A big black van with tinted windows parked across the road from the subject's house was fine for making a point but pretty much piss useless for actual surveillance -- although he had, in the past, occasionally taken a certain pleasure in using one to yank the subject's remarkably short chain.
The small fleet of service vehicles he'd had access to, back in the day, had worked marginally better right up until he'd been forced to use the same company van three visits in a row and the subject had become curious about the neighborhood's sudden interest in the softer side of Sears -- which had resulted in an unfortunate encounter with the harder side of the subject's boot.
These days, freelancing without the equipment that went along with duly authorized eavesdropping, he crouched in the back of a rusty VW minibus conveniently up on blocks in the backyard almost directly opposite the subject's, clutching Russian army surplus surveillance gear -- essentially, a directional microphone and a high quality tape recorder. So far, he'd managed a dozen tapes without being discovered.
"Mellowing in your old age, Jack?" Harry Maybourne muttered settling the earphones more securely. "Or just distracted by new interests?"
He'd heard the new interest arrive at approximately 19:30 -- twenty-one minutes ago. So far, there'd been a short discussion over the day's events on PXC 774 predominately concerning certain civilian members of SG-1 putting themselves in unnecessary danger by not following orders and certain colonels being more than a little anal retentive.
Harry snickered. Anal retentive. Under the circumstances, good one. He had a new tape in the machine, cued up and ready but not yet recording. Details of SG-1's latest mission through the Stargate held less than no interest for him.
"Damnit, Daniel! I don't care how pastoral those people looked! We approach them as a team!"
Ah. That was better. Shouting usually lead to the kind of stuff he needed.
"I was barely ten feet away from you and I could see they had no weapons!"
"Fifteen and that's not the point! How many times do I have to tell you; it's the stuff you can't see that'll kill you!"
Personally, Harry would kill for a video feed but there was no way Jack had mellowed to the point where he could get a camera into the house. Well, not and survive the experience.
"Oh, I know what this is about." The anger had left Dr. Jackson's voice, amusement taking it's place. Harry shifted into a more comfortable position, his finger poised over the record button. Almost. "You're still angry because Honori referred to you as our venerable leader."
"She called me old!"
"Well, technically it means entitled to veneration on account of age but... JACK!"
Yes! Harry punched a fist into the air. It was going to be 'Jack proves to Daniel he's still got it in spite of nine years and a lot of mileage' -- definitely his favorite. Although he had fond memories of the marathon 'Daniel proves to Jack he's alive and well' of August 17th post a mission to P96 89Y which had apparently involved a pit and sharpened stakes.
The microphone was good enough to pick up the sound of two men moving about -- experience separated the sounds into that of the pursuer and the pursued.
"*I* never called you old, Jack!"
"You agreed with venerable, Daniel."
The low throaty growl lifted the hair off the back of Harry's neck. The unmistakable sound of a coffee table going over -- unmistakable because it had gone over at least four times previously -- Dr. Jackson's laughter cut short, and SHOWTIME! He hit record.
Cloth on cloth. Moist noises. That little moan that caught in the back of Dr. Jackson's throat. Harry clamped both hands to convenient pieces of the Volkswagon. If he started now, he'd be finished way too soon.
Soft sucking noises, a little raspy. He closed his eyes and saw Jack kissing and biting his way along the other man's jaw, his lips working against the strong column of throat, as he shoved the cream colored sweater up with one hand to bare golden skin.
"Oh god... Jack..."
Nipple. Definitely nipple. Dr. Jackson's next sound was a lot less articulate. Nipple plus teeth.
Jack had always been a biter.
Zipper.
Not wasting any time. Harry had no doubt that Dr. Jackson was hard and ready. Hell, he was hard and ready and he wasn't getting the full heat of those dark eyes, the strong calloused fingers, the firm mouth... His cock jumped and he fought against the need to take it in hand.
Not yet.
Moister noises. More moist? Blow job...
Dr. Jackson was moaning almost constantly now, his breathing beginning to grow ragged around the edges, the occasional panted word beginning to slip out.
Eyes still closed, Harry could see the top of Jack's head -- hair brown, not silver -- could feel the heat. The suction. His right hand went to his fly, undid the button, worked down the zipper. This might be all he was going to get and he didn't want to waste it.
"Jack. God. Hot. Please. Fuck..."
Wet popping sound.
"Yes."
"What?"
Right hand loose around his cock Harry didn't blame Dr. Jackson for sounding confused. A Jack O'Neill blow job had been known to destroy brain cells.
"Yes. Fuck."
Dr. Jackson made a noise so primal it pebbled Harry's skin right up both legs and out onto his balls. He knew exactly how Jack looked, staring down at the man lying beneath him on the floor. Exactly.
More fabric sounds. Four boots hitting the floor. Three actually hitting the floor. One tossed against the wall. Another zipper.
"Do we have...?"
"You kicked a tube under the couch three days ago," Harry muttered just as Dr. Jackson said:
"You kicked a tube under the couch three days ago."
"Right."
Scrabbling noises. The weirdly distinctive sound of man sporting an erection digging the lube out from under the couch.
"Daniel!"
Interesting catch in Jack's voice. Harry reconstructed the scene on the inside of his eye lids. The over-turned coffee table allowed him to place Dr. Jackson fairly precisely, and if Jack was reaching under the couch, head down, arm outstretched, that would put his ass in the air right next to the archeologist's long almost prehensile toes.
"Got it."
The microphone was not good enough to pick up the sound of lube being stroked over heated skin. Imagination and memory combined to fill in the blanks. Neither were needed as Dr. Jackson's body was broached. That sound was unmistakable.
The needy, almost whimper that came with one finger.
The low gasp that came with two...
"Oh god... Oh fuck..."
...and a twist.
The shuddering exhale as the fingers were removed.
He panted as Jack pushed into him. It had taken Harry a while to figure out that's what was happening; now he panted along with, feeling himself stretched... filled.
"Yes. Yes. God. Fuck. Jack. MOVE!"
Dr. Jackson was equally talkative top or bottom but he was definitely a little pushier on the bottom.
"I don't know. I'm an old man, after all..."
Even with his cock buried in another man's ass -- and a fucking glorious ass at that, honesty forced Harry to admit -- Jack O'Neill could stop to make a joke. Head lolling back against torn upholstery, he moaned, "Jesus Jack." in unison with the clearly frustrated Dr. Jackson.
"Venerable, Daniel?"
"Not venerable! Trust me on this, Jack; you are, at this time, in no way deserving of veneration!" Low grunt of exertion. Attempting to force the issue.
Laughter in Jack's voice. Laughter and a hint of the effort it was taking him to remain still. "I throw something out and... DANNY!"
Whoa. A Danny. That usually meant muscle contractions and the end of playing around.
Oh yeah. Steady movement now. The slap of skin against skin. Heavy breathing. Hand working his cock in time to the background rhythm in his headphones, Harry adjusted the volume with his free hand and settled in to enjoy Dr. Jackson's play by play. The man was a gift from the surveillance gods even if he did have a tendency to lapse into other languages on occasion.
"Oh god, Jack, yes. Harder. There. Perfect. Harder. God. Jack. So hard. So hot. AH! CHRIST! YES! Inside. Love to feel you inside me. Love the look on your face when you're inside me. Pounding. HARDER! Yessss.... Fuck.... Want you. So much. All the time. Need you. Love you. Oh god... Now! Jack. Jack! JACK! JACK!"
One final "Jack!" of his own, and Harry's ass came off the seat as he shot in time to Jack's throaty groan, remembering the feel of Jack's mouth pressed hard and hot against his shoulder, muffling the escape of any accidental noise. MiSS they used to call it. Maintaining Sexual Silence. The military had an acronym for pretty much everything.
He wouldn't have minded a little more Jack on the tapes but had to admit Dr. Jackson made enough noise for all three of them.
During the post-coital murmuring, he cleaned himself up, ears ringing, listening with only half his attention in case of further action. He wouldn't be good to go for a couple of hours at least but those two were like fucking energizer bunnies some nights. Snickering at the thought of Dr. Jackson sticking a battery up Jack's ass, Harry crumpled a handful of sticky tissues and shoved them into the plastic bag he carried in his tool kit. Nothing like a fine splattering of semen to give away a surveillance site.
He heard one of them rise and walk away, was about to stop recording when....
"I know you can hear me, Harry. If you're not out of that rusty piece of junk in the Scott's backyard by the time Daniel's back from the bathroom, I *will* detonate the C4 I've tucked under your seat and take my chances on explaining the resulting explosion to the proper authorities. I imagine you'll have a harder time explaining it to the improper authorities but hey, you'll be in Hell so, not my problem."
The odds were about even that Jack was kidding about the C4.
"I'm not kidding, Harry."
Okay, so he wasn't kidding. Harry hated to lose such a prime site but it wasn't the first time and it wasn't like he didn't have a back up position ready.
"And stay out of the Blake's tree house. I don't even want to think of you near anything that kids play in."
Crap.
"Thirty seconds, Harry. If I were you, I'd haul that hairy little ass of yours back to your 1992 silver Honda civic with the dark gray interior and the seven Starbucks cups in the back seat..."
Now he was just showing off.
"...while you still have an ass to haul."
Harry snorted. Like he hadn't be threatened by significantly more dangerous men than Jack O'Neill.
"Twenty-five seconds."
On the other hand.
It took him exactly twenty-one seconds to pack up, crawl out through the rusted floor, and cross the Scott's half acre lawn to the sidewalk. He could barely see the back of Jack's house from here.
Twenty-five seconds.
No explosion. He hadn't really expected one. Ignoring the whole 'screwing his civilian consultant' thing, Jack's crazy days were long gone. The Jack O'Neill who'd once spent three days undercover in a Belgian whorehouse had become full bird colonel, save the world respectable.
Wait a minute. If Jack knew he was there and still...
Smiling, he started back to his car. All of his personal surveillance tapes had labels carefully removed from commercial music tapes -- just in case NID ever caught up to him. Partly for Jack's sake -- although he'd deny that if questioned -- partly to maintain an ace up his sleeve. This time...
Reaching his car, he checked for tampering and then tossed his gear -- minus the new tape -- into the trunk.
...this time, he thought he'd use a label from an old collection of World War II songs. The military: well, that was him and Jack. They were old songs: cue tonight's theme. Plus...
He slid behind the wheel and slipped the tape into the machine.
...they did a rousing rendition of Danny-boy.
"Oh god... Now! Jack. Jack! JACK! JACK!" As he pulled away from the curb, Dr. Jackson's voice echoed within the confines of the Honda.
Not as rousing as Jack did, mind you.
--end--