Daniel gave me a calm stare, tapped one finger against his cards, and said, "Why don't you?"

"Unh-uh. No way." Screw the poker face, I had to make him fold. "I can't lose. No bluff. There's no way you can win this one."

Daniel blinked a couple of times and the corner of his mouth moved a fraction in the merest hint of a smile. "And there's no way you can make me fold," he said quietly.

That was the moment when the floodgates opened, as the cliché goes. Maybe I'd been waiting for this all my life, and just needed the right push. Or maybe it was all because of Daniel, and the subtle influences he's always had on me drew me to this moment. Whatever it was, I was unprepared for it. I just sat there, staring at him staring at me. With that hint of a smile that was so obnoxious and so sexy. My mouth went dry.

I wanted to slap that smile off his face, but I wanted him to be smiling afterward. I wanted to grab his hands and pry those damned cards away from his fingers, but I wanted him to hold onto them so tightly they tore into pieces. I wanted to knock him flat on his back, and I wanted him to kick and push me away until he grabbed me and pulled me to him and gave me a kiss so hard my fillings would ache.

I knew I should not be having any of those thoughts. At least, not in front of Carter and Teal'c. And maybe not in front of Daniel, because sometimes, you know, he stares into you like he knows he's going to find something wicked inside. The floodgates had opened, and I was unprepared and was just sitting there like a dummy.

I folded.

Four fours.

I don't know if you play five-card stud. If you do, you'll understand.

FOUR FOURS.

Only Daniel. The little worm.

-----

Section break there, because now we get to the good stuff. The juicy stuff.

Time passed. Suffice it to say, I was not exactly my usual peaceful and calm self after that soggy card game. No, I was stirred up and restless. You might have expected me to be confused and frightened. Let me tell you: an instant, pure, mainline dose of breathtaking horniness and erotic need does a lot to get rid of the confusion and fear. Oh, sure, I had moments of going, "What the fuck?" I did a little reading on mid-life crises. But in the back of my mind, always, was Daniel with that stare and that smile and holding onto those cards. Telling me I'd never make him fold. Ohhhh.

Silly, isn't it? Something like that, something so stupid, making me harder than hell? I know. I can't explain it, either.

Back to the story. By now you may be asking how I managed to get us from A to B. It's one thing to be playing cards with a friend and team member and having unexpectedly smutty thoughts about said friend and team member. It's quite another to be acting upon those smutty thoughts. Well, let me tell you, it wasn't easy.

I suspected from the beginning, once I got my ability to think back, that Daniel was, you know, aware. Whether he'd known all along or had had the floodgates open at the same time, I couldn't guess. But I had a strong feeling that he'd been hit just as hard with those desires and so forth. I just couldn't see an easy way of finding out if my feeling was right.

I also thought maybe I shouldn't even try. Lots of reasons. Dishonorable discharge comes to mind. And for half a day once, when I was home cleaning out the garage, I fantasized about the titillation of unrealized sexual tension. Then I went into the bedroom and whacked off while picturing Daniel naked and decided unrealized sexual tension lacked appeal.

Now, you'd think that if Daniel had really had the same urges as I, that he could have made the first move. I had the same thought. In fact, his lack of action made me doubt my intuition for a while. Daniel claims he was making the first move all over the place, and I wasn't picking up on the signals. Right. Whatever. In the end, ignoring my doubts, I was the one who set up our first little date.

I invited him over to play poker.

Smooth, huh? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Smooth and absolutely foolproof. If I was wrong, and Daniel wasn't having the same urges, he'd turn the invitation down, reminding me that poker wasn't his game.

He showed up. Five minutes early. And he'd shaved and changed into a shirt that clung to him and showed off the definition of his biceps and pecs. Made me feel better about my decision to shave and run a comb through my hair and wear one of my good silky shirts.

I wanted to grab him the second the door closed, but I was momentarily paralyzed by lust. And by the sudden mental image I had of us kissing, which seemed absurd. When I recovered, Daniel was making himself at home by getting a beer out of the fridge. I got out the cards. We sat at the dining table and played poker.

Have you ever played two-handed five-card stud? It's enough to make one swear off the game.

Except when you're playing with Daniel, and he's never folding.

After about an hour it hit me: poker as foreplay. Everything that had seemed so hard to bring together was suddenly easy, because Daniel had shown up and was playing poker with me.

I started off casually. "I'm going to make you fold," I said in passing. Keeping it light.

"No, you're not," he said. Tit for tat.

He won that one with an ace and a queen, the lucky little worm.

Next game, I looked him straight in the eyes and told him, "You're going to fold."

He gave me that hint of a smile and said, "No, I'm not."

That was around the time I noticed how the color of his shirt was doing great things for his eyes and skin. Hard to believe this was the same guy with a closet full of dorky checked shirts at home.

I played it cool for another game, then cranked it up a little. "No way you can win. You have to fold."

I swear I could feel his body heat from across the table. He shifted in his seat and looked at me over the cards. "I don't have to do anything." He stared at me for a long time, and my mind went straight to the gutter. I had no idea I could conjure up such vivid gay sex fantasies. It was a little shocking.

I shifted in my seat and finished that round in silence.

Next game, Daniel was doing the man-playing-poker equivalent of standing under a lamppost and swinging his hips while asking sailors if they wanted a date. He stared at his cards and licked his lips. He touched his neck with one fingertip. He tilted his head and watched me -- or, more accurately, my hands -- as I moved my cards around. Honest to God, he scratched his chest and ran one finger over a nipple. It made a hard little bump in the fabric.

My mouth was dry and my palms were sweaty. The cards were just a blur of colors and numbers, but Daniel was sharply in focus, watching me.

"You can't win," I said, and my voice was a little scratchy. "Fold."

"Make me." Daniel's eyes never left mine.

Ohhhhh. Yeah, that was it, all right. Foreplay was over.

I reached across the table and grabbed his hand and started pulling on his cards. My fingers were so damp they slid off. Daniel held on so tightly, he crushed the cards. I gripped where they folded and yanked again, but my hand went flying. With both hands I grabbed his hand and wrist and pushed them down on the table. There was a loud, sharp thud.

His cards scattered across the table.

Much as that night is etched in my memory, the next moments are a blur. I ended up on his side of the table. Fabric ripped, and suddenly I wasn't wearing a shirt. I grabbed the back of his head as he grabbed mine, and we didn't so much kiss as devour each other. I mean, tongues in throats, teeth scraping, chewing on lips... It hurt and felt wonderful.

By now he was out of his chair, and I pressed him against the table. I tried to push him back across the top, so he'd be spread out before me, but he resisted. He put all his weight into his stance and clutched my arms to throw me back. We broke the kiss, and the look in his eyes was wild and hungry as he dug his fingers into my skin.

I locked my hands on his hips and half-lifted, half-shoved until his ass was on the table. He kneed me, landing a couple on my stomach, while I slid between his thighs. With his legs wrapped around me he arched and pressed his palms flat against my chest, pushing me back while I pushed him forward. I kissed him again, not as rough this time, but still scraping and chewing. His hands stopped pushing and started stroking and rubbing my chest.

When we drew apart from the kiss, I looked at him: breathing heavily, hair mussed and sticking up, glasses askew, lips red and swollen from my biting, sweat stains darkening his shirt. I felt the strength in his fingers as they ran up and down my chest, and the strength in his thighs as they squeezed me. My dick was throbbing, beating against my pants, straining the fabric. Daniel might as well have not been wearing pants, I could see the shape of his balls and hard cock so perfectly. I wanted to come all over him.

"Unzip me," I told him.

His eyes flashed me a look and he almost smiled. "That might be dangerous." He circled two fingertips around one of my nipples, then dragged them down my stomach and around my navel.

I gripped his waist, and let one finger reach beneath his shirt to touch his skin underneath. It was burning hot. He swallowed hard, making a strange little moaning noise.

"No, it won't. Because if you try to hurt me, I'll just pull back, and I'll ruin these pants without touching you. Now, if that's what you really want..."

It wasn't, of course. He glared at me, but his chest was heaving, and he licked his lips while his eyes lowered to my pants. He undid the button and unzipped my fly so carefully the glancing touches sent pins and needles through my body. Without being told, he pushed my pants and underwear off my hips and freed me.

He wanted to touch me, I could tell. His hands hesitated. He stared at my dick, knowing, of course, that it was full and hard and throbbing and aching because of him. For him. I took his wrists in my hands and held them away, and shoved my body against his, rubbing my dick against his fly.

He made another new, distinctive sound in his throat. He writhed against me, squeezed his thighs around me and squirmed, and said, "Oh, me too."

I tightened my hold on his wrists. "No, Daniel."

He gave me a wild-eyed, indignant, pissed off look. I kissed him quickly, then pushed my body over his until he was flat on his back on the table and I was on him, humping the thin, rough fabric of his pants. He groaned and writhed and twisted his wrists until his hands were free. He grabbed my back and held me to him, jerking his hips as much as I'd allow.

I lifted to peel his shirt up, and he let go of me long enough so I could pull it off his arms. Then he was crushing me to him again. I thrust wildly, faster, feeling the burn in my balls and skin rising and rising until wham. I was coming. Hard. And good. My jizz spurted across his stomach and chest. One streak of it reached the base of his throat. Then the rest smeared over his pants.

Daniel shivered and groaned loudly, and I knew he was at the end. I managed to get his fly partially undone and reach inside and grab his dick in time. His pants were already ruined -- I hadn't actually intended that, but too late now -- but I wanted to feel him. I wanted his cock in my hand, his come in my fingers. He thrust as he came and long ribbons of it fell across his skin, joining mine.

We were an unholy, sticky mess, plastered to the table and to each other, panting for breath. For a moment, when I let go of his cock and rubbed my thumb in the thick cream still pooled at his tip, I was afraid of what would happen next. I imagined us drawing apart and being awkward and not knowing what to stay.

Lucky for me, Daniel had the right words. We drew apart, but not very far, so we could still touch each other and kiss each other. No awkwardness other than being on a hard dining room table together. And Daniel said in a murmuring voice, "Jack, I hate poker."

-----

New section. Last section, because Daniel's been casting me looks all afternoon as I sit here and type this up on his laptop. It could be jealousy because I'm a touch-typist, but I think he suspects this hasn't been the mission report I claimed it was. And I think my plans for a posthumous fuck-you will never come to pass; Daniel's never going to let this file fall into the wrong hands after he reads it.

You got the down and dirty on our first time. I'm not giving you a blow-by-blow of the months since. Suffice it to say, I love making Daniel fold as much as Daniel loves being made to fold.

There's that word: love. You probably weren't expecting it. I sure wasn't. And I didn't see it, either, for a long time. I thought it was just hot sex. A lot of really hot sex. Then it hit me: I'd been in love for a long time, way before the rainy card game that day on P-whatever.

With a guy with a body that won't quit, and an appetite even more insatiable than mine, and a brilliant mind and dry sense of humor to make the periods in between sex interesting. Who can be obnoxious and condescending and stubborn in an unattractive way, then do or say some small thing that kind of makes me melt inside. Who squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, and sleeps in late when I let him, and hogs the blankets when the mercury dips below 70. Who holds me in the night when dreams are killing me, and strokes my hair, and tells me stupid things I don't care about, just so I can hear his voice. Who gave me a pencil sharpener for my birthday. A pencil sharpener. Electric one with a hula girl on it who jiggles when you sharpen, but still. Novelty item, my ass. Where was I? Oh, yeah. A guy who loves to give head, and be fucked standing up, and will wake me up in the middle of the night to screw me so hard and deep I end up begging him not to stop, and who broke my last inhibition by showing me how much he loves my tongue in his ass. Uh, yeah, anyway... That guy.

The guy for whom I gave up four fours. And if that's not love, I don't know what is.

(the end)

March 2003