"Remind me again what we're doing here?" Jack muttered in Daniel's ear.
Daniel looked around, taking in the queue they were currently in. He was sitting propped against a wall with Jack next to him, so close that their shoulders were pressed against each other, and their legs stretched out to trip anyone trying to skip forward in the queue. The line snaked further behind them than it did in front of them, a fact that Daniel had already pointed out to Jack three times.
"We're being supportive," Daniel said firmly.
He watched Jack glance at Teal'c standing patiently facing the front of the line, looking as though nothing could move or perturb him short of a tactical nuke in the face.
Jack turned back to him. "We are?"
Daniel supportively elbowed him in the ribs. "We are."
He could understand Jack's discomfort. Chattering, excited sci-fi fans surrounded them, more than a few in some kind of costume. Daniel was actually finding the whole thing fascinating from an academic point of view. What motivated that woman to dress up as Xena, or that group of women to dress in Starfleet uniforms? At least half the people around him were wearing some kind of fan-based T-shirt. Many of them had the look of official merchandise, but the more interesting ones were the T-shirts identifying various groups who had obviously come together. Coming to this convention was like stepping into a new world with completely different rules to the world outside the convention centre.
"That can't be comfortable," Jack said, nodding towards someone walking past in a Chewbacca costume.
"Neither can that," Daniel replied, nodding towards a man in skin-tight leather.
There was no reply and after a moment he glanced at Jack to find that the other man had his eyes closed and a half-smile on his face.
"What?" Daniel whispered.
The smile widened. "Just getting a mental picture here."
The hint of wickedness in Jack's smile told Daniel exactly what mental images he was getting.
"I am not dressing up like that," he hissed.
Jack sighed. "Yeah, it would be pretty difficult to get you out of that without cutting you out, and that much leather would be a shame to waste. That might work, though."
Daniel looked in the direction that Jack was staring and saw a man in leather pants, slightly looser this time, a black T-shirt and a sleeveless, dark red leather vest. It was marginally better than the skin-tight version, but he still couldn't imagine himself in it.
The evil grin on Jack's face said that he could.
"You're sick, you do know that?" Daniel asked.
Jack shrugged. "I thought that's what you loved about me."
Daniel ignored him and resumed his people watching. He glanced towards the front of the line and couldn't help smiling as he saw Sam and Janet slumped miserably against a wall, sunglasses shading their eyes and large cups of coffee clutched in their hands. The two women had spent most of the evening in the hotel bar. He had heard their drunken giggles passing the door of the room he was sharing with Jack at around three in the morning and now they were paying the price. Teal'c had been with them but apparently stayed with water so there was no hangover to deal with. Daniel spent a moment trying to imagine Teal'c with a hangover before deciding that it was a concept he could not wrap his mind around.
Actually, he thought he detected a hint of excitement in Teal'c's usually stoic expression. The Jaffa had been standing patiently in the queue for the past hour and a half, ignoring Jack's ill-disguised impatience and Sam and Janet's hangovers. This had all been Teal'c's idea originally. He had found an advert in a science-fiction magazine for a 'multi-fandom convention' and somehow had managed to talk all of them into accompanying him. Daniel still had no idea what lure he had used to get Jack to join in. Deep down he hoped that it was the idea of a weekend in a hotel with him that had convinced Jack, but he knew that it was more likely that Jack had simply given in to get some peace after the rest of his team decided to go.
"How long have we been here?" Jack asked quietly.
Daniel checked his watch. "Almost two hours."
"I can't believe I've been queuing for two hours," Jack sighed.
"I think it's a convention tradition," Daniel said, gesturing to the groups in the line ahead of them. "They've probably been in line longer than we have."
The first group in the line looked like they had been there for hours. They were sprawled on coats and cushions, passing around packets of cookies and making so much noise that Sam and Janet kept wincing.
"Remind me again why Teal'c brought us here?" Jack asked.
Without turning around, Teal'c said, "We are here to meet the actors from various important science-fiction television programs and purchase merchandise. This is a custom for all science-fiction fans."
"Thanks, T," Jack said dryly.
"You are welcome."
They were silent for a while and when Daniel glanced at Jack, the other man was resting his head back against the wall with his eyes closed and a small smile on his face. It had been an odd weekend so far. The hotel they had booked into had been filled with fans coming to this convention and nobody had given them a second glance, even though Sam and Janet kept calling Jack 'Colonel' and Teal'c was wearing a Star Wars baseball cap. The cap probably helped him to blend in better than any of them. Daniel had been surprised to find only one double bed in their room but Jack's eyes had lit up at the sight and so far they had managed to keep Sam and Janet out of the room so they couldn't see the sleeping arrangements and start to wonder. There had been a moment of breathless fear when Daniel heard them pause at the door last night, but the girls had just laughed drunkenly and eventually moved on to their room at the end of the corridor.
"I'm bored," Jack announced quietly.
Daniel checked his watch and noted with surprise that they had managed to stay in this queue for two and a half hours before Jack became bored enough to mention it.
"I'm sure we'll start going in soon," Daniel said.
Jack grunted and shifted uncomfortably. "Do you think they'd be willing to hold our places while we found somewhere more comfortable for a while?"
Daniel glanced at Sam and Janet, who were starting to look a little less pale. "Can you think of an excuse to go back to the hotel that won't sound suspicious?"
"I could say that we're tired."
Daniel raised an eyebrow and after a moment Jack shrugged.
"Not convincing, huh?"
"Not when you spent most of breakfast boasting about how good you felt, no," Daniel confirmed.
Jack grinned. "Who knew Carter got hangovers?"
Daniel couldn't help the smile that started to twitch at the corners of his mouth. Sam's expression as they tucked into hearty breakfasts had been almost as pitiful as Janet's.
"So, any idea what we're doing when we get in there?" Jack asked.
Daniel flickered a glance at Teal'c but the Jaffa was too absorbed in watching a group of Battlestar Galactica fans. "Teal'c wants Jeri Ryan's autograph."
"Jeri who?"
"The blonde woman from Voyager."
For a moment Jack's eyes glazed over. "The one with the cat suits?"
Daniel elbowed him in the ribs. "Teal'c says she's an accomplished actress."
"Uh-huh." Jack followed another Xena with his eyes. "Has it occurred to you to question the sanity of these people?"
A giggling group of women in matching Wormhole X-Treme T-shirts wandered past. "Some of them, yeah. How could anyone watch that program?"
Jack glanced at the group. "They had a taste by-pass. Pretty much everyone here had to have one just to get through the door."
"That's not fair," Daniel protested, trying not to laugh. "Some of these people . . . uh, they . . . I . . ."
He became distracted and trailed off incoherently. That was definitely a contender for the most detailed costume of the weekend.
"What is that?" Jack breathed.
"I have no idea," Daniel said in the same tone as he watched the person in head to toe blue robes and blue make-up walk past.
"I believe that is intended to be Zhaan from the series Farscape," Teal'c said suddenly.
"Oh," Daniel said weakly, suddenly deciding that group in Starfleet uniforms that were following her were actually quite normal by comparison.
"That's . . . wow," Jack murmured. "I wonder how she got all that blue stuff on."
"With a lot of help."
"Yeah."
There was silence again and Daniel followed Jack's example, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. Snippets of conversation floated over him from the groups around him but not much of it made any sense to him. After a while his mind began to wander aimlessly and a few minutes later he was half-dozing.
When something landed across his lap, the groggy half-doze refused to release him so all he could do was wonder vaguely what it was before fragments of dreams chased the thought away. A while later he felt something - a hand? - slide onto his thigh and this time he managed to pull himself out of the dream and half-open his eyes. He glanced down to find Jack's leather coat slung partially over his legs. There was no sign of Jack's hand and the other man also looked asleep but there was no doubt in Daniel's mind that the hand currently taking liberties with his thigh belonged to Jack.
He slid his hand under the coat and grabbed Jack's wrist. That only stopped Jack for a moment before he somehow twisted his wrist out of Daniel's grip and resumed his surreptitious groping. Daniel closed his eyes as Jack's hand wandered up a couple of inches and hoped that the expression on his face looked closer to sleepy than he thought it did.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his lips barely moving.
"I'm bored," Jack whispered.
"It won't be much longer," Daniel whispered.
"You slept through the steward's announcement," Jack said, his voice sounding remarkably calm for a man who was currently feeling up his lover while only sheltered by a coat. "They're cable-tying a thousand chairs together. It could take a while."
Daniel's eyes shot open as Jack's hand moved another inch so that it was a whisper away from his groin.
"Think of an excuse, Daniel," Jack said without opening his eyes. "I did not agree to this weekend because I like science-fiction."
"You didn't?"
Jack leaned closer so that he could mutter in Daniel's ear. "No, genius. I'm here because I couldn't pass up the chance to spend a weekend in a hotel room with you. I hadn't anticipated that they'd actually make us come to this thing."
Daniel swallowed and thought quickly. The hand was busily tormenting him and even the sight of an overweight Xena couldn't squelch the heat that was beginning to unfurl at the base of his stomach.
"Uh-"
"Daniel . . ."
"I'm thinking."
"Think faster."
Daniel made another fruitless attempt to grab Jack's hand and hold it still, in the process glancing to the side and catching sight of Sam and Janet out of the corner of his eye. Both women were staring pitifully at their empty coffee cups and an idea formed.
"Do you want some coffee?" he asked loudly.
Jack raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to speak but he was drowned out by his second in command's eager voice.
"You'd do that for us?" she asked, wincing as she turned her head too quickly.
"Of course," Daniel said, smiling slightly as Jack's hand stealthily withdrew.
"Black, three sugars," Janet said gratefully. "Largest cup they make, please."
"Teal'c?" Daniel asked.
"Water will be sufficient," Teal'c said without taking his eyes off the doors to the hall the convention was being held in.
"Jack, I might need a hand carrying it all," Daniel said casually.
Jack wasted no time jumping to his feet and holding out a hand to help Daniel up. "No problem."
Daniel allowed Jack to haul him up, just this once, and they began walking down the wide hallway that linked the different rooms in the convention centre. There was a coffee shop opposite the line they had been waiting in but neither man even glanced at it.
"Where are we going?" Daniel asked.
Jack grinned. "I have a plan."
A curve in the hallway took them out of view of the queue and a moment later Jack grabbed Daniel's arm and pulled him to a halt.
"Jack?"
The hallway was buzzing with people but nobody seemed to be paying attention to them. Daniel saw Jack glance at a grey door half hidden behind a potted tree and began to get a sinking feeling. The problem was, that slightly worried feeling was shot through with sparks of desire that only seemed to be fanned higher by the danger.
"We're clear," Jack muttered and pulled Daniel towards the door.
Daniel followed, trying to look innocuous and suspecting that he was failing spectacularly. Jack pushed the door open slightly and smiled wolfishly when nobody cried out. A moment later Daniel was in a well-lit janitor's closet and Jack was leaning against the door with that wicked smile on his face.
"Alone at last," Jack said, his smile widening.
"We were alone last night," Daniel pointed out, trying to resist the temptation step forward and kiss the man.
"That was hours ago," Jack said.
"What did I do to deserve you?"
Jack stepped away from the door and began searching the shelves. "We were both very good on our last mission and this is our reward."
He held up a sliver of wood with a triumphant expression and wedged it tightly under the door.
"Ready?"
Daniel nodded and stopped resisting.
***
The pounding in her head was slowly beginning to subside so Sam carefully opened her eyes, pleasantly surprised to find that the red-hot needles that had been poking her eyes before had now gone. She glanced at her watch and frowned as she realised that the colonel and Daniel had been gone for a long time. There was a coffee shop across the hallway but she couldn't see either man in the line. She was just starting to worry when she saw them round the corner in the hallway, heading straight for the convention queue. As they drew closer she could see that they were both laden with coffee cups and wrappers from the coffee shop at the complex's entrance. After a moment's observation she decided that the hangover was affecting her judgement. It looked like both men were wearing smug, satisfied grins and the last two buttons on the colonel's short-sleeved shirt had been fastened oddly. She blinked and, although the grin had disappeared from Daniel's face, the buttons on Jack's shirt still looked strange.
"How are you feeling?" Daniel asked as he handed her a large cup of steaming coffee.
Sam gratefully inhaled the steam before answering. "Never let me drink that much again."
"Brownie?" Daniel asked, holding up a small paper bag.
Sam's stomach lurched uncomfortably. "Um, thanks but no thanks. Sorry."
Daniel shrugged. "Don't worry about it."
He handed Teal'c a bottle of water and joined the colonel sitting on the floor with their legs stretched out in front of them. Sam wasn't close enough to hear their muttered conversation and she quickly decided that she didn't care. The coffee aroma surrounded her and she closed her eyes to allow it to gently ease away the hangover. Puzzles like the buttons on a colonel's shirt weren't her concern, after all.
*finis*