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Daniel stared out of the kitchen window in Jack's house watching the rain drip into puddles on the deck. It had been raining steadily for several hours now after a dull, overcast morning. The rain wasn't torrential, there was no thunder or lightening and the wind was gusty rather than gale force. It was the kind of rain that just kept falling steadily without any sign of stopping and managed to soak into everything. In this kind of weather, being inside a warm house with a steaming cup of coffee in hand was a comforting thing and Daniel felt sorry for anyone stuck outside in the cold rain.
What would make this even better would be Jack sidling up behind him, wrapping his arm's around Daniel's waist and resting his head on Daniel's shoulder. Unfortunately, the only trace of Jack's presence was a note on the dining room table saying that he had gone out for groceries and would be back soon.
Daniel sipped his coffee and turned away from the window. Days like today had exactly the right combination of cold, air pressure and damp to make Jack's knee ache. Jack had probably gone out to try to walk it off, a tactic that never worked although he tried it every time, and he would probably come back limping and grumpy. Daniel was irritated with himself for not noticing what the weather was doing and putting that together with Jack's weather-dependant knee.
They had been having a quiet day at home after several hectic weeks of missions and emergencies. Daniel had spent most of the day upstairs in Jack's study. It had originally been a second guestroom but Jack had converted it into a study shortly after he moved in. Until they had begun their relationship, though, the room had been little more than a storage space for Jack's books and a PC that was used infrequently to send emails. When Daniel began spending a lot of time in the house, Jack had put up a few more bookshelves for Daniel's books and bought a small couch. Now archaeology books sat alongside Jack's eclectic collection of books on almost every subject under the sun, from sports and DIY to astronomy and architecture. Daniel had spent most of the day stretched out on that couch catching up on a stack of journals.
He had only surfaced to make coffee and eat a sandwich with Jack at lunch. Jack had spent most of the day in the basement doing something that involved a lot of sawing, hammering and loud rock music. Even though they had spent the day doing separate things, it hadn't really felt like they were apart. Jack had delivered a cup of coffee to Daniel in the study mid-afternoon and Daniel had made their lunch. It was a joint lazy day, each of them working on their own projects.
Daniel was still kicking himself for not noticing that Jack was more restless than normal. He should have remembered that the weather would be bad for Jack or at least noticed whether or not Jack was walking stiffly. Jack could be absolutely infuriating when he caught a slight cold or grazed his knuckles but he was very good at hiding real pain.
Daniel finished his coffee and rinsed out the mug before glancing out at the rain again. Jack would be coming home soon, damp, grumpy and in pain. There was nothing that Daniel could do about the weather, but maybe he could do something to make Jack feel better.
***
Jack carried the bag of groceries up the path to his front door, trying not to limp and failing completely. His knee hurt like crap and seemed to throb harder every time he tried to bend or put weight on it, which made walking torture. Doc Fraiser had been warning him for years that the arthritis in that knee was going to catch up with him and it was on days like these that Jack began to seriously consider retirement.
He juggled the bag while he found his keys and unlocked the door. The drizzling rain had already managed to soak through his jacket even though it didn't look like it was raining hard enough and he really needed to get into the house. The door swung open and suddenly hands were taking the bag out of his arms. Jack resisted for a moment before realising that it was Daniel standing in his doorway with a concerned expression.
"Hey," he said as he allowed Daniel to drag him through the door.
"Hey, Jack," Daniel said, somehow managing to keep a grip on the bag of groceries while his other hand firmly gripped Jack's jacket. "Wet?"
Jack kicked the door closed behind him. "Soaked."
"How's the knee?"
Damn, Daniel had noticed. Jack followed him into the dining room and watched him dump the groceries on the table before turning around with a raised eyebrow.
"A little weather-dependent," Jack admitted.
"And the weather is?"
"Not ideal."
"I thought so. Why do you always go grocery shopping when your knee hurts instead of taking your meds and using a heat pack?"
Jack shrugged. "The drugs make me sleep and the heat pack does squat for the pain. Sometimes walking helps."
"Uh-huh." Daniel had that 'yeah, right' look on his face. It was damn near impossible to get anything past the man. "Follow me."
"Why?" Jack asked, following him anyway.
Daniel's only response was a mysterious smile. Jack followed him up the stairs, limping heavily and cursing inside as each step sent another burst of pain through his knee, and down the corridor to his - no, their - bedroom. Strong hands divested him of his jacket and it was dumped on the floor. Jack thought about picking it up and hanging it neatly, until he remembered that actually getting to the floor to pick it up could be a problem. Then Daniel was kneeling at his feet, unlacing his boots, and Jack forgot about the jacket entirely. Daniel pushed him down to sit on the bed and gently tugged the boots off.
"Think you can manage the rest?" Daniel asked.
"Why?" Jack reviewed that and added, "Uh, yes, but - actually, why is what I meant to ask."
"Just come through to the bathroom when you're ready."
With that, Daniel stood and walked out of the room. Jack tracked the sound of his footsteps to the bathroom and then the quiet click of the door opening and closing. For a moment he sat on the bed staring at the door with a bemused expression. Then he shook off the feeling and began unbuttoning his shirt. He might be puzzled about Daniel's odd behaviour, but he wasn't stupid and it was fairly obvious that his lover intended them to do something naked together. Undressing with a crapped-out knee was a difficult task but not impossible, as long as no one was listening to his cursing when he forgot for a moment and put his entire weight on the bad leg as he stepped out of his pants. That was a mistake he wouldn't be making again in the near future.
His clothes ended up in an untidy pile in the corner of the room and for once he let them stay there. Jack grabbed the robe hanging from the back of the door and pulled it on before limping towards the bathroom. The scene in there was not exactly what he had been expecting; Daniel was still fully clothed and the bath was filled with steaming water that smelled faintly of something . . . flowery?
"Lavender," Daniel said when he noticed Jack's raised eyebrow. "It's supposed to be relaxing."
"I'm going to smell like a flower?" Jack asked incredulously.
Daniel shrugged. "I can always run you a fresh one if you want me to."
Jack looked at the water, steaming temptingly, and decided that temporarily smelling like a flower was a small price to pay for a hot bath. Daniel still showed no inclination towards nakedness and that was a slight surprise.
"You aren't getting in with me?" Jack asked.
"I've got other things to do," Daniel said. "Go on and get in - I'll be back in a few minutes."
The bathroom door was closing behind Daniel before Jack could say anything. He gave up on puzzling out what Daniel was planning, instead shrugging out of the robe and hanging it on the back of the door so that he could actually get to it again later. Climbing into the bath was an interesting - not the good kind of interesting - experience but he managed it and sighed with relief as the hot water surrounded him. The bath wasn't huge but Daniel had filled it to within a couple of inches of the top and Jack was able to prop himself up comfortably with the waterproof pillow Daniel had thoughtfully left for him. The hot water was bliss on his aching knee. Doc Fraiser had told him when his knee first starting acting up that part of the pain was the muscles around his knee tensing up in reaction to the original pain his knee. Apparently there was a cycle of pain and tension that would keep making his knee more painful until he did something sensible like take her knockout drugs or massage some smelly ointment into it.
Jack hated taking knockout drugs and the ointment was awkward to manage on his own. The heat from the bath, though, was beginning to seep into the muscles and unravel knots that he hadn't even known were there.
A quiet knock at the door heralded Daniel opening it to pop his head round. "Jack?"
They'd only been lovers for a few weeks and they were both trying to work out personal space issues. Jack beckoned Daniel in and the archaeologist obeyed, although he was conspicuously keeping his eyes on Jack's face and not on anything below water level. Daniel was also carrying a glass of water and Jack frowned at him.
"It's just Ibuprofen," Daniel reassured him as he reached the bath and held out a couple of white pills. "Take them."
Jack shrugged and accepted the pills and water. He swallowed them quickly and handed the glass back to Daniel.
"Come into the bedroom when you're ready," Daniel said, again leaving before Jack could talk to him.
This was definitely getting into the weird category. Daniel was treating him gently, almost with kid gloves, and there was none of the spark that there usually was when they were together. It was almost as though . . .
Jack barely stopped himself sitting up as the thought came to him. Daniel was taking care of him? Daniel was . . . mother-henning him?
Sure, they looked after each other when they were injured and they each knew that they had a shoulder to cry on should it ever be needed, but Jack had never known Daniel to look after him in this way before. Of course, this was the first time his knee had played up since they became lovers but he hadn't thought their relationship would change things this much.
Did this mean that they were starting to do relationship stuff with each other?
Jack backed up on that thought immediately. They'd been doing relationship stuff together for years; they just hadn't added the sex until recently. It hadn't seemed to change their relationship much except that they spent more time together and arguing was more fun because then they got to make up.
Then again, maybe he just hadn't noticed. There had been so many other things to get used to that he hadn't had the time to really pay attention to everything. He had been more concerned with working out how loving Daniel and having sex with Daniel would fit in with their jobs, not with whether or not they treating each other differently outside the SGC.
The bathwater was beginning to cool so Jack stood and carefully climbed out of the bath. The pain in his knee had settled into a dull throbbing rather than the sharper ache he'd been dealing with earlier but it still wasn't a great feeling. He towelled off and pulled on his robe before limping back to the bedroom.
Daniel was sitting cross-legged on the bed wearing sweat pants and nothing else. There were a couple of large towels spread on the bed and Jack must have looked surprised because Daniel gave him a reassuring smile and gestured him towards the bed.
"What are you up to?" Jack asked as he sat down on the towels.
"Making you feel better," Daniel said. "Lie down."
"Why?"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Because it seemed like a good idea at the time."
"What seemed like a good idea at the time?"
"Do you have to argue with everything I say? Can't you ever just enjoy the surprise?"
"In my experience, surprises aren't something to be enjoyed. They usually involve pain, humiliation or both."
"I promise there won't be either."
The hopeful look in Daniel's eyes was what finally convinced Jack to do as he was told. He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes and stretched out, wincing as his knee protested at being straightened. It was a damn contrary knee; one minute it didn't want him bending it, the next it was complaining about straightening.
Jack opened his eyes when he felt slick, warm hands gently caressing his aching knee. Daniel was straddling his ankles, careful to put no pressure on so he was probably going to end up with a strained muscle somewhere, and he had a look of intense concentration on his face. An herbal scent floated towards Jack and he realised that the slick feeling was some kind of massage oil on Daniel's hands.
"Is this ok, Jack?" Daniel asked.
Jack nodded.
"Let me know if anything hurts."
With that, Daniel began the best massage that Jack had ever had. Strong hands gently manipulated the muscles around his knee, drawing out the pain and tension with consummate skill. When the area around his knee was sufficiently relaxed, Daniel moved down to his calf muscle and massaged out knots that he hadn't even known were there. His thigh received the same careful attention before Daniel moved onto his other leg. Jack just lay on the bed, trying not to moan because it really would be embarrassing to do so when it was just an innocent massage. The low groan as Daniel released a particularly painful knot was something he wasn't going to think about.
Daniel nudged the edge of Jack's robe up so that he could move the massage higher and Jack closed his eyes so that he couldn't see Daniel's face. How desperate was he to be getting turned on by a massage that was supposed to be helping his arthritic knee?
"Jack?"
He opened one eye. "Yeah?"
"It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Jack briefly envied the way that women could hide their arousal, before dismissing the thought and reminding himself that being a man had its compensations. Top of that list of compensations was the look of combined love and lust that Daniel was giving him.
"Let me help you with that," Daniel breathed.
"Could you get any more clichéd?"
***
Daniel had his head pillowed on Jack's chest and a possessive hand wrapped around his waist. His sweats were somewhere in the room, thrown wildly when Jack insisted that he shouldn't be the only one having fun, and his brain still kept having 'you're naked with Jack!' moments. He had assumed that after a few weeks of sleeping together that would stop happening. Ah, well, who said these things were easy. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down into Jack's face, pleased to see that the lines of pain had been replaced with a look of happy satisfaction.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah," Jack sighed. "You've got magic fingers, did you know that?"
Daniel felt a smile spread across his face. "Your knee's feeling better then?"
"Much. Promise me you'll do this every time it plays up?"
He dropped a kiss on Jack's lips. "Promise."
The quiet moment was interrupted by a loud gurgle from the direction of Jack's stomach and Daniel had a moment of smug appreciation when a blush turned Jack's ears pink.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"A little," Jack replied.
"Well, if you hadn't interrupted me, supper in bed was going to be the last act in my cunning plan."
"Sorry."
Jack didn't look at all contrite. In fact, he was looking pleased and there was a slight hint of surprised joy in that expression.
"What were you planning?" Jack asked.
"I ordered in Chinese - it came while you were in the bath. I can heat it up if you want?"
"Sounds great."
Daniel reluctantly rolled off the bed. "Be back in a minute."
"Cool."
He turned to catch Jack watching him with obvious appreciation. The flush that burned his skin had little to do with embarrassment and everything to do with that expression on Jack's face. He grinned at Jack and spied his sweats hanging off the wardrobe.
"Leave them," Jack said, following his eyes.
Daniel grabbed the pants and pulled them on. "Exhibitionist."
"Prude."
It was said with such a light, loving tone that Daniel couldn't be angry with Jack. His lover found his modesty amusing and Daniel found Jack's casual approach to nudity a turn-on. They were working on finding a middle ground, as they were working on so many things in this relationship.
He was at the door when Jack's voice called him back.
"Thanks," Jack said.
Daniel smiled at him. "Any time."