Title: "Black and White and Sepia-Brown"
Rating: PG
Pairing: could be Jack/Daniel
Words: 338
Warnings: a tiny, tiny bit of slash
Summary: When he was young, he liked going through the old black-and-white photographs...

When he was young, he liked going through the old black-and-white photographs, looking at all the sepia-colored people, and asking his mother who each person was. When there was color, he wasn't so interested. Somehow the rainbow took away the mystery of the photograph. The colors distracted from the true purpose of the photo: to preserve the memory.

So sometimes, he'd snap a black-and-white, just for the mystique.

When Charlie was born, his mindset changed a bit. He liked seeing the milky-white hair of his son, and the sparking brown eyes. The sepia-brown wasn't so important any more, not against the beautiful color of his son.

Then Charlie died, and he didn't much care for photographs anymore.

When he met Daniel, it changed again. He remembered the days spent in the attic, swallowing dust and sneezing, and decided maybe a few black-and-white pictures wouldn't be amiss. But he never took them of Daniel; no, he liked Daniel's eyes too much to reduce them to black-brown.

Once when Daniel came over, he had taken out the photo album and gone through the pictures, smiling to himself. Jack leaned over and explained the pictures, and he always paid special attention to the black-and-whites. Daniel had asked why there were none of him-why was he always in glorious Technicolor? Jack had replied, "I like your eyes," and that had been that.

Now Jack carefully added another picture to his growing collection. It was of Daniel, sprawled out on his sofa, long legs stretched out and over one end, head on a pillow, one arm over his chest while the other hung down to rest on the floor. His lips were half-parted, his glasses slipping down his nose. It was in black-and-white and sepia-brown.

"Hey, what're you doing?"

Jack gently closed the book of preserved memory, and looked up at the speaker.

"Just thinking."

"Oh, dangerous."

Jack smiled, and thought, Sometimes the world is black and white. Sometimes, blue eyes shone teasingly at him, color is so definitely the way to go.