Forcing himself to breathe, he lay back on his bunk and stared at the one above him counting each inhalation until his eyes drifted closed, sleep tugging at him, pulling him under.

His eyes open again, another sound, as icily familiar as the shot. He's alone. He's supposed to be alone and yet the hatch is dogged and the shadows are moving slowly, coalescing into a dream or a nightmare or a memory. Lee's not sure anymore, in the between where he seems to reside. Lee was always extremes, and now he can't seem to find the edges at all.

"You're not surprised."

Daniel's voice has always had a strange quality to it, like an accent not quite realized. It gives him a strange edge to his voice, something more that's not said. Lee turns his head and stares at him, the familiar lines of pale skin moving from the shadows into the dissipated security lights that never allow for complete darkness.

"No."

"I didn't think you would be."

Lee doesn't sit up though he turns on his side and watches Daniel's slow progression across the room. Lee traces the scars on Daniel's body with his eyes, cataloguing them, fitting them to the picture in his mind. He knows them like they're his own now, owns them as much as the man now sitting on the edge of Lee's bunk.

Daniel's hand reaches out, strokes along Lee's arm from shoulder to elbow, his long, elegant fingers as in control here as they'd always been on the stick of the Viper. He guides Lee easily, teasing him back onto the bunk, his hand moving over the curve of Lee's shoulder to the line of his collar bone, down to the tangle of his dog tags in the nest of golden brown hair.

"No questions, Lee?"

"Would you give me answers?"

He smiles, amusement and happiness in equal measure. "You always wanted answers, Lee."

"You never did."

"Never solved anything to know." His fingers continue moving over Lee's chest, circling the darker flesh of Lee's nipples, teasing them to hardness. Daniel's expression changes, interest and concentration warring in his eyes. A shiver runs through Lee as he watches, as he lets himself feel the pressure and stroke of Daniel's fingers.

It's been so long since he's felt anything.

"Do you remember that time…?" Daniel stops speaking and smiles again, and something in Lee's chest stops working. He doesn't need any further words to know exactly what Daniel's talking about, doesn't need a reminder.

He swallows hard and doesn't recognize his voice. "Yes."

"I asked the questions that night." His hand moves lower, tracing the corded muscles of Lee's abdomen, moving down to the curve of Lee's cock through his dark boxer-briefs. "You gave me answers."

"I had to," Lee reminds him, the words trembling as badly as Daniel's hands now seem to be, moving slowly if not quite steadily, over the arc of Lee's cock. "You didn't give me any choice."

It was torture, plain and simple, and Daniel was a master, his fingers teasing Lee to the edge and then pulling away, the questions low and persistent as a bee buzzing in Lee's ear. The teams had ended up in a draw, not because Lee had kept the information from Daniel - he'd surrendered it eventually, gasping the answers and coordinates amidst the desperate pleas for Daniel to finish what he frakking started - but because they'd both missed the deadline, waking up more than a half hour late, tangled in Daniel's wine and Lee's sheets.

"Do you think you have one now?"

"You're not real," Lee reminds him, closing his eyes as Daniel tugs back Lee's boxer-briefs, exposing his cock to the regulated air of the ship, cool despite the carefully controlled temperature. "A dream. A vision. A hallucination."

"I'm as real as you are, Lee."

Lee reaches down and wraps his hand around Daniel's guiding it along his shaft, closing his eyes and surrendering, without a fight this time. "That's not saying much, Daniel."

Lee comes, wet and hot and sharp in the silence. He keeps his eyes closed, feeling the brush of Daniel's smile on his skin until it fades away and Lee surrenders again, this time to a sleep without dreams.