to go

They meet in a large and busy bar. Outside, the sky is carrying shadows on the clouds, spitting on people down below every now and then. Jack sips at his drink, knowing he has to go easy, now that he's a big shot with an office and a secretary that isn't as cranky as Walter.

Also? He has a bottle in his second draw. Right next to the yo-yo.

When Daniel arrives, he looks the way he always looks, like he's rushing, between tasks, slightly breathless. He also looks like he's never looked before. Like maybe he's the jock twin of the guy Jack knew. The Daniel from years ago hides around a still soft looking mouth, lingering around the edges.

Jack gets up and smiles, feeling it right in his chest, that happy thing. He shakes Daniel's hand firmly as they grin at each other, embracing each other comfortably, patting each other on the back like buds.

They smile and sit at the bar, drinking their drinks, talking about the weather, talking about their mutual acquaintances without laying bare the top secret program to the barman.

It's all going fine. The pretense is perfect. They can do this now. They can sit and be friends. They can drink and talk about everything, without having to talk about anything. Jack's moved on. Daniel's moving on. Everything's okay. Nothing is broken.

Then Daniel downs his drink, swallows hard and makes a face as he looks into his empty glass, while Jack's is still half-full. Jack waits for Daniel to say something, to carry on their inane conversation and make everything be not-broken again, but he doesn't.

Daniel just looks. His eyes come up from the glass and trap Jack in their gaze. He blinks once, slow. His mouth is wet, slightly open and probably tastes like his drink. Maybe some coffee too. Bitter, but warm.

Jack scratches at the scar that splits his eyebrow, his finger rubbing back and forth as he tries to gather his thoughts. They're here because Daniel was going to be in Washington and Jack said he saw no reason why they couldn't get together and have a drink. They were friends, weren't they?

Of course, the reason why it's a spectacularly bad idea is watching him, quietly and intently. There's a moment where Jack is certain he can't see anything but bright blue, hot and cold all at once. The way ice can burn and freeze at the same time.

Jack nods to himself, laughing a little, because he's a moron. He's a solid gold moron. He downs his drinks and gets up from the stool, walking out with Daniel like maybe they're just going to a different bar. Maybe they're both going to meet their wives somewhere, so they can all have good, clean, heterosexual dinner together.

In fact, all the way to the hotel room, that's where they're going. That nice place, where their wives are waiting for them to turn up and be heterosexual, like manly man. Like Jack, in his dress blues and Daniel with a new confident walk, not like the one where the weight of the world rested on his shoulders.

Even as the door is closing, Jack is still on his way to that restaurant. The one with the good portion of straight, followed by a glass of straight and maybe some coffee and straight.

Of course, the door shuts and Jack very quickly decides he might have a small order of gay to go, because he's dropped his cover on the floor and is pulling Daniel close, kissing him right there as they stand next to the wall.

He's pushing off Daniel's expensive looking jacket, loosening his fashionable tie and unbuttoning his shirt that has a ketchup stain, which was cleverly hidden under the jacket.

Daniel helps him, shedding his clothes quickly as he backs towards the bed and Jack simultaneously drops his dress blues, forgets them behind him, letting the color fade to gray in his mind.

From a side order of gay, Jack instantly goes for the three course meal, because Daniel is naked, and he's Daniel, but he's different, and the same, he's soft, but hard, but he makes the same noises and kisses the same way and moves in the same way, slow and languid, hard and fast, cursing, kissing, touching, sliding, slipping...fuck.

This is... what is this?

Jack stares up at Daniel's flushed face, cupping it, drawing it close for a kiss. Sweaty and sticky, they lie there, stuck to each other.

Daniel rolls off a moment later and he's using the damn sheets to clean himself off, which Jack thinks is disgusting, but he's post-coital and he doesn't care right now.

"So, I see you're still working on that definition of 'just good friends'. How's that going?" Daniel asks, like he's funny. Like Jack's going to laugh.

Jack turns and looks at Daniel's raised eyebrows, his amused mouth, the bad mouth, the mouth that tricked him into this bed. Yes, Daniel's mouth is evil. This is in no way Jack's fault.

"Actually, I think it's going great. In fact, I think I've made progress," Jack says casually.

Daniel nods. "Really. Are there are other friends you're also trying not to sleep with?"

Jack shrugs. "There might be. I'm all big and important now. Everyone wants to sleep with me."

Daniel smiles and shakes his head and Jack wants to be all over him, all over again. Evil mouth. That's what it is. Maybe if he could find a way of not seeing Daniel's mouth, they could stop being friends that are trying not sleep with each other, but ending up sleeping with each other anyway. Not that there's any real sleeping going on, ever.

Daniel sighs and turns to give Jack an impatient and somewhat frustrated look. Jack can only marvel at that because in most human males, it takes a while for them to give any kind of look after they've just spent their load on some good quality sheets and good quality male.

"You know, considering we pretty much end up in the same situation whenever we meet, don't you think we should just give up on this whole trying to be just friends?"

"What's wrong with being just friends?"

"Well, I'm not having sex with all of my friends," Daniel says dryly.

"Maybe you should. You know, to get a better perspective."

Jack gets the skunk-eye for that and, "On the other hand, I can see how the just good friends approach might be better."

Jack sighs, linking his fingers under his head, rolling his shoulders back to get out all the kinks. "I'm not coming back, Daniel."

"I'm not saying you should," Daniel says. "At least, not to the SGC."

Oh, here it comes. Jack closes his eyes, because he's heard the rumors on the grapevine. He knows what's coming next.

"Maybe you should come to Atlantis."

Jack slowly opens his eyes and stares at Daniel, who is kind of pouting, his eyebrows heading into his hair, waiting for an answer.

"Sure," Jack says. "And maybe we could have a nice ceremony before we go. Adopt a kitten. Plant a tree."

Daniel frowns. "Plant a tree?"

"The point is, we'll be in Atlantis. You can't play hide and seek at work, Daniel. And that's what Atlantis is. It's work, twenty-four seven. You never leave. Everyone's living in each other's pockets over there."

"Right," Daniel says with a nod. "We'll have no choice, but to be good friends."

"Wow. I never thought I'd be the insane one out of us two."

"Look, I'm just saying, it's a new challenge. We could learn so much more."

"You. Not we."

Daniel sighs, slumping back. "I just... I don't know."

You just want to go, Jack thinks. It's what Daniel is. The lure of knowledge is a bigger lure than that of people. He wants a holy grail, not holy matrimony. He only thinks he can't leave Jack behind, but Jack knows that's not the truth.

"You know how long I've been doing this job?" Jack asks.

Daniel looks at Jack, his expression a little troubled. "No. How long?"

"Long. That's how long. It's the only thing I've managed to hang on to. Lost a kid. Lost a wife. Almost lost my life a few times, not to mention my mind. Lost friends. And a whole lot of stuff guys like me aren't supposed to talk about. Lost you a few times too."

Daniel smiles. "Bet that never gets old."

"You think so?" Jack makes a face.

"Are we getting old?" Daniel asks.

"Sticking around in command of the SGC and waiting in my little office for news of your latest death is getting old," Jack says, because really, it does get old. Hey, Daniel's dead! What? Again? No, my bad, there he is! Yep. Jack figures it gets real fucking old.

Daniel is staring, his eyebrows drawn together, like an arrow of 'what the hell?'. "Are you completely out of your mind?"

"You were dead for a year. Of course, for some of that year you were also a hallucination and I thought I was a little crazy, which was no picnic. But for the rest of that time, you were dead. And it sucked like all the other times you were dead, only worse because this time...this time it was..."

"Icky?" Daniel offers.

Jack stares. "Icky? I thought I was supposed to be the one in charge of sarcasm and inappropriate humor."

Daniel shrugs. "Things change."

Jack says nothing, because that's the real truth, isn't it? Things change. "Yeah. They do."

"You don't," Daniel says. "You don't belong here."

"I can do much more from here, Daniel. I've got people listening, looking out for the SGC. I've got some leverage. I'm not sure how that happened. It's probably an accident, but, for the time being, I can look out for you here."

"What makes you think you need to, Jack?"

Jack groans and throws back his head, because this conversation is old. It's so old it's decomposing, fossilizing and any minute now Daniel will be digging it up and putting it on a shelf, it's so damn old.

Jack rolls over, inches across and covers Daniel, earning a pleased surprise. "Old habits die hard, Daniel. And I am... old."

"You're old, I'm old, everyone's getting old. Now that Teal'c doesn't have his symbiote anymore, he could start looking eighty any day soon. So what?" Daniel whispers, like someone might come between them.

"Please, Teal'c won't look eighty even when he's a hundred-and-eighty," Jack says.

"I'm serious," Daniel says. "So what, Jack?"

Jack leans down and presses his lips to the evil mouth, tasting, licking, finding the bitter, finding the warm. It's all there on the tip of Daniel's tongue.

"I've got my journey, you've got yours," Jack whispers. "Well, I've got this great bar near my house, but you still have that journey thing."

Daniel says nothing, but his eyes are chanting Atlantis, Atlantis, Atlantis. They're hoping and pleading. They're singing that they're off to see the wizard, that wonderful wizard of Oz.

"Go to Atlantis," Jack says. "It's what you want. Teal'c's doing his thing. Carter's doing her thing. You do your thing."

Daniel smiles nervously, like he used to when he wasn't sure if people could grasp what he was saying, if he was running a million miles ahead of everyone else. "What if you're my thing?"

Jack laughs. "Not with lines like that."

Daniel ignores Jack being an ass, because that's their thing. "You really want me to go to Atlantis?"

"Right now, I don't even want you to leave this bed," Jack says, honestly, because frankly, that's all he's ever had. "But, I know you want this bad. You should be there."

"So should you," Daniel says. "I mean, isn't there a rule or something? We find a new gate, we go through it, piss off new people and save the universe."

Jack shakes his head. "No. Not for me."

He can't go and live in Atlantis. He can't be cut off from the planet he's always trying to save. He can't end up being stranded in a galaxy far away, letting himself forget about a gravestone that bears his last name. It would be too easy to forget there and he promised himself he'd never forget. Atlantis has its heroes. He doesn't need to be one of them.

Daniel's staring at Jack, trying to drill into his head. "I want to go. I really do."

Jack nods. "Go."

"You'll come to see me off?" Daniel asks.

Jack thinks of the SGC, without Carter, without Teal'c, without Hammond and finally, without Daniel. He'll go to see Daniel off and then turn around to see nothing that belongs to him. His people. His team. His friends. Daniel. It won't be goodbye. It'll be like some kind of bad goodnight.

"No," Jack says. "But, I'll get down there when you come to visit."

"And we'll still be 'just friends'?" Daniel asks.

Jack pretends to mull it over. "Sure, why not?"

Sure, why not? Just friends, just like this, just like lying here, tangled in sticky sheets, still touching sweaty skin. Sure, why not? Maybe he'll come back, they'll go out, get some beer, shoot some pool and then...

Jack sighs. He kisses Daniel hard and feels blunt fingernails high on his back, holding on like they're both falling together.

It takes a while, a moment of respite, but they manage a second round, slower, sleepier and greedy and Jack tells himself that this is it. No more nookie. Daniel will be off in Atlantis, humping his holy grail, he thinks bitterly. Jack will be on Earth, back in the most solid relationship any man can have; with his hand.

There will also be time for him to fulfill his life-long ambition to become a grisly, grumpy old man like his grandfather. He'll buy a rocking chair and sit in it, waving a walking stick and shouting things like 'damn you, kids'. He'll sit there and be old and grisly, but he'll think about the first time he did it with a guy and liked it and freaked out because it was against the rules, against everyone's rules and how it was okay with Daniel because he nagged liked a woman and pouted like a woman and was almost as pretty as a woman. Well, a woman, with a dick, but hey, little details. Well, not that little.

Of course, he could always just go insane, and to be frank he seemed to have a head start on it.

The sheets come off and the clothes come on. They sit on opposite sides of the bed, like they're both alone. Jack buttons his shirt, hearing Daniel fiddle with his tie. He slips on his tags, hearing Daniel's glasses slide off the bedside table, clicking as they sit on his nose.

Jack stands up to straighten his jacket, listening to Daniel tie up his shoelaces, imagining his nimble fingers, long and thin, expert, looping a loop, over and under.

They walk to the door together, and Jack doesn't even eye the mess of the sheets, because it's a done deal, over, moving on. You've got your journey, I've got my Scotch.

Jack reaches for the doorknob, but Daniel just can't leave it alone. He has to cover Jack's hand, he has to turn him around and kiss him. He has to make this all feel complicated, like Jack's going to war and Daniel's going to wait for him on a porch with a funny little umbrella.

Bastard, Jack thinks and kisses him back, telling him to take care, to not get himself killed, to maybe come back so they can be 'just friends'. All with a single kiss, though, because Jack can take a bullet, but he's too old too start confessing. Words are worse than bullets. You can't pull them out and patch up the wound. They're out there forever, floating like tiny bubbles.

They leave the hotel room, walking out and sharing an elevator, like two guys that never stuck their tongues in places that make you groan in all kinds of ways. They walk out, walking down a street, having conversations they've had a million times, but never get old. They poke fun at each other, make sly remarks and snort at each other's attempts to be funny. Jack smirks at everything. Daniel rolls his eyes and pretends he's completely above low brow humor, which he isn't.

Secretly, Jack hopes the Daedalus springs a leak, blows a gasket, cracks a mirror. Secretly, he'd like to work on being 'just friends' a little longer.

- the end -