Title: Eden

Author: JayBee-Bug

Rating: R (mild language and adult situations)

Feedback: Welcomed and worshipped. Send em' to: jaybee_bug@yahoo.com

Summary: Trapped on an alien world and forced to do grueling slave labor-- what's SG-1 to do? Thank God for Free Days. (J/D slash; first-time)

Warnings: SLASH; If you don't like the idea of Jack/Daniel, read at your own risk. Mention of things such as the Adam and Eve story is just for fun, not meant to annoy/insult anyone.

Disclaimer: Don't own em'/don't profit off em'/can't keep em'.

Distribution: Yes, but please keep my original headers attached, and e-mail me if you can. :o)

A/N: Thanks to Rebecca for betaing. ^^

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Free Day. Daniel had thought it would never come again. He knew it had only been a month since his last Free Day, but it had felt more like a year. He sighed blissfully as he hiked beside Jack deeper into the exotic forest, towards their secret bathing spot. They had nicknamed it 'Eden', and many a workday was made much easier by recalling every beautiful detail of Eden and exactly how the next Free Day was going to be spent. Now that they were finally headed towards their mythical oasis again, Daniel felt a fresh, giddy bounce in his step. It was finally time.

Naturally, the boys took every precaution known to man to ensure they would not be followed. The path they took there was quite complex, with several turn-around points. In reality the spot was only a five mile hike, but their journey made it more like ten miles. It was worth every step, though. Past a few small gullies and tucked behind a couple slopes, hidden in a mesh of trees, was their secret access point to the River. The dry, alien forest was much like an oak forest on good old Terra Firma, although most of the time the trees were fairly thin. The team only knew of one river that passed through this continent, as the planet was far more land than water. Carefully climbing down the steep grade, using rocks jutting out the hillside as stepping-stones, the two of them navigated with practiced precision to the bottom of the thick mat of oak-like trees, and ducked below the branches to slip quickly in, like thieves stealing off to their hideout.

Daniel let loose another appreciative murble of anticipation as they stood in their quiet little haven. Jack turned to him, grinning.

"Amen to that," he agreed heartily.

"God, Jack, it's felt like forever."

He held up a warning finger,

"Ah-ah. Remember what we agreed."

Daniel gave a tight-lipped smile and made a zippering-gesture. Jack nodded in approval. No more talking about work, just one day of mindless pleasure.

In the beginning, the team was uncertain how they'd be spending their first Free Day. Teal'c wanted to explore the area surrounding the Labor Fields as much as possible, feeling it would serve as a tactical advantage. Daniel thought it was a good idea but was also curious about how the others spent the day, and felt inclined to tail one of the larger groups and find out. Sam thought it might be a good opportunity to make some crucial connections, gleaning information from the relaxing laborers and working her way up in the social circles. All were very practical ideas, and the most strategic thing to do was have everyone split up and go their separate ways. That's more or less what they ended up doing. For a while Jack vacillated, not sure who he wanted to go with. He was about to decide he'd join Teal'c on the perimeter check but then Daniel mentioned he overheard one of the groups discussing a river and that settled it.

Now every Free Day since then had followed a similar pattern. Teal'c had discovered, in his explorations, an actual small cave, several miles out into the woods. By barely fitting inside and rolling a stone over the opening, he had access to the only purely private area on the planet, and was able to go into a deeper Kel'nor'reem once a month. During the short sleeping periods the laborers got each night, he went into a much shallower Kel'nor'reem, and he found his monthly moments of solitude in the cave to be crucial to his continued health. Sam had made impressive success with worming her way into the social structure, and her increased stance on the hierarchy proved to work to their advantage time and again. As for Jack and Daniel . . .

They thought they'd never find an adequate spot the first Free Day they tailed the huge group of rowdy, smelly laborers. Bathing at the River was extremely popular and the workers had no reservations about stripping down naked and diving into the crowded River. Everyone cleaned their clothing as well and the riverside was so crowded, Jack and Daniel turned up their noses at it and kept moving along the river, looking for a more secluded spot. They weren't desperate enough yet, weren't work-worn enough yet to join their wild neighbors. It somehow seemed like they'd be giving in completely to do so and admitting they were completely trained and tamed by their Overseers. There was no way, as Jack had put it. They had nine more months on their debt, and Hammond would rescue them before then. Or they'd find a way to escape. Either way, they still clung to what little pride they had left.

More than half of their first Free Day was over with when they discovered Eden. But its discovery was like a miracle. The two of them had traveled progressively upstream, on the logical principle that they'd want to be upriver from the dirty bathers and be the first ones to access the clean water. Laborers crowded the riverside the whole way, only thinning out slightly as they went along. The secret of Eden was that it wasn't actually on the main vein of the River. It was a divergence that went off for a while before rejoining the main river path. They stumbled upon it by sheer dumb luck, because they had gotten lost from wandering too far from the River. Their surprise and joy was quite tangible when they found the small divergence hidden in the deep tree grove.

Jack had just stripped right then and there and did a cannon-ball into the private watering hole. Daniel had been more reluctant at first, clinging to his modesty about public bathing. He fussed about the water's edge for a while and Jack heckled him to get it over with.

"Now's not the time for finesse, Danny. Get in."

"I know, Jack, I'm just, I, ah-- I think maybe I'll walk a bit more."

After what felt like ten minutes of fussing, Jack finally exploded,

"F'cryin' out loud, Daniel, nobody else is here! Now you got two options, get your naked ass in here, or I'll drag you in myself!"

Daniel had relinquished after that, although quite grudgingly. Once he entered the ice-cold, clear water, though, his apprehensions evaporated fairly quickly. Jack had to get him into a full-fledged water splashing fight before he totally wound down, though. He had acted extremely annoyed at first and told Jack to cut it out, but Jack was relentless. He finally angrily defended himself, looking genuinely pissed off, but Jack just kept fighting back, grinning. The moron's grin was infectious and all the tension that Daniel had been carrying around with him finally appeared to be cut loose in that river. After they exhausted themselves with their boisterous aerobics, they cleaned their clothes in the river and allowed themselves the luxury of air-drying.

All remnants of shyness were entirely absent now as the two men shed their native clothing with a casual abandon. Jack threw himself at the river with a vengeance, a massive splash echoing through the trees, while Daniel preferred to wade in with a graceful, delicate slowness, savoring each increment of cool, clean water submersing his body.

The time spent in the Labor Fields had changed them. It was a trying experience for everyone of SG-1, especially the first few weeks when stress and frustration was running high and both escape and rescue from their predicament seemed a bleak prospect. They were disheartened and refused to resign themselves to the full Ten Month Debt the team had apparently gotten themselves into. But then, despite themselves, they had adjusted. Worked themselves into a rhythm. There was no doubt the experience had changed all of them.

That change was also clearly evident just by looking at them. They now had the same clothing of all the other laborers, although Sam's connections had gotten them fairly finely crafted clothing by comparison. Those clothes now lay spread half-hazardly over the large, flat stones on the river's edge. As Daniel slipped all the way into the water, enjoying the mild tug on his body the current was producing, he mused about how both his and Jack's appearances had transformed over the past three months. They had already been in good shape before the disastrous mission to P3X-4Y1, of course. But three months of near nonstop labor in the Fields, sweating as the sun beat down on their backs, chipping away at dry, dusty dirt, and walking two miles from the Fields back to communal camp each day certainly changed a person. Their bodies were now much leaner, the type of lankiness that wasn't quite unhealthy looking--yet. Some of the laborers there were quite pitiful to behold, like scrawny chickens. Those were the ones who had more than Sixteen Months under their belts. SG-1 would not be staying quite that long, if all went according to plan. Sam's social connections and their leftover MREs had managed to supply them with more than sufficient food. The regular workers were fed a fair supply, so things weren't too stingy around here-- but time did take its toll, on everyone.

Both men were deeply bronzed, nearly from head to toe. P3X-4Y1's sun stimulated the tanning response in Tauri skin very easily. Fortunately it was somewhat less damaging than Earth's own sun, emitting less rays in the UV spectrum.  "It's much more likely these people die from exhaustion, not cancer," Sam had concluded cheerily. Jack had just rolled his eyes at that. Their hair was also getting pretty scruffy, and trying to keep stubble down was a constant task-- the laborers possessed crude cutting tools but they were far from efficient. 

"Hey," Jack murmured, giving Daniel a curious look. The archeologist blinked out of his daze and realized he had been watching Jack for a while when he drifted off into thought.

"What're you lookin' at?"

He said it with convincing aggression, but the small smile tugging at his lips belayed the humor behind it, and his dark eyes sparkled from the reflection of the river.

"I was just thinking how much different we look now."

His brow quirked at that, as if not understanding, and Daniel made a small gesture to the both of them.

"You know, our physique."

"Ooh. Yeah, you noticed that, huh?"

Jack flexed his own muscles experimentally, scrutinizing the improvement.

"Guess there's a few advantages to this fun ol' vacation of ours," he mused wryly.

"It's not just us. Sam's starting to look like a bodybuilder, I swear. And if it's even possible, Teal'c's gotten even . . . heavier."

Jack shook his head amusedly,

"I can't wait to see the look on Hammond's face when we march through the gate. He'll probably want to send every new SG team here for training."

They both laughed at that, and spent some time diving underwater and exploring the bottom of the river. After wearing themselves out, they floated lazily along the top of the water, staring straight up at the blue sky in silence, soaking in the pure peacefulness. The sensation of weightlessness was intoxicating, and an extremely welcome change of pace from the near constant motion and strain from the Labor Fields. It was such a sudden, delicious change, and they had been looking forward to it for so long, that Daniel quivered with the raw power of the sensation. A word filtered through his peaceful head, one that he shaped quietly in his mouth and decided fit the moment with perfect precision. Rapture. Floating here in their Eden was simply . . . rapture.

"Daniel?"

Jack's voice floated above his head from somewhere nearby, sounding slightly garbled with the river water dipping in and out of his ears. Daniel shivered as he heard it. Jack's voice always seemed to drop an entire octave when he was utterly relaxed. The name was heavy and gravely.

"Hmm?"

Daniel replied in a voice that sounded nearly as sedated as Jack's. The other man took his time in responding again, speaking with a slow dreaminess.

"If you look completely up . . . just see nothing but the sky. It looks just like home."

Once his words had registered in Daniel's brain, he noted it was true. The blue sky could just have easily been Earth. For all he knew, at the moment, it was.

"When you see nothing else, it's so easy to just pretend . . ." Jack said, drifting off, his last word tapering off into a satisfied rumble. Daniel didn't say anything in reply, but he mumbled in happy agreement.

Later on, they climbed their favorite tree to string out their lanky, tanned bodies to air-dry in the sun. The second Free Day SG-1 had experienced on P3X-4Y1, Jack had declared his plans during dinner the night before.

"I'm going to spend the entire day tomorrow, all twenty-four precious hours, stark raving naked."

Remembering their trip last time to the secret bathing spot, Daniel had quickly and enthusiastically agreed. Getting a very raised eyebrow from Teal'c and that funny sort of cross-eyed-half-smile thing Sam did, and then a slightly suggestive grin from Jack, he realized they hadn't yet told the rest of the team much about their first Free Day. Clearing his throat and feeling his face heat up, Daniel stiltedly explained to Sam and Teal'c about the riverside.

That last time they ended up compromising, putting their boxers back on when they climbed the tree. They were a bit worried about it being . . . uncomfortable to try and attempt in the total nude. Today, on their third Free Day, they dared to bare it all, feeling their hides had probably become thick enough by now with all their damn work to be able to handle the tree-climbing. Daniel was pleasantly surprised to find their guess turned out to be correct. They both found comfortable niches in the broad, thick branches of the alien tree, and tucked themselves in very prone, but comfortable positions. And shut their eyes as they let the sun work its magic on their skin. For most of the month, they cursed the sun, a cruel enemy to them and their labor. But for one day, it was their ally, after a freezing and extended dip in the river, to sunbathe in its healing warmth. Suspended in the air above ground, eyes closed, Daniel felt strangely whole, complete up here. As if he had been missing something all month and could only get it here.

The bark was smooth, incredibly smooth, like the wood was polished. The leaves were light green and oddly shaped, triangular and definitely alien, and rustled gently in the breeze. Extending an elegant, sculpted arm, Daniel reached out and wrapped his fingers around a bright red globe suspended in the space in front of him, and slowly pulled it off the tree. It gave way with a quick snap and he reveled over his prize, a round, bright red fruit. They had discovered this was a fruit tree the last time they were here. Oddly, the fruit was remarkably similar to a pomegranate, so similar that Daniel would have sworn it was the same exact thing, if not for the strangely shaped leaves.

Daniel let his nails sink into the soft outer-skin, breathing in its scent. Fresh fruit certainly was a rare commodity on this planet, one to be savored by every morsel. He bit into the fruit and began to peel away at it, letting chunks of the outer pulp drop to the ground below. Deep red juice began to seep through the marks he was making, and dribbled down his fingers as he freed the edible fruit within. He reached the cache of bright red seeds and dug out a few of them, examining them with fascination in the sunlight. He remembered chewing on pomegranate seeds until he was sick to his stomach as a boy, never tiring of their bittersweet flavor. He moistened his lips, inhaling the scent, and then leaned his head back against the tree, dropping the red seeds into his mouth. Pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he savored the feeling of the tender morsels popping and releasing their juice.

After draining the seeds of every last drop of juice he casually spit them out over his shoulder, watching them drop below with a silly grin. Then he dug into the fruit again, bringing out a messy handful of maroon, and leaning back again to try and drop all of them into his mouth at once. He only half-succeeded, the rest slipping by and dropping all over his naked body, leaving trails of red juice in their wake. He gave a slight jerk of surprise as the cold seeds hit his skin, and then relaxed back into his perch, chewing with slow satisfaction. His eyes slipped shut as his throat bobbed, swallowing the fresh nectar.

Something made him open his eyes then and slowly cast his vision downward. As he caught sight of Jack he realized what had caught his attention-- the feeling of being watched. He froze in mid-chew as his eyes found Jack's face. The older man was lounging a few branches below, in clear sight. He obviously had been watching Daniel for some time, and it was the look in his eyes that made Daniel stop cold. His expression was fairly neutral, but he had a positively predatory gleam in his darkened eyes. There was no mistaking it. Usually Daniel had the hardest time reading any of Jack's expressions or moods. He figured it was all that damn Black Ops training that did it. But there Jack was, unabashedly eyeing him up like he was a pomegranate himself, and he couldn't suppress a shiver as the man's gaze raked across his body and met with his own eyes. He swallowed, biting down hard on the seeds still in his mouth. He looked so . . . hungry.

"Jack," Daniel tried, although his name came out sounding like a croak. He coughed and spat out the seeds and tried again.

"Can I help you?"

He felt pretty proud of how normal that came out. There was a moment where it was obvious Jack had no idea what Daniel just said. He blinked, and the look of hunger was gone, replaced with confusion.

"What?"

Daniel had to smile a little at the clueless response, but now he was second-guessing what he had seen. He ventured,

"Enjoying the view?"

When that registered, the older man slowly smiled.

"For some odd reason I was remembering those Greek statues I've seen pictures of."

In his subdued state, it also took Daniel a moment to process that, and when he did, he wasn't sure whether to blush furiously or laugh. The look Jack was giving him was sort of a wolfish smile, looking half-sarcastic and half-serious. Daniel's laughter sounded decidedly nervous, but Jack laughed along with him. When they finally petered out, breathing heavy from the simple effort, Daniel realized it didn't really seem to clear the air of tension. Before he could change his mind, he made himself ask,

"What was that?"

"What was what?" Jack replied innocently, blinking up at him.

Normally he'd find his ambivalent answers infuriating, but for some reason they were terribly amusing right now. He popped a few seeds in his mouth, and turned to spit them out at Jack. The man yelped as they just barely missed him.

"Watch it, Daniel, you're gonna make me fall outta the tree!"

"That wouldn't bother me too much," he answered blandly, and shot again, this time with more precision.

"It will when I crack my head open on the-- hey, cut it out!"

After pelting Jack with soggy seeds until he begged for a truce, they had somehow gotten into an involved conversation about all the new skills they were picking up on this planet, and how they could be put to good use back at home. They never once stopped to question the fact that they'd get home. It was something they had just come to know as true after the first couple of weeks. They never doubted since then, and kept each other from ever thinking otherwise.

When talk fell quiet they resigned themselves to feasting on every fruit within their reach, the plan being to eat until they couldn't walk and then sleep it off here until morning. Fortunately their Overseers weren't strict on one thing and one thing alone-- Free Days, and they allowed people to be a bit late when drifting back to communal camp.

Daniel was working on-- what?-- his fifth or sixth fruit, when a memory floated through his mind.

"Several cultures, including the Egyptians, have considered the pomegranate an aphrodisiac," he remembered out loud. Jack looked up at him, his face buried in a half-eaten fruit. And stared.

"What?" Daniel flinched under his friend's stare, feeling a bit self-conscious.

A drip of red slowly dropped off Jack's nose.

"Are you trying to suggest something here?"

Daniel found himself smiling, even though the stare was still making him uncomfortable.

"Just thinking out loud."

Jack got an amused look and went back to his sloppy style of fruit-eating, which entailed just biting the pomegranate like an apple, chewing up the mouthful of seeds and spitting them out in a huge wad.

"So if I've had, like, ten of these . . ." Jack said, pausing to do a mental count,

". . . what's that mean?"

Daniel raised his brows and blinked, unsure if that was rhetorical.  "Ah . . ."

"That I should be very, very horny? "

"I guess. It's just a-a myth, they're not always completely accurate."

Jack stopped to look at his pomegranate seriously. He muttered,

"Well it certainly would explain a few things."

Daniel frowned when he didn't say anything more after that, just went back to eating.

"Uh. Like what?"

Jack looked up again.

"Hm? "

"You, uh, said-- explain what?"

Jack looked momentarily surprised, as if he hadn't realized he had spoken out loud.

"Oh. I dunno. Just thinking out loud."

Ten or Twelve Pomegranates Later .  .  .

Daniel groaned as he leaned back further in his perch.

"I second that," Jack mumbled from below.

"I don't think I'll be able to move for a week."

Jack stretched luxuriously on his back, craning his neck to see green leaves.

"Two weeks tops. We'll get there eventually."

Giddy laughter--God, where they giggling? Grown men, reduced to this? Shameful, really. At the back of his mind somewhere, Daniel wondered if the alien pomegranates really did have some sort of drug-like chemicals in them.

"I feel like I've taken all leave of my senses," he drawled happily, and Jack mumbled thickly to agree.

"Total looney-bins."

The breeze tickled his skin, and Daniel sighed in rich contentment, feeling like a babe in a cradle, drunk on the nectar of mother Earth, naked, clean, quiet, and sleepy. And clearly delirious, as his mind seemed to be waxing poetic.

"I feel like Adam," he revised in a moment of inspiration, and Jack laughed at that, clearly liking that one.

"Adam in the garden of Eden?"

"Yeah, " Daniel agreed, and they giggled at the idea.

"But what about me? I'm not playing no Eve," Jack protested lazily. Daniel shook his head.

"It's just Adam and Adam."

The Colonel wore a confused frown, trying to wrap his brain around that.

"How would that work?"

Daniel gave a snort and pushed a fruit husk off his branch with a foot, letting it drop below,

"You tell me."

Jack grinned in response and mulled that one over. He spoke in a booming voice as if reciting famous poetry,

"Adam and Adam, sitting in a tree. Drunk on the fruit of immortality. What eternal hand or eye could frame thy handsome symmetry?"

Daniel laughed wheezily at that,

"Right, I think you just plagiarized three different things there, but you got the idea."

"Paaaaradise," Jack purred. Daniel agreed,

"Lappin' up the luxuries of paradise."

Jack nodded vigorously and rhapsodized,

"The perfect existence. Nothing to distract them from the essentials of life."

"But what are the essentials of life . . . ?" Daniel wondered philosophically. Jack replied automatically,

"Eat, drink, sleep, make love, repeat."

Daniel smiled loopily,

"There's a certain eloquence to that simplicity."

"You're damn right there is."

"We should do a-- a, oh, hang on," Daniel trailed off, watching the fruit he reached for bounce off a branch and fall to the ground. He twisted around a bit, trying to see if there were any more in reach at all. They had done a fairly good job cleaning out the tree's supply, though.

"Yo, " Jack warned shortly before tossing one of the fruits directly up. Daniel promptly snatched it out of the air in front of him.

"Thanks. Ok, here we go. A toast!"

"Here, here!" Jack raised a mostly-eaten fruit. Daniel raised his, trying not to slip too much on his branch.

"To all the missions gone horribly wrong."

"That would be every one of them, you realize."

"To endentured-slave-based economies!"

"Gotta love em'! "

"To Free Day!"

"God bless em'!" Jack cheered, wobbling dangerously on his perch.

"To Jack's five axioms of life!"

"Hell yes!"

"To--"

"Ah, wait, wait, I got one, hold on," Jack said, steadying himself on the tree, before bellowing at the top of his lungs,

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow I may die!"

~~~~~~~~~~