Here.
Jack was standing on a yellow brick road. Ahead of him stretched a field of poppies, blood red and hungrily inviting. He was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to go in there, but he couldn't remember why not.
"Hey, Jack."
He turned around. Daniel stood there, dressed in a pair of threadbare jeans and a loose black t-shirt, both of which were kept hidden at the back of Jack's dresser where no one could find them. He was barefoot, and his hands were tucked comfortably into his pockets.
"You're not here," he said. And then, for clarification: "You're not real."
"We've had this conversation before," Daniel said. "I'm definitely here."
"I'm dreaming," Jack pointed out, reasonably, he thought. "By definition, that means you're not real. Which means that you're not actually here." So there, he added silently. He knew Daniel knew he was thinking it anyway.
"I'm not actually supposed to visit you," Daniel said.
"You could before."
"Special circumstances, remember?" Daniel said. "This time, though, I had to find a way around. Thus, dreams."
"So you're here," Jack said. Daniel smiled.
"Yes, Jack. I'm here."
"Well, cool." Jack looked around and spotted a bench that hadn't been there before, sitting neatly under the shade of a looming oak. "Wanna sit?"
"Sure," Daniel said, and they sat down together, way too close. Daniel was warm, Jack thought. He radiated heat just the way he had when he was… the way he had before. He wondered if Ascended beings had metabolisms.
"So," Daniel said. "Get yourself into any more trouble?"
"Nope," Jack said. "Still stuck in the infirmary, actually. The sarcophagus healed me right up, but the detox is a bitch."
"Oh yeah, I remember." Daniel paused, looking a little thoughtful. "I can probably help with that."
Jack looked at him, eyebrow raised. "Glow power, activate?"
"Something like that," Daniel said. "I can… settle myself into your body, for lack of a better word. I can't heal you, not without raising any eyebrows, but I can make it so that you can't feel the symptoms."
"And you didn't think this might have helped, oh, I don't know, a few days ago when I was getting tortured?" Jack asked. This was something he should be getting pissed about, he thought. Somehow, he just couldn't feel anything but peaceful. Maybe it was Daniel's presence beside him.
Or maybe it was the poppies.
"I had to get permission to go that time," Daniel explained. He sounded peaceful, too. "So they were watching me closely. It was a minor miracle I was able to give Teal'c and Sam and Jonas the nudge that they needed without getting caught."
That made sense. Then again, Daniel almost always did, when he wasn't being absolutely bugfuck nuts. Even then he turned out to be right, though. It was one of Daniel's more annoying, if useful, traits.
"So if you can help out, why haven't you done it already?" Jack demanded. "It's not like you to stop and chat before sticking your nose in where you think you can help."
"Well, I didn't want you to just wake up with me inside you," Daniel said.
Jack smirked. "You used to enjoy it," he pointed out gleefully. Daniel rolled his eyes.
"Not the same thing, Jack, and you know it."
"Oh, I don't know," Jack said. "It sounds like fun. Why don't you give it a try?"
Oz vanished. Jack opened his eyes to the white ceiling of the infirmary, distantly aware of the beep of his heart monitor off to the side somewhere. He was more focused on the feeling of Daniel, pressed up inside of him, filling his skin to the bursting point from the inside out.
It was the most amazing thing he'd ever felt, even without the cessation of withdrawal symptoms, and amazingly like sex in all the best ways. "Not so different, Danny-boy," he whispered, his voice a little hoarse. He felt Daniel's smile, not just pressed to the pulse-point of his throat like he once would have, but actually in his pulse. Daniel's pleasure was his heartbeat. It had been for years, but not like this. Nothing had ever been like this.
I love you, Daniel thought, and, "I love you," Jack replied, because Daniel thought it first, and he had never been able to do anything but reply in kind. Not with Daniel.
I can stay here as long as you need me to, Daniel thought.
"Then you're never gonna get back to the whole Ascended thing," Jack said. He was always going to need Daniel.
I can come back, Jack, Daniel thought, amused. Jack smiled reluctantly.
"Maybe just till I'm clean again. Don't want you getting in trouble."
Business as usual, Daniel smirked, and Jack had to smile, agreeing with him. Trouble was practically Daniel's middle name.
"Still. These Others you were talking about, the big cheeses. Are they gonna punish you or something for thumbing your nose at their precious rules?"
They have to catch me first, Daniel pointed out. And take a look around the room, Jack. There's no one in it but you. I'm not here.
"Just like you weren't there while I was dreaming," Jack said. "Only now you're hiding in me instead."
Exactly, Daniel said, pleased he'd gotten it. Jack could feel his pleasure like a backwards kiss. I can't get in trouble for being here if I'm not here.
"Excellent," Jack said, laughing, then winced away as too-bright light flooded the room.
"Sir?" It was Carter. "Are you alright?"
"Peachy-keen," Jack said, unable to stop grinning. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, sir, it's just that I heard you talking to someone, before I came in," she said cautiously. Don't spook the crazy person, right? Daniel was laughing, too. It fizzed along his nervous system like the best champagne.
"It's alright, Carter," Jack said, keeping a straight face. "I was just talking to myself."
"Are you sure, sir?" Well, she would have to ask. Weirder things had definitely happened. There'd been a kid who'd talked to invisible people in here before; it wasn't that much of a stretch to think Jack might do it.
"Yeah," he said. "After all, there's no one here but you and me."
"Okay, if you're sure," she said. She smiled a little hesitantly. "I'll let you get back to sleep," she said, and ducked back out of the doorway before he could say goodnight, closing the door behind her and flicking off the overhead light as she went.
Jack settled back into the bed with a happy sigh. "No one here but you and me," he said again, and when he closed his eyes, he could feel Daniel.
He went back to sleep with a smile on his face.