Author's Note: Before we get started, I've been remiss! For more than a month now I was supposed to make sure everyone was aware of the Sam and Jack Multimedia Awards (link in my profile). If you haven't checked us out yet, please do! We're currently accepting nominations in several dozen categories across fic, art and video mediums. While you're there, make sure you register to vote! For those who aren't aware, I'm on the committee - that's why I'm writing slowly and sporadically these days.

Okay, commercial over. :)

He stood by uncomfortably as the shimmery, golden ink was needled into her skin. She hissed when the design passed over her ribs.

"Carter—" he started uneasily and then discovered he had absolutely no idea what to say. What she was doing for him, for all of them, was over and above the call of duty.

She hissed again when the shaman's pinkie pressed against already tattooed skin and Jack tried not to notice the way the man's wrist pressed against the soft skin of her naked breast. He tried not to concentrate on the creamy skin, goose-pimpled and concave against the tattooed bone of that other man's wrist.

The filigree and leaves were beautiful, strong, enigmatic. Like Carter.

The shaman's needle made its way to the soft, fleshy curve of her breast and she gritted her teeth. Jack was transfixed by the way her nipple drew up into hardness. He remembered people talking about the low hum of endorphin-fuelled arousal that came along with tattoos and tried not to dwell on it.

As the design continued to fill her left breast, she moaned low in her throat but it sounded like pain. When Jack reached for her fingers, she grabbed a hold of him and squeezed. When she shifted her legs, let her thighs rub together, his mind warred with his body trying to convince it that she was simply uncomfortable.

Minutes later, the shaman pressed on her shoulder until she was flat on her back. He dragged Jack's hand up to Sam's collarbone and indicated Jack was to hold her down. Wary, Jack did as asked and the shaman began inking the design across her breastbone. In the back of his mind Jack registered the way Sam's full breasts relaxed on her chest and the way her pupils were blown wide attesting to the pleasure-laced pain of the procedure. He started to think that maybe there was something in that tea they'd made her drink before the tattooing began.

She twisted her grip in the hand she was holding, laced her fingers between his – her overheated palm on top of his hand, and pressed until his heavy hand pressed her belly into the table, grounding her. She didn't release him so he stood there awkwardly, hands two points on a compass his brain wasn't sure how to decipher. Her hips rolled, her belly quivered against his fingertips, her nipple grazed the sensitive skin of his forearm and then it was his turn to grit his teeth.

"Sorry, sir," she ground out, but she shifted her hips until his pinky slid beneath her waistband. Her body was asking for things her brain couldn't fathom and his tried to deny even as his body sprang to life.

"This whole situation is fucked up," he said. He expected a smile, a grimace, something. She just licked her lips.

She closed her eyes and shifted uncomfortably when the needle went just a tad too deep. "It was either this or—"

"I know, Carter. Doesn't mean I have to like it. I can't believe…I should have just let them…"

"No sir," she admonished. "This is better."

She was right. As much as it was hurting her at that moment, the tattoo she received would, eventually, fade away. The pain would become a distant memory.

"Besides," she interrupted his reverie, "it hurts, but it doesn't." The shaman shifted and began the design on her right breast. Her right hip hitched up and Jack's hand disappeared even further into her trousers.

"Carter," he warned but didn't remove his hand. He was telling his brain to move, but somewhere – likely in the vicinity of his libido – the signal was getting interrupted.

"Sir," she sighed. The shaman looked up, glanced down at Jack's hand low on Carter's belly, nodded vigorously and nudged Jack's forearm with the back of his wrist.

Jack had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly how this was supposed to go. And he was suddenly very sure there was definitely something in that tea they'd given her earlier.

The shaman drew the needle up to the peak of her breast and passed it directly across her nipple and, "Oh god, Jack, please," was wrenched from between her lips as her hips shot off the table and her hand shoved his deep into the parts of her pants he had no business contemplating. Except… warm, silky wetness smeared across his fingertips and she gasped and sighed then moaned long and low, and he was too busy contemplating how much he liked the look of her canvas belt stretched across his wrist to realize that he was evoking all those new and exciting sounds as his fingers slipped across a bundle of nerves he was supposed to be pretending she didn't have.

He watched her lips, pink and open, as she panted softly, her body taut waiting for the live-wire jolt of his fingers and he found himself really wanting to know what she'd do with that mouth when she came.

"Carter," he said and almost didn't recognize the roughness in his own voice, "are you sure you want me to—"

"God, yes."

"But what about him?"

"Don't care," she said. And he knew it was the tea talking. As much as he wanted to give her what she was asking for, she was too far gone to be asking for anything.

With strength he didn't know he possessed, he pulled his hand out of her pants. He tried not to notice the way his fingertips were slick with the bubbly evidence of her manufactured desire.

Daniel and Teal'c bumbled in then, and Jack surreptitiously wiped his fingers on his thigh. It was bad enough they were all standing there around a topless Sam – something that didn't elicit much reaction considering the fact that after all those years, Carter's breasts were no big mystery to any of them – but he didn't need to advertise that she'd just been begging him to get her off.

"The tea is going to make her—"

"I know, Daniel."

"Too late?"

"Almost." Jack was grateful that after all that time there was a tone Daniel had learned not to challenge.

Sam whimpered and shifted, Jack stroked her belly with soft, damp fingers, Teal'c and Daniel each cuffed an ankle encouragingly. She groaned, deep in her chest, speaking to parts inside Jack he liked to pretend he didn't have.

"Almost done, Sam," Daniel reassured her, mistaking unabated pleasure for pain. More quietly, he addressed Jack. "The tea makes her—"

"I know Daniel!" Jack hissed.

"No, Jack. It's just supposed to help. The endorphin rush is what she needs. This is meant to hurt. And…not hurt."

"You're saying she's supposed to be getting off right now?"

"I'm saying it wouldn't hurt."

"Daniel, she's been sleep deprived, drugged, and now tattooed. She's not able to consent."

"Geez, Jack." Daniel rolled his eyes and gestured down at Sam. While the guys had shifted their attention, she'd dislodged Jack's hand from her collarbone and eased her own hand into her trousers.

"Okay, that's it," Jack turned his back and forcibly shoved at the male contingent of his team. "Carter, we'll be outside when you're…done…" He closed his eyes tight against the sound she made because he then knew what elicited that sound. He figured at that point he deserved either a medal or canonization. But considering he was a lapsed Catholic and the Air Force didn't give out medals for resisting the temptation to bring your teammates to orgasm, well, he was going to have to be happy with the memory of her wide-blown pupils, soft parted lips and slick feel of her on his fingertips. For now.

Some of you are going to be pissed at me. I already know who you are. Commence with the yelling below. ;)