'Sleepwalk', Jack, Daniel (Dreamverse Chapter Five), PG
Chapter One: In These Dreams
Chapter Two: Scenes From a Mall
Chapter Three: Rapprochement
Chapter Four: Dream Deferred
2,250 words, still a WIP. Thanks to princessofg and tejas for their assistance and cheerleading. :-)
SLEEPWALK
Jack wore his Service Dress uniform as though it were a suit of armor.
It was easier to accept Daniel and Bjorn this time around. Before, Bjorn had been a faceless entity that it was easy to hate for causing Daniel to reject Jack. Easier to hate a faceless entity than to accept that Daniel would have rejected him anyway.
Now Bjorn had a face, and Jack had seen pain on it that had matched the deep unhappiness Daniel didn’t bother to hide from him.
So, hey. This time around they were together because Jack had put them together. He’d lit a fire under Bjorn, and received a quiet ‘thank you’ from Daniel, whose expression conveyed sympathy and gratitude in equal proportion while the warmth in his eyes gave Jack shivers down his spine.
Armor against grief that was not his own.
Jack never saw the two of them together again. Daniel never invited him to join them, and Jack had stopped inviting Daniel to do anything that didn’t involve the whole team. That didn’t stop Daniel from inviting himself to Jack’s house, though, usually sending Jack an email announcing his plans.
They would eat take-out and watch a DVD or two. Sometimes Daniel would mention Bjorn, but mostly not. Jack assumed Bjorn knew Daniel was with him, but never asked.
It was still fun. They were still close. Maybe even a little bit closer, although Jack would’ve pitched a fit if he’d detected any lingering gratitude.
Bottom line: Daniel seemed happy.
And that was easier for Jack to accept this time around.
He raised his hand to knock on Bjorn’s apartment door.
~~~~
This was an unofficial visit, despite the formal attire. Even if the Air Force had been prepared to acknowledge it, there was no official status for them to recognize. Spouses and family members got these visits, and not from a teammate of their loved one, but from a sympathetic but untouched representative of the service.
So, unofficial and unsanctionable and maybe unwise, too. But Daniel had asked Jack to tell Bjorn, and Jack thought in uniform was the proper way to do it, out of respect for Daniel, and the best way to keep himself and his own feelings fenced off.
Because this wasn’t about him.
It wasn’t about his heart that had broken as he watched Daniel dying in agony.
“Do you want Bjorn here?” he’d asked Daniel, back when Daniel was still lucid. “I can rush through some paperwork, get him enough clearance. Just enough.”
“No.” Daniel shook his head. “It would only hurt him. I won’t do that to him.”
“You sure?”
Daniel swallowed. “He knows that something could happen to me, and that we’d never get a chance to say goodbye.”
“But you can have that chance.”
Daniel shook his head again, and they were silent for a minute, the quiet beeping of the monitors ominous in the background. “Will you tell him? I mean, not the truth, but whatever… whatever the official story is going to….”
“I’ll tell him.”
Jack would tell him, tell him that his lover died a hero. Lie to him, tell him the death was quick, painless.
Never tell him that, near the end, Daniel, nothing more now than two blood-shot eyes and a pair of lips wrapped in a winding sheet, ready for the grave, had whispered: “I might have made a mistake.”
“What’s that?” Jack had asked, bending over him. “Daniel? What mistake?”
Daniel breathed shallowly and sighed, “Bjorn.” And then he was unconscious again, and Jack didn’t know whether he should be rushing off to try to get Bjorn there before it was too late, and damn the paperwork, the paperwork could get done retroactively, or if he should abide by Daniel’s earlier instructions.
In the end it didn’t matter. There wouldn’t have been enough time. And Jacob had arrived, tried to heal Daniel. Things might have ended differently.
But Daniel had wanted Jacob to stop.
So now Jack was here, armed with half-truths and lies, filled with deep grief and deeper secrets, knocking on Bjorn’s door.
~~~~
The door swung open and Bjorn was looking up at Jack with a half-formed question on his lips. Jack watched as his face changed. His gaze travelled down and up Jack’s uniform and his jaw quivered. His eyes met Jack’s, and they were filled with fear.
It hurt when Jack swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
Bjorn’s mouth opened and his hand flew up to cover it, the back of his fist pressing hard, blocking any sound that might escape. Tears started to his eyes, and his other hand reached for the door frame.
Jack wanted to say he was sorry again, but he knew that wasn’t the best thing to do. “May I come in?”
Bjorn nodded quickly and turned away. Ran.
Jack removed his cover and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He heard the sound of another door closing, down the hallway. Jack stepped out of the foyer and found himself in Bjorn’s living room.
There was a coffee table in front of the couch. Jack set his cover down on top of a stack of books there, and turned to survey the room slowly. There were books everywhere. More than Daniel had, even, it looked like. Although, come to think of it, some of these probably were Daniel’s books.
One shelf that didn’t hold books held pictures in frames instead. Bjorn in a cap and gown, standing with a beaming couple that Jack assumed were his parents. A group photo from some fifteen or so years before that, where it wasn’t easy to figure out which blue-eyed kid was Bjorn. Siblings and/or cousins, Jack guessed. Bjorn with his arms around two pretty young women, who were both convulsing with laughter as he grinned into the camera lens.
Bjorn with his arm around Daniel, who was smiling goofily. They were seated at a restaurant table, each with red wine in front of them in those huge glasses that hold half a bottle with no problem. The picture on the wall behind Daniel was reflecting pinpoints of colored light. Christmas. Last year, based on the length of Daniel’s sideburns.
Their sweaters matched. Jack stared. If, if he ever saw Daniel again, he was never going to let him hear the end of it. He smiled briefly, blinking back tears. He touched the picture frame gently and turned away.
He listened for a moment, but heard no sounds from down the hall. After a second of hesitation he sat down on the couch. He was tired, down to the bone. Maybe he should have slept first before coming here. He hadn’t done Bjorn any favor by cheating him out of one more night of peace. He patted the cushion next to him thoughtfully and wondered when Daniel had sat there last.
Suddenly, fiercely, he hoped that the last time Daniel and Bjorn had spent together had been good, that there had been laughter and… he heard running water. He cleared his throat noisily and exhaled slowly a couple of times. The water shut off and a few seconds later the unseen door opened.
He thought about standing. He didn’t. Bjorn came into the room and sat down beside him. Jack cleared his throat again and stared at the carpet.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Bjorn’s voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.
Jack shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
“Classified.” Bjorn nodded. He didn’t sound bitter.
“Yes.”
“When?”
Jack looked at his watch. “About nine hours ago.”
“Was it… did he suffer?”
Jack was a good liar. A great liar. He had lied for his country many times. This lie rose readily to his lips and then he swallowed it back down. For reasons that he would examine later, he couldn’t bring himself to say that Daniel had died easily. So he told a different lie in its place. “Not for long,” he answered quietly, looking directly at Bjorn’s red-rimmed eyes.
Bjorn squeezed his eyes shut and hunched over, turning his face away.
“He was a hero,” Jack said. His throat ached around the hard, true words. “His actions saved a lot of people.”
Bjorn turned back to stare at him, eyes wide now and swimming with tears.
“I was one of them.” Jack winced and looked down. Sniffed.
Bjorn reached over and laid his hand on top of Jack’s for a second. His touch was like ice.
Jack looked at him sharply, checking his color. “You need a drink. Or some coffee.”
Bjorn nodded, standing up. “You’ll have one with me?”
“Sure.”
Bjorn shuffled into the kitchen like an old man. Jack looked over at Daniel’s picture, rose and followed.
“Glasses are in the cupboard next to the stove,” Bjorn said, lifting a bottle off a shelf that held small pots of herbs and some mismatched china plates that might have been antiques. “Brandy?”
“Sounds good,” Jack answered truthfully. He found a pair of snifters. He hefted them as he carried them to the small round table Bjorn was standing beside. “Crystal?”
“They belonged to my Grandfather Rasmussen,” Bjorn answered, pouring carefully. “He very much liked his brandy.”
“I had a grandfather like that,” Jack said, accepting the glass Bjorn pushed his way. “Except with him it was rye.”
“To grandfathers.” Bjorn raised his glass.
“Grandfathers.” Jack took a small swallow, raised his eyebrows and reached for the bottle to check out the label.
“You like it?” A smiled quivered on Bjorn’s lips.
“Good stuff.” Jack lifted his glass. “Grandmothers?”
“By all means.”
They drank.
Silent tears rolled down Bjorn’s cheeks and Jack braced himself for the toast that had to be coming. Bjorn’s lips parted, but nothing came out. Jack curled his toes inside his shoes, concentrated hard on that feeling, and managed to get the necessary words out without harshness, without a crack in his voice. “To Daniel.”
There was gratitude in Bjorn’s eyes as he answered strongly, “To Daniel….”
And then he kept talking and the room wavered around Jack as memory hit him with the force of a shockwave.
“… and his journey.”
“Hey, where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
Bjorn was gripping Jack’s elbow. “What?” Jack asked, shaken.
“Sit down,” Bjorn urged, pulling a chair out from the table.
Jack sank into it. “Did you say journey?” Had Daniel…? No, Bjorn hadn’t had any idea of what had happened.
“It’s an old Danish belief, before Christianity. The soul goes on a journey until it arrives at its life after death.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jack said blankly, still seeing Daniel turning and walking up the ramp and vanishing into the event horizon. He gulped the rest of his brandy and, with an effort, set the precious glass down gently.
“Do you want more?” Bjorn reached for the bottle.
Jack put a hand over the top of the glass. “No, I have to drive.”
“You’re exhausted,” Bjorn said. His voice sounded tender.
Jack blinked hard.
“I won’t try to keep you here. You need to rest.” Bjorn finished his own glass and set it down, nowhere near as gently as Jack had done. “Have any plans been made yet?”
“Plans?” Jack asked, still dazed by his sudden flashback.
“Daniel had no family. Will the Air Force make the funeral arrangements?”
Jack reached abruptly for the bottle of brandy and poured two fingers worth into Bjorn’s glass. “You’d better sit down.”
Bjorn sat facing him and gripped the snifter with both hands.
“There isn’t going to be any funeral,” Jack said. His heart was suddenly pounding, and he heard his voice crack on the last word.
“No funeral.” Bjorn simply looked at him, eyes asking the question.
“There’s nothing to bury,” Jack said flatly.
Bjorn shuddered, and the base of the snifter clicked dully against the tabletop, the sound muted by his hands. Agonized sounds came from the back of his throat.
Jack folded his hands and looked down at them, waiting for ten, twenty seconds, trying to hang onto his own control.
Bjorn lifted the snifter, still with both hands and drained it dry. He sat swaying, eyes closed. After a minute he said, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
Jack relaxed and let weariness flood through him. “No,” he agreed dully. “There’s just a little more.”
Bjorn blinked at him. “What?”
“There can’t be any kind of a public memorial service, either. I’m sorry.”
“Classified. Even his death is classified.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bjorn nodded acknowledgement “Will there be a service at Cheyenne Mountain?”
“I don’t know,” Jack answered honestly. “Nothing’s been talked about yet. But….”
“But I couldn’t go to it anyway. No, don’t tell me you’re sorry.” Bjorn gazed at him sadly. “I know you are.”
Jack was more sorry than he could say, and they were both tired of him trying.
It was time to go home.
Bjorn walked Jack to the door, and when Jack reached for the knob, Bjorn put his hand on Jack’s. His grip was warm this time. “He truly did love you. I don’t know if he ever told you, but you mustn’t ever doubt it.”
Jack looked into wet, earnest, blood-shot blue eyes and tried not to see Daniel as he was nearing the end.
But it hadn’t been the end.
Bjorn had lost what Jack had never had.
But Jack still had hope. He hoped to see Daniel again one day. He gripped his cover tightly in his other hand.
“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”
http://sidlj.livejournal.com/161106.html Chapter Six, Entr'acte
Chapter Two: Scenes From a Mall
Chapter Three: Rapprochement
Chapter Four: Dream Deferred
2,250 words, still a WIP. Thanks to princessofg and tejas for their assistance and cheerleading. :-)
SLEEPWALK
Jack wore his Service Dress uniform as though it were a suit of armor.
It was easier to accept Daniel and Bjorn this time around. Before, Bjorn had been a faceless entity that it was easy to hate for causing Daniel to reject Jack. Easier to hate a faceless entity than to accept that Daniel would have rejected him anyway.
Now Bjorn had a face, and Jack had seen pain on it that had matched the deep unhappiness Daniel didn’t bother to hide from him.
So, hey. This time around they were together because Jack had put them together. He’d lit a fire under Bjorn, and received a quiet ‘thank you’ from Daniel, whose expression conveyed sympathy and gratitude in equal proportion while the warmth in his eyes gave Jack shivers down his spine.
Armor against grief that was not his own.
Jack never saw the two of them together again. Daniel never invited him to join them, and Jack had stopped inviting Daniel to do anything that didn’t involve the whole team. That didn’t stop Daniel from inviting himself to Jack’s house, though, usually sending Jack an email announcing his plans.
They would eat take-out and watch a DVD or two. Sometimes Daniel would mention Bjorn, but mostly not. Jack assumed Bjorn knew Daniel was with him, but never asked.
It was still fun. They were still close. Maybe even a little bit closer, although Jack would’ve pitched a fit if he’d detected any lingering gratitude.
Bottom line: Daniel seemed happy.
And that was easier for Jack to accept this time around.
He raised his hand to knock on Bjorn’s apartment door.
~~~~
This was an unofficial visit, despite the formal attire. Even if the Air Force had been prepared to acknowledge it, there was no official status for them to recognize. Spouses and family members got these visits, and not from a teammate of their loved one, but from a sympathetic but untouched representative of the service.
So, unofficial and unsanctionable and maybe unwise, too. But Daniel had asked Jack to tell Bjorn, and Jack thought in uniform was the proper way to do it, out of respect for Daniel, and the best way to keep himself and his own feelings fenced off.
Because this wasn’t about him.
It wasn’t about his heart that had broken as he watched Daniel dying in agony.
“Do you want Bjorn here?” he’d asked Daniel, back when Daniel was still lucid. “I can rush through some paperwork, get him enough clearance. Just enough.”
“No.” Daniel shook his head. “It would only hurt him. I won’t do that to him.”
“You sure?”
Daniel swallowed. “He knows that something could happen to me, and that we’d never get a chance to say goodbye.”
“But you can have that chance.”
Daniel shook his head again, and they were silent for a minute, the quiet beeping of the monitors ominous in the background. “Will you tell him? I mean, not the truth, but whatever… whatever the official story is going to….”
“I’ll tell him.”
Jack would tell him, tell him that his lover died a hero. Lie to him, tell him the death was quick, painless.
Never tell him that, near the end, Daniel, nothing more now than two blood-shot eyes and a pair of lips wrapped in a winding sheet, ready for the grave, had whispered: “I might have made a mistake.”
“What’s that?” Jack had asked, bending over him. “Daniel? What mistake?”
Daniel breathed shallowly and sighed, “Bjorn.” And then he was unconscious again, and Jack didn’t know whether he should be rushing off to try to get Bjorn there before it was too late, and damn the paperwork, the paperwork could get done retroactively, or if he should abide by Daniel’s earlier instructions.
In the end it didn’t matter. There wouldn’t have been enough time. And Jacob had arrived, tried to heal Daniel. Things might have ended differently.
But Daniel had wanted Jacob to stop.
So now Jack was here, armed with half-truths and lies, filled with deep grief and deeper secrets, knocking on Bjorn’s door.
~~~~
The door swung open and Bjorn was looking up at Jack with a half-formed question on his lips. Jack watched as his face changed. His gaze travelled down and up Jack’s uniform and his jaw quivered. His eyes met Jack’s, and they were filled with fear.
It hurt when Jack swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
Bjorn’s mouth opened and his hand flew up to cover it, the back of his fist pressing hard, blocking any sound that might escape. Tears started to his eyes, and his other hand reached for the door frame.
Jack wanted to say he was sorry again, but he knew that wasn’t the best thing to do. “May I come in?”
Bjorn nodded quickly and turned away. Ran.
Jack removed his cover and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He heard the sound of another door closing, down the hallway. Jack stepped out of the foyer and found himself in Bjorn’s living room.
There was a coffee table in front of the couch. Jack set his cover down on top of a stack of books there, and turned to survey the room slowly. There were books everywhere. More than Daniel had, even, it looked like. Although, come to think of it, some of these probably were Daniel’s books.
One shelf that didn’t hold books held pictures in frames instead. Bjorn in a cap and gown, standing with a beaming couple that Jack assumed were his parents. A group photo from some fifteen or so years before that, where it wasn’t easy to figure out which blue-eyed kid was Bjorn. Siblings and/or cousins, Jack guessed. Bjorn with his arms around two pretty young women, who were both convulsing with laughter as he grinned into the camera lens.
Bjorn with his arm around Daniel, who was smiling goofily. They were seated at a restaurant table, each with red wine in front of them in those huge glasses that hold half a bottle with no problem. The picture on the wall behind Daniel was reflecting pinpoints of colored light. Christmas. Last year, based on the length of Daniel’s sideburns.
Their sweaters matched. Jack stared. If, if he ever saw Daniel again, he was never going to let him hear the end of it. He smiled briefly, blinking back tears. He touched the picture frame gently and turned away.
He listened for a moment, but heard no sounds from down the hall. After a second of hesitation he sat down on the couch. He was tired, down to the bone. Maybe he should have slept first before coming here. He hadn’t done Bjorn any favor by cheating him out of one more night of peace. He patted the cushion next to him thoughtfully and wondered when Daniel had sat there last.
Suddenly, fiercely, he hoped that the last time Daniel and Bjorn had spent together had been good, that there had been laughter and… he heard running water. He cleared his throat noisily and exhaled slowly a couple of times. The water shut off and a few seconds later the unseen door opened.
He thought about standing. He didn’t. Bjorn came into the room and sat down beside him. Jack cleared his throat again and stared at the carpet.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Bjorn’s voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.
Jack shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
“Classified.” Bjorn nodded. He didn’t sound bitter.
“Yes.”
“When?”
Jack looked at his watch. “About nine hours ago.”
“Was it… did he suffer?”
Jack was a good liar. A great liar. He had lied for his country many times. This lie rose readily to his lips and then he swallowed it back down. For reasons that he would examine later, he couldn’t bring himself to say that Daniel had died easily. So he told a different lie in its place. “Not for long,” he answered quietly, looking directly at Bjorn’s red-rimmed eyes.
Bjorn squeezed his eyes shut and hunched over, turning his face away.
“He was a hero,” Jack said. His throat ached around the hard, true words. “His actions saved a lot of people.”
Bjorn turned back to stare at him, eyes wide now and swimming with tears.
“I was one of them.” Jack winced and looked down. Sniffed.
Bjorn reached over and laid his hand on top of Jack’s for a second. His touch was like ice.
Jack looked at him sharply, checking his color. “You need a drink. Or some coffee.”
Bjorn nodded, standing up. “You’ll have one with me?”
“Sure.”
Bjorn shuffled into the kitchen like an old man. Jack looked over at Daniel’s picture, rose and followed.
“Glasses are in the cupboard next to the stove,” Bjorn said, lifting a bottle off a shelf that held small pots of herbs and some mismatched china plates that might have been antiques. “Brandy?”
“Sounds good,” Jack answered truthfully. He found a pair of snifters. He hefted them as he carried them to the small round table Bjorn was standing beside. “Crystal?”
“They belonged to my Grandfather Rasmussen,” Bjorn answered, pouring carefully. “He very much liked his brandy.”
“I had a grandfather like that,” Jack said, accepting the glass Bjorn pushed his way. “Except with him it was rye.”
“To grandfathers.” Bjorn raised his glass.
“Grandfathers.” Jack took a small swallow, raised his eyebrows and reached for the bottle to check out the label.
“You like it?” A smiled quivered on Bjorn’s lips.
“Good stuff.” Jack lifted his glass. “Grandmothers?”
“By all means.”
They drank.
Silent tears rolled down Bjorn’s cheeks and Jack braced himself for the toast that had to be coming. Bjorn’s lips parted, but nothing came out. Jack curled his toes inside his shoes, concentrated hard on that feeling, and managed to get the necessary words out without harshness, without a crack in his voice. “To Daniel.”
There was gratitude in Bjorn’s eyes as he answered strongly, “To Daniel….”
And then he kept talking and the room wavered around Jack as memory hit him with the force of a shockwave.
“… and his journey.”
“Hey, where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
Bjorn was gripping Jack’s elbow. “What?” Jack asked, shaken.
“Sit down,” Bjorn urged, pulling a chair out from the table.
Jack sank into it. “Did you say journey?” Had Daniel…? No, Bjorn hadn’t had any idea of what had happened.
“It’s an old Danish belief, before Christianity. The soul goes on a journey until it arrives at its life after death.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jack said blankly, still seeing Daniel turning and walking up the ramp and vanishing into the event horizon. He gulped the rest of his brandy and, with an effort, set the precious glass down gently.
“Do you want more?” Bjorn reached for the bottle.
Jack put a hand over the top of the glass. “No, I have to drive.”
“You’re exhausted,” Bjorn said. His voice sounded tender.
Jack blinked hard.
“I won’t try to keep you here. You need to rest.” Bjorn finished his own glass and set it down, nowhere near as gently as Jack had done. “Have any plans been made yet?”
“Plans?” Jack asked, still dazed by his sudden flashback.
“Daniel had no family. Will the Air Force make the funeral arrangements?”
Jack reached abruptly for the bottle of brandy and poured two fingers worth into Bjorn’s glass. “You’d better sit down.”
Bjorn sat facing him and gripped the snifter with both hands.
“There isn’t going to be any funeral,” Jack said. His heart was suddenly pounding, and he heard his voice crack on the last word.
“No funeral.” Bjorn simply looked at him, eyes asking the question.
“There’s nothing to bury,” Jack said flatly.
Bjorn shuddered, and the base of the snifter clicked dully against the tabletop, the sound muted by his hands. Agonized sounds came from the back of his throat.
Jack folded his hands and looked down at them, waiting for ten, twenty seconds, trying to hang onto his own control.
Bjorn lifted the snifter, still with both hands and drained it dry. He sat swaying, eyes closed. After a minute he said, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
Jack relaxed and let weariness flood through him. “No,” he agreed dully. “There’s just a little more.”
Bjorn blinked at him. “What?”
“There can’t be any kind of a public memorial service, either. I’m sorry.”
“Classified. Even his death is classified.”
“I’m sorry.”
Bjorn nodded acknowledgement “Will there be a service at Cheyenne Mountain?”
“I don’t know,” Jack answered honestly. “Nothing’s been talked about yet. But….”
“But I couldn’t go to it anyway. No, don’t tell me you’re sorry.” Bjorn gazed at him sadly. “I know you are.”
Jack was more sorry than he could say, and they were both tired of him trying.
It was time to go home.
Bjorn walked Jack to the door, and when Jack reached for the knob, Bjorn put his hand on Jack’s. His grip was warm this time. “He truly did love you. I don’t know if he ever told you, but you mustn’t ever doubt it.”
Jack looked into wet, earnest, blood-shot blue eyes and tried not to see Daniel as he was nearing the end.
But it hadn’t been the end.
Bjorn had lost what Jack had never had.
But Jack still had hope. He hoped to see Daniel again one day. He gripped his cover tightly in his other hand.
“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”
http://sidlj.livejournal.com/161106.html Chapter Six, Entr'acte