GROUNDING

By: sharilyn

EMAIL: sharilyn

1. Your Body Glistens From the Bath

In the mirror in front of me
my hands on you
your hands reach back
as we stand dripping
slippery and delicious
our tongues and we
begin again
the long slow dance
we have perfected
like pilgrims returning
home again
to the promised land
---charles rossiter

"Daniel...Do I look fat?"

Sucking in my gut, I draw myself up to my full height and scowl consideringly at myself in the half-fogged bathroom mirror, my critical gaze traveling from the acceptably studly planes of my face down to the still basically toned muscles of my chest, then lower to the ALMOST flat terrain of my stomach. Getting a little belly there, Jack, a bit of a pooch in those washboard abs, a snarky voice notes mockingly from some place inside my head. Hell, man, might as well face it; EVERYTHING is starting to sag.

"Stop brooding and preening, Jack; you're only going to end up obsessing over your weight again and driving the both of us half crazy, fuming and fretting and forcing yourself to go on another diet of nothing but healthy foods till you become a raving psychopath that no one else can stand to be around."

Daniel's tone is mild as he steps out of the shower, gloriously clean and naked and dripping water all over the rug. As he reaches for the last towel on the rack just outside the shower stall, he shoots a half-amused, half-exasperated glance at my nude form and moves with languid grace to interpose his still disgustingly firm and muscular body between my decrepit carcass and the glaring truth awaiting my critical perusal in the mirror.

"I'm getting a gut, Daniel," I hear myself whine like some aging, pathetic drama queen as Daniel drops his towel and leans back against me with a satisfied little sigh. "Good God, next I'll have love handles, and then my ass is gonna balloon into some mutant form of whale blubber, and I'll have to start buying all my pants at Bubba's Big Boys' Boutique."

"Bubba's Big Boys' Boutique?" Daniel parrots with a low snort of laughter and then practically purrs as my arms go up to close reflexively around him, his wet chest both firm and slick in my loose embrace. "Jack, I think the only 'Big Boy' you need to worry about is the one currently trying to introduce himself at my back door, if you catch my meaning. And believe you me, you really have nothing to worry about on that score."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Daniel," I retort grumpily, even as the enticing brush of his smooth, naked ass against my equally naked groin begins to make things rather...interesting...between us down there. "I'm not kidding; since I retired, my whole body's just gone to pot. Maybe I should start working out more, spend more time down at the gym while you're at work..."

"The LAST thing you need is more time at the gym," Daniel sulks, his eyes glaring into mine in the mirror as he slides his hands behind him and begins to run them lightly up and down the outside of my thighs. "You know damned well that your body is in better shape right now than the bodies of three quarters of the men in the continental U.S., including guys half your age. You've really got to stop with this whole mortality obsession, Jack."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm NOT three-fourths of the men in the good old US of A," I retort stubbornly, still intent on making my point to the impatient man in my arms. "I'm not comparing myself to anyone but myself--my YOUNGER, STUDLIER self, back in the good old days. And compared to THAT Jack O'Neill, the sack of flesh leering at me in that mirror right now is just plain pathetic. I'm turning to mush, Daniel, swear to God."

"Your brain, maybe," Daniel drawls as he meets my eyes in the mirror again, his lips turning up in a wry smile that remains blithely unaffected by the fierce scowl I give him in return. "As for the rest of you, I have it on the highest authority--namely, my own--that you are still quite satisfactorily FIRM in all the places that matter. So cut it out already and ravish me before we have to get dressed for dinner."

"Do you EVER think of anything else but sex, for God's sake?" I snipe irascibly as I reach down to push Daniel's distracting hands away from my legs. "Jesus, Daniel, I don't how the hell you expect me to have any stamina left after the way you jumped my ass at breakfast this morning and then tried to feel me up in the yard this afternoon while I was taking a much-needed nap...Has it not yet seeped into your hormone-crazed brain that I am OLD and TIRED now and not some fucking Energizer Bunny who can just keep going and going and going?"

"I think the correct terminology would be coming and coming and coming," Daniel retorts mildly, maddeningly unaffected by the growing ire in my voice. "And you're not THAT much older than me. In case you haven't noticed, I've been aging right along with you, Jack. And anyway, I can't help how I feel about you," he adds philosophically, pressing his head back into the hollow between my neck and shoulder as I absently tilt my face closer to his wet scalp to breathe in the familiar, heady Daniel scent of freshly shampooed hair.

"I don't know what it is exactly, but it seems the longer we're together, the sexier you become to me," he announces calmly, nothing of humor or teasing in his voice as he pushes back invitingly against me. "Especially lately, I just can't seem to keep my hands off you. I love touching you, kissing you, sucking and fucking you and lying all tangled together in a sweaty heap afterwards, just cuddling--"

"The only reason I lie there with you so long is because I've developed arthritis and moving AT ALL after sex is excruciatingly painful," I grumble defensively. "And don't call it 'cuddling'--even after all this time together, we are NOT sissy boys."

"Not sissy boys," Daniel muses, a dangerous light coming into his eyes as they hold mine in the mirror. "Then what would YOU call what it is we do after making love?"

"We...repose," I answer snippily, lifting a challenging eyebrow at the look of blank bemusement on Daniel's face. "I mean, I might be getting soft and flabby around the edges, but I do NOT do cuddling."

"Reposing, then," Daniel agrees, a rather devilish little half-smile flirting at the edges of his mouth. "So you and I 'repose.' Decorously, too, no doubt."

"Is there any other way?" I retaliate, and this time there is no mistaking the light of humor glowing in Daniel's blue eyes as he chokes down a laugh and nods seriously.

"Definitely not. You are unequivocally correct; as far as reposing goes, decorousness is the only way to go."

"Decorousness? Is that even a word, Mr. Super Linguist?" I snark, and Daniel reaches a hand up and fumbles to find my face, his gaze tracking his hand's movement in the mirror as his palm comes to rest gently on my right cheek.

"Close enough," he murmurs, his eyes growing slumbrous with seductive intent as he presses my head even closer to his own. Our eyes are locked in the mirror, my arms tightening instinctively around his chest as my half-hard cock decides all on its own to begin a surreptitious exploration of the cleft of Daniel's ass. "Kiss me, Jack; I really, really want you to," he continues in a voice whose matter-of-fact steadiness is insidiously arousing; and despite my determination to steer this bizarrely wandering conversation back on track, I can feel that first, delicious sheen of lust and sweat rising on my skin as Daniel turns his face to the right and awkwardly angles his mouth up toward mine.

"You're trying to distract me, trying to change the subject," I mutter grumpily, drawing my head back to avoid those dangerously enticing lips. "I believe we were discussing the disreputable state of my aging bod, not stuff like cuddling and reposing and kissing."

"Well, reposing and kissing and NOT cuddling are all bodily activities, right; so technically we still ARE on topic," Daniel argues reasonably, and before I can frame a snappy comeback, he turns his engagingly slippery body in my arms until we're pressed together chest to chest, groin to groin, his arms circling my neck with admirable strength and determination as he seals his mouth over mine.

Daniel. Stop. This. Right. Now. That's what I say to him--in my mind, anyway--as his tongue pushes effortlessly into the traitorously hot and eager cavern of my mouth, his fingers curling seductively in the short strands of silvered hair at the nape of my neck to hold me in place for his full frontal oral assault. Dammit, Daniel, we are NOT going to have sex right now, not when my ancient bones are fossilizing even as we stand here, naked and wet and God, we're both so naked, SO wet...

"Dammit, Daniel, stop that!" I growl, evading the hungry sweep of his tongue across the roof of my mouth long enough to grit the words out. Grimly I lift both my hands in the narrow sliver of space between our bodies and plant them on his bare chest, pushing him just far enough away from me to prevent him from making a second sneak attack with that incredible mouth of his. "I'm not kidding, I am having a serious crisis of confidence here! I'm genuinely struggling with all these questions and concerns about getting older, stuff like losing strength and muscle tone, and my vision's going to hell, too, did I mention that?..."

"Several times a day, for about a year now," Daniel sighs against my throat with a note of resigned longsuffering in his voice. "And you HAVE glasses, Jack; all you have to do is actually WEAR them. And as for the muscle tone, the strength, and all the rest of it--you are no spring chicken any longer, that IS true. You are, to put it bluntly, a bonafide card-carrying member of AARP, able to score reduced movie ticket prices, senior lunch discounts, and all the erectile dysfunction medications your geriatric little heart desires. And do you know what? You're STILL a total bad ass, you can still KICK ass whenever and wherever necessary, and you most definitely do NOT require Viagra or any other 'aids' in the lovemaking department. And as I just pointed out to you not five minutes ago, I'M no spring chicken, either. I mean, God, Jack, LOOK at me; my hair is thinning, I'm going gray, and if you want to talk Pillsbury Dough Boy bellies..."

With a good-natured grimace Daniel circles his fingers around my wrists and forces my hands from his flat, gratifyingly firm chest down to the softer, lightly furred expanse of his stomach. His eyes are warm with affection but backed with an underlying glint of sardonic challenge as he guides my hands in a slow, undeniably pleasurable circumnavigation of his navel and the still easily-defined ridges of his hipbones. As my hands lightly stroke and glide over his skin, his gaze darkens and narrows with arousal as he murmurs huskily:

"Touch me, Jack; feel how soft and saggy I am these days? Compared to yours, MY stomach is like a big bowl of jello. But oddly enough, life goes on; amazingly enough, you still seem to find MY aging carcass shag-worthy 99% of the time."

"But you're NOT old like me, Daniel," I argue stolidly, genuinely confused by the load of crap he's trying to shovel in my direction. I mean, sure, now that I REALLY think about it, maybe his stomach HAS gotten a little rounder, less flat and hard than it was when we were both still members of SG-1. But soft and saggy? Get out of here. If anything, that almost infinitesimal little pooch he's accumulating...right around...THERE...is actually kinda endearing. Hell, the bastard is downright adorable, and he knows it. I LOVE his fucking belly, in fact right now I'd like nothing better than to drop to my knees and blow big, juicy, extravagantly affectionate raspberries all around his sexy navel. And what the fuck is he babbling about, gray hair? He doesn't have gray hair, not even close. Maybe it's LIGHTENED up some, changing over these past few years from a rich, golden brown to something approaching a more sun-bleached look...but GRAY? No way, man; just...NO WAY.

"You're not going gray," I blurt out suddenly, lifting my hands to grasp tendrils of still-damp Daniel hair in my fingers; Daniel stands passively as I scrutinize strand after strand of his hair with critical eyes, my bewildered mind asking myself how it is that I could have MISSED it, could have been so clueless, so oblivious to these alleged physical changes Daniel seems so intent on bringing to my attention now. But I just don't see it; his hair is still thick and vibrant and springy to my touch, still shines richly in the light with only a few vaguely whitish hairs lurking in amongst the darker strands. He gazes up at me now, his mouth curved in a devastatingly tender smile; but my attention has become distracted by the series of laugh lines radiating out from his impossibly blue eyes, and I find myself almost reeling with shocked surprise to realize that each delicate crinkle on his face provides evidence that Daniel has, indeed, been aging right along with me. How could I not have SEEN it, why is it so hard for me to realize that--OH MY GOD DANIEL IS IN HIS FIFTIES NOW!...Jesus. I guess we're BOTH old geezers, God help us. But as I clasp his face between my hands and turn it first this way, then that, fervently studying every centimeter of his forehead, temples, nose, cheeks, and chin, I have to look REALLY hard to convince myself that the man standing with his body pressed so intimately close to mine does indeed look a bit...different...than the younger, firmer version of him that has been imprinted in my heart and brain for so long that to this day it has stubbornly remained the version I see each time I look at him. Call me self-absorbed or at the very least, woefully unobservant; but to me Daniel has just always been DANIEL, and he's always been wholly beautiful.

Still is, I think dazedly now as I scan his body head to toe and try to reconcile the static Daniel template locked inside my mind with the living, breathing, AGING man revealing himself to me so openly here in the steamy confines of our bathroom. Hell, Dr. J, you're not just getting older; you're getting better as you go, I think as I reach to run wondering hands up and down each magnificent part of him. I mean, to me it makes perfect sense that I might not have noticed the whole 'long, slow march to the grave' thing where Daniel's concerned; just LOOK at the man! He's still so fucking gorgeous, there should be a law against it. And some might even say I've been blinded by love, but that's a crock of shit, too, cause I'd dare any stranger with perfect vision to look at Daniel and call him OLD. I've known him for almost two decades now, have had every opportunity to witness time's progression in action on his body; but even armed with my decidedly intimate knowledge of every bit of his physiology, I still practically needed a magnifying glass just now to even find the evidence of the effects of aging on this man's body that I hold so dear, so sacred.

"I've touched and tasted every inch of your skin, mapped every ridge and hollow, kissed every birthmark, every scar," I murmur softly now in a tone of bemused wonder as Daniel's eyes rest intently on my face. "And you wanna know something?"

He is calm, outwardly accepting of whatever I might say; but I know him, know the heart of him well enough to sense now a subtle shade of wariness lurking far back in his quiet gaze as he awaits my final verdict. And it gives me a funny, near-painful twinge in my heart to realize that there's a part of him that isn't quite as blase about his own changing physiology as he would have me believe. He's always seemed so content with his looks, his build, so unmindful of his basic physical appearance--not in a slovenly way, mind you, but more like he's just accepted the hand dealt to him by his DNA pattern and hasn't thought much more about it. I really believe he's basically clueless most of the time concerning his own attractiveness and only ever remembers how damned sexy he really is when he's intent on seducing me. And believe me, he never has to work very hard to have me panting after his luscious ass like some wet-behind-the-ears neophyte; just one of those slow, simmering Daniel Jackson smiles, just one veiled, downswept glance from those sinfully piercing blue eyes of his, and I'm a goner.

So how can he struggle for even one second with silent questions about his own attractiveness? It seems so inconceivable to me that he'd ever doubt his physical appeal that I guess I've just never picked up on that particular area of uncertainty lurking beneath his matter-of-fact facade. And now, as he rests against me with those EYES searching right down to the depths of my soul, I want to kick myself for not letting him know more often just how incredible he is. I have to admit I feel pretty stupid, too, whining on and on about my own appearance when I should just be deliriously grateful that Daniel Jackson--at ANY age or stage of his life--would actually choose to be with me, to live with me and sleep with me and bicker and argue with me and LOVE me like he has for all these years.

"I'm still waiting, Jack," he murmurs now, his lips curving in a faint smile that doesn't quite mask the shade of vulnerability lurking far back in his intent gaze. "You said 'wanna know something,' and I guess my answer would be 'Yes, Jack, I do want to know something'..."

"Oh, that," I murmur nonchalantly, an answering grin twisting my mouth as I lift my hands to cradle Daniel's beloved, always devastatingly sexy face between my palms. "I was just going to make the very accurate, incredibly astute observation that every single damned time we're together, it just gets better and better--YOU just keep getting better and better, more and more....EVERYTHING. You're just...everything to me, Daniel," I add in a voice that has become suddenly low and serious--almost somber, in fact. Suddenly it seems very important that he hear these things from me, that I TELL him rather than just expecting him to glean my feelings from my actions or from offhand remarks that hide my own vulnerabilites behind a mask of cheesy humor. God, surely at my age it's time I grew out of that, time to be straight with Daniel and myself about how I really feel. After all, the whole gist of this conversation seems to be pointed in the direction of reminding me that neither one of us is getting any younger; and I'm suddenly more aware than ever before that time--any time I get to spend with Daniel--is precious.

"I realize how goddamned lucky I am to be here with you like this, to have you share your life--YOURSELF--with me," I blurt out now, distantly amused by the look of almost comical surprise on his face at my unexpected declaration. "And dammit, look what you've made me do, I sound like some cornball actor in a bad soap opera, you KNOW I don't do this emotional crap--" I rant with a grumpy scowl.

"You love me," Daniel murmurs, cutting me off with a low purr of satisfaction just before he closes his mouth over mine, his tongue brushing along my bottom lip with a damp, erotic swipe that makes me groan out loud. "You think I'm sexy, and you can't WAIT to jump my aging but still shaggable bones with YOUR unbelievably sexy body."

"Mmmffff," I manage as he suddenly shoves me HARD up against the closed bathroom door and proceeds to kiss the living shit out of me, his impressive erection dueling with my own for mastery as our bodies align in the familiar but no less exciting dance we've perfected over the years. God, he feels good, I think dimly as my hands greedily search out every bit of Daniel skin they can find; this interval of touching, of exploring him, is every bit as intriguing and gratifying as all the times before, and suddenly it doesn't seem to matter that the stomach I'm pressing so insistently against his is less than rock-hard firm. The old gut is still within acceptable parameters, I think with a measure of satisfaction as Daniel's clever fingers cup my ass and pull me as tightly against his hungry length as he can get me; hell, right now I'm just damned ecstatic that everything's in working order, that I can still feel this aroused, this crazed with lust, every time Daniel touches me like this.

"Bedroom, Jack," he orders roughly now, his teeth worrying at my throat with almost unbearably erotic savagery; and as I fumble behind me, my hands grappling with his in our joint frantic search for the pesky knob of the door I'm plastered against, I can feel a smug smile ghost across my lips with the realization that I suddenly feel young and strong and sexy as hell.

2. Praise

In my hands your
body is a hymnal
open to the familiar
page of praise. I
sing you in the ancient
rhythm that brought
us all here to make
what we will of
this world, I sing
you in tongues and
in silent awe of our
loving, certain only
of imminent separation.
---anne k. smith

"It's all right," I whisper, running my hands up and down the smooth expanse of Jack's back. "It's going to be okay; everything will turn out fine." It troubles me that he won't let me see his face now, that he won't give me the one, crucial glimpse into his eyes that I so desperately need in order to do the right thing here, so that I can know the best way to proceed.

But even as Jack keeps his face buried in the side of my neck, denying me access to the expression lurking in his eyes, I realize with a dull sense of despair that it really doesn't matter; we both know that the soft words I've been murmuring over and over to him like some sort of spiritual mantra hold no especial power or insight; meaningless reassurances, that's all they are. Just so many empty syllables falling from my lips to drop like heavy stones into the darkness that has suddenly become our world.

"Don't waste your breath, Daniel," Jack mutters now on a resigned puff of air that feathers warm against my skin. His tone is flat, filled not so much with hopelessness as with a dull sort of apathy that's somehow worse than outright despair. "I appreciate the effort, but right now I just...I just want this. Us, I mean, here together. Just quiet. You know?"

"Mmm," I reply in weary acquiescence and briefly tighten my arms around him to emphasize my understanding. He's right, I know; at this moment there really is nothing more to say, no clever choice of words that would sound appropriate for the occasion. The only thing I can give him right now--probably the BEST thing--is just to lie here with him through the remaining hours of the night, communicating through touch, through shared breaths, through the beating of our hearts chest to chest, soul to soul, that I am here for him. That I'll do anything he asks, be whatever he needs, that I won't let him go through this alone, even if and when he tries to push me away at some future date.

And I know he will try--he's Jack O'Neill, after all, ever the quintessentially self-sufficient, mulishly independent military man. He'll end up running scared before all is said and done, will transmute his private fears into rage or mask them behind that certain brand of cold aloofness that nothing and no one can penetrate. And if I let him, he'll do his damndest to shut me out, too, erroneously believing he's protecting me from from the trials ahead. But he has to know, somewhere inside himself, that I'm not about to let him go that route; for good or ill we're in this together, and that's how we'll see it through. You idiot, I want to tell him now; don't you realize, after all this time, how much I love you?

Pushing away the gloomy thoughts of medical tests and sterile, soulless hospital rooms and other such things plaguing me now that are just too dismal to contemplate,I relax my features into some faint semblance of tranquility as Jack sluggishly lifts his head and fastens opaque brown eyes on my face. Absently he slides his hands up my arms to my shoulders, the solid weight of his body pressing me into the mattress beneath us; then his long, agile fingers are cupping my jaw with a tenderness that sends a yearning ache throughout my body in response.

"I want to kiss you," he murmurs roughly, almost brokenly, and skates a callused thumb over the fullness of my bottom lip, his eyes burning into mine with an expression of such dark and sudden loneliness that my heart clenches within my chest in sympathetic pain. No, Jack, I want to whisper to him; you're NOT alone, I'm here with you, right with you...But I know that isn't wholly true, that in this instance there is a black, gaping chasm between us that I just can't cross, no matter how valiantly I try. The knowledge of my helplessness brings a sudden rush of hot, traitorous moisture to the corners of my eyes, and fiercely I will it away, calling forth a wry half-smile in place of the tears that threaten to steer this night in a direction neither of us wants to go.

"So, who's stopping you?" I murmur now in reply, and with an uncharacteristically tentative grimace, Jack slowly lowers his mouth to mine and takes my lips in a dry, speculative kiss that speaks loudly of the turmoil he's striving to keep contained within the confines of his body.

"You call that a kiss?" I chastise him in a low voice, lifting my hands to gently but firmly grasp and hold his head between my palms, my gaze boring into his with all the love and confidence I can muster. "C'mon, Jack, I KNOW you can do better than that."

"I've spoiled you too much to the good stuff," Jack retorts with an irascible growl, but his eyes soften and take on a slow, reassuring burn of familiar desire as he kisses me again, his mouth opening more fully and hungrily over mine to envelop my senses in a rush of moist heat. The demanding thrust of his tongue between my teeth elicits a moan of answering desire from deep in my throat, and I dig my fingers into the short strands of his hair, tugging his head even closer so I can plunder his mouth more intimately in return. God, I want--I NEED--to be so much closer to him right now, closer than our separate flesh will allow; and as he settles his weight more firmly between my accomodating thighs, I want nothing more than to meld completely with him, to become one organism, one heart, our disparate minds and souls in a silent communion that transcends the boundaries of mere flesh and bone.

"I need...I need..." he whispers raggedly into my ear, his voice thickening with the ruthlessly suppressed anguish that's lodged itself tightly in his throat. "God, Daniel, I don't know what I"m saying, how to handle this--"

"Shh...it's okay, Jack; it's okay. You don't have to say or do anything right now; I'm here, right here with you all the way. And we have all night, just the two of us. Take what you need from me, anything you need. I love you, Jack; I love you so much."

I can feel the tears leaking from my eyes, can feel the slow, salty trail they make trickling down my temples into my hair, into the curving shells of my ears. But it doesn't matter. The smile I lift to him in the dimness of our bedroom erases the bitter sting of my mute grief, lets him know that even in the midst of this terrible heartache there is joy to be had in our loving; the bond between us is eternal, unbreakable, and beneath my hands I can feel the faint trembling of his living, longing flesh as we come together in need and reverence, our bodies composing a familiar song of mutual praise and adoration.

"Daniel," he breathes against me, into me, and I am lost, drowning, submerged in the ancient, erotic language of touch and taste, of sighs and cries and the powerful, rhythmic cycle of thrusting and yielding, of dominance and surrender and the seamless merging of the two into a state approaching nirvana. It is indescribably holy, this timeless joining of my body and soul with Jack's; and I never want it to end, never want to come back from this sublime Eden to the grim Shadowland awaiting us in the darkness beyond the protective clutch of our entangled mouths and limbs.

"Jack...oh, God, Jack," I groan, half sobbing, close to cursing when he collapses onto me at the end, his heart pounding furiously against my own as I crush his sweat-slicked body to mine. "Jack..."

But there are no more words forthcoming, nothing I can do but gasp for air, choking on grief and love and the unbearably painful shards of fragile hope grinding like glass in my chest as Jack goes limp and boneless atop me, his sweat and tears dropping onto my neck like caustic rain as he begins to sob in rage and silent agony.

Don't die, don't you die, don't you DARE fucking die on me, I want to growl at him; I want to dig my fingers HARD into his upper arms and shake him, want to rant at him for even considering for one instant that he might not survive the doctor's grim preliminary diagnosis. Jack, you bastard, you idiotic moron; you survived a malfunctioning parachute and a stint in an Iraqui prison, you've spit in the dying eyes of countless Goa'uld and lived through being shot and frozen and pierced by arrows and alien devices...and now you're damned sure going to survive a few wayward fucking cells that have the misguided notion that they can begin to grow out of control and wreak havoc inside your body. You're bigger and tougher than some stupid cancer cells, Jack, stronger than they are; damn you, be stronger than you've EVER been, strong enough to live. For yourself...for me...for us.

These thoughts and more rage through my mind as I wrap my arms tightly around Jack's shaking body and cradle him against me, sheltering him in silence as he vents all the hurt and fear and anger that have been building up inside him for the past week. Now is not the time to focus on my own feelings, on my own pain; that will come later, when I'm alone and can give in to my own wild grief and rage.

This is good, I try to reassure myself now as Jack finally relinquishes the iron control he's held over his emotions ever since that day in Dr. Maltz's office. He needs this, needs to purge all the anxiety, the rage that's been eating him up inside; and I know that in collapsing like this in my arms, Jack has just gifted me with the deepest, holiest level of trust possible between two people. He would never want or allow anyone else to see him like this; Jack is strong, so strong, and when news of the cancer invading his body right now leaks out, he will want that same indomitable strength to be all that anyone sees. So I vow to myself as I rub comforting hands up and down his back that I won't let anyone else see him broken and vulnerable this way, not ever. Tonight is Jack's own private Gethsemane, this moment of anguish and travail not meant for any eyes but mine to witness; a surge of fierce protectiveness rushes through me now, and I find myself stroking the back of Jack's neck and pressing light, distracted kisses along the side of his throat as he clings to me, releasing days of pent-up tension in a storm of intense emotion.

"Shit...oh, shit, I'm sorry...so stupid..." Jack swears weakly as the hitching tremors in his shoulders begin to diminish. "God," he chokes in mild self-disgust, fumbling beneath our sweat-soaked bodies for a crumpled edge of the bedsheet. Awkwardly he wipes his eyes with it, bracing himself with an elbow planted on the mattress next to my shoulder as he lifts his chest from mine with a residual, sucking glide of perspiration.

"Jesus, Daniel, I had no idea I was going to go all weepy and sensitive on you like that," he confesses wearily as I lift one hand to stroke it down the side of his face.

"Hey, hey; I believe the deal I offered you incorporated an 'anything you need' clause. And by the power vested in me as your lover and general pain in the ass, I hereby decree that this definitely falls into the 'need' category. You needed this, Jack; don't apologize for it, for being human. Do you feel better now?" I murmur softly as Jack's brown eyes glint down at me with a mixture of gratitude and mild asperity.

"No, not really; I'm still scared shitless, and now my nose is clogged and I have a killer headache on top of it all," he grouses, giving a disparaging snort as I gather up the soggy corner of the sheet and offer it to him as a makeshift kleenex.

"Eww, Daniel, that's disgusting," he mutters; but when I point out that the damned sheet is already stained with sweat and semen, anyway, and therefore destined for the nearest laundry hamper at the first opportune moment, he shrugs philosophically and honks loudly into the crumpled cotton material I've pressed carefully to his nose.

"I don't want to use these sheets EVER again," he mutters after he's expelled from his nasal passages the last of the mucousy detritus of his brief, intense crying jag. "God, Daniel, get this out from under us." And as we both grunt and wiggle and struggle to untangle the soiled linen from our bodies and the bed, I can see Jack pulling the frayed edges of his self-control back in place around him, an aura of purposeful calmness settling over his nude body as he orders me to vacate the bed long enough for him to put new sheets down on the mattress. I want to tell him that I don't care about the damned sheets, that all I want to do is hold him and be held in return. Right now both my body and soul are crying out for his touch, for the familiar, beloved weight of him descending onto me like a warm, living blanket. But I know he needs the physical distance he's put between us now, needs to feel like he's back in control again, even if it's only control over something as simple as bedsheets. So I scramble naked off the mattress, giving him a wry grimace as he rolls the dirty sheets into a ball and tosses them at me across the width of the king-sized bed.

"Get rid of those while I put clean ones down," he orders brusquely, and I merely nod and head for the master bathroom and the laundry hamper there. I can hear Jack muttering to himself as he raids the linen cupboard in the hallway in search of new sheets, and I take a moment in the bathroom to relieve myself and splash some cool water on my flushed face before rejoining Jack in the bedroom.

"You hungry?" he asks abruptly as we work together to spread the clean bottom sheet on the bed, tucking each elasticized edge in at the corners and pulling each side taut.

"I don't know; are YOU hungry?" I mutter dubiously, a distracted frown creasing my forehead as Jack snatches the flat sheet from my hands and gives it an energetic SNAP! before settling it expertly over the mattress.

"Smooth that side out," he directs me, bending to do the same on his side of the bed; wordlessly I follow his instructions, and once the sheets are arranged to his satisfaction, Jack tackles the pillows with an almost manic energy, hurling the discarded pillow cases in my general direction before sliding the clean ones onto the pillows with a graceful economy of movement.

"I could eat," he muses as he efficiently fluffs both pillows and settles them at the head of the bed. "Maybe a cold beer and a sandwich?"

"I'll get our robes," I murmur agreeably and move to collect them from the armchair in one corner of the room.

"God, I'll bet we stink; shower together later?" Jack suggests, sniffing suspiciously at his left armpit as I hold his robe up and waggle it at him.

"Sounds good," I shrug and toss him the robe before slipping into a white one of the same material and style. "Just don't hog all the water this time; let ME have a turn up front in the shower stall for once."

"You know the rule: first one in gets to pick their spot," Jack snarks, belting his robe around him with practiced ease as his eyes gleam into mine. This whole conversation seems so surreal, I think to myself; one minute Jack is sobbing in my arms, going almost to pieces beneath the crushing weight of the grim news Dr. Maltz delivered to him almost a week ago...and the next we're playing at housekeeping and discussing dibsies in the shower. But that's Jack, that's just the way he deals with the big crises that come up in his life. And as our glances meet again, he heaves a small, resigned sigh at the worried expression in my eyes and moves to pull me into his arms, the mingled scents of our sweat, come, and tears rising muskily between us as I wrap my arms around him in return.

"Just...give me a little time, Daniel," he murmurs against my hair, his strong hands splaying comfortingly across my back as he pulls me closer. "I need to process this a bit more, get a handle on it...and I know that you have your own feelings to deal with, too, that this affects both of us and not just me. I do realize that, and I don't mean to make light of your part in this. But I just need a little 'ME' space first. Okay?" His brown eyes are concerned for me but quietly determined to have his own way as well, and I merely nod my acceptance as he leans in to press a chaste kiss to my forehead.

"Okay, Jack," I murmur, obigingly lifting my face to his as he tilts my head back and rests a warm hand against the nape of my neck. "Whatever you need; you know I'll be here waiting for you when you're ready to clue me in on what comes next. You know I'm not going anywhere."

"Thank God for that; thank God for YOU, Daniel. I need you so much," he whispers roughly and brushes his lips over mine, tentatively at first but then with increasing ardor. Willingly I return his kisses, my mouth and tongue professing my love without words or the need for them;with each velvet glide of my lips over his, I communicate to him everything I'm feeling, all my emotions flowing up from my chest and spilling out of me in wave after wave of heady, dizzying desire.

"Fuck the sandwiches," Jack growls harshly now as he tugs me down onto the bed, his nimble fingers plucking impatiently at the ties of my robe. "We've got some new sheets to christen." And as his beautiful, lust-darkened eyes burn along every exposed inch of my skin, I'm filled with a sudden, powerful conviction that everything really is going to be all right. We can and will beat this together, dammit; we've endured too many separations, we've done our fair share and then some of dying or coming too damned close to it. We DESERVE these next twenty years together, and no one is taking them from us without one hell of a fight.

"Dare I even ask what that ferocious scowl on your face right now is about?" Jack rasps mockingly in my ear as he shoves our hastily discarded robes over the side of the bed and rolls me over on top of him. "Should I be very afraid?" he continues, the humorous gleam in his eyes shifting into something dark and erotic as I slide my hand down to grasp the thickening length of his eager cock.

"I don't know, Jack; that depends on whether or not you like to scream," I growl as I lean in close enough to capture his bottom lip between my teeth, giving it a sharp, warning nip. As Jack utters a low, aroused groan, I pull back from him and smile ferally into his gleaming, heavy-lidded eyes. "Cause I'm definitely in the mood to hear you scream--LOUDLY--when I make you come," I continue.

"Well, in that case screaming's good; I can definitely do screaming," Jack murmurs, a dangerously wanton glitter sparking to life in his eyes; and as I straddle his lean body, imprisoning his thighs tightly between my own, the dark thoughts I've wrestled all night recede into the distance as the joy of THIS time, this moment, washes over me in a soul-searing rush of heat and light and love.

"Ready to howl, Jack?" I smile, and Jack's answering smile sizzles along my nerve endings like lightning, his restless, hungry hands stroking me into instant,throbbing readiness.

"Not if I make you scream first," he drawls, and the challenge is on.

3. Of Gravity and Angels

And suddenly, again,
I want the long road of your thigh
under my hand, your well-travelled thigh,
your salt-slicked & come-slicked thigh,
and I want the taste of you, slaking,
under my tongue (that place of riding desire,
my tongue) and I want
all the unnameable, soft and yielding places,
belly & neck & the place where wings would rise from
if we were angels,
and we are, and I want the rising regions of you
shoulder & cock & tongue & breathing &
suddenness of you
opening
all fontanel, all desire, the whole thing beginning
for the first time again, the first,
until I wonder then how is it
we even know which part we are,
even know the ground that lifts us, raucous,
out of ourselves,
as the rising sound of a summer dawn
when all of it joins in.
---jane hirshfield

I feel I have been reborn. Certainly it's an older, grayer, scrawnier version of the original Jack O'Neill that's risen from the ashes this go round; but the same irreverent, piss 'n vinegar twinkle flashes in the brown eyes staring back at me from the mirror each morn, and Daniel assures me that I'm every bit as annoying and impossible to live with as I used to be, before the cancer.

Cancer. God, that word still makes me cringe, still has the power in certain, unguarded moments to send a chill of superstitious foreboding down my spine. But I'm determined not to think of that this fine morning; today is my birthday, the big threescore and two, and Daniel has been running himself quietly ragged planning this huge, honking surprise party that I'm not supposed to know anything about. His earnest but completely inept attempts at cunning subterfuge have just been so damned endearing and adorable that I've purposely turned a blind eye to the whole thing, all too aware that I'd be a right bastard to let it slip that I know all about Daniel's clumsily sneaky machinations.

I'll let him have his fun, I think fondly to myself as I flick off the bathroom light and make my way as silently as I can through the predawn darkness of our bedroom. It's the least I can do after everything I put him through last year, when I was fighting for my life in that fucking oncology unit at Mercy Hospital, I reflect with a touch of moroseness, feeling mildly peeved with myself for not heeding my own instructions to let the subject drop. But I can't seem to help it; it still brings a lump to my throat every time I think about Daniel's unflagging support and devotion during those hellish months. No matter how bad it got--and it was definitely pretty damned grim for awhile, there--Daniel never left my side, never withheld or withdrew one iota of the stubborn confidence and unfailing love he lavished on me 24/7 as the mutant cells in my body went on a wild rampage through my colon.

Ultimately the only thing that gave me a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving was the fact that the cancer was discovered early, during a routine screening that Daniel had insisted I undergo along with him at a local hospital health fair. His came back negative, thank God; but my results were definitely not passing. I still remember the sick, dizzy feeling that started in my gut and crawled its evil way up to clutch at my heart and steal my breath away when Dr. Maltz called me in to his office for a private conference concerning my test; Daniel had been at work that day, busily embroiled in the exciting study of some ancient pagan idol statuette sent to his university department as some sort of cultural exchange, and I was secretly glad that he didn't have to hear the bad news along with me. Not that some scared, panicky part of me didn't want to run directly to the phone and demand he come home right away to hold my damned hand, I admit grudgingly to myself now as I come to a halt next to our bed and peer blearily through the dimness at the vague shape of the man sleeping on MY side of the mattress.

God, he's still so beautiful to me...so beautiful, period, I think with a sense of bemused wonder as I watch Daniel sleep, sprawled nude and peaceful and bonelessly relaxed amidst the tumble of sheets and blankets strewn haphazardly across the bed. This past year took a terrible toll on the both of us, and it pains me now to see the trace evidences of stress and suffering that still linger in Daniel's body and remain visible in the new wrinkles around his eyes and in the increased number of white hairs sprinkled among the brown on his head.

I owe him so much, I reflect now as I stand for uncounted minutes, soaking in the essence of his quiescent spirit as the dimness in the room slowly creeps toward the first, tentative grayness of incipient dawn. I can never repay him for all he's done for me, can never express to him just what it meant to me to have him there, loving and encouraging me and holding me up during those dark, agony-filled days when death sometimes seemed more like a friendly angel of mercy rather than the grim enemy I knew Him to be. There were numerous days when I probably would have given up if I hadn't had Daniel there to urge me to keep fighting, to remind me of all that was at stake and would be irretrievably, irrevocably lost should I give in to the pain and let myself slip away. I made a promise to him early on that I would fight the cancer with everything I had in me, that I would fight to stay with him for as long as I could, to keep myself alive not only for him but for myself, for the blessed continuance of the strong bond of love and need between us. I never, ever wanted to leave Daniel, not even on the very worst days; but oh, God, how I wanted to leave the pain, to escape the stench from my own wasted body as it struggled to live despite the horrible destruction and decay taking place in the rotten, squishy places beneath my corpse-white skin. To this day it still amazes me that I'm here now, my once cadaverous body filled out again to something approaching its former, pre-cancer days, my once-pasty flesh fairly glowing with renewed health and vigor. And now it's my birthday; I actually made it to another one, and in my book that's more than enough reason to celebrate.

But it's no fun celebrating alone; and now that my aging, increasingly cantankerous bladder has been taken care of, I can think of nothing I want more than to drape myself over Daniel's sleeping body and bring him to full wakefulness with my hands and mouth, his solid warmth beneath me all the reassurance I need that I really am whole and alive, that there is still so much that's rich and good and meaningful in my world. The past few months have been difficult on our relationship; even after we knew I was going to beat the cancer, that I was well on the road to what the doctors cautiously label 'remission,' there was still the question of regaining my overall health and stamina, of being able to resume certain activities and physical functions that had fallen into some hazy state of suspended animation during my illness. It took that damned disease ravaging my body to make me realize just how much I'd always taken my health for granted, to appreciate just how remarkable it was when all my parts worked properly and without complaint.

Including one particular portion of my anatomy, I think ruefully to myself now as I ease my way onto the bed with infinite care, sliding my nude form onto the mattress as close to Daniel's supine body as I can get without actually climbing on top of him. For awhile there it seemed that our sex life would be nothing more than a poignant memory, that we would never again be able to share the depth and intensity of lovemaking that we'd been lucky enough to enjoy before the cancer. That ugliest of words--impotence--lurked like a dark shadow over our lives and our bed for a good portion of the past year, and even when I felt well enough again to dare to believe that I might actually be okay--that my traitorous body could once again be counted reliable and trustworthy in service--it was like my damned cock hadn't received the message. It was torture to lie with Daniel night after night, my soul already teetering on the brink of some stupid emotional breakdown over the wasted, disgusting condition my body was in, and then to have the added humiliation of not being able to 'perform' in the lovemaking department...I still cringe just thinking about it. Daniel was, as ever, the epitomy of tact and sensitivity, reassuring me over and over that this was only temporary and that it didn't matter, anyway, because there were still so many OTHER things we could do to show how much we loved each other...And I appreciated his patience and his unconditional acceptance of me just the way I was; it truly was a blessing beyond compare just to be able to be together and hold each other, to hear his heartbeat beating steadily beneath my ear when I settled my head on his chest and to breathe in his unique scent as his warm hands stroked my back and shoulders and lulled me down into weary sleep night after night.

But I wanted more; as both my body and my spirit healed and grew stronger, I became impatient and restless, wanting to share so much more with Daniel, missing the old intimacy we'd had and realizing only in hindsight just how frigging amazing our sex life had been for two guys our age. I was terrified that we'd never have that again, that the kissing and stroking and sucking I was reduced to in order to bring him off in lieu of actual penetration would become stale and boring to him and he'd grow sick and tired of having someone in his bed who couldn't even get it up anymore. I became obsessed with sex and with the idea of HAVING sex, but my stubborn dick wanted no part of the increasingly fevered and frustrated fantasies in my head; and the very thought of taking something like Viagra to try to jumpstart things again was repellant to me. I was pissed off at my body and grimly determined to work this out on my own, with no pharmacological aides to coax matters along. Daniel was as supportive as ever during the whole thing, doing his best to calm me down and assure me that I just needed time, that my body was still in some sort of fucking post-traumatic shock mode and was still afraid of failing, of dying. I suppose it made sense in a bizarre sort of way, and I have to admit that it wasn't ALL bad; I did develop quite a varied and increasingly skilled repertoire of alternative seduction techniques to use on Daniel as I tried to give my body time to recuperate and remember just how good REAL sex could feel. And Daniel seemingly had no complaints with the new lineup of bedroom activities my recovery inspired.

I was much more reticent when it came to him returning the favor, however; no matter how many times he murmured to me that the biggest and most powerful sex organ is the human brain and that my cock was NOT the be-all and end-all of lovemaking, I still had a hard time just letting go in bed and surrendering my weakened, bony carcass to Daniel's loving ministrations. I came to luxuriate in the long, amazing massages he gave me, came to appreciate the astounding skill and dexterity of his fingers and tongue as he did things to parts of my body that I had barely even been aware of before, much less viewed as erogenous zones. But as nice as our post-cancer adjustments in the bedroom were, I still wanted the holy grail, still woke up night after night gasping and sweating and half crazed with the terrible frustration of dreaming about sex but awaking to absolutely no sign of arousal or an erection in my recalcitrant cock. Gradually I began withdrawing from Daniel, rejecting his advances and avoiding even the most innocent of touches from him as my anger grew and grew; when he quietly suggested that maybe we should seek therapy, I totally blew my top and went a bit insane. That was a rotten day, a terrible day; the huge fight we had that afternoon about the whole therapy issue was all my fault, and I'm damned thankful that Daniel loved me enough to continue sticking around afterward, despite all the awful things I'd said to him.

But that's all behind us now, I think half-gratefully, half-fearfully as I snuggle up against Daniel's warm body and drape my left arm over his waist. Whether it was due to my own pig-headed stubborness or my body's decision to finally get with the program and come fully online again or due to Daniel's unflagging love and confidence in me, the old O'Neill sex drive slowly but surely began to revive; as the days passed after my final cancer check-up and blessedly clean bill of health, sluggish erotic messages gradually began to creep along my nerve endings to my forgetful cock; and helped along by some very clever and inventive manuevers on Daniel's part, that particular portion of my anatomy began to remember that it was good for more than taking a piss and getting hung in my zipper. It was a moment for tears and celebration the first time I awoke from a heated dream of fucking Daniel senseless on the White House lawn (don't ask me what THAT was all about) to find myself half-hard and getting harder as Daniel mumbled and snorted and shifted closer to me in his sleep, his thigh brushing inadvertently against Mr. Almost Happy and drawing a low, agonized groan of need and desperate hope from my lips. I'll never forget the look of stunned surprise on Daniel's face when I frenziedly shook him awake and grabbed his hand, pressing it to my crotch with a hissed, "Feel this, Daniel, and tell me I'm not dreaming this time!" That shocked look on his sleep-addled face quickly transformed itself into the happiest, hungriest smile I've ever seen; and while things weren't just suddenly one hundred percent from that moment on, it was definitely the beginning of Jack O'Neill's journey back to that joyful place I like to call "Bonerland." Yeah, yeah, that's hokey as hell and always makes Daniel snort with laughter when I mention it; but that's okay. My cock and I are always VERY thrilled to visit that fabled country, and today of all days I think we're due for another visit.

"Happy birthday, big fella," I whisper soundlessly to my cock now as it senses Daniel's nice, curvy ass in close proximity and begins to take a definite interest in the proceedings. With a satisfied sigh I press my face into the nape of Daniel's neck and just breathe him in for a long moment, my thigh sliding slowly, so slowly, up and down the length of his as he moans and twitches and instinctively presses back against me.

"Wake up, Daniel; it's my birthday, aren't you going to sing "Happy Birthday" to me, huh?" I murmur into his ear as my hand drifts up to begin a slow, circuitous massage around his right nipple. "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...happy birthday, dear Ja-ack, happy birthday to me," I sing softly as Daniel's lovely little nub plumps to eager attention beneath my fingers.

"God, do that some more," Daniel mutters drowsily, his voice rough with sleep and burgeoning arousal; clumsily he fumbles his hand up to cover mine, directing my languid movements at his nipple and giving a low hiss of pleasure as I take that tightly rigid protruberance between my thumb and forefinger and pinch it with just enough tension to wring a second hiss of need from Daniel's lips.

"Happy birthday, Jack," he murmurs now as he rolls over onto his back, his blue eyes blinking owlishly up at me as he hooks a leg around my hip and urges me to slide on top of him. "How long have you been up?"

"Oh, I've been 'up' for a few minutes now, Daniel," I chuckle lightly as I obligingly fit my body over his and bend my head to take his mouth in a long, slow, scorching kiss. Dammit but he feels good, so fucking good beneath me, every part of him fitting itself perfectly with every part of me, our bodies communicating in that effortless, deeply intimate way that's like nothing I've ever known before. "God, you feel amazing," I sigh now as I transfer my attentions to his throat, licking and sucking and nipping my way down the ridge of his jugular vein as he growls his appreciation and rubs himself suggestively against my hungrily bobbing cock.

"Consider this your first birthday present of the day, Jack," Daniel murmurs seductively and suddenly flips me over onto my back, his own erection waving proudly at me for an enticing moment before he presses his body firmly over mine and begins a slow, langorous glide up and down my willing form. "I plan to keep you in bed ALL morning, doing things to you that will live in infamy in the hallowed halls of Bonerland," he teases as our cocks perform their own affectionate greeting and get very, very friendly with one another.

"Not only will this be my FIRST birthday present; it will most definitely rank as one of the BEST, I have a feeling," I sigh contentedly as Daniel's mouth on my left nipple sends me into a brief zone-out of orgiastic pleasure. "But tell me, babe--will there be cake later?" I ask, and Daniel's muffled snort of laughter vibrates against my nipple with such happy eroticism that I could almost come here and now.

"For you there's ALWAYS cake, Jack," he murmurs lovingly; and then, true to his word, he proceeds to give me one of the most mind-blowingly intense 'presents' of my long and interesting life. It is only later--much, much later, when he has dropped back into a sated, happily exhausted slumber atop the wrecked bed covers--that I am able to just lie quietly alongside him, breathing in the musky, belovedly familiar smells of our lovemaking and tracing the sweat-slicked contours of his naked body with one finger. He's so deeply under that he doesn't even twitch as I glide my fingernail over his rib cage; and feeling free to just drink him in, I indulge myself in the half-guilty pleasure of tracing over the path of my finger with my tongue, tasting his salt and oils and the drying tracks of both his semen and mine down the muscled, lightly furred length of his thigh. I've known his body for years, have investigated him inside and out and loved him in a beautiful variety of ways, over and over again; but as I make my way now along the sublimely perfect terrain of my lover's sleeping form, I feel again that same sense of awe and wonder I felt the very first time we were together and I realized to my stunned delight that I was going to have this more than once, that Daniel was truly WITH me and that we had a real shot at making a life together.

We're older now, so much older in ways that time can't measure; and our bodies have indeed changed, both of us softening and ripening and transforming from the toned firmness of callow youth to the graceful weathering of late middle age--so, okay, technically OLD age, but at 62 today I suddenly feel younger than I have in YEARS. So to hell with senior citizen status; as I gently cup Daniel's sweet, sleep-softened genitals in my hand and breathe a soft kiss along the inside of his thigh, I am more convinced than ever that age is largely a state of mind; and on this my birthday, I feel a sneaking suspicion that I've become lost in some weird time loop and I'm actually still only in my forties. Which would make Daniel mid-thirties again, which means we should have some REALLY excellent sex whenever he wakes up again. Grinning smugly at my own cleverness, I kiss my way back up Daniel's inert, inelegantly snoring body and plaster myself against him, just barely managing to draw the sheet over the both of us before relaxed, blissful sleep sucks me down into pleasant dreams of cake and presents and my friends springing out of hidden corners to bellow "SURPRISE!"

Damn but life is good.

4. Twin Flames

Embers of night flare up afresh
when you ignite the morning in my arms
and kindle the familiar hearth of love

Year after year we have warmed our lives
around the mystery of mutual fire
that heats our domain of risk and rapture

Whenever scorched however scarred
we hearten heal reconflagrate
Twin flames ever in blissful blaze
---james broughton

Jack lies sleeping beneath the first, rose-gilded rays of morning sunshine filtering in through the window of Sam's and Pete's guest bedroom, his silvered hair crowned by a nimbus of gentle fire that lights up the craggy planes of his face. I have been sitting in the chair by the bed for half an hour now, just watching him, and with every rhythmic inhalation and exhalation of his bare chest, something wordless and immense and unspeakably reverential trembles inside me. Almost I wonder how such emotion can still spontaneously arise within my heart at the mere sight of this man I've known so long and whose every smallest gesture I memorized ages ago; it seems inconceivable that there would be anything new to discover under our particular sun. But as is often the case where Jack O'Neill is concerned, I've just remembered that there is always something else to learn, always some breathless new discovery to make in my ongoing exploration of the deceptively familiar terrain of his body and his mind.

He kissed me awake much earlier this morn, his sure touch offering a reassuring point of reference in the midst of my disoriented confusion on awaking in a strange bed inside a dim room I didn't recognize. As I relaxed into his drowsily enthusiastic good morning greeting, my mouth molding to his with the ease of long practice, my synapses slowly began to fire and I recalled that we'd arrived at Sam's house last evening, flying in a bit early so as not to miss the happy couple's big wedding anniversary party today. Hard to believe that she and Pete have been married for twenty years now, I mused lazily as Jack murmured suggestions into my ear about all the things he would love to try in this nifty guest bed before we were expected to show up for breakfast.

"Control yourself, you old reprobate," I snorted into the side of his neck as he slid surprisingly nimble hands down beneath the covers to stroke me into gentle arousal. "For God's sake, we're guests in Sam's home! And we're much too old to be acting like randy college kids; I don't know about you, but I'm not used to this mattress, and my back is killing me."

"Way to ruin the mood, Jackson," Jack huffed at my plaintive tone, but I noticed his hand never stopped its busy maneuvers beneath the sheets, and the gleam in his brown eyes was positively indecent as he cut my indignant protests off in mid-syllable and pulled the covers up over both our heads, his low chuckles sounding muffled and engagingly decadent as he worked his way down my body like some subterranean Lothario.

"Jack, come on, now, cut it out, it's almost 6 am, we don't have time for this..." I began weakly, fumbling with the smothering folds of the covers blocking my face as I tried rather half-heartedly to evade the admittedly beguiling heat and wetness of Jack's questing mouth making its way down my torso. "Jack, I mean it, come out of there right now, you're going to pass out from lack of oxygen and I do NOT want to be the one explaining to our hosts just how it happened...Oh. OH. Dammit, Jack, don't you ever give it a REST?" But by then his devilishly talented mouth had latched onto its intended target with all due enthusiasm, and my grumbles of sleepy protest had given way to wordless groans of mindless pleasure. Jesus, we're both too old for this, I remember thinking with something like amazement as the indistinct, blanket-covered Jack shape bobbing and thrusting rhythmically over my cock brought me to the point of whimpering--loudly--with my ever-escalating need for climax and completion.

"So...was I good?" he gasped happily when he finally came up for air some unknown interval later, his silvered hair sticking up wildly all over his head and his mouth red and swollen. As he licked his lips, still savoring the taste of me on his tongue, something indescribably pure and fragile rose and crested deep within me, hitting me with such blinding force that I feared I would be dragged down beneath its power and forever lost, unable to fight my way back up to the light and air waiting out beyond the maelstrom of intense emotions rushing through my soul.

"Daniel? Hey, are you all right?" I heard Jack's voice as though from far away, and as I lay in a breathless swoon I was dimly aware of him running suddenly anxious hands over my chest and face, his fingers slapping lightly but insistently at my cheeks as I struggled to remember how to think, how to breathe, how to BE in the aftermath of the shattering spiritual epiphany I had just received.

"Dammit, Daniel, you'd better not be having a stroke!" Jack half-cursed, half-threatened as he hovered over me, alternately shaking me by the shoulders and digging his fingers into my jaw; and at last I was able to pry my incredibly heavy eyelids open and blink myopically up into his pale, worried face, which was lightly stubble-shadowed and appeared almost gaunt in the early morning dimness.

"Wow," I breathed almost soundlessly, my tongue feeling thick and sluggish in my mouth; and as Jack scowled down at me with a dangerously raised eyebrow to illustrate his consternation and growing displeasure, I couldn't help the goofy smile that stretched the corners of my lips. "Maybe I DID just have a stroke," I murmured somewhat dazedly and drew his head down to plant a big, wet kiss on his mouth before he could even get started chewing me out for scaring him half to death. I just wasn't ready or able to talk to him about the sudden, overwhelming rush of feelings I'd experienced while he was sucking me off so expertly and lovingly; I wasn't at all sure what the whole experience meant, anyway, and Jack was never one to dwell too deeply on 'all that spooky mumbo-jumbo,' as he disparagingly labelled anything that smacked the least bit of the mystical.

"I'm just too damned good, that's the thing," Jack muttered in a pale echo of his usual smugness; a sardonic smile tugged at his mouth as he said the words, but something scared and fragile remained in his eyes for another long moment as he pulled the covers down to my waist and directed his hands to inspect me with a protective gentleness that brought a lump to my throat.

"Jesus, Daniel, don't scare me like that again," he breathed against my neck once his probing hands had reassured him that there was nothing seriously amiss with me. "I just wanted to make you feel good, not give you a fucking heart attack."

"You did make me feel good, Jack; REALLY good," I sighed and stretched luxuriously against him, my body feeling pleasantly drunk and sated in the aftermath of his devoted attentions. "And now I need to pee, dammit, but I don't want to get up."

"Well, I'm afraid you're on your own where that's concerned," Jack sighed, pressing a light kiss to my temple and pulling me in for a brief, rib-creaking hug that convinced me I most definitely needed to find the guest bathroom.

"Round two when I get back," I promised him with a regretful slap to his rump as I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and stumbled off to the bathroom. I heard Jack snort lightly behind me, followed by a barely audible 'Hurry back' and his muttered tug of war with the tangled bedsheet; while I was in the bathroom I tried to analyze that strange moment of almost surrealistic transfiguration that I'd just undergone, but already the experience seemed more like some fevered dream than anything real. Trying to shrug it off and focus my mind on the minutes ahead with Jack and the hours ahead with Sam and Pete and a houseful of their celebrating friends and relatives, I returned to the bedroom moments later to discover Jack sprawled like some hedonistic demi-god across the width of the bed, one arm flung over his head as he snored lightly and drooled into Sam's guest pillow.

The sight of him stretched out before me in all his gracefully geriatric glory did funny things to my insides all over again, and suddenly I didn't want to go back to sleep; I wanted nothing more than to sit by him and watch him as he slept, cataloguing every nuance of his heartbeat and breathing, and that's exactly what I did, settling myself into the gratifyingly comfy armchair next to the bed and tugging my discarded robe onto my lap to ward off the early morning chill. It was easy to lose myself in the gently hypnotic rise and fall of his chest, my attention wandering placidly from the strong outline of his nose and chin down to the lightly furred, completely gray mat of hair on his chest to the dark, flat hollow of his stomach, once almost concave from his terrifying bout with cancer but now reassuringly solid and healthy again. I guess I must have dozed a bit in the midst of my silent, loving perusal, because I became aware just now of a gap in my awareness and jerked myself to attention again to find that the sun was definitely rising, its first pale blush of light and color beaming straight through the window onto Jack's relaxed features.

I love him so much, so hopelessly, so stupidly FOREVER, I think almost wistfully to myself now as the object of my affections shifts slightly on the mattress and twitches his left big toe beneath the covers. God, it's so hard to believe that we've come so close to the end of our time here on this earth, I muse as I gaze dispassionately down at my own aging, careworn body glowing faintly in the early morning light. Jack turned sixty-seven not so long ago, and it won't be long till I've left my fifth decade behind forever, never to return. We've had so much to be thankful for these last four years and counting, so much loving and living to catch up on in the aftermath of Jack's grim struggle with the disease that almost took him from me. As I sit here I realize that I have never been so aware of just how blessed I am to be allowed to have Jack here with me like this, to visit the lovely home of a dear old friend with the soul I love most in all the world accompanying me and to be able to have him rejoice along with me in Sam's happiness as she shares her love for HER soul mate with all those she cares for so deeply.

"Deep thoughts, darlin'?" Jack's husky voice sounds on the morning air, flowing over me like warm honey, and with a suddenly self-conscious grimace, I rise rather stiffly from the armchair and move obligingly into the waiting arms Jack is holding out to me.

"The deepest," I murmur as I slide beneath the sheet and drape my chilled body over Jack's sleepy warmth. He gasps and gives a muffled oath at the unexpectedly cold contact of my cold flesh against his comfortable heat, and I mumble a half-hearted apology alongside a sigh of hedonistic pleasure as I relax into his solid embrace.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep on you," Jack murmurs as he begins to trace his fingers up and down the curve of my spine. "Guess the flight yesterday tired me out more than I thought. Either that, or it was the fright you gave me this morning that did me in," he adds with a mildly chastising tone.

"Well, you needed your rest," I return philosophically, nuzzling at his neck and sliding my left leg between his thighs. "Who knows what wild things Sam has planned for her anniversary bash today? By the time all is said and done, we might both need several days to recuperate."

"Yeah; she and Pete are still operating under the delusion that they stopped aging oh, about fifteen years or so ago," Jack snorts sardonically against my thinning hair, and I can't help smiling in wry agreement as I recall how bouncy and cheerful and animated Sam had been when she and her lovely daughter Lori picked us up at the airport yesterday. The years have been kind to our former team mate, the few gentle wrinkles time has kissed onto her face blending softly into place as if they always belonged there. Her eyes are bluer than ever, her lithe frame still willowy and supple all these years later; I'm so glad she found Pete, so glad she was able to meld marriage and a career as an Air Force instructor and even the delightfully unexpected surprise of belated motherhood into one satisfied, seamless whole. And Lori looks just like her mom; at sixteen she has the same flyaway blonde hair and crystalline blue eyes and the same sharp, inquisitive mind that have kept her mother young and energetic well into her fifties.

It does my heart good to see the three of them so happy here, Pete and Sam and Lori, to see what a wonderful family they've created together; and as Jack tugs me closer now and idly speculates about how much time we might still have before we have to dress for breakfast, I realize that the two of us have created a pretty happy family unit of our own in the two and a half decades we've been together. We've become such a cozy fit that I can't even begin to imagine ever being with anyone else in my life, or ever wanting to; Jack truly has been the other half of my soul, though he would undoubtedly argue that we aren't half of ANYTHING but two already-whole people who are just MORE whole for having had the incredible luck of finding each other and being smart enough to recognize a sure thing when it was staring us in the face. Ah, that's my Jack; romantic to a fault, I think smugly and stifle the chuckle that rises in my chest as he cocks a suspicious eyebrow at me and demands to know in that silky, dangerously erotic General's voice of his just what the hell devilment I'm thinking up NOW inside that mysterious skull of mine.

"Nothing, Jack; I'm thinking about nothing but how nice it is to lie here, soaking up the ambience. Well, that and trying to decide whether or not I want to take a turn at a little cover diving of my own this morn," I sigh contentedly. And as Jack gives me a lascivious grin and obligingly lifts the bedsheet up above our entwined bodies, I'm suddenly starving for the taste of him on my tongue, for the blessed warmth and light of him vibrating like a beautiful, subliminal melody within the deepest parts of my soul.

"You are such a nasty man," I grin in reply to his silent invitation; and as the sun climbs steadily in the pearly morning sky, I drag the covers over both our heads and proceed to make the both of us completely forget to act our age.

5. Nostalgia

we begin kissing
around eleven
by noon
we're naked
it's been a long time
but we remember
the sweep of history
around us
like an envelope
of radiant heat
our image
in the mirror
shines with such
sweet melancholy
we fall again
into each other
where it is warm
and years ago
and the world
outside these walls
has not yet
been imagined
---charles rossiter

Today is going to be a good day, one of those increasingly rare occasions when both body and spirit are not only willing but able. Sadly enough, that doesn't happen too often anymore; so when I open my eyes at dawn's first light to realize that all systems are blessedly GO for a change, I take care of a bit of pressing personal business and then make my way back to bed, turning there to the one person who I know will truly appreciate and share with me this golden moment of opportunity.

"Hey, wake up, Daniel," I murmur, extending a finger to give the inert lump next to me an experimental poke. "Daylight's wasting while you drool into your pillow."

The lump doesn't budge or make a sound, and it takes a few more, increasingly emphatic prods with my finger before I'm able to elicit an incoherent grunt and the faintest hint of movement from the indistinct shape huddled beneath the blankets.

"C'mon, Daniel, I know you're in there; come out with your hands up, and no one has to get hurt," I growl menacingly in my best 'bad-ass General' voice. The lump's only response is a garbled series of blanket-muffled noises that sound amazingly like "Screw you, Jack," with the accompanying addendum of one particular, defiant finger emerging from the cocoon of covers to thrust itself emphatically skyward.

"Why, Daniel, I"m shocked and sadly disappointed by your crude behavior. And at your age, too," I cluck disapprovingly as the lone finger vanishes back under the blankets to rejoin the stubbornly antisocial person it belongs to. "Aw, c'mon," I wheedle, resting a hand on what appears to be the stubbornly rock-hard cranium of the inimitable Daniel Jackson--the once and future guardian of my heart who, by the way, is SO not a morning kind of guy.

"Hey! I'm wide awake, here," I whine, "and you...you're at least semi-conscious already. So what do you say to getting out of bed, throwing some sweats on, and taking a nice walk with me before breakfast this morning?" Nothing, not even the barest ghost of a polite reply; so I decide it's time for more drastic measures. With the stealth of the dashing, young, special ops Colonel I once was about five lifetimes ago, I reach down to curl my fingers around the bottom edge of the blankets and then--very, very slowly--begin to work them down over Daniel's huddled form. Gradually tufts of irate-looking hair appear at the top edge of the covers as they migrate with glacial majesty down the uncharted terrain of my lover's sleeping body; next I'm rewarded with the sight of an ear, a curve of jawline, and then the vulnerable column of a white neck.

"Jack..." a low voice murmurs warningly, the almost-pleasant upward lilt on the end consonant somehow adding to the threatening tone.

"Daniel," I croon back, a delighted grin creasing my face as he huffs disgustedly once and gives the sliding blankets a vehement tug upwards again. "Oh, Dan--iel, Daniel! If you get up now, there might be a blueberry bagel in it for you later, hmm? Warm, delicious, fragrance-wafting bagel Heaven, Daniel..."

"Piss OFF, Jack," Daniel grunts, one bleary, red-rimmed eye glaring balefully at me over the top of the blankets. "I TOLD you I wanted to sleep in today."

"Are you irregular again, buddy? Is that what it is? Cause if that's the problem, I put a new bottle of Metamucil in the cabinet yesterday," I offer helpfully. "Or is it those pesky hemorrhoids acting up? You're always ten kinds of bastard when your ass hurts, you know."

"Jack...right now the only pain in my ass is YOU. And so help me, I might be old and frail, but I SWEAR I will soundly beat the shit out of you if you do not SHUT UP and GO AWAY." Daniel's enraged, tousled, endearingly cute head disappears beneath the covers again like some geriatric turtle ducking into its shell, and with a longsuffering sigh I bring out the big guns. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all.

"But...but it's Tuesday," I murmur softly into a blanket-shrouded portion of his anatomy that I sincerely hope is his ear. "It's Tuesday, and I didn't need my pills today." Carefully I draw back, curling onto my side and dropping my head onto my pillow as I wait for realization to sink into Daniel's grumpy, sleep-fogged brain. It takes a minute or two, but suddenly a gratifying new tension ripples through the body lying next to me before that same body goes very, very still. Slowly two hands appear above the edge of the covers, fingers gripping the flannel material of the blankets with white-knuckled force; as I watch, Daniel pulls the bed linens away from his face and seeks out my gaze with unnervingly attentive blue eyes.

"It's Tuesday. And you didn't have to take your pills," he repeats laboriously, as if he's only just learned the English language and is trying to process what I just said. I merely nod, my eyes mutely earnest on his face, and his mouth forms a small, round O! as he finally gets it.

"It's Tuesday...and you didn't have to take your pills!" he fairly hisses at me, his voice tight with excitement; and as I nod again, my mouth softening into a half-amused, half-affectionate smile, Daniel's eyes widen dramatically and he sits bolt upright, only belatedly remembering his sciatica and giving a pained grimace as his creaky hip joint reminds him of it with a vengeance. But before I can voice my concerns as to his well-being, he's flinging the twisted coil of blankets away from his legs and scrambling awkwardly to kneel beside me, his hands sketching a wordless exclamation in the air as his mouth tries to catch up.

"Are you SURE you don't want me to get the pills, Jack? Cause I can get them for you, it will only take a minute...I mean, if you've only just woken up, maybe you haven't given it enough time...how long HAVE you been awake? Did you actually GET up, did you pee already?"

"NO pills, I'm sure; and let me think, here...I've given it PLENTY of time, I've been awake WAY LONGER than you have, that 's for damned certain, and yes, I peed already--with complete success, I might add. Any other questions?" I grin, and Daniel studies my face with disturbing thoroughness before his own taut features begin to relax into a ruefully engaging half-smile.

"You didn't need the pills," he repeats once more, and the note of quiet thankfulness in his voice brings another grin to my face.

"I'm good today, babe," I murmur my acknowledgment, and his eyes fill with sudden tears as he leans over and presses a swift, hard kiss to my mouth.

"You ARE good," he replies in grateful agreement, his loving gaze soaking in every inch of my face that his eyes can traverse, as if to reassure himself that I haven't just discovered some fiendishly clever new method for disguising physical pain and duress. "You look rested, really rested. Oh, God, you didn't get up at all last night, did you?"

"Nope, not even once," I grin, practically preening beneath his impressed gaze. "Slept like a baby. Unlike SOME crotchety old farts I know," I add with a superior sniff that has Daniel narrowing his eyes at me in an abrupt changeover from delighted to ticked off.

"Well, I might have slept BETTER if a certain, equally crotchety old fart hadn't spent half the night hogging three-fourths of the mattress and relegating yours truly to one narrow little sliver at the extreme edge of the bed," he snorts in response; and before the lovely moment we were enjoying just before THIS one becomes completely lost, I reach up a hand, snare him by the neck, and pull his face down to mine for a long, intense kiss that leaves the both of us gasping for air. He's right, damn his ass; we ARE old as dirt and could take home winning medals in the Crotchety Olympics. Hell, we can't even KISS any more without practically needing matching oxygen canisters to keep from keeling over after the fact. But that's okay; just because our engines sputter a little bit when we start them up of a morning doesn't mean that the cars won't go, I think smugly as Daniel takes my face between his hands and smiles down at me with 90% of his former good humor restored.

"It's Tuesday," he sighs happily, the myriad laugh lines around his eyes crinkling attractively now as he brushes his thumbs lightly over my stubbled jaw. "And the doctor said--"

"The doctor said if I made it to Tuesday without having to take the pain meds again, then I WON'T have to go back into the hospital and be put on iv's," I finish triumphantly, sliding my hands up and down Daniel's bare arms. "And that leaves our whole day free to actually do FUN stuff, like getting up, dressing, going outside to greet the day, having a little breakfast...That is, if you think your hip can stand up to a bit of a work-out today," I finish worriedly, gazing down his trunk to the body part in question.

"My hip is fine; in fact, every damned part of me is downright spectacular," Daniel grins back at me, and for a moment the ravages of age and time and the overwhelming stresses of the past seven months fall away from his face, revealing the devastatingly beautiful visage of the virile man I still remember so well from thirty-plus years ago. He's still in there, I think to myself, that young, fiery, impassioned archaelogist--the same one who figured out the stargate and explored the universe at my side, the same idealistic dreamer who lived and died more times than I care to count and who endured tragedies beyond the scope of most men's ability to handle; and yet never once did he give up, never once in almost half a century of being together has he ever shown me anything but love and acceptance and an impressive amount of patience, to boot.

"You're giving me that sick-in-love, goofy mush face again, Jack," Daniel murmurs, drawing me up from my sentimental reveries with a soft brush of his lips across my forehead. "You know it makes me feel...weird...when you do that. It's pretty weird that you even still do it at ALL," he mutters self-consciously, and I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him down atop me till his chin is practically resting on my chest, those somewhat faded but still incredibly blue eyes of his studying me with genuine mystification. "I can't believe you still think I'm sexy," he ponders, and I snort drily as I card my fingers through the disheveled strands of his thinning hair.

"Hey, at least you still have fur," I pout, taking his right hand and running it across the smooth dome of my own hairless head. "And all your own teeth, too; that certainly spells S-E-X-Y in my book." As a sardonic grimace twists Daniel's mouth, I bring his hand down from my head and press a soft kiss into his palm. "You could never NOT be sexy to me, Daniel," I assure him, and he pulls himself up close enough to press an answering kiss along the side of my mouth.

"Well, considering the fact that we're both nursing home material and just a slide-shuffle-hip-replacement away from motorized wheelchairs, I think it's pretty amazing that we ever even THINK of sex any more," he observes wrily, and I scowl at him and reach around to pinch his increasingly bony but still-shaggable 'old guy' ass.

"Speak for yourself," I grump as he lets out a startled yelp and slaps at my pesky hand. "I am feeling GOOD today; and if you think you are going to evade my amorous advances, I'm afraid you have another think coming." With an evil leer--which most likely looks more like constipation on my sunken face--I try my best to cop another feel but am all too easily thwarted in the attempt as Daniel merely reaches for a particular portion of MY anatomy and gives it a warning squeeze.

"First we dress; then we take a SEDATE stroll around the garden; then we eat a HEALTHY breakfast...and THEN, if we both survive those three things, we just MIGHT return to bed, strip each other naked, and have what passes for wild sex before collapsing feebly for the rest of the day," he murmurs, laying out our itinerary with something less than the seductive intensity I might have wished for. But again, that's okay; hell, I'm seventy-two years old now and slowly dying of this damned colon cancer that's come back to not only kick my ass but DESTROY it utterly this time around. So, yeah, Daniel's got a valid argument concerning the whole having sex thing.

But we O'Neills are nothing if not stubborn--even when we're older than God and croaking off with bad grace--and I am determined to give Daniel at least one or two more halfway warm and fuzzy memories to hold onto once I'm no longer here. We don't really discuss the whole 'terminal' aspect of my illness any more, as it still upsets Daniel terribly most days; and even with the vague shadow of my own death hanging over us now, neither one of us is about to ruin the day ahead by referencing my condition in any overt way, shape, or form. It's enough that we've been given the priceless gift of five straight days of Basically Pain-Free Jack O'Neill, which means that I have avoided an unwanted trip to the hospital for another round of the morphine iv's that push the pain back to manageable levels during those intervals when nothing else they can give me works worth a damn. Admittedly the good days have been more and more unevenly spaced of late, giving way to more and more sorta bad, pretty bad, and unbearably bad days in between; but just ONE good day like today can keep me going through a whole slew of the bad days that will invariably follow after.

"Did I hear you mention blueberry bagels earlier?" Daniel is murmuring now as he settles his weight carefully over my prone body and begins to lightly stroke my chest. "Would there maybe be some light cream cheese to go with those babies?"

"I suppose such a thing could be arranged, provided a certain bagel-addicted archaeologist was willing to give his cream cheese 'connection' a nice, long massage later as payment," I muse.

"I suppose that's doable," Daniel smiles in reply, his fingers warm and gratifyingly gentle against my skin; and as the alarm clock begins to buzz with the momentous announcement that it is now eight am and Jack O'Neill has obviously made it through another night, its genteel summons serves to draw Daniel and me out of bed, the both of us eager as we haven't been in awhile to face a new day.

"What time is it, Daniel?" I murmur, smothering a yawn behind my hand; the late morning sun feels damned good on my face as I lounge back in my comfy, reclinable lawn chair, and the spell of nasty, trembling vertigo I experienced earlier during our slow stroll around the yard has faded into nothing more than a dim memory.

"Mm...elevenish, I think." Daniel's voice is bemused and drowsy, and I'd like to crank my lazy eyes open and take a gander at him over in his own comfy lawn chair, if only I wasn't so damned comfortable, my muscles so loose and lax for a change that any movement seems too much effort. So somewhat regretfully I keep my eyes closed, drifting effortlessly somewhere between wakefulness and a light doze. But even without looking at him, I can imagine Daniel's approximate positioning; he's probably sprawled out in his chair with the sun-bleached strands of his hair blowing softly in the gentle breeze, his long, elegant feet crossed almost daintily at the ankles, in general looking almost indecently good for an old geezer in his sixties.

And I should know; I've made a rather intensive study of his face and form over the past three decades. And I have to admit that I find myself needing to look at him more and more these days, both my mind and my heart starved for images of his face, his hands, my ears straining as well to capture his voice so that my mind can record it for posterity, or at least till the moment I draw my last breath. I can't say for sure what will happen to me when I die---oh, sure, technically I've died before, years and years ago when I was still commanding SG-1---and you'd think those experiences would have given me some frame of reference concerning the whole 'shuffling off the mortal coil' business. And just look how damned many times Daniel bought the farm and yet paradoxically lived to tell about it; so maybe in the long run this whole death thing really isn't that big of a deal.

But of course, being revived in a Goa'uld sarcophagus, healed by nice folks like the Nox or even 'ascended' and 'descended' by so-called superior beings obviously can't compare to dying and well...STAYING dead. I don't have any personal frame of reference for that, aside from the secondhand anguish of losing people I cared about who never had the luxury of alien intervention to bring them back. And I know that in my case---even so many years past retirement and any real remaining contact with the powerful connections I once enjoyed---I still could have called in a few markers, still could have availed myself of the same alien assistance I witnessed numerous times in the past to seek yet one more miracle 'cure' and cheat the Reaper one more damned time. Hell, if Thor had had his way, I'd still be here in another hundred years, bitching about the hockey stats of the 2104 season and ridiculing the politicians of the day and snarking at Daniel for wearing MY jacket just cause he says he likes to keep the scent of me close to him...yeah, I could ALMOST see it, almost visualize myself hanging around indefinitely, like some mutant Methuselah...but not without Daniel at my side.

And even then, even if that were possible...it's just been long enough, my time here. That's what I've decided. I realize that in the grand scheme of the universe, seventy-two years really ISN'T all that long; but locked inside this particular body, it HAS been long enough. I have seen and done and experienced enough in seven decades as a human being to feel fairly certain that in my case, at least, it's almost time for the NEXT thing. Life really is beautiful, the whole goddamned earth is beautiful...but I'm just tired. And I don't think any amount of nifty alien medical technology would be able to subtract that soul-deep weariness from the whole extended life equation.

Daniel gets it; he understands. Of course that doesn't mean he's exactly HAPPY about it on a day-to-day basis, but as much as it hurts him to have to watch me suffer through the physical pain of dying bit by bit, organ by organ, he's accepted and respected my decision. He knows that my ONLY regret now is leaving him, that he's the one thing continuing to hold me to this life, this body, this world. And on some level that knowledge fills him with guilt, no matter how many times I assure him that I WON'T stay here one moment longer than my pain threshold can humanly stand, that I won't play the selfless martyr and linger on and on and on in terrible agony out of some misguided sense of responsibility for his guilt. Shit, doesn't he see that it's MY guilt, too, that I'm as needy and greedy and selfish as he is in my bottomless desire to stay with him, to never be separated from him?

But we both know it has to come sometime, the final separation between us; as much as we've dreaded it, it isn't something we can avoid indefinitely. I just don't let myself think about it too much because if I did I would probably completely lose my mind; all I can do---all either one of us can do---is to take this one moment at a time, to just keep breathing, keep smiling, keep LOVING, until the last grains of sand have sifted through the O'Neill hour glass of life and it's time to say good night. I believe that I WILL be with Daniel again in some way, shape, or form---with both of us hopefully in MUCH younger, studlier bodies next time around (though with my luck he'll be a veritable god in the next world and I'll still look like THIS, like a bald, sagging sack of loose skin, sigh...). But if it should turn out that there's NOTHING beyond that final descent into the grave, I think that maybe that would be okay, too; cause I would rather cease to exist in any form, to be totally annihilated, rather than find myself in some other place where I could never see or touch or be with Daniel again. And I realize how incredibly sappy and NOT macho that sounds, but I don't really give a shit. The simple truth is that I just love the sexy old bastard with all that's in me, with every part of my soul; and I damned sure don't feel a need to apologize for that. Everyone on this planet should be so lucky as to have what I've had with this man.

And now is NOT the time to become introspective and morose and somber; NOW is the time to bestir myself from this chair, coax Daniel into the house and out of his clothes and convince him to take a nice, warm shower with me. I doubt there will be much hanky-panky going on, more's the pity; but even so, the idea of us running our soap-slicked hands up and down one another's bodies as we share long, slow kisses that will lead us straight into the noon hour has me perking up considerably. And after the shower, a nice lunch, followed by a long, peaceful nap tangled up together in bed, this morning's newspapers still strewn in the floor all around us. Something tells me that after that the 'golden window' will have begun to slide closed, that by nightfall my failing body will have given its all for the cause of one normal, joyful day and will be crankily demanding its due in the form of a return of the pain that keeps me awake all night, clenching my jaw to hold back the moans crowding my throat because I don't want to wake Daniel up, don't want him to see me like this, even though he HAS seen me like this all too often over the past few months...

"Okay, that's enough," Daniel's voice intrudes suddenly into my increasingly dark ruminations, his tone light and teasing and all too perceptive beneath his cheerful banter. "I can hear you thinking about SERIOUS things from all the way over here, and I'm telling you, that just isn't on today's itinerary. So I believe it's time we move this party indoors and hit the showers." I can hear him struggling carefully to his feet, battling his valiant way up from his comfy but 'too-low-to-the-ground-for-old-folks' chair; and a small grin flickers at the edges of my mouth as I open one lazy eye and watch him wrestle with the chair arm, which has somehow developed a stubborn grip on the right sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"Need some help there, babe?" I drawl, and he merely snorts disdainfully and manages to yank his arm free, with the accompanying sound of ripping material and his own colorful curses peppering the till-now tranquil air.

"Ouch," I wince sympathetically but can't quite erase the amused grin from my face as Daniel makes his way over to my chair and tugs me out of it, handling me with a gentleness that's in direct opposition to the annoyance he's just displayed toward the miscreant lawn chair.

"Inside. Now. Shower. Lunch. Sex," he orders, a gruff tenderness lighting up his blue eyes behind the lenses of his glasses; and as I try to plant an affectionate kiss on the tip of his nose, he chuckles ruefully and propels me toward the french doors leading inside the house, his hands warm on my shoulders.

"I do believe you worked up a sweat on our walk this morning, Jack," he murmurs in that casually naughty tone that still has the power to stir my senses AND my libido on even my worst days. "I'm going to have to soap you up REALLY good and wash you ALL OVER," he whispers against my back; and though some part of me realizes how ridiculous this is---two scrawny old men engaging in the PG version of talking dirty to each other---I still can't help but feel suddenly sexy and desirable and actively 'turned on' for the first time in a long time.

Damned, fucking cancer, the thought flashes lightning-quick through my mind as a wave of frustrated sorrow rushes through me; we've lost so much, Daniel and I, trapped as we are in these decaying bodies, aging so inexorably with every passing minute. So many things we can never do or have again...

But I won't let myself go there; and neither will Daniel. He is steering me purposefully along, and now we are inside the cool dimness of the house, now standing before the mirror in the bathroom as Daniel moves around me like an efficient valet, undressing first me and then himself before sliding behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. As he rests his chin in the crook of my neck, peering myopically over my left shoulder at the two of us framed together in the mirror, his blue eyes shine warmly at me with the simple joy of our being here like this, naked and old and therefore not all that attractive; but we'll do. I think we will definitely do.

"I love you, you know that?" I murmur to him, my dark-ringed eyes holding his in the mirror. "A lot. A WHOLE fucking lot."

"I love you," Daniel returns with grave courtesy, his voice very quiet; but the light burning in his still-so-blue eyes crackles like a roaring flame, and it feels so good, still so goddamned good, to have his hands on me now, stroking and petting and guiding me into the shower, those same hands lovingly positioning me away from the spray of the water until he has it adjusted to just the right temp, and then his fingers encircle my arms and pull me in close, his body sliding-gliding like silk up against mine as our mouths meet in the oft-repeated but always new baptism of the gentle water cascading down onto us from above.

I love you, Daniel. Oh, God, I do. Always.