These Days

Rating: R

A/N: this is my new fic everyone!!! It's a little different to the other stuff I've written but essentially the same. Lol, does that make any sense? I hope so. The song is based on a song by an Australian rock band called Powderfinger.

" It's coming round again / the slowly creeping hand / of time and it's command

Soon enough it comes / and settles in it's place / it's shadow in my face

Put's pressure in my day.

This life well it's slipping right through my hands

These days turned out nothing like I had planned."

Like it or loathe it,

ENJOY!!


The music was screaming in his ear. The last four Beam's he downed were thumping in his temples. This was the life he missed, the life he thought he had forgotten about and the life he thought he no longer craved.

Hot, sticky, gorgeous men all dancing to the same beat, like a wave, pulsing through the room. Roaming hands, wandering minds and grinding bodies, all stacked up against each other, silently begging for the release they felt they needed from the gifted hands of a stranger.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Jack felt a hand on his ass and he turned around and smiled at the Greek god looking up and down his body. Jack's eyes met that of the shirtless wonder; trailing his hand up and down Jack's perfectly toned arm muscle.

"Sure," Jack purred and turned around to wrap an arm around the waist of his admirer. The guy lent forward to the barman.

"Two Cosmo's," he called out over the thumpa-thumpa of the club beats. He turned to Jack. "I haven't see you around here before."

Jack laughed as he picked up his drink from the bar. "That must be a first around here. I don't imagine you'd see much amongst the occasionally flashing neon lights and dark corners."

The guy smiled widely and finished his drink off, placing it on the counter behind Jack. Jack followed suit and threw back the Cosmo. He winced as the feeling of alcohol slid down his throat, burning as it did so.

"Do you dance?" the man was breathing into Jack's ear. The hot breath stopped his heart as memories from the heat of spring break during his college years came flooding back. He closed his eyes as the feeling of lust crept into his mind. The guy had picked him. Jack traced the contours of the man's chest down to his belly button, then suddenly looked up.

"Only when my boyfriend's out of town," he replied mischievously, inside, screaming at himself. He hadn't really said that had he? He felt a inquisitivehand creep under the back of his t-shirt and explore the broad shoulders, the tight muscles spanning the back of his torso. "And is he?" the man whispered, gently grazing Jack's ear.

"I wouldn't be here if he wasn't."

Jack flung his arms around the man as they swung their hips to the pounding rhythm intoxicating all the leather-hipped boys around them, melting in a sea of eternal youth. Their lips connected in frenzied passionexploring, desperate, lustful kisses. Their tongues greeted one another and pressed forward urgentlyas if unearthing the answers to the universe inside each other's mouthsJack pulled back to catch his breath 'and the stranger suggested, with a tilt of his head, that they take their passion to the back room

Jack let himself be led through the teeming ocean of men. The back room was squashy and steaming hot, the sweat and smell of sex radiating off the bodies surrounding them. Jack suddenly felt disorientated as he was pushed hard against the cold stonewall, his head banging painfully backwards as the man tore at his clothes, prying them away from his body.

Jack gasped for breath as he twisted his lips out of the hot mouth that they had been sucked into. He pressed his left hand to the guy's shoulder and breathing deeply, managed to gasp out,

"Do you have a condom?"


"I'm home!" Jack called out, throwing open the front door of his home. It was a single story house with a large veranda surrounding the exterior. The house was relatively small, but it wasn't as if his family needed anything larger. He remembered when he and Doug had looked at it with a realtor and fell in love with it instantly. The simple lines and modern features made it a perfect place to live on the coast and the perfect house to raise their daughter.The sound of small feet come pounding from the back of the house and Jack dropped his bags as Amy came running toward him and leapt into his waiting arms.

"Oh, I missed you," he said in a low voice, breathing in the strawberry smell of his blonde angel. He pushed her back to look at her from afar. "Have you grown since I last saw you?" he asked playfully.

She tried to push him over, "No," she said snidely. "You need glasses."

Jack scoffed. "I do not, I'm not that old." He saw the shadow of his lover leaning against the living room doorframe. "But Dougie is," he said happily. Amy laughed.

"Hey Aims, why don't you show daddy the picture you drew at school?"

"I don't like it," she protested, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's ugly."

"If it was ugly would it be on the fridge?"

Amy stomped off and Jack stood up embracing Doug tightly, running his hands over the contour of muscles in his partner's back. "Did you miss me too?" Doug asked as he pulled away from Jack slowly.

Jack looked at Doug slyly from beneath his growing hair, "What do you think?"

Doug shrugged, "Well, I don't know," he said playfully and arched an eyebrow.

Jack snaked an arm around Doug's waist and drew him close. He dipped his head and lightly sniffed the side of Doug's neck, inhaling the scent of his partner before trailing kisses up to his face and capturinghis lips in a tender kiss. Doug pressed Jack to him, his hands roaming his lover's back, gradually tightening his hold. Jack laughed softly into Doug's mouth before running his tongue over Doug's top lip. Doug suddenly pushed Jack away, turned and coughed into the sleeve of his jumper.

Jack stepped tentatively forward. "Are you OK?" He rubbed slow circles on Doug's back. Doug stopped after a while and gave Jack a weak smile.

"Yeah, I just came down with Amy's cold," he said and leaned into kiss Jack's lips one more time.

"Gross!" Amy sang out from the end of the hall.

Doug and Jack swapped glances and looked at Amy. She wrinkled her forehead and stepped closer to her dads. She held out the picture and Jack took it in his hands. "My god darling, that's wonderful," he said, beaming at the skill of their little girl. She flushed and snatched it out of his hands and danced off with it, humming to herself.

"So now she likes it," Doug said and coughed again. Jack moved into his lover's arms and enjoyed the feeling of warmth when the weather outside was starting to cool down. "Let's move your stuff out of the hall."


"And Sally said that Anna isn't invited to her party, and, and, because she gives crap presents—"

"Amy don't say crap," Doug scolded to no response on Amy's behalf.

"--And that I aren't allowed to invite Anna to my party because—"

"That I am not," Doug corrected again. Amy paused for a minute then continued…

"--Because, Anna's older brother says mean stuff about you daddy so I says to Sally—"

"So I said—"

"Dougie!" Amy shrieked. "Let me finish!" she opened her mouth but seemed to lose her train of thought.

"You said to Sally…" Jack prompted

Her face lit up, "So I said to Sally 'I wont invite Anna to my party' but the other day Anna gave me her rollup because, because she said she didn't want it and, and coz she wants to be my friend, so I wanna invite Anna but I aren't allowed to because I promised Sally," Amy finished rapidly to stop Doug picking up her mistakes. Jack, who was trying to follow, smiled and chuckled to himself.

Jack turned to Doug, who couldn't help but try to surpress a smile. "Oh, the troubles of 5 year-olds."

"Daddy!" Amy said, annoyed at him laughing at her. "Don't laugh at me! Do I invite Anna or not?!"

"Amy, your birthday isn't for three months," Jack said.

"Yeah, but I gotta make the guest list soon!"

"Well, what did Dougie say?" Jack asked and looked at Doug, who smiled.

"He said, 'ask daddy'," she recited, proud of herself to have remembered.

Doug smirked and collected the plates off the table. Jack finished off his wine and sat back. "If you want to invite her, then do it. I know you promised Sally, but sometimes you can change your mind about these things."

"But that doesn't mean you break your promises Amy," Doug said from the kitchen. "Sally is trying to be mean to Anna and make you not like her because Sally doesn't like her."

"Really?" Amy said and brought her cup over to the sink.

"Yes. So you invite Anna and tell Sally to go to hell and her brother to shuv his—"

"Don't listen to daddy," Doug said and picked Amy up. "Go play for a while then we'll give you a bath."

She raced out of the kitchen and down the hall to her bedroom. Jack got up and brought the rest of the mess over to the sink.

"So, did you have fun in New York?" Doug asked as he stacked the plates up in the dishwasher.

"Not really. I hate going to bloody in-services, pain in the ass. They think we need improvement on how to teach. Honestly, you'd think the methods behind teaching were as changeable as Amy's friends."

Doug laughed and caught Jack around the waist as he was about to leave the kitchen. "Youdidn't call last night," he whispered into Jack's ear and kissed the top of it lightly.

"Yeah, I went out for drinks with some of the people there. I came home late and didn't want to ring in case I woke Amy. And plus, I didn't know if you had an early shift to cover thismorning."

Doug turned him around to face him and brushed Jack's nose with his own. He pecked his partner's lips quickly, then tapped his bum. "Go give Amy a bath while I clean up here."


SEX SCENE: if you don't like it you can skip down to dialogue after three paragraphs>

"You OK?" Doug murmured into Jack's ear as he felt his partner wince at the intrusion.

Jack nodded and swallowed hard, "I'm OK," he gasped. He gently pushed his hips up to meet Doug's, "Keep going," he whispered. Doug leaned down and captured Jack's lips in his mouth, dragging them in, sucking them, licking them, remembering exactly how they tasted. Jack moaned from the back of this throat, "I missed you," he panted as he broke the connection between their lips to fill his lungs with air.

Doug slowed his fast rhythm and slipped his hands under Jack's back, pulling his partner's body to his own. Jack's chest was heaving and he slipped his legs lower down Doug's back. Doug nuzzled Jack's neck and nipped it lightly before claiming his lips in a slow, sensual kiss, gently probing his lover's mouth with his tongue. "I missed you too," he said softly and lifted himself up over Jack again. He bent down and kissed his nose tenderlybefore he startedthrusting into him again; this time, much slower than before.

Jack closed his eyes, taken away by the euphoria induced by Doug's body against his. He felt his body tighten and he gripped Doug's shoulders. "I can't last," he whimpered, and Doug felt between them and stroked Jack's hard cock up and down, and as he came, Doug did too, collapsing on top of him. Jack groaned loudly but Doug quickly covered his mouth with his hand. "Shh, you'll wake Amy."

Jack kissed the palm of Doug's hand, who smiled, taking it away replacingit with his lips. "When was the last time we've had screaming, raunchy sex?" Jack asked and chuckled, snuggling into Doug's arms, which wrapped around him as they always did after sex.

Doug seemed to ponder this, "sometime before we got Amy?"

Jack nodded, "Yeah, something like that." He laughed and rested his head on Doug's chest and reached out for his hand, entwining their fingers. "Maybe we should work on that."

"How?"

"Take her to Sally's or Anna's for a sleep over soon…"

Doug laughed and kissed his partner's sweaty forehead, "Are you bothered by the fact that Anna's older brother said things about us?"

"Ryan?" Jack asked and raised an eyebrow. "Schmuck. He's probably just pissed off because I'm failing him. But, I don't care."

"I do."

Jack looked up at him. "Why? I thought we were over this."

"I am, we are. It's just, I still don't like people judging us, and it's just something I can't get over. Like, if you're failing a kid it's, 'oh the fucking faggot McPhee's flunked me,' or if I catch someone breaking the law it's 'the cock sucking Sheriff busted me with drugs'."

Jack frowned. "Why do you get to be the cock sucker?"

Doug sighed, sat up and walked over to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, dampened it and came back over to the bed. He sat on the edge and gently wiped Jack's cum off his chest. Jack reached up and grabbed Doug's arm. "It's been too long to let them win now Doug," he whispered. "It's Capeside. Give them another scandal…it doesn't even have to be a scandal, it just has to be different for them to ridicule."

"It's not even the talk anymore Jack," Doug said and wiped his own chest down. "It's Amy, don't you worry that she'll be taunted and teased…"

"I do, everyday when I drop her off at school. But, I remember someone who once said to me, 'being a good parent means knowing that your child is bound to fall down. You've just gotta show them how to get back up'."

Doug nodded and Jack sat up and slid over next to Doug, "And that's exactly what we'll do," he whispered and kissed the side of Doug's lips. "Come on, let's get some sleep, I'm dead tired."

Jack grabbed the towel and tossed it into the bathroom. Doug crawled over Jack's legs and into his side of the bed, switching off the bedside lamp. There was a pause and Doug twitched lightly, but Jack felt it and sighed. "Go hang the towel up."


"Jack," Principle Hocking said as he approached Jack in the staff room. Jack looked up. "Shit, you look terrible," he said, the shook his head, reminding himself why he had advanced his youngest teacher. "I spoke to Peter and he's set the standard questions for The Crucible for the entire 9th grade." He passed him a stack of papers.

Jack put his coffee down and took them, glancing up. "But what about the question's I've got my class to do?" he asked, flipping through one of the booklets.

"Just tell them it'll add to their understanding."

Jack sighed, "They're gonna kill me," he muttered and rubbed his eyes deeply. The principle sat down next to him.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

Jack opened his eyes and smile weakly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've just been really tired lately. And it doesn't help that I'm coming down with the cold that Doug got from Amy."

The principle chuckled. "The joys of having a young child," he patted Jack on the back. "If you need any time off just tell me."

"Thanks Thom". Jack took a last sip of his coffee as the bell rang, then he went to break the news to his rowdy class of freshmen.They were given to him especially; as the school felt that they would probably do better if they had a "cooler" teacher.

He flung the door open, "Stephen! Get off the desk!" he shouted. "Sit down everyone! I have some great news for you all," he said and pulled out the booklets. "More questions," he said to a collective groan. "Get used to it now people, there'll be more as you get older."

"Can't I just repeat the 9th grade for all eternity?" came a smart-arse shout from the back row. Jack stopped passing them out and looked up. "By all means, Jacob, but don't drag down the intellectuals in the class."

FUCK. Did I actually say that?

He threw the rest down on a girl's desk in the second row. "Hand them back," he snapped. The class went quiet. Jack opened his briefcase and pulled out the book. "Open to page 51, Act Two," he paused and collected his thoughts, "Ah—who wants to read the part of Elizabeth? …Emily? Thanks, and Proctor….Lucas? Thanks…"


He was walking down the corridors at lucnh to get back to the staff room when felt the same sick twist in his stomach that he had felt during his class with the seniors. He stopped to catch his breath.

"Jack?"

He turned around

"Donna," he said and straightened up that little bit he was hunching over.

"Are you alright?" she asked him and took his briefcase from him. He shook his head lightly.

"I think I'm going to have to leave. Fuck, I had to start the year 11s on the themes today."

She rubbed his back. "Come on," she said and walked with him.

They entered the staff room and he sat down, rubbing his eyes open. "Do you want a glass of water?"

"No," he muttered, "I need to ring Doug, get him to pick me up."

"I'll call him and get Thom. But I need Jenny to take over reception for a minute, can you hold on?"

Jack nodded and stood up, clambered over to his pigeonhole. He emptied its contents into his briefcase and collected his stack of marking off the table.

"Jack!" Thom called out and rushed up. "You're free to go, I've got Hilary covering your year 11s. If you could just write out what you want them to do…" he handed Jack a substitute sheet and he took it, getting a pen out of the pockets of his pants. "Get some rest," he said. "You work too hard."


"You should have told me you weren't well," Doug scolded as he brought Jack a bowl of chicken soup.

Jack was snuggled down on their couch in the living room, wrapped in his dressing gown and a blanket.

"I didn't think it would get this bad," he replied honestly, taking the steaming comfort food and smelling it. "You knew I wasn't well anyway Doug," he chuckled, "No thanks to you."

Doug shrugged and sat at the end of the couch. He picked up Jack's feet and placed them on his lap before he started to rub them gently. Jack moaned softly and sank into the couch, taking little sips of his soup."Do you like that?" Doug whispered.

Jack knew he didn't have to say anything, Doug knew the answer, but Jack also knew that Doug liked to be told what he was doing right.

"Yeah…" he purred. "It's so good…"

"Good," came Doug's response and he bent down and kissed Jack's foot. "Because I don't want you telling me how I don't treat you well…"

Jack raised an eyebrow at his lover's odd comment, and then suddenly the light dawned. He pulled his feet away and went to stand up, but Doug kept him down. "Oh, no, no, no, no," Jack said and tried to struggle out of Doug's hold without spilling the soup all over their white couch.

"Yes, yes, yes," Doug said, almost tauntingly.

Jack felt his muscles go weak and he surrendered, resigning to Doug's strength. He leaned forward and put the bowl on the coffee table and snuggled back into the couch, into Doug's embrace.

"I know you hate doctors," he said quietly, "But you need to see one."

"I know what's wrong with me," he protested feebly. "I have a cold-flu thing. We don't need to waste money on someone telling me that."

Doug sighed and kissed Jack's temple. "Love you."

"Love you."


"Waste of money," Jack grumbled.

"At least now we have a professional opinion," Jack threw Doug a sarcastic smile. "Unless you've suddenly graduated from medical school without my knowledge, I'd prefer to 'waste' money and know what's wrong with you."

"What's wrong with daddy?" Amy asked as she came wandering into the living room with her reader. "Can you read with me Dougie?"

"Sure sweatpea," he said and lifted her up on his lap and opened the Golden Book. "Daddy's got the flu."

"Really? From me?" she asked innocently enough.

"Yeah, thanks sweetheart," Jack said sardonically.

Jack was listening to Amy slowly reading the story and Doug correcting her once in a while. His eyes became heavy and the light above his head became blazingly bright.

"Doug," he said and Amy stopped reading.

"Mmm?"

"I'm going to go to bed…" he said quietly. "Can you give me a hand?"

"Sure."

He moved over to Jack on the couch and picked him up, sliding his hands under his back and under his knees. Jack smiled as Doug carried him into the bedroom and dropped him onto their waiting bed.

"Mmm…déjà vu."

Doug bent down and kissed Jack's lips softly. "Not tonight."

"I know…just…déjà vu. That's all."

Doug pulled the covers up and threw the extra blanket over his tired lover. "I'll be as quiet as I can be when I come in."

"That's OK."

"I'll be a while, maybe two hours. I need to put Amy to bed."

"OK, OK," Jack said.

"If you need anything, call out."

"You worry too much."

"Part of the job description baby," Doug whispered and bumped Jack's nose gently with his own before he captured his lover's lips in a long tender kiss.


A/N: So what do you think? Next Chapter hoping to come soon.

Rock on,

Phoenix