Lying on his sleeping bag in the Hetari teepee, Daniel had been watching the moon grow brighter as the evening darkened into night. The stars were brilliant here, lighting up the sky like the fiery glint buried in the heart of an opal. There were so many more of them than he had seen on any other world, forming dense swirls of light out of which, with half a mind, he was trying to make recognizable shapes. He had already identified the jaguar and serpent constellations Jack had told him about. He could make out a bear form over to the right, and, so high above him he had to crane his neck to see it, was something which could easily be a black eagle. The people here called that one 'Ankana', which was also the tribal chieftain's name, a word very similar to the Quechua 'anka', but there were other words in the language which were more similar to Mayan or Arawak. Just another puzzle in a whole bundle of puzzles about these people's background and culture. He was finding these stars soothing in a way he never really had the ones visible from earth. Those had always made him feel small and insignificant, despite the hours Jack had spent making him shiver on his roof and peer myopically through that damned telescope. But these constellations seemed to welcome him into the cosmos, wrap themselves around him like a blanket of light as though he was a part of them.

With the other half of his mind he was listening for Jack, but he was very afraid he wasn't coming. Which meant Daniel wasn't invited to the Ritual after all.

Daniel was trying to push that thought away because the disappointment would be too unbearable. He had never known a people who excited his curiosity as much as the Hetari, and there was a terrible irony that here in one of the most spiritual cultures they had encountered, he was being treated as little more than an afterthought while Jack had been welcomed into their confidence. He knew Jack would tell him what happened at this Ritual, but that wasn't enough; he wanted to go, to be part of it, to be trusted and accepted.

Daniel wasn't quite certain how Jack had ended up being the ambassador on this trip anyway. The elders here just seemed to have…taken to him. They seemed to like Daniel too, but he was clearly more alien to them than Jack was, and their liking was of the indulgent kind one affords a child. Chief Ankana hadn't exactly told him to run away and play when Daniel had tried to ask him about their history, but he hadn't felt he was being taken very seriously. By comparison, even though Jack couldn't speak a word of their language, he and Chief Ankana had seemed to hit it off at once. Which was why for the night of the Ritual – whatever the Ritual might be – Daniel wasn't even sure if he was going to get invited into Chief Ankana's wigwam while Jack's place around the fire was already secure. He was trying not to mind but he couldn't help feeling a little put out.

They'd been here for two days and all the signs so far were promising. The people were friendly and peaceful. The Goa'uld long since gone from their land. Sam had found evidence of naqadah, and it seemed possible the tribal leaders might allow them to take some of it as long as their mining methods were not invasive. As even a small quantity of the ore would be invaluable to them, as soon as the first report had gone back through the gate, General Hammond had told them they could take all the time they needed. Oddly enough, Jack, who was usually so impatient, seemed to feel this was the perfect vacation spot. And it didn't even seem to be to do with the fish in the blue lakes that decorated this fertile tree-covered country. It seemed to be to do with…spiritual stuff.

Daniel was still trying to get his head around that one.

Maybe if he hadn't been so tired he might have been able to work out just why Jack was going native on them. But the weird dreams he'd been having for the last few months had left him a little short of sleep – not to mention frustrated because he could never remember a damned thing about any of them when he woke up, and yet knew he'd been dreaming and that the dreams had been…significant in some way. Janet Fraiser had told him it was just fallout from the ribbon device. His mind was probably still chasing after those images Sha're had sent him while Amaunet was trying to kill him. But he was never thinking of Sha're when he woke up, and there had been no faint scent of her perfume lingering in his consciousness. He suspected they were about something else entirely, but he had no idea what. He also suspected that as soon as his eyes closed and he drifted back into the dream state he remembered every other dream and understood their significance. But the second he awoke, everything was gone, except for a lingering feeling, regret for something wonderful he'd been enjoying and now had lost. The urge to go back to sleep and burrow back into the comfort of that dream place was getting harder and harder to resist. But he hoped his lack of sleep hadn't made him screw-up the initial contact. He obviously hadn't done any lasting damage because the people had shown them every hospitality, but he had tripped over a few things, which might not have impressed them too much with him personally.

He hadn't made a lot of progress in trying to work out exactly who these people were. Native Americans of some kind, obviously, and he thought they might be descendants of the Anazasi, but they had been vague about their origins, and it seemed impolite to push. He was hoping he might find out more tonight at the Ritual. If he was allowed to attend. It had already been gently but firmly intimated that no one bearing the enemy of the Hetari people – even if he himself was their ally – could be party to the Ritual, which effectively ruled out Teal'c. And no women. Which left Sam out in the cold as well. But no one had said anything as yet about people with allergies or who wore glasses so Daniel was trying to keep his hopes up. He was also trying not to sneeze and had put his glasses in his pocket, just to be on the safe side.

The fact that Chief Ankana had insisted Teal'c and Sam shared one teepee while he and Jack shared another did seem to suggest he had been put in the 'possible' pile rather than the 'automatically banned' one so he was trying to stay optimistic. All the same it was a great relief when he heard the sound of those familiar footsteps on the earth outside.

"Ready to go?" Jack stuck his head in through the flap of the teepee.

Daniel tried not to look too much like someone who'd been straining his ears for an hour to hear if a summons was still possible or if they'd started without him. He leapt to his feet so fast he tripped over his pack and would have fallen if Jack hadn't caught him. For a second he was in Jack's arms, his face against Jack's, the man's evening stubble gently scraping against his own smooth cheek, smelling sweat, wood smoke and some subtle odor that was so familiar it was like his own scent. Part of his dream tugged at him like a fractious toddler, and then Jack set him back on his feet and the memory vanished again.

"Eager, aren't we?" The man looked at him in amusement.

Daniel went to put his glasses on, and then remembered that they might not go down well with his hosts so shoved them back in his pocket. He tried not to look sheepish. "Just curious."

He followed Jack over to Chief Ankana's wigwam, the wooden structure looking grand and imposing beside the teepees scattered around the camp. As always he was drawn to the totem pole, which showed, not the eagle and wolf he had expected, but the jaguar and the snake. Mayan symbolic creatures despite the fact this was clearly not a Mayan culture. Symbols of the underworld, the realm of the unconscious. That was curious as well. Sometimes when he passed them those two symbols looked malevolent and dangerous, at others calm and protective. He presumed that was the dreams making him over-imaginative.

Jack spoke over his shoulder. "You know I don't really speak the lingo, but I gather this is a significant date in their calendar. And I've told Ankana we're happy to share any information we can in exchange for being allowed to…sit in on this."

"You and Chief Ankana have spent enough time together; I would have thought you'd have told him everything he wanted to know by now." Daniel tried not to sound miffed at the way he'd been excluded from the talks, waiting endlessly for an interpreter to be sent for and more than willing to obey the summons, but no summons coming.

Now he waited for Jack to tell him that he and Ankana hadn't been able to say squat to each other because they didn't speak each other's language. Jack didn't. The man shrugged. "Well, not that kind of information. I've told him about the Goa'uld and our history and stuff but – "

"How?" Daniel demanded.

Jack wouldn't meet Daniel's eye. "You know – sign language and stuff."

"So what information is it he wants tonight?"

Jack looked awkward. "He says they need dreams to survive."

"Don't we all?"

"Good dreams."

Daniel darted the man a sideways look. "And?"

"He says 'When two dreams cannot find each other, they wither and die. If they join, everything flourishes. A perfect joining guarantees the Hetari race will live on.' " Jack grimaced as he said it, as though he was taking no responsibility for the words themselves, but Daniel couldn't help noticing he seemed to have remembered them in perfect detail.

Daniel made no attempt to hide his cynicism. "That must be quite some sign language you've got going there, Jack. And here I was thinking you only had that 'you go right, I'll go left, and we all shoot the people over there' stuff at your disposal."

"Daniel…" A warning and plea combined while Jack's hand on his shoulder was even harder to resist. "Not to put too fine a point on it, they think you have interesting dreams."

"I don't remember them. And how do they know anyway, I never told anyone…?"

Jack pulled a face. "They know…lots of stuff, Daniel. But you don’t need to fight it. They don't mean us any harm."

And wasn't that his line? Damnit to hell what was happening on this trip? Had he and Jack had some kind of personality exchange? He shot Jack a sideways look just before they entered the wigwam. "You haven't been Born Again or something have you?"

"Do the words 'cruising for a bruising' ring any bells with you, Daniel?"

Daniel smiled, the relief warming him like a sip of brandy. Maybe he was still the same old Jack after all.

***

This was what it must be like for Jack on other missions. Sitting around a fire whose smoke was painting tantalizing pictures on the walls, in a circle with a bunch of strange men, struggling to keep awake while people said a lot of things he didn't really understand. He looked around at their faces, the straight noses and wide cheekbones, the glossy black, or in some cases silver streaked hair, the bare skin daubed with streaks of red, yellow and black clay, the deerskin loincloths and feathers in their hair mostly the only clothing. For once, Daniel was the one who felt out of place, and Jack the one who seemed right at home. The Air Force colonel was sitting cross-legged on the far side of the fire, talking to Chief Ankana like they were both from Chicago.

Ankana had long grey hair and looked as though he was from a mix of North and South American Indian blood. Perhaps there had been some meeting between the Anasazi and the Maya. Perhaps the Goa'uld had decided to do some cross-pollination of their own, and the Hetari were the result. These were a people who certainly seemed to have more than one foot in the spirit realm whatever their origins. Making it all the more peculiar that Jack was so at home with them.

Although Jack seemed to have no trouble in communicating with Ankana, Daniel still hadn't worked out how he was doing it. But then he was having trouble working anything out right now because he was, not to put too fine a point on it, drunk.

They'd passed the warm red liquid around in a carved wooden bowl, and he'd been encouraged to drink deep. Just for a second he'd had a flashback to the Blood of Sokar they'd force-fed him in Naetu, and he'd had to tread under his initial resistance for the good of inter-cultural relations. He'd presumed everyone was drinking it but then realized everyone else was just savoring the aroma of it, holding it under their noses and sniffing luxuriously before passing it on. But when he tried to do the same, the two Hetari either side of him pushed the bowl up to his lips and made motions encouraging him to drink. They were both muscular warriors and although they were friendly to him, they were also very adamant he should do as he was told. When Daniel darted a glance at Jack, seeking his advice, Jack wouldn't meet his eye. He felt abandoned. Jack was obviously leaving him to sink or swim in this company. No, Jack was obviously trusting to his own good judgment to know the best way not to offend his hosts. He was an anthropologist after all…

He'd drunk and then at their urging to take another sip, drunk deeper. They'd nodded at him in satisfaction then passed the bowl on around. The red juice tasted sweet and bitter at the same time, sweet on the surface but with an adder bite underneath. The thirty-year old single malt General Hammond had shared out in his office after they'd saved the world had carried less of a kick. After three circuits of the bowl, Daniel's head was swimming, he was struggling to stay awake and struggling harder to keep up with the discussion.

The jaguar and the snake were mentioned frequently; he'd gotten that much. Described as guardians to the gateway which would serve both the good and the bad dreamers, whoever summoned them the most strongly. And there was a lot of talk about dreams, most of which Daniel couldn't really make any sense of. A lot of fairly incomprehensible talk about the danger in being in the dreamstate when a 'bad dreamer' was close at hand. How there were always bad dreamers. The good dreamers must be vigilant to protect the one who was 'open'. At least he thought it was 'open'. It might mean 'exposed' or 'made vulnerable'. It also seemed to mean 'sleeping' so there was a chance he'd got that wrong. Actually, yes, in that context it must mean the 'sleeper' which didn't make a lot more sense but what the hell…And then they talked about the perfect fusion when two dreamers could share a dream. How this could only happen if the 'Anhaya' took place. Something about seven nights and seven dreams and each one more dangerous than the last. How the bad dreamer could steal the sleeper and take him to the…underworld? Something that sounded like 'underworld'. Possibly 'hell', he wasn't really sure. More about the 'sleeper'; much danger to the sleeper yet also much joy if all went as it should. How the good dreamer must guard against the bad dreamer at all times or the sleeper would be stolen from him.

Jack saying, "But none of it's real, right? It doesn't really happen?"

How the hell could Jack be following this so much better than he was when Daniel was the linguist? If Daniel was getting two words in ten, Jack was getting zero, so how come he was the one asking intelligent questions and nodding thoughtfully at what seemed to be all the right moments? Something was seriously screwed-up here.

Daniel stole a quick look at his hand, just in case Machello's machine had done a body swap on them again. But no, that was definitely his hand, his bony wrist with the watchstrap that was too long for it.

The hot spicy scent of the red juice made him realize the bowl was being proffered again. He took it as the Hetari each side of him made motions to him to drink. He drank obediently, gaze fixed on Chief Ankana as he waited for an answer to Jack's question. It occurred to him that if Jack hadn't been there he would have felt a little odd about being in a wigwam with a bunch of old men and semi-naked warriors all of whom seemed intent on getting him as drunk as possible.

Chief Ankana was murmuring something and Daniel frowned in concentration. He had a feeling this was important and he should be taking it in.

"…Real in the spirit realm…real in the land of dreams…the sleeper could be trapped there forever if the good dreamer cannot rescue him in time…the bad dreamer could capture him for all eternity…"

"Then it's too big a risk." Jack automatically savored the aroma of the bowl before passing it on as though it was something he'd been doing for years. "He – the Sleeper could end up in hell in the spirit realm and in a coma in the physical realm."

And now Jack was talking about 'spirit realms' and 'physical realms' like they were the kind of things he discussed all the time? And how had he managed to answer the man in English when there was no way he could have understood anything Ankana had just said in Hetari. What was going on here?

"…yet if perfect fusion does take place and Anhaya is achieved the rewards will be great – for the sleeper as well as our people…"

"I can't take that kind of a chance with his life."

"Then all our people will wither as the corn upon the stalk in the days of too much sun. The bad dreamer will win. We shall all be carried into the underworld with him. Even now he unlocks the gateway, soon the path will be open to him. He can and will destroy us. Unless you help."

There was a long silence in which Daniel found the bowl was back with him again. He looked at the warrior next to him pleadingly. "I'm so drunk already. Please, I'm not going to be able to stay awake. I'm never going to be able to walk back to my…" The man was implacable, face stern as he pushed the bowl into Daniel's hands. Daniel drank, trying to take just a small sip this time, but the warrior pushed the bowl up, tilting it down his throat and forcing Daniel to drain the last dregs.

The effect was immediate. He slumped against the man who had just force-fed him the red juice; his head lolling on the man's bare shoulder. He expected the warrior to shake him off angrily, but the man only nodded in satisfaction and passed on the empty bowl to the next warrior.

Ankana was speaking again and even with his head resting on the shoulder of a warrior to whom he hadn't been introduced, Daniel could understand him much better now. He wondered if there was something in that red juice which sharpened the brain. Perhaps that was why Jack was so way ahead of him on this trip: he'd spent hours and hours pow-wowing with Ankana while Daniel had been forced to wander around the village casting envious glances at the wigwam to which only 'leaders' were invited. Perhaps Jack had already been through the getting drunk bit and knew it was harmless. That would explain why he'd just sat there and let these people get his teammate paralytic right in front of him.

Daniel had often wished Jack would stop being so damned over-protective; acting like Daniel was a child who wasn't safe to let out by himself. The way both Teal'c and Jack had acted over that business with Kira had been downright embarrassing. Not wanting him left alone in a room with a five foot six ninety five pound woman in case she hurt him in some way. How old did they think he was anyway? Just because one dangerous female had raped him the first chance she'd got, it didn't mean every woman they met was going to do the same thing…Daniel realized he'd sort of lost his chain of thought there. That was right. He'd been thinking that even though he didn't like it when Jack pulled all that protective crap he'd still feel a bit bereft if Jack seemed to have given up protecting him completely. Even though he was so drunk he couldn't even get his head off this guy's shoulder and was slumped against him like a sack of potatoes, Daniel still felt safe because Jack was also in the room with him and there were some things Jack just wouldn't let people do to him, however incapacitated by alcohol Daniel might happen to be.

"It is because of the bounty you will reap that you hesitate, O'Neill. But you should not fear. You are not acting selfishly."

"I might be. It's in my interests to get what our world wants – which is some of your naqadah, and you'll only give us that if I help you out with this 'dream-fusing' business."

"This is so, but it is more than that. We have shown you what the Sleeper desires. We have shown you what he dreams. You can achieve Anhaya with him. You can meld your mind with his. You could achieve perfect joy. Would you deny the Sleeper this joy simply because you are unwilling to grant it to yourself?"

"Why can't I tell him?"

"The only hope for my people is if he realizes the truth. At the moment the door is locked, but it is not barred. If he adds resistance to denial the door will never be opened. You will lose him to his guilt, shame, and denial. He must perceive the truth, O'Neill. He must feel it. He cannot be told it."

Daniel didn't even find it strange now that Chief Ankana was speaking in Hetari and Jack was speaking in English and even though Jack didn't understand a word of Hetari and Ankana didn't understand a word of English, they were still holding a perfectly normal conversation. That was obviously just the way they did things around here. Jack had told him to go with the flow. He was flowing…

As he thought it, Daniel flowed off the warrior's shoulder to land with his face in his lap. The warrior rested a hand briefly on the back of his head and stroked his hair absently, as one might a child who was almost asleep and certainly not part of the conversation. Daniel got the distinct impression that if he'd started sucking through the deerskin at the man's loins no one would have batted an eye, including the warrior on whose lap he was now lying, they would just have been glad he'd found a way to keep himself occupied that didn't interfere with the grown-up talking going on above his head. If he had any part to play in this Ritual except as a bystander, it obviously wasn't in tendering his advice.

Ankana was speaking again, and this time Daniel could understand every word: "We need Anhaya to be achieved, O'Neill. The bad dreamer of our tribe is young and strong and has taken our good dreams. Only Anhaya will end his power. Only then can the good dreams come again. The serpent and the jaguar will soon serve only his will unless you can defeat him, and we have waited long for your coming. Within you lies the strength and love to achieve Anhaya and save our people. Help us. Please."

"Why don't you just kill him?"

"I have already explained it to you. That would make him master of the underworld. Even in death a spirit as strong and as evil as his could still control our dreams. No, it is in the realm of the dreamworld, not the physical world, that he must be defeated. Please, O'Neill? It is you we have chosen. Only you can do this. Please?"

Jack had never been good at saying no to people who said 'please' to him, something Daniel had learned to his own advantage. He knew Jack well enough to know Jack liked these people the way he liked the Nox. He wasn't going to be able to turn down an honest to goodness plea for help.

Knowing what Jack's answer was bound to be, Daniel felt torn between pride and trepidation because whatever Jack was about to agree to do was obviously going to cost him. Daniel really didn't want any bad things happening to Jack. The man was his best friend. They'd been through a lot together. He wanted to tell him whatever this Anhaya business entailed, Daniel was happy to help in any way he could. Whoever or whatever the 'bad dreamer' might be Jack was going to have to go into battle against, Daniel was happy to come with him. Maybe Jack had to agree to do this, but he didn't have to agree to do it alone.

Unfortunately, speech was an impossibility at the moment. Lifting his head was also not an option. He could possibly manage rolling over to lie flat on his back while giggling idiotically, but that was about it for now. He managed to squirm around a little so he was at least looking at Jack instead of into the warrior's groin and so was in time to see the man sigh and nod. "Okay. I'll do it. But if anything happens to…" He shook his head. "I won't let anything happen to him. Right? It's up to me."

Ankana smiled in obvious relief and rested a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You are stronger than you know, my friend. You will defeat the bad dreamer. You will save the sleeper. And the reward for both of you will be great." Ankana seemed to focus on Daniel for the first time as though he had been irrelevant before but was important now. Daniel felt a little uncomfortable under the old man's gimlet gaze. Ankana seemed to be looking not just at him, but into him, seeing into his thoughts, hopes, fears. Dreams. Jack had said something about his dreams, hadn't he? Did Ankana know what Daniel didn't? Know what those damned dreams were that gave him that strange sensation of pleasure and loss every time he woke up. Like he'd found paradise but lost it again and wouldn't be able to find his way back there in daylight until he fully understood what he couldn't even remember.

Ankana nodded to the warriors each side of Daniel, his voice brisk: "Prepare him."

***

Daniel really wasn't sure how he felt about being stripped and laid out on a wolf-skin rug in front of a whole bunch of men he didn't really know. Well 'stripped' was really too violent a verb. They'd removed him from his clothes the way you undressed a baby, trying to encourage him to lift an arm or flex a foot to make their lives easier, but if he couldn't or wouldn't cooperate, gently but firmly easing the boot from his foot, the jacket from his back, pulling his t-shirt off over his head, then tugging his pants down with quiet determination. It was lucky he was as drunk as he was because the shame was at least diluted by drowsy confusion, but every now and then the humiliation of his position would still send him a stabbing little reminder that even penetrated the alcohol fogging his brain.

Jack hadn't helped to undress him, but he hadn't stopped them either. He'd just watched from the edge of the circle with Ankana, gaze offering what Daniel thought might be reassurance, but without his own glasses and with the alcohol blurring everything he wasn't too sure. He thought Jack hadn't looked very happy about Daniel being stripped naked but there had been no objection raised, no move to help as his alcohol-incapacitated teammate was carried to the center of the circle and reduced to his birthday suit by half a dozen muscular braves. When his boxer shorts were pulled down, Daniel did utter strangled protest, shooting Jack a begging look as he did so. Whatever was going to happen next he just knew he wasn't going to like it and he didn't understand why Jack wasn't stopping it. Jack did the same as he had when Daniel had been made to drink the juice, deliberately looking away so as not to make eye contact.

Daniel had never felt so abandoned in his life. If he'd been able to make any noise louder than a whimper he would have yelled for Teal'c and Sam to come and rescue him. He marshaled his drunken energies into giving Jack a look of reproach, but Jack was still not looking at him, clearly not wanting to read the accusation in his naked teammate's gaze.

The man was murmuring something to Ankana which Daniel strained his ears to hear:

"…really necessary, is it?"

"I told you O'Neill. We can create a circle of protection around the sleeper, but he must remain within it…"

"It's just – he really isn't enjoying this, and no one is even telling him why they're…"

"Do you want him to be happy or do you want him to be safe…?"

"You didn't tell me he was going to have to…"

With an effort Daniel managed to turn his head and saw a number of bowls and candles laid out around him in a rectangle. He felt like a sacrifice on an altar. The older men were chanting now, eyes closed, swaying a little as they did so, Ankana nodding in time to their soft call. One of the warriors went to the bowl at the corner nearest him and dipped a cloth into it. Three others did the same with the bowls at their corners, and then warm water was being brushed across Daniel's limbs.

He wondered why they were washing him. Because they were going to stick a great big knife in his heart afterwards and the gods only wanted a clean offering? He darted another look at Jack, mutely pleading for an explanation or at least a word of reassurance.

It's okay, Daniel. They won't hurt you. They're just helping to protect you against the bad dreamer.

The words made him feel so much better it was a full minute before he realized Jack hadn't spoken aloud, that the words had sounded only in his mind. He gasped in astonishment, and then gasped again as one of the braves gently wiped a wet cloth over his genitals, not just because it was an invasion of his privacy he hadn't counted on, but because he was sure the same thing had happened in his dream.

Had he been dreaming of this? Had his dreams been prophetic? No, he was sure they'd been filled with yearning, and he was damned sure he'd never yearned to be stripped naked and given a…rug-bath by a bunch of transplanted enemies of the Navajo.

"Jack…?" The confused murmur made them both wince. Daniel was embarrassed by the way he sounded so desperate for reassurance while Jack was clearly suffering terrible pangs of guilt at allowing this to be done to him.

Ankana fixed Daniel with a stern look. "The body counts for nothing. Rise above your body. There is no shame in this ritual except the shame you bring to it. Let it go."

Daniel tried to articulate 'that's easy for you to say – you're not the one who's naked.' But the words wouldn't come.

The four braves cleansing him, picked him up and turned him onto his front. Water was trickled down his spine and he giggled as it tickled him. The rug was very warm against his chest and if these people would just stop washing him he could curl up on it and go to sleep. In fact the demands of sleep were getting so insistent now that he might have to go to sleep even if they kept on washing him…Two braves started from the back of his neck while two others began at his feet and worked up to meet them; wet cloths leaving a slick warm trail up the backs of his legs to his thighs and then to his buttocks. While two warriors continued to wipe away all traces of grime and sweat from his back, the other two squeezed warm water at the base of his spine, letting it trickle tantalizingly down the cleft of his ass. Again, something from his dream flickered in his consciousness. Being washed in just that place by someone…A good someone. And the washing felt good in the dream. If he was honest it felt pretty good here too. The warm cloth slipped between his butt cheeks until it reached his balls, they were wiped carefully just as his cock had been earlier, the action sending vague tinglings of arousal through his body. Daniel decided there was a lot to be said for just going with the flow.

When the washing stopped he was almost sorry. He turned his head to the side so he could see what was happening, resting his face on his left arm. The younger warriors were swapping places with the older men, the braves continuing the chanting, while the elders knelt around him. He saw their gnarled fingers dip into the bowls beside him, and then they were smearing some kind of paint across his body, working with fixed concentration as they drew what felt like circles and lines across his naked skin.

He was being decorated like a totem or a brave. That suggested he had some ordeal ahead of him, something he was being given symbols of protection to help him survive. Shouldn't it be Jack who was having the paint job? Jack was the one who was going to have to do battle with the 'bad dreamer', whoever the bad dreamer might be. Daniel gave himself a mental shake, because this was all getting way too Twin Peaks, and he was probably dreaming it anyway.

Of course! This was a dream. That was actually the only explanation which made any sense: he'd fallen asleep waiting for Jack to come and fetch him for the Ritual. Jack hadn’t come to fetch him because he wasn't needed at the Ritual, so Daniel's subconscious was making this up out of half-remembered Native American ceremonies. And, of course, that explained why he was naked in front of all these people as being naked in front of a whole bunch of people was something else that – thankfully – only happened in dreams. It was usually to do with inadequacy, wasn't it? So perhaps this was because he hadn't been invited to the Ritual? Yes, that all made perfect sense. It was a slightly perverted dream, if he was honest, some rather disturbing homoerotic undercurrents in the way he was so helpless and at the mercy of those muscular braves making free with his body. But the thing about Jack just sitting there and letting them undress him and wash him and smear paint all over him made a lot more sense if he was dreaming. Yes, definitely, a dream.

Daniel decided it wasn't even a particularly bad dream; he'd had a lot worse; and as that chanting was very soothing and even the sensation of having gnarled old men's fingers smearing paint across his body was sort of relaxing as well once he'd gotten used to it, he decided he might just as well go to sleep in his dream the same way he'd obviously gone to sleep in their teepee while he was waiting for Jack.

Daniel closed his eyes and slept.

***

He awoke in absolute darkness but knew at once he was in the teepee he was temporarily sharing with Jack. He also knew he was naked and lying on top of his sleeping bag, but it was the lack of moonlight which made him realize he wasn't really awake. That he'd found the dreamplace he loved so much. He felt a tingling of excitement course through him. It was always dark here. Not like the night was dark or an unlit room was dark. Absolute blackness. Absolute safety. He could do anything he liked in this world and no one could see him do it. Or who he was doing it with. Even though Jack was asleep a few feet from him, Jack couldn't hear or see anything that happened in this place. Nothing bad could ever find Daniel here including his best friend's horror or revulsion. This was where the good dreamer came to visit him.

Daniel gave a little gasp of excitement as he heard the footsteps on the floor of the teepee, soft beaten earth in which bare toes left faint tracks, delicate as shell folds. He'd gasped like that earlier when people had been…No, it was fading. Everything always did fade when he was in the dreamplace. He existed only in and for the moment here. But it was always such a wonderful moment. He suspected that this time it would be even better.

The man was standing over him now. Daniel knew it. He also knew the man was naked, just like him. He always kept his eyes closed; even though the darkness covered everything he liked to feel extra safe. He could feel the anticipatory trembling in his limbs become more obvious, and he knew the other man was aware of it, was aware of everything about him, knew him as intimately as he knew himself. For some reason, here it wasn't frightening to be known so completely. It was pleasurable and just added to the feeling of safety. The good dreamer bent and kissed him, dry lips, so familiar to him now, brushing across his own. And there was the scent he loved so much and missed so desperately when he blundered back towards waking, a mixture of male sweat and arousal, old aftershave, soap, gun oil, and skin which was always warm to the touch. He loved that scent. It was like coming home to him. He pressed against it blindly, and there was that hard, muscular body against his, a soft brushing of chest hair across his own bare skin. Another kiss, tender yet passionate. Daniel opened his mouth at once, as eager to feel that tongue exploring him as he was to feel those familiar fingers stroking soft caresses across his naked body.

The good dreamer was never in a hurry. He had spent a dozen dreams just on different ways of kissing. Touching had taken a dozen more. Daniel's only fear was that they might never progress beyond this point. That the man would never bring him to climax, only tantalize him with his caresses. He was dimly aware that he had never wanted a man to touch him like this, would have flinched from a man's tongue inside his mouth, a man's hands so gently stroking his ribs like this, but that was in the waking world. In the dream place gender didn't matter. The one who came to him was the one he loved, and Daniel knew him by the sound of his breathing, the scent of his skin, the touch of his fingers, the soft caress of his lips. He knew this man loved him and cared for him and would never let harm come to him, and Daniel felt exactly the same way, would have died for this man in an instant to keep him safe. He didn't need to see him to know that everything he had ever needed was right here with him now.

The man was kissing him, teasing him with his lips, little nibbles beneath Daniel's jaw. Daniel arched his back, pushing up against the other's lean strength in excitement. There were those fingers furrowing a path through his hair, then tightening to hold him still. Teeth brushed his throat, paused, hot breath teasing his skin and Daniel willed the other to bite; he so wanted him to bite. The teeth closed, and he moaned in ecstasy, surging up again wanting his groin to rub against the other man's, wanted this proof that the good dreamer was as aroused as he was.

The man stroked a finger up the inside of his thigh, making Daniel shiver with excitement. Daniel was being kissed all over now, warm lips caressing his nipples, a warm tongue licking each in turn to aching nubs, the licking and kissing continued down his ribcage and then moving back up his body in a tantalizing trail. The good dreamer's timing was impeccable. As that callused right hand began to fondle his balls Daniel gasped his surprise into a mouth already open in readiness to receive it.

The man kissed him with a new fierceness, and Daniel responded at once, lunging up to push himself against that fondling hand, that open mouth. His tongue was sucked into the other man's mouth as the skillful fingers played with his balls, squeezing them very gently, rubbing them together, then furrowing a finger between them to tease them apart. The fingers slipped lower, fondling the crack of his ass, easing his buttocks apart and very lightly stroking his opening. Daniel was so turned on he could barely think but responded by lunging up again and wrapping his tongue around the other's, kissing him back breathlessly, trying to let him know that all of this touching was wonderful and completely acceptable to him. When the hand closed around his cock he almost came then and there. This was new. The good dreamer had never done this before. Daniel so hoped he wouldn't stop, he hoped he would…

The man began to massage his cock, gently at first, sliding a thumb up the length of it, gently fondling the tip, rolling it around his hand, squeezing it gently, and then wrapping his hand around it and pulling up the length of Daniel's cock, an incredible sensation that made Daniel groan with longing. The man leaned forward, one hand clasped to the back of Daniel's head, gently lowering him back onto the sleeping bag, but keeping their mouths brushing against each other as he did so while maintaining that steady stroking of Daniel's cock. Daniel was bucking eagerly, wanting more, pleasure already beginning to overwhelm him. The good dreamer kept his left hand at the back of Daniel's head, cushioning his skull so that when Daniel jerked his head back in response to the rhythmic pumping of his cock, he didn't hurt himself. The man kissed Daniel harder, tongue pushing deep into Daniel's mouth while Daniel's hips jerked in ecstasy and the skillful hand pumped him faster and faster.

Daniel moved urgently against the hand bringing him to climax, groaning with the sensation of it, the pleasure almost too much to bear. He was gasping and moaning now, pressing up against that body on top of his, jerking his hips frantically in time to that wonderful pumping…and then the climax overwhelmed him, wave after wave of pleasure, which left him convulsing soundlessly as he poured himself out onto the other man's fingers.

He might have blacked out for a minute because when he next became aware of the protective blackness, the good dreamer was stroking his sweat-dampened hair back from his forehead, touch gentle and calming. Daniel's breathing slowed from ragged gasps to a steadier rhythm, still feeling the aftershocks of that orgasm rippling through him. The man had only given him a hand-job, and yet nothing had ever felt quite so wonderful. Daniel pressed upwards, needing to bury his face in that familiar neck again, feel the stubble rasp faintly against his cheek, drink in the scents of the man he loved. He wrapped his arms around him, wanting to keep him here, keep him here with him forever, wanting them to stay in this wonderful darkness together where no one could hurt them or judge them, where there was no shame and no awkwardness, only pleasure and love. He felt knuckles trail lightly up the side of his face, a kiss was planted on the top of his head, and then his arms were gently unwound from the other's body and he was eased back down onto the sleeping bag.

Someone whispered, "Go to sleep, Daniel." He felt that dry mouth gently kiss his eyelids, and then the good dreamer was gone. He was alone in the comforting darkness once more.

He rolled over, aware of lingering faint tingles from his climax, thighs wet with his own come, still feeling dabs of delicious heat on his body where those lips had brushed against his skin. He was still smiling as he drifted off to sleep.

***

Jack sat in the doorway of the teepee and sighed. There was moonlight slanting through the flap to bathe Daniel in chill blue light. He looked beautiful but so damned ghostly, like he'd already been sucked into the spirit world.

When he'd first arrived on this world he'd seen Ankana looking between them like he already knew them. The chief had been impatient to speak to Jack alone, waving a dismissive hand at Daniel and sending him off to look at the totem pole or something. Jack had been so busy thinking about the hurt surprise in Daniel's eyes it had taken him a moment to realize Ankana knew about the dreams.

"Wait a minute…" Jack had collected himself with difficulty as Ankana waved him to a place at the side of the wolfskin rug in his wigwam. "You can understand me? But I'm speaking English. And how the hell can I understand you?"

"I can see the pictures in your mind, and you can see the pictures in mine because I am allowing you to do so. Your mind translates those pictures into words you can understand. It is a gift of our people. A gift you must not speak of. It is something your people would misuse…"

Jack thought of remote viewers, those semi-psychics the US Military had trained to look into the heart of enemy darkness. You met up with them in psychiatric hospitals sometimes, still gibbering from the shock of what they'd seen. If Daniel got a sniff of this Hetari ability he'd want someone to teach it to him, thinking it would give him a way to reach the minds of every race they encountered through the Stargate, a way to show the bad guys the error of their ways. He would probably learn it too. Jack had vivid memories of Daniel seeming lost to him in a whole new way on Kheb. The guy he knew gone and this person with magical powers left in his place. Daniel fire-raiser Jackson: a man who could turn a machinegun with a thought. And he couldn't trust even General Hammond either, that business with the trinium had proven that. Orders came down from above that had NID fingerprints all over them. Definitely not something Jack felt any desire to share.

"Yes, we probably would. Now what was that you said about my dreams being dangerous to your tribe?"

"The dreams you share." Ankana nodded out of the wigwam to where Daniel was disconsolately circling the totem pole, sending wistful looks in their direction because he knew something cultural was being exchanged and he wasn't there to hear it. He looked like a kid who'd just had a favorite toy taken away from him, and Jack felt a protective spasm close around his heart.

"Share?" he said it carefully.

Ankana looked at him in exasperation. "I know everything you know, O'Neill. I know you dream of Daniel. I know Daniel dreams of you. I know you meet in the dream-place every night."

Jack gaped at him. "What? Wait – Daniel dreams it too? The same dream? The same…" He broke off. The same kissing, touching, yearning, longing?

 "Yes." Ankana sounded impatient with his stupidity. "The same dream. You share it every night. He awaits you there, and you go to him in the dream place."

Jack blinked. "Cool."

Ankana glared at him. "No! It is dangerous."

Jack thought of all the delicious touching and nibbling he'd done the night before. And on all the nights before that. So he hadn't just dreamed of touching Daniel, he had touched Daniel? Touched Daniel's dream in any case. Daniel had been there too. Daniel had responded. Daniel had...Daniel loved him. My God, the boy loved him too…

Ankana's hand clamped on his shoulder like a vice made him wince. "Ow. What?"

"Weren't you listening? You have upset the balance. You are causing chaos in the spirit world. Already you have given Tehuani great power."

"We've done…what? How? Who or what is Tehuani anyway?"

"Tehuani is the shaman of our tribe. He is a bad dreamer. He thrives on bad dreams. He tries to create them, to infiltrate them, to shape them. He is a very dangerous man, and this upset in the spirit realm has fed his power. He knows of you. He is seeking you. He will find you."

"What?" Jack stared at him blankly and then got to his feet. "Okay, I got about one word in ten of that, but I gather the gist is that if we hang around here we're going to do some more damage, right? That's easily solved. I'll pull my team out, get General Hammond to send a different SG unit."

"It is too late for that."

"How can it be too late?" Jack was already shouldering his MP-5 in preparation for departure. "We only just got here."

"But you have been sharing dreams with the Sleeper for many weeks."

"The Sleeper? You mean – Daniel?"

"Yes! The boy is the sleeper. You are the good dreamer. Tehuani is the bad dreamer. Because of you the spirit world is in chaos."

"You already said that and to be honest with you I didn't get it the first time."

"Because of you Tehuani can drag all of us into the underworld."

"Nope, you have definitely lost me now."

Ankana threw up his hands in annoyance. "You are not a fool, O'Neill, even if you choose to act like one. This information is unwelcome to you but it is not beyond your understanding. When two dreamers meet in the dream world but not in the physical world, they cause disruption in the realm of the spirits. The balance is upset; they love and they join and yet they remain separate. This contradiction cannot exist. And yet it does exist and its existence upsets the spirit world. Do you understand?"

Jack thought about claiming ignorance but then remembered the man could read his mind. He sighed. "Yes. Got you."

"When the spirit world is upset, great power is unleashed, power for good and for evil. For some time now the power of Tehuani has been growing. We have all sensed it yet been unable to stop it…"

As Ankana went on about signs and portents and the spread of nightmares among the Hetari people, Jack remembered Kheb again, the sky boiling, thunder and lightning, unstoppable forces simmering in readiness for savage release. He'd known it was a bad thing he was doing, really, an invasion of Daniel's privacy, but he'd told himself it was something he had no control over. It wasn't his fault if he was having wet dream after wet dream about the teammate who had so gradually and imperceptibly become the one he loved. His dream lover indeed if Daniel had been having the same dream. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Simultaneously exultant and ashamed.

He would never in a million years have leant across while Daniel was sleeping next to him on a mission and kissed his skin, or run his fingers through his hair. When Daniel had bad dreams – which he did frequently – or wet dreams – which he had a lot less frequently – when they were on missions, Jack tried to soothe him out of the first and pointedly ignored the second. If Daniel woke up screaming, he made sure he was there to soothe him and give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder or to rub his back until he calmed down. If Daniel woke up gasping his late wife's name with an entirely different inflection then Jack made damned sure he appeared to be asleep, so fast asleep that when an embarrassed Daniel quietly called his name to see if he could possibly have overhead, Jack had trained himself to never even twitch. What he didn't do was reach across to kiss and lick every inch of his teammate's smooth warm skin while encouraging him to sob his passion into his neck. Except now he had. If what Ankana said was true then he had been molesting Daniel in his sleep for weeks. With Daniel's agreement, perhaps, but the fact remained that he remembered it and Daniel didn't which…

That was a point. Why didn't Daniel remember it?

"Because he will not permit himself to do so." Ankana said it in disapproval.

"Why not?"

"Because he will not admit to himself that you are the man he loves. That you…"

Are the man of his dreams. Jack winced. "Too big a let down, eh? Danny was hoping for Harrison Ford?"

"You are his friend, O'Neill. You are all he has now. He thinks that to love you would be to lose you. Therefore he will not admit his true feelings even to himself, but they are so strong they break out in the realm of the unconscious. You will destroy us all unless you can achieve Anhaya."

"I'm guessing that has something to do with Daniel waking up, throwing his arms around my neck, and telling me he loves me?"

Ankana looked at him with the first glimmer of humor. "That would be a reasonable definition, O'Neill, yes."

Jack had looked out at Daniel, the anthropologist making notes as he circled the totem pole while still gazing longingly back at the wigwam where the discussion was going on. A child who'd had his favorite toy confiscated and was gradually losing all hope of ever getting it back. Jack sighed. "Don't hold your breath that's going to happen any time soon…"

Now, sitting in the teepee gazing across at a sleeping Daniel, he sighed again. So beautiful. So in love with him. And so utterly oblivious of him as anything except a friend. He hadn't bought into what Ankana had told him, of course. As soon as the chief had made it clear that there was a bad guy out there who was going to be picking up their trail any minute, who could effectively gatecrash their dream and join the party, Jack had been determined to get Daniel the hell off this world. Daniel was naked, voluntarily blind, and so damned vulnerable in the dream place. No way was some bad witch doctor going to be allowed to stroll into their dream and start turning it into a nightmare. Jack had already been two words into "We are leaving!" when Ankana had insisted it was too late now. Wherever they went, Tehuani would find them.

"I don't buy that." Jack insisted.

"As long as you continue to dream, he draws power from the fractured spirit realm."

"I don't buy that either."

That was when Ankana had pretty much dragged him across the village to show him the mangrove swamp. In the middle of a forest of silver birch trees. A place like something out of Grimm's Fairy Tales - the Appalachian version. Croaking frogs, the hiss of snakes, and something that looked suspiciously like a crocodile watching them from underneath the water.

"Each night as you dream it spreads further. Soon it will engulf us all. Tehuani will take us all into the underworld with the power you have given him. The combat has already begun, O'Neill. You and the bad dreamer must do battle for the soul of our tribe or else we are all lost…"

There was nothing like being three hours into a mission and being told you'd already fucked up everything for everyone because you had the hots for your teammate. It was almost Biblical, O'Neill thought glumly as he stared at the mangrove swamps. This was what having lustful thoughts for your best friend would do and while you thought you were keeping it all a deep dark secret, an entire tribe was having to live with the physical consequences of your guilty passion. And what's more another guy you'd never met was getting closer and closer to getting an eyeful of what you and your dream-mate got up to after hours.

That was about the time Jack had realized he really wasn't going to like this mission.

He looked across at Daniel again. Daniel was restless, stirring uneasily in his sleep. Jack reached across and pulled the blanket up higher over Daniel's torso. He'd tasted every inch of that skin in his dreams, knew intimately how it felt when you stroked your fingers across that silky heat, licked it, nibbled it, kissed it. Knew how Daniel's nipples felt when they woke to hardness beneath his tongue…But Daniel didn't know any of that. Jack was just 'Jack' to Daniel. Good old Jack. Crabby old Jack. Says-mean-things-to-me-before-he-thinks, old Jack. Not the man he loved. Daniel didn't think there was a man he loved. Somewhere along the line, Jack's mission briefing had been given a serious rewrite, but it wasn't something he could exactly share with his teammates. That his new task was now to find a way to make Daniel realize Jack O'Neill truly was the man of his dreams…

***

When he awoke the next morning Daniel realized that for once he had remembered his dream. Some weird stuff about going to see the Ritual and people getting him drunk and taking his clothes off then smearing paint all over him. While Jack sat there and watched. Yeah, right. That made perfect sense.

He rolled onto his left side and saw that Jack was also awake, lying on his right side, looking at Daniel.

"What time is it?" Daniel asked.

"Early. About an hour after dawn."

Daniel wished for some coffee, but that would involve making up a fire, which would involve getting wood, going down to the creek to get some water and…

"Here you go." He looked up to find a steaming mug of coffee being put into his hand. Jack shrugged at his surprise. "It's just self-defense, Daniel. You're pretty unspeakable until you get your caffeine."

"Thanks. And if this is my reward I must remember to be even more unspeakable in future." He felt oddly moved by that small act of kindness on Jack's part. Another ten minutes in bed was a wonderful luxury. He took a sip and it was exactly the way he liked it, strong but not bitter. Perfect. Sometimes he and Jack knew each other so well it was scary.

Jack was wearing only his pants, Daniel noticed. It was odd seeing Jack bare-chested and barefoot. He looked at once more vulnerable and more natural. Jack of the Jungle. Daniel grinned at the thought.

"What's so funny?"

He looked across in time to see Jack get back into his sleeping bag. Thank goodness for that. Sometimes Jack was an unbearably early bird, but it seemed as though he was going to be sane about it today and let them get up at a respectable time.

"Had this really weird dream."

"Dream?"

He wondered why Jack looked so tense. Daniel blinked at him a little nonplussed. "Yes. It was about the Ritual business – you know the native custom I wasn't allowed to witness and you were."

"Not that you mind or anything," Jack observed, deadpan.

"Couldn't be more okay about it," Daniel returned airily. "After all I'm a trained anthropologist and you're…not, so it makes perfect sense that you get to see it, and I don't. What happened anyway?"

"Tell me what happened in your dream?" Jack countered.

Daniel darted him a sideways look. Jack was obviously in one of those annoying impossible-to-read moods. Daniel often wanted to give him a swift kick when he was like that. Taking refuge in another sip of coffee and reminding himself as he did so that Jack did also have his good points, Daniel told him about his dream.

"…and then I fell asleep."

"Buck naked on a wolf skin-rug with a whole bunch of Hetari painting pretty pictures on you?"

"Actually I think they were symbols of protection or something."

"Oh well that's all right then. As long as they weren't doing anything weird. Where was I when all this was going on, anyway? Turning into a German Shepherd or doing a fan dance?"

"Watching."

"Oh, just call me CO of the century."

"You did reassure me they weren't going to hurt me, that they were just trying to protect me."

"That was nice of me."

"Telepathically. Actually – that must have been how you were communicating with Chief Ankana as well." Daniel frowned. "Incidentally, Jack, how do you communicate with Ankana?"

"Sign language." Jack shrugged as he got out of the sleeping bag and headed for the door. "Have to take a leak."

"Sign language?"

Jack glanced back at him. "Yes, sign language, like I told you yesterday."

"But that was in the…" Daniel stared at the flapping entrance to the teepee in confusion, "…dream."

***

Daniel walked through the village, brow creased into a frown of concentration as he tried to make sense of what was and wasn't real. As soon as Jack had left him alone, Daniel had been looking for traces of paint on his skin. There hadn't been any, of course. Which made sense. The only thing that made sense was Daniel having dreamed about that Ritual. But the other dreams, the ones he'd been having for a few months now, the ones he was always so eager to get back to even though he could never remember them, they'd started back on Earth. So they couldn't have anything to do with the possibly weird things happening on this planet. Could they?

And the only weird thing really going on here was Jack being a better anthropologist than Daniel was, which wasn't too serious. So, Daniel should probably stop worrying and concentrate on doing his job, which was finding out about the origins of these people and a little bit about their culture. Otherwise, when they got back to earth his report was going to be somewhat on the short side.

Actually Jack had been pretty twitchy since they'd got here. He kept starting conversations with Daniel and then stopping them again and he had spent hours inside that wigwam with Ankana. Daniel couldn't imagine what those two found to talk about. He'd tried talking to Ankana a number of times himself but without any luck so he obviously needed to try someone else, like the medicine man or healer, or whatever he was called in the Hetari culture.

Daniel cleared his throat outside Teal'c and Sam's teepee. "Um – knock, knock, guys?"

"You have a joke you're trying to tell, Daniel?"

He jumped and turned to see Jack standing right next to him. "Damn it, Jack, stop creeping up on me!"

"Just because I don't sound like a herd of elephants making their way to the watering hole like a certain person I could mention."

Daniel looked at Jack's feet and frowned. "You're not wearing your boots."

"I see those observational skills are improving though. Good catch."

Daniel refused to be diverted. "Why do you have bare feet?"

Jack shrugged. "You're the one who's always saying 'when in Rome'."

Daniel took a proper look at Jack and noticed that he was wearing his pants and his jacket but no t-shirt. Making it all the easier to see that Jack didn't have an ounce of surplus fat anywhere, which given the way the guy packed the food away, showed he must work pretty hard at turning it into muscle. Daniel didn't really have an ounce of surplus fat on him either, but that was because he was always skipping meals and subsisting on coffee not because he went for a run every morning before breakfast.

"You're not going to start sticking feathers in your hair and doing rain dances are you, Jack?"

The man shrugged. "Maybe. I'll let you know if the urge comes upon me."

Daniel belatedly remembered what he'd come here for. "Where are Sam and Teal'c anyway?"

"Gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, Daniel, gone as in…gone." Jack sighed at Daniel's look of annoyance. "Had a call come through from General Hammond: SG-5 ran into some trouble. I said you and I could handle things here."

"Oh – right." It occurred to Daniel that he really did need to start finding something out about these people's culture because at the moment Jack was handling everything, and he wasn't handling anything. He darted the man a sideways look. "Don't suppose you happen to know who the medicine man around here is, do you?"

Jack's jaw tightened, but his face and voice were both expressionless. "A guy called Tehuani."

"Don't suppose you happen to know where I could find him?"

Jack took him by the arm and towed him a few steps over to the left. "See where the creek flows round in a bend. He lives on beyond there. Has his own personal mangrove swamp."

"Have you met him?"

"Sort of."

Jack was radiating the kind of body language that suggested he liked this Tehuani about as much as he liked finding termites in his foundations, but he wasn't saying a word about Daniel not going to talk to him, or taking care, or anything like that. Perhaps Ankana had been telling Jack he needed to stop being over-protective and to let Daniel fight his own battles? Which was a good thing, right? Right. Except…

Daniel realized he'd got used to Jack looking out for him and saying 'Daniel…' in that warning 'have you thought through all the possible dangers' way. Daniel had even used the 'Well I'll just go off and do this by myself then, shall I?' ploy a few times on purpose, knowing perfectly well that Jack would never let him wander into trouble alone. He'd also got used to Jack hovering around anxiously if there was any possibility Daniel might get hurt. And now he was going to let Daniel just stroll off and talk to a medicine man he didn't like by himself?

Daniel felt abandoned again. Again? The way he had in his dream. When those braves had started taking his clothes off and Jack hadn't stopped them. If it had been a dream. Of course it had been a dream. It had been way too weird to be real, but all the same…

"Jack?"

"What?"

"You wouldn't really let people get me drunk, strip me naked, then paint all over me, would you?"

Jack looked at him for a minute. "As a rule of thumb – probably not; but it would depend on why they were doing it. If they were doing it because they were a bunch of sex-starved truckers who wanted to have some fun with you, then no I wouldn't. If they were doing it to protect you, well then yes maybe I would. I'm not saying I'd like it but I might feel I didn't have any choice but to let them do it to keep you safe."

He'd definitely been looking for something less…equivocal. "Well I wouldn't let anyone do that to you."

"Not even to protect me?"

"Well how could it protect you anyway?"

"What if someone from the spirit realm had access to your subconscious hopes and fears and would use them to drag you down into hell? What if having protective signs painted all over you was the only way to stop him grabbing you when you fell asleep?"

Daniel decided things were getting much to strange for him to cope with on only one cup of coffee. He waved his hands. "Okay – enough philosophy, but, Jack, if Ankana is making you smoke anything or drink anything with him, you might want to think about cutting down." He took two paces away and then looked back over his shoulder to see if Jack was following. "You said 'Tehuani', right?"

"Right."

No expression and no move to follow him either. Daniel guessed he really was on his own. Good. That was very good. Jack had finally learned to treat him like a grown-up. Excellent. He couldn't have been happier about it.

Standing with his bare toes clenching the earth hard enough to stop him from following Daniel, Jack said tautly. "I have to let him do this, right?"

Ankana nodded. "Yes."

"Remind me why again?"

"You know why."

"Look, I don't think I can go through with this. When you gave me the mission briefing you said I would be the one doing battle with the…bad dreamer. Me. Not Daniel."

"And so it is. But it is the sleeper whose dreams the bad dreamer tries to alter. It is the sleeper the bad dreamer must drag into the underworld – "

Jack held up a finger. "Whoa! Time out. This was not part of the deal."

"This was exactly the 'deal'."

"Well then I'm calling it off."

"You cannot. It is no longer possible. The ritual has begun. It can end only with Anhaya or with victory for the bad dreamer."

Jack gritted his teeth, looking around the birch wood for inspiration and finding none. "This is a guy with lots of…occult powers who wants to do all kinds of really unspeakable and degrading things to my teammate and I'm supposed to let Daniel trot over there and make friends without even giving him a warning?"

"It is better that he recognizes his enemy in the physical world so he will know him again in the spiritual world."

"I'm not sure I can go through with this. Daniel's been through enough weird shit already."

"The portal is open now. Tehuani will find him."

"Not if we leave this world."

"Yes, even then."

Jack put a hand up to his head. "So, you're saying if I don't go through with this, that son-of-a-bitch will still get into his dreams?"

Ankana looked at him. "You did."

"No, I didn't. I started dreaming about him, that's all. I didn't know we were having the same dream until we came here and you told me. And anyway, it isn't the same dream. I know that it's Daniel I'm kissing. He doesn't know the guy who's kissing him is me."

"Only because he will not let himself know it. He could say your name if he wanted to. He could open his eyes if he wanted to. He could let the moonlight into the darkness if he wanted to."

"Well then he obviously isn't ready for it to be me. I'm not pushing him into something he doesn't want. To be honest I already feel a little…It was different before, Ankana. I went to sleep; I had an incredibly hot dream where I got to kiss Daniel all over. In the morning I woke up and all I knew was that I'd dreamt something really, really good. This is different."

"Why?"

"I didn't know what I was dreaming was also what he was dreaming."

"And so?"

"And so I'm…doing stuff to him now."

"You were 'doing stuff' to him before, O'Neill."

"But I didn't know I was doing it. Now I do. That's…abuse. Damnit, in Daniel's case, that's practically child molesting. I gave him a hand-job for crying out loud. I'd say that was kind of an invasion of his personal space, wouldn't you?"

"I know his shame and your guilt are Tehuani's greatest weapons against you. Your love will not kill him, O'Neill, but his shame might."

Jack looked at the man in exasperation. "How?"

Ankana looked up at the sky whose pearly light was diffused by the drifting clouds. "You may go after him now, but walk slowly. He must be allowed to be a man. You have already kept him a child much too long."

***

Daniel felt like he'd wandered into some Appalachian folk myth. One moment it was all birch trees and birdsong with the sun pleasantly warm against his back, the next he was in someone else's nightmare. The mangrove swamps were so self-consciously sinister, all drifting mist and trailing creepers, he wondered they didn't come with a backing track of banjo music.

As soon as he saw Tehuani he could see this was not the kind of guy whom Jack would like. The man radiated the same kind of power the Goa'uld did. The kind that kept other people scared. He looked like someone who was used to getting his own way. He also looked like someone who really didn't like Daniel. He might have been considered handsome with his strong profile and long black hair. He was only around Jack's age, Daniel estimated, but cruelty marred Tehuani's face. He looked like someone who had seen much suffering in his time and unlike Jack had enjoyed the view.

Tehuana had a wigwam like Ankana's but the front was open on his, and the effect was like staring into an apothecary's shop. As Daniel drew nearer he saw that there were things hanging from the roof, in clay jars on shelves, piled into every available piece of floor space and something foul-smelling boiling in what looked suspiciously like a witch's cauldron. This really was eye of newt and toe of frog territory.

"What do you want?" the man's greeting was not encouraging. Nor was his expression. He had eyes like two burning coals and a strange scar on his forehead, like a sigil. It made Daniel think of Charles Manson.

"To talk to you." Daniel tried to smile but his mouth didn't want to go through the motions. He felt an unaccountable hostility towards this man. Which was absurd, he reminded himself. He didn't know him. He shouldn't judge him on a few second's acquaintance.

"I don't speak to whores."

Daniel told himself he'd just translated that wrongly. He wasn't too sure about the language anyway. Definitely not 'whore' that last word. Not something friendly, perhaps, but not that.

Daniel tried another smile. "Well that's a shame because I'd really like to hear a little bit about the history of your people, and they tell me you're the man who knows everything around here."

Tehuani made no attempt to hide the contempt in his dark eyes. He stirred the cauldron as he spoke, smoke rising up like the swamp mist. "Do you think I will respond to flattery?"

"Tough audience…" Daniel murmured. He really wished Jack had followed him this time. He could have done with the support. "I was just hoping to have a conversation with you. What's that in the cauldron?"

"Pig fat."

As he took a step closer, Daniel realized the man was telling the truth, the stench was unmistakable and none too pleasant. He put a hand up to his mouth. "Do you use it for healing?"

"You need some, Macu'?" Tehuani's gaze flickered over him lazily and Daniel suddenly realized what it looked and felt like when someone undressed you with his eyes. It really wasn't a pleasant sensation.

He tried to concentrate on what the man was saying. " 'Macu', that's Taino – what we used to call Arawak – it means, what does it mean?" Daniel put a hand up to his head. Big eyes. Well, not good, but better than 'whore' anyway.

"Your colonel being rough with you?" Tehuani picked something up out of one of the large clay pots at his feet. "You want him to grease you first? I'll grease you." He put his other hand into the cauldron, not flinching despite the way the liquid was bubbling at boiling point. His hand came out slick with liquid fat. He lifted the thing he held in his right hand and Daniel took two more steps forward before he realized what it was.

The polite word for it – the word he was going to use if any of this encounter found its way into his report – was 'fertility symbol', and it had clearly been carved from some dark native hardwood, possibly mahogany. But when a man held it in his lap so it jutted upwards from his loins while sliding his left hand over it in firm downward strokes so it was coated in dripping pig grease, all the time smiling at you viciously as if he wanted to rip you to pieces, Daniel felt the words 'honkin' big cock' were more appropriate.

Tehuani smiled at him contemptuously. "I'll grease you, good, Macu'. I'll grease you so hard and so deep they'll hear you screaming back on your own world."

Daniel backed up quickly. "You know I'm all for getting into native customs but I think just this once I'll pass."

He turned and hurried back down the path towards the rest of the settlement, Tehuani's raucous laughter echoing through the mangrove swamps triumphantly. Daniel knew the man had just humiliated him and that by running away from a childish threat he'd probably humiliated himself further. Sam, he was sure, would have told the guy exactly where he could shove that dick compensator and how hard, but all his instincts for self-preservation had told him to get the hell away from that guy fast, and he'd obeyed them before he'd even thought.

Tehuani's mocking farewell reached him faintly through the swamp. "See you in your dreams, whoreboy."

"Yeah in your dreams, maybe," Daniel muttered but he still automatically increased his pace.

His nerves were still twanging as he reached the edge of the forest, more relieved than he liked to admit to leave the mangrove swamps behind and find himself back among beech, birch and pine trees again. The air seemed to be at least ten degrees warmer and the birdsong was soothing. He didn't remember hearing any birds in the swamp.

A hand closing on his arm made him jump ten feet straight into the air.

"Jesus, Jack!" He stared at the man in a mixture of anger and relief. He was pissed about Jack constantly scaring the shit out of him like that, but he couldn't deny he was very glad to see him again.

"You okay? Why were you running? Did he hurt you?"

"No – I…" Daniel winced in embarrassment. "He scared me a little. I'm just jittery at the moment."

"Scared you how? What did he do?"

Although Daniel was ashamed to admit it even to himself, there was a part of him very glad to see that protective anger and anxiety in Jack's brown eyes. And that same part of him really wished Teal'c was still around so he could tell him what Tehuani had said to him and then watch the Jaffa go and stomp that guy underfoot like a bug. Daniel shuffled his foot in embarrassment. "Well – he sort of waved a…fertility symbol under my nose and invited me to…sit on it."

"Fertility symbol?" Jack's confusion darkened into anger. "You mean a dildo?"

"Jack, it's no big deal. He just…What can I tell you? We didn't hit it off. He doesn't like me and he wasn't going to lower himself to talk to me. As far as he's concerned I'm just a…nigua."

"What's a 'nigua'?"

"A kind of flea." Daniel shrugged in resignation. "I guess this is just the trip where no one talks to me. How long do we have to stay here anyway?"

"Another six nights."

"What? Why?"

Jack avoided his eye again. "Well if you attend the first ritual you have to attend the second one, and the next one is in a week, otherwise the cosmic balance gets all knocked out of shape."

" I didn't attend the first ritual...?"

Daniel made it a question, but Jack ignored the upward inflection to shrug. "I did. And I'm not staying here all by myself so you're stuck here for the duration. Anyway, what's the problem? You usually love this cultural exchange stuff."

"People usually let me communicate with them, Jack. But Ankana treats me like I'm six, and their medicine man just called me a whore. I'm not making a lot of progress here."

"A whore? Why?"

Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. Because I share a teepee with you I suppose. You wandering around flashing your chest at people probably isn't helping."

"I'm just trying to get in touch with nature," Jack protested.

"Why?"

"Because true communion with Mother Nature is supposed to help keep the mind and body in a state of readiness to deal with the demons of the underworld who might otherwise infiltrate our dreams." Jack sighed wearily as he said it, as if this was something he was really really bored with, he'd heard it so many times.

Daniel just looked at him for a moment. Then he reached across and patted the man on the shoulder. "Okey-dokey. You do that then. I'm going to go and ask one of the Hetari women about their culture and history."

"Good luck."

The way Jack said it, Daniel just knew the man knew something he didn't, but he wasn't going to rise to the bait. He was going to be a good little anthropologist, and he was going to have something better to put in his report to General Hammond than 'You'll have to ask Jack about the Hetari because no one else on the whole damned planet would take me seriously.'

***

He woke to the dream-dark and the near-silent sound of bare feet making a soft indentation in the earth floor. There were so many things he wanted to say, to ask for; but if he spoke, he might shatter everything. This was perfect. Not seeing. Only hearing, touching, feeling, tasting, breathing in that familiar scent he loved so much.

Daniel inhaled, and there it was, there he was, the good dreamer. He closed his eyes quickly, just in time for the man to bend over him and kiss him gently on the eyelids. Then strong fingers were furrowing through his hair, playing with the short strands, holding his head still so the next kiss could find his lips. That warm mouth brushed tenderly against his and Daniel sighed in contentment. This was the dream he never wanted to wake up from. Part of him wanted to say 'Tonight, please, tonight, can we do everything?' Yet if he spoke the good dreamer might vanish so he kept silent. But in his mind he was begging for more touching, tasting and feeling than he'd ever had before.

The good dreamer seemed to know what he wanted without needing to be told. The kisses were more passionate now. Although those dry lips were soft and warm, the kiss was insistent, a tongue tracing the inside of his lips before plunging forcefully into his mouth, demanding that he opened up to it. Daniel welcomed that tongue inside with a barely-muffled groan. And then something hard was pushing against the soft skin of his belly. It too was insistent, pushing at him as though asking for attention. He reached down, trying to feel what it was and closed his hand around the good dreamer's erect cock. When he rubbed his thumb curiously across the rounded tip, he realized it was weeping, and he could smell the bitter musty scent of precum. He was eager to taste it, but that would have been so…active, and besides his mouth was already full; the good dreamer's tongue probing forcefully, demanding to be sucked on. Daniel sucked, and his right hand began to gently stroke the cock he held, wrapping his fingers around it carefully the way the man had done with his erection in the last dream they'd shared.

He began to pull, a little uncertain at first, letting the slippery shaft slide between his curled fingers, trying not to grip it too tightly but to hold it firmly enough the good dreamer could feel the agreeable friction of Daniel's hand against his sensitive cock.

The way the man groaned into Daniel's mouth and kissed him even more forcefully, not to mention the way the good dreamer's hips began to pump in time to the rhythm Daniel was creating, told him he was probably doing this right.

The cock was being pushed into the funnel of his hand now, jerked in harder and harder while he pulled against it, a perfect rhythm of give and take. The good dreamer pulled his tongue from Daniel mouth, kissed him hard on the lips then began to nip and suck at the soft skin of Daniel's throat, his mouth warm and determined, groaning louder as he jerked his hips faster into the welcoming friction of Daniel's hand.

Daniel was pumping faster and faster now, barely managing to keep up with the good dreamer's eager thrusts, but somehow he matched the rhythm, kept the stroke going until…

The good dreamer convulsed, teeth closing on Daniel's throat to stifle a scream as hot fluid spurted across Daniel's hand. Daniel smiled as he arched his back against the other man's weight; proud to have given the man he loved such pleasure. The good dreamer was panting, collapsed on Daniel's chest and Daniel could smell the salt warmth of his sweat even above the musty scent of his semen. He seemed so vulnerable in that moment, Daniel couldn't help reaching up to stroke the back of his head, running his fingers through thick short hair, nuzzling at it so he could drink in the scent of it. He kissed the crown of the man's head, rubbing his cheek against his hair, wanting to bury himself in it, in this moment, forever.

The good dreamer recovered enough to turn his head slowly, kissing Daniel's chest as he did so, before reaching up to kiss him on the mouth again. Then the warmth and weight of the man's body was lifted from him and Daniel felt cold at once, missing it, wanting to wrap his arms around him and call him back. This was the only problem: that each time the good dreamer left him it was harder and harder to let him go. But this time at least the man didn't seem to be going yet. Daniel heard the trickle of water, then the splashing musical sound of something clay being filled with liquid. A warm wet cloth was pressed lightly to his abdomen, then he was cleansed as tenderly as child, the good dreamer kneeling between his legs to wash him, pausing every now and then to brush another tender kiss across his mouth as he did so. Daniel sighed with pleasure as the cloth washed the spilled seed from his skin and sighed again as another kiss tantalized his lips. He opened his mouth, trying to coax that tongue back in and it dabbed at him teasingly, brushing his jaw, his lips, even the tip of his nose, before thrusting tenderly back into his mouth. He sucked on it ecstatically while the warm cloth traveled between his thighs, leaving a damp trail around his balls, along his cock, then back to his balls again before slipping between his butt cheeks to gently heat his opening. This time the finger was behind the cloth and it probed a fraction deeper. Daniel opened his legs, but the finger was withdrawn almost at once, the tongue reluctantly withdrawn from his mouth.

Then came the farewell kiss on his eyelids, the whispered, "Go to sleep, Daniel." And then the good dreamer was gone.

This time he felt the loss of him more keenly. Before he'd known that each encounter would be short; perfect but limited. He'd even told himself that was why they were so perfect. But now for the first time he began to crave more reality. He wanted to ask the good dreamer where he came from, where he went to; if he would be coming back. If he would promise Daniel he was coming back because he could only bear this separation if he knew it was temporary. If he knew how much Daniel loved him.

Daniel rolled over, the familiar pleasure tingling through his body, slipping a hand between his thighs to cradle his testicles the way the good dreamer had, warming them with his own heat, trying to comfort himself for what was becoming a near-unbearable loss.

That was when the chill washed over him, the sense of someone else being here with him in a dark that was no longer protective and disguising but just meant he couldn't see who was watching him. He heard the faint hiss of a snake and a voice breathing one word in vicious contempt: 'Whore.'

***

"Chief Ankana?" Daniel felt absurdly nervous. He had done this so many times before, but there was something about this old man that made him feel like a schoolboy. Sometimes when the man looked at him, Daniel swore there wasn't a thought in his head the chief of the Hetari didn't know about. The Hetari woman had told him absolutely nothing as apparently it was forbidden for them to speak to someone who was not of their tribe. After the week he'd been having, Daniel wasn't even surprised.

"Yes?"

"I was wondering if you could spare me a little time?"

"Yes, we should speak." This time the man seemed to be taking him more seriously. Ankana held back the door of his wigwam and waved Daniel inside. The pine-log structure was very similar to one's Daniel had seen on Earth, and it was automatic to peer at the…

It was exactly the same as in his dream. Exactly. The same skins on the walls, on the floor. There was even the wolf skin rug exactly where he'd imagined it. Daniel's jaw dropped.

"Sit." Ankana waved him imperiously to a cushion, and Daniel automatically sat down cross-legged. The chief gave him a look of enquiry. "You have questions for me?"

Yeah, how the hell do I know what this place looks like?

"How can you and Jack communicate?" That wasn't what he'd been intending to ask, but it slipped out before he could stop it.

"How all men communicate."

"But you and I are speaking through a…language. A language we can both speak. Jack doesn't speak this language. Actually, Jack doesn't speak any language except English."

"O'Neill speaks many languages; he just doesn't know that he can do so." Ankana seemed to think that a full and frank answer. He also seemed to think that was the only answer Daniel needed. "You have another question for me?"

"Is your…medicine man, a good or a bad man?"

"All men have both good and evil inside of them. But Tehuani has much less good than most."

"Am I right to be…" He'd almost said 'afraid' then, but then decided another word might be more diplomatic, not to mention less embarrassing. "…cautious?" Nope, still sounded like he was running scared. And Daniel certainly hadn't meant to ask that question either. The last thing he'd wanted to do was tell a man who already seemed to think he was a child that he'd run away from the big bad witch doctor.

"He could do you great harm, but no man should ever run from his fears."

"So, I should go back there? Confront him? Make him talk to me? Try and show him that I'm not…what he thinks I am? Whatever that might be."

"What did he call you?"

He really hadn't wanted to go there. He moistened his lips before saying matter-of-factly, "He called me a whore."

"And do you think of yourself as a…whore?"

"No." Daniel half-smiled. "It's absurd."

"Why?"

Daniel blinked. "Why? Because I…I've never had sex with anyone for money or gain."

"Have you loved everyone you have lain with?"

"Yes…no, but that was different, Hathor actually made me…Um, she had this sort of drug…I should have resisted but…even Jack couldn't stop her turning him into a…"

Ankana held up a hand, and Daniel was actually relieved the man was insisting he stopped talking. "One woman lay with you because she loved you. One woman lay with you because she was ill. One woman lay with you because she needed something from you. One woman lay with you because she had been fed a fantasy that had stolen her commonsense. One woman lay with you because she found you attractive. Why have the men in your life lain with you?"

Daniel gaped at him. "There are no…I mean I have no…I never have…"

"Had you done so would that make you a whore?"

"No." He said it forcefully. "Why should it?"

"Then why have you not done so, seeing as how the women in your life have caused you only sorrow? Why have you not tried to find happiness elsewhere?"

"No, they haven't. Sha're and I were very happy together until Apophis stole her away."

"How long were you together?"

"A year."

"How long were you apart?"

"Two years."

"Were you happy when you were apart?"

"No, but…"

"Did her absence make you unhappy?"

"Yes, but…"

"Then even Sha're made you unhappy more than she made you happy. The next girl gave you an illness. The next stole the seed from your loins. The next almost killed you. The next would have killed you in trying to kill herself."

"How do you know all this? Did Jack tell you…?"

"Why have you never lain with a man?"

Daniel stared at Ankana, feeling anger and bewilderment warring inside him. "Why are you asking me that? I bet you didn't ask Jack that."

"If there was a man who could make you happy would you lie with him?"

"I suppose so. I've never thought about it. I don't find men attractive."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes."

"If Tehuani could prove to you that you did, would that make you a whore?"

"No. It might make me a little confused though."

"That is good." Ankana nodded in evident satisfaction. "Your capacity for shame is his greatest weapon."

Daniel stared at the man in confusion. "I don't understand what you want from me."

"I want you to overcome your shame and find love. It is important that you do so."

"Important?"

"For all of us." Ankana's upraised hands seemed to encompass not just the whole village but also the whole universe.

Daniel decided they'd probably talked enough for now. He got to his feet. "Um – thank you, that was very…interesting."

He blundered back out into the daylight with his thoughts spinning like a Ferris wheel. Jack was waiting for him outside, chewing on some native plant or other which was making his tongue go purple. "You okay, Daniel?" he looked at him in concern. "What did Ankana say to you?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "I have no idea." He peered at Jack's stained lips. "What's that stuff?"

"It's supposed to make you more receptive to the dream state, heightened awareness of the spirit world, that sort of thing. You know, make you able to keep a foot in both camps even when you're awake. Just seemed like a good idea with that Tehuani guy around."

Daniel hesitated. Jack was acting seriously weird, and he probably ought to do something about it. For all he knew Ankana was drugging Jack or hypnotizing him. He really ought to go back, get Janet Fraiser and get her to come and run a drug test…but he was just so damned tired at the moment. And Jack looked okay, after all. He didn't seem unhappy and he didn't seem to be harming anyone else or himself. Perhaps Daniel could just monitor the situation and only inform Janet if Jack got…weirder. "Fine." As he set off in the direction of the mangrove swamp he thought how much easier it would be if he could just go crazy too, that way he might even start enjoying himself.

The mangrove swamp was just as creepy, and Tehuani was still sitting in the same place, stirring the same damned cauldron, wearing that same mask of contempt and dislike as he looked Daniel over. Daniel felt exhausted just looking at him. He wondered if he was coming down with flu or something. He felt as though he hadn't slept in a week.

"Your colonel not giving you enough, whoreboy? You want some of my medicine?"

Daniel gritted his teeth. Sometimes he could see that as a policy 'shoot first, ask questions later' had a lot to recommend it. He kept his voice even. "Look, I think we may have got off on the wrong foot. My name's Daniel Jackson."

"Has no one ever taught you that you never give your name to an enemy?"

Counting to ten was something else that might be worth trying. Daniel gritted his teeth a little harder. "I'm an anthropologist. That's someone who studies the history and customs of people of other races and cultures. I would very much like to know about your role in the Hetari tribe, for instance. Are you a healer? A shaman?"

"I am the one who controls their dreams. I am the one who controls the door to the Underworld. I am the one they hate but dare not kill."

Well that was communication of a sort. Daniel decided to regard it as progress. "Why do they hate you?"

"Because they fear me."

"Why do they fear you?"

"Because I have great power. Witness it…" Tehuani snapped his fingers and suddenly Daniel was no longer standing fully-clothed in the ridged wet earth of the mangrove swamp, he was lying on his back on a piece of sacking, the overpowering stench of pig grease and human sweat assaulting his nostrils. He was naked and bound, wrists tied to a pole behind his head, a leather dildo pushed into his mouth to gag him, legs open and bent, gaze riveted in horror on Tehuani's right upper arm, at the muscles bulging there as the man pumped the outsized fertility symbol inside him with savage pleasure. The pain ripped through him, bruising him, tearing him –

"No!" With a huge effort, Daniel wrenched himself out of that place, staggering backwards with the strain of tearing himself away from that illusion and shaking his head to dislodge the nightmarish picture.

Tehuani was smiling, revealing a set of purple-stained teeth. He held up the wooden dildo mockingly. "I will save it for you, Macu'. I would like to hear how loudly you squeal when I make you take it to the root."

"That is just never going to happen," Daniel told him tersely. He backed up another couple of feet. "Do you want to tell me how you did that? Hypnosis? The power of suggestion? Some kind of hallucinogenic dust?"

"Unlike you, I never give weapons to my enemies." Tehuani rose to his feet and began to walk towards him.

Daniel tried to tell himself he wasn't being stalked, and he wasn't frightened. He had a gun in a holster on his thigh. He could defend himself. He had stood up to the Goa'uld with nothing before now. He was not going to be intimidated by a witch doctor with delusions of grandeur.

"Jack and I aren't your enemies."

"He challenges me."

Daniel swallowed. "As far as I'm aware he hasn't even spoken to you."

Tehuani covered the ground between them in three swift paces. Daniel hadn't realized quite how big the man was. His buckskin loincloth was doing very little to hide what seemed to be the makings of a very intimidating erection, and Daniel decided to keep his gaze above waist level for the rest of this conversation. Tehuani's dark eyes blazed with disdain as he loomed over Daniel. "He challenges me. Ankana has asked him to do battle and because he is a strong warrior in your world he has agreed. He even thinks he can defeat me. When I take you from him, he will realize he is wrong. Ankana will understand that he must make obeisance to me if he does not wish the world he knows to become my domain."

Daniel took a step backwards. "Well, I have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't think I really want to. But underestimating Jack is something a lot of Goa'uld have done over the years and a number of them are now very dead. You might want to think about that."

Tehuani's right hand shot out and seized Daniel's shoulder, tightened like a vice. With his left hand he reached under his loin cloth and lifted it to show Daniel how hard his cock was, purple veined and already oozing with anticipation. Daniel quickly averted his eyes, but he couldn't help but be aware of Tehuani stroking his erection as though it was a pet animal he was promising imminent satisfaction. "Kneel before me."

"No." Daniel tried to jerk free. The man's grip was crushing his shoulder but there was way he was going to kneel.

"Kneel! And then open your mouth or you die here."

"Not a chance in hell," Daniel said tersely, still desperately struggling to stay on his feet.

Tehuani let go of his shoulder and stepped back. His gaze flicked over Daniel with a mixture of loathing and lust that Daniel found very disconcerting. "Either you pleasure me, or you die."

Daniel looked him over. "I don't see a weapon."

"He is my weapon."

It was impossible not to turn and look where Tehuani was pointing. The crocodile looked as though he had been watching them for some time. He was perhaps fifteen feet away. He was also huge. Daniel swallowed hard. It looked like a saltwater crocodile; surely they were the only ones who grew that damned big? But this was freshwater so that didn't make sense. Unless they grew bigger on this world. Or this was just another illusion. The crocodile snapped its jaws at a passing dragonfly before turning its head back to look at Daniel. It had the same malevolent contempt in its eyes as Tehuani had in his. Daniel had read somewhere that the big crocodiles could reach speeds of 40 mph over short distances. There was no way he could outrun it.

Probably best not to think about that. Think mythology – the Egyptians had considered the crocodile a deity because, according to Plutarch, it could see while not being seen as God sees all while not being seen Himself, and because it was the only animal without a tongue, like the Divine Logos, which 'standeth not in need of speech'…No, that wasn't helping much. What else could he remember? Oh yes, in the seven days held sacred to Apis, it was a tradition that the crocodile would hurt no one. Well, these weren't the seven days held sacred to Apis, so that didn't help him either. Sobek, was the main crocodile god in Egyptian mythology and…the damned thing was coming towards him…

"Kneel, open your mouth and suck on my cock until my seed fills your throat or else Ajauca will eat you alive."

" 'Ajauca'?" Daniel swallowed hard. "That sounds like a derivative of the Itza 'ajaucay'."

At a nod from Tehuani Daniel sensed rather than heard the enormous reptile began to shuffle towards him. He had the gun out of his thigh holster and trained on it so fast he even surprised himself. "Call it off or I'll put a bullet in it right now." He tried to make his voice as dead and hard as Jack's. That 'brooking no argument' tone which made people jump to it when Jack used it. That had even made Daniel jump to it on a couple of occasions.

The crocodile stopped and Daniel risked a glance at Tehuani. "Your call. I've got plenty of bullets." He wasn't sure what kind of impression a 9mm round was going to make on that incredibly tough hide, but he was damned sure that emptying a clip into it should at least slow the creature up enough for him to make a run for it.

The shaman narrowed his eyes and made a brief pass with his right hand, murmuring something under his breath as he did so. "And now you have none."

Daniel jerked his gaze back to his gun in time to see it writhe and lengthen in his hand, turning into a hissing green snake which opened its fangs and made a dive for his wrist. Self-preservation made him throw it away in horror. The snake hissed at him before slithering away into the undergrowth. Daniel looked back at the crocodile and saw it advancing on him purposefully. "Shit." He seemed to have frozen where he was. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. It was ten feet away, eight feet. Christ, those were very big teeth, and there were so many of them –

Bullets sent the dust dancing frenziedly five feet from the crocodile's snout. Jack's voice was exactly the way Daniel had tried to get his: "You want to call off your friend. Or shall I just make sure Carter and Fraiser get a lot of new handbags this year?"

Tehuani hissed in annoyance, a sound so like the one the snake had just made that Daniel flinched automatically.

"Your choice." There was immovable steel in Jack's tone and Daniel knew he was very willing to pull that trigger if he had to.

Tehuani made a pass with his hand and Daniel jerked his head around in time to see the MP-5 Jack was holding spasm and writhe before remaining very stolidly the matt black outline of an automatic weapon. "Nice try." Jack didn't so much as blink, gaze boring into Tehuani unflinchingly. "But unlike Daniel I don't have any problems about carrying a gun. I like guns. They kill bad guys. They save my life. They save my teammates' lives. They fire real bullets right where I want them to go.  And telling my teammate to suck your dick is a surefire way to make me want to send them where you are. Do we understand each other?"

The shaman snarled in frustration and snapped his fingers at the crocodile. With a last look at Daniel which seemed to promise all kinds of retribution, the enormous reptile turned and moved slowly back towards the creek. Daniel watched it slide beneath the water, half-hypnotized, unable to look away until even the tip of its long muscular tail had vanished. Only then did he turn to Jack. "Thank you." He backed away from Tehuani.

The shaman held his gaze, his eyes holding the same unnerving threat as the crocodiles. "I will see you in your dreams."

"No. You won't." Jack's hand on his arm was as comforting as the certainty in his voice. He tightened his grip on Daniel's arm. "Come on, Daniel. Time to go."

As soon as they were out of earshot, Daniel said, "Thanks – he – I – I don't know he does the things he does, but my gun turned into a snake and…" He moistened his lips. "In retrospect I don't think going to see him was the best idea I've ever had."

"Are you okay?"

Daniel was a little embarrassed by how relieved he was to see that anxiety in Jack's eyes. It was good to know the man still worried about him. "I'm fine, Jack. Thanks to you."

"He didn't – do anything else to you?"

Just for a second Daniel thought about telling Jack about that image Tehuani had somehow projected into his mind, but his guts knotted with embarrassment at the thought. He couldn't possibly describe that scene to Jack. He would have had a problem describing it to Sam, never mind another man. He shook his head. "No. Nothing."

"Might be an idea not to visit him again."

"Believe me, I wasn't planning to."

"You're sure you're all right?"

Daniel nodded. "I don't think that was a real crocodile. I mean – I think it would have eaten me. But I don't think it's…real. I think it's Tehuani in a different form, but I can't work out how he does that."

"Daniel, the guy is scum. I don't think it really matters in what way he's scum. Just don't…think about him, okay? Thinking about someone like that just adds to his power over you."

Jack was definitely getting very philosophical these days. Daniel couldn't tell whether he liked it or not. He was glad the man had decided to stop being in denial of his spiritual side but it was still a little disconcerting to have him handing out the sage advice. He darted him a sideways look. "Was what you said to Tehuani about guns true?"

Jack shrugged. "Enough to stop him turning my MP-5 into a boomslang. That didn't seem an appropriate moment to be concentrating on the fact it was a gun that killed my son."

"Sorry." Daniel flinched.

"Don't be sorry." Both the voice and the hand on his shoulder were gentle, and Daniel found himself as always taken unawares by how much it could move him when Jack took the trouble to be kind to him. Not that Jack wasn't always kind to him, even when he was being a bit impatient there was usually kindness behind it, but sometimes when Jack's gaze or tone softened that bit extra it got under Daniel's defenses so completely it could bring unexpected tears of gratitude to his eyes.

He blinked hard, managing gruffly, "Okay."

They walked back to the camp in thoughtful silence, but Daniel couldn't help noticing that it seemed to take them much longer to travel through the mangrove swamp this time.

***

Daniel awoke to the darkness and smiled. When he heard the footsteps brushing so softly across the sand, he closed his eyes and felt the familiar anticipatory trembling began to tingle through every limb.

Warm dry lips brushed his forehead, then kissed his eyelids, a sigh warming his skin. Daniel frowned. The good dreamer sounded a little sad about something. Because Daniel had his eyes closed? But if he opened his eyes that might ruin everything. This was too precious for Daniel to want to risk spoiling it.

His momentary disquiet was smothered by that familiar mouth fitting itself against his, lips brushing his, a tongue tantalizing his. Daniel tried to suck the good dreamer's tongue into his mouth but the man teased him with kisses so light they barely dabbed at his skin, until Daniel was straining upwards desperate for deeper contact. It suddenly occurred to him that he could pull the good dreamer down to meet him. Tentatively Daniel reached up and touched the man's face, he withdrew his fingers at once, waiting for a reproof, then, when none came, touched again; he felt warm skin, the hard ridge of cheekbones, the rasp of stubble. No reproof, no rejection. The good dreamer reached up and put his hand on top of Daniel's, closing it over his fingers as Daniel made to snatch his hand away. Daniel's hand was transferred to his lips, each fingertip kissed very gently, then Daniel's hand was placed on the good dreamer's neck in clear invitation. Daniel understood; he wrapped his arms around the man's neck and gently tugged him down. As their mouths met, he could feel the good dreamer was smiling. Daniel smiled too as he realized he'd done the right thing.

Now the good dreamer was kissing him deeply and passionately, tongue exploring Daniel's mouth as though he wanted to count every tooth in his head. Daniel pulled him in even deeper, opening his mouth wider so the good dreamer's tongue could probe as deeply as it liked. As the good dreamer's cock brushed against Daniel's erection, lightning bolts of pleasure shot into his groin and he gasped. The good dreamer had his hands in Daniel's hair, pulling out a little and then pushing his tongue deeper, gentle thrusts which Daniel found incredibly arousing. When the man finally broke the contact, Daniel tried to pull him back. A finger tapped his nose in the lightest possible reproof and Daniel grinned, despite himself, and unwilling unlocked his grip.

"Good boy, Daniel…"

It was whispered huskily into his left ear and made him shiver with pleasure. When a tongue was inserted into the cavity that whisper had just warmed, he gave an involuntary spasm, body jolting a little. The good dreamer let their groins connect again, cock just glancing against cock while that warm wet tongue burrowed deep into Daniel's ear.

Daniel gave a strangled whimper. Trying to bite down on that 'Oh God yes!' bursting to escape from his throat. 

Only after Daniel's ear had been laved to the point where Daniel was squirming with a mixture of arousal and embarrassment, did the warm mouth travel down his cheekbone, along his jaw, down his neck, and then begin a thorough exploration of the smooth skin of Daniel's chest. That warm tongue teased his nipples to hardness and then traced a wet trail down his abdomen.

The trembling was stronger now. Daniel wanted the good dreamer to touch him everywhere at once, finger him, lick him, kiss, suck, bite, and then enter him, deep and hot and tender…He groaned with longing as the good dreamer nuzzled at the inside of his thighs, kissing and nipping the soft flesh there.

It's okay, Daniel. The voice was so soft he wasn't sure if the words were even spoken aloud or only sounded in his mind. It's okay to want this. To want anything. You don't have to fight it…

Daniel relaxed into the kissing and licking which, having left a wet trail along the inside of his thigh was now moving beneath his balls. That tongue dabbed at him, surprisingly firm as it warmed his perineum, almost reaching the crack of his ass, and then his testicles were being mouthed gently, kissed, nibbled and little, and then each one in turn was taken into the good dreamer's mouth and sucked to a wet heat.

His cock was aching with the pain of its arousal now. Pleasure was thrumming out from his groin in all directions, zinging down his thighs to his toes, shooting up his spine. When two strong hands were applied to his hips and he was held down firmly all he could think about was that the wonderful sucking of his balls had stopped. When a hot mouth closed over the weeping head of his cock, he jolted in surprise. The pleasure was so intense his hips jerked up automatically, but he was pushed down again and held still while his cock was sucked harder, taken in deeper. Again he jerked upwards, the shock of these sensations almost too much, just knowing he had to thrust into this incredible heat, had to. But the hands wouldn't let him move, pinning him to the sleeping bag while the sucking continued, pulling him in deeper just where he needed to be.

It was all too much and although he wanted it to last forever, the pleasure was too intense, too new, too overwhelming. He began to shake, sensation coursing up from his feet, wave after wave, thrumming through him ecstatically before exploding into climax.

He was floating in a white-out of delirium. Someone was kissing him, and his tongue tasted musky and bitter. He curled his tongue away from the flavor and then curiously tasted it again, rolling it around on his tongue. Semen. His own semen. He had come in the good dreamer's mouth. Was that bad? Was the man angry? Should he have done that? He'd lost control.

It's okay, Daniel, it's okay. You were perfect. You were beautiful. You were so beautiful.

The good dreamer still loved him. The man was so gently stroking his short bangs back off his forehead and kissing him passionately and tenderly, murmuring it over and over. "It's okay, Daniel, it's okay to enjoy that. It really is okay."

Daniel put his arms around the man's neck. He so wanted to say, "Don't go. Don't ever go." But it might be against the rules for him to speak. He felt this was a very fragile paradise they'd found for themselves here in the dream-dark. He didn't want to shatter it.

When the man gently disentangled Daniel's arms from his neck and kissed him on the eyelids in farewell, Daniel felt tears burn a trail from under his lashes. He didn't want the good dreamer to go. Not ever.

Ask me and I'll stay, but you have to ask me…

He'd imagined that. Because he so wanted to hear it, probably. The good dreamer would never say that because the good dreamer knew they could only exist in this moment, in dreams they would later forget.

Forget?

But he remembered every moment he'd spent with the good dreamer. Why did he feel that when he was with him he was forgetting someone else? The good dreamer was all he'd ever wanted. There was no one else.

"Go to sleep, Daniel."

The good dreamer sounded sorrowful, a sigh of resignation in his voice. Another kiss warm against his forehead, and then Daniel was alone in the dark.

Not alone. Someone was here with him. Someone malevolent. He heard footsteps, not the good dreamer's footsteps, walking around him in a circle, a hiss of frustration. "Whore…You'd let a man fuck you you've never even seen. Whore!"

Daniel put his hands over his ears. No. This didn't happen in the dream-place. Only good things happened in the dream-place. Only good dreams.

As he drifted into sleep he felt uneasy, as though there were a thousand nightmares trying to find him, like a pack of wolves which had not yet picked up his trail but were even now scenting the air…

***

"Daniel, we should talk."

Daniel looked up from his journal and blinked in surprise. "Talk?"

"Yes."

"About?"

Jack scratched his jaw. "Stuff."

Daniel put down his pen and gave the man a wary look. "Okay, now you're really scaring me."

Jack grimaced. "You're not helping. You know I suck at this kind of thing."

"Well the old Jack did, I presume the all new Hiawatha version of you is probably going to retrain as a relationship councilor."

"Damnit, Daniel." Jack rubbed his eyes. "Look. I spoke to Ankana this morning and you're not going to get zip out of these people until after this second Ritual. Now, as we have to stay here or upset their Ritual business and we have a lot of time on our hands, we might as well have a proper conversation."

Daniel closed his notebook. "Fine, you start."

He'd thought that would shut Jack up in a second, but the man just looked relieved. "Okay. Let's talk about your foster parents."

"Let's not." Daniel automatically wrapped his arms around himself.

Jack looked at him and then nodded at Daniel's protective stance. "Let's talk about that."

"Nothing to talk about."

There was a long pause before Jack shrugged. "Okay, let’s talk about me. My father never hugged me, you know, not once. He was a…man's man, you know the type. Don't talk about your feelings; if your kid's dog gets run over you pat him on the shoulder, tell him only women cry so he mustn't snivel about it, and you'll buy him another one tomorrow. Doesn't mean you don't care. You just feel the world's a tough place, and he's going to have to be tough to survive in it."

"You're not like that." Daniel said it at once.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Glad to hear it. I catch myself acting like him sometimes, but I try not to be. I was absolutely determined that my son was going to know I loved him. You wouldn't think that was such a hard thing to do – to tell someone you care about how much you care about him, but my father couldn't do it, and I had to retrain myself to do it with Sara. Not with Charlie. Never had a problem telling Charlie I loved him. I think he did at least know that he was loved."

"Oh God, Jack…" Daniel swallowed hard. "I'm sure he did. I'm sure he knew it from the moment he was born – "

"Maybe." Jack grimaced. "I'm hoping your parents were better at that touchy-feely stuff than mine were?"

Daniel smiled. "Oh yes, they were…wonderful. My father used to give me piggy-back rides everywhere until I was about five years old – luckily I was skinny little kid. I used to cling to his back like a spider monkey while he and my mother went into pyramids. My mother used to wrap me in her arms and read to me every night…" He broke off, good memories suddenly overwhelmed by that other memory of the chain breaking, the stone falling, the screams, the blood.

Jack nodded as though that was no more than he expected. "I could never explain to Sara it wasn't that I didn't like being touched. You know when I wake up punching or pushing the person next to me away. It's just…You get captured a couple of times you get a little twitchy. As you come around you're just trying to get loose, trying to prove you're free. It isn't personal."

"Are you…?" Daniel frowned. He'd thought Jack wanted to open up, talk through some problem from his past, but suddenly they seemed to be back to Daniel again. What exactly was Jack wanting from him here? "Are you apologizing to me for something?"

"A couple of times you've been the one sitting with me after I've got myself knocked out and I think I might have come around hitting out. Have I hit you?"

"No."

"Just pushed you away?"

Daniel's dropped his gaze. "I don't – I don't remember."

"Because if I ever did do that it wouldn't be because I didn't want you touching me or I was telling you to get your hands off, it would just be me not knowing what was going on and reverting to Black Ops paranoia." Jack looked at him intently. "Were your foster parents touchy-feely people?"

"No." Daniel wrapped his arms around himself again. How the hell had they got back to this anyway? "They were very… undemonstrative. I did try hugging them a few times, but they didn't really like it. I had a foster brother who told me only…"

"What?" Jack raised an eyebrow. "Only faggots hug guys? If you go around touching men without their permission you're going to be picking your teeth up off the floor?"

Daniel grimaced. "I don't remember. It was years ago." He saw Jack's expression and forgot his own embarrassment wondering what could possibly put that look on the man's face, make him so sad and so angry all at once. "What's the matter?"

"I'm just starting to see how spider-monkey kid got turned into self-hugging-mustn't-touch-anyone teenager. Then got mixed up together and turned into someone whose first instinct is to reach out and whose second instinct is to snatch his hand away like he's going to get his fingers burned off for touching."

"Jack, I didn't exactly have a deprived childhood. I know people hear all these horror stories about orphanages and foster care but my foster parents were perfectly decent people who treated me…"

"Perfectly decently?"

Daniel decided to ignore the sarcasm in Jack's voice and take that statement at face value. "Yes."

"Well I just thought this might be an appropriate moment to let you know that I never mind you touching me, and if I've said anything or done anything to give the impression that I did, I'm sorry, and I didn't mean it."

"Okay." Daniel darted him a sideways look. "Um – Jack, are you planning to go through every possible imaginary slight you might have given me in the last three years while we wait for this second Ritual? Because if you are I'm just going to move into Sam and Teal'c's teepee now if that's okay with you?"

To his surprise, Jack gave him a look of horror. "Don't be insane, Daniel. You can't possibly sleep somewhere else!"

"Why not?"

There was a long silence as Jack wrestled with some internal struggle Daniel couldn't even guess at. After a long pause, the man shrugged. "It would count as an insult to Ankana. It would be as if you'd told him the accommodation he'd provided wasn't good enough for you."

"That wasn't what you were going to say."

"Yes it was."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was."

"Wasn't."

"Was."

Daniel narrowed his eyes. "You're thinking of Tehuani. You think he's going to send his pet crocodile in to eat me in the night."

"To something you in the night, yes, maybe I am."

Jack muttered it so quietly, Daniel wasn't sure he'd heard him correctly. "What?"

Jack lifted his head. "I told you – you'd be insulting Ankana. You're stuck with sharing a teepee with me, and you might as well get used to it."

Daniel looked at him for a long moment and then shrugged. "Fine. Can I write up my journal now?"

"Sure. I have to go and see Ankana anyway." Jack sprang to his feet and picked up his MP-5. He paused in the doorway of the teepee. "Don't invite Tehuani in. If he should come here and ask to speak to you, tell him he can't come in. Okay?"

"Okay." Daniel didn't look up from his journal, still trying to find a way to describe what had happened in the mangrove swamp which didn't sound too crazy. He jumped as Jack sank to his haunches right in front of him.

"Daniel!"

"What?" he protested.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand that it's an order?"

The word made the hackles stand up on the back of Daniel's neck straight away. There were a lot of bad words in the English language, but that had to be one of the most annoying. He gave the man his best level stare. "I do now."

"You don't let Tehuani in here, for any reason at all."

"Understood, Colonel O'Neill, sir." Daniel gave him a deliberately poor salute. Jack sighed, shook his head, then walked out into the daylight. Daniel watched him go and wondered why the air seemed suddenly so many degrees colder. When he looked out of the flap of the teepee he could see the totem pole. Although he knew it must be his imagination, both the snake and the jaguar seemed to be watching him malevolently.

***

For the first time as he lay on his back on his sleeping bag with the good dreamer lying on top of him kissing his forehead, Daniel wondered if the darkness wasn't also a barrier as well as a protection. There was a part of him beginning to long to see the man he loved. To touch the man he loved. It was wonderful to be touched. The good dreamer had caressed him so many times now, kissed him so gently, traced fingers down his skin, licked and nibbled and sucked at him tenderly and passionately, bitten him as softly as a cat demanding to be fed. There had been so much love in every touch. Now Daniel wanted to show that he too could touch and give pleasure, could kiss the good dreamer's leanly muscled arms, could bury his face in the soft fuzz of the man's chest hair, could suckle gently on that stubble-roughened throat.

As he tentatively stroked his hands down the man's arms, the good dreamer rubbed noses with him, fitting his mouth to Daniel's so that Daniel could taste and feel his smile. This was clearly permitted. When, as he dared to stroke his hands down the man's ribcage the good dreamer kissed Daniel more passionately Daniel realized this was positively encouraged.

And this was heaven, right here. This skin, this heat, this stubbled jaw, this warm chest hair, this soft skin underneath the good dreamer's throat, these fingers, long, strong and sensitive, which Daniel sucked on eagerly. When the finger was gently tugged from between his teeth and used to stroke a line down his face, Daniel burrowed down further, found a nipple and sucked on that. Gentle hands cradled his head, stroking his hair.

Anything you like, Daniel. Anything. You can touch me anywhere you want to.

Daniel groaned with pleasure and wanting, becoming fiercer, nipping harder, tracing a line down the man's chest to his ribs, letting his tongue bump and slide across each cushioned bone. Then the good dreamer was pulling away from him, and for a horrible moment he thought he'd gone too far, done something wrong. And then he realized the man was just moving off him to lie next to him, a gentle tug on Daniel's arm encouraging him to climb on top if he