Those Big Dark Eyes
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Summary: Jack finally takes Thor fishing. Events evolve rapidly from there.
Pairing: Jack/Thor
Rating: NC-17 (alien sex)


"I am curious," Thor remarked.

Jack looked across at the grey-skinned alien who—despite the dire warnings issued by the rest of SG-1—was even now re-baiting a hook. "No kidding."

"Specifically," Thor continued, "I am curious about human sexual activity."

"Well, I'm sure we can lend you a copy of the Kama Sutra," Jack said, struggling to keep the laughter strictly internal.

Thor sighed. "I have read many books, Colonel O'Neill. It is experience I desire, but other Asgard are repulsed by the very idea."

"So you, err…" Jack gave in and giggled a little. "You want me to set you up with a date?"

Those big black eyes blinked slowly at him—a fish pulled a his line but he ignored it—and then Thor nodded. "If that is your custom. I had hoped that…" Thor paused. "You are allowing the fish to escape."

"Never mind the fish," Jack said, more sharply than he had intended. "What sort of reaction did you want from me, exactly?"

"That you might be willing to assist me personally," Thor replied, almost gabbling the words in his haste. "I was aware that you and Doctor Jackson were physically intimate. However, a… date… will be satisfactory."

Not quite sure how to react and stung by the reminder of Daniel, only months gone, Jack turned away, reeling his line in and inspecting the hook. It was, as Thor had predicted, empty.

"I… um… let me think it over," Jack said. "Pass the tin of maggots, would you?"

* * *

Two shoot-outs and a stranding later, SG-1 entered one of their periodic boring phases. Hammond declared that they needed a couple of days of training and organization time, so Carter disappeared into a lab somewhere, Jonas disappeared into his books, Teal'c just disappeared, and Jack was left wandering around on his own.

He considered approaching Janet, but he didn't feel like explaining the situation. Instead, he started trying to do his own research.

"Asgard… Asgard…" He'd expected books about the Asgard to be filed under A, and therefore easy to find, but apparently Jonas didn't use the alphabet, so Jack resorted to reading all the titles.

"Sir?"

Jonas sounded surprised. That was reasonable enough; Jack knew full well that his presence, uninvited, in the bookstacks would be surprising to his team-mates. "Jonas. Hi. I was, um, looking for a book." The truth, but not too much of it.

"Right," Jonas nodded. "What about, specifically?"

"Err… the Asgard," Jack replied. He didn't see any need to be more specific. Jonas didn't need to know that his commanding officer was hunting for details of Asgard genitalia.

"We don't actually have that much on them," Jonas said, thoughtfully, "but what we've got is down here. A couple from the Asgard themselves, though they mostly use data transfers instead of paper—I can translate them for you if it's important. What did you want to know?"

How the Asgard reproduce, if they have genders, and how human their genitals are. Jack could feel himself blushing—never a happy feeling—and said, "Um, medical details," in the hope that Jonas would go back to the bookshelves before the blush reached Jack's face.

"There'll be some information in this book," Jonas said, pulling one out, "and although it's in the Asgard's own language, I think there's a translation in the computer system already. Other than that, there is a medical textbook on alien physiology, which would cover the Asgard, but I don't have a copy. You'd probably want Janet to tell you what it meant anyway, so I suggest you ask her."

"I… okay, Jonas. Thanks. It's not urgent." Jack stood up hurriedly, leaving Jonas still holding the book, and left the room before he could make things worse.

* * *

"Oops—sorry, Janet," Jonas said, having bumped into her in the corridor.

"My fault, Jonas."

He would have walked on and let the incident rest, but something nagged in his memory. "By the way, did Colonel O'Neill talk to you yesterday?"

Janet frowned and shook her head. "I don't think I saw him. Why?"

"Oh, probably nothing. Just… he was looking for medical information on the Asgard, and I couldn't help much with that, so I suggested he speak to you. I'm a bit surprised that he hasn't."

"Yeah," Janet nodded. "I expect he will today. Why does he want medical stuff on the Asgard, though?"

Jonas shrugged. "Don't ask me. The man's mind is a mystery. But if I were you, I'd try and be prepared."

"I will, thanks." Janet nodded again, smiling at him, and went on her way.

* * *

Jack didn't appear in Janet's office that day, and she wondered about telling Jonas—he had seemed almost worried about it. However, she was busy as usual, and before she'd seen Jonas again, someone appeared, heralded by a knock on the door.

"Come in," she called, expecting either a dire emergency or a routine enquiry. Instead, Jack O'Neill peered around the door.

"Have you got a minute, Doctor Fraiser?" Jack asked. "I don't to take you away from something important." He was being much politer than normal, she noticed.

This is what Jonas warned me about, she thought. "Just writing up some notes, Colonel, I can take a break if you want to see me."

"I…"

"Come on in, Jack," she ordered, "and close the door behind you."

He obeyed—which almost amounted to an unusual occurrence in itself—and took a seat opposite her desk. Janet tidied her papers into a pile, checked that nothing confidential was on top, then fixed her gaze on Jack. He met her eyes calmly, but he looked like he hadn't slept too well. At the back of her mind, an old university lecturer listed the three ways you could tell a man who was worrying about sex.

"What can I help you with?" she asked.

"I'm looking for medical information on the Asgard," Jack said. "Jonas said you might be able to help."

She nodded. "I should think I can find something. What exactly did you want to know?"

His eyes slipped away from hers, as people's will do when they are lying. "Oh, just generally curious," he said. "I wondered… how similar they were to us, I suppose."

"Well…" she said, thinking. "In many ways, they are humanoid: they have four limbs, heart, lungs and liver on the same principles as ours if not the same in details. Their brains are slightly larger and tend to be better trained, hence their higher IQs. There are obvious differences, such as the different form of their eyes—although the basic shape is still more like ours than it is like a snake's, for example. But you knew all that—what exactly did you want to know?"

"Err," Jack began. "This is a little difficult to explain."

Janet stayed quiet, hoping that it would seem like an invitation to expand on that.

"I… um. If you were Captain Picard, and an alien asked you for sex, what would you say?"

So it does involve sex, Janet noted, mentally chalking up one mark for her lecturer. "I suppose it would depend on who the alien in question was," she said, her mind racing through the options Jack might be looking at. Nurrti? Surely not. Teal'c? Jonas? "As I recall it, Kirk didn't have any trouble kissing pretty alien girls." That made Jack grin, which would good. Talking his language wasn't always easy. "Though, on the other hand, Trip Tucker should be a warning to us all."

She'd expected a laugh for that, or at least a smile of recognition, but instead the worry was back. "Yeah, well."

"Sorry, Jack. In the first instance, it would depend how much I knew about them."

"If it was someone you trusted as a friend, but hadn't even considered… physically… before. If you're Picard, then, err, Q."

Tipping her head back, Janet considered. Teal'c had sounded likely, but the last comparison had revealed more than it might have done. Daniel? No, she was fairly sure Jack wouldn't hesitate to cross the line with him. Oma Desala? Maybe. But—the question about the Asgard had clicked, belatedly, into place—her money was onThor. "Well, I'd want to find out what I could about the sexual practises of the Q."

"He had a brief romance with Lwaxana Troi, flirted with Janeway, and then married another Q and had a baby, q," Jack told her, almost by rote.

"You know almost as much as I know about Asgard reproductive procedures already," Janet said simply. "They do not produce new individuals, but clone new bodies into which they put old minds. As far as I know, all sexual pleasure is foreign to them. They don't even masturbate."

Jack was blushing. "I know," he said, and he sounded bitter about it. "If they did, I wouldn't even be thinking about this."

"Do you want to explain that?" she asked, frowning at him. "I promise I won't be shocked, and it'll be completely confidential."

"Thor," Jack said. "He asked… for sexual experience, really. I thought about trying to set him up with some girl, but frankly—the number of women I know who might date an alien are strictly limited, and I want to keep them as friends. Which leaves me. But…"

"In human terms, you don't want to take his virginity without some idea of how to make it good for him," Janet suggested.

"Yeah, something like that."

"That's very noble of you, Colonel O'Neill. Do you want my educated guesses?"

"Um… yeah. Mine are all uneducated."

"Okay. We know that the Asgard do have males and females, although as you're probably aware they don't have external genitalia. If they did, they'd probably feel the need to wear clothes. There are probably erogenous zones—I'd guess that starting with the sorts of places that humans are sensitive and working out from there is fairly logical. There's a small chance that one or other of you may have an allergic reaction to the other's bodily fluids. If you're at all concerned about that, let me know."

Jack nodded, letting that information sink in. "Right."

"But," Janet added, leaning forward, "if you decide to go ahead with this, my advice is: don't put out on a first date. A bit of courtship ritual will give you both time to see if it's what you really want. And if you can't cope with it, for heaven's sake don't feel guilty. 'Irreconcilable differences' is a very good argument."

"Thanks," Jack said. "I'll bear all that in mind." He seemed to be about to say more, but a knock on the door stopped him.

"Not now," Janet started, but General Hammond's head was already appearing in the doorway.

"Colonel O'Neill, SG-1's going out today, sorry for the short notice. If you'll excuse us, doctor…"

A fleeting smile from Jack and they were gone, leaving Janet alone with her notes.

* * *

The mission ended badly. Thor stepped in at the last moment, transporting an injured Jack and his team-mates to a safe location.

When it was over, Jack woke in the infirmary at the SGC—Janet wouldn't be far away. Slowly, he took stock: an ache in his side where the falling rock had thumped into his ribs, a ache in his back where the muscles had been held tight against the pain, and lingering confusion in his memory. Thor had helped, but he'd seemed distant; they hadn't had a moment alone, but that was to be expected.

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then took a deep breath—oww—and tried to sit up.

Janet was at his side at once. "Steady, steady," she said. "You're only bruised, but you were on the go for thirty-six hours out there. I recommend you rest for at least a couple of days."

Feeling that there wasn't much point fighting it, Jack lay back down. "Are the others okay?" he asked.

"They're fine—Sam's bruised, though not as badly as you, and Jonas had sprained his ankle, but Thor got you all out of there in time. No serious injury."

"Thor?"

"Isn't here," she said, and then added, "He stayed for longer than normal—until we were sure you'd be alright—and then he disappeared. You know how he is."

Jack nodded, which made his head ache. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Rest," she ordered, and he let his eyes close.

* * *

Thor, who had managed to feel only a little out of place sitting on a rock and holding a fishing pole, felt a whole lot more out of place on Jack's couch.

Apparently ignorant of this, Jack handed Thor a bowl of popcorn, settled himself carefully next to the grey-skinned alien with a certain care not to jarred his still-bruised ribs, and pressed play.

For about a minute, Thor watched in silence. Then he asked, "Is the viewing of past episodes of a fictional television programme integral to human courtship, or your own variation?"

"You're jumping the gun there, Thor," Jack replied. "We're not officially in courtship yet."

Thor nodded, and returned his attention to the screen. "I do not understand the appeal."

"Just watch. It's not something that can be explained."

Thor watched. The crew of the depicted spaceship seemed to spend more time running around and worrying than solving their problems. Their captain in particular seemed to be an idiot.

Advert breaks were more diverting—he insisted that Jack did not speed the tape past them—although in many cases he had to be told what the advertisement was for. Human minds worked in very different ways to his own.

Eventually, the final credits rolled, and Jack tore his eyes away from the screen.

"I still do not understand," Thor said. "You explore space in your real life. You are a much better commander than this Archer. Why watch a programme which is both fictional and moronic?"

Jack grinned. "It makes me feel better when I get things wrong. I may be bad, but at least I'm not as bad as Archer is."

"You do not walk out into the desert without taking basic safety precautions," Thor agreed, musingly.

"Right," Jack said, and stopped the tape. "Look—I'm not big on heart-to-hearts, but I think we might need to talk through what we're doing here."

"With reference to my request?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, that."

"What is your concern, Colonel O'Neill?"

"Well… for one thing, if we're going to have sex, call me Jack."

"Is that all you are concerned about, Jack?"

Thor's huge dark eyes were drilling into him. "Not quite. Um… I don't know anything about how the Asgard, err," he stared at the wall and said the words carefully, "achieve sexual pleasure."

"Neither do I," Thor replied, quickly but softly. "We are alike enough that we are not allergic to each other's bodily secretions. And, indeed, alike enough—or dissimilar enough—that pregnancy is not an issue."

"That's good to know," Jack muttered. "I wouldn't want to be the first real Trip Tucker." Thor looked puzzled, but Jack hurried on without explaining. "Okay. I suppose we can try it. Got any ideas where you want to start?"

"I am happy for you to take the lead."

Jack considered this, ad then said, "Kissing's the natural beginning, I guess." He shifted around gingerly until he was facing Thor, one leg bent at the knee so he could sit on it. "Come a bit closer, then."

Thor shuffled across, mimicking Jack's posture, until their legs bumped together. Seated, Thor's head was only slightly lower than Jack's; and, Jack noticed, the slim grey body was hauling in breaths at twice the normal rate. Someone else was nervous, too.

Summoning his courage, Jack decided to begin with a simple contact, something he knew he could handle. He lifted Thor's hand from the couch and—not giving himself enough time to think too hard—kissed the backs of Thor's fingers.

Thor looked blank.

"That's supposed to be very romantic," Jack explained. "The medieval knights are supposed to have carried on entire love affairs based only on the kissing of hands." Thor was still watching him, deep dark eyes focused and apparently unimpressed. "But," he went on, "there are more interesting hand-kisses." A fragment of a movie returned to him—Johnny Depp leaning across a table. "For example, if you start here," he began with a light brush over Thor's fingertips, trying not to think about how odd the smoother-than-human skin felt, "as if you were beginning at the feet, and then work your way up…"

Jack placed a row of kisses up the inside of Thor's long finger. He didn't look to see how Thor was reacting. "…until you reach the top—" and Jack flicked his tongue into the soft curve of flesh between Thor's fingers.

Evidently, the Asgard had as many nerve endings there as humans did, because Thor rewarded him with a slight, but bone-deep, shudder.

Feeling suddenly reckless, Jack looked into Thor's eyes. He kept his face deadpan. "I'm sure you can see the analogy in action, corny though it is. But for the time being…" He turned Thor's hand over, gently uncurled his thumb, and began to leave a slow trail of kisses over the mounds of muscle in Thor's palm and up towards his wrist, making circles and flower-shapes as he went.

Thor's breathing quickened. When Jack sucked at the heel of his hand, he tipped his head back; and when Jack ran soft kisses across the side of his thumb—an area Jack hadn't expected to get much reaction from—Thor gasped and closed his eyes.

"You like that?" he asked, and when Thor nodded he did it again, lips stroking along the side of Thor's thumb, sucking a little on the tip and then returning along the inner edge.

Another gasp, and then Thor pulled his hand away.

Jack straightened, feeling rejected. "Thor?"

"Jack… "Thor said. Jack realised he'd never heard an Asgard sound breathless before. "Strangely, this touch is most enjoyable, but it also makes me uncomfortable."

"Why?" Jack asked. Too blunt, he knew, but he couldn't see any other way of handling this.

"It makes it difficult to think clearly," Thor explained.

"So, you do have little grey hormones," Jack said, almost laughing. "That's something."

"Thank you, Jack," Thor said. "I… will return tomorrow night."

* * *

When Jack arrived at the SGC the next morning, the first thing he did was to stop by Janet's office.

"Colonel O’Neill! Hi, come in," she said, clearly pleased to have an excuse to take a break from boring paperwork. "How's it going?"

"Thor and I had our first date last night," he reported, perching on the edge of an empty bed.

"Oh?"

Jack paused before he answered, choosing which of the many questions implied by that single syllable he would answer. "You remember the old first base, second base, scheme of measuring these things? Well, I'm about six strides off first base, but I'm not sure I know where it is."

"Meaning what?"

"I kissed his hand. And some of his arm. And made crude innuendos, which I'm sure he understood but considered beneath him. Although apparently the Asgard do have nerve endings. And that's about it."

Janet raised her eyebrows.

"And we watched Enterprise," Jack added.

"Not 'Unexpected', I hope?"

"No," Jack said, smiling. "Anyway, I'm cleared for active duty, right? Two day's rest?"

"Let me just check how much the bruising's gone down," Janet said. Jack patiently let her examine him.

"I think you should be okay, Colonel," she said told him a couple of minutes later. "Don't volunteer for anything, but if General Hammond wants you for a routine mission I won't block it."

"Thanks, Janet." Jack hurried out.

* * *

The next night, they had watched Voyager. Jack had tried to explain the sexual attractiveness of Seven of Nine without recourse to the phrase "corset and big tits", and then Thor had kissed Jack's hand.

It was at once both incredibly slow and much too fast: with a human woman, Jack would have expected to get further faster when they decided to change their relationship from friends to sexual; and yet every time he considered the next step with Thor, a large part of his mind started jumping up and down yelling, "He's an alien! An alien! From Outer Space!"

"I know he's from outer space!" Jack finally snapped back at himself. Unfortunately, he crossed this line into mild dementia while in the locker room getting changed after SG-1's latest mission. He hadn't seen Thor for three days, and the thought of doing so was making him increasingly jumpy.

"Sir?" Jonas asked, since Teal'c had already left for his own quarters. "Did you, err…?"

"No! No, sorry, Jonas, talking to myself," Jack assured him rapidly. "I must really need some rest."

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking—are you okay? You seemed sort of distracted out there."

"I, um, must be getting old," Jack said, trying to twist a self-deprecating smile out. It didn't come naturally. "It's nothing." He tied his second shoelace, picked up his bag and headed for the door. "Have a good weekend, Jonas—you worked hard out there."

"Thanks, sir," Jonas muttered at the banging swing-door. "But flattery won't make me think you're normal."

* * *

"Perhaps," Sam suggested, "he's got a girlfriend."

It had turned out that Jonas was not alone in having noticed Jack's odd behaviour. SG-1, or most of SG-1, had gathered in Teal'c quarters to discuss their commanding officer, and eat pizza.

"That would explain his haste to return home," Teal'c observed. "The officer on duty said he actually ran out to his car."

"But what about what he said in the locker room?" Jonas asked. "Who's from outer space—me? Teal'c? And why's it important that he knows that?"

"And if he's worried about an alien, why hurry home?" Sam added. "It doesn't make any sense."

None of them could disagree with that.

"He may have desired to get away from the Stargate, through which an alien would probably travel," Teal'c offered after a long pause.

Sam shook her head. "He doesn't run away from things. No, it's something at home."

"It could be an Asgard," Teal'c suggested. "Thor may visit him at home."

"He could be having an affair with Thor," Sam joked.

"That would explain last week's sudden interest in the Asgard," Jonas put in, rolling his slice of ham and pineapple up thoughtfully. The other two stared at him. "A few days before this mission—when we had a break from missions to do paperwork—he came round my office, looking for medical textbooks about the Asgard. I couldn't give him much, but…"

"I should stop joking, shouldn't I?" Sam said. "But I'd have thought it was difficult to forget that Thor wasn't human."

Again, they lapsed into silence, unable to disagree with what Sam had said.

Eventually, Teal'c spoke. "I find your choice of pineapple on pizza strange, Jonas Quinn."

* * *

Their third night together—in theory. Two hours of television had come and gone without a sign of Thor.

Jack paced, fretting, unsure whether to be worried about Thor or angry that he'd been, in effect, stood up. He was just about to give up waiting, have a beer, and try to sleep, when a blinding white light filled his front room.

"Where have you been?" he snapped, when the light had faded but before his vision had cleared. "Thor, I… Thor?"

"No, Tyr," the Asgard corrected. "Jack O'Neill?"

"That's me."

"I am sorry—it is my fault that Thor is delayed. He has told me about his intention of have a sexual encounter with you, and I, counting myself his friend, wished to speak with you."

Jack sat down. "Okay—but look, that isn't to go any further, right? The last thing I need is for the whole universe to know I sleep with the Asgard."

"You do not sleep with the Asgard," Tyr corrected, "you plan to have a sexual encounter with Thor. I came to say, firstly, that I wanted you to have this." Tyr handed Jack a CD. "It should read on an ordinary computer of yours."

"Is it good?"

"It may help you bring Thor the understanding he seeks," Tyr said. "It is an ancient text, from before the Asgard cloned themselves. I have translated it to the best of my ability. Thor does not know it exists, but you may reveal it if you do not reveal how you acquired it. Secondly, I ask you to take care—if Thor is hurt by this relationship, I as his friend may desire vengeance."

"Thanks for the disclaimer," Jack said.

"I must go before I am missed from the argument I began—Thor will arrive soon. Goodbye, Jack O'Neill."

* * *

Thor's mouth tasted of mint and chicken.

Jack tried desperately to process this fact, leaning back against the couch, his eyes still closed after their first mouth-to-mouth kiss.

"Is there a problem?" Thor asked after an awkward second of silence.

Jack shook his head. "No, I, just, err…" He opened his eyes, and decided to go for honesty "You taste of mint and chicken. Together."

"Do you find it unpleasant?"

"I'm not quite sure," Jack said. "Let me try some more." He leant in, slowly, and they resumed.

* * *

More than a little disturbed to realise that he now knew what it was like to kiss an Asgard, Jack summoned up his courage and slipped the CD Tyr had given him into his PC.

Nothing happened. He tried opening it from the "My Computer" window, but it gave him an error message which was all in computing nonsense.

He considered asking Thor for help, but felt that it would be both embarrassing and potentially strange. Even stranger. At some level, he felt he should be able to deal with it, but it seemed he couldn't; so he took it into work the next day and asked Carter for help.

"Just… print it out for me, can you?" he said, leaning on Sam's desk and daring her to ask questions. He knew he was stopping her working, but he didn't seem to care any more.

"Yes, sir," she said.

It couldn't be that easy. She would read it. Jack squashed that fear quickly and turned to leave. "Thank you."

Just as he reached the door, Sam called, "Sir—what exactly is it?"

"Top secret," he said, and tried not to slam the door behind him.

* * *

It took Sam fifteen minutes to work out how to open the file on the CD, ten minutes to send it to print, half an hour to get the quartermaster to provide her with a new packet of paper, and an hour to print out the whole thing.

In essence, it seemed to be a sex manual for the Asgard. A long one.

Score one for her girlfriend theory, she thought; and another for mentioning Thor. Wherever this had come from—and Sam was no linguist, but she was pretty certain the Asgard didn't choose to store things for themselves in English, or for that matter in formats that would work with Microsoft Windows if you knew a few tricks—Colonel O'Neill was interested in it, and your only possible reason for that—aside from an interest in ancient erotica, which was possible but unlikely, especially since she knew for a fact that Jack was more a Playboy sort of guy. An interesting conversation with Daniel—may he, err, be ascended in peace—had revealed that, among other facts she wasn't sure she'd wanted….

Sam realised that she was avoiding the issue, even within her own mind. She made herself think it: Colonel Jack O'Neill was conducting a love affair with an Asgard.

That was something which, like his choice of pornography, she felt she didn't need to know about her commanding officer.

Two hours after he'd first handed her the disk, Jack returned. She was happy to be able to give him a neat folder full of printouts.

"All done, sir. I guess I'm not allowed to ask where it come from?"

"I'd prefer it if you didn't, Sam."

She nodded. "Jack—is everything alright? You've been… not quite normal for a while now."

Jack sighed. "If I say I'm fine, will you believe me?"

"Frankly? No."

"It's better than I don't answer that question, then," he said, tucked the folder under his arm, and strode away.

Sam shook her head, then lifted the phone and dialled the number for Jonas' office. The rest of the team would be interested to hear this.

* * *

In an rarely-opened store room, Jack curled up on a pile of emergency blankets, opened a packet of Oreos, and began to read what he'd privately titled Secrets of Sex, Ancient Asgard Edition.

The translator had chosen to call it Manuscript of Past Asgard TY-7667, but Jack felt he had enough alpha-numeric designators in his life already.

* * *

"I can trust you, can't I?" Sam said. She'd met Teal'c on her way down to Jonas' office, and they were standing around his desk. "I don't want it to go further than the three of us."

"You have my word," Teal'c said, and Jonas nodded.

"I can keep a secret."

"Okay, then." Sam took a deep breath. "It's about Jack. You remember we talked about how strangely he's been acting? Well, this afternoon he just wondered into my office—I was just starting to get somewhere with the analysis, too, I was annoyed about that—hands me a CD, and asks me to print out everything on it."

"His home computer crashed again?" Jonas asked, aware that Jack, while perfectly capable of using alien computers if he was given enough guidance, had never quite mastered Works for Windows.

"I didn't ask. The interesting part is, I printed it out—it's an Asgard sex manual."

"A what?" Jonas said.

"An Asgard sex manual. In English. Saved in a slightly obscure version of Word '95," Sam clarified. "Which Jack wanted to read, and described as top secret."

"In what language?" Jonas asked. Teal'c didn't seem to have anything to say.

"In English," Sam repeated. "An Asgard must have translated it, I suppose."

"I thought they didn't have sex?"

"Jonas, I thought that too. My impression is that they used to, and this is a book from the old days, based on their anatomy but no longer part of their culture."

"Major Carter," Teal'c said finally, "are you trying to say that you suspect we may have been right about O'Neill and Thor?"

Sam nodded. "Not a pretty thought, is it?"

* * *

About two pages in, Jack had worked out that he was going to need to take notes: old school habits died hard, and there was rather a lot of material to sort through.

Male Asgard Genitals, he wrote as a title, and then studied the diagram carefully. The Asgard kept their genitals between their legs, like most humanoid races, but unlike in other races, they were all protected by a flap of skin which sealed to be practically invisible when closed.

A male Asgard, then, had a back portion to the flap which covered an anus—Jack guessed that modern Asgard would be used to opening that—and a front portion, which opened almost like the front pocket on a kangaroo, although lower down, to reveal penis-like projection.

At this point, a lengthy translator's note explained that a modern Asgard would have a much smaller penis than his forefathers, and that minor changes in their genetic structure over the years had reduced the number of nerve endings sited there.

Jack felt a sudden sense of superiority to the Asgard based on this information which he did his best to crush, without all that much success.

Next, the text began to detail Asgard orgasms, male and female. Apparent from a translator's note to the effect that many Asgard held it impossible for a modern Asgard to achieve orgasm at all, Jack found that it was mostly surprisingly like a human orgasm.

Chapters Four and Five dealt with standard Asgard sexual positions, which Jack mostly ignored as the coupling he was considering was neither heterosexual nor all Asgard.

He stopped reading for a while and entertained the notion that he was technically going to engage in bestiality, but decided that it would be a long stretch of the term to describe Thor as a beast, whatever else you might say about him. When he discovered that he'd written Thor certainly not German Shepard though I may be barking mad on his notepad, he tore himself back to the book.

Chapter Six dealt with Asgard homosexual couplings. He read that in detail, took notes, re-read it, and then paused to think.

The existence of Asgard blow-jobs was reassuring—he was fairly sure he could deal with a blow-job. The absolute lack of any mention of the Asgard possessing a prostate was interesting, too.

He started on Chapter Seven, The Relationship Between Food and Sexuality.

* * *

When Colonel O'Neill failed to turn up for the briefing at 1700 hrs, General Hammond began to worry: but Major Carter said she'd tell him what he needed to know, and so he briefed the rest of SG-1.

When Colonel O'Neill failed to turn up to eat dinner at 1900 hrs, Major Carter began to worry as well.

When SG-1 had swept the base and failed to discover him in any of his usual hideouts, they all began to worry.

At 2007 hrs, General Hammond gave orders for a full sweep of the base, inside and out, and for teams to check Colonel O'Neill's home—although it seemed unlikely that he could have left without his car, still parked in the parking lot as happy as could be.

"Do any of you know of any possible reason for this?" Hammond demanded of SG-1.

They looked blank.

"Maybe Thor wanted to see him?" Sam suggested. It was entirely plausible, and the General didn't need to know the details.

Hammond snorted, and sat down heavily behind his desk. "Thor, yes. I suppose we can't do anything about that—but if O'Neill's on Earth, I want him found, Carter."

"Yes, sir." She gave the General a smart salute and set off to try once more to find Jack O'Neill, master of hideouts and expert in escaping.

* * *

Jonas quickly gave up on trying to search in any sort of pattern. The squads had it covered, and he was just getting in the way, so he wandered along behind them and looked in cupboards and under desks just in case they'd missed something.

In an obscure corridor—one he thought he'd never seen before, though they were all so similar it was hard to tell—he was confused to hear the faint sound of snoring.

To his left, a corridor which curved away towards the infirmary; to his right, a row of storerooms, labelled "For emergency use only". They should have been locked, and they looked like they were, but the snoring was definitely coming from inside the second door along.

Sure that the search squad would have done this already but unable to leave without trying, Jonas turned the door handle.

It opened.

Inside were rows of dark shelves; but at the back of the room, a faint light glimmered. "Hello?" Jonas said, and reached for the main light switch.

The flood of light that followed revealed a dishevelled Jack O'Neill, lying under a blanket of computer print-outs and snoring gently. Jonas felt a rush of respect for a man who could sleep through the noise the searching squads made, and shut the door gently behind himself.

"Sir?" he said, moving closer. "Sir, it's me, Jonas. Everyone's out looking for you."

He lifted a sheet of paper from Jack's shoulder and was unable to resist reading the first line—it began with the words "enjoyment. However, care should be taken by sexual partners not to be over-rough with…"

This must be the Asgard sex manual Sam had mentioned earlier. Jonas put it down quickly.

"Sir, come on, wake up."

Jack surrendered his peaceful sleep in one rapid but grudging moment, sitting bolt upright. "What? I…" He began to scrabble frantically at the papers, trying to hide their contents.

"It's okay, sir, I know what they are and I don't want to read them." Jonas helped him gather them up, in no particular order, and then shove them into the file.

"Okay—what's going on?" Jack asked, when the print-outs were safe.

"You've been missing for six hours, sir," Jonas explained. "Everyone was getting worried."

"Ah." Jack climbed to his feet, trying to tidy his uniform and pull himself together.

"Let me carry the file—nobody will ask me what it is," Jonas suggested.

Jack looked at him, then decided he had nothing to lose and handed it over. "I want it back when I'm out of trouble. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," Jonas nodded. "Let's go and find General Hammond."

* * *

Hammond had wanted a full explanation, but Jack had pleaded hunger and Asgard business and managed to escape the base.

Over curry and beer he told Thor most of the story.

"How do you now feel about our relationship?" Thor asked when he'd reached the end, of both his tale and his food.

Jack considered. "Are you ready to take it on to the next stage?"

"If you are prepared to lead," Thor replied.

"Then," Jack said, "I'd like to formally invite you to come upstairs to bed with me."

* * *

Taking his clothes off in front of a new partner, especially one who didn't seem inclined to help you and never wore clothes himself, was a surprisingly uncomfortable experience, Jack found. The big, dark, slow-blinking eyes studied his body almost scientifically, and yet with a heat that made it less like a doctor and more like a… Jack tried to stop comparing it. Down that road lay grief and madness.

Once naked, he slid into the bed next to Thor. "Start where we left off?"

Thor signalled his agreement by taking them back to the exact point: a deep, searching kiss made all the more extraordinary by Thor's odd mint-and-chicken flavour and the amazing strength of his short tongue.

When he broke the kiss, they were both trembling.

"You read the book carefully, Jack?"

"Yeah."

"Then begin," Thor demanded.

It wasn't quite the whispering of sweet nothings that Jack might have expected from some, but it would do. He put his mouth to work, delicately exploring Thor's smooth body, heading downwards all the time.

* * *

"So," Thor sighed, two hours later. "It appears that the other Asgard may after all be correct: modern Asgard cannot, in fact, experience the orgasm as humans do."

Jack made an inarticulate noise. At some point, having had the technique of the blow-job extensively if fruitlessly demonstrated to him, Thor had decided that to observe a human orgasm was a useful learning exercise.

And one that should be repeated.

It was, Jack reflected, nearly twenty years since he'd had two orgasms so close together, so it was no wonder that he felt exhausted. It was a long time since he'd had such a good pupil, either.

He sighed contentedly, allowing himself to relax. Thor wouldn't mind if he didn't reply just yet…

"Sleep well, Jack," Thor whispered when he realised that he wasn't going to get an answer before morning, and probably not before coffee. "And thank you for trying." He tucked the duvet over Jack before heading back home.

* * *

Jonas awoke grit-eyed and groggy the next morning, only to discover Jack's file on his bedside table. He'd forgotten to give it back to the colonel in last night's excitement.

About to crawl out of bed, he suddenly converted it to a scramble when the phone rang.

"'’lo?"

"Jonas? It's Sam."

"Sam. Um, hi."

"Look, Hammond's baying for Jack's blood already. I think all of SG-1 needs to be there when Jack arrives."

"And is he on his way?" Jonas asked, thumping his back-up alarm clock before it could begin to ring.

"I'm not sure. I tried calling his home, but no luck—that's where you come in. I'm already at the SGC and so is Teal'c, so you're the closest. Could you go over, wake him up, and make sure he gets here? Soon?"

Jonas sighed. "Wake Jack up for the second time in twelve hours?"

"Jonas, please. I'm afraid Hammond will kill me first if we don't get Jack here soon to take the rap, or maybe even explain what's going on."

"Okay, Sam. I'll try."

"Thanks, Jonas," she said, and cut the line.

Jonas began his in-a-mad-dash version of his morning rituals: put coffee on, quick face splash, drink coffee and pull clothes on (attempting not to spill any coffee on them).

* * *

When Jonas arrived, Jack was actually already awake, for which Jonas was deeply grateful. He was less grateful that Jack wasn't dressed and showed no signs of wanting to leave the house.

"You have to come to the SGC, sir," Jonas explained—or at least, he felt it was an explanation. Jack just looked blank.

"No, Jonas, I don't."

Jonas stepped past his commanding officer and into the house. "Tell you what: why don't you tell me what's going on?"

Commanding wasn't a tone Jonas did very well, but on this occasion it seemed to work. Jack shut the front door and leaned back against it. "Okay, Jonas. Why not? Long version, or short?"

"Short will do," Jonas said, "but I think you should sit down first."

To Jonas' astonishment, Jack followed him through to the front room and sat down.

"Story?" Jonas prompted, when they were there. A sort of morbid curiosity had overcome him, a desire to know what kind of events could turn a man like Jack O'Neill from a strong and sensible commander into… whatever he was now.

"Cliff Notes, right. Err… Thor asked me for sex, I said yes, but it didn't work out."

That was short enough, Jonas had to agree, but it lacked certain essential details.

"Before or after the Asgard sex manual thing yesterday?"

"Both," Jack said. He had looked blank at first, calm, but Jonas was being to wonder if this was in fact misery, very well contained.

"Um… help me here. Sex before and after? Not working out? What?"

"He asked me for sex, on that fishing trip. I said maybe, tried to do some research—you, Janet—and then we sort of did petting for a few nights, getting heavier. Then another Asgard hands me an ancient sex manual."

"Which you couldn’t open on your home computer."

"No." Jack seemed to think that over, and then he added, "God, I'm useless."

"Sam had trouble with it—it was for '95, and you run '98 here, don't you? You're not that useless."

"I am," Jack said flatly.

Something like pity stirred Jonas. Whatever had happened to Jack last night, between his careful evasions of Hammond's questions and his current state, must have been fairly traumatic.

"Did something happen last night, Colonel O'Neill?"

"It's what didn't happen that worries me," Jack replied.

"Okay, what didn't happened?"

Jonas had never seen a man looked shiftier than Jack did at that moment. "Never mind."

"Sir," Jonas said, leaning forward, careful to keep his body language open, hoping that Jack would trust him. "Why don't we play a little game of twenty questions?"

Jack stared at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts.

"Did you see Thor last night?"

"Yes," Jack admitted.

"Did you…" Jonas had to clear his throat before he went on. "Did you have sex with Thor last night?"

"Define sex."

"Did either of you orgasm?"

"I did," Jack said, and his mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "Twice. Thor, on the other hand…"

"And," Jonas said, "that's your problem? That's what you're disobeying orders and potentially destroying your career over?"

"Yes," Jack said. He'd returned to the blank expression.

"Because you couldn't give a thousand-year-old alien who's never had sex before an orgasm? Colonel O'Neill, that's ridiculous!" Jonas had been verging on yelling, but his sense of humour was starting to kick in and he had to quash his laughter.

"It's embarrassing," Jack muttered. Something snapped; he leant forward, burying his face in his hands. "Oh, God…"

"Seems to me that Norse Gods are the problem here," Jonas quipped. "Sir—get dressed. I'll drive you to the SGC and on the way we'll concoct some sort of rational explanation for this. The rest of SG-1 will probably have to be told, but Hammond needn't know, unless you really want to tell him."

"Okay," Jack said. He still seemed a little distant, but he stood up and headed for his bedroom. "We can try."

* * *

They tried.

Hammond didn't buy it.

Jack admitted that he hadn't told the truth, but refused to tell Hammond what had happened on the grounds that it was entirely personal. He gave his word that it would never affect his work again, and that part Hammond did accept.

"Get out there and through that damned Stargate, and let me never see you act that way again," Hammond said.

Jack, glad not to have been thrown out and also supported by the familiarity of the routine, got ready, stepped through the Stargate, and let Sam give most of the orders.

The planet turned out to be essentially lifeless: there were sixteen hundred kinds of rocks, all in tasteful shades of orange, and not much else. Sam got to work taking samples and Jonas helped her as much as he could, while Jack and Teal'c sat around.

"O'Neill, Jonas Quinn has told us what he knows of your relationship with Thor," Teal'c said when they'd been sitting around for thirty-nine hours. "Did the sex manual the other Asgard gave you not offer helpful advice?"

"Oh, it offered advice all right," Jack said. "It just turned out not to be helpful enough."

Teal'c nodded. "I do not know if this is applicable, but I am remembering the tale my grandmother used to tell, of two young men who were learning to use their staff weapons correctly. One, May't, was able to fire it straight away, and to hit the target every time, but the other, Yir'uc, struggled to do so. However, his friend May't forced him to practise, and in the end he succeeded. The moral of this tale would, I think, translate as 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again.'"

"Teal'c," Jack said seriously, "are you sure we don't have the same grandmother?"

Equally seriously, Teal'c considered Jack. "I am certain," he replied.

* * *

On returning from the planet they had dubbed "Tango", Jack asked Sam to try and contact the Asgard for him. "I, err, feel I ought to," he explained, awkward but determined.

"From Earth, sir?"

"Just try it, would you?"

Sam took pity on him and didn't ask any more questions.

To their joint astonishment, the room—and luckily they were alone—was instantly filled with white light.

"O'Neill? Why do you contact us?" Tyr enquired.

Jack blinked. "I want to talk to Thor," he said.

Tyr nodded, but he was frowning.

"I know, after what happened maybe I should just leave it," Jack said, "but… I don't want to. Could you tell Thor that for me?"

"I will do so," Tyr agreed. "He will contact you at your home—he is aware of the agreement that he must not contact you here."

Tyr disappeared, leaving Jack to glare at Sam. "Not me, sir," she said, shrugging.

He suspected that Jonas and Teal'c would both deny it as well so he left it alone, though he did make some pointed remarks about people who spread rumours as Jonas drove him home.

* * *

The house was neat and tidy.

This single, simple fact made Jack suspicious, primarily because he hadn't left it like that. It reminded him faintly of the early days of his marriage, and strongly of the time Sam had stayed over for a night and rearranged all his cupboards.

He was about to call "hello?" in case the mysterious sorter-outer was still in the building, when light footsteps sounded on the stairs.

"Jack?" an Asgard voice said.

"That's me, Thor," he answered, as the alien came into view at the foot of the stairs. "Did you do this?"

Thor nodded. "I hope you do not mind," he said. "I was—it seemed to need doing."

"Yeah, I suppose it did," Jack admitted, and stood there, awkward, aware of a need to turn the conversation to more important matters but unsure where to begin.

"It seemed unwise to contact you at work," Thor went on, "but I desired your company. I have placed the Asgard fleet in the hands of my second in command, so I…"

"Fine," Jack said. "Nice to see you. Now can I please put this file away and eat some dinner before anything else?"

* * *

Over steak and chips, Jack told Thor a little about the orange planet, and Thor told Jack about the Asgard's most recent engagement with the replicators.

Neither of them mentioned sex.

Eating ice-cream on the couch while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, Thor finally asked, "Do you intend this evening to end with sex?"

Jack instantly tensed. "Do you?"

They stared at each other, locked in an impasse, as the sounds of phaser fire echoed from the television.

"I had hoped it would," Thor replied softly. On the screen, the commercials rolled: a woman suggested with blatant body language that drinking her brand of orange juice would make you more attractive.

"I'm going to get some more beer," Jack said.

Thor followed him into the kitchen. "If you do not want…"

"Thor, we abandoned what I thought I wanted several stops ago. You want to try again? Fine. We can try again. But this time I'm not taking the blame if it doesn't work."

"It was never your fault, Jack," Thor said, but Jack used the business of pouring beer into glasses as an excuse to ignore him.

Next door, Picard ordered his crew to make it so.

"Okay," Jack said. "Let's start with necking on the couch, then."

* * *

In the glow of Jack's bedside lamp, Thor's skin took on a delicate shine. Jack thought he was beautiful, and wondered why he'd not seen it before, and if he'd ever see it again.

"Thanks," Jack whispered. "You're good at that." He stroked a thumb down the arch of Thor's cheek, then captured his mouth in a searching kiss, deepening it to taste himself mixed with coffee and steak and chicken and chips and ice-cream and mint.

The short length of Thor's erection was still pressed into his side, but it was starting to shrink and would soon disappear, its purpose once again unfilled.

In silent apology, Jack ran his hands over Thor's body, giving what pleasure he could: the planes of chest and torso, the long slim arms, even the bulges at the back of Thor's head seemed wonderful. He returned his attentions to Thor's face.

Thor had closed his eyes, his mouth slightly open in an almost-smile, so Jack went on, running his fingers down the strange flat nose, up again and carefully over the eyes, before curling an index finger around Thor's left ear.

Thor gasped, and the alien penis hardened again.

"Oh, like that, do you?" Jack said, half-teasing, and did it again.

"Please, Jack…" Thor bucked against him.

Jack went on stroking Thor's left ear, and gently applied his lips to the right ear. Meanwhile, in a triumph of multi-tasking, he sent his other hand down to work on the hard little problem that was frantically pushing itself into his belly.

It didn't take long. Thor came, releasing a stream of grey goo across the bed and then collapsing into Jack's waiting arms.

When they'd both recovered their breath, Jack murmured, "So, I've discovered yet another ancient secret." He sounded awed, but also a little smug.

Thor hugged him. "And proved me right while you were about it."

"Trust you to look at it that way," Jack grumbled. He sat up, opened a drawer in the bedside cabinet, and took out a medical sample container into which he proceeded to gather a little of the grey goo.

"I just want to have some proof," he said, answering Thor's unspoken question.

Thor laughed, long and hard, and was still chuckling long after Jack had fallen asleep beside him.

* * *

Over lunch the next day, Janet saw fit to inform the three junior members of SG-1 that the strange sample container Colonel O'Neill had handed her that morning—in front of them—was indeed Asgard semen, effectively useless for procreation but unmistakable.

"I think we can feel sure that the colonel's sorted out his personal problems," she smiled.

Sam nodded. "Thanks, Janet."

Janet moved on, and Sam exchanged glances with Teal'c and Jonas.

"Well, that's good to know," Jonas observed. "Though it doesn't quite answer all my questions."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "For example, I still do not know why he chose to hide in a storeroom to consult the Asgard sex manual."

Sam, remembering something, grinned. "Perhaps he was hoping for inspiration from an old friend," she said, and refused to explain further.

The End.

Author's Notes: loneraven dragged me into the fandom, and kindly betaed this. Dedicated to serenada, who is far more sensible than me and therefore won't even read this, and to prillalar whose wonderful stories inspired me. And an honourable mention for gamesiplay-- thanks for the offer, sweetie, but I want to get this off the harddrive.

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