Daniel is lying on top of Cammie, his body between her thighs, his elbows pressed into the bed on either side of her hips. There's no possibility of him coupling with her in the position he's in, however; his face rests between her breasts, and he's balanced carefully on elbows and bent knee to keep both weight and pressure off her hips. Though in one sense Cammie is to be his sex partner tonight (or at least one of them, because Daniel is always interested in accuracy, especially when exploring strange new cultures), she is not the person he's going to be having sex with (as 'having sex' is defined when you are speaking 21st century American English.)

JD is kneeling between Daniel's thighs (it is a fortunate thing that the bed they all sleep in is enormous in all directions, or Daniel would be falling off the end already; as it is, his feet are hanging over the edge) running his hands over Daniel's back and buttocks. Not for any other reason (yet) than to touch. JD spent a long time not touching him, because JD had always wanted to touch him, and touching him would give too much away. (And so, Daniel knows, during all those long months in which JD did touch him, it was never - quite - in the way JD would have touched him if he'd been able to touch him freely.)

He lifts his head, turning it to the side, and Cammie cups a breast in her hand, guiding its nipple toward his mouth. He opens his mouth, licks, then sucks it in. "Looks like I'm the only one gettin' any action here, Nielson," he hears her say.

"Bitch, moan, complain." JD's hands are warm on his skin. JD's hands are always warm. "I don't hear Daniel complaining," JD adds in pious tones, and Cammie laughs.

"Daniel's busy," she says, her voice rich with laughter and sex. "You don't want to fuck him, I c'n maybe see if I got room in my datebook."

"Fuck you, Mitchell," JD says. "I've got dibs for the next hour."

From where he's lying Daniel can feel Cammie laugh as much as hear it. "Hell, you make it last an hour an' I'll call Guinness personally." It's hard to decide whether he wants to continue what he's doing, or abandon it in order to join the conversation (decisions, decisions.) He certainly can't keep up with the two of them (hard to decide where the goalposts are in the game sometimes, let alone what the rules of engagement are.) Still.

"I think I might have some say in this," he points out, lifting his head.

"Sure do, honeybaby," Cammie says promptly. "What you want?"

JD snorts rudely (Daniel hears the 'snick' of the lube bottle opening.) "I'd just like to mention - in the spirit of full disclosure - that I was lured into the bedroom on the promise of sex with my boyfriend," Daniel says.

"Can't make an omelet without choking a chicken," JD says, and Daniel (in the middle of inhaling) coughs, not sure whether to laugh or to try to turn around and smack him. Cammie merely snickers vulgarly, patting his shoulder consolingly. Mrs. Malaprop doesn't live on Chulak any more; she's taken up residence in the Rabelaisian nursery school of his life. But then JD is slathering him with lube, and Daniel shivers (because it is fucking cold and if they can set up a colony in another galaxy, why can't they make lube that doesn't - one - freeze your balls off right out of the bottle and - two - dry to a crackly crunch? You'd think Earth would have its priorities straight by this time.) It's not only the sensation (slickness, fingers, touch), but a learned response. Lube means sex.

JD leans over him, kissing the back of his neck. Daniel nuzzles Cammie's breasts (splendid breasts, for all that he hears - and could quote right along with her (if he dared) - the speech about how they are hanging down to her ankles (which they are not) and aren't a patch on what they were when she was twenty, something he doesn't especially care about, since nymphet bodies and nymphet carnality have rarely interested him; they go so often hand-in-glove with nymphet intellect) then turns his head to the side. Not flexible enough (never was) to turn all the way around without shifting position, but JD kisses the side of his mouth.

This is what love is like. Love and sex and family and all the other things slain almost two decades ago on the sands of a planet whose algorithm Daniel chooses not to remember, and it's hardly as if Daniel has spent the last ten years in celibacy, because he didn't (not all of them anyway), but sex in the Pegasus Galaxy was about friendship, about affection, about whose ribs weren’t broken, about who could actually stay awake. And (of course) the relationship he had there predated his return from Elf Hill, when, like so many returnees, all his deferred years caught up with him at once. Sex now is different. Not least of all because it's sex-with-love (something he had once and thought he'd never have again.) Love, as the dimestore poet said, changes everything.

Then JD settles back again, fingers sliding slickly down between Daniel's buttocks, easing into him, opening him. (It's been a while since Daniel was a novice at this form of sex - anxious but determined - and he will discount and minimize and ignore and even (sometimes) forget the disability with which he will almost certainly live the rest of his life where JD will not. Many words can be used of their tripartite sex life, but 'abrupt' and 'surprising' are not two of them.)

Then JD is pushing in (familiar welcome sensation) and Daniel sighs out, pushing back, nuzzling at Cammie (his beloved treasure, their wonder and glory.) She strokes his hair; he rubs his face against her, mouthing at all the flesh that he can reach, and it occurs to him that this is strange (in a different way than anyone else might imagine); pressed up against Cammie, senses filled with her scent and her taste, but the one who's making love to him is JD (and yes, both JD and Cammie would say fucking, and in fact Daniel is perfectly capable of holding forth on the etymology of the word back to the Anglo-Norman futter and beyond; he still thinks the euphemism is more accurate: in this bed they make love the way Cammie makes bread in her kitchen.)

"You plannin' on goin' t'sleep back there?" Cammie asks with interest, and Daniel nips at her breast until she holds it steady for him again (the other one this time; he believes, for perverse meticulous reasons that alternately entertain and exasperate the other two, in keeping things even.)

"Admiring the view," JD says, and pulls back. His hands grip Daniel's hips and he pushes forward again. The progression of their sexual congress is controlled but not careful, although JD has always taken care (care to learn his tastes and preferences; care to let him know by simply acting as if it could not be otherwise that it was all right to have them.) JD likes force (not to be forced - though Daniel doubts he could - but roughness and weight and pressure and so many things that Daniel will never bring to his and Cammie's couplings) and by now Daniel has learned how to please him, working his way past fears of injury and damage and simply hurting JD's feelings. Possible to get there, even easy, because JD (now that he no longer has to hide half his self from Daniel) is as bluntly-truthful as a child, though so far from childlike. And Daniel is not sure (not really) in what emotional athanor JD learned how to just say things. It's a skill Jack never possessed. Or if he did, he hid it well, for reasons good and sufficient. But the fact remains that JD has made it easy for Daniel to make love to him. And if the reverse is not as easy, not as simple (Daniel knows it isn't) JD makes it seem as if it is. He is gentle with Daniel (slow burn and build to the point where Daniel can let go of self-control, because it's never something that slips away - not after all Daniel's long years at the war - and if someone (anyone) were simply to try to take it from him, he'd fight them to the point of madness.)

But here and now, there's only pleasure (physical, emotional) and nothing to worry about. This isn't an untested position. He was hesitant about it the first time (afraid, always afraid, any time he's trying a new position with Cammie) and she'd just laughed and said she's done it with JD all the time. (Foolish, utterly foolish, to wish to censor history or think of begrudging either of his beloveds' sexual pasts; he's not sure what he'll do if they wish to continue such othered liaisons in the future, but it's undeniable that the image that she conjures - since the events are relegated safely to the past - is an oddly erotic image.) He knows he's giving both of them pleasure as well - that may be the best thing of all - since he knows that Cammie loves to watch him and JD together.

He can feel the heat of JD's chest against his back (radiating toward his back, technically, from several inches away) and pushes up toward it (giving Cammie a little more room to shift if she needs to) lifting his head and dropping it back (carefully, goddammit, he wasn't a big fan of teenaged slapstick sex even when he was a teenager.) Cammie raises up on her elbows. "You are thinking way too damned much for the sex to be any damned good, Nielson," she says.

Daniel's eyes open wide (not-quite-surprise; half-realized information falling into place; JD's attention is on him but Cammie's right; JD's thinking about something), but unfortunately he can't turn around to see JD's face to confirm his read. He pushes up to straight arms (X-rated push-ups for the catamite commando) and JD slips an arm around his chest, providing additional support (Daniel will not use the phrase 'freakishly strong' - true or not - in connection with JD, even in the solitude of his own mind, since he will not use the words 'freakish' and 'JD' anywhere near each other. Ever.) "This shocking revelation could have a traumatic effect on my masculinity," he says mendaciously.

"I doubt it," JD says. He lowers his head, breathing hot against the delicate skin behind Daniel's ear. "I was thinking about sex."

"Got anythin' you wanna share with the rest a' the class?" Cammie asks.

"I'm thinking I want to spice up our sex life," JD announces to Cammie. "Install a trapeze in here. Maybe some mirrors." He lowers his head again, voice pitched low, his words now for Daniel alone. "I want to see you."

It takes Daniel a moment to realize what he means. JD wants to see his face. While they're making love. Not entirely a new thing, of course; they've been face-to-face before, when he's been in JD, because JD is as limber as an Indian temple dancer and can even wrap his legs around Daniel's waist in that position. But this would be different.

He's not quite sure it's physically possible (older than either of them, and in good physical condition, but he's let the battlefield edge go in the last few years, and gladly.) But he nods. JD kisses his shoulder. Eases out.

"Well, hell, I'll go get the cordless drill; we can prob'ly have a trapeze up in forty minutes, we got enough spare parts around the place," Cammie says, raising her eyebrows.

Daniel pulls himself to his knees and leans forward; he's braced over Cammie now. Able to kiss her properly (so he does; she lies back so that she can cradle his face in her hands, her mouth soft with lust) and wondering where it is he's going next. Secure in the knowledge that JD won't let anything happen in this bed that could hurt Cammie (never has, and there was always a difference between making love to Cammie with JD present and with him absent, and after a while there was never a time when Daniel made love to Cammie without JD's presence, and at first he'd thought the change in her was all about the easiness that lovers who had become comfortable with each other would feel, and it was only months later that he realized that the difference was really Cammie's ease at having JD present. Eternal guardian and protection in so many ways, and Daniel was always achingly careful, but there were things he couldn't know (things she didn't want him to know) about her damage, but JD was always there to keep anything from tipping over into disaster.)

"Hey," JD says softly, and Cammie pushes Daniel gently away.

He thinks JD's going to move the two of them away from Cammie, because on his back, Daniel won't be able to take any of his weight off her, but when he's settled again, he's still lying between her thighs. Just farther down her torso now - head in her lap, shoulders pressing up against the undersides of her thighs, a pillow under his hips. She's sitting up now, braced against the headboard ("Better view this way," she'd said, and JD asked if she wanted him to wait until she could go and get her camera), and as Daniel settles himself (wrapping an arm around her thigh, tilting his head back as she strokes his face) he realizes that she would have, must have, sat with JD in just this position as well. On other nights in this bed, when they had gone out to the bars that Daniel now goes to with them. When (in years past) they brought other lovers to this bed and Cammie held JD in her arms and watched him (felt him) get fucked.

The image sends an electric shudder through his entire body.

"Don't know what you're thinkin', baby mine, but you're awful pretty," Cammie says softly.

JD makes one of his 'I-can't-be-bothered-to-form-words-you-figure-it-out' noises (this one means 'I know exactly what Daniel's thinking,' and yeah, he probably does), and runs the back of his fingers up the inside of Daniel's thigh. Before the twitch-and-shiver of the sensation has subsided, he's pushing in again, and the pressure and the angle is different. So much more of a sense of someone (JD) being over him, but it's all right. The position is unfamiliar, but not awkward. Daniel reaches out with his free hand and slides it down JD's ribs, rests it on his hip. He can feel the corded strength in JD's muscles, the flex and play in them. And he can see JD's face.

And yes, that's not a new thing, but this time it's JD in him instead of the reverse. Possessor instead of possessed (though they are each always both of those things whether they are making love or not) and now he can see the aching tenderness on JD's face; eyes half-lidded, mouth slightly open, as he rocks his hips gently against Daniel (pushing, entering, filling.) Each movement of JD's torso (painted inked incised yoke collar scarf map of history memory scar legacy) presses Daniel's balls up against the base of his cock (a rhythmic pleasant stimulus) and Daniel curls his toes against the sheet, angling his hips further up, pulling JD toward him. More.

Cammie's hand is warm, pressed against his shoulder; Daniel's right hand is pressed against the top of her thigh (he wants to feel her), and slowly, in thrust upon thrust, JD lowers his chest to Daniel's, slides his hands up from Daniel's hips to his back. He is gasping, trembling - at being able to watch JD's face, harsh and soft with pleasure and love - at what he is feeling with JD moving inside him - at knowing (because he can feel it against the back of his neck) that Cammie has slipped her other hand between her legs, that she's wet, that she's touching herself, and she probably won't come before they're finished, and if she wants to come afterward he will touch her, kiss her, lick her as she lies cradled in JD's arms, just as Daniel lies cradled in her arms now.

He's knows he's going to come soon because JD, sweat-slick, is pressed against him (in an improbable flexion of spine), arching belly brushing lightly against Daniel's straining cock in a persistent teasing caress. Exquisite and unbearable and oh for god's sake please fuck me to within an inch of my life please now please and he unwinds his arm from around Cammie's thigh so he can get both arms around JD's back and uses the leverage to lift himself up into a kiss. JD kisses with appetite and appreciation - nothing so considered as deliberation, but with both focus and intent. It helps (as he will have known it would) to get Daniel the rest of the way there - not to climax, but to letting go. The important part. When he does (when he's there) JD does … something with spine and hips (arching, thrusting) and slides one arm out from under Daniel's back to reach between them. His hand closes (firmly, warmly) over Daniel's cock, clasping and pulling, and Daniel arches backward helplessly, but he's still clutching JD tightly, and JD curls backward just enough to keep Daniel from bearing down against Cammie. "I've got you, I've got you," JD whispers into Daniel's ear, his voice rough and breathless.

Daniel answers: Yes. Good. Please. but he's gone beyond knowing what language he's answering in.

"Yeah. Oh yeah. C'mon, Nielson." He hears Cammie's voice.

Faster now (nearly there, as if love - desire - wanting - climax - were a place that one could reach; a destination to which one journeyed) and he doesn't care any more, but what he feels is so far from indifference. Passion. Sweetness. Love. Wanting to take. Give. Cherish. So many erotic images available to him in the theater of the imagination. So much intensity (flesh on flesh, flesh in flesh, heat and friction and touch.) But in the end - as always - the image behind Daniel's eyes at the moment of orgasm (cause, artifact, who knows?) is of the three of them lying together in the afterglow, limbs embrangled, touching.

He can hear JD's voice (he can feel it through his body); JD is talking to him (JD has a filthy mind, an extensive vocabulary, and a lurid fantasy life. It's probably a fantasy life.) Daniel bucks against his hand, feeling the slickness of semen on his cock and his belly, gasping through the long sweet aftershocks of climax. Through his own sounds, he can hear Cammie groan.

And it is important (because he can) to look, to see, so he forces his eyes open. JD is looking at his face, and (yes) there is smugness there, and triumph, but there is also love, so much love, bare and naked and open for anyone - Cammie, Daniel - to see that it's enough to make Daniel catch his breath.

Then JD leans in and wipes his come-sticky hand close-to-dry across Daniel's chest, and (as Daniel opens his mouth in an indignant - if pro forma - protest) leans further in for a kiss before settling both hands back on Daniel's hips again. Holding him steady, because if there's one thing that JD knows about Daniel by this time, it's that Daniel's just about useless for much of anything right after he's come, and if there's one thing Daniel's learned about JD, it's that JD won't let very much stand between him and getting off. Daniel's happy to oblige, really. As long as he doesn't have to do anything.

He's had a lot of opportunities to make JD come. Not many to watch him. Intent. Intense. The tattoos flex and ripple across his skin and almost seem to dance above it (Daniel knows what some of the iconography means now - because JD has told him - and knows his own name is there, among the scars and losses; a humbling thought) and the oddest thought of all (not a new thought; not one he'll share either) is that the word that comes to mind when contemplating JD (if 'contemplating' is really the word, in this exquisitely half-roused state) is 'purity.' Daniel thinks of sword-blades and angels and medieval knights and JD gasps and shudders and swears and comes.

He's a dead weight collapsed on top of Daniel, but Daniel doesn't mind. It's actually easier to breathe with JD lying boneless on his chest than against his back. (Probably something to do with not having his face shoved into the mattress.) The only one Daniel's worrying about is Cammie, but while he knows she wouldn't necessarily move him just because of pain, she'd definitely move him for injury's sake (he can feel the movement of her wrist, rocking behind his shoulder.)

"Yeah," JD says, turning his head to bite Daniel conversationally on the side of the neck. "Gonna be doing that again."

"I'll pencil it into my datebook," Daniel answers muzzily.

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