Trust, by Random (PG-13)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Jack and Daniel friendship

Pairing: none
Categories: Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Jack and Daniel friendship, gen, episode related, character study, angst
Warnings: some language
Author on LJ: randomfreshink
Author's Website: Link: currently offline

Why This Must Be Read: Random has a truly marvelous feel for Jack and Daniel. She gets their friendship – the closeness, the sharp edges, the deep empathy. And in Trust, Random gives Jack and Daniel post-Shades of Grey, trying to put the foundation of their relationship together.

Jack confronts Daniel in his office about his words to Makepeace: “I’ve never trusted Jack’s command.” The conversation that follows is filled with unspoken challenges, with military twists and civilian turns, and – finally – with the sharp clarity of vision that proves that Jack really does understand Daniel and the true cause for his distress over Jack’s actions.

When Random does Jack and Daniel friendship, it isn’t sappy or fluffy or easy. It’s much better than that – it’s right.

He was still waiting for the fall-out from Jack's having left; still thinking SG-1 would be split, Sam and Teal'c put on another team where they'd get busy. And then he'd get put in this office where he could be shoved off to the side and eventually be forgotten. It had happened too often in his life--oh, face it, it'd happened most of his life. Shoved from one family to the next. His career torn apart when his ideas shoved him into the lunatic fringe. Dragged back from Abydos, and then shoved aside, literally, as a walking dead man with no official status and whom no one knew what to do with, until Jack came along.

And now Jack was pacing the room like he wanted to find something and break it--like maybe his team--and the anger flaring in the dark eyes was so hot that Daniel couldn't miss it even with his glasses off. Hurt was there, too.

God, Jack, this isn't about me having hurt you, and you damn well know it!

Putting his glasses on, he decided he should go at this a lot like facing any System Lord; be irritating enough to get the pain part of the evening over with fast. It was coming anyway, so why not just push into the worst. He'd learned young that it was always better to get to the painful stuff right away. No sense putting it off, because the grief found you anyway. He'd learned that after watching his parents die and then struggling to live anywhere but in the pain. It still found you.

So he stood--he had to do this standing--and just said, "Makepeace told you."

Jack stopped, went still, which meant he was dangerously pissed. Jack still was worse than Jack moving. Jack still meant he was coiled to explode, and Daniel almost wished they could just beat each other senseless and come out of it friends again like two guys in some old western.

Only they didn't have the horses for it, or the hats, or the saloon setting, so it was going to have to be a bloody battle of words that would shred them emotionally and leave them walking wounded.