A Place Like Heaven

A Place Like Heaven
by elfin
Characters beloved creations of and copyright Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright. Story copyright MJHughes 2000. Derived from “Beneath The Surface”, spoilers for that episode – sorta. I’ve played. I apologise for the spelling of the names.

The cry grabbed Jona’s attention for a moment, and in that time Karlin grabbed a handful of the other man’s jumper and reached back to take a swing. Jona’s attention whipped back to the fight and he looked straight into the blue eyes staring back at him with anger.

What hit him wasn’t Karlin’s fist. It was a tidal wave of emotions and feelings; interest, knowledge, adoration, infatuation, protectiveness, excitement, heat, desire, need. Love. Stronger than he had ever felt it before. It burned from his mind to his heart leaving a trail of flames he was unable to quench. Karlin’s punch never came. Jona could see reflected in the other’s eyes the very things that had wiped away any fight from his thought.

Karlin’s fist dropped to his side and he stood rooted. Jona had felt it too, he was sure of that, and he could no more hit the man than he could turn and hit Kagan. His gaze was locked into the chocolate eyes of the stranger standing before him. Stranger? How could he be? How could anyone who made him feel like this be unknown to him?

Jona watched in heated fascination as Karlin’s lips parted. How could one such small movement capture his body’s full attention and hold it prisoner? What the hell could be said after something so momentous, something that had tilted Jona’s existence out of view?

But the tone, the soft lilt of the single syllable made Jona’s hard heart melt in reply.

Around them the interest of the others had waned. There was obviously going to be no fight. Indeed, the way the two newcomers were looking at one another they might even go to the other extreme and devour one another on the spot. The women remained for a while, wondering absently if they might still see something worth watching. But the men had returned their attention to their food. Love at second sight was one thing but they weren’t altogether disposed to watch the fallout over lunch.

Jona pulled himself up straight and walked away, only taking his eyes from Karlin when his path became uncertain. For a long time afterwards, Karlin stood and stared after the other man. And then finally he turned to look at Kagan, and Jona’s friend Thera who was watching him with an unreadable expression. The one who’d called himself Teal’c had vanished. Karlin decided he’d better do the same, for a little while. Too many pairs of female eyes were upon him.

Throughout the afternoon Karlin felt a yearning growing within him, starting to eat away at his concentration. The quality of his work was severely lacking and he was hardly surprised when the foreman approached him.
“Your concentration appears to be elsewhere.”
Karlin nodded. “Yeah, sorry.”
The foreman shrugged. “We all have bad days. And good.” He winked kindly, obviously having witnessed what had occurred during the break. There was no mockery or disgust in his tone. Karlin had seen several couples recently, some same sex, some different sex. What was nagging him the most was that he should have felt something so strong for a man he didn’t know, had never spoken to and had been about to hit. Yet all afternoon the longing to be with Jona again clawed into him with relentless insistence.

Jona glanced up from his work for what must have been the thousandth time in the last hour. Karlin was just within sight and Jona had been drinking him in as if he were dying of thirst. He moved with a grace he’d never witnessed before. The memory of those stunning blue eyes haunted him and if he closed his own lids he could recall with crystal clarity his revelation mirrored there. Though his face was as grubby as the rest of him, that his clothes didn’t cover, he was the most beautiful thing Jona had ever seen.

The foreman approached. “Jona, check value number three please, there seems to be something not quite right with the pressure.” Jona nodded. Value three was next to where Karlin was working, diligently going about his business with no knowledge that his every move was being scrutinised and filed away to memory. Jona’s mouth went dry as he neared the object of his distraction. As he stepped around him, Karlin turned, looking up. Their gazes locked as they had done at lunch and for that moment it all came rushing back to the surface.

Karlin looked away, catching his breath. What was happening to him? Jona was studying the valve next to him, but he kept on glancing back. Having him near eased some of the anxiety within him, settling him to the point where he could work, just knowing the other man was close by. It was ridiculous. Utterly ludicrous.

“Something happened, Administrator Caldor. When Teal’c announced his name and told them they were friends, something happened.”
“What?”
Brenner shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know. But I heard Lena say that it was like watching two great beasts start a mating ritual.”
The Administrator Caldor laughed. “But Colonel O’Neill and Doctor Jackson are not lovers. They could not possibly be remembering what isn’t true.” He smiled patiently. “Now you go and see to Teal’c. Make sure it is done right this time.”
She sighed. “Yes, Administrator Caldor.”

For an hour after Lights Out, Jona lay on his mattress and gazed across the crowded sleeping area to where Karlin lay with his back to him. He couldn’t sleep like he hadn’t been able to eat. Every fibre of his body and soul was screaming at him to go over there, to be close to the other man. When he’d been working on valve three this afternoon he’d felt better at least, less distracted. He’d fixed what could otherwise have been a potential danger spot, and with Karlin working so near…. Now what had brought that on? Why was he suddenly overwhelmed with a need to protect the stranger?

“Oh, for crying out loud….” He muttered the phrase under his breath as he threw the blanket off. He moved through the rows of sleeping workers as quietly as he could manage, not noticing that Thera was awake and watching him, her gaze following him to his destination.

He crouched down by Karlin’s bed and was immediately greeted by a pair of crystal blue eyes regarding him with suspicion and relief mixed in as one. Jona opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come and in the end he simply shook his head, confusion wrinkling his face. Karlin said nothing, but he moved back on his mattress and lifted the blanket. Jona didn’t need any further instruction.

To slide in under the blanket and take Karlin into his arms felt as natural as breathing. To hold him close, to be held, immediately soothed the anxiety that had nagged him since lunch. Karlin’s mouth was buried in the dip of his neck, breath teasing his desperate flesh. He heard a whisper then, the first words they’d spoken between them since this massive thing had happened, the first words not spoken in anger.
“Why is this happening?” Even as he asked, Karlin ran his hands over the other man’s back and arm. This was right, whatever it was.
Jona pulled back slightly, resting his head on the pillow, watching the blue gaze watching him. “I don’t know. But….”
“It’s right, I know it is. But how can it be?”

Jona didn’t have the answers to the questions nagging at them both. Yet it didn’t seem to matter because the need for one another was becoming difficult to ignore and although the yearning had eased now they were together, there were other needs now pressing. Like the need to kiss this beautiful man. Jona moved forward an inch, and in a breath Karlin’s lips were upon his, parting, begging for Jona’s tongue.

This intimate contact felt like drowning in one another. They wouldn’t spend another night apart, lying on separate mattresses. Both knew that. Jona’s hands once again pulled Karlin as close as he could get without sinking into the other’s flesh. He thrust his fingers through Karlin’s hair, soft despite the soot layered through it.

Breathless, Karlin broke the kiss for a moment, curling one leg through Jona’s, entwining them. “Stay,” he panted softly. “Just… stay.”
Jona smiled, one that Karlin decided was the sunshine missing from his life. “I wasn’t planning on leaving. Not ever.” It was so easy to say, as if he’d said it a hundred times before to this man who lay in his arms.
Karlin’s smile reflected Jona’s. “I know.”

For the moment, kissing and touching was enough. Although what was happening between them was plainly sexual, sex didn’t seem to be what was important right now. Being together was, as if they’d been apart for months after being so close. Yet they’d never been close, never known one another before the moment they’d been about to fight. The one who’d called himself Teal’c had said that they were friends… but how was that possible? And ‘friends’ didn’t really seem strong enough a word to describe what they felt for one another.

Jona fell asleep eventually, hard work and a soul-deep relief at being where he belonged dropping him quickly into a deep rest. Karlin’s head was tucked beneath his chin, the other man also asleep, rocked by the steady, strong beat of Jona’s heart.

**The puddle of water jumped toward him and retracted, settling into a shimmering pool. But it was standing vertically, hemmed in by the stone circle surrounding it.
“Coming, Danny?” Jona stepped passed him and turned to smile. “What? Not like you haven’t done this before.”
Karlin watched while Jona walked forward, into the shimmering water. “NO!” He ran after him, and he too hit the surface….**

Karlin woke, breath coming in hard gasps while he got his bearings.
“Hey, just a nightmare.” The soothing, authoritative voice and the palm stroking over his hair calmed his breathing easily and he shifted until he lay over Jona’s chest, looking into the dark, sleepy eyes that regarded him with nothing less than adoration. “Want to tell me about it?”
He thought about that. “You were there… and you walked into this… puddle. Only it wasn’t flat, it was standing up, and you went into it like it was something you did every day.” It was the greatest number of words shared between them since whatever this was had happened. “You didn’t dream?”
Jona hesitated. But Karlin’s eyes demanded… no, asked for, the truth. “I dreamt of you. Or… not you. Your face, but not your name.”
“What name?”
“’Danny’.” Karlin smiled. “That’s what your called me in my dream.” He tasted the name. It fitted somehow, like a nickname. He smiled. “That’s me.”

Jona could only agree. It was, somehow, like this was. He tightened his embrace around this man, holding him closer. Karlin slithered up him until he could cover Jona’s mouth with his own. The kiss was searing, the contact familiar and new all at the same time. Jona’s tongue pushed deeper into the heat of Karlin’s mouth and suddenly the clothes between them were too constricting.

It seemed that the thought struck them both at the same time. Karlin’s hands found the base of Jona’s jumper and snuck under them, finally finding clean, bare skin. Jona moaned into his lover’s mouth, his own hands searching for a similar prize. He found at last the smooth skin on Karlin’s back and stroked his palms over it, pushing up the sweater.

Skin to skin, they moved against one another, erections pushing together through the rough outer material of their pants. It wasn’t enough. “More….” Karlin’s plea was made almost in desperation. “Please, Jona.”
It was the first time he’d spoke the other’s name. He made it sound more like a sexual expletive. Under the blanket, hands fought with clothing and in a second silk skin touched silk skin. Karlin whimpered as the surge of desire and need overwhelmed him. He clung to Jona as the other man’s hand held their cocks length to length, slowly pumping them together.

“I can’t….” Jona understood the unfinished murmur. It had been too long. Longer than he could remember in fact…. The uncomfortable thought was wiped away in an instant by his own hand and the intimate contact between them. “Please….”
Jona tightened his grip, burying his face in Karlin’s neck as the desire pulsed through him, and he came hard, wave after wave of orgasm released over his hand to mix with Karlin’s when he too climaxed a moment later. They clung to one another, finally falling asleep while remaining as close as they could get.

What the hell was happening to them? Thera had had dreams like Karlin’s. The big puddle of water that they walked into was the same in both their subconscious’. Jona was worried. He hadn’t shared their dream. But he had seen Karlin… or ‘Danny’ in his own. And Tora had said that they were friends. Could it be that they didn’t belong here? That they weren’t the people they thought themselves to be?

More bizarre were the feelings he found himself fighting with when he and Karlin were apart. It had started when they’d gone their separate ways to work after breakfast and now it was almost lunchtime Jona felt desolate, as if a part of him was missing. When the break finally came they met up at the entrance of the eating area. Their arms went around each other without bidding, and Jona realised he wasn’t the only one who’d been hurting.

“Why did I miss you?”
Karlin moved his head from side to side, face remaining in Jona’s neck. “I don’t know,” he murmured, words muffled. “But I felt like my heart was being slowly torn out.”
Jona held him as tight and as close as he could. The pain was fading away quickly. Within a minute it was as if it had never been there. After a time, and hinting coughs from Thera and Kagan, they released each other long enough to get some food.

But in the afternoon the pain of separation returned. Jona was overcome by a feeling of dread so intense he found himself looking up every other second to check that Karlin – working now within sight – was safe and well. He was looking right at him when a valve close by the man’s head exploded. Jona yelled out Karlin’s name at the same time the other man screamed and dived for cover.

All hell broke loose. Tora was there, smashing the release handle with a heavy mallet. Jona’s first action was to drop into a crouch by Karlin’s side, but he was unhurt. Behind them, Tora had collapsed. The pressure was still building. Jona offered his hand and helped Karlin up, grabbing a second mallet. They started on the handle together, hammering it into submission until it finally broke away and the steam released. The pressure dropped quickly.

Jona took Karlin by the shoulders. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” But he leaned in to the touch, needing it to soothe the ache that had plagued him all afternoon.
Brenner was running toward them, Kagan and Thera in tow. “You saved the lives of many!” Brenner told them in thanks. “We are in your debt.”
Jona turned, his hand stroking up Karlin’s arm and over his shoulder possessively. “It’s our honour to serve.” He spoke for them both. Brenner smiled tightly. Had their attention not been upon one another they might have noticed something strange in her manner. Thera noticed. Brenner was uncomfortable with what Jona had said. But why should that be when it was a sign of respect? Why didn’t she look uncomfortable when others said it?

Karlin and Jona had moved their mattresses together, to no one’s surprise. They’d even had some help from a couple of the others after the stunt they’d pulled off that afternoon. They’d been given the rest of the day to themselves as thanks and had spent it sitting together, talking for a time. Then later lying together, kissing, touching.

Jona was amazed at how Karlin fitted against him. How his eyes spoke volumes. How a simple kiss could communicate every feeling, every emotion. This wasn’t love at first sight. This was deeper, as if it always been there.
“Why do I want to call you Danny?” Jona stroked his hand over Karlin’s hair, tucking him into his shoulder at the same time as trying to kiss him.
“It sounds right…. Jona… what if that’s who I am? What if… if we’re not who we think we are? You and I… we’re supposed to be together, don’t you think?” That final question had a note of a plea to it.
Jona held him ever closer. “God, yes.” He dropped a kiss to Karlin’s forehead, to his hair. “I… I love you.” He moved his head, needing to get the words out before they pulled him apart. “I don’t know how or why I can say that. I… I hardly know you….”
“But you do.” Karlin pulled away slightly. “I know you.” He paused, ordering the thoughts that were barely fleeting images in his consciousness. “Jack…. Your name is Jack. You… you’re my commanding officer….” That didn’t seem to fit with what they thought they knew. “Can that be right?”
“No.” Jona shook his head. “I don’t feel… any command… over you. Just this overwhelming… need… to be close to you.” He rolled the name ‘Jack’ around in his mind. It felt… right but something was a little off.

Karlin settled again, pressing into Jona’s neck, breathing him in; sweat and grime. “I think I love you too.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“There was definitely a ‘but’ in there.”
Karlin fell silent for a moment. “We’re not supposed to be here.”
Jona suddenly found himself blinking back tears. “Together?”
“No, no, no, no…. Together’s good. This is how it’s supposed to be between us.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” He didn’t elaborate further, just lifted his head and kissed Jona, tenderly, then deeply, setting free his emotions.

Jona met the kiss with equal fervour, his body reacting, erection pressing against Karlin’s. Never had he imagined he could fall in love like this. He had no inkling of whether a man was supposed to love another man. Here, in this world and this life at least, love was shared between people, no matter what sex. Them being together in the last day had been easily accepted.

And yet… as they lay together now, Karlin’s back to Jona’s chest, Jona’s arm wrapped tightly around him, Thera’s gaze held something…. “What is it?”
She looked from one to the other. “Something’s wrong.”
“Karlin thinks we’re not supposed to be here.”
Thera looked at them, a little surprised. To her eyes they looked more than happy to be here. “You think Tora was right?”
“I think his name is Teal’c, like he said. Jona’s sure I’m called ‘Danny’, and I have… a feeling that he’s actually ‘Jack’.”
“And me?”
Karlin looked at her for a time. He screwed his eyes up, trying to dig around in his own confused mind for a name… “Sam! You’re Sam!” He turned to look at Jona. “And you’re Jack! Oh, God… we have to get out of here.”