[Moments of Adoration]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, _minxy_ requested Jack/Sam/Daniel telling stories. Alas, the storytelling got lost in Jack's navel-gazing. S10. Hard R. Title from Dar Williams' "You're Aging Well."

Daniel was telling them about a drunken night in Finland, during a summer research trip in graduate school, but Jack wasn't listening to the details. Instead he let the familiar cadence of Daniel's oration wash over him, underscored by Carter's low, relaxed laughter. It'd only been a few weeks since she'd been comfortable like this with them. While she always liked cuddle, being naked was only for sex, and after, she would wrap herself in the sheet or steal someone's shirt. They'd never questioned her about it but Jack was no stranger to hiding vulnerability.

Originally he'd worried it was their fault; he and Daniel had been together a while before they'd pulled Carter away from Area 51 and into their affair, and she'd admitted once, early on, that she that she was uneasy about being the third wheel. He wanted to tell her that was stupid – he'd left the SGC because of them both, for them both, and it was circumstance only that had tangled him up with Daniel first – but Daniel had kicked him under the table and he'd swallowed the admonishment as Daniel took Carter's hand and convinced her (in an admittedly much more detailed and composed way) that it was in fact stupid.

And once he'd wondered aloud to Daniel if it had anything to do with Pete, or that megalomaniac asshole Hansen, and Daniel had said, "I don't think it's anything as simple as that," and told Jack to shut up.

It needled at him, though. Not so much why she'd been hiding; it was Carter, and Daniel was right, it probably wasn't that simple. Jack wanted to know why she'd stopped.

"Jack?" It was Carter, twisted around to peer at him, and he realized he'd been drumming his fingers on the small of her back. He yanked his hand away before gingerly setting on the curve of her ass.

"Why are you naked?" Jack would later blame the question on them, for wearing him out and addling his brains with all the sex.

"Jack..." That was Daniel, glaring a clear-eyed warning even as Carter's forehead scrunched like it did when she was processing something that didn't fit the parameters of a given situation.

Even as Jack waved away Daniel's caution, comprehension smoothed out Carter's features. She rolled over and wriggled her ass in Jack's lap until she was comfortable again, laying her head back on Daniel's leg, nuzzling his hip. "I'm tired."

It was a simple admission, but the weariness that echoed through it was something with which Jack, who sat in an office he hated and pretended he cared about reports and meetings, was all too familiar. Jack spent his days choking back the words that crowded on his tongue, the blunt truths that always had to be tempered for the sake of someone's ego, or someone else's sensibilities, when all he wanted was to stand up and deliver a hearty "fuck you" to the lot of them. Jack, too, was tired of holding back for someone else's notion of propriety.

Jack rubbed just under Carter's breasts, chuckling as Daniel contorted himself to lean down and press a kiss against her temple. "You should be naked more often," Jack said. "It's good for you." He ignored the exaggerated roll of Daniel's eyes and inched his hand lower on Carter's belly.

Mouth curved in a lazy smile, Carter said, "Uh huh. Pervert." But she squeezed Jack's fingers before turning her attention to the crease of skin between Daniel's hip and thigh, earning a pleased huff from him as she placed wet kisses in a line to the base of his cock.

"And she calls me the pervert."

"You're just jealous," Daniel informed him, breath catching as Carter sucked him into her mouth.

And Jack was, though not in the way Daniel had jokingly implied. He was jealous that Carter had found her peace to take a step outside of the lines she'd drawn around herself.

Reaching out, Daniel grasped Jack's wrist, pulling it to him to press a kiss against the palm of Jack's hand. Jack cupped Daniel's chin, running his thumb across the contented smile Daniel gave him. "You," Daniel said to Jack between deep breaths as Carter mouthed her way up his stomach and chest to kiss them both, "should be naked more often, too."

"Yeah, I know," Jack said as slid Carter off his lap so he could get to her breasts and Daniel's mouth without killing his back.