"Jack! Stop it!" Daniel bats at Jack's hovering hand, screwing his face up with irritation. Hello? He's trying to type here. "Stop touching me."

Jack studies his hand as if it belongs to someone else, withdrawing it slowly. "You never used to mind."

Daniel deflates, suddenly uncertain, lost. He hates this. Not knowing what was normal for him; disappointing people...

"I'm sorry."

He shuffles his chair closer to where Jack stands and peers up at Jack from under his lashes, tense, but wanting to make amends. "Touch me like you used to just before I -- left," he invites with a tentative smile, waiting for the brush of a hand across his hair, the tweak of a collar, a pat on his shoulder; these days, Jack can't get within reach of him without doing something. With a flush of shame, he realises Jack's probably just looking for reassurance that he's really back. Or something. Maybe. "Really. It's okay. I didn't mean to snap at you. Go ahead."

"Like just before?" Jack's hand rises, clenches, falls back, leaving Daniel waiting, puzzled, expectant, frustrated. "Feel familiar? Ring any bells?"

Bewilderment makes Daniel's voice rise and crack. "You didn't do anything."

Jack stares at him until he gets it, and then says harshly. "Now ask me what I wanted to do. What I never did."

Too soon. Too soon --

Daniel's gaze goes, not to Jack's hands, hanging open and empty by his side, but his mouth. He doesn't know what it would feel like against his; how it would taste. He's never, he's sure, blurred it soft with bites, never pushed inside it with his -- with anything.

He still has to ask and he doesn't need to say much. Jack's eyes are screwed up tight with a concentration on Daniel that's absolute and terrifying. He'll get it, no matter how cryptic or oblique.

"We didn't? Did we?"

"No. Ask me."

"No."

And Daniel's hands rise again, flailing at the air, pushing Jack back, one step, two.

Too soon. Too late.

Whatever.

He remembers that much.

He's been given a second chance; doesn't mean Jack gets one, too.



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