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Daniel raised his knuckles to the dark wooden door and hesitated. He let his hand drop, and hitched his grip on the paper sack he was cradling. The corner of the beer box inside was digging into his elbow. He raised his knuckles again, hesitated again, pushed up his glasses. That still felt weird with an overlay of familiar unfamiliarity. He was Arram; he was Daniel. He was home; he was a stranger.
He sighed and closed his eyes. Either he was going to do this -- face this confrontation -- or he wasn't. Either he would reclaim the inevitable, impossible relationship he knew lived behind this door (home/not home), or he would drive back through the dark to the haunted solitude of his quarters. He stood on Jack's doorstep, thinking about that strange room he'd been using, sleeping in, living in, buried like a tomb, inside the mountain. From his reading of his own mission reports, he had a feeling that way too many things had happened to him already in that very room, and that was only the first of the reasons that tonight, he didn't want to go back there.
This stranded, washed-up-on-the-shore-of-life feeling was so familiar now, and it was getting absolutely intolerable. He felt the decision tree branching, felt the timestreams separating for him, at his will. He raised his knuckles again, and he knocked. He waited, counting his heartbeats. Jack opened the door.
"Daniel." Jack looked at him, puzzled, but Jack was always quick to react, and the puzzlement faded to interested welcome. "It's late. But. Come in."
"I don't have to-- If it's too late. If I'm disturbing you."
"Not at all." Jack was standing aside, frowning. Daniel crossed the threshold and looked around. He knew this house. How could he know this house?
Each familiar thing he'd seen since returning to this world had triggered a cascade of associated memories, as if sections of his mind were being relit, only needing the spark of a person or an object to revive them. Even the hatak of the mission had been familiar, had brought things back to him, moment by moment, as he'd needed to know them. Signing out the car from the mountain tonight had been such an experience. He had used Mapquest to find Jack's street, and had known intellectually that he should be able to drive, but nothing about the process had been clear to him tonight until he signed out of the mountain, the strange, small keys in his hand, and seated himself behind the wheel of the four-door, Air Force pool car. Then suddenly, he knew exactly what to do.
Same with stopping at the store for the beer Jack drank. Driving along, he had thought of buying beer, and so he looked for signs, for words to guide him. Then as soon as he was inside, seeing the scuffed linoleum, the strange plate glass, the too-bright tubes of light overhead, he remembered everything. The credit card in his wallet, the correct brand of faux German beer, what a cash register was.
Now, he turned to his friend and held out the sack, and Jack took it. Jack looked inside, and when he saw the twelve-pack box he frowned again.
"Coincidence?" he said, and the inflection signaled that Jack knew it wasn't.
"I don't remember everything, but Heineken, yes. That, I do." Daniel made himself smile. He was very nervous, he noticed. The hesitation was gone, but anxiety twined around his legs and through his groin.
Jack tapped the corner of the sack, and turned on his heel and went into the kitchen. He was barefoot, and wearing a track suit, but the top and the pants didn't match. Daniel wondered if he'd been in bed. Daniel took off his jacket and put it over the back of a chair. He didn't sit, though he could have. He waited. He peered at the medals on the wall, more facts and stories about Jack returning to his mind, voila, as he looked. He could hear Jack's reluctant voice in his memory, responding to Daniel's questions, volunteering very little, reluctant to recount the tale behind these memorials to his own heroism even years after the fact. Yet, the medals were on display. They were not hidden away in a drawer. Daniel looked carefully, hearing Jack's voice inside his head.
Jack came back with two open, smoking beers, and handed Daniel one. He glanced around, and perhaps he was remembering something himself, because he took a drink and then stepped away, leaving Daniel there by the fireplace, and sat down.
Daniel swept the room with his eyes and took a breath. This was home. Why was this home? Was this home? Jack was smiling at him now, a narrow, small smile, yet there was loss in his eyes.
"To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Doctor Jackson?"
Daniel looked at his beer and drank some. It was crisp and cold, all top-note with no developing of taste afterward. It made you want to drink more, quickly, to get the taste back. That, he supposed, was the point. He resisted taking another gulp. He had come here with a purpose. It was pointless to pretend otherwise, and it was pointless to continue to hesitate. He wanted to pace, but he went across to the chair near Jack, sat down, put his bottle on the table and his elbows on his knees. He looked Jack in the eye. Jack looked relaxed, slouched in his chair, knees apart, leaning back, but Daniel could tell it was an illusion.
"Whether I've honored you or not remains to be seen.... Were you going to tell me?"
"Tell you."
"About our history."
"What history would that be, Daniel."
Daniel shook his head. He stood up and began to pace. Yes, of course. Stubborn, self-protecting, devious, willfully blind when it suited his purpose. That was Jack. Or? He turned. Maybe it was he who was blind. There was no way this could be simple. Jack had sat straight up and set his bottle down, too. He was watching Daniel intently.
Daniel let the frown happen and said, "Is there surveillance?"
"Always possible. But, unlikely. I check, you know."
Daniel went over to the stereo and turned on the cd player without pausing to see what was in the changer. The tune that began to play was lush and orchestral, with singing. Opera, his memory dutifully supplied, another bank lighting up in there. Furthermore, "Aida" -- the words arranged themselves, and Daniel smiled at the irony he discovered in the content. He turned the music up. He walked purposefully toward Jack and Jack stood. What kind of attack did he anticipate? Daniel stood close to him, much closer than this culture allowed, as he knew/remembered/had always known, but it was appropriate. For a lot of reasons.
"I guess I couldn't stand it any more," he whispered, holding Jack's gaze, knowing Jack would get it all. "Were you waiting for me to figure it out?" Jack's eyebrows went up, nothing more. "Were you waiting to see if I was still interested? Were you having second thoughts, and this was convenient -- if I didn't remember, it could be over and you'd be spared the difficulty of breaking it off?"
Jack was looking at him now with disbelief and something like embarrassment. Daniel blushed in sympathy. It was shocking, to see Jack unguarded. Shocking, and already addictive. Jack started to speak, then closed his mouth, passed his hand over his face. He looked down. Frustration, and a brightening thread of anger. "I have to know, Jack. I need you to tell me."
Jack, still looking at his toes, sucked in air, let it out. He met Daniel's eyes, and put his hands on Daniel's shoulders.
"What do you remember?"
The impact of Jack's touch was enormous. Without stopping to think, Daniel brought his hands up, put his fingertips on the backs of Jack's hands. The contact was like a drink of water in a desert. Jack's eyes were huge and dark and close, so close. It was an effort to bring his voice down to a whisper. "I remember us. I know things about you only a lover would know. I know your body. When were you going to talk about it or do something again? Were you ever going to?"
Jack swallowed and his hands tightened on Daniel's shoulders. "The first time we got together. The first time we had sex. Do you remember that?"
Daniel relaxed by a degree, infinitely reassured by Jack's hands. This touch! So right, so yearned for, so needed. He frowned into Jack's eyes and reached for the memory, but the vivid recall that should have sparked -- wasn't there. Instead, he found only an intense, dreamlike blur, like what he saw in the distance if he looked without glasses. An enveloping sense of contact, of connection, of intensity bordering on ecstasy, but hardly any scene around the feelings and sensations.
Daniel closed his eyes, knowing the memory was there. It had to be there; why wouldn't it come? Sha're had come back to him, just like this, triggered by the photo and by Teal'c's agonized words. Jack was even closer than Sha're now; here, alive, touching him. Where was the memory he was certain existed?
~~~
Jack was dreaming.
He knew he was dreaming, because he was lying in his own bed, and even though the bed was -- dream logic -- being propelled by jet engines up through a layer of cirrus, it was his bed and he was dreaming, and flying. The tower barked at him, impersonal and routine, and new orders had come and he was to swing back and land. The flying bed obeyed him, and he tilted to one side to see out the canopy, and it was all grey, grey clouds, grey sky.
Descending and descending, and when he landed he flew right into the hangar as his wheels touched earth. He was out of the plane then, somehow, and knew that if he went forward and passed through the big doors at the far end of the echoing metal space, he'd be in Iraq again, and that would suck, so he turned back. Back to the ladder -- cold metal under his hands, and he might get busted for climbing back into the cockpit when his time was up, but that was still better than Iraq, so he closed his eyes and climbed.
Jack was dreaming.
Because the cockpit was too wide for his fighter, with two seats side by side, wrong, and he could climb in with his eyes still closed, no problem, but the canopy was still open, because the wind was cold on his face, cold like the oppressive heat of the hangar was gone from around him, and that meant it wasn't the desert, it was the mountains, maybe Peterson, which was better, and he opened his eyes, and there was Daniel. In the co-pilot's seat that shouldn't have been there. There was Daniel, looking at him intently, the cold breeze fluttering around them both.
"Jack," Daniel said in his dream, and his mouth moved and there was no voice, but it was Daniel just the same, and this couldn't be real, had to be a dream, but it was better than any of the fantasies and daydreams he'd ever had, because he leaned and Daniel leaned, and he closed his eyes and Daniel held him, touched him, kissed him. Daniel was all around him, caressing him, loving him, making him cry out, in him and around him and holding him, holding him up, holding on.
Jack was dreaming, because eventually when he woke, he truly was in his own bed, in a too-warm room, and his hands jerked because they were empty, and his body was still straining toward a vanished lover, all his muscles taut, and he was sticky and smeared because he'd come into the sheets, and there were -- impossible -- tears on his face.
He hung in that odd space between dreaming and waking, wracked and sated and embarrassed. When he could move, he put his hands to his face, scrubbed at the tear tracks, and then scratched his hair. He rolled to his side.
Jesus. Now he'd have to get up and shower, in the middle of the fucking night. He pulled the second pillow to his stomach, curling around it, because there was no one to see, no one to know. Another wave of tears wanted to rise in his throat, and he swallowed them down.
Hard to wake to the empty bed, after a dream like that. Hard to be slammed by the reality of loss, of the missing piece that Daniel was in his life. Too much missing; too many gone.
Daniel. Jack squeezed his eyes shut and thought again that he'd have to get up, fix the bed, shower. But then his eyes flew open, staring into the darkness. Because the mountain breeze, a cold, sweet caress, touched his face, and for an instant, he was wrapped again in the dream, in the wordless, real comfort of Daniel's arms.
~~~
Jack was waiting, intent, not embarrassed any more, and Daniel opened his eyes. He hadn't realized he'd closed them, thinking.
"I can't make it form. But it's there. The memory's there; I'm certain of it." Jack was still staring at him, and Daniel struggled for words. "Us, in bed. I'm certain it was in this house. Just, a lot of touching and --" Daniel knew he was blushing again, which was silly, and Jack's eyes narrowed and he dropped his chin just a fraction, and Daniel could tell he was a little embarrassed, too, which was equally silly. Because they'd been over this already, surely -- this and more. "-- touching and skin. And feelings, feelings and sensations of sex."
"Here. In this house."
"Yes." The proximity was making Daniel giddy. He could smell Jack -- beer and sweat and skin. His big hands, heavy on Daniel's shoulders. He dropped his gaze to Jack's mouth, so mobile and soft looking. Jack so rarely smiled. He ached to see him smile again. He shivered.
"And, you still want that." Soft, expressive lips, forming the simple words.
"Yes. You know I do." Daniel frowned into his eyes again. What was going through Jack's mind? What game was he playing? Why was this so hard? Because obviously it was, for Jack. Perhaps he had taken it personally when Daniel left to join the ascended beings. Well. Obvious. Of course Jack had taken it personally. Jack took everything personally. It was how Jack did life: Personally. Daniel followed that train of thought, was thinking how to apologize for something he couldn't even remember doing -- making the decision to go, to leave, to not die, to ascend, when he was struck by the observation that Jack was moving just a little, and slowly. Leaning toward him. Tilting his head.
Daniel sucked in an amazed breath and leaned in, too. Jack wanted to kiss him. Jack was kissing him, now. The shock of the kiss was greater, if possible, than the shock of Jack's hands on his shoulders. It was firm and not tentative, and Daniel let the kiss happen, let it be how Jack wanted it, not pushing or trying to move it forward or back. A meeting of lips, warm and curved and soft. Daniel closed his eyes and slid his hands to Jack's wrists, tightening his grip. He felt his heart beating faster, his dick starting to harden. Delight, and amazement. How could this feel so fresh? Like starting, not starting over? It had only been a year, right? Since this. Thoughts dissolving, because Jack was moving his mouth, as if testing the connection, pressing in against Daniel's. His right hand slid up from Daniel's shoulder, rubbed along his neck and came to rest cradling Daniel's skull.
Jack made an abbreviated noise in his throat, more than a grunt, less than a moan, and so Daniel moved his hand to Jack's shoulder and softened his mouth, opening it. Warmth, and dampness, and a sharper taste of beer, and the living tang that was Jack, and Jack made that noise again, and so Daniel pulled Jack to him with an arm around his shoulders and found Jack's tongue with his own.
That might have been too much, too much after this time of separation, somehow, because Jack took his mouth away with a messy smear of lips against Daniel's cheek. Jack was breathless. But he didn't move; he rested his temple against Daniel's and just leaned there. His breath was coming fast, too, and Daniel knew that if he shifted his weight and leaned a little more, he would feel Jack's arousal.
So strange, the shock of this. So strange, how strange it felt. It shouldn't feel strange, should it? It should feel like home, like this place felt like home. Daniel was pondering that when he felt Jack inhale.
"You're not going to believe this, I guess, but we never did that before."
Daniel stiffened. He shifted his hands so that he was holding Jack, hugging him. Jack's hand slid from his head to his nape again, and then, gloriously, Jack pressed his other hand to the small of Daniel's back and moved them together. Jack was hard, as Daniel knew he would be, and Daniel squeezed his closed eyes and pressed his pelvis to Jack's. He could barely breathe. This was what he'd been wanting, wishing for -- body to body, warmth, the touch of more than hands, more than a friendly brush or pat. He could count on one hand the hugs he had remembered. There had to be more, and he wanted them. He wanted to remember.
He needed to speak. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard, given what he was feeling. "You mean, we didn't kiss before? Is that something--"
"No, Daniel. I mean, yes." Jack squeezed him, hard, and let go and backed away. Daniel hugged himself, feeling a bit adrift without Jack's arms, Jack's body, pressing against him.
Jack's gaze drilled him, but Jack turned and found his beer, picked it up and drank. He put it down and put a hand to the back of his own neck. Then he turned to Daniel and came back within whispering distance, but didn't touch. Daniel waited, still disbelieving the fact that he was really here, doing all this.
Jack went on, "We didn't kiss, we didn't do anything." His gaze was steady. "We weren't ... lovers before." He looked down, looked up again. "But there was this dream I had. At least, I thought it was a dream. Maybe that's what you're remembering. Maybe you did that."
"Oh my god."
Jack took another deep breath, as if steeling himself. "I always had a thing for you, but the Air Force, you know, doesn't allow it, and I was your commander -- in name, anyway." Jack chuckled, bitterly, and Daniel remembered what he'd said in the locker room before their mission to destroy Anubis' weapon -- "You never used to follow my lead."
Jack went on, "This is all really weird, you know?" And Jack lifted a hand, a little hesitantly, like he couldn't quite remember how to do it, and put it against Daniel's neck, where it sloped into shoulder. Daniel closed his eyes at the touch.
He'd been wrong. He'd been so sure, the evidence un-controvertible -- so like the love he'd had for Sha're, that inevitable, that deep. He'd known, known, that that memory of Jack would lead him back to a gallery, a panorama, of real experiences. He had been so sure. And so wrong.
"There was this dream I had..."
He'd been wrong. But only about what happened, apparently. Not about their feelings. And yet, and yet.... What had he done?
"Jack, if you had a dream, about me, a sexual dream, that was too vivid, too real, I must have, when I was ascended--" He opened his eyes. "Jack, that was wrong of me. That was ... without your permission, in a really fundamental way. I'm so sorry, if I--"
Jack laid a finger gently against Daniel's lips.
"Let's get out of here. Let's drive." He patted Daniel on the shoulder and went to the hall closet for a coat, found some boots and laced them up. Daniel put his own jacket back on and waited, still confused by the swirl of memories and the morass of his assumptions.
He had been so sure, and he had been so wrong, and yet he hadn't been wrong. Maddening, to know how his memory could blindside him, and frightening, to know he had made decisions, decisions with consequences, that were going to rear up and bite him. Imposing himself on Jack could very well be the least of what he'd done! He had blind spots. Way too many blind spots. Shit. Jesus.
How could he have -- ? Jack!
He'd done something wrong, unpardonable, but could it be possible that it would be all right? That Jack didn't mind? Still dizzy from Jack's kiss, he followed Jack out to his truck and got in the passenger door.
If he's saying the truth, that was the first kiss we ever had.
He watched Jack's profile. Jack backed down the driveway and steered the big truck out of his neighborhood. The silence of the night filled the cab, but it wasn't oppressive. Jack shunned the interstate and drove along the streets of the Springs until the suburban sprawl thinned out and they were driving along section roads, past empty, silent fields where cattle would be grazing when daylight came. Tall and silver in the moonlight, on Daniel's right, loomed the mountains.
Along the way, Jack turned on the radio -- again, classical music. Every now and then the soothing, over-cultivated voice of the announcer told them what they were listening to.
Daniel didn't know what to say, so he waited. Jack might speak. If he did, Daniel suspected it would be worth hearing. After nearly an hour of driving, Jack did.
"I had this dream, maybe four, five months ago now. After the thing with Ba'al, but before Anubis destroyed Abydos." Daniel stirred and sighed and Jack glanced at him. "You know about all that. You don't remember, do you? But you read the reports. Eye of Ra, Ska'ara..." Jack waved a hand. It was too much to go into.
"I read them."
Jack paused and glanced over. Daniel got the idea that he really didn't believe that Daniel didn't remember. "Sometime I'd kinda like to know what you do recall, about Ba'al's prison, and about the last mission to Abydos, too. But anyway. The dream. Not much of a visual, but it was definitely you and we were definitely in bed. There was some weird stuff about flying a plane, but it was mostly you and me, at home, my bed."
Jack fell silent, and drove, and might have been thinking. He might have been waiting for Daniel to speak, but Daniel didn't think so. Finally Jack took a deep breath, and put his hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Don't apologize for the dream, if you did that. I'm pretty sure you could read my mind then. Actual telepathy, or whatever the glowy folks would call it. If you could, then you would have known that I would be, ah, fine with what happened."
~~~
Actually, "fine with what happened" was the understatement of the century. He really, really, really REALLY did not like thinking about what had happened in Ba'al's House O' Knives and Gravity and Acid, and he liked even less to remember what had happened to Abydos. And Ska'ara.
But in the aftermath of his rescue from Ba'al's fortress, he'd had plenty of time to think. Daniel had come to him and helped him. Responded when Jack had called out to him, mitigated at least some of the effects of the torture, and despite the utterly fucked up rules that governed the Ascended -- stupid useless glowy things, noninterference, my ass!
Anyway. Despite those rules, Daniel had done what he could, bent a few rules to Jack's benefit, and though Jack was still interested to discover that he was fairly pissed off at Daniel for leaving him to twist in the wind like that, it was clear that when faced with Anubis in orbit around Abydos, Daniel had gone for it, broken major rules, crossed the line, just as Jack had urged him to. Jack wouldn't be surprised if that was what had gotten Daniel thrown out of the Glow Brigade. He had talked about it with Carter, actually. More than once.
But it was quite a surprise to see how much of a personal interest Daniel, even screwing around there on the higher planes, doing whatever one did when ascended, had taken in Jack's affairs, and Teal'c's, too.
No, Jack wouldn't be a bit surprised to know that Daniel the Glowing had learned whatever there was to know about Jack's doomed furtive passion for his rebel archaeologist. And apparently said archaeologist had remembered just enough to make Jack's careful facade of straightness an irrelevant fiction.
Shit. What should they do now?
A piano sonata had shifted to the second movement of some symphony, and that had ended, too, and now there was some chorale playing that Jack had never heard before, when Daniel said it, as if still reading Jack's mind.
"What now?"
"That's kind of the 64,000 dollar question, isn't it." His hand had gotten tired, up there on Daniel's shoulder, and he'd pulled off and let it rest on the seat between them, and Daniel had covered it with his own. It was kind of sweet, actually. It felt nice, if a little high school.
He wanted Daniel. Of course. Wanted him so much, wanted him as much as he could never have him. He'd had "things" for people before -- people he'd commanded (hello, Carter?), people he'd worked with, men and women both, but he had been able to control himself, get tough with himself. Suck it up at work. Look for relief elsewhere. Relationships he'd given up on long ago. Sex, he could always find. Sex was easy. Otherwise, he had his team, and he loved them. And he had the work, and the work was damned important. That was enough. It had to be. Because he couldn't flout the regs -- not just for sex. Too much was at stake.
And anyway, he'd been sure -- well, pretty sure, anyway -- that Daniel was straight, and maintaining that idea, clinging to the idea that Daniel was straight: That way was sanity. Giving in to his fantasies -- that way, madness.
Until Daniel left. Then it all became stupid. And futile. And it hurt like hell. Another thing he didn't like to remember.
~~~
Daniel listened, wondering why Jack had wanted to have this conversation in the truck. He probably needed to be driving, needed to be doing something. Or maybe it was simply the potential for surveillance. Unlikely, yes, but more likely at the house than in a moving vehicle, and of course the truck itself was easier to keep swept than an entire house and yard.
It was good to know that Jack didn't blame him, didn't see the dream that Daniel apparently remembered, too, as a violation of his autonomy.
Daniel blinked, trying to get current, trying to match what he'd thought he'd known with what he'd really known. He'd listened, and watched Jack check automatically for tails, and concluded from Jack's expression that there weren't any.
He took a breath and let it out. He knew what he wanted.
So. All he could do was say it, and see if Jack wanted it, too, now. He had that kiss, back in Jack's living room, and the damp reality of Jack's palm under his, and the dream. The incredible intensity of that dream, backed up by years of simmering attraction.
He gathered his courage, and spoke with a certainty he did not entirely feel. "I think you should drive to a motel. If you loop around up here, aren't there some motels out east of the old Olympic Village?"
Jack shot him a look, as if to say, "How did you remember that, mister?" but he drove along, considering, and at the next intersection, he turned east, and then north.
When they stopped, under the awning of a Motel Six somewhere not too far from Falcon, he turned to Jack and said, "Give me some cash. All I have is a twenty," and Jack did.
The room was clean and spare, blissfully free of traces of cigarette smoke or dogs. The carpet was new, Daniel noted. That explained the lack of old odors.
Jack turned the deadbolt and fastened the locking bar. He slowly walked to the little dining table and took off his jacket. He didn't look at Daniel, but he walked past him to the sink and began to wash his hands. Daniel saw in the mirror that Jack was looking at him. Daniel tilted his head, considering, and took off his glasses and put them on the table by the chair that held Jack's jacket. He met Jack's gaze again in the mirror, and walked up behind him, close. Deliberately, carefully, he slid his arms around Jack's waist, and Jack didn't flinch and Jack didn't stop him. Warmth, and reality. He put his cheek against Jack's spine. This was no dream, unless life itself was a dream. Like the song said.
Daniel smiled. Jack finished washing, and he straightened. Daniel straightened with him. Jack turned his head, nuzzling, as he reached for a towel. Daniel didn't let go. Jack dried his hands and then turned in the circle of Daniel's arms.
The kiss this time was urgent, a battle for control. They pressed together, clutching, until Jack got his hands on Daniel's shoulders and pushed them apart. His stare was potent and knowing.
Daniel backed away, took off his coat and hung it on a convenient hanger. He washed his hands, too, and when he turned, Jack was in bed, already stripped and under the covers. His track suit and underwear were on the floor. The reality of the room, of his companion, slammed him. He pulled his sweater over his head and let it fall. He toed out of his running shoes, and began undoing his jeans.
He said, "We really never did this before."
"Cross my heart."
Daniel smiled, and applied himself to his fly. When he was standing there naked, he wondered for a moment how Jack was looking at him, because he was, once again, too nearsighted to tell. He reflexively tugged at his dick, which had filled as soon as he had pressed against Jack's back there at the sink, and went to the bed. Jack lifted a corner of the covers for him, and he sat down and slid under.
The warmth and scent were overwhelming. They held each other, not kissing, not pushing, not doing anything but pressing together.
"Daniel. Holy crap."
"I know. I know."
~~~
It was like the dream, but better, because there was no crying. There was only warmth -- skin and warmth and breath.
Daniel wanted to suck him, and he felt that he should refuse, but on the other hand there was really no reason to, so as things developed, that's what happened. Daniel put that beautiful mouth on him, and urged him to move, to lose it, and Jack could. Jack so rarely let go, but for once, he found he could, and so he did.
And then, it wasn't enough, Jack felt, and maybe he'd get a chance to make up for it again later, somehow, somehow, but Daniel pressed against him for a while, rubbed against his thigh and sucked on his neck, his dick a glorious hot stab, until Jack recovered enough muscle control to take hold of it.
Daniel made noise, then -- lovely, breathy noises, moaning and growling while Jack found the shape of him, fit him to his hand. He got wet; wet enough to make up for the lack of lube. Jack always had lube at home, but, well, reality was never perfect, was it?
Daniel held on, too, and this was so much better -- better than the dream, better than any furtive fantasy. Daniel clutched his shoulders, and put his face in Jack's neck, and Jack jerked him until he came, messily and long.
They both slept then, wrapped close, drifting in dreams, and it was like flying, like the wild blue Jack saw in his dreams, but this was real. This was safe. This was home.
~~~
Daniel woke, sour mouth, warm whiff of Jack, and smiled into the dark. They would have to get up and go, soon. They actually had to work in the morning. The mountain was expecting them.
Yeah, his memories were faulty. So what. They had led him here.
He got an elbow under him, and looked at Jack in the gentle light from the bathroom ceiling. Jack preferred not to sleep in pitch dark. Daniel knew this, and didn't know how he knew. But he figured he could get used to that.
As if feeling his gaze, Jack stirred, murmured his name, and settled his arms again around Daniel's middle.
"Sleep," Daniel whispered. "It's not time to go yet. Not quite yet."
In the dark, soon, they would bundle themselves back into the truck, and go home. To Jack's house. Where there would be beer. And medals. And memories.
end.