Sam and her boys, 7a: Retirement, PG13, Sam/Jack/Siler
Back to Chapter 7: Hip
or to Chapter 1 for info
To read it all the chapters on one page, click here
Summary: Siler had a tough day (july - 2 months PB)
Chapter 7a: Retirement (PG13)
AN: This chapter may be altered at some future date, should its past change.. (eg)
but I'll warn ya when that happens
***by the by, if you are reading this endlessly bunnied saga that has eaten my brain, feel free to drop even the shortest word, you'd be amazed how it makes me grin.. well.. if you could see you would be.. lol - ok, no more begging for today, on to making room in my WIP file
Siler felt like hell. Watching the red light in front of him, every breath ached, every shift of his body was pain. He wanted to be home; wanted to fall -make that, 'gingerly lay down'- into bed and not move for a week.
The light changed and he turned automatically, wondering if it'd be worth the teasing from Jack to talk about retirement. Spending those few days in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago had been.. beyond relaxing. And fun. Even fishing in a pond with only one fish had been restful; though he did feel a little silly at first.
Listening to Sam tease Jack. Sitting in his chair quietly as the man replied in kind; somehow feeling included in their bond. Having Sam stop and scratch his head as she walked by him on the dock, with the hot sun beating down on his all-too work-pale face. Tiny things; but added to the emotional intimacy that had also crept in amongst the sex, it had pretty much cemented him to them.
Even then he couldn't have denied anymore that the thought of losing them was enough to almost terrify him when he made the mistake of letting himself contemplate it. With the last couple of weeks of even tighter intimacy...
He parked the truck, staring at the gutters he put up last weekend. Damn. Sleep-driving was *not* a good thing. He should turn around and go to *his* house as he'd planned.
But he was so fucking sore.
It wasn't as though he didn't think he'd be welcome; as much as he still felt a little like he was butting in sometimes, the shape he was in, he wasn't going to be getting between anyone tonight. He'd planned to go home for no better reason than to avoid needlessly dealing with their sympathy and mothering.
But it looked like deep down, it didn't matter that he'd spent the last couple of decades with nothing but his job and his hobbies; he obviously liked this whole, sometimes stressful, family bit. Maybe it was even time to admit that he was, for all intents of purpose, living with them... The momentary panic that that thought brought out made him hurriedly bury it. Okay, maybe not quite ready for that.
Too tired to run, he finally made himself get out, stumbling around to the front of the house from where he parked out of sight.
Siler's head hung and he watched the ground under his feet, every painful step making the 'R' word seem less and less scary. It wasn't as though he'd be bored; he'd have Jack for company. Wouldn't have to do without Sam every few weeks because of conflicting schedules...
He found the right key on his ring and opened the door, stepping through with an unconscious sigh of ease, remembering with a strange feeling of time dragging him along how much he'd resisted using that innocent piece of metal.
Slowly and painfully getting his boots off, he called out tiredly, "It's just me."
"So it is SergeantSiler."
Siler's head jerked up, painfully, eyes widening as he met Teal'c's curiously raised brow, "Teal'c." He very reluctantly looked besides the smirking warrior, "Doctor Jackson."
Daniel's reply had a very practised blandness that made Siler wince even more than the invisible Jaffa-smirk, "Sergeant."
The three of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Siler saw Sam shoulder her way through her teammates with a blush-defying scowl, "Siler, what the hell did you do to yourself??"
Reminded of the condition of his body -as well as the expected sympathy-, he winced, making himself stand still as she very carefully touched the bruising around his eye, "Testing that new impact suit," he flinched when she touched his arm on a bruise, "It needs some work."
"I *told* you to ask for a slave for these damn things, *you* don't need to be getting beaten up like this."
"Yes ma'am. Even *I* thought it was ready."
Siler could see her teammates grinning behind her as he stood quietly and took the lecture and mothering until Jack spoke from between his friends, smirking at the woman they would both die for, "Carter, at least pour him into a hot bath before you start the nagging."
Sam glared over her shoulder for a second but then she grumbled something under her breath and gently -unnecessarily- guided Siler up the stairs and toward their bedroom, ignoring the Jaffa and the archaeologist watching with interested smirks and her old commanding officer, fooling no one by hiding his concern under teasing.
Jack poured himself a drink when he walked back into the living room, bracing for he-didn't-quite-know-what. He wasn't ashamed of his relationship. He really wasn't. But T' and Danny boy were his closest friends, and if they had a problem with it... It would hurt Siler to know Jack had had to make a choice.
He finally turned and faced them, a little surprised at their casual positions; right back on the couch, relaxing with their drinks as though there hadn't been a door opening without a knock. As though Sam hadn't just turned into the typical worried girlfriend and wasn't upstairs with another man. He sat in his chair and looked at them, unable to see anything but mild amusement. "T'? Somehow I kinda expected you to have something to say.." Or *ask*...
Teal'c's brow raised, head tilting with what a stranger would have called impassivity but he recognized as laughter, "Did you O'Neill? On the contrary. It is not unheard of on Chulak for a woman to have two husbands. It can be a source of much reassurance to know your family is not unprotected when your duties call you away from your home."
Seeing Daniel blink at their alien friend in surprise made Jack feel better; for once he wasn't the last to hear about weird Jaffa traditions. "And you, Danny-boy?" No matter how accepting of cultures SG-1's diplomat might be, Daniel had still been raised to the North American standard...
The no-longer-young archaeologist that had been a part of saving his suicidal hide so many years ago gave him an innocent look and then a grin that had gotten rarer with the years, "Hey, I'm with Teal'c. I'm sure Sam feels much better knowing you're not alone when she goes to war."
It figured. "Shut *up*, Daniel." But he was smiling hesitantly as he said it, deeply grateful for his friends.
####
Here fits kirsty841's A little TLC
####
When Sam came back down to join them a little while later, Jack wondered at the mixed feelings that that very large hand print, so intimately high on her thigh, sent through him. Siler was such a part of *him* these days that a hell of lot more than half his reaction was pleasure at the public proprietary mark that might as well be his. That there was a tiny, quark-esque even, hint of.. not jealousy, per say, but.. maybe just a small, childish wish for her to carry *his* mark too... Well, they'd had the 'jealousy' discussion just a few days ago; he wasn't going to have it brought back.
He squashed the foolishness as she picked up her glass of wine from the table, but when she went to move around to the free armchair, Jack took the opportunity and pulled her onto his lap with forced casualness, "How is he?"
She looked at her friendlily smiling teammates, curious about the conversation she'd missed and impressed with their self-control at not even glancing at her leg. "Very black and blue and feeling old. He should have been kept in the infirmary with some happy-drugs. I'm going to bet he insisted on being allowed to go home; you're a bad influence on him." She ignored the proud smirk that that put on the retired general's face, content to lean back on his chest and relax, a little amused at the way his fingers were tracing the wet patch on her thigh.
His sudden physical possessiveness in front of their friends also made her smirk a little; they'd had such a strange 'courtship', and now relationship, that there weren't all that many opportunities to lay claim to each other publicly. In small doses, it was nice to know she was wanted; the jealous idiot that Jack could become, sometimes, was a different matter of course. But then this was a strange enough situation that she could easily forgive the slip. "He says he's wiped and he's just going to swallow some pills and go to bed."
"So he lives here?"
Daniel's casual tone didn't *seem* faked, though she still looked at him askance. Glancing at Jack and accepting his almost unnoticeable nod as meaning everything was fine, she stumbled through the grey area for a reply. "He.. spends most of his time here, these days." It was very strange to realize that only a couple of months had passed since the three of them had started this relationship; sometimes she felt as though they'd all been 'together' for a decade. But then she also remembered that even after getting back from the closeness they'd shared in Minnesota, Siler had still assumed he needed an invitation. She shrugged, "But he has his own home."
"I don't know, seems to me *this*-" They all looked up at the slow footsteps coming down the stairs.
Siler winced at the attention, but he'd felt guilty leaving them to take what he suspected would be a pile of teasing alone, and when he'd laid down, he'd realized he was starving. "Err, just a little hungry," he muttered tiredly, making a small wave toward the kitchen, not sure, suddenly, that he should interrupt the gathering of the original SG-1, "Didn't mean to-"
But Sam was already up and making him sit in the other armchair with a carefully placed but firm push, "Sit down before you *fall* down. I'll get you something to eat."
Jack snickered out loud at the badly-hidden wince that crossed the sergeant's face before he spoke hurriedly, waking slightly, "That's OK, you really *don't* have-"
Sam rolled her eyes, glaring all around as even Daniel smirked, "There's *pizza*. Unless you don't trust my dishing that out?" She ended with her hands on her hips, glaring down into Siler's very bruised face, trying not to melt with the need to take care of him; her cooking wasn't *that* bad, she was very tired of the implication!
"Sorry, Sam."
The boys all watched as she snorted and walked away, obviously still miffed at all of them.
"That was not a wise move SergeantSiler."
Siler turned to the Jaffa, tense at the dive into an unfamiliar situation but forcing himself to act friendly with the people his lovers had been friends with for so long, "Yeah," he tried to grin, but ended up wincing as the cuts on his lip cracked and burned, voice dropping as the good the bath had done to his body's aches and to his energy faded, "I'd blame the painkillers if I thought it'd help."
Jack shook his head, getting up with a growing worried frown, "Don't bother. Just skip straight to making sad eyes. Especially with that shiner you've got, should work like a charm."
"Well technically it *is* charm."
Crouching in front of Siler, Jack muttered "Shut *up* Danny boy." as a practised aside.
Refraining from reacting, Daniel watched the same tells he'd seen for years as his buddy self-consciously choked back his instinct to touch, instead frowning as though annoyed, trying to hide his very real care and worry. Even the tense, snarky mutter was the same as Daniel'd had heard aimed at every member of SG-1 for years.
"You taken your pills?"
Daniel's eyes shifted to the sergeant that had always been at the periphery of their lives, noticing that the unaccustomed BDUs looked an awful lot like they were borrowed, by their fit. Especially with the tear on the epaulet that made Daniel picture a star being ripped off in a hurry.
"Not yet," the man's voice was definitely fading, his eyes drooping, "Wanted to eat, and you know how they knock me for a loop."
The implication of familiarity in the words were as much of a giveaway as Jack touching his forehead would have been. As Jack carefully handing him his own drink *was*.
"Just a sip, Sparky."
Daniel choked a snigger at the glare that that mothering got the retired general. "I'm not a child, or a fool. Lay *off*, general."
He shared a laughing glance with Teal'c's amused raised brow, seeing a smirk cross the Jaffa's face. Yeah, *they* didn't have to worry about Jack either now.
Next in the verse is Chapter 7b: Life
or to Chapter 1 for info
To read it all the chapters on one page, click here
Summary: Siler had a tough day (july - 2 months PB)
Chapter 7a: Retirement (PG13)
AN: This chapter may be altered at some future date, should its past change.. (eg)
but I'll warn ya when that happens
***by the by, if you are reading this endlessly bunnied saga that has eaten my brain, feel free to drop even the shortest word, you'd be amazed how it makes me grin.. well.. if you could see you would be.. lol - ok, no more begging for today, on to making room in my WIP file
Siler felt like hell. Watching the red light in front of him, every breath ached, every shift of his body was pain. He wanted to be home; wanted to fall -make that, 'gingerly lay down'- into bed and not move for a week.
The light changed and he turned automatically, wondering if it'd be worth the teasing from Jack to talk about retirement. Spending those few days in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago had been.. beyond relaxing. And fun. Even fishing in a pond with only one fish had been restful; though he did feel a little silly at first.
Listening to Sam tease Jack. Sitting in his chair quietly as the man replied in kind; somehow feeling included in their bond. Having Sam stop and scratch his head as she walked by him on the dock, with the hot sun beating down on his all-too work-pale face. Tiny things; but added to the emotional intimacy that had also crept in amongst the sex, it had pretty much cemented him to them.
Even then he couldn't have denied anymore that the thought of losing them was enough to almost terrify him when he made the mistake of letting himself contemplate it. With the last couple of weeks of even tighter intimacy...
He parked the truck, staring at the gutters he put up last weekend. Damn. Sleep-driving was *not* a good thing. He should turn around and go to *his* house as he'd planned.
But he was so fucking sore.
It wasn't as though he didn't think he'd be welcome; as much as he still felt a little like he was butting in sometimes, the shape he was in, he wasn't going to be getting between anyone tonight. He'd planned to go home for no better reason than to avoid needlessly dealing with their sympathy and mothering.
But it looked like deep down, it didn't matter that he'd spent the last couple of decades with nothing but his job and his hobbies; he obviously liked this whole, sometimes stressful, family bit. Maybe it was even time to admit that he was, for all intents of purpose, living with them... The momentary panic that that thought brought out made him hurriedly bury it. Okay, maybe not quite ready for that.
Too tired to run, he finally made himself get out, stumbling around to the front of the house from where he parked out of sight.
Siler's head hung and he watched the ground under his feet, every painful step making the 'R' word seem less and less scary. It wasn't as though he'd be bored; he'd have Jack for company. Wouldn't have to do without Sam every few weeks because of conflicting schedules...
He found the right key on his ring and opened the door, stepping through with an unconscious sigh of ease, remembering with a strange feeling of time dragging him along how much he'd resisted using that innocent piece of metal.
Slowly and painfully getting his boots off, he called out tiredly, "It's just me."
"So it is SergeantSiler."
Siler's head jerked up, painfully, eyes widening as he met Teal'c's curiously raised brow, "Teal'c." He very reluctantly looked besides the smirking warrior, "Doctor Jackson."
Daniel's reply had a very practised blandness that made Siler wince even more than the invisible Jaffa-smirk, "Sergeant."
The three of them stared at each other for a few seconds before Siler saw Sam shoulder her way through her teammates with a blush-defying scowl, "Siler, what the hell did you do to yourself??"
Reminded of the condition of his body -as well as the expected sympathy-, he winced, making himself stand still as she very carefully touched the bruising around his eye, "Testing that new impact suit," he flinched when she touched his arm on a bruise, "It needs some work."
"I *told* you to ask for a slave for these damn things, *you* don't need to be getting beaten up like this."
"Yes ma'am. Even *I* thought it was ready."
Siler could see her teammates grinning behind her as he stood quietly and took the lecture and mothering until Jack spoke from between his friends, smirking at the woman they would both die for, "Carter, at least pour him into a hot bath before you start the nagging."
Sam glared over her shoulder for a second but then she grumbled something under her breath and gently -unnecessarily- guided Siler up the stairs and toward their bedroom, ignoring the Jaffa and the archaeologist watching with interested smirks and her old commanding officer, fooling no one by hiding his concern under teasing.
Jack poured himself a drink when he walked back into the living room, bracing for he-didn't-quite-know-what. He wasn't ashamed of his relationship. He really wasn't. But T' and Danny boy were his closest friends, and if they had a problem with it... It would hurt Siler to know Jack had had to make a choice.
He finally turned and faced them, a little surprised at their casual positions; right back on the couch, relaxing with their drinks as though there hadn't been a door opening without a knock. As though Sam hadn't just turned into the typical worried girlfriend and wasn't upstairs with another man. He sat in his chair and looked at them, unable to see anything but mild amusement. "T'? Somehow I kinda expected you to have something to say.." Or *ask*...
Teal'c's brow raised, head tilting with what a stranger would have called impassivity but he recognized as laughter, "Did you O'Neill? On the contrary. It is not unheard of on Chulak for a woman to have two husbands. It can be a source of much reassurance to know your family is not unprotected when your duties call you away from your home."
Seeing Daniel blink at their alien friend in surprise made Jack feel better; for once he wasn't the last to hear about weird Jaffa traditions. "And you, Danny-boy?" No matter how accepting of cultures SG-1's diplomat might be, Daniel had still been raised to the North American standard...
The no-longer-young archaeologist that had been a part of saving his suicidal hide so many years ago gave him an innocent look and then a grin that had gotten rarer with the years, "Hey, I'm with Teal'c. I'm sure Sam feels much better knowing you're not alone when she goes to war."
It figured. "Shut *up*, Daniel." But he was smiling hesitantly as he said it, deeply grateful for his friends.
####
Here fits kirsty841's A little TLC
####
When Sam came back down to join them a little while later, Jack wondered at the mixed feelings that that very large hand print, so intimately high on her thigh, sent through him. Siler was such a part of *him* these days that a hell of lot more than half his reaction was pleasure at the public proprietary mark that might as well be his. That there was a tiny, quark-esque even, hint of.. not jealousy, per say, but.. maybe just a small, childish wish for her to carry *his* mark too... Well, they'd had the 'jealousy' discussion just a few days ago; he wasn't going to have it brought back.
He squashed the foolishness as she picked up her glass of wine from the table, but when she went to move around to the free armchair, Jack took the opportunity and pulled her onto his lap with forced casualness, "How is he?"
She looked at her friendlily smiling teammates, curious about the conversation she'd missed and impressed with their self-control at not even glancing at her leg. "Very black and blue and feeling old. He should have been kept in the infirmary with some happy-drugs. I'm going to bet he insisted on being allowed to go home; you're a bad influence on him." She ignored the proud smirk that that put on the retired general's face, content to lean back on his chest and relax, a little amused at the way his fingers were tracing the wet patch on her thigh.
His sudden physical possessiveness in front of their friends also made her smirk a little; they'd had such a strange 'courtship', and now relationship, that there weren't all that many opportunities to lay claim to each other publicly. In small doses, it was nice to know she was wanted; the jealous idiot that Jack could become, sometimes, was a different matter of course. But then this was a strange enough situation that she could easily forgive the slip. "He says he's wiped and he's just going to swallow some pills and go to bed."
"So he lives here?"
Daniel's casual tone didn't *seem* faked, though she still looked at him askance. Glancing at Jack and accepting his almost unnoticeable nod as meaning everything was fine, she stumbled through the grey area for a reply. "He.. spends most of his time here, these days." It was very strange to realize that only a couple of months had passed since the three of them had started this relationship; sometimes she felt as though they'd all been 'together' for a decade. But then she also remembered that even after getting back from the closeness they'd shared in Minnesota, Siler had still assumed he needed an invitation. She shrugged, "But he has his own home."
"I don't know, seems to me *this*-" They all looked up at the slow footsteps coming down the stairs.
Siler winced at the attention, but he'd felt guilty leaving them to take what he suspected would be a pile of teasing alone, and when he'd laid down, he'd realized he was starving. "Err, just a little hungry," he muttered tiredly, making a small wave toward the kitchen, not sure, suddenly, that he should interrupt the gathering of the original SG-1, "Didn't mean to-"
But Sam was already up and making him sit in the other armchair with a carefully placed but firm push, "Sit down before you *fall* down. I'll get you something to eat."
Jack snickered out loud at the badly-hidden wince that crossed the sergeant's face before he spoke hurriedly, waking slightly, "That's OK, you really *don't* have-"
Sam rolled her eyes, glaring all around as even Daniel smirked, "There's *pizza*. Unless you don't trust my dishing that out?" She ended with her hands on her hips, glaring down into Siler's very bruised face, trying not to melt with the need to take care of him; her cooking wasn't *that* bad, she was very tired of the implication!
"Sorry, Sam."
The boys all watched as she snorted and walked away, obviously still miffed at all of them.
"That was not a wise move SergeantSiler."
Siler turned to the Jaffa, tense at the dive into an unfamiliar situation but forcing himself to act friendly with the people his lovers had been friends with for so long, "Yeah," he tried to grin, but ended up wincing as the cuts on his lip cracked and burned, voice dropping as the good the bath had done to his body's aches and to his energy faded, "I'd blame the painkillers if I thought it'd help."
Jack shook his head, getting up with a growing worried frown, "Don't bother. Just skip straight to making sad eyes. Especially with that shiner you've got, should work like a charm."
"Well technically it *is* charm."
Crouching in front of Siler, Jack muttered "Shut *up* Danny boy." as a practised aside.
Refraining from reacting, Daniel watched the same tells he'd seen for years as his buddy self-consciously choked back his instinct to touch, instead frowning as though annoyed, trying to hide his very real care and worry. Even the tense, snarky mutter was the same as Daniel'd had heard aimed at every member of SG-1 for years.
"You taken your pills?"
Daniel's eyes shifted to the sergeant that had always been at the periphery of their lives, noticing that the unaccustomed BDUs looked an awful lot like they were borrowed, by their fit. Especially with the tear on the epaulet that made Daniel picture a star being ripped off in a hurry.
"Not yet," the man's voice was definitely fading, his eyes drooping, "Wanted to eat, and you know how they knock me for a loop."
The implication of familiarity in the words were as much of a giveaway as Jack touching his forehead would have been. As Jack carefully handing him his own drink *was*.
"Just a sip, Sparky."
Daniel choked a snigger at the glare that that mothering got the retired general. "I'm not a child, or a fool. Lay *off*, general."
He shared a laughing glance with Teal'c's amused raised brow, seeing a smirk cross the Jaffa's face. Yeah, *they* didn't have to worry about Jack either now.
Next in the verse is Chapter 7b: Life