“What does it look like I'm doing?”
“It looks like you're paying more attention to that race than to feeding Michael,” Daniel spoke harshly. “The babies need our focus, Jack, and feeding time is one of the best opportunities for bonding.”
“Danny, we've bonded already. In fact, we did that the day the little spermies ...”
“Jack, remember who you're talking to, please,” the younger man interrupted, irritated by the term 'spermies' and what he was sure was to follow.
“Daniel, we've both bonded nicely with our babies. Watching the race isn't going to hurt them, even if they are sucking up a storm and belching at the time,” Jack responded, doing his best to stay calm and prevent a fight.
“Jack ...”
“We're watching the race. Care to join us?” Jack invited, refusing to waver from his decision.
“Fine!” the archaeologist snapped, turning around and heading for the nursery to get Jonny and Aislinn.
Looking down at Michael, who if Jack got his way would soon be going by the name of Danny, Jack chuckled, “Your daddy is a little crazy right now. The race will help calm him down.”
Since the birth of the triplets in late September, Daniel had been extremely focused on being the perfect parent. For several weeks, his private time with Jack had been reduced to almost nil, and his overprotective tendencies had taken a toll on the older man. Finally, though, the couple had been reconnecting, going out on date nights every Friday. Unfortunately, last night the triplets had been restless, each of them taking multiple turns rousting their parents with cries over the monitor; rather, rousting Daniel, since Jack feigned deep sleep most of the time.
~I probably should have taken a couple of those baby checks,~ Jack thought now, knowing that Daniel was a bit on the grumpy side from getting up so many times and sacrificing his own peaceful slumber. Today, the older man was determined to enjoy the race, especially since Daniel had already overruled his original plan of watching the Sunday night football game on NBC in favor of a quiet time and story time with the babies. ~A man deserves to watch a sport on Sunday,~ he rationalized.
“I am not crazy, Jack,” Daniel corrected.
“I know, Love; you're just tired, and I apologize for not helping out more last night,” Jack expressed seriously.
Daniel smiled, willing to forgive his lover, who had spent hours yesterday on cleaning the house, especially some of those hard-to-reach areas. He knew Jack had been more tired than normal as a result.
“Don't look so serious,” Jack advised the middle triplet. “Hey, you'll have lots of time to be all worried about the world and life, but you're not even two months old yet. Besides, sports is one of the highlights of Sundays. Hockey is the pinnacle of sports, and then there's baseball. Can't ever forget the American pastime, Son. Since Daddy has put the kibosh on football tonight, we're going with NASCAR. It's their Super Bowl today.”
“Jack, they don't have a Super Bowl in NASCAR. They have ... uh ...”
The older man chuckled at his not-very-sports-minded husband. They'd gone to a couple of races over the years and watched a few on television, but Daniel hadn't really paid close attention to the sport.
“It's called the Chase, Love,” Jack explained. “The Chase for the Nextel Cup, and today's the final race of the season.”
Jack helped his lover get Jonny and Aislinn situated in their swing chairs, which they placed next to Michael's chair, right in front of the sofa, the couple having already moved the coffee table aside. Then their parents sat down and watched as the race preparations continued.
“Montoya will never make it,” Jack sneered as Juan Pablo Montoya's number thirty car appeared on the screen for the first time as the race cars began their pace laps.
“He's the Formula One racer, right?” Daniel inquired.
“He was. He's come over to the big leagues,” the older man chuckled.
“Jack, from what I understand, Formula One isn't exactly little league,” Daniel replied.
“It's not NASCAR, either,” Jack responded. “He hasn't a clue what he's in for. You watch -- someone will spin him.”
“It's just a different style, Jack. I'm sure Juan will do just fine.”
The older man just shook his head skeptically.
====
“Waaaah!” Michael cried.
“Is he okay?” Daniel asked anxiously as Jack checked out the crying infant.
Not finding anything wrong with the infant, Jack followed Michael's line of sight to the television and noticed something interesting.
“What the heck happened to Gordon?” Jack barked, referring to champion Jeff Gordon.
“Wha...what?” the younger father asked, wondering what that had to do with their son.
“He was up to seventh, but he just sank like a rock,” the older man noted.
“I don't think you can sink at two-hundred miles per hour, Jack.”
“They aren't going that fast,” Jack refuted.
“Jack, what does Jeff Gordon have to do with Michael?”
“Observation, Love. When the twenty-four was on the screen, he was cooing. When he *sank*, Michael began to cry,” Jack pointed out, referring to the number of Jeff Gordon's car.
“That's reaching, Jack. He hasn't a clue who Jeff Gordon is.”
“He's a four-time champion, and he's the best driver in modern history. Michael knows talent when he sees it,” Jack insisted.
====
Jonny was focused on the screen, his arms flailing and flapping rapidly, and his little legs pumping a mile-a-minute, leaving his parents wondering what he was so excited about.
“What's so fascinating?” Jack asked his namesake. Following along Jonny's line of sight as he had done earlier with Michael, he sighed, “He loves beer!”
Catching on right away, Daniel scowled, “It's not the beer. He must be a fan of Dale Junior.”
“Junior is right,” Jack retorted. “When's he going to try and run his own race without imitating his father, something which *can't* be done, by the way.” Seeing his lover's shrug, he questioned, “Daniel, how do you even know his name if you haven't a clue who I'm talking about?”
“Listening to the commentators. They like the eight car,” the archaeologist answered, referring to the red car driven by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. “I mean, uh, they show it a lot during the races we've watched.”
“It's the name.”
Again, Daniel shrugged, smiling when Jonny raised his arm as the red car came onto the screen.
“Son, I doubt Junior thinks hitting the wall is worthy of your 'high five',” Jack commented after Earnhardt's car hit the wall of the Homestead track.
“It wasn't that bad,” Daniel remarked. “He'll finish the race.”
“Yeah, but what little chance he had to win the thing just fizzled. He'll need some of those Rapid Release Gels he keeps plugging in the commercials,” Jack joked.
====
“Wow!” Jack exclaimed as the black vehicle came to a fiery halt towards the end of the race. “Told ya someone would spin him.”
“Is he okay?” Daniel asked, concerned for the driver's welfare.
Both men looked over at Jonny, who was gibbering and smiling.
“It's colorful,” Jack reasoned.
“That's one way to describe a car on fire,” Daniel responded about Montoya's car, which had just crashed, resulting in a spectacular fire.
“Kids like explosions,” Jack commented.
“Maybe we shouldn't be watching this,” Daniel wondered, worried it might be too intense for the triplets.
“Danny, there's only a few laps to go. We're finishing the race,” Jack asserted strongly. “Besides, they're babies. They don't even know what they're watching.”
“Right,” a skeptical Daniel responded dryly.
====
“No favorite for you, Princess?” Jack asked as the race wound down to just a few laps to go.
Of course, there had been some impromptu nap time and diaper changes during the lengthy race, but the family was now back in their original positions.
“She's playing it smart, Babe,” Daniel stated.
“How's that?”
“She's a girl; she's keeping her options open by not picking a favorite,” the younger man chuckled.
~Over my dead body.~ Jack growled at the thought of Aislinn surrounded by boys. He looked at the beautiful little infant girl and smiled. “Heartbreaker!”
Aislinn smiled innocently, or that's how it seemed to her older father, anyway.
“How about the Biff? Looks like he's going to win,” Jack told the youngest Munchkin.
Just then Michael got excited, smiling and making cooing noises.
“Gordon must be on the screen,” Jack theorized, turning to face the television. “Hey, look at that,” he smirked. “He's ahead of the forty-eight.”
“He's a lap down, Jack, and only there because of the restart,” the archaeologist pointed out.
“Michael doesn't know that,” Jack said with a smile. Looking back at the infant, he said, “So, you're going to be a Gordon fan, huh?”
Michael made cooing noises and let out a delightful laugh, one that made Jack laugh, too.
“Yep, a lifetime fan of the twenty-four, for sure,” Jack stated, making a funny face at his son that kept Michael feeling good.
====
Still talking about the race, Jack and Daniel were now in the nursery with their three babies.
“He had to win,” Jack remarked about the 2006 Nextel Cup champion, Jimmie Johnson, driver of the number forty-eight car, as he changed Aislinn's diaper in the nursery.
“Even if he didn't, there would always be next year,” the archaeologist stated.
“Danny, Johnson's been a bridesmaid forever. It was time to get hitched, or go back to the Busch series,” Jack opined.
“Bridesmaid?” the younger man questioned as he got Jonny settled into the crib.
“Second best,” Jack explained.
“Oh.”
“Gordon will get him next year,” Jack opined.
Right on cue, Michael let out a little joyous cry, a grin on his face. Looking over his shoulder, the older man grinned.
“Jack, it was coincidence,” Daniel stated.
“Our son knows a winner when he sees one,” Jack insisted.
Daniel rolled his eyes as he picked up Michael, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said, “You wouldn't know Jeff Gordon from ... from ... Apophis.”
“Wah!” Michael responded with a scowling cry.
“Careful, Danny. He knows.”
“Sure, he does,” Daniel responded, rolling his eyes at the crazy notion his spouse had just conjured up.
“Apophis was more like ... Tony Stewart,” Jack commented. “Always right, never wrong.”
Daniel chuckled, saying, “I thought Tony had turned over a new leaf.”
“We'll see,” Jack responded. “I half suspect Loki's absconded with the real Tony and left us a kinder and gentler clone of the man.”
“People can change,” the younger man insisted.
“There's that,” Jack conceded with a smile.
“What about Ba'al?”
“Old Bocci Breath?” Jack snorted. “He's Robby Gordon.” When his lover didn't argue or respond, he asked, “Aren't you gonna argue with me?”
“My mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all,” Daniel answered.
“Is that for the Goa'uld or Robby?”
“Let's just say karma has a way of working things out; at least, it did today when the engine blew up,” Daniel stated about Robby's car, which had been unable to finish the race.
“Next year will be interesting,” Jack commented, smiling as Daniel put Michael next to Jonny in the crib.
“More competition, that's for sure,” Daniel agreed. “I hope Jeff Gordon takes the Cup,” he admitted, adding, “Or maybe Carl Edwards. He seems like a nice person, down-to-earth.”
“Would you like a story, Munchkins?” Jack inquired. “It's written by a racer,” he stated, holding up the book he'd just retrieved from a tiny bookshelf that was near the changing table.
“Where'd you get that?”
“Carter found it, brought it over yesterday when you were bathing the triplets,” Jack answered about the book called, 'Twelve More Little Cars'.
“Scott Pruett?” Daniel called out with a scrunched up nose as he stared at the children's book about racing in NASCAR. “Oh, I remember him from the Sonoma race. He's one of those road coarse experts, or something.”
“Or something,” Jack affirmed. “He and his wife write books for kids, too. It looks like a winner.”
“He's not really a NASCAR racer, though, Babe. I'm not sure he has the knowledge to ...” Daniel began. Suddenly, though, he looked up, shock on his face. “Jack?”
“Angel, is something wrong?” Jack asked with alarm, tossing the book in the rocker and moving forward several steps.
“Gawd, Jack, this is horrible!”
“What is?” the worried general asked, his eyes searching the triplets for some dreadful something that could cause the look of panic he was seeing on his lover's face.
“I'm talking sports! *When* did I become conversant in sports?” Daniel turned and began to pace. “Gawd, sports!”
Jack burst out into laughter as he scooped up his lover into his arms and kissed him soundly.
“I love you, Danny.”
“I love you, too, Jack, but ... gawd, sports!”
“And we've only just begun,” Jack mused delightfully.
“Oh, gawd,” Daniel sighed as he leaned into the comforting arms of his husband.
For the child prodigy, the unathletic, highly geekish Daniel Jackson, life had taken a strange turn. He'd become Daniel Jackson-O'Neill, archaeologist, anthropologist, linguist, husband, father, and converser of all things sports.
~What's next?~ Daniel wondered in fear. ~Will I suddenly love ... Lisa Simpson?~
As Jack laughed and hugged his spouse, Daniel's mind wandered in mock horror. He could only wonder what tomorrow would bring.
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