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"Dinner's at seven. Don't be late."
~~~
Jack came out of the house to find Daniel reclining on the deck, looking at the sky, his hands folded over his stomach. There wasn't much light coming from the deck sconces to spoil whatever view of the stars Daniel had, but all the same, Jack went back inside to shut them off. When he came out again, it was better, darker, but there was still the blue spill of the distant street lights and the generalized wash of white in the sky that you could never escape, in the city. He stood there, watching the back of Daniel's head while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Maybe he should suggest going up to the roof, though if he were honest, there was no really fine stargazing to be had in town. He was simply lazy, mostly, in his willingness to settle for what he could see through the telescope right here at home.
"Do you ever take the telescope out to the country somewhere, to really get a good, really dark view?"
Jack frowned. "Telepathy one of the skills you came back with?"
Daniel chuckled. "Not so much."
Jack took a few steps toward him. There was another chaise. He could sit down there, next to Daniel. The others had left a while back, after helping clean up dinner. They'd thought, earlier in the week, that Jonas Quinn would be with them for this celebration, but as it turned out, Quinn had been called back to Kelowna and it was just the four of them -- the first SG-1 reunited -- to feast on the thick steaks from Jack's grill, and the tart mounds of Carter's famous tabouli, and drink beer and Pepsi and talk over the mission.
As she left, Carter had offered to drive Daniel back to the mountain, because, after all, she was driving Teal'c there, so it would be nothing but convenient, but Jack had heard Daniel refuse. He hadn't heard the exact terms of the refusal. The two of them had been talking in very low voices, while Daniel stood by the front door to say goodnight to her. Jack had hugged her goodnight in the kitchen. Apparently Daniel had assumed he could stay over, or perhaps he thought Jack would drive him back later. Jack wasn't sure what to think about that. He kept on loading the dishwasher. In any case, Carter and Teal'c had left, and Daniel had stayed. Jack had methodically finished cleaning the kitchen, and then looked around for his guest.
"You want a beer?" Jack asked. He had a fresh one for himself, but he hadn't noticed Daniel had come outside empty-handed until he was already out on the deck. Daniel was now partly sunk into the deep cushions of the chaise, looking for all the world as if he intended to sleep there.
"Sure, why not."
Jack shook his head. He'd expected Daniel to refuse; to claim that he didn't like beer after all. The last few weeks had been a distinct challenge, trying to decide if this was the old Daniel or a new stranger. And Daniel seemed to be upset, pensive, self-deprecating, and diabolical about it all, by turns. Sometimes he kidded around, and sometimes he got all quiet and weird about what he might have forgotten. Or what he might have remembered.
Jack snagged another cold Moosehead, and he was glad to see there was most of a twelve pack left, because it was only Friday night, after all.
"Thanks," Daniel said, accepting the sweating bottle and twisting off the cap, still lying back in the chaise. "I wonder if we can see Kelowna's star from here." He thought a minute. "No, if I'm remembering right, we can't."
"If you're remembering right?"
"Yeah."
Jack lay down on the chaise next to Daniel and crossed his ankles and sighed. He drank some beer. For once, when he wanted the whole speech with all the explanations and frills, one syllable came out of Daniel's mouth. "You told Quinn that most of your memories were back," Jack said. He tried to make it casual.
"Yeah?"
"There in the gateroom, right before he left, today."
"Um hmm," Daniel said, looking at the stars.
Jack sipped at his beer. "Daniel. I'm not used to doing all the work in the conversation, here. So, you've remembered most things; how do you know it's most things and not just some things? How do you know it's the important things?"
Daniel sat up and turned his head, staring at Jack. The way he was sitting looked awkward; he left his feet up on the chaise and he had to kick his knees out a little and bow his back.
Daniel said, and his voice was neutral and controlled, "I remember about us. Wouldn't that count as one of the important things?"
Jack, holding Daniel's gaze, drank some more beer. He noticed that he hadn't reacted immediately, physically, to this ... bombshell. Interesting. The moonlight was reflecting in Daniel's glasses, making it hard to see his eyes. Jack's hand wasn't shaking on his bottle. It was steady. "Is that why you decided to stay tonight?"
"Well, yes," Daniel said, and his tone said, "Well, yes, duh. Are you stupid?"
"Remembered. Boom. Decided to stay over. Just like that." Jack drank another swig of beer. He was seized by a desire to throw the bottle, just as hard as he could, against the house. But that was a bad idea. He tried for a deep breath, failed, and settled for a harsh, rough exhale. He drank some more beer.
Daniel leaned back on the chaise and adjusted his glasses. "Am I being stupid? Should we be having this conversation inside and not out here?"
"Since the last political debacle Kinsey staged, the NID's been running pretty scared. I haven't seen any surveillance lately. But maybe you're right, come to think of it, because if we go inside, we can use my new toy."
Daniel looked at him and cocked an eyebrow, and it was so like a well-remembered bedroom expression of his that Jack's chest quivered for a second, as if Daniel had struck him. Clenching his jaw, Jack got up and went indoors. He stood still and looked into the cold fireplace, waiting for Daniel to follow. Daniel did, moving slowly, and then he turned and studied the patio doors. He reached down and locked them -- both the door lock and the track lock. He looked at the lock mechanisms carefully, as if he were doing something totally unfamiliar. "Your new toy is from Thor, I suppose?"
Jack drained his beer and went and set it on the kitchen passthrough. He needed another one. He didn't think he wanted to be sober for this conversation, which he'd both desired and dreaded. He went to the hall, and stopped in front of the dummy thermostat, set on the wall under the real one. Except it was a dummy only in the sense that you couldn't use it to make the house hotter or colder. It would be better to call it a duplicate, probably, because the Asgard had copied the original one perfectly. Jack moved the temperature bar to 66. He'd wondered if that number was some kind of obscure Asgard joke, but Thor had not explained.
"Ta da," Jack said. He felt Daniel come to stand behind his shoulder, not touching him.
"I read about the Kinsey thing... Thank you, Thor. An extra souvenir of his intervention -- presto, and the watchers are blind, but don't know they're blind? Something elegant like that?"
"It all looks like watching TV in the basement to them. Whoever 'them' is."
"And whatever "it" is."
"Yes," Jack said, trying for light and sarcastic and feeling he was failing on both. They stood there, looking at the thermostats.
Daniel said, "I want to touch you now, try to kiss you. But I feel like whatever I do, it will be wrong."
Jack moved away sharply, as if Daniel had poked him with a stick. He went into the living room and started to sit, then realized he didn't want to sit. He went into the kitchen. Daniel followed.
The light was bright in there, much brighter than the deck, or even the hall. Dinner had been partially cleaned up, the dishes washed. All that was left to clean up from dinner was some brisket, a lot of brisket, way too much for one person to eat in any reasonable amount of time, so he'd have to freeze it. Teal'c preferred Jack's barbecued brisket to a steak, so Jack always made it for Teal'c and there was always mountains of it left over. What had he been thinking when he smoked so much. He'd really overbought, this time. It was in a shallow baking pan on the stove, where Carter had left it because it had been too warm to put in the refrigerator earlier. Jack began to chunk it into plastic containers.
Daniel stood there and watched him. Jack could see out of the corner of his eye that his arms were folded. All he needed was the white sweater to complete the picture -- Daniel, distant, judgmental, superior, in control. Jack accidentally ripped a small, jagged piece of aluminum foil. Too small to use. He stared at it, and crumpled it carefully in his fist, and placed it carefully in the trash. He tried again to tear off an orderly, rectangular piece, the size he needed.
"I don't remember much from the period of time that I was ascended," Daniel said. He was leaning against the counter, implacable, dense. "Just ... impressions, really. I'm not sure. I know some things, but I don't know how I learned them. But I have regained a whole lot of memories now of my life up until the Kelowna accident. They came back in a hurry, mostly just before the mission. But you're absolutely right. There's no way to know what I don't know. No way to know where the gaps are."
"So you remember about us, huh?" Crimp the edges. Find another container.
"Yes."
Jack didn't respond to that. He kept working, boxing up leftover meat. So Daniel began to speak into the silence, looking at a corner of Jack's kitchen, arms still folded.
"I remember, a while before Sha're was killed, a night that we were here, in the living room, right over there, and we almost kissed, and we both pulled back, but we never talked about it afterward at all. But I remember that well -- hugging you, and feeling how warm you were, and feeling that you were getting hard, and.... We didn't do anything about it then."
Jack stopped, his hands clutching Tupperware. Daniel paused, and went on.
"I remember wanting so much, and needing so much, and knowing I would never get it. I remember the night we went to bed here, for the first time; just fell into it; too much to drink, too much we couldn't say. I remember afterwards -- how we both, for such different reasons, felt that the sex might work but that there was no way a relationship would."
Daniel unfolded his arms and stepped closer. Jack held tighter to his Tupperware. He wanted to warn Daniel off, but his voice wouldn't work.
"I remember one long weekend at the Minnesota house. One long weekend when we hardly got out of bed, and didn't get dressed at all." Daniel smiled, but his eyes were sad. "But we couldn't bring it home, could we? I couldn't, and you couldn't." Daniel looked at the floor. "And we went on like that for a while. You were worried about being the C-O ... and I was worried about fucking with you, about fucking with your command, and then also I was living in terror that someone would find out and you would be demoted or sent away. Because I couldn't be the reason that happened to you, and I was afraid it would happen. And so we fought about it. A lot."
Daniel sighed, and Jack wanted to look away, but he couldn't. Daniel frowned. "And then Kelowna."
Jack did look down, then. His knuckles were white. He made himself let go of the container, and methodically tear a new piece of foil and stretch it, carefully crimp it, the tiny noises loud in Daniel's silence, and he took the three steps to the refrigerator and put the container away. The door swung closed, and Jack thought, Should have grabbed a beer when the door was open. The pain in his heart was intense. God damn Daniel for making him relive all that. God bless whomever had sent Daniel back.
Hands on his shoulders. Warm, hesitant hands. Jack closed his eyes.
"You probably want another beer. I could use one, too." The hands trailed down, over his shoulder blades, ghosting over his waist, and were gone. He opened his eyes. He opened the fridge again, took out two beers, dark and sweet, the ones Daniel, the old Daniel, his Daniel, used to like the best. He turned. The kitchen was empty. Daniel was not there. For one terrifying second, Jack thought he'd imagined the whole scene, the whole evening. That it was a nightmare, one of the gasping, clutching dreams he'd awakened from, over and over, that whole dead, dull year. In the dreams, he would look, and Daniel would be there and then he'd be gone. Just like in that orange cell, between torture sessions. Daniel would be there, and then he'd be gone.
He jerked his shoulders, and shook his head to clear it. How much more was he supposed to take, anyway? How much pain could a person stand? How many deaths could a person face before they refused to face any more? Before they cracked, and wandered, gibbering, through the corridors of the SGC?
He methodically popped the lids off the beers, and put the lids on the counter. He walked out of the kitchen, and down into the living room. Daniel was there, sure enough. Sitting on the sofa. He'd taken his glasses off. He wasn't wearing the white sweater, but a long-sleeved gray t-shirt and jeans. Jack was a little surprised, actually, to see him there, and his body registered the surprise, and some anxiety. His stomach was buzzing. His back muscles were tight. His palms were damp. Everything was too clear, too sharp.
He walked slowly up to Daniel and gave him one of the beers, and Daniel's warm, real, sweaty fingers brushed his. Eyes locked, they drank, and Jack sat down. He let his legs fall open, so that his knee was brushing Daniel's and then he closed his eyes and got up again.
"Dammit," he said, and he started to pace. Daniel frowned up at him, gorgeous, maddening, touchable. Real. "You just want to come back, waltz right back in here and remember everything and start it right up again. Just that easy. Just like that."
"No, Jack," Daniel said, pain in his voice.
No, yes, whatever Daniel answered, it was all bad. No answer would be the right answer. It was all pain. It all hurt. Jack drank his beer, swallowed, drank some more, and something in him gave way. "Fuck it," he barked, and he drew back his arm and threw the half-full bottle just as hard as he could into the stone fireplace. Daniel jumped as the bottle shattered. It was satisfying -- the crunch of glass, the exploding puddle of beer, the way he'd startled Daniel. The beer smell seeped into the room on the cool air -- cloying and too rich. Jack put his hands over his face, scrubbed. He took them down, twisted his right fist into his palm.
"Goddammit, Daniel," he said again, harsh and loud.
Daniel got up, then, and came to him. Daniel came closer, and Jack wanted to go to him, too, to meet him halfway, but he also wanted to stay still, to stand where he was, at bay, resisting. Jack was frozen between the past and the future. Daniel's hands touched him, smoothing his shoulders. One stayed there, and one crept on up, to skin, to the back of Jack's neck. Jack was stiff. He refused the embrace, refused to come in, to let Daniel pull him in. But Daniel was relentless. As always. Daniel came to him, when Jack wouldn't budge. Jack closed his eyes. His hands were fists, hanging at his sides. Daniel's breath was warm on Jack's lips. Warm, not cold like those breezes that had been Jack's first sign that Daniel really was alive, in some fashion, somewhere. Gone, but not dead. All those months. His sign was always a breath, like the kiss of snow, on Jack's face.
But now, Daniel's breath was humid and beery, and his warm sandpapery cheek was against Jack's cheek, and his chest was against Jack's. Daniel sighed; Jack felt it in his torso. Jack dropped his chin, just a little, tilted it so he could feel Daniel's neck. But he didn't hug him back.
"I'm so sorry, Jack. I'm so, so sorry."
Jack clenched his teeth hard on the tears he felt in the back of his throat, and then he unwillingly but inexorably, inevitably, lifted an arm and put it around Daniel's waist. "Goddammit," he said again, through clenched teeth.
Daniel held him close, pressing against him, and he felt Daniel's tears, sliding along his cheek and Jack's. Daniel was crying, silently. Just the tears, no sobbing. Nothing in his voice to show it. "I'm so sorry," Daniel said.
His other arm came up around Daniel then, holding him tight. Then one hand crept to Daniel's neck, to find skin. "You just think you can come right back here, pick right up again where we left off?" Jack demanded.
Before, it had been a statement, meant as a roadblock. Now it was really a question. His voice was hoarse. Jack's eyes were burning.
"I know I hurt you. I don't expect you to do anything now; I'm not expecting this to be easy or quick." Daniel stepped back and cleared his throat. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and gripped Jack's shoulders. Despite the tears, his voice was clear. "I just wanted you to know that I remember now. I remember it all. I think. And I'm sorry, Jack. I'm sorry for hurting you, for leaving you, even though I think it had to be like that. I think it was better to go with Oma than to die like that. Because I think I would have died. I don't think there was anything Jacob and Selmak could have done, at that point. But I can't change that now. I can't go back. What I'm trying to say is, I still love you. I'll always love you; I always have."
He waited a minute, and Jack stood there, frowning into his eyes, silent.
Daniel dropped his hands. He turned and looked for his beer. He took a swallow, and then smiled weakly and offered the bottle to Jack. His hands were shaking. Jack's figured his would shake, too, if he reached for the bottle. Jack shook his head and Daniel took another pull of the beer. He set the bottle on the coffee table and walked to one of the tall windows. Jack knew he couldn't really see anything; even the low light in the room was too bright to let him see the yard out there. The room, the two of them, the furniture, were reflected in the glass.
Jack looked at Daniel's back, at the curve of his triceps. Daniel was holding one arm, stroking his own arm with his thumb. Jack wished for some scotch, yet knew it would be a huge mistake to pull out the bottle of Dewar's under these circumstances, and yet he wished for it anyway. It would taste so good on his tongue -- biting and burning and smooth, and he would be numb after three shots and thirty minutes. Then he wouldn't feel this. He stood there. He didn't go for the Dewar's.
Jack cleared his throat. "We never said that before, you know," Jack said. "You never told me you loved me, not in so many words."
Daniel laughed, a harsh bark. "Didn't I? Then I was a fucking self-pitying selfish asshole." He turned around, hugging himself. "Because I adore you, Jack. Nothing makes sense in my life without you; not on Earth, not ascended. You're the, the sun of my solar system. You're the ert in my ertia. You're it. If I didn't say it before, I should have, and I'm saying it now. I love you, Jack. Always. Forever." He turned back to the window. "Please forgive me. Being ascended didn't really solve anything and it might have made some things worse. I mean, I didn't die; so that was good, but I see, now, that, other than that, it solved nothing. I was just trading one set of stupid futile gestures for another -- on a larger scale, yes, but in the end, the Ancients' power doesn't really mean anything. They can't change fate. They aren't God. And I don't know what I mean by fate, either. I don't really have a name for that anymore. I don't have a system that can possibly contain all the crazy shit I've learned about reality in the last couple of years." Daniel turned around, still hugging himself. "Being ascended simply made me understand that I'm still just one person, with the, the capacity, the responsibility, of just one person. And that is just tremendous and pathetic, all at the same time. But, what's really important to me, tonight, is finally realizing that I can't get away from you, even to stop hurting you, even to try to make it better, and that now, I finally see that I don't want to, even if I could. And so I hope I don't have to leave, ever again. I hope you die first next time. And I hope I haven't hurt you so goddamned much by what I did that I fucked up the only thing that's really important. The only thing I really want."
He turned back to the window. "I'm sorry, Jack. I love you and I'm so very sorry. I can't live without you. Basically. It should be a silly love song. Cue the silly love song, okay? Isn't there a string section for this part of the program? Daniel Jackson, emo girl. I auditioned for American Idol, but I didn't make the semi's."
Jack walked up to him, smiling in spite of himself. Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "You're babbling, Daniel. You should stop now."
At his touch, Daniel turned around, a burst of controlled movement, and grabbed Jack, hard, and put his face in Jack's neck. He just stood there, taut, waiting. Jack put his arms around Daniel, and sighed. Hugging Daniel again didn't really make him forget the pain, or even medicate it much, but hugging him was so, so much better than wishing he were hugging Daniel, or remembering what it was like to hug Daniel.
So Daniel had been taught his limits, huh. Daniel was just one person. Jesus. Jack couldn't imagine what the universe would do with more than one Daniel Jackson, though perhaps the quantum mirror thing meant in some ways there was an infinitude of Daniels. Jack found that generally, one was more than enough. Way more.
Jack stood there, petting gentle hands up and down Daniel's back. The t-shirt was some kind of miracle fabric; thinner than cotton but not plastic-y. It felt nice. It was warm. Touch was ballast. It was anchoring. It was good. It didn't stop the pain, but it kind of eased up warmly alongside it. His fingers roamed the material over Daniel's spine. He listened to Daniel breathing. Daniel's hands relaxed.
Daniel said, "Can we maybe go to bed now?" Jack pulled back and moved his hands to Daniel's shoulders, gripping hard. Too hard. He realized he was frowning and tried to smooth his forehead. Daniel backpedaled when he saw Jack's frown. "It might be wrong of me to still want that; maybe I shouldn't have asked."
Jack made himself keep his eyes open. He needed to watch this. He needed to see. He leaned in, slowly, slowly, and touched his lips to Daniel's. Taste, touch, smell, sight. The weight of gravity, the weight of time. Life going by, second by second, hurtling them both toward death.
The pain was less, now. Touch was flooding it, the way sunlight floods a room in the morning. Jack kissed Daniel's mouth, slowly, searchingly. The pain was getting better. It was very bearable again; not a dark rip in his guts. Daniel was so still, kissing him back, just a little. He tasted of the beer. A sweet, thick taste, like caramel. Jack explored Daniel's mouth, finding it familiar territory. It felt good. He breathed into the kiss, kept it going. Daniel kissed him back. Jack pulled him closer and Daniel murmured his approval.
It was a fact that Daniel had always pretty much had the power to rearrange reality around himself, regardless of the form Daniel happened to be wearing at the time -- corporeal or incorporeal. From the first time Jack laid eyes on him, Daniel had been that demanding of reality. Whether he was glowing light, or solid flesh. The reality of Daniel was flesh again. Daniel was in his arms. Here was Daniel's mouth, moving under his. It was potent, like a drug. All the sting of the scotch without the numbing deadness. Jack opened his mouth so he could taste more, and Daniel moaned and opened to him. Daniel let his head fall back a little, and the tiny signal of submission made Jack's anger surge to the surface again. He held Daniel tighter around the waist and pressed against him and kissed him hard, nipping at his lips, making Daniel moan more loudly.
Jack moved his hands up, down, feeling him, feeling for the warmth of his flesh through his clothes, holding him tight.
"I'm really here. You're really here," Daniel said softly against Jack's mouth, and Jack could hear the smile in his voice. Fucking telepathy.
"No talking, mister."
"Yes, sir, colonel, sir."
"Shut up," Jack said, and he was smiling too, now, just a little, but he really meant what he said. He didn't want Daniel to get like that, not now. And so he kissed Daniel some more, to make him shut up. He rubbed down to the waistband of Daniel's jeans and then back up. This time he got his hand under the shirt, and his palm dragged along Daniel's skin, along his spine. His shirt rucked up.
It was unfair, it was terrible and enormous, how hungry Daniel made him. How much Daniel made Jack want. He'd never liked that -- how vulnerable he became for those he loved. How much he risked, and how much could be taken away. It was a weakness, a real and fatal chink in his armor. Even Sara had never made him feel like this -- this responsible, this bonded. Before Daniel, he had felt this much only for his son, for Charlie, and that had been a different kind of responsibility, and a completely different kind of love, yet it was the only connection that could compare. The only one that had ever felt this weighty.
So not fair -- how the universe, God, whoever, could make you feel these things and then take them away. Jack used to think that he would pay whatever it took to remain free of the kind of pain he'd felt when Charlie died. He'd been wrong. Because when he lost Daniel, it was the same kind of pain -- that deep, that sharp, the kind that made you want to die. It had ruined Jack. And yet here he was, holding Daniel again, ready to sign up for it, again. And it had nothing to do with whether they made love tonight, or next week, or never again at all. Jack would feel this way regardless.
He was still holding Daniel tight, and Daniel was holding him, too, and nuzzling him. Jack squeezed hard, knowing Daniel could take it, knowing how strong and tough and tall he was. A new need twisted through him, an intense craving to make this new body of Daniel's sing for him. He wanted to put it through its paces, like he'd try out a jet just out of the hangar, back from the mechanics. The crazy juxtaposition -- Daniel's body, fighter jet -- made him smile. He nipped Daniel's earlobe, making him flinch and slap Jack's shoulder. Jack did it again.
"No fair," Daniel said. "You remember how ticklish that is."
"Only ticklish up until you come. Then you can't get enough of it." Jack put his teeth to Daniel's ear, again, deliberately, and hauled Daniel against him. Daniel clutched him hard, too, not giving now, not melting, but yanking Jack against him and squeezing his ass. Daniel tucked his chin and gently chewed on Jack's shoulder, where it met his neck, reminding Jack that he had teeth, too. It was kind of a threat, and kind of a promise. Daniel always had given as good as he got.
Jack put a hand to the side of his head, stilling him. He eased his arm where it still circled Daniel's waist, not holding on quite so tightly, now, and Daniel's grip eased on him, too, like an echo.
Jack whispered, "Nothing about this is fair, Danny."
He felt Daniel nod. They stood there, quiet, holding each other. Jack was only half hard -- too many conflicting emotions were swarming him to allow a free path for the ramping up of simple lust. He stood there and took inventory. This was a decision point, like in the simple planning models you had to use in battle. Either/or. Each side of the decision tree had its own branching web of implications. Would they go to bed now, or would they set this aside, try to deal with it later? Jack thought.
Daniel waited. For once, he'd said everything he had to say, and Daniel had let Jack know exactly what he wanted. He was waiting. He was waiting for Jack to decide.
Luckily, Jack had never been unwilling to make decisions. And he'd learned some bitter lessons about how, when you got to the real point of decision, the point where it was fish or cut bait, that there was no way to not choose something. Sometimes, true, things could be put off. Sometimes waiting and watching were appropriate. But not tonight. Not at a point like this, when Jack could feel time itself pouring like sand through the hourglass, just exactly like desert sand. Not choosing, refusing, delaying, silence -- when the point of decision had come, these were choices, too, just choices in disguise. He kissed Daniel's mouth one more time, softly. He closed his hand around Daniel's wrist, and started walking. Down the hall. Toward the bedroom.
He glanced back, wondering if Daniel was going to do something primevally stupid like asking Jack if he was sure he really wanted to do this. No, Daniel didn't look like he had a thing to say. He was watching Jack, looking almost grim, but with a yearning in his eyes that Jack remembered well. Jack only now noticed that Daniel was barefoot. At some point, maybe even when he'd gone out to lie in the chaise, he'd ditched his shoes and socks. Jack smiled and kept walking.
When he got to the bedroom, he climbed onto his neatly made bed and pulled Daniel down with him. They lay on their sides, pressed together, kissing. Daniel came right to him, wrapped himself around Jack like a tree sloth and tried to dive into his mouth. Daniel held Jack's cheek, splayed his fingers into the bristly hair on the back of Jack's head, and kissed him as if Daniel were a starving man, given food, and the kiss was the food.
Jack held Daniel's hips, bracing him so that Jack could grind against him as Daniel assaulted his mouth. The warmth and scent and taste of him were overwhelming and beautiful in their believability. The pain was still there, deep inside. Jack didn't really think he'd ever get rid of this pain. But Daniel was here, and for the moment, the pain was pushed down, down behind this flood of heat and light and touch. Jack found the hem of Daniel's shirt and tugged. The shirt stretched and Daniel grunted and twisted and helped and the shirt came up and off. Jack tossed it somewhere. He pinned Daniel to the bed and kissed and nipped down his neck, lingering at the hollow of his throat. Daniel was taut, as if listening. Jack didn't hurry. When he'd spent enough time with his mouth on Daniel's skin that he couldn't even taste the dark beer anymore, only the sweetness of Daniel, he moved on.
He pushed Daniel to his back, and Daniel cradled Jack's head and let Jack move him, let him do whatever he wanted. Daniel's cooperation made something coil in Jack's stomach: that desire to push, to see how Daniel could respond, the need to make Daniel respond. It tingled in his groin and down his legs once again. Jack paused at a nipple, sucking and biting, too hard, making Daniel flinch. He brushed his cheek along Daniel's ribs, along the flat invisible ribbon of hair, and smoothed the skin of his sides. It was dislocating to understand that this was a new body. Not the body he'd petted and mended and yelled at and held and come into, before. Not that body at all. Yet it was Daniel. It was still Daniel, and it was undeniably real.
Jack pushed his tongue into Daniel's navel and Daniel protested and twitched away, but Jack had hold of his wrists, now, and Jack kept at it, licking and pushing in. Daniel squirmed under him, managing to dislodge Jack enough to grind his erection against Jack's shoulder. Stupid soft mattress.
When Jack abandoned Daniel's navel and started pressing along his thighs, holding them and caressing them, until he could slide over Daniel's legs and sit up, Daniel let go of Jack and put his hands up over his head, elbows bent. Jack sat still, to just look at him. To look his fill -- Daniel's shuttered, frustrated face, his heaving chest, his nipples, his ribs, the expanse of his skin, the tufts of hair under his arms. There was a long, oval bruise on his stomach, probably from where he'd hauled himself into the ventilation shafts of Anubis' ship, or maybe from the fight at the Kelowna gate. Jack pressed his hands up Daniel's thighs again, cupping the bulge in Daniel's jeans. There was a wet spot there, down against the zipper, where Daniel's cock was straining against the denim. Jack knew well that half the time Daniel didn't wear underwear at all when he was off work. Jack didn't think it was the year on Abydos that had made Daniel that cavalier about underwear. This no-underwear kink was probably a habit of long standing, and it had always been something that made Jack hot, that he liked thinking about. He had liked amusing himself, before, sometimes, by watching Daniel's ass and thighs, tracing the hidden parts of his anatomy under his clothes, enjoying his sense-memory of how the skin under those jeans tasted and smelled. It had passed the time on many a boring shift, and many a boring recon while he waited on a perimeter and watched Carter and Daniel assess some plinth or ruined temple. Apparently non-glowy Daniel had retained this particular no-boxers habit. Jack smiled.
He leaned back on his heels, making Daniel wince as his knees took some of Jack's weight, and popped the snap of Daniel's jeans and eased down the zipper. Daniel's dick escaped from the pressure, nudging out from the curling hair, and Daniel, again, helped, cooperated, did what Jack wanted, pushing his jeans down and wiggling out of them.
Jack shifted and leaned, licking at the wet spot at the tip of Daniel's dick, and unbuttoning his own shirt. He was in a strange, intense headspace now -- so emotional, so extremely aroused. His touch-response was on a hair trigger, and everything he saw and smelled and heard was coming to him with an intense, almost battlefield clarity.
Daniel was in his bed again. Jack sat up and pulled off his shirt and threw it. Daniel reached up to touch his face, and he got this yearning look. Daniel's fingertips brushed Jack's cheek. Daniel met his eyes, and he drew breath as if to speak, but then his eyes narrowed, just a bit, as he thought it through, and he smiled and said nothing, after all. Jack was glad Daniel thought better of it. He rose onto his knees and undid his pants and pushed them down, awkwardly turning and kicking, and then they were naked together, skin sliding on skin, warm and smooth and so much of it. Jack turned them to their sides again, pushing his leg between Daniel's. The rub of warmth as their dicks slotted together made Jack close his eyes. He got quiet, just feeling this again. Yup, real. He ran his hand slowly up and down Daniel's back and listened to him breathe.
"Jack," Daniel said, just a whisper, a warm breeze against his ear.
Jack put his mouth on Daniel's. He still didn't want him to speak. He'd heard enough for one night. Jack made a tunnel of his hand and slid it loosely along Daniel's dick, not holding tight, not wanting to squeeze the sticky satiny skin, but to make a gentle friction. Daniel melted into him again, his head falling away from the kiss and into the pillow. His arm was a limp weight on Jack's ribs. His cock swelled, getting harder in response to Jack's touch. Jack watched his face, watched his own hand, moving gently. Such a small thing this was, such a small movement, and yet it produced such intense pleasure. Daniel licked his lips and groped blindly for Jack's arm, resting his hand there. Jack kept his hand moving -- familiar, so easy, the curl of his hand around Daniel's gorgeous dick. Simple and perfect. He jerked Daniel until he was moaning and wet and starting to twitch, and then he gently pulled off, lingering on the upstroke, and sat up. He turned and rummaged in the drawer behind him. If he had any lube, it was buried under a year's worth of crossword puzzle books and phone messages and broken pens and pocket change and half-read paperbacks. There.
He turned back and Daniel was watching him. His features were relaxed. He looked peaceful and, for once, not one bit distracted. Jack put his head to one side.
"This stuff can't spoil, can it?"
Daniel smiled and waited. He didn't even shake his head. He didn't act like he was going to speak. Jack moved, getting his legs under him to crawl closer, and so Daniel snagged a pillow and pulled it down and rolled onto it, bending his elbows, turning his head so that he could keep watching Jack. Jack ran his hand along the curve of Daniel's back, along his ass. Another completely beautiful and especially favorite spot. He could feel the pain and the delight and the nostalgia and the fear of future pain all wound up with this touching, this closeness. It was all cooking together in his stomach. It was horrible and wonderful. He couldn't focus on it. Better to run his hand along Daniel's skin, watch his hand moving.
Daniel was here, in his bed. Daniel had remembered.
Jack flipped the lube open and put some on himself with a quick twist of his hand, put some more along the crease of Daniel's ass. He swallowed. His own arousal had been on the back burner as he'd watched Daniel and tried not to notice how his pain was mutating. Now, touching himself, looking at Daniel's ass, arousal was pushing to the front burner. Pushing hard.
He rolled, getting his arms on either side of Daniel's ribs, getting his dick aligned, and Daniel rose to meet him, sliding Jack's dick along his crease. Jack groaned as the pleasure poured along his skin, radiating out from the slide and press of his cock against Daniel. So good. So much. He pressed in, relaxed, pressed again. Daniel moaned, a quiet sound with a lot of relief in it. Jack relaxed, too, feeling skin meet skin. This was good. So much of what they had, had been good.
Jack remembered rimming Daniel, spending a lot of time with it, licking him, eating him. It had been that lost weekend in Minnesota, when all the walls had come down. He remembered taking Daniel's cock into his mouth; how that tasted, how it filled him. He groaned again, his muscles settling into a sustainable, easy rhythm. He moved against Daniel for a while. Delicious, the slide and tug of Daniel's skin.
"Jack," Daniel said, and now he was begging. Once again, they were on the same page. Jack smiled, a sad, rueful smile. Yeah. He was so doomed.
He leaned on his hand, and Daniel cocked his hips, and Jack held his dick still, bracing, and let Daniel do the heavy lifting. Jack muttered, "This gonna be okay? Right to it, like this?"
"I think so," Daniel gasped, moving as he spoke. "I... it's good... I want you so much. I want to feel this."
Slowly, slowly, it seemed like a millimeter at a time, Daniel reluctantly opened for him. He felt Daniel exhale and push and then he sank in, all at once, further than he'd expected. He had to close his eyes against the tight pulsing bliss. His hips were demanding that he push, but he waited. He waited for Daniel, who was moaning a little and working his ass around Jack, shifting in tiny hitches, rubbing a little, finding the way.
"Been too long," Jack offered, and it was kind of a question.
"No, it's good, it's so much, it's good..." Daniel shifted a bunch of his weight from his knees to his elbows, and adjusted the angle of his hips again, and Jack felt it change -- felt the resistance just go.
"God," he said, the word pulled out of him, and he pushed as Daniel was pulling back, and it pushed Daniel against the bed. Daniel's mass, under him, flesh and bone and muscle.
"God," Jack repeated, and he couldn't wait any more. He moved. His hips drove forward, a slow beating rhythm, and now Daniel moved with him, synching them up. So tight, so soft, so hot. Jack could feel his own heartbeat, speeding up, in his throat, and in his dick, pulsing against Daniel's smooth muscle.
Daniel!
Jack dropped his head and just gave it to him, fucked him, his eyes squeezed shut, skin slapping skin. Daniel was so tight and so soft, taking him easily, plenty of lube, no problem. It was like no time had passed at all. Like it had been yesterday that they'd done this last, in this bed.
Jack was panting, sweat gathering in his hairline and at the small of his back. His thigh muscles were stretched and protesting. Daniel was so tight around him. Daniel was moaning continuously now, pushing back, probably rubbing his dick into the pillow. Jack's breath came harsh and fast, and there it was, the white edge of his climax, rushing toward him like an event horizon. He called Daniel's name, and then he was coming so hard, emptying himself into that pulsing heat, driving his hips in against Daniel, the pleasure a bright, blinding, pummeling avalanche.
It ebbed, slowly, and he hung there, trying to get his breath, leaning over Daniel's sweaty back. He carefully lowered himself to lie flat, on top of Daniel. He could feel Daniel's back moving up and down with his ragged, deep breathing. Jack smiled, and he noticed that there was no pain. It was gone, at least for the moment. He closed his eyes. Daniel's ass twitched, involuntarily, perhaps, and then Daniel followed that up with some intentional squeezes.
The pleasure was almost too much. The squeezing took him deeper instead of pushing him out. "Argh," Jack said, and pressed with his hips and turned his heavy head and bit at the muscle over Daniel's shoulderblade.
"Fuck," Daniel said, aggrieved.
Jack lay there, weighing Daniel down, pressing against him, covering him like a blanket, like a shield. He chuckled a little, noticing the metaphor. He dragged a hand up and grasped Daniel's bicep, and Daniel shifted under him, then relaxed again into the mattress. Jack didn't bother asking if he were too heavy; Daniel had always liked this, for Jack to lie on him like this, after sex.
He kissed Daniel's ear. He lay there and waited for the pain, and then he decided to stop waiting. It would come back, he knew. In its own time.
He felt the sweat start to cool on his back. He thought about the night ahead, about holding Daniel while they slept. He thought about the Asgard cloak, humming away cheerfully all by itself. He thought about the morning, and how maybe after a good night's sleep, Daniel might like to fuck him. Just for balance, you know. Fairness. Equality. He scrubbed his eyebrows against Daniel's shoulder and kissed the spot again. He raised his head, just a little.
"Will you stay tonight, then?" Jack said. "Stay over?"
Daniel's hand closed around his, where Jack held his shoulder.
"Yes," Daniel breathed. His eyes were closed. He looked content. "From now on. Yes."
finis