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“Do you actually like pizza?”
Daniel coughed, the small sound of disbelief choking his already tight throat. “What?”
“Pizza. You always pick half the toppings off.”
Daniel gave a shaky laugh. It rattled his lungs, burning. Damn this planet. Damn that Jaffa ambush. And damn his too-slow reaction time. Maybe if he’d trained more, if he’d actually taken Jack’s advice seriously, he wouldn’t be laying here with a smoldering wound in his side. But he'd never tell him that. He’d admit Jack was right over his dead body.
Though, maybe that ‘dead body’ thing was a bit more imminent than he’d prefer.
Jack’s concerned face danced in his vision like kelp in water. Presumably, the colonel was attempting to stop the bleeding, to clean the wound, as was standard first aid practice. If so, he didn’t feel any more healed. To Daniel, the pain was such that Jack might as well have been holding a lighter right up to his frayed, exposed nerves.
Silent for too long; Jack was calling his name. Daniel hissed through his gritted teeth, “You’re just trying to distract me, aren’t you?”
Jack ripped open a small packet. “I’m just trying to decide what food to order when we get back.”
His use of ‘when’ didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated.
“It’s not that I dislike it,” Daniel grumbled finally. His vision was starting to spot, so he closed his eyes and breathed. “I do like it. You just order bad toppings.”
“What’s wrong with meat lover’s?”
“It’s so much meat. Too much.”
Jack made an offended noise. “Too much? Seriously? You’re the one who raves about the flavors of all the weird alien crap we eat on missions. Would’ve thought you’d appreciate the… complexity it adds.”
“Complexity?” Daniel nearly laughed at the word.
“Yes.”
“I can’t imagine what possible kind of complexity ham is adding that sausage and pepperoni can’t—.”
A cry tore through him as Jack put abrupt pressure on his wound. God, that hurt! Couldn’t he have had a warning? Distantly, Jack seemed to be talking, rambling some sweet comforting nothings that were hard to make out. Promises. Promises of the infirmary, promises of good drugs to steal the pain.
Jack finally accomplished whatever goal he had in mind, the pressure easing slightly and the fiery pain slowly fading to a manageable amount. Silence fell. It hung there for the next couple minutes, though whether from anxiety in their throats or just Daniel’s pain-skewed sense of time, the quiet stretched to something more like an hour. Rustling trees, whistling wind, heavy breathing: those were all the sounds he could catch. Pale and clammy, Daniel eventually managed to get his breathing under control enough to whisper, “Would it kill you to put a vegetable on it?”
Jack looked up with a frown. “What?”
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who wanted t… to talk about pizza.”
“Ah. Right.” Jack checked his watch.
Daniel swallowed nervously, reading the concern in his eyes. “They’re running late, aren’t they? The med team, I mean.”
“I’m sure they’re just…” Tension pulled at Jack’s lips. A mask of aloof assurance rose across his features; it was that same one he put on when he wanted people to think that everything was going fine and according to plan. The fact that he was using it on Daniel was both nerve-wracking and comforting. “You should know that vegetables don’t belong on pizza.”
Daniel scowled. The anxiety and annoyance that had flared was now overshadowed by something like fondness. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Daniel gave the colonel his best squint; he hoped it read more like a judgmental one than a pained one. “Peppers belong more than bacon does. Who the hell orders bacon on pizza?”
“People of good taste.”
“Says the guy that eats Froot Loops for breakfast.”
“Hey, it's better than the gallon of coffee that you call breakfast.” Jack sighed softly, smoothing the bloody fabric of Daniel’s jacket. “Ever had a breakfast pizza?”
“What?” Daniel’s eyes felt heavy and his mind was sluggish, but he forced himself to stay awake. “I… I don’t know what that is.”
“Really?”
“Mhm.”
“It's a type of pizza. Has eggs and stuff on it.”
Daniel’s lip curled in mild distaste. Jack waggled his finger.
“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”
“Too late.”
Distantly, the sound of approaching boots and orders began to reach his ears. Jack gave a wicked smile that Daniel caught briefly through his fluttering lashes. “I’d say they’re right on time.”
And as the doctors started to help Daniel onto the stretcher, sluggish morphine muffling the world and pulling him under, he felt Jack’s hand squeeze his arm and heard his unserious voice murmur, “Don’t worry. Breakfast pizza’s on me.”
Stupid pizza. Daniel Jackson passed out with a loopy giggle.