the pleasure seekers, Stargate SG1, NC-17
Dec. 23rd, 2013 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phantismaFandom: Stargate SG-1
Title: the pleasure seekers
Characters/Pairings: Daniel Jackson/OMC, Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter, Teal'c, Doctor Frasier, General Hammon, Jacob Carter
Rating: VERY NC-17
Word Count: ~10000
Summary: SG1 is captured by a hostile race with perverse appetites for pleasure, appetites they focus on Daniel. When General Hammond finally negotiates their release, Daniel may never be the same again.
A/Ns & Warnings: This fic, once again, is completelybadfalcon's fault. It was her muse's idea, but my muse stole it. This fic is told in a very disjointed, non linear sort of progression. This fic is VERY DARK. WARNING: This fic contains graphic rape and torture. This fic contains references to vaguely suicidal thoughts. This fic contains great physical harm inflicted for the pleasure of the abusers.
“I'm okay." Daniel said, his voice soft.
Jack's eyes skipped from the bruises on Daniel's face to the goons who had shoved him in the open door of the cell. "You don't look okay." He stepped closer, frowning when Daniel responded by stepping back, the hand that pushed his glasses up on his face shaking. "You look decidedly not okay."
Daniel cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, glancing up at Sam before he took another step back. "I just...they're...I'm okay. Just...do what they want."
"Daniel." Jack reached for him, but Daniel jumped away as if he expected Jack to hurt him.
"Jack--" He shrank further away, his eyes on the floor as he turned his head. The big guy that had manhandled Daniel to the cell door grabbed him and pushed him away.
"Hey!" Jack jumped for the door, but it slammed shut. "Damn it." He growled and turned to face Teal'c and Sam. "What was that?"
"I'm not sure." Sam said, moving toward the bars that formed the front wall of the cell. "Clearly they wanted us to see him."
"Or perhaps Daniel Jackson was brought to see us." Teal'c offered.
Sam nodded, biting her lip. "It's possible they're using threats of hurting us to get him to do something." She was clearly uncomfortable with that idea. Jack agreed. He wanted to know exactly what was going on and what these bastards were doing to Daniel.
"Teal'c, any ideas here?" Jack asked, pacing from the door to the wall where they'd chained him earlier before two of the guards worked him over.
"As I said, I am unfamiliar with this planet, O'Neill." Teal'c said, his face stoic, but there was something in his tone.
"You know something."
He moved away, hands clasped behind his back. "I do not."
"Teal'c, no matter what he said, Daniel is NOT okay. You saw him."
Teal'c's eyebrow raised and he squared his jaw before he spoke. "You are correct, O'Neill. Daniel Jackson is far from okay."
"So you do know something."
Teal'c held his gaze. "I know nothing. However, we should prepare ourselves."
"Prepare for what?" Sam asked, easing closer.
Teal'c lowered his head. "I have seen such behavior before." His voice softened. "If we do not escape soon, Daniel Jackson may never be 'okay' again."
“They’re hurting him, that much is clear.” Sam said, crossing her arms as if to keep herself warm. “He was stiff, and favoring his left arm.”
Jack shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to keep his rage in check. “How overdue are we?”
Sam shrugged. “At least twelve hours. Probably more. No way to tell in here.”
Eventually Hammond would send a team to find them.
His own voice wakes him, screams ripping through him and dragging him from the terror and up into a far more immediate fear. He’s aware of the restraints before anything else, his body immediately going rigid as he fights against them, He knows he’s yelling, his voice stripped and scared, but something is different, quieter somehow, the threat of more pain distant.
“Daniel, it’s okay. You’re safe.” The words dig through to his brain slowly, that voice familiar and yet strange.
Jack.
He opens his eyes, not ready to know, not ready to see, but needing to be sure. Jack is there, right there, leaning over him, his hands on Daniel’s shoulders, pressing him down.
"J-Jack?" He wants to touch Jack's face, make sure it's real, but his hands are still in restraints and he can feel the panic bubbling up. "Need to...let me go...get off...let me go..." He's flailing against the restraints and he can't seem to stop, can't seem to control his own body.
"Okay, Daniel. It's okay."
Janet. He turns his head, tries to tell her no, but the needle is already sinking into the tubing and the sedatives are fingering their way into his body and he can't fight them...can't keep fighting…and the darkness swallows him, pulling him back into the nightmare of his own mind.
“We have no need of the Jaffa or the old man.” The voice seemed to come from all around them, and Jack turned his head, looking for the speakers. “We will see the others.”
He and Teal’c were pushed back away from Carter and Daniel by the guards. “Um, hello?” Daniel offered, looking from the guards up toward the ceiling, his eyes likewise scanning for the speakers. “We’re—“
“Silence.” One of the guards backhanded him and Daniel’s head snapped to the side.
“Right. Of course.” Jack could see Daniel’s face, already starting to redden.
“Turn them.” The guards grabbed both Carter and Daniel and turned them, then turned them again until they were facing the way they had started. “We will take the male for now. Put the woman with the others.”
“Hey!” Jack yelled as two big guards grabbed Daniel by the arms and two others pushed Carter back toward the same iron door he and Teal’c were being herded toward at the end of some very nasty guns. “Where are you taking him?”
“Jack, I’ll be fine.” Daniel called back. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding my ass.” Jack said, holding up both hands when the gun closest to him started to whine. “Okay, I’m going.”
The cell was huge, but bigger than a lot he’d seen. Two of the walls were made of thick metal bars set close together, too close to even get a hand out of. The other two walls were stone, with restraints hanging off them.
For the moment though, they were left free to roam to space between the walls, the heavy door slammed shut and Carter shivered. “I don’t like this,” she said softly, moving to examine the bars.
“I never like this part.” Jack affirmed, doing his part to examine his side of the cell. “Any idea what exactly we did to upset them?”
“We did nothing, O’Neill.” Teal’c said. “Merely stepped through the gate.”
“It wouldn’t be the first place where that was enough to earn the wrath of whoever is in charge here.” Carter said, shaking her head as she moved to examine the next set of bars.
“And what do they want with Daniel?” Jack asked. “I told them I was in charge.” He frowned as he looked up. “And who were they calling old?”
He shivers, curls up as small as he can make himself, his skin wet. He hurts. It’s bad, he knows it is. He doesn’t know how bad, but he can’t walk, he can’t crawl. He’s at the mercy of his captors.
But that’s what they wanted. Right from the start.
He swallows around the terrible pain in his throat, the pain of screaming for hours. He’s alone…for the first time since he can remember…since they had taken him from the others. Alone…and that’s almost worse.
His entire body shakes with fear, with pain…with memory of what they’ve done…what they’ve made him do…the things they’d threatened to do to Sam…to Jack if he didn’t. He knows he should sleep…eat the food he can see on the tray in the corner of the cage…but he can’t do either.
Soon they will come for him again. Soon they will expect him to entertain their appetites. He knows what they will ask of him. They’ve already told him. So he can be ready.
He’s pretty certain he won’t ever be ready.
“Okay, what do we have?” Janet asked as she entered the gate room just behind her medical team. The gate was still open. Sam was sitting on the end of the ramp, cradling one hand and holding her head with the other.
Colonel O’Neill was limping and growling at the orderlies who were coming at him. “Not me, him.” Jack was clearly also cradling one arm, though it looked like the problem was in his shoulder. Behind him, Teal’c was just coming through the gate, Daniel slung over his shoulder.
At first, she thought Daniel was unconscious, but as soon as Teal’c moved his hands to try to set him down, Daniel shook and when one of the orderlies touched him, Daniel screamed, his body flailing, escaping Teal’c’s grasp and falling with a thud to the ramp.
As soon as he was down, Daniel rolled as far away as the ramp would allow, curled up with one hand covering his head and the other clutching his knees against his chest. “No. No. No.”
Janet pulled her orderly away and inched closer. “Get me a sedative,” she said aside to the nurse following her. “Daniel? Daniel, it’s Janet.” She squatted beside him, her eyes searching out any visible wounds. His feet were bare and bloody, the soles of his feet slashed. What she could see of his face was bruised and the hand on his head was swollen and black and blue and purple from the knuckles down to below his wrist.
“Daniel…”She reached out a hand, but she didn’t quite touch him. He was shaking, his entire body trembling.
“Doctor.”
She held out her hand and took the syringe, pulling the cap off. “Okay, Daniel, just a little prick.” She got the needle in and pushed the plunger with as little touching as possible.
It took a minute, but the sedative put him under and she stood up and back, nodding to the orderlies. “Okay, let’s get him down to the infirmary.” She turned to Colonel O’Neill. “What happened?”
He shook his head. “We’re not sure.”
“Torture.” Sam said. “We heard him screaming.” She looked up, tears in her eyes.
“Okay, what about you?” Janet asked.
“I’m okay.” Janet leaned in, checking the blood on Sam’s forehead and tracing it to a nasty knot just behind the hairline. Sam pulled away.
“Okay, let’s get these two down to the infirmary too.”
She followed the gurney with Daniel on it out of the gateroom as the medical team moved in to help Sam up. Her focus was on Daniel as they got into the infirmary and transferred him from the gurney to a bed. “Okay, Sherrie, help me with this.” She pulled the curtain shut around them as the nurse brought a pair of scissors to cut the black t-shirt off of him.
Janet couldn’t contain the gasp that escaped as they exposed mottled skin. The bruises were layered, clearly the abuse had gone on for days at least, with older bruising under newer, darker bruises that extended down both of his sides, from armpit to hip bones…and she suspected even further down. His chest was criss crossed with what looked like marks from a whip, several of them torn and bleeding.
She wordlessly rolled him toward Sherrie to pull what was left of the t-shirt away, but stopped when it became clear that the cloth was sticking to his skin. She leaned in, examining the part of his back she had exposed. He was bruised here too, deep, dark spots from some weapon. There was more evidence of the whip, and where the material was sticking it looked like he’d been cut, repeatedly in small strokes…almost as if someone had been using him as a scoreboard in some game.
She tore herself from the images that produced in her head and focused on taking care of her patient. “Okay, we’re going to need a full work up. I want a complete tox screen, we’re going to need x-rays, MRI…the works. Let’s be quick about it.”
Sherrie scribbled notes on the chart and nodded, moving away to get things started. Janet pulled the curtain aside to check on her other patients, slightly startled to find Jack standing just outside. “Colonel O’Neill, you should be getting that shoulder looked at.”
“It’ll wait. How is he?”
“Too early to tell.” She pulled the curtain closed and turned the colonel toward one of the other beds. “He’s pretty beat up. Can you tell me what happened?”
He shook his head, though he sat on the bed when she reached for his shoulder. “They took him away. Left us in a cell.”
“Sam said something about torture.”
Jack stiffened up, but nodded. “They piped the sound of him screaming into the cell sometimes.”
“I promise you, Colonel, I’m going to do the best I can to make sure Doctor Jackson is okay.”
They stop him in some antechamber with gold walls and high back chairs that don’t look like they were designed for comfort. Hands push and pull until his jacket is gone and his pants undone and he jerks away from them. “Stop.”
One of them grabs his hands, pulls them behind him as two others remove his boots, cutting through the laces with silver knives. “Okay, look. I get it. Just…let me…”
“You must remove all clothing to enter,” the one behind him says, low and dark in his ear.
Daniel nods, not liking this, but it is clearly evident he isn’t getting a choice. “Okay. Okay. I can do that. Just, let me do it.”
The hands loosen, then release him and Daniel exhales slowly. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to get naked in the name of making friends with some alien culture. They hadn’t had much of a chance to learn anything about these people, and it looks like it will be up to him to figure it out.
He pulls the t-shirt up and off before turning to his pants. Far too quickly he’s down to his socks and underwear and the man taking his clothing from him is starting to look impatient. A chill runs through him as he removes his socks and finally his underwear, leaving him standing naked beside the men.
A door opens in the wall in front of them and he is shoved through. The room beyond is dark, outside of a circle of light in the center. He can hear whispers and murmurs as he is walked toward that light, his hands attempting to cover himself.
A small circle raises from the floor in the middle and he is stood on it. “Uh, hello…I’m Dr. Daniel—“
“Silence.” There’s a shuffling around him and the two men who brought him in leave.
“I think maybe we—“ There’s a stinging slap across his face and suddenly Daniel is aware that whoever is outside of the light has moved closer. He can see shadows moving around him.
“You will remain silent while we examine you.” The voice is strange, like several people talking at once. Hands reach from the darkness to touch his naked body, petting over skin.
The murmuring is louder now, hands on his legs and ass and he jumps when they grab his dick, trying to squirm away. Hands circle his wrists and he’s forced to bend forward, as other hands pet over his exposed ass, up from his cock and over his hole. He struggles some, but he’s held tight.
They force him to kneel and one of them steps close enough he can almost see a face, a hand grabbing his chin, turning his head. Suddenly he is released and they withdraw again. “Yes, he is pretty. Does he please the Council?”
There is murmuring assent around him, more voices than he can clearly differentiate and he turns, trying to estimate just how much trouble he’s in. To his left, a screen flickers to life and on it he can see Sam and Jack and Teal’c, chained to a stone wall.
“These are your friends.” It isn’t a question, but Daniel nods. Jack is punched in the stomach by a guard. Daniel climbs to his feet.
“Stop. Don’t hurt them.”
“If you obey our every command, they will not be harmed.”
“Obey?” Daniel turns, trying to find the source of the voice. “Obey what? We’re just peaceful explorers—“
“And we are the Ples Gor Ais. You have been chosen for your beauty and grace to please us.”
He frowns, turning back to the screen as Sam yells in pain. “Please….” He shakes his head, because none of this makes sense. Between him and the screen, a block rises from the floor, stopping when the top was just about waist high.
“Our appetites are many, but we will begin simply. Offer yourself to us.”
Daniel is still frowning, not sure yet what it is they’re asking, but as Jack screams, he stumbles toward the block. They crowd around him, he can feel them even though the shadows seem to cling to them. “Bend over, spread yourself.” The voice is right behind him now, hands on his back, on his hips…and suddenly he understands.
“No.” He jerks away, bucks the hands grabbing him, forcing him down…there are too many of them and the stone is cold on his stomach as he is pushed against it, his legs spread. Hands hold him down and fingers push inside his ass with little warning. “No!” He screams the word, fighting against the pressure, against what he knows is coming.
On the screen, Sam takes a vicious backhand to her face. Fingers withdraw and something bigger is rubbing against his ass. “If you do not submit, we will tell them to cut the woman.”
Sam’s eyes are big as the guard nears her with a knife and Jack is cursing, struggling. Daniel forces himself to still, though he can’t seem to make his body loosen up. The cock presses in and Daniel closes his eyes, holding his breath as it slowly pushes itself into him, forcing his ass open.
The hands loosen up as it becomes clear he’s going to obey, his fingers are pressed to the sides of the stone block beneath him and he focuses on the feeling of the corner biting into his palms, gripping it tightly. Fingers dig into his sides and his ass is filled and burning. He presses his forehead against the stone and starts to count in Latin in his head…anything to distract him…
Sam jerked awake and away from the comforting arm that Colonel O’Neill had around her, eyes darting around them. She wasn’t sure what had woken her. She cradled her broken arm as she got to her feet. The cell was dark. Teal’c was sitting against the far wall, his eyes closed. Beside her, Colonel O’Neill was opening his eyes.
“Carter?”
She shrugged, then grimaced when pain lanced through her arm. “I don’t know, sir.” There was something though. For a long moment, nothing moved. Then she could hear the sound of boots on the stone floor.
Jack stood, tapping Teal’c on the shoulder. He moved so he was between Sam and the door, as if to protect her…not that it had helped so far. The door opened and the main guard they had been dealing with filled the opening. “Follow me.”
“What?” Jack asked. The guard grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him out of the cell.
“All of you.”
Sam followed, with Teal’c behind her. They were marched up a flight of stairs and out into bright light that overwhelmed her at first. She could see the stargate, and SG3 and SG5 flanking it. The gate was spinning and lighting up as one of the marines came to offer her assistance.
“Colonel, let’s get you home.”
Jack shook his head. “Not without Daniel.”
“Sir.” Sam shaded her eyes as a big man in the uniform of the guards came toward them, carrying something. As he got closer, she could tell it was Daniel…or what was left of him.
There was a low whining sound as the guard stopped in front of Teal’c and let Daniel slide to the ground. Daniel immediately curled up tight, protecting his head with a hand that looked broken.
“Daniel.” Jack started to squat beside him.
“Sir, his feet.” Sam pointed to Daniel’s bare feet, both of which were bloody and looked like they’d been whipped or cut…or both.
The gate came to life behind them and Daniel responded by curling in tighter.
“Teal’c.” Jack gestured at Daniel and Teal’c inclined his head.
“Major, let’s go.” The marine put an arm around her, supporting her as they headed for the gate. On the other side, the gate room was buzzing with activity, guns aimed at the wormhole. She got as far as the end of the ramp and thanked the marine, sitting as the room spun and her stomach threatened to explode.
“Major Carter, are you all right?”
She looked up at General Hammond as a medical team streamed into the room. “What happened?”
Janet was there, reaching for Colonel O’Neill who was stopping on the ramp beside her. “Not me, him.” Jack growled, pushing the orderlies away as Teal’c came through the gate. Sam turned to look just as Daniel screamed, shivering as the sound echoed through her, reminding her of the long nights in that cell where they used Daniel’s screams to keep them from sleeping.
“No. No. No.” Daniel’s voice was ravaged, tearing out of him, filled with pain.
“Get me a sedative,” Janet said, her voice low. “Daniel? Daniel, it’s Janet.”
Sam turned away as Janet injected him. She couldn’t stop hearing his voice begging for it to stop.
“Okay, let’s get him down to the infirmary.” Janet was there beside them then. “What happened?”
Jack shook his head. “We’re not sure.”
“Torture.” Sam said, shivering. “We heard him screaming.” She looked up, blinking at the tears in her eyes.
“Okay, what about you?” Janet asked.
“I’m okay.” Janet leaned in, her fingers easily finding the knot from the gun one of the guards had cracked her over the head with. Sam pulled away. “I’m okay.”
“Okay, let’s get these two down to the infirmary too.” Sam let one of the orderlies help her up and out into the corridors that led to the infirmary. She lost sight of Daniel once they were there, a rush of doctors and nurses filling the spaces, curtains drawn. She tried not to think about the way he reacted, or the fact that his feet were so torn up…or what other wounds his clothes were hiding.
He’s screaming, but he can hear the laughter around him. His voice gives out and he sags against the rough restraints that keep him from falling to the floor, his head hanging until fingers slide through his sweat soaked hair, pulling his head up. Rough fingers rub over his chapped and broken lips, push into his mouth. “Such pretty screams.”
Ropes tighten, pull and he’s being positioned again, readied for the next assault, the next cruelty. He gives vague thought to fighting this time, to struggling...but he remembers what happens when he does, remembers the sounds of Sam screaming, of bones breaking.
He’s spread open, his body nothing more to these aliens than a toy to be used for their own pleasure…and that pleasure comes at the expense of his body. He wonders as it begins how much longer his body will please them...and what will happen when it no longer does….
He paced until his knee hurt too much to keep it up. Then he sat. Until he couldn’t sit still, and then he went back to pacing. His shoulder throbbed, but he’d had worse. Two stitches held the cut on his hand closed and the swelling would go down in his knee eventually.
Daniel’s breathing was tight, even in a drug induced sleep. His body twitched, his face filled with pain.
The screaming started just as Jack reached the end of the bed. Daniel’s body flailed, his wrecked voice blood curdling as he fought the light blanket that covered him and tried to protect himself from the dream chasing him.
“Daniel?” Jack moved back to the bed, one hand grabbing just above the cast on Daniel’s left arm.
Daniel’s voice only increased, and he sat up, swinging his right hand and catching Jack in the jaw. “NO!”
Suddenly there were orderlies and Janet pushing him aside and a needle inserted into the IV. Slowly, Daniel collapsed back against the bed, his eyes closing. “Thank you.” Janet said as the orderlies moved away. “Sherrie, prep a private room for me please.” She moved so that she could roll Daniel back onto his side, checking the stitches on several of the wounds of his back. Her face clouded over. “Colonel O’Neill, I’m going to need you to leave.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head and took a step back, crossing her arms. “I’m not asking you, Colonel.”
Jack was frowning hard, trying to glare past her serious face, but he could tell it wasn’t going to work this time. “You will tell me what is wrong with him.”
“I will tell you what I need to when I can, sir. Now, I need you to leave.”
”No.” He shakes his head. It’s too much. He’s sort of sitting on his hip because his knees are bloody and bruised and his ass is welted and sore. The hand that doesn’t feel like it’s filled with broken glass holds him up as he fights the urge to just lay down.
The sounds of screams fill the room, and he can’t tell anymore if it’s just replaying the sounds or if they’re hurting Sam and Jack more.
“Perhaps he is finished,” the voice says and murmurs circle him. “Perhaps we should bring the woman instead.”
“What? NO.” Daniel pushes himself upright. “You can’t.”
“This one is spent.”
“No. No.” Daniel huffs and pushes against the floor, forcing himself to move. He inches toward the device, knowing the pain it will cause, drags himself up, though his feet scream in pain as he puts weight on them. He almost can’t do it, get himself up on the platform of it…almost can’t get into position, but then he is, the fake cock against his painful hole, his hands lifting to the restraints above him.
“Do it,” the voice hisses and echoes around him.
He fights the scream as he sinks down onto it, his voice tearing out of his ripped up throat. The first blow of the leather whip bites into his back as he takes the full length of the cold metal dick inside of himself.
It isn’t the first time, but somehow it’s worse than before. There isn’t a spot on his body that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t scream out in pain as they abuse him, force him to abuse himself. His body tightens up and he can’t make himself move, not until pain lances through him, electricity jolting through him from the cock and he pulls his hips up. He’s uncertain how long it goes on, but then suddenly he feels the platform retreating, the cock pulling from him and he is left dangling from his wrists, the pain from the broken one making him swoon into half-consciousness.
The whipping goes on, moving to his chest and down over his stomach and when it wraps around his cock, he wakes with a jolt, horrified at the hardness in his dick and the laughter that circles him as they see it.
“We are not the only ones pleased.”
A hand wraps around his cock and Daniel struggles to pull away, but he’s trapped, hands pushing him from behind, into the one jerking up his cock. He expects the pain to kill whatever self-preservation instinct drives the arousal, pulling hard on the broken hand until he’s screaming with little voice left and his cock releases the built up pressure, coming onto the floor beneath him.
Janet closed the door behind her, holding her charts and files in front of her as if they could protect her from the news she had to give General Hammond. He nodded to her and pointed to a chair.
“Yes, sir.” She sat, tucked her feet under her and took a moment to collect her thoughts. “I have him in a private room now, sedated pretty heavily.” She pressed her lips together. “What I can tell you is Daniel has been through…” She shook her head, exhaling slowly. “I can’t begin to imagine what he’s been through, sir. Physically…” She flipped open the chart. “He’s got a broken left wrist, and a few of the bones in the hand are broken as well. Two ribs on the right side, three on the left. Bruising to several internal organs. Both shoulders appear to have been dislocated at some point, but he managed to pop them back in.” She sighed and looked up at him. “His feet and knees have been cut and beaten, he’s been whipped by at least one implement, likely several. His back has been cut repeatedly.”
General Hammond’s eyes didn’t waver as he looked at her, nodding for her to go on. “They tortured him, sir. From what I can tell, nearly the entire time he was there. And not just the beatings.”
“What do you mean?”
She inhaled and held it before letting it go. “Judging from the nightmares and what little he’s said, I’m fairly sure there was mental torture too, and drugs. I can’t identify all of them, but it’s a heady mix…sedatives and hallucinogenics, adrenaline and any number of others . And…” She bit her lip. Daniel didn’t want anyone to know. She’d gotten that much out of him, but this wasn’t like telling Jack and Sam. General Hammond needed to know.
“Doctor?”
She licked her lips and nodded. “Yes, sir. There is evidence that Daniel was….assaulted. Sexually.”
“What evidence?”
“My first indication was blood from his rectum, sir. Upon examination, it became clear that he had been abused.” She cleared her throat, her face burning. “Repeatedly sir. There were signs of fissures that had started to heal along with fresh ones.”
SG1 had been missing for just over three weeks. And if she had to guess, based solely on Daniel’s condition, he’d spent nearly all of that time being abused. “In fact almost all of his injuries show signs of repeated re-injury. The bruises in particular are all in various stages of healing.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
She nodded. “Physically? He is going to need surgery on his wrist, but the rest will heal. Emotionally, mentally? I have no idea.”
His heart is pounding in his chest and he can't open his eyes, not and say this. "Jack...I'm sorry. Please don't hate me."
Jack moves closer, Daniel can feel him, but he doesn't touch. "I don't hate you Daniel." His voice is uncharacteristically soft, gentle even. "I couldn't hate you."
"I know they hurt you...because I..." No, Not that. Jack can't know that. "It was my fault."
Jack sighs and sits back. "No, Daniel it wasn't."
He opens his eyes, but Jack isn't looking at him. He's staring into the corner. Just as well. Daniel isn't sure he wants to see himself in Jack's eyes. "All I had to do was obey." Daniel says, his voice tiny in the space of the room.
There's the faintest hint of a smile and Jack adjusts the sling on his arm. "You never have been good at that."
It sounds deliciously like forgiveness, like a way out of the guilt he knows is his own. Daniel wants to take it, wants desperately to believe it, but he retreats from it as the door opens and Sam's voice trembles a little from it. "Sir, Daniel...I...can I come in?"
Daniel’s eyes close again, unable to bear the two of them together. He wants to turn, to roll away and hide, but he can’t without help. He can feel them, hovering...Sam is behind Jack now, clearing her throat.
“Daniel, I...I brought you some of your books. I mean, I know you’re not ready, but well...I thought maybe…” Her voice trails off and he imagines her staring at him, her sharp eyes cataloging all of his wounds.
“I...I’m tired.” Daniel finally says when the silence has stretched into awkwardness. They hesitate, as if expecting him to say something more but eventually they move, leave together, leaving him alone in the quiet room that is nearly as much prison as the cage.
Daniel had been home for a few days, and it had been that long since anyone had heard from him. Jack bit his lip as he approached the apartment, not sure Daniel would even want to see him. It had been tense once Daniel knew that Jack knew…at least in the vaguest terms, what those aliens had done.
He knocked on the door, but as he expected there was no answer. He slipped his key in the lock and opened the door, easing into the apartment slowly, his eyes sweeping around him for signs of Daniel. There was a half full cup of coffee on the counter and his notebook beside it.
Jack moved into the apartment. “Daniel?”
He stopped as he reached the living room, the open door out onto the balcony spiking his heart with fear. He’d nearly lost Daniel on that balcony once before, when despair had driven him to nearly jump to his death, despair brought on by something so much less traumatic than the torture and rape Daniel had endured.
He moved closer, his heart thundering in his chest, half expecting to find Daniel gone, painted on the pavement below. “Daniel?”
He blinked, looking up from where he was leaning over the rail, standing upright slowly. “Jack?”
His voice was nearly back to normal, though it still failed him from time to time. He squinted at Jack and moved back from the rail. “What….why are you here?”
Jack stepped out onto the balcony. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I…couldn’t.” Daniel said. He circled around Jack to the door, keeping his distance and darting inside as soon as he was clear. Jack waited a heartbeat before he followed, giving Daniel his space.
“I was worried.” Jack said as Daniel went to the counter, retrieving his coffee cup and emptying it in the sink before refilling it.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Daniel was walking better, though he was still favoring the right foot a bit. His left hand was still in a splint, and would require another surgery before it was all done. The bruising was gone from his face, but his eyes…Daniel hadn’t looked Jack in the eye since before the planet.
He sipped at his coffee, staring at the floor. The quiet stretched out around them until Jack cleared his throat. “You know, Daniel…you don’t need to apologize.” In fact, it seemed to be the only conversation they ever had. Daniel apologizing for Carter’s broken arm, for his dislocated shoulder and broken nose, for Hammond needing to step in to rescue them.
Daniel inhaled deeply. “Dr. Carligle tells me that too.” He took his coffee and went back to the balcony door, though he didn’t step onto it. “He says I need to talk more, apologize less.”
The shrink. Jack made a face. He knew if anyone needed one, it was Daniel now, but he didn’t have to like it. “Are you? Talking, I mean?”
Daniel sort of shrugged, his eyes closing. Jack sank slowly to sit on the couch. After a long silence, Daniel turned and came to sit on the chair near Jack, putting his coffee down on the end table beside it. “I don’t….” He licked his lips, his eyes focused on the coffee cup. “When they tied me down, I think that was when it was the worst.”
“Daniel…I’m not sure I’m….the one you want…” Jack shifted a little closer, putting a hand on the arm of Daniel’s chair. He didn’t want to know the details. “I mean…I’ll listen, if you do…but….”
He swallowed, his eyes closing. “They made me ask for it. Made me beg.” Tears slipped down his face. He shivered, curling forward. “They made me…” His hands tightened around his stomach and his face curled up in pain. “They….I…” He turned his face away, then stood abruptly, hands wiping over his face and shaking his head.
“Daniel….I can’t begin to know what you’re going through right now.” Jack said.
It was quiet again as Daniel breathed slowly and turned, offering a tight smile. “I’m sorry. This must make you uncomfortable.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “No. Really. I’m fine.”
Suddenly Daniel frowned. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I’m kind of taking a vacation.” Jack said, waving his hands. “The kind that comes after…disobeying orders and scrubbing a mission.”
“What did you do?”
Jack shrugged and stood. “Nothing. Much.” He wiped his mouth to hide the smirk. “There may have been a bomb that went off where it wasn’t supposed to.”
He’s pretty sure he won’t survive much longer, his body is barely functioning, only his need to keep the others safe pushing him with enough force to satisfy the desires of his captors. It’s quiet now, just him and one of them…he thinks. It’s too hard to tell sometimes.
He never really sees them, just shadows shifting around him, taking turns with him…watching him. He’s bent over the stone, the cool touch soothing on the welts that cover his chest and stomach. This one is nearly gentle, his strokes long and deep. His hands pet over Daniel’s back, over the marks…counting out each sharp cut that they make after every time he is done pleasing them.
The screen flickers and he can hear Sam whisper to Jack that she’s okay. He lifts his head and the hand petting him pauses, slides around his throat. “She is pretty.” The voice slithers over him. “When you no longer please us, she will get a chance.”
“No.” Daniel tries to push back, to take more, but the alien holds him down, a hand sliding around Daniel’s cock, coaxing it to life.
“Or…I could give her to you…” Sam’s face fills the screen, her blue eyes filled with pain. “I could put her here, under you.” To his dismay, Daniel’s cock is filling, hardening and surrounded by slippery heat that some part of him knows is just another alien device, but his head is filled with Sam’s face, with the touch of skin. “You could do to her everything we have done to you…make her please you.”
“No.” Daniel tries to deny the words, the feeling inside him because of them, the way his cock pushes into the soft folds of skin.
“Yes, that’s it.” Fingers stroke down his side and his hips move, fucking forward. On the screen Sam’s face twists in pain and she whimpers. “A little harder.”
He can feel the block of stone against his hips, bruising him, and yet he doesn’t stop, he thrusts harder. Sam yells and Daniel’s body convulses as he comes, collapsing forward as the alien returns to fucking him, laughing.
He closes his eyes and wills it to end, even though he knows it will mean his own death…and Sam in his place….he never even feels the finish, or the cut on his back to mark his pleasure.
The screams brought her up from the dark, her eyes scanning the cell, half expecting Daniel to be right there. Teal’c was instantly beside her, a hand on her back. Jack was leaning against the bars.
Daniel’s voice echoed around them, then suddenly went silent. She held her breath, straining to hear, jumping when something cracked and Daniel yelled out. Over and over the crack came, followed by Daniel’s screams until his voice broke and sobs filled the cell instead. “Please, stop, no more…please…” Daniel begged.
Tears burned down Sam’s face at the sound. “What are they doing to him?” Sam asked, wiping at the tears angrily.
“That sounded like a whip.” Teal’c offered.
“But why? What do they want?”
The sound of boots filled the corridor and Sam backed up to the corner, Jack and Teal’c moving to stand between her and the door. It opened and a guard entered with a tray. “He has pleased them. That means you get to eat.” He put the tray down and backed out of the cell, pulling the door shut.
“Pleased him?” Sam asked. Teal’c’s hand on her back was comforting, but she pulled away. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sadistic pricks.” Jack responded, crossing to the tray. “Eat, Major.”
“I don’t think I can, sir.” Her stomach churned at the thought. Jack handed her a bowl of what looked like grey oatmeal.
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Major. It’s been days.”
“Your body requires food, Major Carter.” Teal’c said softly. “So that you are strong when we find a means of escape.”
She took the bowl and crossed to the corner, sinking slowly down the wall. They weren’t going to escape…they were all aware of that. Still, she closed her eyes and ate the tasteless glop in her bowl and prayed they didn’t make them listen to the screaming again.
His dreams drag him back into that place of faceless assailants and endless humiliation, trap him there where he’s forced to crawl on torn up knees, to expose himself, to offer himself, to beg them to fuck him harder, to hurt him more.
He wakes screaming with what little voice remains, pulling against the restraints, fighting the rising panic. He knows why he’s restrained, knows he’s safe, knows they got him out of there…but he can’t stop trying to sit up, to pull away, yelling because he can feel them even though he knows they aren’t there.
He sees Janet coming, the syringe in her hand and he shakes his head, fights the panic. “No,” he manages the word, pressing his sweaty body down against the bed, his hands fisting at his sides. “I’m okay.”
Her smile is soft, her hand softer still as she brushes it across his forehead. Her eyes meet his, all compassion and caring and he looks away, clears his throat, whispers again. “I’m okay. Don’t want it.”
He sees her nod from the corner of his eye and hears the sound of the syringe being set on the tray. “Okay. For now.”
He licks his lips and nods his thanks. She unbuckles the restraint that holds his broken wrist, lifting his hand, her fingers moving along the tips. Wordlessly, she returns it to the bed and the restraint before she’s moving closer, turning his face toward her to flash the light in his eyes. “Are you ready to answer a few questions?”
“Can’t.” Daniel whispers.
Janet sits on the edge of the bed, her fingers sliding over his. “Daniel, you’re safe now. We’re alone. Anything you tell me stays between us.” She closed her hand around his. “I know.”
He looks up sharply. No. No one could know. “Please.”
He’s surprised when he realizes that there are tears in her eyes. “Let me help you, Daniel.” Janet says softly.
“No one can know.” His own voice is strange in his ears, thick and hoarse and heavy with fear.
Her fingers tighten around his and she nods. “Just you and me here. I know this is hard.”
He can feel the heat in his face and he closes his eyes, turns away. “Let’s start with something easier.” Janet offers, slipping off the bed. “Your wrist. It’s a pretty nasty break. Can you tell me how it happened?”
He opens his eyes, looks at the wall, at the monitor, anything but the replay inside his head. “I was chained. Fell.” He swallows, remembering the pain as it happened. “My hand stayed while the rest of me went sideways.” He doesn’t tell her why he fell, doesn’t tell her about the hands on his naked body, or the demands that he willingly submit to their games.
She nods and offers a smile. “Okay.”
“They…um…” He presses his lips together and clears his throat. “After it happened…they didn’t leave it alone. They…they liked it when I screamed.” He doesn’t mean to say that and he flushes with embarrassment, but her hand is back in his good one, squeezing lightly.
“Okay. Good. We’ve set the break, but it’s very likely we’ll have to go in surgically when you’ve stabilized to repair some of the damage.” She moves to the end of the bed and his feet, peeling bandages off and pulling a cart closer. “How about this. Can you tell me about this?”
He wants to pull his feet away, but they too are restrained and he can’t. He forces the panic down, aside, away, swallowing around it. “I…don’t really remember the first time. Some kind of rod.” It was the kind of pain he hadn’t ever known before, the rod cracking against skin. “They hit me with it until my feet were bleeding.”
She nods, her fingers gently re-bandaging his foot. “Tell me about the knife.”
He pulls at his foot involuntarily, flinching away from the memory. It wasn’t a big blade. It didn’t have to be. It was razor sharp and the one who wielded it most often knew how to use it to inflict pain. “He…my foot wasn’t bleeding enough…so they cut it.”
She finishes taping down the bandage and moves closer, her hand gentle on his leg. “And on your back?”
He shivers, shifting so the scabs on his back rub against the sheet beneath him. “The rod sometimes. A-a whip I think…just to make me scream.” She nods, helping him sit up as much as he can with the restraints, putting her stethoscope on to listen to his lungs. He gasps when her fingers brush the other marks, the ones cut by that knife…each one a reminder of hours of rape and torture.
Her hand is warm on his skin, her eyes soft and too close to him. “And these?”
He shakes his head, doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want her to know how bad it was. “The knife,” he whispers.
“All at the same time?”
“No.” His voice is barely audible, his face burning. “One for each…” Tears burn the corners of his eyes and spill out onto his face and he curls forward as much as he can, the restraints digging into his skin. He can’t tell her that each line is a symbol for his ability to please his captors, to give himself over to their perverted desire for hours at a time.
“Okay, okay. That’s enough for now, easy Daniel.” She helps him lay back, adjusts the bed, picks up the syringe. “I think you should sleep now. I can help.”
He wants to say no, but he wants the oblivion that the drug provides, sleep without dreams until it wears off, so he nods, watching her stick the needle into his arm, counting slowly as it pulls him down.
He didn’t need a blow by blow to know that his friend had been brutalized in ways most men could never even imagine. It was enough to see him lying there so broken, so traumatized. It was too much to listen to his screaming when the dreams became too real.
Especially when he knew that getting them home was the only revenge he would be allowed.
“Colonel O’Neill?”
He blinked and looked at his commanding officer, a man he had the utmost respect for, a man he owed his life to, Daniel’s life. “Sorry, sir. I saw Daniel just before I came up here.”
General Hammond nodded. “How is Doctor Jackson?”
Jack sort of shrugged and got up to pace the small office. “Recovering, I guess. If anyone ever recovers from something like that.” He looked out the window into the conference room.
“I know this is hard for you, Colonel.”
“You’re damn right it’s hard for me General. It’s hard for me to understand why we aren’t sending a nuke through the gate to blow those bastards into oblivion.”
General Hammond sighed and folded his hands on his desk. “The Pentagon won’t allow any retaliatory strikes, Jack.”
He narrowed his eyes and crossed back to the chairs by the desk. “That sounds like you argued for it.”
“Sit.” Hammond gestured at the chair and Jack sat, watching him. “When we were negotiating with the Ples Gor Ais for your release, I was authorized to threaten military action, to demonstrate our resolve and our ability to carry out our threats, but forbidden to act beyond that.”
“Those bastards nearly killed Daniel. They raped him, sir.”
“I am well aware of that, Colonel.”
“And we respond how? By locking their gate address out of our dialing computer?” Jack got up again and went back to pacing. “Not good enough. Not by a long shot.”
“I know how you feel, Jack. I do. But these aliens…” Hammond got up and went to the window himself, staring into the conference room. “I’ve never negotiated with anyone like them.”
“How so?” Jack frowned, watching General Hammond’s face.
“They would have released you and Teal’c without a fight, had no interest in either of you. But simply refused to return Major Carter and Doctor Jackson.”
Jack frowned even harder. “How did you do it?”
Hammond looked at him and shrugged. “A display of force, I sent SG teams 3 through 8 through with heavy ordinance and orders to make life on that planet hell until the aliens came back to talk to me. When they did I made it clear that we could destroy their little pleasure palace and we would if they didn’t return all of my people.”
“Pleasure palace, sir?”
He nodded. “Yes. According to Doctor Allen, ‘Ples Gor Ais’ translates roughly to ‘pleasure seekers’ and from what we gathered, that compound is devoted to their pursuit of what pleases them.”
“Pleasure?” Jack shook his head. “I’d like to show them what pleases me—“
“Jack, let it go.”
“No, sir. I don’t think I will be letting go of this for a long time.”
He doesn’t sit, can’t sit…spent too much time tied down, needs to move now, even if it hurts a little. His feet are healing, the stitches gone, the wounds closed. They’re still tender though so his movements are slow. He looks at the books on the shelf, at the awards and diplomas on the wall.
He doesn’t want to be here.
“Dr. Jackson?”
He stiffens, then slumps his shoulders. Being here forces him to relive it, and he doesn’t want to. “Yes.”
“You were telling me about the day you were released.”
“Was I?” He frowns, not really remembering mentioning it. “I…It was…quiet. I was in the cage, had been for a while. They dragged me out, I thought…” He remembers the fear that spiked through him…he hadn’t had enough time to rest, he wasn’t going to be able to function….this would be the last time…he would die and no one was coming to save him this time.
“I thought it was the end. I thought I wouldn’t survive another session. Instead, the guards scrubbed me down and shoved me into my clothes. I blacked out a few times I think. Then, I could hear Jack and Sam, but I couldn’t…” He swallows a heavy knot of emotion and moves down the bookshelf, his fingers trailing the spines of books. He couldn’t bring himself up out of the stupor to respond to them, couldn’t tell who was who, and when Teal’c had lifted him, Daniel had been half convinced his friends were going to continue the abuse.
“Did you understand what was happening?”
“No.” Daniel shakes his head and sighs, moving around the couch to the window. The world outside is so different than his, oblivious to the danger. “I was too far gone. I don’t remember much past Teal’c….I am told they had to sedate me almost immediately though.”
“Tell me about your recovery so far.”
Daniel frowns, his fingers on the cold glass of the window. “Recovery? Is that what I’ve been doing?” Physically maybe. “How does anyone recover from…I’m getting by. I’m breathing. I’m not sure that’s recovering anything.”
“Okay, that’s understandable.”
“Is it?” Daniel asks, turning to look at the psychologist.
“What you’re feeling is perfectly normal, Daniel.”
“Normal?” His voice lifts, cold anger curling around his stomach. “Normal? You think what I’m feeling is normal? What gives you the right to judge that? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be forced to lick semen off the floor while some alien whose face you can’t see is raping you and dozens of others watch?”
“No, of course not.”
“Or what it’s like to watch your friends be beaten because you won’t…can’t do what they want? Or how it feels to know that you can’t stop them from using you up and moving on to Sam?” Images barrage him, of all of that and more…of Sam’s face, of the feeling as he came thinking about doing to her what was being done to him, of the endless barrage of humiliation and horror.
Tears burn at the corners of his eyes and he turns away, back to the window. It’s snowing now and he thinks maybe if he goes out into it now, if he lays down somewhere quiet, the snow can cover him up, muffle the noise, bring him quiet…peace.
“What happened to you was horrific, Daniel. I am not trying to minimize that.”
His face is wet now, and he clears his throat, tries to find words that won’t betray how broken he really is, how fucked his head has become. “I can’t…” He shakes his head, crosses his arms, suddenly cold through to his bones. “Jack…he, um. He came over yesterday. He never used to come to my place. To be honest, I’m not sure why he came.”
“Maybe because he’s your friend and he cares for you?”
Daniel manages a smile and moves away from the window. “I know I make him uncomfortable. I can see it in his eyes.”
“How much does Colonel O’Neill know?”
Daniel sinks slowly to sit on the couch. “Enough. Too much.” If Jack ever knew the things Daniel did…Daniel would be lucky if the Colonel never spoke to him again. “They all know too much. They stare at me, I can see them thinking about it. Imagining it.” He shakes his head. “I can’t be with them.”
“I wonder, Daniel, if you’ve considered this from their position?”
He looks up, frowning. “Excuse me?”
“Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter and Teal’c were all captured by these same aliens. They all were held in relative comfort while you were tortured and abused. They heard you screaming in agony. Can you begin to imagine how they must feel knowing they could do nothing to prevent what happened to you?” The doctor checks his watch and offers him a smile. “I would just like you to consider it. Our time is up for today. Unless you…”
Daniel shakes his head and stands. “No. I’m…I’ll go.”
He doesn’t wait to be walked out, collects his coat, leaves with his head down. He doesn’t want to think about what Jack and Sam and Teal’c are feeling. His own guilt is heavy enough without compounding it with theirs.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“Jacob, just sit down and shut up and stay out of my way.” Jack pushed the older man back into the seat, even as Teal’c got the cargo ship turned. “You good, T?”
“Indeed, O’Neill.”
“Jack, the mission—“
“I never had any intention of chasing down whatever damn cockamamie Tok’ra mission you came up with. I just needed your ship.”
“And the bomb.” Teal’c added.
“Well, yeah. That too.” Jack moved back to check on that particular part of the plan, keeping the zat gun leveled at Jacob. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. Just don’t make me shoot you.”
“You could get court martialed, Jack.”
“Fine.” Jack snapped, storming back across the space between them. “If that’s what it takes.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on Jacob and he looked at least somewhat understanding. “Is this about what happened to Daniel?”
“Jacob, so help me, don’t.” Jack said, leaning over to see the display. “T, you sure you know where we’re going?”
“I’m very sorry about Daniel too, Jack, but bombing that planet won’t—“
Jack brought the zat gun level with Jacob’s face. He held up both hands. “You weren’t there. You have no idea.”
“Teal’c, this is madness.”
Teal’c didn’t even look away from piloting the ship. “We are approaching the planet.”
“Jack, think about this.” Jacob implored.
“I have.” Jack snapped. “It’s all I can think about. You haven’t seen him, Jacob. “ Jack shook his head. He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. “Besides, I insisted they give us two nukes, in case one wasn’t good enough. We’ll finish your mission….once we’re done here.” He stepped back as Teal’c settled them into orbit. “I’ll prep the bomb. Let me know when we’re in position. And don’t let him move.”
Teal’c brought up his own zat as Jack moved to the back. He armed the device sitting on the ring platform. “Ready when you are.” He stepped out to the controls as Teal’c took them down into the atmosphere.
“Now, O’Neill.”
Jack hesitated only a second before pressing the buttons that would send the device down to the planet, deep into the heart of the complex where they’d been held. “Go.”
They climbed up and away and a few seconds later they could see the glow of the explosion, just as they escaped the atmosphere.
Jacob wasn’t wrong. He could get court martialed over this.
Somehow, he just didn’t care.
”Are you sure about this?” Sam asks as he joins her at the foot of the ramp.
He isn’t sure and he’s terrified, but he nods and smiles. If nothing else, his time with Dr. Carligle has taught him to fake it well.
Teal’c and Jack join them as the gate begins to dial and Daniel tamps down the fear. It’s been nine months since he last stepped through the gate, and he knows they’re all afraid, knows that he’s walking an edge.
They’re careful not to touch him, not to stand too close to him. They use his name far too frequently and work hard not to stare at him. He knows they mean well. He knows they worry. But he has to do this…at least that’s what he’s convinced himself. He has to know he can still do this.
All too quickly the gate is open and they’re moving up the ramp and into the wormhole and his heart seizes up, panic dumping cold and heavy into his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. He stumbles out the other side, away, hands clawing at his hat, at his vest, trying to make air move into him again.
“Daniel!” He hears them, but can’t respond, can’t make words as memory floods him…hands and cocks and voices all colliding in a cacophony in his head. He thinks maybe he’s screaming, or maybe it’s all in his head.
“Damn it. Carter, dial us home.”
“No.” He hears his own voice and finds that somehow it’s cracked the vice around his chest. He drags air into protesting lungs and stands a little more upright. “No. I’m okay.” He isn’t okay, and he knows they all know that…but he’s breathing now and the memory is receding and he nods. “I’m okay.”
“We don’t have to do this today.” Jack says softly so that only Daniel can hear him.
“I know.” He presses his lips together. “I’m not promising anything, Jack. But for right now, I’m okay.” Jack nods, claps a hand to Daniel’s shoulder. It’s the first time since he can remember that Jack has actually touched him. Daniel’s hand covers his and he smiles.
“Move out.” Jack pulls his hand away and gestures toward the path that led into the village where doctors from the SGC were administering vaccines.
He can do this. And if he can do this then maybe one day he really would be okay again.
Title: the pleasure seekers
Characters/Pairings: Daniel Jackson/OMC, Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter, Teal'c, Doctor Frasier, General Hammon, Jacob Carter
Rating: VERY NC-17
Word Count: ~10000
Summary: SG1 is captured by a hostile race with perverse appetites for pleasure, appetites they focus on Daniel. When General Hammond finally negotiates their release, Daniel may never be the same again.
A/Ns & Warnings: This fic, once again, is completely
badfalcon's fault. It was her muse's idea, but my muse stole it. This fic is told in a very disjointed, non linear sort of progression. This fic is VERY DARK. WARNING: This fic contains graphic rape and torture. This fic contains references to vaguely suicidal thoughts. This fic contains great physical harm inflicted for the pleasure of the abusers.“I'm okay." Daniel said, his voice soft.
Jack's eyes skipped from the bruises on Daniel's face to the goons who had shoved him in the open door of the cell. "You don't look okay." He stepped closer, frowning when Daniel responded by stepping back, the hand that pushed his glasses up on his face shaking. "You look decidedly not okay."
Daniel cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, glancing up at Sam before he took another step back. "I just...they're...I'm okay. Just...do what they want."
"Daniel." Jack reached for him, but Daniel jumped away as if he expected Jack to hurt him.
"Jack--" He shrank further away, his eyes on the floor as he turned his head. The big guy that had manhandled Daniel to the cell door grabbed him and pushed him away.
"Hey!" Jack jumped for the door, but it slammed shut. "Damn it." He growled and turned to face Teal'c and Sam. "What was that?"
"I'm not sure." Sam said, moving toward the bars that formed the front wall of the cell. "Clearly they wanted us to see him."
"Or perhaps Daniel Jackson was brought to see us." Teal'c offered.
Sam nodded, biting her lip. "It's possible they're using threats of hurting us to get him to do something." She was clearly uncomfortable with that idea. Jack agreed. He wanted to know exactly what was going on and what these bastards were doing to Daniel.
"Teal'c, any ideas here?" Jack asked, pacing from the door to the wall where they'd chained him earlier before two of the guards worked him over.
"As I said, I am unfamiliar with this planet, O'Neill." Teal'c said, his face stoic, but there was something in his tone.
"You know something."
He moved away, hands clasped behind his back. "I do not."
"Teal'c, no matter what he said, Daniel is NOT okay. You saw him."
Teal'c's eyebrow raised and he squared his jaw before he spoke. "You are correct, O'Neill. Daniel Jackson is far from okay."
"So you do know something."
Teal'c held his gaze. "I know nothing. However, we should prepare ourselves."
"Prepare for what?" Sam asked, easing closer.
Teal'c lowered his head. "I have seen such behavior before." His voice softened. "If we do not escape soon, Daniel Jackson may never be 'okay' again."
“They’re hurting him, that much is clear.” Sam said, crossing her arms as if to keep herself warm. “He was stiff, and favoring his left arm.”
Jack shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to keep his rage in check. “How overdue are we?”
Sam shrugged. “At least twelve hours. Probably more. No way to tell in here.”
Eventually Hammond would send a team to find them.
His own voice wakes him, screams ripping through him and dragging him from the terror and up into a far more immediate fear. He’s aware of the restraints before anything else, his body immediately going rigid as he fights against them, He knows he’s yelling, his voice stripped and scared, but something is different, quieter somehow, the threat of more pain distant.
“Daniel, it’s okay. You’re safe.” The words dig through to his brain slowly, that voice familiar and yet strange.
Jack.
He opens his eyes, not ready to know, not ready to see, but needing to be sure. Jack is there, right there, leaning over him, his hands on Daniel’s shoulders, pressing him down.
"J-Jack?" He wants to touch Jack's face, make sure it's real, but his hands are still in restraints and he can feel the panic bubbling up. "Need to...let me go...get off...let me go..." He's flailing against the restraints and he can't seem to stop, can't seem to control his own body.
"Okay, Daniel. It's okay."
Janet. He turns his head, tries to tell her no, but the needle is already sinking into the tubing and the sedatives are fingering their way into his body and he can't fight them...can't keep fighting…and the darkness swallows him, pulling him back into the nightmare of his own mind.
“We have no need of the Jaffa or the old man.” The voice seemed to come from all around them, and Jack turned his head, looking for the speakers. “We will see the others.”
He and Teal’c were pushed back away from Carter and Daniel by the guards. “Um, hello?” Daniel offered, looking from the guards up toward the ceiling, his eyes likewise scanning for the speakers. “We’re—“
“Silence.” One of the guards backhanded him and Daniel’s head snapped to the side.
“Right. Of course.” Jack could see Daniel’s face, already starting to redden.
“Turn them.” The guards grabbed both Carter and Daniel and turned them, then turned them again until they were facing the way they had started. “We will take the male for now. Put the woman with the others.”
“Hey!” Jack yelled as two big guards grabbed Daniel by the arms and two others pushed Carter back toward the same iron door he and Teal’c were being herded toward at the end of some very nasty guns. “Where are you taking him?”
“Jack, I’ll be fine.” Daniel called back. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding my ass.” Jack said, holding up both hands when the gun closest to him started to whine. “Okay, I’m going.”
The cell was huge, but bigger than a lot he’d seen. Two of the walls were made of thick metal bars set close together, too close to even get a hand out of. The other two walls were stone, with restraints hanging off them.
For the moment though, they were left free to roam to space between the walls, the heavy door slammed shut and Carter shivered. “I don’t like this,” she said softly, moving to examine the bars.
“I never like this part.” Jack affirmed, doing his part to examine his side of the cell. “Any idea what exactly we did to upset them?”
“We did nothing, O’Neill.” Teal’c said. “Merely stepped through the gate.”
“It wouldn’t be the first place where that was enough to earn the wrath of whoever is in charge here.” Carter said, shaking her head as she moved to examine the next set of bars.
“And what do they want with Daniel?” Jack asked. “I told them I was in charge.” He frowned as he looked up. “And who were they calling old?”
He shivers, curls up as small as he can make himself, his skin wet. He hurts. It’s bad, he knows it is. He doesn’t know how bad, but he can’t walk, he can’t crawl. He’s at the mercy of his captors.
But that’s what they wanted. Right from the start.
He swallows around the terrible pain in his throat, the pain of screaming for hours. He’s alone…for the first time since he can remember…since they had taken him from the others. Alone…and that’s almost worse.
His entire body shakes with fear, with pain…with memory of what they’ve done…what they’ve made him do…the things they’d threatened to do to Sam…to Jack if he didn’t. He knows he should sleep…eat the food he can see on the tray in the corner of the cage…but he can’t do either.
Soon they will come for him again. Soon they will expect him to entertain their appetites. He knows what they will ask of him. They’ve already told him. So he can be ready.
He’s pretty certain he won’t ever be ready.
“Okay, what do we have?” Janet asked as she entered the gate room just behind her medical team. The gate was still open. Sam was sitting on the end of the ramp, cradling one hand and holding her head with the other.
Colonel O’Neill was limping and growling at the orderlies who were coming at him. “Not me, him.” Jack was clearly also cradling one arm, though it looked like the problem was in his shoulder. Behind him, Teal’c was just coming through the gate, Daniel slung over his shoulder.
At first, she thought Daniel was unconscious, but as soon as Teal’c moved his hands to try to set him down, Daniel shook and when one of the orderlies touched him, Daniel screamed, his body flailing, escaping Teal’c’s grasp and falling with a thud to the ramp.
As soon as he was down, Daniel rolled as far away as the ramp would allow, curled up with one hand covering his head and the other clutching his knees against his chest. “No. No. No.”
Janet pulled her orderly away and inched closer. “Get me a sedative,” she said aside to the nurse following her. “Daniel? Daniel, it’s Janet.” She squatted beside him, her eyes searching out any visible wounds. His feet were bare and bloody, the soles of his feet slashed. What she could see of his face was bruised and the hand on his head was swollen and black and blue and purple from the knuckles down to below his wrist.
“Daniel…”She reached out a hand, but she didn’t quite touch him. He was shaking, his entire body trembling.
“Doctor.”
She held out her hand and took the syringe, pulling the cap off. “Okay, Daniel, just a little prick.” She got the needle in and pushed the plunger with as little touching as possible.
It took a minute, but the sedative put him under and she stood up and back, nodding to the orderlies. “Okay, let’s get him down to the infirmary.” She turned to Colonel O’Neill. “What happened?”
He shook his head. “We’re not sure.”
“Torture.” Sam said. “We heard him screaming.” She looked up, tears in her eyes.
“Okay, what about you?” Janet asked.
“I’m okay.” Janet leaned in, checking the blood on Sam’s forehead and tracing it to a nasty knot just behind the hairline. Sam pulled away.
“Okay, let’s get these two down to the infirmary too.”
She followed the gurney with Daniel on it out of the gateroom as the medical team moved in to help Sam up. Her focus was on Daniel as they got into the infirmary and transferred him from the gurney to a bed. “Okay, Sherrie, help me with this.” She pulled the curtain shut around them as the nurse brought a pair of scissors to cut the black t-shirt off of him.
Janet couldn’t contain the gasp that escaped as they exposed mottled skin. The bruises were layered, clearly the abuse had gone on for days at least, with older bruising under newer, darker bruises that extended down both of his sides, from armpit to hip bones…and she suspected even further down. His chest was criss crossed with what looked like marks from a whip, several of them torn and bleeding.
She wordlessly rolled him toward Sherrie to pull what was left of the t-shirt away, but stopped when it became clear that the cloth was sticking to his skin. She leaned in, examining the part of his back she had exposed. He was bruised here too, deep, dark spots from some weapon. There was more evidence of the whip, and where the material was sticking it looked like he’d been cut, repeatedly in small strokes…almost as if someone had been using him as a scoreboard in some game.
She tore herself from the images that produced in her head and focused on taking care of her patient. “Okay, we’re going to need a full work up. I want a complete tox screen, we’re going to need x-rays, MRI…the works. Let’s be quick about it.”
Sherrie scribbled notes on the chart and nodded, moving away to get things started. Janet pulled the curtain aside to check on her other patients, slightly startled to find Jack standing just outside. “Colonel O’Neill, you should be getting that shoulder looked at.”
“It’ll wait. How is he?”
“Too early to tell.” She pulled the curtain closed and turned the colonel toward one of the other beds. “He’s pretty beat up. Can you tell me what happened?”
He shook his head, though he sat on the bed when she reached for his shoulder. “They took him away. Left us in a cell.”
“Sam said something about torture.”
Jack stiffened up, but nodded. “They piped the sound of him screaming into the cell sometimes.”
“I promise you, Colonel, I’m going to do the best I can to make sure Doctor Jackson is okay.”
They stop him in some antechamber with gold walls and high back chairs that don’t look like they were designed for comfort. Hands push and pull until his jacket is gone and his pants undone and he jerks away from them. “Stop.”
One of them grabs his hands, pulls them behind him as two others remove his boots, cutting through the laces with silver knives. “Okay, look. I get it. Just…let me…”
“You must remove all clothing to enter,” the one behind him says, low and dark in his ear.
Daniel nods, not liking this, but it is clearly evident he isn’t getting a choice. “Okay. Okay. I can do that. Just, let me do it.”
The hands loosen, then release him and Daniel exhales slowly. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to get naked in the name of making friends with some alien culture. They hadn’t had much of a chance to learn anything about these people, and it looks like it will be up to him to figure it out.
He pulls the t-shirt up and off before turning to his pants. Far too quickly he’s down to his socks and underwear and the man taking his clothing from him is starting to look impatient. A chill runs through him as he removes his socks and finally his underwear, leaving him standing naked beside the men.
A door opens in the wall in front of them and he is shoved through. The room beyond is dark, outside of a circle of light in the center. He can hear whispers and murmurs as he is walked toward that light, his hands attempting to cover himself.
A small circle raises from the floor in the middle and he is stood on it. “Uh, hello…I’m Dr. Daniel—“
“Silence.” There’s a shuffling around him and the two men who brought him in leave.
“I think maybe we—“ There’s a stinging slap across his face and suddenly Daniel is aware that whoever is outside of the light has moved closer. He can see shadows moving around him.
“You will remain silent while we examine you.” The voice is strange, like several people talking at once. Hands reach from the darkness to touch his naked body, petting over skin.
The murmuring is louder now, hands on his legs and ass and he jumps when they grab his dick, trying to squirm away. Hands circle his wrists and he’s forced to bend forward, as other hands pet over his exposed ass, up from his cock and over his hole. He struggles some, but he’s held tight.
They force him to kneel and one of them steps close enough he can almost see a face, a hand grabbing his chin, turning his head. Suddenly he is released and they withdraw again. “Yes, he is pretty. Does he please the Council?”
There is murmuring assent around him, more voices than he can clearly differentiate and he turns, trying to estimate just how much trouble he’s in. To his left, a screen flickers to life and on it he can see Sam and Jack and Teal’c, chained to a stone wall.
“These are your friends.” It isn’t a question, but Daniel nods. Jack is punched in the stomach by a guard. Daniel climbs to his feet.
“Stop. Don’t hurt them.”
“If you obey our every command, they will not be harmed.”
“Obey?” Daniel turns, trying to find the source of the voice. “Obey what? We’re just peaceful explorers—“
“And we are the Ples Gor Ais. You have been chosen for your beauty and grace to please us.”
He frowns, turning back to the screen as Sam yells in pain. “Please….” He shakes his head, because none of this makes sense. Between him and the screen, a block rises from the floor, stopping when the top was just about waist high.
“Our appetites are many, but we will begin simply. Offer yourself to us.”
Daniel is still frowning, not sure yet what it is they’re asking, but as Jack screams, he stumbles toward the block. They crowd around him, he can feel them even though the shadows seem to cling to them. “Bend over, spread yourself.” The voice is right behind him now, hands on his back, on his hips…and suddenly he understands.
“No.” He jerks away, bucks the hands grabbing him, forcing him down…there are too many of them and the stone is cold on his stomach as he is pushed against it, his legs spread. Hands hold him down and fingers push inside his ass with little warning. “No!” He screams the word, fighting against the pressure, against what he knows is coming.
On the screen, Sam takes a vicious backhand to her face. Fingers withdraw and something bigger is rubbing against his ass. “If you do not submit, we will tell them to cut the woman.”
Sam’s eyes are big as the guard nears her with a knife and Jack is cursing, struggling. Daniel forces himself to still, though he can’t seem to make his body loosen up. The cock presses in and Daniel closes his eyes, holding his breath as it slowly pushes itself into him, forcing his ass open.
The hands loosen up as it becomes clear he’s going to obey, his fingers are pressed to the sides of the stone block beneath him and he focuses on the feeling of the corner biting into his palms, gripping it tightly. Fingers dig into his sides and his ass is filled and burning. He presses his forehead against the stone and starts to count in Latin in his head…anything to distract him…
Sam jerked awake and away from the comforting arm that Colonel O’Neill had around her, eyes darting around them. She wasn’t sure what had woken her. She cradled her broken arm as she got to her feet. The cell was dark. Teal’c was sitting against the far wall, his eyes closed. Beside her, Colonel O’Neill was opening his eyes.
“Carter?”
She shrugged, then grimaced when pain lanced through her arm. “I don’t know, sir.” There was something though. For a long moment, nothing moved. Then she could hear the sound of boots on the stone floor.
Jack stood, tapping Teal’c on the shoulder. He moved so he was between Sam and the door, as if to protect her…not that it had helped so far. The door opened and the main guard they had been dealing with filled the opening. “Follow me.”
“What?” Jack asked. The guard grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him out of the cell.
“All of you.”
Sam followed, with Teal’c behind her. They were marched up a flight of stairs and out into bright light that overwhelmed her at first. She could see the stargate, and SG3 and SG5 flanking it. The gate was spinning and lighting up as one of the marines came to offer her assistance.
“Colonel, let’s get you home.”
Jack shook his head. “Not without Daniel.”
“Sir.” Sam shaded her eyes as a big man in the uniform of the guards came toward them, carrying something. As he got closer, she could tell it was Daniel…or what was left of him.
There was a low whining sound as the guard stopped in front of Teal’c and let Daniel slide to the ground. Daniel immediately curled up tight, protecting his head with a hand that looked broken.
“Daniel.” Jack started to squat beside him.
“Sir, his feet.” Sam pointed to Daniel’s bare feet, both of which were bloody and looked like they’d been whipped or cut…or both.
The gate came to life behind them and Daniel responded by curling in tighter.
“Teal’c.” Jack gestured at Daniel and Teal’c inclined his head.
“Major, let’s go.” The marine put an arm around her, supporting her as they headed for the gate. On the other side, the gate room was buzzing with activity, guns aimed at the wormhole. She got as far as the end of the ramp and thanked the marine, sitting as the room spun and her stomach threatened to explode.
“Major Carter, are you all right?”
She looked up at General Hammond as a medical team streamed into the room. “What happened?”
Janet was there, reaching for Colonel O’Neill who was stopping on the ramp beside her. “Not me, him.” Jack growled, pushing the orderlies away as Teal’c came through the gate. Sam turned to look just as Daniel screamed, shivering as the sound echoed through her, reminding her of the long nights in that cell where they used Daniel’s screams to keep them from sleeping.
“No. No. No.” Daniel’s voice was ravaged, tearing out of him, filled with pain.
“Get me a sedative,” Janet said, her voice low. “Daniel? Daniel, it’s Janet.”
Sam turned away as Janet injected him. She couldn’t stop hearing his voice begging for it to stop.
“Okay, let’s get him down to the infirmary.” Janet was there beside them then. “What happened?”
Jack shook his head. “We’re not sure.”
“Torture.” Sam said, shivering. “We heard him screaming.” She looked up, blinking at the tears in her eyes.
“Okay, what about you?” Janet asked.
“I’m okay.” Janet leaned in, her fingers easily finding the knot from the gun one of the guards had cracked her over the head with. Sam pulled away. “I’m okay.”
“Okay, let’s get these two down to the infirmary too.” Sam let one of the orderlies help her up and out into the corridors that led to the infirmary. She lost sight of Daniel once they were there, a rush of doctors and nurses filling the spaces, curtains drawn. She tried not to think about the way he reacted, or the fact that his feet were so torn up…or what other wounds his clothes were hiding.
He’s screaming, but he can hear the laughter around him. His voice gives out and he sags against the rough restraints that keep him from falling to the floor, his head hanging until fingers slide through his sweat soaked hair, pulling his head up. Rough fingers rub over his chapped and broken lips, push into his mouth. “Such pretty screams.”
Ropes tighten, pull and he’s being positioned again, readied for the next assault, the next cruelty. He gives vague thought to fighting this time, to struggling...but he remembers what happens when he does, remembers the sounds of Sam screaming, of bones breaking.
He’s spread open, his body nothing more to these aliens than a toy to be used for their own pleasure…and that pleasure comes at the expense of his body. He wonders as it begins how much longer his body will please them...and what will happen when it no longer does….
He paced until his knee hurt too much to keep it up. Then he sat. Until he couldn’t sit still, and then he went back to pacing. His shoulder throbbed, but he’d had worse. Two stitches held the cut on his hand closed and the swelling would go down in his knee eventually.
Daniel’s breathing was tight, even in a drug induced sleep. His body twitched, his face filled with pain.
The screaming started just as Jack reached the end of the bed. Daniel’s body flailed, his wrecked voice blood curdling as he fought the light blanket that covered him and tried to protect himself from the dream chasing him.
“Daniel?” Jack moved back to the bed, one hand grabbing just above the cast on Daniel’s left arm.
Daniel’s voice only increased, and he sat up, swinging his right hand and catching Jack in the jaw. “NO!”
Suddenly there were orderlies and Janet pushing him aside and a needle inserted into the IV. Slowly, Daniel collapsed back against the bed, his eyes closing. “Thank you.” Janet said as the orderlies moved away. “Sherrie, prep a private room for me please.” She moved so that she could roll Daniel back onto his side, checking the stitches on several of the wounds of his back. Her face clouded over. “Colonel O’Neill, I’m going to need you to leave.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head and took a step back, crossing her arms. “I’m not asking you, Colonel.”
Jack was frowning hard, trying to glare past her serious face, but he could tell it wasn’t going to work this time. “You will tell me what is wrong with him.”
“I will tell you what I need to when I can, sir. Now, I need you to leave.”
”No.” He shakes his head. It’s too much. He’s sort of sitting on his hip because his knees are bloody and bruised and his ass is welted and sore. The hand that doesn’t feel like it’s filled with broken glass holds him up as he fights the urge to just lay down.
The sounds of screams fill the room, and he can’t tell anymore if it’s just replaying the sounds or if they’re hurting Sam and Jack more.
“Perhaps he is finished,” the voice says and murmurs circle him. “Perhaps we should bring the woman instead.”
“What? NO.” Daniel pushes himself upright. “You can’t.”
“This one is spent.”
“No. No.” Daniel huffs and pushes against the floor, forcing himself to move. He inches toward the device, knowing the pain it will cause, drags himself up, though his feet scream in pain as he puts weight on them. He almost can’t do it, get himself up on the platform of it…almost can’t get into position, but then he is, the fake cock against his painful hole, his hands lifting to the restraints above him.
“Do it,” the voice hisses and echoes around him.
He fights the scream as he sinks down onto it, his voice tearing out of his ripped up throat. The first blow of the leather whip bites into his back as he takes the full length of the cold metal dick inside of himself.
It isn’t the first time, but somehow it’s worse than before. There isn’t a spot on his body that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t scream out in pain as they abuse him, force him to abuse himself. His body tightens up and he can’t make himself move, not until pain lances through him, electricity jolting through him from the cock and he pulls his hips up. He’s uncertain how long it goes on, but then suddenly he feels the platform retreating, the cock pulling from him and he is left dangling from his wrists, the pain from the broken one making him swoon into half-consciousness.
The whipping goes on, moving to his chest and down over his stomach and when it wraps around his cock, he wakes with a jolt, horrified at the hardness in his dick and the laughter that circles him as they see it.
“We are not the only ones pleased.”
A hand wraps around his cock and Daniel struggles to pull away, but he’s trapped, hands pushing him from behind, into the one jerking up his cock. He expects the pain to kill whatever self-preservation instinct drives the arousal, pulling hard on the broken hand until he’s screaming with little voice left and his cock releases the built up pressure, coming onto the floor beneath him.
Janet closed the door behind her, holding her charts and files in front of her as if they could protect her from the news she had to give General Hammond. He nodded to her and pointed to a chair.
“Yes, sir.” She sat, tucked her feet under her and took a moment to collect her thoughts. “I have him in a private room now, sedated pretty heavily.” She pressed her lips together. “What I can tell you is Daniel has been through…” She shook her head, exhaling slowly. “I can’t begin to imagine what he’s been through, sir. Physically…” She flipped open the chart. “He’s got a broken left wrist, and a few of the bones in the hand are broken as well. Two ribs on the right side, three on the left. Bruising to several internal organs. Both shoulders appear to have been dislocated at some point, but he managed to pop them back in.” She sighed and looked up at him. “His feet and knees have been cut and beaten, he’s been whipped by at least one implement, likely several. His back has been cut repeatedly.”
General Hammond’s eyes didn’t waver as he looked at her, nodding for her to go on. “They tortured him, sir. From what I can tell, nearly the entire time he was there. And not just the beatings.”
“What do you mean?”
She inhaled and held it before letting it go. “Judging from the nightmares and what little he’s said, I’m fairly sure there was mental torture too, and drugs. I can’t identify all of them, but it’s a heady mix…sedatives and hallucinogenics, adrenaline and any number of others . And…” She bit her lip. Daniel didn’t want anyone to know. She’d gotten that much out of him, but this wasn’t like telling Jack and Sam. General Hammond needed to know.
“Doctor?”
She licked her lips and nodded. “Yes, sir. There is evidence that Daniel was….assaulted. Sexually.”
“What evidence?”
“My first indication was blood from his rectum, sir. Upon examination, it became clear that he had been abused.” She cleared her throat, her face burning. “Repeatedly sir. There were signs of fissures that had started to heal along with fresh ones.”
SG1 had been missing for just over three weeks. And if she had to guess, based solely on Daniel’s condition, he’d spent nearly all of that time being abused. “In fact almost all of his injuries show signs of repeated re-injury. The bruises in particular are all in various stages of healing.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
She nodded. “Physically? He is going to need surgery on his wrist, but the rest will heal. Emotionally, mentally? I have no idea.”
His heart is pounding in his chest and he can't open his eyes, not and say this. "Jack...I'm sorry. Please don't hate me."
Jack moves closer, Daniel can feel him, but he doesn't touch. "I don't hate you Daniel." His voice is uncharacteristically soft, gentle even. "I couldn't hate you."
"I know they hurt you...because I..." No, Not that. Jack can't know that. "It was my fault."
Jack sighs and sits back. "No, Daniel it wasn't."
He opens his eyes, but Jack isn't looking at him. He's staring into the corner. Just as well. Daniel isn't sure he wants to see himself in Jack's eyes. "All I had to do was obey." Daniel says, his voice tiny in the space of the room.
There's the faintest hint of a smile and Jack adjusts the sling on his arm. "You never have been good at that."
It sounds deliciously like forgiveness, like a way out of the guilt he knows is his own. Daniel wants to take it, wants desperately to believe it, but he retreats from it as the door opens and Sam's voice trembles a little from it. "Sir, Daniel...I...can I come in?"
Daniel’s eyes close again, unable to bear the two of them together. He wants to turn, to roll away and hide, but he can’t without help. He can feel them, hovering...Sam is behind Jack now, clearing her throat.
“Daniel, I...I brought you some of your books. I mean, I know you’re not ready, but well...I thought maybe…” Her voice trails off and he imagines her staring at him, her sharp eyes cataloging all of his wounds.
“I...I’m tired.” Daniel finally says when the silence has stretched into awkwardness. They hesitate, as if expecting him to say something more but eventually they move, leave together, leaving him alone in the quiet room that is nearly as much prison as the cage.
Daniel had been home for a few days, and it had been that long since anyone had heard from him. Jack bit his lip as he approached the apartment, not sure Daniel would even want to see him. It had been tense once Daniel knew that Jack knew…at least in the vaguest terms, what those aliens had done.
He knocked on the door, but as he expected there was no answer. He slipped his key in the lock and opened the door, easing into the apartment slowly, his eyes sweeping around him for signs of Daniel. There was a half full cup of coffee on the counter and his notebook beside it.
Jack moved into the apartment. “Daniel?”
He stopped as he reached the living room, the open door out onto the balcony spiking his heart with fear. He’d nearly lost Daniel on that balcony once before, when despair had driven him to nearly jump to his death, despair brought on by something so much less traumatic than the torture and rape Daniel had endured.
He moved closer, his heart thundering in his chest, half expecting to find Daniel gone, painted on the pavement below. “Daniel?”
He blinked, looking up from where he was leaning over the rail, standing upright slowly. “Jack?”
His voice was nearly back to normal, though it still failed him from time to time. He squinted at Jack and moved back from the rail. “What….why are you here?”
Jack stepped out onto the balcony. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I…couldn’t.” Daniel said. He circled around Jack to the door, keeping his distance and darting inside as soon as he was clear. Jack waited a heartbeat before he followed, giving Daniel his space.
“I was worried.” Jack said as Daniel went to the counter, retrieving his coffee cup and emptying it in the sink before refilling it.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Daniel was walking better, though he was still favoring the right foot a bit. His left hand was still in a splint, and would require another surgery before it was all done. The bruising was gone from his face, but his eyes…Daniel hadn’t looked Jack in the eye since before the planet.
He sipped at his coffee, staring at the floor. The quiet stretched out around them until Jack cleared his throat. “You know, Daniel…you don’t need to apologize.” In fact, it seemed to be the only conversation they ever had. Daniel apologizing for Carter’s broken arm, for his dislocated shoulder and broken nose, for Hammond needing to step in to rescue them.
Daniel inhaled deeply. “Dr. Carligle tells me that too.” He took his coffee and went back to the balcony door, though he didn’t step onto it. “He says I need to talk more, apologize less.”
The shrink. Jack made a face. He knew if anyone needed one, it was Daniel now, but he didn’t have to like it. “Are you? Talking, I mean?”
Daniel sort of shrugged, his eyes closing. Jack sank slowly to sit on the couch. After a long silence, Daniel turned and came to sit on the chair near Jack, putting his coffee down on the end table beside it. “I don’t….” He licked his lips, his eyes focused on the coffee cup. “When they tied me down, I think that was when it was the worst.”
“Daniel…I’m not sure I’m….the one you want…” Jack shifted a little closer, putting a hand on the arm of Daniel’s chair. He didn’t want to know the details. “I mean…I’ll listen, if you do…but….”
He swallowed, his eyes closing. “They made me ask for it. Made me beg.” Tears slipped down his face. He shivered, curling forward. “They made me…” His hands tightened around his stomach and his face curled up in pain. “They….I…” He turned his face away, then stood abruptly, hands wiping over his face and shaking his head.
“Daniel….I can’t begin to know what you’re going through right now.” Jack said.
It was quiet again as Daniel breathed slowly and turned, offering a tight smile. “I’m sorry. This must make you uncomfortable.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “No. Really. I’m fine.”
Suddenly Daniel frowned. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I’m kind of taking a vacation.” Jack said, waving his hands. “The kind that comes after…disobeying orders and scrubbing a mission.”
“What did you do?”
Jack shrugged and stood. “Nothing. Much.” He wiped his mouth to hide the smirk. “There may have been a bomb that went off where it wasn’t supposed to.”
He’s pretty sure he won’t survive much longer, his body is barely functioning, only his need to keep the others safe pushing him with enough force to satisfy the desires of his captors. It’s quiet now, just him and one of them…he thinks. It’s too hard to tell sometimes.
He never really sees them, just shadows shifting around him, taking turns with him…watching him. He’s bent over the stone, the cool touch soothing on the welts that cover his chest and stomach. This one is nearly gentle, his strokes long and deep. His hands pet over Daniel’s back, over the marks…counting out each sharp cut that they make after every time he is done pleasing them.
The screen flickers and he can hear Sam whisper to Jack that she’s okay. He lifts his head and the hand petting him pauses, slides around his throat. “She is pretty.” The voice slithers over him. “When you no longer please us, she will get a chance.”
“No.” Daniel tries to push back, to take more, but the alien holds him down, a hand sliding around Daniel’s cock, coaxing it to life.
“Or…I could give her to you…” Sam’s face fills the screen, her blue eyes filled with pain. “I could put her here, under you.” To his dismay, Daniel’s cock is filling, hardening and surrounded by slippery heat that some part of him knows is just another alien device, but his head is filled with Sam’s face, with the touch of skin. “You could do to her everything we have done to you…make her please you.”
“No.” Daniel tries to deny the words, the feeling inside him because of them, the way his cock pushes into the soft folds of skin.
“Yes, that’s it.” Fingers stroke down his side and his hips move, fucking forward. On the screen Sam’s face twists in pain and she whimpers. “A little harder.”
He can feel the block of stone against his hips, bruising him, and yet he doesn’t stop, he thrusts harder. Sam yells and Daniel’s body convulses as he comes, collapsing forward as the alien returns to fucking him, laughing.
He closes his eyes and wills it to end, even though he knows it will mean his own death…and Sam in his place….he never even feels the finish, or the cut on his back to mark his pleasure.
The screams brought her up from the dark, her eyes scanning the cell, half expecting Daniel to be right there. Teal’c was instantly beside her, a hand on her back. Jack was leaning against the bars.
Daniel’s voice echoed around them, then suddenly went silent. She held her breath, straining to hear, jumping when something cracked and Daniel yelled out. Over and over the crack came, followed by Daniel’s screams until his voice broke and sobs filled the cell instead. “Please, stop, no more…please…” Daniel begged.
Tears burned down Sam’s face at the sound. “What are they doing to him?” Sam asked, wiping at the tears angrily.
“That sounded like a whip.” Teal’c offered.
“But why? What do they want?”
The sound of boots filled the corridor and Sam backed up to the corner, Jack and Teal’c moving to stand between her and the door. It opened and a guard entered with a tray. “He has pleased them. That means you get to eat.” He put the tray down and backed out of the cell, pulling the door shut.
“Pleased him?” Sam asked. Teal’c’s hand on her back was comforting, but she pulled away. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sadistic pricks.” Jack responded, crossing to the tray. “Eat, Major.”
“I don’t think I can, sir.” Her stomach churned at the thought. Jack handed her a bowl of what looked like grey oatmeal.
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Major. It’s been days.”
“Your body requires food, Major Carter.” Teal’c said softly. “So that you are strong when we find a means of escape.”
She took the bowl and crossed to the corner, sinking slowly down the wall. They weren’t going to escape…they were all aware of that. Still, she closed her eyes and ate the tasteless glop in her bowl and prayed they didn’t make them listen to the screaming again.
His dreams drag him back into that place of faceless assailants and endless humiliation, trap him there where he’s forced to crawl on torn up knees, to expose himself, to offer himself, to beg them to fuck him harder, to hurt him more.
He wakes screaming with what little voice remains, pulling against the restraints, fighting the rising panic. He knows why he’s restrained, knows he’s safe, knows they got him out of there…but he can’t stop trying to sit up, to pull away, yelling because he can feel them even though he knows they aren’t there.
He sees Janet coming, the syringe in her hand and he shakes his head, fights the panic. “No,” he manages the word, pressing his sweaty body down against the bed, his hands fisting at his sides. “I’m okay.”
Her smile is soft, her hand softer still as she brushes it across his forehead. Her eyes meet his, all compassion and caring and he looks away, clears his throat, whispers again. “I’m okay. Don’t want it.”
He sees her nod from the corner of his eye and hears the sound of the syringe being set on the tray. “Okay. For now.”
He licks his lips and nods his thanks. She unbuckles the restraint that holds his broken wrist, lifting his hand, her fingers moving along the tips. Wordlessly, she returns it to the bed and the restraint before she’s moving closer, turning his face toward her to flash the light in his eyes. “Are you ready to answer a few questions?”
“Can’t.” Daniel whispers.
Janet sits on the edge of the bed, her fingers sliding over his. “Daniel, you’re safe now. We’re alone. Anything you tell me stays between us.” She closed her hand around his. “I know.”
He looks up sharply. No. No one could know. “Please.”
He’s surprised when he realizes that there are tears in her eyes. “Let me help you, Daniel.” Janet says softly.
“No one can know.” His own voice is strange in his ears, thick and hoarse and heavy with fear.
Her fingers tighten around his and she nods. “Just you and me here. I know this is hard.”
He can feel the heat in his face and he closes his eyes, turns away. “Let’s start with something easier.” Janet offers, slipping off the bed. “Your wrist. It’s a pretty nasty break. Can you tell me how it happened?”
He opens his eyes, looks at the wall, at the monitor, anything but the replay inside his head. “I was chained. Fell.” He swallows, remembering the pain as it happened. “My hand stayed while the rest of me went sideways.” He doesn’t tell her why he fell, doesn’t tell her about the hands on his naked body, or the demands that he willingly submit to their games.
She nods and offers a smile. “Okay.”
“They…um…” He presses his lips together and clears his throat. “After it happened…they didn’t leave it alone. They…they liked it when I screamed.” He doesn’t mean to say that and he flushes with embarrassment, but her hand is back in his good one, squeezing lightly.
“Okay. Good. We’ve set the break, but it’s very likely we’ll have to go in surgically when you’ve stabilized to repair some of the damage.” She moves to the end of the bed and his feet, peeling bandages off and pulling a cart closer. “How about this. Can you tell me about this?”
He wants to pull his feet away, but they too are restrained and he can’t. He forces the panic down, aside, away, swallowing around it. “I…don’t really remember the first time. Some kind of rod.” It was the kind of pain he hadn’t ever known before, the rod cracking against skin. “They hit me with it until my feet were bleeding.”
She nods, her fingers gently re-bandaging his foot. “Tell me about the knife.”
He pulls at his foot involuntarily, flinching away from the memory. It wasn’t a big blade. It didn’t have to be. It was razor sharp and the one who wielded it most often knew how to use it to inflict pain. “He…my foot wasn’t bleeding enough…so they cut it.”
She finishes taping down the bandage and moves closer, her hand gentle on his leg. “And on your back?”
He shivers, shifting so the scabs on his back rub against the sheet beneath him. “The rod sometimes. A-a whip I think…just to make me scream.” She nods, helping him sit up as much as he can with the restraints, putting her stethoscope on to listen to his lungs. He gasps when her fingers brush the other marks, the ones cut by that knife…each one a reminder of hours of rape and torture.
Her hand is warm on his skin, her eyes soft and too close to him. “And these?”
He shakes his head, doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want her to know how bad it was. “The knife,” he whispers.
“All at the same time?”
“No.” His voice is barely audible, his face burning. “One for each…” Tears burn the corners of his eyes and spill out onto his face and he curls forward as much as he can, the restraints digging into his skin. He can’t tell her that each line is a symbol for his ability to please his captors, to give himself over to their perverted desire for hours at a time.
“Okay, okay. That’s enough for now, easy Daniel.” She helps him lay back, adjusts the bed, picks up the syringe. “I think you should sleep now. I can help.”
He wants to say no, but he wants the oblivion that the drug provides, sleep without dreams until it wears off, so he nods, watching her stick the needle into his arm, counting slowly as it pulls him down.
He didn’t need a blow by blow to know that his friend had been brutalized in ways most men could never even imagine. It was enough to see him lying there so broken, so traumatized. It was too much to listen to his screaming when the dreams became too real.
Especially when he knew that getting them home was the only revenge he would be allowed.
“Colonel O’Neill?”
He blinked and looked at his commanding officer, a man he had the utmost respect for, a man he owed his life to, Daniel’s life. “Sorry, sir. I saw Daniel just before I came up here.”
General Hammond nodded. “How is Doctor Jackson?”
Jack sort of shrugged and got up to pace the small office. “Recovering, I guess. If anyone ever recovers from something like that.” He looked out the window into the conference room.
“I know this is hard for you, Colonel.”
“You’re damn right it’s hard for me General. It’s hard for me to understand why we aren’t sending a nuke through the gate to blow those bastards into oblivion.”
General Hammond sighed and folded his hands on his desk. “The Pentagon won’t allow any retaliatory strikes, Jack.”
He narrowed his eyes and crossed back to the chairs by the desk. “That sounds like you argued for it.”
“Sit.” Hammond gestured at the chair and Jack sat, watching him. “When we were negotiating with the Ples Gor Ais for your release, I was authorized to threaten military action, to demonstrate our resolve and our ability to carry out our threats, but forbidden to act beyond that.”
“Those bastards nearly killed Daniel. They raped him, sir.”
“I am well aware of that, Colonel.”
“And we respond how? By locking their gate address out of our dialing computer?” Jack got up again and went back to pacing. “Not good enough. Not by a long shot.”
“I know how you feel, Jack. I do. But these aliens…” Hammond got up and went to the window himself, staring into the conference room. “I’ve never negotiated with anyone like them.”
“How so?” Jack frowned, watching General Hammond’s face.
“They would have released you and Teal’c without a fight, had no interest in either of you. But simply refused to return Major Carter and Doctor Jackson.”
Jack frowned even harder. “How did you do it?”
Hammond looked at him and shrugged. “A display of force, I sent SG teams 3 through 8 through with heavy ordinance and orders to make life on that planet hell until the aliens came back to talk to me. When they did I made it clear that we could destroy their little pleasure palace and we would if they didn’t return all of my people.”
“Pleasure palace, sir?”
He nodded. “Yes. According to Doctor Allen, ‘Ples Gor Ais’ translates roughly to ‘pleasure seekers’ and from what we gathered, that compound is devoted to their pursuit of what pleases them.”
“Pleasure?” Jack shook his head. “I’d like to show them what pleases me—“
“Jack, let it go.”
“No, sir. I don’t think I will be letting go of this for a long time.”
He doesn’t sit, can’t sit…spent too much time tied down, needs to move now, even if it hurts a little. His feet are healing, the stitches gone, the wounds closed. They’re still tender though so his movements are slow. He looks at the books on the shelf, at the awards and diplomas on the wall.
He doesn’t want to be here.
“Dr. Jackson?”
He stiffens, then slumps his shoulders. Being here forces him to relive it, and he doesn’t want to. “Yes.”
“You were telling me about the day you were released.”
“Was I?” He frowns, not really remembering mentioning it. “I…It was…quiet. I was in the cage, had been for a while. They dragged me out, I thought…” He remembers the fear that spiked through him…he hadn’t had enough time to rest, he wasn’t going to be able to function….this would be the last time…he would die and no one was coming to save him this time.
“I thought it was the end. I thought I wouldn’t survive another session. Instead, the guards scrubbed me down and shoved me into my clothes. I blacked out a few times I think. Then, I could hear Jack and Sam, but I couldn’t…” He swallows a heavy knot of emotion and moves down the bookshelf, his fingers trailing the spines of books. He couldn’t bring himself up out of the stupor to respond to them, couldn’t tell who was who, and when Teal’c had lifted him, Daniel had been half convinced his friends were going to continue the abuse.
“Did you understand what was happening?”
“No.” Daniel shakes his head and sighs, moving around the couch to the window. The world outside is so different than his, oblivious to the danger. “I was too far gone. I don’t remember much past Teal’c….I am told they had to sedate me almost immediately though.”
“Tell me about your recovery so far.”
Daniel frowns, his fingers on the cold glass of the window. “Recovery? Is that what I’ve been doing?” Physically maybe. “How does anyone recover from…I’m getting by. I’m breathing. I’m not sure that’s recovering anything.”
“Okay, that’s understandable.”
“Is it?” Daniel asks, turning to look at the psychologist.
“What you’re feeling is perfectly normal, Daniel.”
“Normal?” His voice lifts, cold anger curling around his stomach. “Normal? You think what I’m feeling is normal? What gives you the right to judge that? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be forced to lick semen off the floor while some alien whose face you can’t see is raping you and dozens of others watch?”
“No, of course not.”
“Or what it’s like to watch your friends be beaten because you won’t…can’t do what they want? Or how it feels to know that you can’t stop them from using you up and moving on to Sam?” Images barrage him, of all of that and more…of Sam’s face, of the feeling as he came thinking about doing to her what was being done to him, of the endless barrage of humiliation and horror.
Tears burn at the corners of his eyes and he turns away, back to the window. It’s snowing now and he thinks maybe if he goes out into it now, if he lays down somewhere quiet, the snow can cover him up, muffle the noise, bring him quiet…peace.
“What happened to you was horrific, Daniel. I am not trying to minimize that.”
His face is wet now, and he clears his throat, tries to find words that won’t betray how broken he really is, how fucked his head has become. “I can’t…” He shakes his head, crosses his arms, suddenly cold through to his bones. “Jack…he, um. He came over yesterday. He never used to come to my place. To be honest, I’m not sure why he came.”
“Maybe because he’s your friend and he cares for you?”
Daniel manages a smile and moves away from the window. “I know I make him uncomfortable. I can see it in his eyes.”
“How much does Colonel O’Neill know?”
Daniel sinks slowly to sit on the couch. “Enough. Too much.” If Jack ever knew the things Daniel did…Daniel would be lucky if the Colonel never spoke to him again. “They all know too much. They stare at me, I can see them thinking about it. Imagining it.” He shakes his head. “I can’t be with them.”
“I wonder, Daniel, if you’ve considered this from their position?”
He looks up, frowning. “Excuse me?”
“Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter and Teal’c were all captured by these same aliens. They all were held in relative comfort while you were tortured and abused. They heard you screaming in agony. Can you begin to imagine how they must feel knowing they could do nothing to prevent what happened to you?” The doctor checks his watch and offers him a smile. “I would just like you to consider it. Our time is up for today. Unless you…”
Daniel shakes his head and stands. “No. I’m…I’ll go.”
He doesn’t wait to be walked out, collects his coat, leaves with his head down. He doesn’t want to think about what Jack and Sam and Teal’c are feeling. His own guilt is heavy enough without compounding it with theirs.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“Jacob, just sit down and shut up and stay out of my way.” Jack pushed the older man back into the seat, even as Teal’c got the cargo ship turned. “You good, T?”
“Indeed, O’Neill.”
“Jack, the mission—“
“I never had any intention of chasing down whatever damn cockamamie Tok’ra mission you came up with. I just needed your ship.”
“And the bomb.” Teal’c added.
“Well, yeah. That too.” Jack moved back to check on that particular part of the plan, keeping the zat gun leveled at Jacob. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. Just don’t make me shoot you.”
“You could get court martialed, Jack.”
“Fine.” Jack snapped, storming back across the space between them. “If that’s what it takes.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on Jacob and he looked at least somewhat understanding. “Is this about what happened to Daniel?”
“Jacob, so help me, don’t.” Jack said, leaning over to see the display. “T, you sure you know where we’re going?”
“I’m very sorry about Daniel too, Jack, but bombing that planet won’t—“
Jack brought the zat gun level with Jacob’s face. He held up both hands. “You weren’t there. You have no idea.”
“Teal’c, this is madness.”
Teal’c didn’t even look away from piloting the ship. “We are approaching the planet.”
“Jack, think about this.” Jacob implored.
“I have.” Jack snapped. “It’s all I can think about. You haven’t seen him, Jacob. “ Jack shook his head. He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. “Besides, I insisted they give us two nukes, in case one wasn’t good enough. We’ll finish your mission….once we’re done here.” He stepped back as Teal’c settled them into orbit. “I’ll prep the bomb. Let me know when we’re in position. And don’t let him move.”
Teal’c brought up his own zat as Jack moved to the back. He armed the device sitting on the ring platform. “Ready when you are.” He stepped out to the controls as Teal’c took them down into the atmosphere.
“Now, O’Neill.”
Jack hesitated only a second before pressing the buttons that would send the device down to the planet, deep into the heart of the complex where they’d been held. “Go.”
They climbed up and away and a few seconds later they could see the glow of the explosion, just as they escaped the atmosphere.
Jacob wasn’t wrong. He could get court martialed over this.
Somehow, he just didn’t care.
”Are you sure about this?” Sam asks as he joins her at the foot of the ramp.
He isn’t sure and he’s terrified, but he nods and smiles. If nothing else, his time with Dr. Carligle has taught him to fake it well.
Teal’c and Jack join them as the gate begins to dial and Daniel tamps down the fear. It’s been nine months since he last stepped through the gate, and he knows they’re all afraid, knows that he’s walking an edge.
They’re careful not to touch him, not to stand too close to him. They use his name far too frequently and work hard not to stare at him. He knows they mean well. He knows they worry. But he has to do this…at least that’s what he’s convinced himself. He has to know he can still do this.
All too quickly the gate is open and they’re moving up the ramp and into the wormhole and his heart seizes up, panic dumping cold and heavy into his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. He stumbles out the other side, away, hands clawing at his hat, at his vest, trying to make air move into him again.
“Daniel!” He hears them, but can’t respond, can’t make words as memory floods him…hands and cocks and voices all colliding in a cacophony in his head. He thinks maybe he’s screaming, or maybe it’s all in his head.
“Damn it. Carter, dial us home.”
“No.” He hears his own voice and finds that somehow it’s cracked the vice around his chest. He drags air into protesting lungs and stands a little more upright. “No. I’m okay.” He isn’t okay, and he knows they all know that…but he’s breathing now and the memory is receding and he nods. “I’m okay.”
“We don’t have to do this today.” Jack says softly so that only Daniel can hear him.
“I know.” He presses his lips together. “I’m not promising anything, Jack. But for right now, I’m okay.” Jack nods, claps a hand to Daniel’s shoulder. It’s the first time since he can remember that Jack has actually touched him. Daniel’s hand covers his and he smiles.
“Move out.” Jack pulls his hand away and gestures toward the path that led into the village where doctors from the SGC were administering vaccines.
He can do this. And if he can do this then maybe one day he really would be okay again.
