Not Quite Shakespeare
by Taselby
Rated G
J/D
For maharetr, because she asked. Okay, she asked for Jack/Daniel and laughter, but this is apparently as close as I can get.
~450 words. No warnings, no spoilers, no ownership, alas. Thank you to adonnchaid for the lightning-fast beta, and stopping me from confusing myself.
“You’re kidding,” Jack pulls off his sunglasses, squinting in the harsh light as he leans closer to the squiggles on the wall.
Daniel looks down for a long moment, lips pressed firmly together. Jack notices the sheen of sweat and dust on his neck, pale tracks through the grime disappearing under his collar. Daniel’s t-shirt is already damp, moisture spreading along his back. The heat is punishing, baking down from above, and being reflected back from the yellow dust and stone.
“Nope. It’s ah…” And here Jack can tell that Daniel’s bullshit-mode has switched on, Briefing Room Language Filter humming away at high power. “It’s a highly graphic account of the fraught courtship of two…” he brushes at a curl of script incised into the wall, “two warriors. The disapproval of their houses, the social stigma they endured, secret trysts…” he waves a hand at the wall. “In painstaking detail.”
Jack blinks at the deeply-cut script. He looks back down at Daniel, sitting on his heels in the dust. “Historical?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Okay. “Mythical?”
“Fictional.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, it’s hardly unprecedented, Jack.” Daniel looks up, expression earnestly bland. “There are erotic carvings and figurines from every period of human history, from cave paintings and Venus figurines of the stone age to-- to—“
Jack can’t help it. “The magazine rack at the 7-11?”
Daniel stops, face splitting in a grin to match Jack’s. He doesn’t quite laugh aloud, but Jack can see it thrumming in every line of him nonetheless. After a long moment Daniel composes himself and arches a brow, waving his hand toward the wall again. His face is very pink under the dirt. “Yes, actually. But this is more like a trashy romance novel than Playboy Magazine.”
Later he’ll find out just how much Daniel knows about trashy romance, and how. “Sounded more like Romeo and Juliet, from the description.”
Daniel stands and dusts his knees off, his smile brilliantly white through the dirt on his face. “Not quite. More like Pyramus and Thisbe, except with two men, more sex, and a really underdeveloped narrative style.”
“Two men, huh.” There is a long pause as he watches Daniel tracing his fingertips over the worn rock. “Awful lot of work, carving this. Must have been really important to someone. Does it have a happy ending?” Jack asks, looking down to where the wall disappears into the dirt.
Daniel tilts his head, looking at Jack instead of the wall. “Can’t say for sure yet.”
“You can tell me about it later. Come on, I can’t wait to see Carter’s face when we tell her about the big wall-o-porn.” He pats Daniel on the shoulder, leaving a dusty yellow handprint behind.
End