DUET PART TWO

NOT WITHOUT ME   BY PHOENIX E

Sometimes I think I really do want to die.  That's the only explanation that makes sense of some of the really stupid and reckless things I do. Wait, I don't mean that the way it sounds.  I don't mean I want to die - not consciously - 'cause I don't. Really, I don't. I'm not crazy.  Well, not that kind of crazy, anyway.  But there has to be something wrong with me all the same, some strange and slightly twisted part of me that thinks going out in a blaze of glory would be a more desirable option than facing the future - the terrifying maybes still theoretically, potentially stretching in front of me waiting to happen all over me if I hang around long enough to give them their shot. Yeah, on some bizarre level of my consciousness getting myself blasted to smithereens is a perfectly logical alternative to bearing the burden of  living and dealing with the consequences of my thoughtless recklessness. Way  easier than having to do things  like what I have to do now.

Facing Jack after what I've just said to him.

I don't know if I can. I must be insane, I can’t believe some of the things I said. And for what - because of what?  Stuff on a wall.  God, what was I thinking?

I can be such a single-minded shit at times; the shortcomings of narrowness of vision.  The price I pay for my focus.  I can’t see past the end of my nose sometimes, or any farther than the next line of gibberish on the latest wall that just might be the one with all the answers.  I can’t get my eyes off the details long enough to be able to see the big picture. Can’t seem to understand there is more going on around me than what I happen to be so fascinated with at the moment.  He’s far more patient with me than I deserve.  And how do I repay him?  By biting the hand trying to save me from myself.

Poor Jack.  The things I do to him without meaning to -  without even being aware I'm doing it.  I  get so damned caught up and lost in it all, sometimes I even forget he’s there.  He’s always there anyway, even though so much of what I know and care about makes him feel like the proverbial fifth wheel.

Not that he doesn't try to bluff his way through  -  he’s so cute, the way his eyes glaze over and he looks like he wants to pump several rounds into his head while he's standing there pretending he’s actually following what I'm saying.  He gives me this look, sometimes, when I take one of my all too frequent trips on the Tangent Express.  Next stop Non-Sequiter Junction for connecting trains to Too Much Information Station.  He tries to keep up.  He really does.  But I know I make him feel stupid sometimes.  Hell - I make him feel stupid a lot.

He shouldn't. God, he really shouldn't.  I'm the stupid one.  Geek, dweeb, four-eyed moron.  Pick one. All this - this stuff I have crammed into this space occupied by the loosely associated collection of grey cells I laughingly call a brain. What use is all of it, really?  What's the point of knowing how to speak twenty three different languages and counting  if there's no one to talk to? What's the point of everything I know if it can’t help me make sense of anything that's happened to me? He’s the smart one.  He knows what really matters.   He knows about life.  He knows about  me.

He knows.  He really does.  He knows everything about me.  What I think, feel, like, want, believe. How to calm me down and wind me up.  Oh God, no one knows how to make me crazy like Jack does!  He knows my favourite colour, my shoe size, how I like my coffee, what I had for breakfast two weeks ago Sunday.  He knows  how much I really hate it when I can’t find whatever the hell it was I had in my hand a minute ago and  put down somewhere - who  knows where, I sure don't -  and now I need it, of course I can't find it. I hate that, but guess what, he knows exactly where it is.  He knows.  He knows me backwards and forwards, inside and outside and as far as that goes he could probably draw a map of very single freckle, mole, and scar on my entire body.  God knows he’s spent enough time memorizing their locations.

You want to talk about focus? I’ll tell you about focus.  He’s studied me with the same single-minded dedication I've devoted to my passion for the written word.  In his chosen field of study he's been an equally successful scholar. Jack has achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the world’s foremost authority on Daniel Jackson.  What he knows about me would scare me shitless if it wasn't so damned comforting.  Sometimes I think he knows me better than I know myself.  He answers questions before I ask them, brings me things before I even know I need them, always seems to be there when I least expect him to be but most need him to be, and is the only person in the world who can find me when I most need to be found.   I have few secrets from Jack.  Whether I want it to be that way or not.  If it's about me, Jack will find it out.

It’s like he’s part of me.  A separate entity, and yet not.  A unique being and yet also an incarnate extension of my projected wants, needs and desires wearing another skin, seemingly existing for the sole reason of being there for me.  To do everything I want, even if I don't know I want it yet and and to be everything I need, even if I don't know how to ask for it.  He knows everything, gives me everything.  I don’t deserve it.  

I don’t deserve him.

God knows I fought it, Jack and you.  Fought everything you wanted to be and do for me for a long time.  Just like I'm fighting you right now, trying to pull away from your hands on me, from your very touch. For the same, stupid reason I've always tried to hold you off, and turn away from everything you want to give me.

I want it.   That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?  Believe me, it gets worse.

As much as I craved your friendship and so much more, I tried to keep myself from liking it too much.  Wanting - needing it too much.  It’s not your fault.  You've done nothing wrong.  It’s not you.  It’s me.  It’s all because of what always happens when I get too close.

Everyone I love dies.  Okay.  I said it.  There it is.  Oh God, Jack, don’t touch me like that.  It’s not fair.  I can’t run when you do this to me.

Those hands - turning me into fire.  He knows he does this to me.  Bastard.  He never fights fair.  He knows all he has to do to turn me into a quivering puddle is get his hands on me - as soon as he touches me I'm lost.  As lost as I would be if he never touched me again.

You were right, Jack, I'm so sorry, God, you were right to get so angry with me out there. I would have thrown my life away  if you hadn’t pulled me away from that place.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but things are looking a lot different now. A whole lot different.  I saw the look on your face just now, every bit as scared as you were when that arrow came so close to me. Damn right you were scared, both times for the same reason. You thought you were going to lose me.  Thanks to my short-sighted stubbornness, you very nearly did out there.  And now you're afraid you brought me home only to lose me for real.

I can't believe I've done this to you. Especially knowing - what I know - how it feels... What's wrong with me, Jack, how could I have been so thoughtless?  I must be crazy.  I know I'm scared.  Not of you, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.  But that's really it, isn't it.  That's what it’s all about. That's why I do this stuff.

I'm trying to get out before you're taken from me like everyone else I've ever cared for. To 'leave' you before you die on me. God, oh God, that it's it! I'm even crazier than I thought I was.

I'm sorry.   This is selfish, so selfish of me, I know, but it's like I can't help myself sometimes, because Jack, I don’t know if I can take another loss.  I'm not afraid to love you but I'm terrified - terrified of losing you.  People love me - they die. It keeps happening and I can't stop it. I don't want to kill you too. I tried to keep you safe by keeping away, but I couldn’t. I should have walked away and never looked back but I couldn't.  Even though I know I shouldn't risk it I want to feel this bliss.  Your hands exploring me, your mouth upon mine, your body pressed close, beloved length heavy and heaving upon me, I wanted all of it.  Still want it.  Want you.  Do you know how much I want you?  What I'm risking because I want to love you?

I do love you, Jack O’Neill.  I've turned my back on those words a thousand times, turned away from your eyes, knowing you were watching me.  You’re always watching me.  Always there.  Strong, loyal, unflagging.  Unbelievable.  I still can't take it in sometimes, after all the uncertainty in my life - the changes, the losses, the loneliness, rootlessness - having such an comforting anchor permanently planted dead centre in the middle of my reality.  My Rock of Gibraltar, answers to the name of Jack O'Neill.  Always there, never failing, never leaving. So strong, so comforting, so infinitely reassuring. You can’t even begin to know what that means to me.  What you mean to me.  I fought accepting it but now I can’t live without it.  Without you.

I won't live without you and not even you can make me.

I'm not running because I don’t love you, Jack.  I run because I do.  I can’t bury someone else I love, Jack.  I can’t and I won’t.

I tried hard to stay away from him but in the end he won; his devotion was stronger than my fear.  I went to him, my love for him rising with the fire he calls forth in me with a mere touch.  He lives to please me and in return I give myself to him utterly with no restraint or regret whenever his hands summon.  He can do with me as he pleases; I'm his and his alone.  Who leads and who follows - what does it matter when there are no boundaries, no line where one ends and the other begins.  In the circle of love encompassing us there is no beginning, no end only this.

I spring from the chair and I'm on him; his eyes go wide with surprise and lust as I  pin him to the wall and thrust myself into him. Absolute shock in his expression as the rampant evidence of my interest collides triumphantly  with his.  Yeah, I've got a boner I could pole vault with, after the way you've been working me, this surprises you exactly why, Jack?  You ought to know better by now you play with fire you get me damned hot…

I start to kiss on-duty lips trying hard to say no even though it's killing them, yes, I know where we are, yep, it's dangerous, know that too, but then - I like danger, I'm reckless, I take chances that scare you like my heedlessness scares you at the same time as it excites you…. like this….you like this, necking and rubbing in my office, even though we might get caught...kissing... kissing is good, kissing is great,  that mouth, that mouth -  who knew something so sarcastic and cutting could be so tender, warm and hungry… what do you want, now, Jack, maybe some tongue….what, nothing to say….oh, I forgot, it's not polite to talk with your mouth full...

I go for it, my tongue a  welcomed invader in familiar territory as I thrust deep into his mouth and he gasps and grabs my ass, squeezing me, pulling me in tighter, melding us at groin level.  I can’t help it, the rush makes me giddy he’s falling against me, I haven't got a clue who is holding up whom, I'm  laughing and kissing and biting him,  he’s growling, shaking we’re both going to fall….

Why is it when I'm the happiest, suddenly all I can think about is ‘How long?’  How long can I have this before someone or something takes it away from me?

If this could be the way it ended for both of us, right here, right now, if I could know for sure when we go, we're both going out together I'd be okay with the whole 'future' thing.  I live in the moment, Jack. I can’t allow myself to think any further ahead than the immediate second beyond this one.  It’s the only way I know how to cope, now.  The only way I know how to get through life.   Nothing exists except right now.   I can’t think of the future.  It’s too frightening, too uncertain.  I don’t believe in a ‘happily ever after’.  Not any more.  Too much has happened.

I won’t look at the moment beyond this one because anything could happen.  It could just as easily be something bad as something good. I know it’s a strange point of view for someone you consider to be an optimist.  Well, I am an optimist.  When it comes to everyone else but me, that is.

If you wonder where my ‘focus’ comes from, well it’s the ‘moment’ thing.  All I know I have for sure is what I have right now.  All that exists, everything that's real - the only thing I can count on is what's here and  now.  Even ‘now’ is tenuous at best.  This cup of happiness I'm holding  could be gone in an instant, so I’d best drink deep while I still have the chance.  And what exactly do I have my hands on, right here, right now?

I have Jack.  You.  Oh, it’s so much you.  Everything is Jack.

Jack, Jack, why did you take so long to come into my life?  Why now, why not years and years ago?  You would have made a difference -  kept so much of it away. Or at least made it easier to bear. Why find me now, after a life that has taken so much more than it's given, when what the turmoil and tears have left so twisted through their passing  it’s hardly worthy of you? There’s so little left of me that hasn’t been ruined and despoiled.  I'm like the picture of Dorian Gray in reverse - smooth exterior, perfect face but what it hides…  Not such a pretty picture.  There are things lurking within me that would give Jack the Ripper nightmares, never mind the years of nocturnal suffering they've graced me with.

For the first time in a long time I'm starting to believe there might be an end to it. There's nothing either one of us can do to change the past, but as all the 'now' we've spent together starts mounting up I'm sleeping better than I have in years.  Maybe in time...  That is, if we get to have enough time and I stop trying to get myself  killed before you do.

We've been making up just fine without either of us having to say a word but I haven't been paying attention.  I've been so wrapped up in my own selfish thoughts I haven't really seen him since he walked through my door, but now we're eye to eye, mouth to mouth, I can feel the fear he's been trying to hide from me. I've hurt him so badly, with everything I said I made him think I was angry with him.   Well, I was, but not for the reason he thinks.  He did his job; he kept me safe. That’s why I lashed out at him - for saving me.  I didn’t want him to.

But now I do, oh Jack, I'm sorry.  Tell him, I have to tell him, find the words that will exorcise the self-doubt haunting his eyes.  I tell him the truth, the only truth I know, he's the utter meaning of my life, nothing means more to me than he does  -  not even how scared I am he’ll be taken from me.  Words are floating all around us and I haven't got a clue what I'm saying but I have to be sure he knows, so I tell him with my lips, my arms around him, I try to talk to him the way he talks to me.

Crying.   He’s crying.  Oh Jack, what have I done?

I hold him tight,  kiss him again and his mouth answers, seeking, sucking as if he’s trying to draw me inside him to keep me safe. To protect me.   My saviour, my protector; his arms around me promise a safe haven.   Nothing will hurt me as long as he draws breath.

His eyes say ‘what do you see in me?’  I answer with everything I am.  I’ll stay, Jack.  I won’t run.  I’ll stay as long as you're here, as long as you'll have me.  You can’t promise me we'll be together forever, but I can.

This life we live is going to get one of us, sooner or later.  Probably a lot sooner than later.  I'm not going anywhere without you, and neither are you.  Not without me.

What happens to you happens to me.  I’ll live for you, but I won’t live without you.  That’s the deal, Jack.  The Fates get to cut two cords for the price of one.  I promise you, you won’t die alone.

I’ll be right by your side, come what may.  From this world into the next.

And for whatever else comes after…

FINIS

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