jennickels | [REPOST] Stargate SG-1 fic: Healthy Fear of the Dark

Jack and Sam are trapped in the dark. What to do to bide their time?

(This story was originally written in 2011 and has been updated for composition and clarity in 2020.)

923 words | [PG-13]

“Carter, watch your hands.”

“Sorry, sir; I can’t see.”

“Well, neither can I, but you don’t see me putting my hands-”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I know, Carter. Hold on a second. And watch those hands.” Jack maneuvered away from his second-in-command. At least as much as he could with their bodies pressed so closely together in the confined space. He tried to ignore the heat radiating off of her. Or maybe the heat was coming from him. Either way, it was getting too hot to be comfortable.

Jack slid his hands along the smooth surface surrounding them but didn’t find what he was looking for. With a sigh, he turned back around. His hands—despite trying very hard to be aware of where they were—landed on something soft. Something soft and attached to the woman currently occupying the area in front of him.

She stilled completely before he jerked his hands back with a mumbled apology—both reactions coming a few beats too late. To his relief, she just snorted in what he hoped was amusement.

“Anything?” she asked after they both recovered some of their dignity.

Jack shook his head then rolled his eyes at himself. Not that Carter could see either. “No. What happened to the lights?”

“I don’t know, sir. I came in to investigate that weird noise-”

“I know, I heard it, too. It was driving me nuts. And, BAM, it’s dark and then you were there and... the hands.”

Carter giggled softly, and he felt her body moving around. He realized she was covering her mouth with her hand. He’d never been sure why girls did that when they laugh, but he wasn’t about to ask her. After a moment she cleared her throat.

The air was heating up again. A lot. And fast. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of Jack’s neck, but he was leery about moving any part of his body now. Carter didn’t seem as concerned. She wiggled around and scooted back and forth completely unaware of the effect she was having on him.

Or maybe not.

Her hand touched him again—this time coming to rest on his chest just over his pounding heart. The rush of blood in his head was deafening.

“It’s dark,” she said after a while—her voice barely above a whisper.

“I noticed.”

“I used to be afraid of the dark. When I was a kid.”

He found that hard to believe. “You, afraid?”

Her bangs tickled his chin when she nodded, but she offered no more insight into the statement. Instead, her hand drifted up, sliding over his shoulder and then down his arm before stopping at his hand; her fingers brushed against his wrist.

Jack swallowed hard. He knew that all living things created an electrical charge, but he wondered if two people could create a spark hot enough to ignite the air because it sure felt like the room was on fire now. Slowly his hand groped blindly for her body, finding her waist. She leaned into the touch, her body so close he could feel her breath on his neck. Her hand started moving again—feeling its way under his uniform shirt and around his waistband.

Jack couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. There was just the heat and Carter’s fingers tugging the hem of his t-shirt out of his pants. The skin-to-skin contact jarred his body into motion. He sucked in a gasp of air, his hands pulling Carter closer. Her lips brushed softly against the spot just below his jaw.

Some part of his brain—the part he relied on to get him out of danger on the battlefield—began shouting at him. He responded by letting his hands wander up the supple body of his second. She moaned at his touch—a sound Jack had only imagined in his dreams before this.

Her hands worked their way up his back, her nails scratching along bare skin, then around to his chest to let her fingers curl in the hairs there. He felt her smile against his neck when he groaned. The heat was so intense now Jack was sure they would spontaneously combust if they didn’t do something.

“Sam.-” He wasn’t sure what he had planned to say and pulled away from her even though he couldn’t see her face in the dark.

Her breathing was coming shallow and fast now, her hands rubbing small circles all over his skin and making his brain go fuzzy. “Jack, just ki-”

A loud bang accompanied a blinding light, cutting her off mid-word. Jack automatically jumped away from her, his hand coming up to guard his eyes, and he crashed into some shelves, knocking boxes to the floor.

“Sorry about that, sir.” Jack recognized Siler’s voice, but his eyes refused to adjust to the new lighting. “There was a problem with a security protocol, and it locked down this section.”

Jack managed to extricate himself from the supply closet without touching Carter. She darted out even quicker, mumbling something about an experiment that needed checking. Jack watched through blurry, dilated eyes as she disappeared around the corner. The heat dissipating just as fast, leaving Jack feeling chilled and more than a little confused.

Siler continued to blather on, but all Jack could think was that maybe a healthy fear of the dark was a good thing. At least when it concerned him and a certain Air Force major.