theemdash, SG-1: Daniel Jackson, Atlantis, dogtags

three pairs of socks
by Pares

It was past midnight when Jack knocked at his door.

"My plane got in late," he said.

"I was just... packing," Daniel said softly. This was an old argument, and one he'd finally won.

"I brought you something for the road." Jack's voice was amiable, almost chipper, despite the hour and the weariness in his eyes.

He dropped his carry-on on the couch and unzipped it, tossing three pairs of rolled white sweat socks into Daniel's open suitcase. The first pair was gray with many launderings and he could see that there was a hole in the toe.

"Sweat socks. You, uh, shouldn't have." He felt his eyebrows bunch as he studied Jack, who had unzipped his leather jacket and sprawled on Daniel's couch.

"Caring is sharing, Daniel. And take it from me, you can never have too many pairs of clean, dry socks."

Daniel himself knew this from experience to be true, and he dropped the shirt he had been folding and sat down beside Jack.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," Daniel said, unnecessarily. Jack hadn't come out here on a whim, after all.

"Yeah," Jack said, and tipped his head back against the couch cushion.

"You could--"

"No, Daniel. I can't."

Daniel found he didn't have it in him to argue or persuade anymore, and so he took Jack's hand in his and held it for a long time. Eventually, Jack drew it away and cupped the side of Daniel's face instead.

"What, no kiss goodbye?" Jack's voice was gentle, even sincere, but there was a smile in it anyway.

"Come here, Jack," Daniel said, and leaned over to draw Jack forward, to meet him with his mouth, to say goodbye the only way he could.

*

Jack wasn't there to see the Daedalus off, but then Daniel hadn't expected him to be.

*

Daniel lost two pairs of socks to the mud pits of IJ5 a month after arriving in Atlantis. The pair he grabbed from his drawer after his forty minute shower was Jack's gray ones with the hole in the toe. He smiled as he unrolled them, and then he noticed the extra weight, the slight jingle, and the silver gleam as the chain slithered into his palm followed by the little clatter of the dog tags clapping into one another.

He looked at them for a long time before slipping them around his neck. He rolled the socks up again and put them back in his drawer.



END