Title: Sweet Dream
Author: aces
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: D/J
Category: So pre-slash it's a mere not-so-subtle glimmer
Disclaimer: Not mine, make no profit, write only for the entertainment value of gently angsting with our favorite guys
Notes: Watching "Paradise Lost" and the whole hallucination situation just gave me ideas. Obviously. It didn't help that I'd been listening to Aimee Mann's Lost in Space CD again lately, and her songs just give me ideas as well—and yes, this is a songfic because of that. It's an eclectic mix, but all the songs are off this album—"Humpty Dumpty," "Lost in Space," "Invisible Ink," "This is How it Goes," and "No It's Not" I think are all the ones I used—and yeah, the songs are from two different viewpoints, Jack's and Daniel's. Sorry. *sheepish smile*
Summary: Damn alien planets, damn alien plants…
Warnings: Ghosts and BO; that's it, I swear. Oh yeah, and some moderate swearing.
SWEET DREAM
"Last night. I swear I heard someone wandering around out here."
"Come on, Jack, you've seen stranger things…other dimensions, planes of existence."
~Colonel Harry Maybourne, "Paradise Lost"
But I'm the stuff
Of happy endings
Though mostly bluff
Belief suspending
But close enough
For just pretending to care
This is how it goes
You'll get angry at yourself
and think you can think of something else
and I'll hear the clanging of the bells
'cause I can't stop you baby…
He'd actually kinda started liking it here before everything went weird and spooky on him. The place had reminded him of his cabin in Minnesota. He'd been spending a lot of time there lately, too. Not sure why. The place had always brought him peace, gave him sanity, but lately it'd been doing almost more than that. Lately, the cabin and its environs had been his only refuge.
But this place…it had almost succeeded in doing that, too, bringing him peace and sanity and clarity, till it went all weird and spooky on him with the freaky sounds and mood lighting. He'd lost his shoes and gear within the first couple days of arrival, rolled up his pants legs…he'd felt reduced. Simplified. Things had become simple again, despite the complication and irritation of Maybourne. Blessed calm and clarity.
Not now, though. Things were just weird now.
He felt a sudden cool breeze on his sweaty forehead and looked up sharply, bringing the 9 mm to bear. He froze.
Things had just got a little weirder.
Fuck.
"Daniel?" Jack said, darting a look around the apparition, making sure no-one else was gonna pop up out of the bushes. Sam maybe, which would be nice actually, 'cos that'd mean rescue, unless she was a hallucination too. "What the hell're you doing here?"
"We need to talk," Daniel said.
There comes a time when you swim or sink
So I jumped in the drink
'cause I couldn't make myself clear
Maybe I wrote in invisible ink
Oh I've tried to think
How I could've made it appear
"Talk?" Jack repeated in disbelief, still looking around him anxiously, listening for something, anything that would distract him from the ghost in front of him. It didn't help that the trees and bushes were looking a wee bit washed-out there while Daniel was surely too bright and too solid to be real. "Now? You crazy?"
"On occasion," Daniel answered with one of his distracted little frowns, "but not right now, no. Listen to me, Jack."
"Why? You're not even real."
A sigh of impatience from Daniel, another little gust of cool air on Jack's brow. The colonel found himself leaning into that tiny breath of moving air even after it'd moved on. It'd felt…good. It'd reminded him of the sort of rare breeze you got on the lake in the summer on a long, hot day of fishing. Peaceful, calming.
Jack shrank back, staring up at the young man towering over him. "You're not real," he said, and he almost sounded scared.
Daniel's brow uncreased sadly even as he simultaneously frowned down in concern at his friend. A very special Daniel Jackson facial contortion that Jack could have done without being reminded about. "We need to talk, Jack," he repeated.
Jack cocked his head to one side. "What about?" he asked and blinked stinging sweat out of his eyes and jumped a little, convulsively, at the sounds of insects and birds and—things. Freaky things. His eyes remained fixed on Daniel, even though a half-heard voice inside his head was screaming distractingly at him to look away, look away, you fool.
"You know what about," Daniel answered. "Me."
Jack shook his head violently, pulling back again, suddenly angry, violently angry. He jumped up and slipped around the apparition. "I don't want to hear this," he muttered as he jogged away.
"Jack!" He didn't turn at the frustrated yell directed at his back.
But another illustration is wasted 'cause the
Results are the same
I feel like a ghost
Who's trying to move your hands
Over some Ouija board in the hopes
I can spell out my name
He sprawled into the bushes far away from the abandoned encampment and wiped the sweat off his forehead vigorously with his left hand, keeping hold of his gun in his right hand the whole time. He darted up to look over his cover, but nothing was there. Nothing new anyway. Still just the…weirdness. It wasn't even anything specific that he could shoot at, just—weirdness. Damn it made him itchy.
"You're looking old, Jack," Daniel was saying next to him, but he was trying to ignore that, trying to ignore the fact that Daniel had just somehow calmly shown up right next to him. "…Good. But old." Daniel's tone softened, became wistful, and Jack remembered just in time not to turn and look at him. "I hope I didn't cause that."
"I always said you're the reason my hair's gray," Jack retorted before he could stop himself. Don't talk to your delusions, he lectured himself. "Go away, Daniel," he added impatiently, proud for trying to take charge of his delusion and not even realizing he was already violating his own orders. "I'm busy here."
"Don't make this difficult," Daniel snapped. "You always have to make everything so damned difficult."
"Look who's talking!" Jack shouted back, aggrieved, confronting Daniel face on. Oh yeah, good job. So much for following orders, Jack. "Mr Damned Difficulty himself! God, Daniel, even as a hallucination you're irritating as all hell."
"I'm hurt," Daniel said in a tone of absent-minded irony that Jack knew too well, combined with a frown of genuine hurt that Jack knew too well too—and as for the combination of tone and frown, well, he could never forget that either. All part of Daniel's charm, trying to confuse Jack with his mixed signals so that Jack didn't know how seriously to take him, and he always seemed to come out in the end feeling guiltier than he was sure he had a right to. Hell, the kid was more irritating as a hallucination. At least if he were real Jack could kick his ass or something. Touch him somehow, 'cos that's what you did with real people.
"God, Daniel," Jack breathed, a sudden constriction in his chest as he stared at his friend kneeling so calmly next to him in the brush. "Go away. Please." He was scared by the desperation in his own voice.
"Why?" Daniel asked, biting his lip and looking right back at Jack.
***
I keep going round and round on the same old circuit
A wire travels underground to a vacant lot
Where something I can't see interrupts the current
And shrinks the picture down to a tiny dot
And from behind the screen, it can look so perfect
But it's not
***
"You're not real," Jack tried to remind, calm himself, tearing his gaze away from the younger man. He looked around the plain again, looking for enemies, the source of his paranoia, trying and trying not to look at Daniel. "You're not real," he repeated in a whisper.
"The waterfall was beautiful, wasn't it?" Daniel said, ignoring his friend's words completely and getting himself more comfortably situated on the dirt. His trousers were of course completely clean, as was his sweater, and naturally he didn't look at all sweaty. Jack kinda wished he didn't have to be in the presence of his own BO, and it didn't help that he wanted to spit in his palm and pat down his hair in embarrassment. Daniel gazed around at the area, oblivious to Jack's grooming angst. "This whole place is beautiful."
"Well, it was," Jack admitted with a snort, "till it went all creepy-weird on me and made Maybourne lose what few marbles he had. Knew I shouldn't have eaten that damned plant." He suddenly lifted his gun again, heart thumping, but there was nothing there. Well…yeah.
"It's peaceful." Daniel seemed entirely unconcerned, even when Jack's whole body stiffened at that particular word and the colonel turned his head slowly to stare fixedly at the other man. A distant smile touched Daniel's lips, lit up his eyes, not covered now by glasses. "You even took off your shoes and rolled up your pant legs like you did that time I went to your cabin with you."
Jack kept staring at him. He was sitting so close Jack was almost touching him, could brush an arm or leg against him and it'd look completely accidental. He should have felt body heat, heard ground and leaves shifting and brushing against and around another body taking up space, should have felt the indefinable presence of another human sitting next to him, but there was nothing. His chest constricted again. He almost couldn't breathe.
Daniel met his gaze, and he desperately wanted to look away but couldn't. "We need to talk," Daniel said quietly.
What some might take for magic at first glance
Is just sleight of hand
Depending on what you believe
Something gets lost when you translate
It's hard to keep straight
Perspective is everything
"Why do we need to talk about you?" Jack stalled, heart thumping against his ribs so loudly he was sure the nonexistent baddies would hear it and attack. "I'm going loony again, you're not even here, Maybourne's out there somewhere in his own Cloud Cuckoo Land…what's there to say here?"
"A lot," Daniel said in a precise sort of tone, and Jack groaned, burying his face in his hands, gun smacking up against his cheekbone and nose. "And none of it you'd listen to in a normal frame of mind."
"Daniel," Jack's voice was muffled, "I never listened to you in a normal frame of mind. Why would I start when I'm off my head?"
"You always say things like that," Daniel sounded annoyed, and Jack fought back an insane urge to laugh. Which wasn't surprising, since, ya know, he was going freaking insane anyway. "You can be a real bastard sometimes, Jack. I'm trying to do you a favour."
"I don't need favours from hallucinations!"
"Clarity," Daniel said, and Jack shot him a sidelong, vicious glare, peering up over his hands. Daniel smirked insufferably. "I'm right, aren't I?"
"Of course you are," Jack said spitefully. "You're a figment of my imagination that my own head has dragged up. It doesn't mean squat."
Daniel held up a finger to his lips and Jack obediently stilled, unable to stop himself and hating himself for that weakness. "You go to the lake for clarity," Daniel told him, and Jack hated it when Daniel knew him too fucking well. "For peace.
"So why have you felt such a need to go to the lake so much lately?"
***
So here I'm sitting in my car at the same old stoplight
I keep waiting for a change, but I don't know what
So red turns into green turning into yellow
But I'm just frozen here on the same old spot
And all I have to do is press the pedal
But I'm not
No, I'm not
***
"I like the peace and quiet," Jack defended himself grouchily, even though his heart was still crazy pounding in newfound fear. "You know that."
"Jack, you've been going there every weekend you can; you were just there again even though you spent your whole vacation there a couple weeks ago." Daniel's voice was patient and gentle, and Jack's heart sank. "Why do you need so much time alone?"
"Clarity," Jack said and was surprised to find his voice breathless. He couldn't meet Daniel's eye. "A page out of your own book, Danny boy. Just looking for clarity."
Daniel nodded, and the wistful look on his face made the older man want to cry. "Things ended…wrongly, didn't they? When I—left. I didn't get a chance to say what I wanted to you. And there wasn't time when you were a 'guest' of Ba'al's…"
"I said my piece," Jack said tightly and looked away again, gun held steadily in front of him, though it hurt to turn away. It hurt, like ripping out the stitches that held his soul together, because he was afraid his delusion was going to disappear on him again soon, and now he was almost more afraid to turn and look back in case Daniel wasn't sitting there the next time and he'd be left alone. Again. Oh yeah… "Anyway you were the one that left." His words were brutal. Daniel winced guiltily.
***
Say you were split, you were split in fragments
And none of the pieces would talk to you
Wouldn't you want to be who you had been?
Well, baby, I want that too
So better take the keys
And drive forever
Staying won't put these
Futures back together
All the perfect drugs
And superheroes
Wouldn't be enough
To bring me up to zero
***
"Did you say everything?" Daniel asked quietly, features regaining their composure. Jack hated him for that, hated him for being so calm and cool and collected when Jack was sweaty and seeing things and completely out of all that clarity he'd been re-collecting the past couple weeks on this damned shoulda-been-good-for-something planet. "You didn't leave anything out?" An almost jeering laugh escaped from Daniel's mouth, but his eyes were still blue and gentle. "You admired me? That's all you had to say?"
"Leave it alone," Jack advised, a dangerous quality to his tone. "Just leave it alone Daniel."
Daniel shook his head, utterly calm. Jack found it galling, but what could you do with hallucinations? Especially stubborn ones. "I can't," Daniel said simply. "Anyway, you're supposedly the one hallucinating me; you make me go away and leave you alone." He paused. "Or can't you?" he added, and he wasn't even teasing.
Jack didn't say anything. Didn't look at him, peering around the area again instead, trying to look in control and capable and Special Ops trained. He just managed to stop himself rubbing at the sweat stinging salt water into his eyes.
Daniel blew out a deep breath, and Jack shuddered at the cold air that drifted across him, even as he found himself leaning once again into its embrace. He stopped himself immediately, flushing angrily.
"I'm sorry," Daniel said, and Jack tried not to hear him, but he couldn't help listening to that voice. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything."
And I know now which is which,
And what angle I ought to look at it from
I suppose I should be happy to be misread—
Better be that than
Some of the other things I have become…
And aside from that,
This chain of reaction, baby, is losing a link
Though I'd hoped you'd know what
I tried to tell you, and if you don't
I could draw you a picture
In invisible ink.
Jack slumped back against his bush cover, his eyes closing. "Don't, Daniel," he said softly, tiredly. "Please."
Daniel paused before asking. "Why not?"
"You telling me anything now wouldn't change anything." So very, very tired. At least the creepy things were leaving him alone for a moment. A blessed moment of peace and clarity that he wasn't even sure he wanted anymore, if this is what it was going to bring him. "You're gone. You've been gone forever." He opened his eyes and met Daniel's gaze, and it could have been completely normal between them in that moment. "It won't change."
Daniel's eyes were blue, warm and comforting to see once more. His mouth was understanding, forgiving. Jack sighed deeply, not closing his eyes or looking away from his friend this time. A blessed moment of peace and clarity.
The colonel let his head fall toward his right shoulder as he took in his friend properly, for the first time since Ba'al, for the first time in too long. "I miss you," he said simply after a moment.
Daniel nodded, a spasm of emotion crossing his face. "You too," he said with a little frown of pained wryness, and the familiarity of that expression hurt Jack all over again because he knew it wasn't even real, just a fragment of a dredged-up memory. Daniel hesitated and then reached up with his hand, holding his palm almost touching Jack's cheek. Jack felt a whisper of a presence, an echo of the warmth and scent and comfort of his old friend. The gesture was one Daniel had never made in the five—six?—years he and Jack had known each other. It had always been Jack who held Daniel, initiated the touch.
Jack wished he could lean into the palm and be held for once. Daniel seemed to catch the thought, a smile flickering on his lips, crinkling his cheeks and around his eyes, warming the blue of his eyes.
"Still think I'm an hallucination?" the ex-archaeologist whispered, his eyes tracking Jack's face slowly, memorizing it.
"Hell yeah," Jack answered without moving. "You are so gone the instant I turn away."
Daniel nodded, smile collapsing into sadness. "So turn away," he said, his eyes coming to rest on Jack's after a last flicker down to the colonel's lips. Blue eyes meeting brown.
Jack shook his head minutely, afraid to brush his skin through Daniel's hand and thereby lose the illusion, a cascade effect of disappearance till he was gone completely again. "I can't," he said.
Daniel nodded back unhappily. "I know," he agreed. "You'll get out of this, Jack. You're good at this sort of thing. Just don't accidentally kill Maybourne, okay?"
"Yeah," Jack said, biting the word off because it threatened to become something else—a plea, a sob, a confession. Something ugly and unnerving and unnecessary in any case. Messy. He'd gone for the clarity to get rid of the messiness, and see where'd it all got him. "You're going now, aren't you."
Daniel bit his lip and nodded again, never taking his eyes off Jack's face, never moving his hand. Jack could still feel that echo, a constant tickling tingle down his nervous system.
"Just when I liked having you around as a delusion, too," Jack half-smiled.
"Stop going to the lake so much," Daniel lectured sternly in a soft, gentle voice, leaning in closer as if afraid to let the planet hear. Jack wanted to lean forward, too, but stopped himself from getting too close. Just in case that made the illusion disappear faster. "Talk to Sam, and Teal'c, and Jonas. Take them out to dinner. I'm not in the breeze at your cabin, or the clouds, or the water. You won't find your peace there. You're forgetting to live again, Jack."
"Yeah, yeah," Jack said. "At least I didn't threaten to retire this time."
Daniel made a face and Jack just knew if his friend had had his glasses he would have been using them to best effect right about now. It made the older man grin, want to break into a laugh because things were suddenly and transiently so right. The younger man smiled when he saw that and finally dropped his hand back to his side. Jack reached for it automatically but willed himself to stop, dropping his own hand into his lap, grin disappearing like a fast-moving summer cloud.
"Daniel—" he started, but Daniel held a finger up, hovering over Jack's lips, and Jack unwillingly went silent, swallowing his words.
"I will see you again, right?" Jack couldn't contain that question at least, and Daniel allowed him to speak. "I mean, for real, not as spacey alien-plant delusion kinda thing?"
Daniel raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I really honestly couldn't say. Anything's possible. I might even come back for good."
Jack snorted. "That'll be the day. Having to live with you sniping at me all the time again? I'd rather be stuck here for the rest of my life with Maybourne, thank you very much."
Daniel gave him a patient look and Jack shut up, though his facial expression still conveyed his opinion on the matter. Daniel's lips quirked upward, and Jack had no choice but to grin back. And then he sobered. "Go," he said. "No use sticking around taking up precious space in my limited military-trained imagination. I've gotta get off this planet."
"Yeah," Daniel sighed, standing up, "you do." He looked down at his friend, and Jack squinted up at him and felt a little chill despite the heat. He wanted to reach up, grab Daniel's hand, but he didn't even bother. "I'll see you, Jack," and Daniel's voice sounded a little funny, or maybe Jack was just imagining it. He was a hallucination after all, and why would a hallucination sound like he was holding back a sob of his own? Daniel turned around and walked away, seeming to fade into the bright crazy sunlight.
"See you later, Daniel," Jack whispered, still slumped in the bush and staring at where his friend had disappeared.
***
People are tricky, you can't afford to show
Anything risky, anything they don't know
The moment you try
Well, kiss it good-bye
So baby, kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
And let me fall into the dream of the astronaut
Where I get lost in space that goes on forever
And you make all the rest just an afterthought
And I believe it's you who could make it better
Though it's not
No, it's not
No, it's not