“Coming, Jack?”

Jack stretched lazily on the lakeshore, letting his eyes travel across the dock to rest upon the lean form of his lover and best friend. God, Daniel looked so good like that! The sun was burnishing gold highlights on his hair and skin that seemed to make him glow like one of the more athletic and sexy statues they’d seen at the museums Jack let Daniel drag him to.

Daniel stretched in preparation for diving into the lake, flexing lean muscle in subtle grace, totally unaware of the power he possessed over his lover.

Jack sighed in sudden need; Daniel was, without question, perfect.

Perfect for me. No goddamn statue ever got me hard by just standing there…’ he thought, half moaning under his breath.

Daniel’s eyes smoldered an invitation Jack could have read at any distance, his body turned just enough to let the ring hanging from a silver chain around his neck gleam against the tan skin.

‘My ring,’ Jack thought with a satisfied sigh.

The ring was a duplicate of the one Jack could feel resting against his own chest even now. They had committed themselves to one another less than a month before, and had exchanged rings and private - and deeply personal - vows during a glorious week of leave spent on a private beach in the Bahamas.

Though they could not wear the rings openly, Daniel had bought the thin silver chains to - as he put it while adorably and mushily tipsy under the influence of fine champagne - “keep them close to our hearts.”

Jack smiled at the memory, his hand reaching automatically to caress the comfortable weight of the ring, indulging in the memories of the incredibly vivid sex that had followed. The memory of that night pulsed from his brain straight to his cock, causing him to shift a little in the deck lounger.

“Coming, Jack?” The words were softer this time, with a distinctly sexy undercurrent.

“Not now, but working on it,” Jack growled in return, indicating his now obvious state of arousal.

Daniel’s smiled widened as he took two deliberate steps back toward the deck chair. “Little hot there, Jack?”

Jack could only nod as his breath quickened in anticipation. Daniel’s smile quirked at one corner, and Jack knew immediately he was in trouble, moaning in frustration as Daniel moved to dive neatly off the side of the dock, hitting the water with a calculated splash that drenched Jack’s t-shirt and swim trunks, effectively dousing his erection better than any cold shower. Daniel stroked away from the dock with something sounding suspiciously like a giggle and disappeared under the water.

“Damn...” Jack muttered, knowing he wasn’t really angry at all. Early on in their journey from good friends to lovers, Jack had sensed Daniel’s hesitance to do anything to stress their growing bond. A definite fringe benefit of the knowledge had been Daniel’s gradual slide toward getting in touch with his more playful erotic side under Jack’s careful and loving tutelage. Daniel’s cutting wit had kept Jack on his toes almost from the moment they had met, but Jack had never guessed at the other facets of Daniel existing beneath the surface that he was still discovering daily.

Jack strained his eyes watching for his lover’s head to emerge in a ripple of glittering droplets when he came up for air. Jack loved watching that. Hell, he loved watching Daniel. Period.

‘Next best thing to being there,’ Jack kidded to himself, eyes still moving over the surface of the water.

It was taking too long.

Daniel was an excellent swimmer, but…

“Daniel?” Jack hesitated a moment, sure he was overreacting and Daniel would emerge any moment. His hands strayed to the ring, seeking reassurance in everything it stood for. “Damn it…”

The urge to move, the clear certainty that something wasn’t right, propelled Jack up and toward the end of the dock without another thought. With a deep breath, Jack slipped under the surface and scanned the murky water.

Nothing, nothing, nothing…

Stroking quickly toward the place where he’d last seen Daniel, Jack was aware of unnamed fears pressing against his chest as tightly as the breath in his lungs and his wildly beating heart. It had taken him too long to find this thing with Daniel - the incredible, amazing thing that had made him happier than he’d ever hoped to be again. Daniel had to be all right.

He had to be.

His lungs were protesting, urging him back to the surface and still Jack searched, afraid to leave…afraid to be too late again….

There!

A glitter of something…metallic…

Daniel?

Oh, shit...

Jack drove himself downward, ignoring the burning in his chest. It was Daniel, pulling feebly at a tangled fishing net now thoroughly wrapped around his ankles. Jack placed a steadying hand on Daniel’s back, letting him know help had arrived. No response. Jack grabbed Daniel’s face, forcing the panicked eyes up to meet his own.

‘I’m here...’

With a blink, Daniel nodded, confirming awareness.

Reaching down to jerk at the net, Jack wondered if he had just lied to his lover; the net seemed almost alive in its determination to hold Daniel there until he could no longer resist…

‘God damn it…’

Fighting down panic that burned far worse than the lack of oxygen, Jack followed the nylon webbing with his hands, reaching into the mud of the lakebed to seek the source of this threat to his lover. Daniel was growing weaker, his movements less focused. Jack felt a touch on his shoulder moving up into his hair… gentle…final…

No!

With a last desperate pull the netting shredded away from whatever held it beneath the mud, releasing its prisoner into Jack’s hands. Not questioning the gift, Jack propelled them both upward toward the sunlit surface. He knew logically it hadn’t been nearly so long as it felt, just as he knew the surface that seemed so far away at this moment was not nearly so far as it seemed, but....

‘It’s not over yet....’

Within a few feet of the surface, Daniel’s body spasmed once, twice as his lungs forced the issue of whether to breathe or not…a warning…and Jack kicked desperately to launch them upward and out.

They broke the surface together, gasping for air.

Jack kept one arm around Daniel’s chest, kicking toward the shore until he could feel soft mud beneath his feet, could finally stand and take Daniel into his arms. As he coughed and wheezed against the pressure on lungs so nearly taxed to their limits, Jack let his grip tighten even more as the realization sunk in…

So close…so close…so close….

Daniel’s arms came up weakly and settled against Jack’s chest, head dropping to rest on his shoulder as adrenaline seeped away, leaving only trembling shudders in its place.

“God…” The word was a came out on a choking cough, yet Jack didn’t need a translation of all the things it meant.

All the dangers of the worlds beyond the Stargate, four years worth, had never brought this sort of relief, this all-powerful knowing that his world rested within his arms, quivering with cold and reaction. Jack let his head bow to rest against Daniel’s hair, whispering words of love and security and heartfelt thanks for the silver ring pulsating in time with Daniel’s rapid heartbeat. One spark of silver in the depths of the lake, a sign of commitment that had itself become a sign of salvation.

“Yeah,” Jack whispered. “Thank God…”

…………………

Daniel was still shivering as Jack drew him the final distance to the shore, the net hampering his uncoordinated efforts to help. Once on dry ground, Jack finally freed Daniel from the remains of the nylon webbing. Throughout the process, shaky breathing from both of them punctuated small attempts to talk; words were offered and withdrawn as both realized there were no words sufficient to express everything they felt, wanted, knew after coming so close to losing one another.

What they had known it from the beginning.

From the moment Jack, Teal’c and Carter had returned from P3X 234 after blowing the Asgard ship when the spark had arced fully, making a core connection that nearly ignited them right there in the gate room. It had been next to impossible to wait, not to touch, not to let everything they felt escape from their eyes and aching hearts to overwhelm the entire mountain.

As Jack led Daniel to the cabin, he remembered making a dumb joke there on the ramp, looking away quickly to hide the truth he was certain flashed across his forehead in big neon letters - ‘I want to fuck my best friend, excuse me while I lust...’

Jack remembered Daniel looking pale and exhausted, and just about as beautiful as anything he could remember in his life.

Nine days had been a long time to think and ponder, not Jack’s favorite pastime, but there’d been precious little else to do except listen to Carter theorize on Replicators and watch Teal’c’s chin erupt with that weird looking goatee. They’d left Daniel in the infirmary, just recovering from appendix surgery. They didn’t even know if they had succeeded in destroying the techno bugs, whether the battle was continuing on Earth as they sat on their backsides - thinking.

Jack remembered thinking. A lot. Of Daniel. Of his absence from among them, where he belonged...and by Jack’s side, where Daniel also belonged. That thought had sparked others, and still more, until Jack had woken up in the middle of the fifth night knowing exactly what it all meant. He loved Daniel; convention be damned, he was in love with his best friend.

And it felt good.

Like Daniel felt leaning against him right now. Good, right, real, his.

Bending quickly to kiss the top of Daniel’s bowed head, Jack guided them through the door and straight to the bathroom. Daniel needed warming up, and they both needed to wash away the stench of too close a call.

While hanging onto the younger man with one hand, Jack turned the shower on then pulled them both inside the stall, unwilling - unable - to let Daniel go. As the warm water streamed over them, Jack just held on, stroking Daniel’s back in comforting strokes, whispering nonsensical words of comfort to his lover while the heat slowly penetrated the numbing chill of their bodies and minds. As the shivering slowed and Daniel leaned further into Jack’s embrace, the shuddering rush of his own panic finally seeped away.

Daniel was here, now, safe….

Jack leaned down to kiss the head buried in his shoulder; knowing Daniel had to be too exhausted to move. But he did move. Up to meet Jack’s lips, pressing into the gesture with almost frantic need and Jack sank into it with equal enthusiasm. They both knew how nearly this - this amazing feeling - had been wrenched from them by a two-dollar net and an accident of nature.

“Oh, God…”

Daniel sank back against the wall with a gasp, hands pushing Jack’s wet swim trunks down and away before pulling him close again, shuddering now with the force of his passion. Jack gasped at the feeling of Daniel’s cold swim trunks against his own stirring cock. The delicious mix of heat and cold combined with Daniel’s roving hands and nearly sobbing kisses came tenuously close to sending him over the edge. Sliding his hands down between their bodies, Jack drew Daniel’s trunks off carefully, hands lovingly stroking the erection he revealed.

So good…so close…so hot…so dear…

A wave of love fought down the desperation of near loss and Jack drew the slippery, squirming mass of heat otherwise known as Daniel Jackson into a searing kiss. Daniel’s body pulsed, his hips pumping into Jack’s groin in an erotic dance of sensation. Once, twice…Jack deepened the kiss, hands roving down to pull the lean muscled body even closer into a rhythm both knew as familiarly as breathing…

With a moaning gasp, Daniel came, arching his back and driving into Jack’s groin just so, his features shaping into the expression of joyous surprise that never failed to sear itself onto Jack’s heart…and Jack came as much on the strength of that look as the blessed friction of sensitized skin.

They stood there a long moment, letting the now-tepid water cascade over them unnoticed as gravity returned them to reality and with it came the need to lie down before they fell down.

“Hey…” Jack barely whispered into Daniel’s damp hair against his chest.

Blue eyes looked up in sated exhausted. “Hey…”

With a grin, Jack pulled gently on Daniel’s arm to encourage him to move out of the shower. “Let’s go to bed.”

With a small smile, Daniel’s tongue lingered over Jack’s heart, over the ring, just a moment before he moved to follow. “Yeah.”

……………

Jack dreamed of water and fire, and Daniel falling away out of his grasp….

The hopelessness of seeing Daniel die again and again through waking dreams of loss and failure. Nem had played the scenario of fire too well in Jack’s head, and it had taken root in guilt Jack had thought long dead, reviving it a hundredfold and sparking the first inklings of the connection Jack had only begun to realize was deeper than simple friendship. The ground had opened up and swallowed Daniel away in a burst of flame and terror, and Jack could only stand and watch. Unable, ever again, to touch the man he loved...

Waking with a start, Jack felt the warm, still slightly damp weight of Daniel’s head on his chest. Daniel was here and okay…hell, more than okay…and wrapped around Jack’s body like a blanket of warmth and love. Jack had the vague image of Linus - himself - dragging around a Daniel-shaped security blanket and had to stop himself from laughing; he didn’t want to wake Daniel.

Reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp, Jack just watched his lover sleep. Daniel’s slack face lay quiescent on Jack’s chest, tilted slightly upward as if he was still trying to keep watch over his lover even behind his closed, flickering eyelids. Jack could only hope Daniel’s dreams were better than his own.

The day had started like this - with him watching Daniel. Who could have known how close Jack would come to losing the simple pleasure of the view now spread out across his body. The utter simplicity of knowing they were where they belonged. He could not begin to imagine his life without Daniel in it. He didn’t want to.

Dropping a kiss onto Daniel’s forehead, Jack did laugh as his lover responded even from the depths of exhausted sleep, nuzzling at Jack’s chest hair and dropping a kiss there before settling back again. They were so in tune to one another it was frightening sometimes. Jack leaned down to brush his lips on the Daniel’s hair, the smell of lake water still clinging to the strands despite the long shower. God, it was so frightening to think of losing the incredible pleasure of the precious soul and body so warm, so alive against him...

Jack sighed deeply against the moan of despair threatening to bubble up and outward.

A touch on his cheek drew him from his thoughts and he looked down to meet Daniel’s concerned gaze. Daniel’s eyes were always more eloquent than his words. Oh yeah, he knew what Jack was feeling… shared it, embraced it, promised it…

Shifting down a bit, Jack kissed Daniel again letting the action seal the promise, stirring the passion that never strayed far from the surface for either of them. As Daniel’s warm tongue moved up and into his mouth - stroking along the length in an erotic promise of another sort - Jack laughed and felt Daniel’s answering snicker as he withdrew and began to lick and nip a trail of fire down Jack’s neck and chest then lower still…

Jack knew he should protest...knew Daniel still had to be too tired to reassure an old colonel - but, damn, he needed this. And from the almost desperate moans emanating from the area of his abdomen as the warm wetness lapped its way further down, Daniel needed it too. Jack watched as the full lips pounced and engulfed his almost painful erection and sank down its length without hesitation.

“Damn!”

Jack couldn’t help the thrust upward as his shocked nerve endings reacted to the sudden wet heat. Daniel’s lips curled around his cock, smiling at Jack’s reaction before doing something with his tongue that had to be illegal in the contiguous forty-eight states and probably Alaska - something that drove Jack closer and closer to the edge…

“Daniel…?”

Jack’s arms begged the question he couldn’t find the words for and Daniel’s lips slid away from him gently in answer to the silent plea. Daniel licked a return path upward, ending the journey by taking Jack’s lips in a long kiss before settling his weight between Jack’s legs. With the ease of familiarity Jack swore never to take for granted, they moved together until they were in perfect alignment. Daniel’s slow movement rocked them both, sliding their wet cocks together in insistent need, pressure returned for pressure given. Pushing upward in urgent counterpoint, Jack kneaded the strong muscles of Daniel’s back before sliding his hands down to grasp Daniel’s firm ass to pull him impossibly closer.

Jack wanted to make it last - knew it wasn’t going to happen, not this time - sought Daniel’s lips again as he felt release building to the level of exquisite torture before finally exploding between them…

“Daniel…” The day’s tension slid away on the breath of the precious name.

In that instant, two dear syllables embodying everything right in his life, Jack knew worrying over what might be or might have been was a futile waste of the ‘now’ they did have. Both of them knew from too much hard experience that ‘now’ was the only guarantee in life. Nothing else mattered; just this ‘now’ and all the other ‘nows’ that would come their way in the future.

Looking down at the rings, tangled together on his chest beside Daniel’s sleepily nuzzling nose, Jack grinned. The rings, the love, the ‘now’. That’s what they had to hold on to…that and each other…for as long as they could…

*fin*