First Contact 5

First Contact: Sanctuary/The Other Side

by iiiionly

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asi/iiiionly/first05.php
Summary: First Contact from Daniel's POV
Info: This was an experiment to see if I could write the same story from two different POVs. I've puposely kept the dialogue in tact, but the story is very different as it's told (mostly) from Daniel's POV. If these had been written in order, this would come between First Contact and I'll Stand by You

The massive carven doors of their sanctuary slammed behind him as if a band of demons was on his heels, which wasn't far from wrong, though these particular demons followed him right under the lintel. Despite the intricately carved weir signs warding the door, it was impossible to outrun them; they were embedded in his brain.

Daniel slumped against the exquisite carvings with an angry, frustrated sigh. Usually when these doors closed behind him, difficulties were detained on the other side, anxiety refused to cross the threshold, discord dissipated like ocean fog burned off by the heat of the morning sun.

The city's seemingly transformative powers had tickled a long buried childhood recollection, a memory of listening to Nick's tales of men who'd sought to turn lead into gold. It had been decades since he'd thought of his youthful fascination with the science of alchemy, and the idea that the Lanteans might have numbered amongst themselves some powerful alchemists intrigued Daniel no end. He'd found no hard evidence so far, but there'd been enough allusions hinted at, many cloaked in the language of insinuation and inference, to fuel his desire to dig deeper.

This dwelling, just for instance, this place between sea and sky where eagles plummeted past transparent walls and osprey raised their young on neighboring spires - this dwelling had transformed from a place to merely eat and sleep into a rest stop for the soul. A personal sanctuary, warded by ancient runes, guarded by the city itself.

Some strange alchemy, Daniel thought again, had been at work from the moment their feet had touched the grating in the docking bay.

Restless, pulsing anger pushed him off the door. The brightest minds in two galaxies had been working on the experiment; it should have been safe.

Yet someone was dead – and it could just as easily have been Jack. Jack - melted on the floor of that tunnel in a parody for his beloved Oz. Ding dong, the witch is dead...

So many memories careening through his mind; bumper cars driven by mad scientists for whom learning was less about the process and more about the results. Power at whatever the cost; and a man had paid the ultimate price for the failed experiment.

Guilt shivered unpleasantly down his spine as Daniel gave thanks, yet again, it had not been his partner. He'd met the dead man briefly at the first Atlantis embarkation. Collins, chivvied along at the back of the line by Colonel Sumner, had stopped just short of the event horizon, dropped his pack and frantically begun ripping things out. Sumner had not been pleased, especially when Collins had disclosed he'd forgotten to pack a camera.

Daniel, watching from the control room, had exchanged looks with his CO and gone to collect his own camera for the distraught young man. Who knew if the distant galaxy had internet capabilities and a facsimile of Amazon.com where you could have the camera of your dreams overnight for next to nothing?

An hour ago the man had been alive and well. Twenty minutes ago, he'd died a pointless, horrible, agonizing, though mercifully quick death. Because one man had had the arrogance to believe he'd discovered the mistake made by a race wise and powerful enough to shed their physical bodies.

It wasn't like the Ancients had merely acquired the knowledge of how to cross over between time and spatial barriers, they'd leaned to transcend them. Great power, whatever its form, required great restraint from its administrators as well.

But, as Jack was fond of reminding his team, the very young do not always do as they are told. Unfortunate that the Nox's thoughtful comment had become little more than a cliché.

Daniel shook his head in an effort to forcibly eject the memories. In retrospect, Collins might have had it easier; at least he hadn't spent endless hours in physical agony, trying to make the pieces of his life add up to the answers he didn't even understand the questions for. But if Collins had lived longer, would he have had an opportunity to make a different choice? Might an Ancient from this galaxy have come to offer assistance and a choice if there'd been more time? There'd been no empty clothes to indicate a higher being had come for him; but then, there'd been no clothes at all, just a puddle of Nickelodeon slime if Jack was to be believed.

Unbuckling his leg holster, Daniel offered the munitions to the weapons drawer with an ironic bow and a slight twitch of the lips. Jack and the drawer were involved in a running battle, with Jack trying to trick it into accepting Daniel's boots as well their weapons, which the drawer refused to do. It opened only in the presence of a weapon, or when they left the penthouse and required arms, which it seemed to know, and closed precipitously if anything other than a weapon came within range of its sensors. It opened soundlessly now, accepted the offering of the holster and gun, and disappeared seamlessly into the black marble wall.

Daniel stripped off boots and socks, dumping both on the foyer side of the head-height block walls carved of sea glass. The double walls swept out from a narrow aperture in arcing curves as they stepped down gradually, framing the wide landing steps leading down into the living area.

Daniel glanced back at the unlit elevator call button. Jack was on the other side of the city, at the scene of the accident; it would take him awhile to get home. There was time to indulge his curiosity.

Almost every night since their arrival, they'd been treated to a spectacular light and sound show – apparently they'd arrived during storm season – but Jack's overprotective streak had stifled any demonstration of inquisitiveness on Daniel's part. Now, he spread his hand against the cool symmetry of the glass wall, trailing his fingers as he moved slowly toward the steps. He'd noticed the mirror images before, during storms, but had never had the opportunity to investigate the phenomenon. Overhead, lightning slashed jagged patterns against the obsidian sky, spearing through McKay's much vaunted shield like a finely crafted sword through spider silk. Though the power often went down during these storms, the city appeared to absorb the energy and recycle it into storage containers that could be tapped when normal reserves ran low.

The fluted glass walls seemed to have captured the overhead tempest, though not as a whole; rather, each individual block contained a miniature storm. Roiling black clouds, eerily lit and ripped by incessant tiny shards of lightning flickered and flashed in sync with the gale beating ceaselessly at the city's spires. Yet despite the churning, swirling mass of strobe-lit darkness contained inside each block, he could still see through the wall. It was yet another of the whimsies the city's first inhabitants had probably taken for granted. Collectively, they fascinated Daniel.

As he rounded the curve and lost contact with the silky smoothness of the descending, nearly seamlessly engineered wall, the tingling in his fingers diminished. Three steps more and his fascination with the glass faded as his bare feet encountered the sumptuousness of the ocean-sized area rug flowing out from the bottom of the wide, low stair treads.

This barefoot obsession had been the instigator of Jack's war with the weapons drawer. It irked his ingrained soul of military neatness to find boots dumped in their lobby, but since he'd created the obsession, he'd conceded the skirmish with Daniel, the first time he'd watched the archaeologist cross the floor without footgear.

A few low lights came up, rather redundantly given the brilliance of the constant lightning, as Daniel traversed the vast continent of their living room. He moved, as was his habit, from area rug to area rug, digging his toes into the luxurious decadence Jack had clothed their floor in

Having no actual duties or responsibilities, this trip being somewhat of a vacation for the general, Jack had spent the first couple weeks of their sojourn appropriating various furnishings from other unoccupied apartments in their west wing tower.

As Jack had never indicated much pleasure in any of the beautiful sites they'd come across in their gate travels, Daniel had had no reason to suspect the man had any affinity for beautiful things. Piece by piece, though, the original earth-toned browns and greens furnishing their penthouse aerie had disappeared. A pair of teak-colored end tables and a sofa that rippled and glimmered with the same sun-shot hues of the turquoise water on the distant horizon had moved in.

The next night, a pair of velvety, aquamarine wingback chairs, literally with wings arcing gracefully to the floor from the tall backs, made a brief appearance, then went the way of the earth tones. Too arty, Jack had declared, replacing them with a couple of low-slung arm chairs.

Two nights later a largish hunk of crystal-like substance that became a glowing chunk of light had taken up residence beside the chair Daniel had turned into a work station. Despite his initial reservations, it made a perfect reading lamp and that chair had become his favorite place to work at night, when they weren't sharing the sofa.

Scattered over the light hardwood floor were the decadent area rugs Jack had purloined, all in shades of watercolor indigo and turquoise and iridescent sand. The overall effect was of being suspended in that place where cool blue heavens met aquamarine sea, perhaps made even more effective because the glass-like walls of the penthouse showcased a three hundred and sixty degree view of the horizon. As far as the eye could see, sky caressed its lover, the ocean.

A trail of clothes marked Daniel's path to the bedroom; a BDU shirt dropped over the back of the sofa, pants slung over the edge of the bar, t-shirt tossed into the boxy square of a laundry room on top of regulation BVDs. As if by shedding his clothes he could outdistance the memories still ramming into each other.

Despite Jack's nagging, he rarely wore his com unit when he was working. But today he'd been in one of the satellite libraries in a remote section of the city and Jack had been gone most of the day with the away team working on the new Ancient ZPM from the Dorandan homeworld. Because Jack had asked him, patiently and politely, to keep the thing on, he'd done so. If he'd ignored it, as usual, he wouldn't be battling these demons again.

"Light, please." Daniel voiced the request politely, though a command for light would have accomplished the job as easily. The glowworms – christened with Jack's usual flair for naming things - the oblong shaped devices lighting the vast kingdom of a closet obligingly came to life, throwing out long, flickering shadows before the glowing globes intensified enough to chase them away.

Jack had called in the Wraithbusters, as he'd dubbed Shepherd's team, when his hello had echoed back at him during his investigatory sit rep of the closet. It was easily the size of the living area and opened like a puzzle box, a thing Jack had enjoyed immensely once the space had been declared free of any Wraith hives. They were still finding new amenities on a regular basis.

A chill that had nothing to do with the closet, or his state of undress, crawled up Daniel's spine, rippling gooseflesh across bare skin.

Atlantis had been his dream for as many years as the tantalizing thought that it could possibly be real had existed in his brain. He'd done the research, solved the puzzle, and opened the Gate to the incredible city – and then been denied the opportunity to even visit – until now.

His own personal demons had probably scheduled this execution just for his benefit; he should be used to it by now. They always had some new plan up their copious sleeves to shatter any satisfaction he managed to scrounge.

This time, however, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to battle them back into submission. He was here on Atlantis and his best friend had taken a huge leap of faith to be with him.

Despite his intense, visceral attraction to the man, he'd never imagined life lived with a same sex partner. Jack turned him inside out, outside in, and into knots. It had always been like that between them, and always would be. The difference now was, it usually happened in a good way. Daniel shook his head. And the shivers running up and down his spine morphed into quivers of pleasure.

Shaking off errant images of Jack in his rampant glory, he ran his fingers under the lip of the top drawer until it finally opened. The closet annoyed the hell out of him since he could never remember the right place to touch to open the damn things. He pulled out the first pair of jeans that came to hand, shimmying into them with all the pleasure of unexpectedly meeting an old, dear friend. They were shiny in the seat and leprous-looking at the hems, not to mention frayed at the pockets and ready to rip at the knees, but so well-loved and well-worn they felt like his own skin.

Comfort clothes - and he'd take them over comfort food any day of the week.

Funny how they always seemed to end up on the top of the neatly put away clothes after Jack had taken over laundry duties.

Jack, who hated any kind of technology that didn't involve some kind of trigger, had taken to the city like a duck to water. While it opened doors and dissolved walls for Daniel, Jack could make it purr like sated cat. He had only to step into a room with Ancient equipment and everything sprang to life.

An equally soft, well-worn t-shirt came to hand just as his skin prickled pleasantly, the fine hairs on his arms rising as though lifted by a magnet.

"Jack?"

Lightning arced through him, dragging him to his toes like a marionette on strings. Every hair on his body stretched, reaching for the source of the current pulsing from head to toe and out through his hands and feet.

Instantly Atlantis was grounding him, pulling the electricity through his body, distilling the powerful current, so he absorbed the energy like a charging battery rather than being burnt to a crisp.

It was the warmth of the sun on a new green shoot, tender and nurturing. It wrapped around him, so for a moment he thought he was in the infirmary, hallucinating, and Janet had wrapped him in one of the blankets she kept specially warmed for shock patients.

Blackness gouged a hole in his mind, plumbing the depths as though searching, followed by a bolt of lightning that seared through the darkness, illuminating a locked and warded door buried deep in his memory. Another flash, followed by the crash of thunder. Locks shattered, the door splintered and his mind spun as though the hourglass of time ran backwards. The hot hands of nature cradled him as newly released memories hurdled toward consciousness ... and he remembered ...

Slick and icy, they rose like chained ghosts so he saw again the grey landscape of his ascended mind. Intense and sharp as a needle in that every sight and sound and sense was the concentration of its essence ... but grey because without emotion, the vivid landscape became a pale copy of reality.

But he remembered what it was like to wield a power so insubstantial, yet so inestimable, a mere thought transformed.

He'd never been accused of living too hard, too large, nor even too well. Yeah, he could claim a few of out-of-body experiences; but those skidding into the grave feet first moments, those too much tequila, not enough starch, climbing the water tower moments, those were . . . well . . . nonexistent.

Unless, of course, one considered the lucky to be alive to tell about them moments as adventures. Like being dragged through a sandstorm by a mastadge, or kidnapped by an Unas, or switching bodies with an expiring alien.

Of course, Jack would say all those things happened to him because his mind was usually deliberating some esoteric thought, rather than paying attention. Daniel considered that a little unfair. It wasn't like he had much choice in the way his brain had been hardwired to seek answers to life's questions. Was it his fault he'd been driven from an early age to search for resolution to that elusive meaning-of-life paradigm?

No, no one had ever accused him of living too hard. He wondered if Collins had ever been accused of living too hard. And then, like a clogged channel opening, the unpleasant memories drained away, poured out to make room for the new ones pouring in.

Daniel put his hand out to touch the lightning strikes flickering around and through him as if nature was as curious about him as he was about it.

Perhaps, he thought, this was where the meaning of life lay, in the elemental lashing of forces that drove sentient beings to push back against nature, to forge a path through the universe continually searching for the source of what Is, Was and Will be.

The storm drew him like a moth to flame. He fought the compulsion purposefully, rooting his feet to the floor, well aware Jack would not be amused to find him playing with the lightning.

Another flash and the power hummed briefly in a high-pitched, vibrating frequency that played along sensitive nerve endings like a squealing violin, and then failed.

Daniel touched the spot beside the closet opening to close it and turned to make his way to the living area. The lightning obligingly left off playing with him and lit the bedroom with a beguiling coyness. He flipped on Jack's battery powered CD player and loaded several instrumental discs into the changer, setting the volume just high enough to be barely heard over the storm.

The glass wall lit the penthouse with its own internal eerie shimmer reflecting the embodiment of the storm's restless soul. Those newly awakened memories roiled and Daniel shook his head again, opening several drawers in the living area tables, searching for the lighter they used for the lanterns – another of Jack's forages. He wondered, as he coaxed the flickering flames to life, if there was a sentient being seeding the ferocity of the tempest.

Shaking off that thought as well, he lit the reminder of the lanterns, turning his thoughts to why such an advanced civilization had failed to harness a more efficient source of energy, but perhaps the Ancients had had little use or requirement for power while still in their human form. Or perhaps they'd just lived closer to the natural rhythms of the Lantean homeworld.

A fission of sensory memory danced over his skin as sensitive fingers touched the place that dissolved the living area window wall, leaving in its place an invisible force field that repelled the rain and tamed the fiercely whipping wind down to a gentle breeze. The lanterns didn't even flicker behind him.

The storm was singing through his bloodstream, a siren song so beautiful it snatched at his breath, begging him to come and play, to yield ... to succumb ...

Daniel stepped through, relishing the tingle as he breached the field, and crossed to the railing. He was instantly soaked and instantaneously beguiled. Planting his feet wide on the rain slicked granite, he closed his eyes and threw back his head.

This was what it had been like ... before ... before he'd chosen a corporeal body again over enlightenment. This was what he'd given up; the gift of knowing on a molecular level the exact mix of negative and positive charges required to form the spearing bolts of electricity striking around him and through him. The ability to channel nature in its rawest forms.

The city continued to ground that corporeal form, channeling bolts of energy that slashed through the last of the restraints still binding memories surrendered as terms for reclaiming his soul.

He would have wept with the release, but the wind, howling like a banshee itself, snatched away all sound and the rain scoured the salt tears from his cheeks. He knew again what it was to be infinite and infinitesimal, the ocean and a single raindrop, the freight train roar of the funnel cloud and the merest beat of butterfly wings. He remembered what it was like to be elemental, a force of nature, and nature itself.

Exhilaration danced on the edge of reason, heightening each individual sensation and blending them into an erotic ballet of nearly unbearable pleasure.

He remembered how it felt to be one with the universe. Despite its detached, emotionless existence, ascension had had an undeniable je ne sais quoi all its own.

Atlantis vibrated with the vicarious thrill, resonating an audible overtone that sent three quarters of the base team racing to the command center miles and miles away, bewildered by the sound.

He did not hear the caroled "Lucy, I'm home," Jack had annoyingly taken to announcing his arrival with. But neither did the lazily drawled, "So, should I start calling your Prospero?" startle Daniel.

He had no idea how long he'd been standing in the rain, no recognition that he looked as though he might sprout glowing tentacles at any moment, not a clue that his wet, disheveled, glowing manifestation had arrowed a shaft of pure desire straight through his partner. Daniel arched impossibly, grinning languidly at the upside down figure behind him. "Hey, come on out, the weather's fine."

"Are you nuts?" Jack inquired mildly. He stepped into the sluicing downpour, clasped a rain-slicked bicep and drew the archaeologist back under cover of the eaves. "The tube took a direct hit as I was walking over. Come inside before you get fried."

Daniel blinked and shook his head like a dog before combing both hands through his dripping hair.

Jack stepped out of range, despite being soaked already and turned to go back inside.

Pulsing with the energy of the storm, Daniel snaked out an arm, clasping a hand around Jack's neck. "I want you." With a display of strength he rarely employed, he turned the older man on his heel and yanked him forward. "Right here, right now."

He watched Jack's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "Define here and now." The general's glance flicked to the rain soaked balcony, then snapped back to measure the heat in the fierce blue eyes. "Never mind." Jack's hands dropped to the buttons of his BDUs, but Daniel was there first.

Jack was already hard. Daniel skimmed his cold hands down the rigid erection, hot mouth following quickly. Jack's hands clenched over his shoulders as he slid to one knee, taking the length of the shaft with him, playing the man like nature had just played him.

Jack exploded as if struck by lightning, shuddering with the intensity of release, but Daniel had no intention of allowing the moment to end so soon. He was hot and hard and so close to the edge of spontaneous combustion, sliding up Jack's leg nearly caused an eruption.

"Daniel..." Jack's hands were in his hair, massaging his wet scalp, "I don't think that's gonna ..." and then Jack's tongue was in his mouth and his ear and sliding along his throat. "Any chance we could move this inside?"

Daniel nipped at the bottom lip slanting over his mouth again and reached down to skim the superfluous t-shirt up over Jack's silver head. "Possibly," he murmured, stretching to meet that needy tongue as he shimmied out of his wet jeans.

"You know they're running puddle jumpers by here all the time, don't you?" Jack gasped, though his mouth never lost contact with Daniel's.

"In this storm?"

"You've got a point." One hand wrapped around Daniel's neck for balance as he sucked down Daniel's tongue while hopping on one foot trying to rid himself of his clothing.

And then they were skin to skin, the urgency of desire as painful as it had been only minutes before, bodies entwined in a dance older than even the city of Atlantis.

"Not that I'm complainingl" Jack came up for air first; Daniel was younger. "but what brought this on?" he panted, not in the least bit intimidated by the younger, harder body pressed against him like a sheet of vellum. On the contrary, he knew damn well he was privileged beyond measure.

"Death." Daniel gulped in air and renewed his assault.

Jack quit trying to keep up and applied himself to Daniel's liberation. His reward was almost instantaneous as a geyser erupted in his hand. Daniel arched again, like an Olympic gymnast, rain sluicing down his chest to wash them both clean.

"Daniel..." Jack trailed off as a renewed ache made itself felt, though this time it came from the vicinity of that much maligned organ that pumped the blood to all those regions that had just been so gloriously rendered malleable again.

Daniel came up from the back bend like Poseidon rising from the sea, splattering recycled ocean as he shook water from his hair again. "I'm ready to kick it up a notch."

"Kick it up a notch?" Jack's voice parroted huskily. "You mean ... you don't mean ..." Jesus Christ, the kid was hotter than a firecracker.

"The mechanics seem pretty easy," Daniel teased with a tantalizing groin grind.

"O-kay." Jack's eyes were doing that comic book thing again. "I'm game ... I think."

"Good." Daniel peeled himself off, leaving behind a watermark any self-respecting sheet of vellum would have been proud to bear. He was aware Jack's eyes, and then Jack's body, followed him into the house. "I've got the wine, grab some glasses, would you?" He rummaged for the corkscrew in a drawer already full of junk, marveling that they'd only been here a month and they already had a junk drawer. Proving yet again, that some things were universal.

The cork popped with a reminiscent sucking, slurping sound. Daniel dropped it in the basin they used for a sink and headed for the bedroom as Jack tossed their wet clothes into the laundry room.

The amazing preservative methods of the Ancients never crossed Daniel's mind as he quickly toweled the dripping water from his hair, flicking the ends of the light-as-down bath sheet over the rest of his body. The towels had been found wholly preserved in a chest, as fresh as the day they'd been placed in the beautifully wrought, carved wooden box. The sheets on the bed were from the same container. Jack had remarked, offhandedly, perhaps it had been someone's hope chest.

The sheets caressed his bare skin as Daniel sprawled across the middle of the bed. There was no need to pose artfully; he knew, on an intrinsic level, he owned the heart and soul of his companion. Jack had followed him to Atlantis and spoken the words, even if he'd only said them out loud to an incapacitated, unconscious friend.

But the words had thawed something frozen deep inside Daniel; something that had been stolen from him at his parents' deaths. Confidence had freed him from the bodily imprisonment that had constricted and confined his motion, the requirement that he occupy the smallest physical space he could possibly manage. Assurance had gifted him with a sensual poise, evicting the graceless clumsiness he'd never bothered to battle, just learned to live with.

So now, even though he'd sprawled on the bed with an abandon he'd barely had a passing acquaintance with in his former life, the long, lean line of his back, glistening still with errant crystal raindrops, might have been lifted from a da Vinci masterpiece. He lay perfectly still, listening to the sound of the rain beating against the roof overhead, pounding out a primal rhythm that matched the odd syncopation of his soul.

Perhaps he was opening Pandora 's Box, but the energy buildup required release and he could think of no better way of liberating it than to share it with his partner.

Jack's weight depressed the side of the mattress, the bright, tinkling sound of the wine glasses counterpointing the melody of the storm as they were set on the bedside table. He felt Jack lean back on an elbow and for a moment, Atlantis held its breath.

The stillness inside, in direct contrast to the crashing storm outside, fountained a wellspring of contentment in Daniel. He filed away the emotion to be examined at a later time; just now he was intensely aware of the callused hand caressing his flank, flowing over the curve of ass to sweep the length of his leg and down the sensitive arch of his bare foot. The hand swept back up to mold his ass and he shivered as sensation began to center between his thighs and his belly button, heightening awareness of the slightest touch. The heat of Jack's tongue tasting a raindrop in the small of his back made the blood pool in his groin.

"You sure about this?" Jack inquired, his voice a throaty growl.

"Absolutely," Daniel murmured unhesitatingly, shifting ever so slightly to encourage those massaging digits to explore further.

"Why don't we trade places?"

A nudge at his thigh made Daniel aware he was expected to answer. "Uhmmm...no."

"Why not?"

Jack was rolling the lube between hands; Daniel could feel the motion translating through the mattress. He flirted a shoulder lazily, amazed at the peaceful coexistence of fervor and languor invading his body.

"You're absolutely, positively sure?"

"Jack," he warned lightly, having no desire to leave the state of grace he occupied.

"Alright, but you know you can stop me anytime, right?"

"Oh for god's sake!" Daniel rolled to his side. "Is there a reason you're suddenly channeling me?" he demanded. "Hello? Shut up and just do it."

For once, Jack had no comeback. Daniel turned back on his stomach, resting his cheek on his crossed arms, and bent his considerable concentration on the new experience. His body initially resisted the foreign object pressing against the closed iris, then gave way to the gentle insistence. The lube was cool still, but otherwise created little sensation. Jack's finger, however, the pad of which slid caressingly over the sensitive spot as the tube was withdrawn, drew a deep moan of pleasure. His hips came up to urge further discovery.

Daniel clenched around the prelude as Jack's lubed finger cautiously eased into the tight space, then made a conscious effort to relax. Immediately the finger sank deeper, invading and conquering new territory, triggering an awareness that cascaded over Daniel like a waterfall of pure, intense pleasure, causing him to arch again, against the resistant palm that prohibited deeper exploration.

Jack, however, met the unvoiced demand with more sweetly agonizing pressure, doubling the pleasure and stoking for maximum sensation with an added digit. Daniel was unaware of anything but the fire in his belly and the heat arrowing up his shaft. The lightning had claimed him again and when Jack's teeth scraped sensitized flesh, he exploded, the insanely throbbing ache of completion spasming over and over and over again until he lay limp and spent, sheened with sweat and totally relaxed.

Though nothing else could move, still his brain churned. Perhaps this was the meaning of life. The insanity of sharing your body with another, giving and receiving intimately, the gift of joy in each other. If so, Daniel would gladly embrace the divine proclamation and spread the gospel far and wide.

Skin whispered against skin as Jack's knees embraced his thighs, cool air slithered between his cheeks as Jack once again spread his ass and slowly, slowly ... millimeter by millimeter ... implanted his long length, joining them completely with this first contact.

The pressure increased slowly, exquisitely, with no palm to impede penetration this time. Daniel could feel the tight control Jack had imposed on himself, felt the first ripple of anticipation that built tinglingly with each slow, controlled stroke as the general, with unerring accuracy, found the spot again and launched them both toward the sun beyond the storm.

He met the need and responded in kind, fists clenching in the sheets as need jettisoned in the wake of soul searing ecstasy. His mind shut down as together they breached the heart of the storm and flew on toward the sun.

Where the lightning had jarred loose lost memories of how it felt to be infinite, these sensations opened a floodgate of emotions his experience as an ascended being had never evoked, so the joining soared beyond the confines of the physical and into the realms of true infinity, into the fire of the constant wheel of life where eternity spun out into forever.

His mind reengaged as they tumbled back to earth, still joined, both shuddering in the aftermath of the powerful aphrodisiac that had paved the way to ecstasy.

Sanctuary.

On the clearing, watery horizon, the sinking sun dispelled the last of the straggling storm clouds.

. . . Daniel and Atlantis sighed with contentment.

~*~