brainofck

Title: Transparent
Author:

muck_a_luck, posting in

brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: G
Summary: Pretty much a trope. Jack and Daniel cope with the aftermath of Ascension. A terrible, horible, Daniel descends story.
Content/warnings: I'm rarely weepy, but tonight I felt like a good sniffle. You have been warned.
Spoilers: Set after Fallen. Spoilers for Seasons Five, Six and Seven.
Words: 653
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.

muck_a_luck and

brainofck
The Matrix: Colorless. The Matrix is located here.

For my loyal

rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.

Daniel had readjusted, mostly. There were only a few gaps in his memory now. He would stumble over them by accident, and then they filled themselves in. It got easier as he went. Daniel had thought more than once that the empty spaces in his mind were not black, but colorless, without substance, expanses of nothingness. They filled in with color, but they frightened him while they were nothing.

He hadn't moved off base yet - was still camped out one of the VIP rooms - still sometimes made his way to see Teal'c in the night when the concrete walls were more emptiness than he could handle.

He swiped his keycard through the reader and the door to VIP-8 swung open soundlessly. He flipped the light switch, already shedding clothes. Many, many days and nights since he had returned he had been optimistic, glad to be alive, glad to be returning to old ways and friends. But tonight he was just weary, and exhausted, and ready to collapse. Sleep had healing powers. Tomorrow was another day.

But as the light came on, he realized his bed was not empty and waiting for him.

Jack jerked awake when the light came on, blinking and confused in the unexpected brightness. He looked dazed. He looked frightened. His eyes were tired. And Daniel realized that Jack hadn't been sleeping in his bed. He had been crying.

For some reason Daniel couldn't understand, Jack was associated with almost all the colorless places in his mind now. All the spaces he had yet to fill with color had something to do with Jack. Jack was a puzzle Daniel had yet to solve, and Jack frightened him sometimes the way the colorless nothingness frightened him.

But Daniel knew Jack crying was wrong. He knew it was wrong that Jack didn't even try to hide the tears. He sat very still on the bed, looking at Daniel, but not looking at him, transparent, silent tears slipping one after the other.

Daniel also felt it must be wrong to go to Jack and take him in his arms, and hold him, and shush him, and rub his back as the those colorless tears slid into Daniel's ear, fell onto his neck, dampened the collar of his shirt. Jack clung to him, arms around Daniel's waist, fists gripping Daniel's clothes. For a while Daniel rocked him gently, then he eased back until they were resting on the comforter. Jack cried himself out, his head resting over Daniel's heart.

"After you left..." The words came out in a croak. Jack cleared his throat and tried again.

"...I used to dream about you," he continued. His voice was low and quiet and still. Daniel imagined he was feeling the words resonating through his own chest, rather than hearing them with his ears.

"At first, I thought they were my dreams. My way of holding on to you after you were lost to me. I dreamed things about you that I had never imagined, ever, while you were still here. Never even dreamed before you left. I would wake up happy. My lips would be tingling. And I would turn expecting to see your head next to mine on the pillow, except it wouldn't be there. I would stand in the shower and cry. But I got used to it. Stopped crying. Fell asleep thinking of you and always found you waiting for me. It took me weeks to realize. They weren't my dreams, they were yours."

"Why did you do that, Daniel? And how could you do that, then come back here, and look at me like a stranger and not a lover? How could you give me that, then forget?"

Jack wasn't crying anymore. His voice sounded flat in the colorless gaps in Daniel's mind.

Daniel let his fingers ruffle Jack's still head and waited for the voids to fill themselves in.