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I decided to stop faffing around and start earning the slash...sort of.
Previous parts are here.
Buried Dreams
Part Three
By the time someone had shown MacGyver to his room, the sun had set, with a startling abruptness, and the camp had settled into a quiet hum of activity centred around eating, drinking -- surreptitiously in corners in some cases -- and talking. From the snatches of conversation MacGyver overheard as he wandered around, wiggling his aching toes absently inside his boot, no one seemed unduly concerned about the spiriting away of some choice artifacts.
Maybe they just took it for granted. Which had MacGyver wondering why Pete Thornton hadn't. Pete was an old friend of Professor Blake's, but friendship wasn't enough for the Phoenix Foundation to expend energy and resources on investigating a fairly low-key series of thefts that a tighter security could probably nip in the bud.
Nodding a thanks to his guide, MacGyver walked through a doorway he had to stoop to use, and tossed his holdall onto the bed not occupied by a ferociously scowling Daniel Jackson, reading in the wavering, uncertain light of a lamp and stripped down to a filthy pair of khaki shorts.
"Well, hello, roomie," MacGyver said, smiling at Daniel's bare toes because they seemed the safest place to look at.
Daniel curled them and wiggled them.
Okay. Maybe his knees would be better…
"You can't sleep here."
"Why not?" MacGyver opened his holdall and pulled out a book of his own, feeling like a duelist unsheathing his sword. He turned, and Cervantes 'Don Quixote' which he'd picked up as a prize in sixth grade clashed against 'The Egyptian Book of the Dead' translated by…. MacGyver squinted. Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge.
Deciding it was a draw based on the lack of sneer on Daniel's face, MacGyver gave an amiable smile and repeated, "Why not? I don't snore, and I'm tidy." His gaze took in the state of the small room, every surface heaped with books and small, broken pieces of pottery, clearly discards from the dig. The tools Daniel used; brushes and shovels and a magnifying glass Mac coveted, were good quality, well-used, and tucked carefully into a canvas roll, currently spread out on the only table. "Tidier than you, as it happens."
"How do you know?"
"What?"
"That you don't snore." Daniel's blue eyes -- okay, he had to stop looking through the lenses of Daniel's glasses to study his eyes because it was starting to become a habit -- narrowed. "Either you've recorded yourself sleeping…"
"I'm weird, or so I'm told, but not that weird."
"Or you make a habit of sleeping with insomniacs." Blink, flutter, stare. "Do you?"
"I sleep alone. Mostly." MacGyver tore his gaze away from blueness and down to a bare, slender chest and a flat, hard belly. If Daniel stood up, his shorts would have to stay on by sheer force of will, because they were too big for him and gaped, exposing shadowed, secret skin and pointed hipbones.
"'Mostly'…" Daniel repeated. "I see."
"I don't think you do, but it doesn't matter." Somewhere, somehow, everything had gotten out of control. "Look, I can find somewhere else --"
Daniel rolled to his stomach, his shorts inching down in the process and revealing a dusting of fair hair at the base of his spine, sweat-damped down against a deeply tanned back, and propped his book against his pillow. "You can stay. Just don't snore. Or talk. Or try and cook me something. Or lie to me. Or --"
"We got off on the wrong foot, I can see that -- unless we count the part where I was really nice and stopped to help you -- but trust me, I usually get along with ki-- people --"
"If you call me anything that implies I'm immature again, I'll get very inventive when I convince you it's not a good idea."
Daniel turned his head, gave the solemn blink he seemed to use to punctuate a sentence, and smiled. It was a scary smile, MacGyver decided, because Daniel looked like the sort of man with a lively imagination.
He held up his hands. "Convinced! No need to get, uh, creative."
He got a curt nod and Daniel turned his attention back to his book, making impatient little tutting noises under his breath now and then. MacGyver watched him in silence and then went to find some food.
When he got back, a bowl of stew lying uneasily in his stomach, Daniel had turned out the lamp, the shorts were in a heap on the floor, and the book had been tossed aside.
Muttering, "Okaaay" for about the thirtieth time since he'd met Daniel, MacGyver kicked off his boots, pants and shirt and got into bed in his briefs feeling both ridiculously overdressed and naked at one and the same time.
Praying that Daniel wouldn't show how much of a man he was while Mac was still awake to listen and be tortured, he rolled onto his side, his back to Daniel, and fell asleep.
Until Daniel left the room, silent as a shadow, surefooted as a cat, having kicked over the tin mug on a pile of books that Mac had put in between Daniel's bed and the door. Daniel had caught the mug before it hit the cheap matting over the floor, but the string running from Mac's big toe to the handle of the mug had still been tugged.
MacGyver got dressed and slipped into the corridor, flashlight in hand, pack on his back, training the circle of light on the twigs he'd scattered on the ground. They were disturbed to the right of the door so he went that way, noting absently that the rudimentary washroom was to the left.
The camp was silent, dreaming under a purple-black sky studded with stars, glimmering and gleaming and twice the size they should be. Ahead of him, Daniel's tall, thin figure was dark against the night, moving purposefully towards the irregular heap of the dig.
MacGyver had looked around the dig and seen the tunnel leading into a maze of corridors and small rooms, most empty, their bare walls silent. He'd also seen Daniel's storeroom, its door ornately carved, the space beyond larger and the walls incised with markings he hadn't had chance to examine.
It hadn't looked much like a storeroom to him, but to be fair to the professor, for a burial chamber, it was a bit lacking in bodies, too.
By the time MacGyver got there, it had gained one, at least. Daniel lay sprawled on his face, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, bleeding from a cut on his head, and groaning.
When he wasn't cursing. For a well-educated young man, he had a filthy mouth on him. A sinful, pouting, filthy mouth…
MacGyver rolled his eyes, dealt himself a solid thunk on the chin, and hurried over to kneel beside his roommate.
"Touch me and I'll kill you."
"You're very violent, aren't you?"
"I'm going to throw up."
"Why do I think you'd aim it at my feet?" MacGyver dug around in his pack and took out a water bottle and a handkerchief. Wetting the soft cloth, he bathed Daniel's head wound. "Looks like you'll live, kid. And it's what I call people twice your age, so don't go getting huffy on me. Save your energy for whoever did this."
"You didn't see them?" Daniel struggled up to sitting, leaning against MacGyver's waiting shoulder without comment. "If you were following me --which we'll come back to -- you must have seen them. Three of them. Two British guys, an old man and a thug, and a worker from the dig. There's only one way out."
"Didn't come past me," MacGyver assured him. "Which means…"
"There's a secret passage in here," Daniel said, studying the walls with a frowning intensity. "Storeroom, my ass."
"Uh, yeah. Speaking of which, you're on the heavy side. Would you --?"
"What?" Daniel twisted in the circle of Mac's arm, which brought his face really close. "You want me to get off?"
"If you feel up to it."
"I feel fine." Daniel was still staring. "I've got a secret passage to explore; why wouldn't I?"
"Good point." MacGyver swallowed. "Want to tap on some walls with me?"
Daniel looked at him with a forgiving smile. "Or I could read what it says, work out the instructions, and open the door that way."
"Or I could look at where the sand's been recently scuffed," MacGyver countered.
Their gazes locked.
"Should I trust you?" Daniel asked finally.
"You know, usually I'd say yes without thinking, but I'm not so sure. There are these … factors I'm not prepared to discuss."
"You're a thief?"
"No."
"A spy?"
"No."
"A fan of Budge?"
"Who?"
"The writer."
"Oh. No."
"Then anything else is forgivable," Daniel assured him.
"Yeah…" MacGyver sighed and heaved Daniel off his lap. "Let's see what's behind door number one, huh?"
Part Four
Previous parts are here.
Buried Dreams
Part Three
By the time someone had shown MacGyver to his room, the sun had set, with a startling abruptness, and the camp had settled into a quiet hum of activity centred around eating, drinking -- surreptitiously in corners in some cases -- and talking. From the snatches of conversation MacGyver overheard as he wandered around, wiggling his aching toes absently inside his boot, no one seemed unduly concerned about the spiriting away of some choice artifacts.
Maybe they just took it for granted. Which had MacGyver wondering why Pete Thornton hadn't. Pete was an old friend of Professor Blake's, but friendship wasn't enough for the Phoenix Foundation to expend energy and resources on investigating a fairly low-key series of thefts that a tighter security could probably nip in the bud.
Nodding a thanks to his guide, MacGyver walked through a doorway he had to stoop to use, and tossed his holdall onto the bed not occupied by a ferociously scowling Daniel Jackson, reading in the wavering, uncertain light of a lamp and stripped down to a filthy pair of khaki shorts.
"Well, hello, roomie," MacGyver said, smiling at Daniel's bare toes because they seemed the safest place to look at.
Daniel curled them and wiggled them.
Okay. Maybe his knees would be better…
"You can't sleep here."
"Why not?" MacGyver opened his holdall and pulled out a book of his own, feeling like a duelist unsheathing his sword. He turned, and Cervantes 'Don Quixote' which he'd picked up as a prize in sixth grade clashed against 'The Egyptian Book of the Dead' translated by…. MacGyver squinted. Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge.
Deciding it was a draw based on the lack of sneer on Daniel's face, MacGyver gave an amiable smile and repeated, "Why not? I don't snore, and I'm tidy." His gaze took in the state of the small room, every surface heaped with books and small, broken pieces of pottery, clearly discards from the dig. The tools Daniel used; brushes and shovels and a magnifying glass Mac coveted, were good quality, well-used, and tucked carefully into a canvas roll, currently spread out on the only table. "Tidier than you, as it happens."
"How do you know?"
"What?"
"That you don't snore." Daniel's blue eyes -- okay, he had to stop looking through the lenses of Daniel's glasses to study his eyes because it was starting to become a habit -- narrowed. "Either you've recorded yourself sleeping…"
"I'm weird, or so I'm told, but not that weird."
"Or you make a habit of sleeping with insomniacs." Blink, flutter, stare. "Do you?"
"I sleep alone. Mostly." MacGyver tore his gaze away from blueness and down to a bare, slender chest and a flat, hard belly. If Daniel stood up, his shorts would have to stay on by sheer force of will, because they were too big for him and gaped, exposing shadowed, secret skin and pointed hipbones.
"'Mostly'…" Daniel repeated. "I see."
"I don't think you do, but it doesn't matter." Somewhere, somehow, everything had gotten out of control. "Look, I can find somewhere else --"
Daniel rolled to his stomach, his shorts inching down in the process and revealing a dusting of fair hair at the base of his spine, sweat-damped down against a deeply tanned back, and propped his book against his pillow. "You can stay. Just don't snore. Or talk. Or try and cook me something. Or lie to me. Or --"
"We got off on the wrong foot, I can see that -- unless we count the part where I was really nice and stopped to help you -- but trust me, I usually get along with ki-- people --"
"If you call me anything that implies I'm immature again, I'll get very inventive when I convince you it's not a good idea."
Daniel turned his head, gave the solemn blink he seemed to use to punctuate a sentence, and smiled. It was a scary smile, MacGyver decided, because Daniel looked like the sort of man with a lively imagination.
He held up his hands. "Convinced! No need to get, uh, creative."
He got a curt nod and Daniel turned his attention back to his book, making impatient little tutting noises under his breath now and then. MacGyver watched him in silence and then went to find some food.
When he got back, a bowl of stew lying uneasily in his stomach, Daniel had turned out the lamp, the shorts were in a heap on the floor, and the book had been tossed aside.
Muttering, "Okaaay" for about the thirtieth time since he'd met Daniel, MacGyver kicked off his boots, pants and shirt and got into bed in his briefs feeling both ridiculously overdressed and naked at one and the same time.
Praying that Daniel wouldn't show how much of a man he was while Mac was still awake to listen and be tortured, he rolled onto his side, his back to Daniel, and fell asleep.
Until Daniel left the room, silent as a shadow, surefooted as a cat, having kicked over the tin mug on a pile of books that Mac had put in between Daniel's bed and the door. Daniel had caught the mug before it hit the cheap matting over the floor, but the string running from Mac's big toe to the handle of the mug had still been tugged.
MacGyver got dressed and slipped into the corridor, flashlight in hand, pack on his back, training the circle of light on the twigs he'd scattered on the ground. They were disturbed to the right of the door so he went that way, noting absently that the rudimentary washroom was to the left.
The camp was silent, dreaming under a purple-black sky studded with stars, glimmering and gleaming and twice the size they should be. Ahead of him, Daniel's tall, thin figure was dark against the night, moving purposefully towards the irregular heap of the dig.
MacGyver had looked around the dig and seen the tunnel leading into a maze of corridors and small rooms, most empty, their bare walls silent. He'd also seen Daniel's storeroom, its door ornately carved, the space beyond larger and the walls incised with markings he hadn't had chance to examine.
It hadn't looked much like a storeroom to him, but to be fair to the professor, for a burial chamber, it was a bit lacking in bodies, too.
By the time MacGyver got there, it had gained one, at least. Daniel lay sprawled on his face, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, bleeding from a cut on his head, and groaning.
When he wasn't cursing. For a well-educated young man, he had a filthy mouth on him. A sinful, pouting, filthy mouth…
MacGyver rolled his eyes, dealt himself a solid thunk on the chin, and hurried over to kneel beside his roommate.
"Touch me and I'll kill you."
"You're very violent, aren't you?"
"I'm going to throw up."
"Why do I think you'd aim it at my feet?" MacGyver dug around in his pack and took out a water bottle and a handkerchief. Wetting the soft cloth, he bathed Daniel's head wound. "Looks like you'll live, kid. And it's what I call people twice your age, so don't go getting huffy on me. Save your energy for whoever did this."
"You didn't see them?" Daniel struggled up to sitting, leaning against MacGyver's waiting shoulder without comment. "If you were following me --which we'll come back to -- you must have seen them. Three of them. Two British guys, an old man and a thug, and a worker from the dig. There's only one way out."
"Didn't come past me," MacGyver assured him. "Which means…"
"There's a secret passage in here," Daniel said, studying the walls with a frowning intensity. "Storeroom, my ass."
"Uh, yeah. Speaking of which, you're on the heavy side. Would you --?"
"What?" Daniel twisted in the circle of Mac's arm, which brought his face really close. "You want me to get off?"
"If you feel up to it."
"I feel fine." Daniel was still staring. "I've got a secret passage to explore; why wouldn't I?"
"Good point." MacGyver swallowed. "Want to tap on some walls with me?"
Daniel looked at him with a forgiving smile. "Or I could read what it says, work out the instructions, and open the door that way."
"Or I could look at where the sand's been recently scuffed," MacGyver countered.
Their gazes locked.
"Should I trust you?" Daniel asked finally.
"You know, usually I'd say yes without thinking, but I'm not so sure. There are these … factors I'm not prepared to discuss."
"You're a thief?"
"No."
"A spy?"
"No."
"A fan of Budge?"
"Who?"
"The writer."
"Oh. No."
"Then anything else is forgivable," Daniel assured him.
"Yeah…" MacGyver sighed and heaved Daniel off his lap. "Let's see what's behind door number one, huh?"
Part Four