Water: Companion to Fire

by JayEm

Daniel dreamed of flowing tides, of waves breaking with an almost hypnotic shush in the distance…and of his lover's eyes as they stared out to sea. The wind tousled the silvering hair, the sun just bright enough to give it shimmering life…and to cause the miniscule squint Daniel was sure approached perfection on the smolder scale…

A shadow fell over Jack then and Daniel reached out instinctively for his lover's hand…protecting and protected…loving and loved…

The shadows grew deeper, darker and Daniel squeezed the hand he held, pulling himself…

Awake.

Awake in their bed with the sunlight streaming through the blinds and Jack…Jack with his face turned away brushing at the overflow glittering on his cheek. Daniel felt a flood of emotion as Jack looked up, eyes unguarded and so full of love Daniel had to hold his breath against the tidal force of it. It was mesmerizing and almost frightening…but Daniel wanted it…so badly his heart ached with the sheer need. He felt it was somehow appropriate to them for their love to be as powerful and demanding as their physical connection…but somehow, strangely, fragile in…so many ways…

Neither of them had much reason to hold faith in permanence… life had driven that hard lesson home to them repeatedly… but at this single, fluid moment in time Jack's eyes held the promise of faith… faith in what they were, in *who* they were…together. It was at once a daunting yet simple promise to accept…and Daniel answered without words, with a gesture eons old in the language of lovers…a promise of the heart.

Jack was becoming very adept at languages.

Daniel moved swiftly to taste the salty sweetness of Jack's tears, a communion of spirit and desire, then moved to lips now parted in surprise…seeking to spark the flame in Jack's eyes…

Jack moved forward and engulfed Daniel, seeking unity…reassurance…release….

Daniel smiled against his lover's lips, feeling an answering joy. He had to close his eyes against the perfection of the moment, the realization that here, now…Jack…was all of his world. The only world Daniel wanted; the only world in the rapidly expanding universe that mattered. He looked up at Jack then, telling him in that other language only the two of them shared how much he was wanted, needed, loved…

Daniel could almost see the charcoal brown ignite into the searing fire of things too real for words as they moved together with an almost desperate passion. Their bodies knew each other so well; there was no hesitation, no fumbling…they were as attuned to one another in this as in so many other things, it was like coming home…but now it seemed a home subtly changed, familiar in so many ways yet somehow grown impossibly larger…

Daniel met Jack's rhythm perfectly, riding the tide of emotion… need… completion as it crashed upon them, carrying away all the doubt and fear in the undertow as they clung to the anchor of their love…

For a long time there was silence…only the settling rhythms of their breathing, the rushing pulse of blood remembering how to flow …

Jack's head rested on Daniel's chest, trembling still …holding tightly to him as if afraid to break the spell. But Daniel knew…as surely as he knew every grey hair on the head he stroked so gently…this was no spell, there was nothing of storybook magic or fantasy about it.

This was real.

Maneuvering Jack's chin upward, Daniel spoke of all those things…and so much more…in the space of a glance. Smiling as the message was visibly received and accepted. Jack's head turned and he squinted ever so slightly in the sunlight. Daniel's smile grew wider as he felt the tide rushing in once again, coming to take him home…

*fin*