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Or Else No Flesh Should Live 6/6
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com
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This is how it was going to happen:
His hands were aching and wanting. Like small animals hunting, they could smell what they wanted. So one day, he was just gonna reach out and catch Daniel to him. He'd slide his fingers through that fine brown hair and watch the colors shift around Daniel's double-black-moon eyes. He wouldn't know where to start. The hallow of the shoulder? The curve of the neck? God, those lips-- maybe just at the corner, on the right, where Daniel would lick when he got anxious. But there were also those wonderful hands, the palms. He should kiss the knuckles, suck lightly, finish what he'd started earlier, or maybe....
Maybe his program would finish cycling before Daniel's, and he'd sit up on the bench, seeing that face relaxed. He'd feel that nagging fear that had borrowed under his skin back on Ernest's world; he'd worry that Daniel was dead. Perhaps he''d forget-- reach out to find a pulse, and there would be none, oh, there would be none. He'd lift Daniel gently, sort of half-cradle him, because if the thought of his death had been shattering before it would be absolutely unbearable now. He'd trace his fingers over those cheeks-- a very strange, inverse fairy tale, in which the handsome prince is enchanted and rescued for a change. Because you know, thee prince fancies that shine of distant, siren knowledge a bit too much for his own safety, sometimes. Yeah.
(Ha, ha. There's a laugh. Crazy and sappy, O'Neill. Double damned.)
But he would be the first thing Daniel saw when he woke up.
It would happen. Somehow.
But not yet.
(These things must be done delicately, my tin man. Deh-li-cately.
Singing under silver makeup-- "If I only had a heart".)
Well, you made all those Oz jokes, O'Neill. Looks like the universe heard you.
God damn.
#(#)#
When he started mentally evaluating rooms, he knew it was time. Somehow, it just clicked inside him-- if he was ready to leave the benchroom, he was ready to leave those rickety knees and stop wondering about planting azaleas. He followed the signs the way the truly un-supersticious do-- trying not to think about it too much.
He was thinking, too, about promises. About how humans make them for the span of a life time. What was a promise, in the face of eternity?
["We'll bury the gate."]
But--
Carter gave him a monitor and hardrive, along with a small keyboard the looked more like a video game controller than anything else. Teal'c showed him the corridors of empty personnel quarters, and-- not without feeling a bit like a grave robber-- Jack took blankets, pillows, a few candles and some rather unidentifiable knickknacks, arms loaded as he inched up the dusty stairway in sector eight. The room he picked had five walls-- kind of lopsided and off balance, which had appealed to him anyway. He cut his first small cup out of the block Harlan had given him, sanding it down with mesh and carving some rather pathetic attempts at patterns around the rim. When he sliced the tip of his finger off with the makeshift knife, Harlan made him a new one.
Just like that.
And it would happen.
Just like that.
#(#)#
"Do you think we have souls?" Daniel asked, voice soft as Jack stood in the threshold. The green recharge lights cast strange shadows on Daniel's face-- a contentment, but also a sorrow. Jack felt a prang of want, exotic and familiar; they saw each other everyday, and he somehow felt Daniel had missed him.
//You haven't hidden a thing from him since you got here, 'til now.//
"You're like a little kid, Daniel," Jack said with affection, "you always save the really hard questions for bedtime."
"I was waiting for you," the younger man admitted, "I couldn't sleep." But there was no such thing as _couldn't_, and Jack crossed to the bench quickly, taking Daniel's hand in his own. There was something wonderfully, vulnerably powerful in those fingers, like Daniel's eyes in the cartouche room. Look at _this_, Jack! Oh, look at _this_!
Perhaps, as Daniel burst forth from the ocean, running like an eager child through the waves... perhaps, on Nem's planet, his eyes had been saying, look at _me_.
"You've been distracted, lately," Daniel's voice was not without a slight hint of playful accusation. "What are you up to?"
"I'll show you right now," Jack said mysteriously, drawing the linguist up to stand beside him. It felt at once delicately choreographed and horribly, horribly chaotic. Walking the tightrope without a net. Dialing the gate at random.
Still holding Daniel's hand, he pulled the other man along through the rather senseless corridors. A left turn here, a right turn, and up the steps. A little farther, he kept assuring, smile sliding over his anxiety.
//High on the diving board, staring down at the black lap lines in the pool. Hold your nose. Here goes nothing.//
Daniel's palm didn't sweat where it was trapped in Jack's limber fingers-- as before, there was no race of pulse to whisper clues, to betray emotions. 'My own body must be just as still,' Jack thought, frustrated because he couldn't even swallow nervously.
"Ta-dah!" he said at last, almost pushing Daniel into the room. He held onto the younger man's arms, reminded for a moment, ridiculously, of the first time he'd had Sara over to his apartment.
"You've been scrounging," Daniel's smile was weak but genuine. "You know, Carter bet Teal'c that you'd never stop sleeping in the bench room."
"What's there around here to wager?" Jack asked lazily, ushering Daniel about to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the decorations of his White Elephant Sale life.
"I think she said something about the loser pulling duty down by the boiler room." He made a small face of pity. "Where'd you get this?" the linguist held up Jack's bowl, fingering the laborious carvings around the lip. "These are gate coordinates."
"_I_ made it," Jack said, making a sweeping bow for his ego. "Pretty bad, isn't it?"
"I think it's good," Daniel's smile was wide and bright. "I like it." And abruptly, his lips were back to their still and fine natural pout. He took a seat on Jack's wide bed, looking around with somehow reluctant approval. "You have a nice place here. I guess I should get a room of my own, huh?" Like a child unwilling to outgrow a precious ritual.
//There's your opening O'Neill. Got the strategy all planned out? Gonna ambush the kid at the pass, but he pulls a fast one on you. Just like Daniel. Say _something_-- you got words in the back of your throat, you've been choking down alla the things you've wanted to say, so say them now.
See his eyes, those damn beautiful blue baby-doll eyes? He's thinking about sleeping alone in the benchroom, you asshole.
_Say_ something.//
He coughed, to cover his confusion. "Got a present for you."
"A present?" Daniel blinked in the way he did whenever he came face to face with something unexpected.
"Yeah," Jack said naturally, shuffling around for the plain box that had been his second project. Deftly, he pulled out a small chip, squinting at the tiny symbol on it, though his eyes could make it out just fine. He sat carefully on the bed beside Daniel, aware of the scant few inches between their hips. "Close your eyes."
Daniel gave him a skeptical look, "'What do I see?' Nothing, right?"
"_No_," Jack stressed with playful annoyance, "I'm serious. Close your eyes."
"Why?"
"Just trust me, alright?"
"Alright." The younger man made a great show of fluttering his eyelids shut and sitting on the bed blindly. Expectantly, "And...?"
"And open your mouth."
"My _mouth_?"
"I thought Harlan fixed any possible hearing problems?" Daniel snorted, but cautiously opened his lips. Jack felt a smile on his face, realizing there was nothing he could do to make his lips turn down. Very gently, he touched the chip to his friend's lips, tenderly sliding it through the rest on Daniel's tongue.
"This is _coffee_!" the archaeologist burst into a silence that had stretched out immeasurably. His eyes were wide and stunned; Jack could see himself in the dark pupils. Someone had once told him that was called an 'I-Budah'; the reflection of yourself in a loved one's eyes.
//Oh, you're full of superstition now.//
"Yup," Jack fiddled with the blanket.
"It tastes like _coffee_!" Daniel insisted, trying to impress this upon the older man. "I haven't tasted coffee in...."
"Forever?" O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "You said you missed taste. I had Carter make that."
"For me?" Even if he'd had lungs, it didn't seem like Daniel would have been able to breathe anyway.
"Well, she got into it real well after I suggested it," the Colonel shrugged, "talking about chocolate and cheesecake and not gaining any weight." He reached for the tiny wooden box, perched precariously on the hard drive, shoving it into Daniel's lap. "There's chocolate and apple pie in there, too."
Blushing, Daniel peered at the chips, "How does it work?"
"You honestly think I know?" Jack managed to sound affronted. "Carter went on and on about something involving our memories of taste. I dunno. But it works, doesn't it?"
"It does," the younger man affirmed, eyes slipping closed. A type of private relish. At last, he removed the chip and, wiping it on the edge of his shirt, placed it back in the box. There was a sweet tilt to Daniel's lips, which Jack had never seen before. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." Jack wished he could take a deep breath and instead stood, pacing, nervous energy setting his metallic bones alight. Silently, the linguist watched him, his face like a man staring off into the ocean.
Softly, "I guess I'll go back to the benchroom. Let you get some sleep."
"I do think we have souls." Said so suddenly, Jack almost jumped at the sound of his voice. Biting his lip, he turned to face his friend. "I think we do, because, I mean-- I feel stuff. Emotions," he rolled his shoulders, sheepish, "you know. Anger. Fear. Nervousness."
"Jealousy," Daniel added, like the blind prophet that sees everything he's not supposed to. "Longing. Guilt."
They said together, with an almost-understanding, "Loneliness."
"Yeah," Jack moved his hands expressively, "I've felt all that. I feel like I did before-- I love hockey, adore Bach, hate Wagner, and am convinced that the Yankees have made a pact with Satan to have the luck they do. I... _am_ Jack O'Neill." He stopped, listening to the voice inside himself, screaming at Daniel to understand. "So, I do think we have souls. I think it's complicated and full of metaphysical shit and probably something you're better at thinking about than I am."
Daniel seemed to grin in spite of himself, "Yeah." He stood, as if to move to the door, before Jack put a hand on his shoulder and led him to sit again.
"Damn it, Daniel!" the older man said, frustrated, "I'm asking you to move in with me!"
Lashes hid blue eyes like fans, rapidly. "You _are_?"
"Of course I am!" The Colonel touched his hands to his temples. "I'm screwing this up. Let me start over." He climbed up, kneeling on the bed beside the linguist, taking the younger man's hands because he very desperately needed to hold onto them. "May I kiss you?"
"_What_?" Daniel was perfectly still.
//Pause. Rewind. Erase.
--But, damn it, doesn't work that way--//
"I want to kiss you," Jack stressed, "I'm asking you to move in with me because I want to keep going to sleep together like we have been the past five months. I want to talk about weird shit with you before we trigger the recharge program. I love you and I want to, you know, _show_ you." He paused, "Crap!" It was almost a squawk, as he listened to himself, "God, this is embarrassing, but it's true!" He cupped Daniel's soft cheek with a trembling hand, sure this was it, sure he would just lean in and....
"Jack," said his friend with a tone of careful calculation. There was a pause where a breath would have been, and Daniel closed his eyes. "I realize that you want to be different from the organic Jack. I know that you care about Sam, so of course you're hurt that she and Teal'c are--"
"Sam and _Teal'c_?" This time, Jack blinked. Some part of him simply said, 'hot damn'.
"--together," the archaeologist continued without listening, "and I know your options are limited... well, pretty much to me and Harlan, but..."
"Damn it!" Jack smacked a fist into his hand, startling the man beside him. "For a genius, you can be pretty thick." He rolled his eyes, "You make my head hurt, you know that?" He opened his arms in invitation, and held them open until Daniel slowly scooted next to him, allowing the contact. "Didn't anyone tell you I smashed the General's car window when I thought you were dead?"
Daniel shook his head, eyes distracted, looking for words. "Why the General's car?"
Jack huffed, "It was _there_. I woulda dragged you back from Ernest's world kicking and screaming if I had to. I beat you up when we were Touched 'cause I knew you were gonna go down and see Carter, and she'd pick you for breeding and then you'd be hers and not mine. And...." he floundered, "_stuff_. You're beautiful. I love you. Comprehenda, compadre?"
"You'd better mean that." Hesitantly, the linguist slid two gentle fingers up Jack's arm, and then to trace the curve of his ear. "If you don't mean that, I will kick your ass."
Jack said he did mean it; words Daniel felt rather than heard because the older man was pressing his lips into the archaeologist's hair. Sweetly, he nuzzled an ear, urging Daniel to lay back on the makeshift bed. He set the wooden box back where it had been resting previously.
"So you'll move in with me, right?" he nibbled carefully on Daniel's neck, then licked up the curve. "Keep me awake asking questions about 'meaning of life' stuff?"
"Yeah," there was a sheepish blush, before lips where pressed to the Colonel's temple in turn. "We'll have weird, insatiable and incredibly hot robot sex."
Jack blinked rapidly.
"Oh," Daniel waved a hand about, annoyed, "we _will_."
"_I_ know that," O'Neill considered, giving the younger man's knuckles the kissing and laving they had been so long deprived of. "But _you_ said it. I don't think I've ever heard you say the word 'sex'."
"Sex, sex, sex," Daniel tilted his head, just to be difficult. Laying down beside his best friend, Jack took the other man into his arms, harshly, with a want that was afraid to show itself but needed to be let out anyway. Jackson's grip was just as strong.
"Mine," was uttered before tongues curled around each other. "I love you so goddamn much, it's not fair," Jack buried his face in his lover's neck, "not fair at all. I'm still embarrassed."
"Love you too," Daniel said softly, so that Jack felt it ghosting along his skin. "And don't worry. So am I."
Later, Jack would hold Daniel's wrist gently, as they triggered the recharge program and slipped into a place that had rest and dreams, but was not sleep. They held each other lightly, but with an underlying strength and need they were only now coming to realize they both understood. Daniel slept curled against the other man's side; the Colonel buried his nose in his lover's hair.
Jack thought he was still awake when he felt, between his fingers, what must have been the flutter of a pulse.