Prompt
(091) Epiphany
Jack,
Daniel, mentions of Carter and Janet
Spoilers
for "Meridian"
Written for the community slash100 at livejournal.
Sometime between Janet telling them that Daniel was going to die and him actually dying, Jack had an epiphany. It crept up on him during his vigil and tapped him on the shoulder and said, "You're in love with him." And it made sense.
Jack liked to touch; always had. But Daniel was on the recieving end of most of those touches--or had been until he started flirting with the idea of flirting with Carter. He knew almost immediately that it would never work: to him, she'd always be Carter, super-smart and gorgeous and blonde but still his subordinate; to her, he'd always be Colonel, handsome and charismatic but still her superior. Nevertheless, he began ignoring Daniel in favor of Carter because Carter was safe and she was female and Daniel was neither.
It explained the dreams of flat planes and angular hips under his hands instead of curves. It explained why he'd almost quit when he thought Daniel died. It explained why Jack was always inviting Daniel over for pizza, beer and hockey and then humouring Daniel to a museum trip the next Friday.
Jack loving Daniel made sense.
And sometime between Jack realizing the truth and Daniel dying, he had another epiphany: Daniel would never know.