Work Text:
AFTER
Jack flopped backwards and stared at his bedroom ceiling. Next to him, Stark let out one long shaky breath.
"So tell me again how 'tolerable' you find me?" Jack asked.
"I believe the phrase was 'mostly tolerable,' actually."
Jack looked over; Stark arched an eyebrow at him. Jack grinned. "You lie," he said with satisfied smugness.
"I plead the Fifth, Sheriff," Stark murmured, his eyes dropping to Jack's mouth, and Jack forgot all about being smug, at least temporarily. He had better things to do with the man than smirk at him.
BEFORE
"I don't know what to do about him," Allison said.
"I think kicking his ass to the curb is pretty definitive," Jo said.
Zoe kicked her under the table. "You were saying?" she asked Allison.
Allison sighed. "It's not that I want him to be miserable. I mean, I did for a while."
"Understandable," Zoe said.
"But I do want him to be happy. Just not…with me."
Zoe sipped her Vinspresso (carefully disguised in a milk container) and looked around Cafe Diem. "I bet everybody here would like him happy, too."
"I hear he's a holy terror at GD," Jo said.
Allison nodded.
Zoe tapped her finger against the side of her drink. "Too bad he doesn't go for guys."
"Wh-why?" Allison asked.
"Let's just say I know someone who would be perfect for him if only he swung—"
Jo put a hand over Zoe's mouth. "Allison, why are you blushing?"
Zoe looked up. "Oh, seriously? Seriously?"
AFTER the AFTER
"I was not in the closet," Jack said. "You were in the closet." He untangled his pants, which had managed to get pretzeled to hell and back while he'd been trying to pull them off with his shoes still on.
On the other side of the bed, Stark threaded his arms through his wrinkled dress shirt. "Denying something as natural as sexuality is illogical and unscientific. You were the one projecting hypermasculinity in an attempt to mask—"
"I'm sorry, I can't be masculine and bang you? Evidence suggests otherwise. And by the way, you were married. Remember?"
"You have a daughter." Stark groaned. "You know, this is the kind of ridiculous argument I only have with you."
"Likewise," Jack snapped. He paused in the middle of buttoning his own shirt. "Which really should have given me my first clue. I only argue this much with people I want to have sex with."
Silence. He looked over; Stark was standing there, pants unbuttoned and shirt half-done (half-undone).
"What?" Jack asked.
"Arguing is your foreplay."
"Arguing with you is," Jack said.
"Hm." Stark reached across the bed, grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt, and yanked until Jack hit the bed again. "Then this is the perfect relationship," he said, straddling Jack and reaching down to unbutton him.
AFTER the BEFORE but BEFORE the AFTER
"They're perfect for each other," Zoe said. "Have you seen how they argue?"
Allison and Jo looked blankly at her. They were sitting on the couch in the bunker living room while Zoe paced back and forth in front of them, doing her best Law and Order impression.
"All the time," Zoe said. "It's totally foreplay."
Jo looked thoughtful. "I have to agree with you."
"One of us is not old enough to be having this conversation," Allison said, "and I think it's me."
Zoe held up a hand. "S.A.R.A.H.?"
"Yes, Zoe."
"Do you think my dad and Dr. Stark are into each other?"
A 3D projection of Jack's body zipped up out of nowhere and rotated over the coffee table while a list of statistics scrolled past. "Based on an analysis over time of Sheriff Carter's body temperature and blood pressure when talking about Dr. Stark, as well as…" there was a distorted sound that, in a human, might be a throat being cleared, and S.A.R.A.H.'s voice dropped slightly in volume. "As well as other observations—"
Zoe's eyes widened. "How much don't I want to know? Let me count the ways." Jo also had an expression of extreme discomfort. Allison looked vaguely intrigued, but said nothing.
S.A.R.A.H. made the distorted sound again. "As to Dr. Stark, I am sorry to say I do not have enough direct evidence to form a conclusion."
"Oh, yes," Allison said.
"What?" Zoe said.
"What?" Jo said.
"Please clarify," S.A.R.A.H. said.
Allison took a long drink of her wine. "I've been thinking about this since you brought it up, Zoe, and I started remembering—every time there's the slightest chance that something might have happened to Jack, Nathan pretty much strips him down and runs every test in the book on him."
"He could just be afraid of lawsuits," Jo said.
"I'm an MD," Allison said dryly, "and you don't have to be naked for some of those tests."
"Ohhhhhh," Zoe and Jo said in unison.
"That is substantial evidence," S.A.R.A.H. agreed.
"So we're agreed?" Zoe said. Without actually waiting for a response, she continued, "Good. Now we need a plan."
A whiteboard folded itself out of a panel, and a drawer with dry erase markers popped out of the coffee table. "Oh, Fargo," Allison murmured.
"Okay. I present: the key to our plan!" Zoe wrote NAKED across the board in bright blue.
"Naked?" Allison asked.
Zoe nodded. "Or at least half-naked."
"Which is still half-dressed," Jo pointed out.
"Think of it as under-dressed," Zoe said.
Allison looked thoughtful. "Very under-dressed."
Distortion. Zoe rolled her eyes. "Seriously, S.A.R.A.H., just spit it out."
"I have a suggestion, Zoe."
LONG AFTER
"Seriously," Jack said, stumbling out of the shower, "I am way, way too old for this. I have got to get some sleep."
Stark tossed Jack his towel. "Fine," he said, and crawled under the covers.
Jack stood looking down at him for a second, then shrugged and climbed in after him. He tossed the towel towards the wall; a hamper unerringly slid out to receive it.
"Man," he said, looking after it, "I would really like to thank whoever came up with the idea of getting you in a towel in front of me." He sat up. "Wait, did you just hear that sound?"
"Like something strange just cleared its throat?"
"Yeah."
"No." Stark's arm reached out from under the covers and pulled Jack back down. "Good night, Sheriff."
Jack looked suspiciously at the ceiling, but rolled in toward Stark and closed his eyes. "Good night, Doctor."