Jack tried to clear away some of the steam from the bathroom mirror in the vain hope that he could actually use it for shaving. Just as he thought, a few seconds later, the mirror was all steamed up again. He would have opened the door, but then the hall way would fill up too.

"Daniel, you gonna be much longer?" No-one else Jack had ever known, not even Sara, could spend so long in a shower. It was a wonder the man didn't look like a prune. The sound of running water suddenly stopped and Daniel's head appeared from around the frosted shower screen.

"Did you holler Jack?" He grinned as he reached for the big fluffy towel hanging on the rail and padded over to stand next to Jack. As always, the smell of freshly showered Daniel did wicked things to Jack's libido, but he manfully resisted, fixing his eyes on the tiny patch of clear mirror instead.

Daniel slipped his glasses on, and reached for his toothbrush, making sure to let his bare and still wet arm slide across Jack's naked chest. The colonel began to wish that he had kept his pyjama top on as well as the bottoms. Not that the soft jersey fabric was hiding anything. He plugged in his electric shaver and ignored Daniel as best he could.

"J'k, cg nu paassm eglsawater?"

Strangely enough, Jack knew exactly what Daniel had just asked for, despite how difficult it was to talk with a toothbrush in your mouth. He filled the glass with water and handed it to his friend before resuming the job at hand. He ignored the spitting, he even ignored the gargling but he had to draw the line at the singing. Not this early in the godamn morning.

"Danny, enough. If you just give me five minutes to finish shaving, I'll get out of your way." Daniel's eyes met Jack's in the mirror. With a terrifyingly evil grin, he moved to stand behind his lover, and rubbed his own morning whiskers between Jack's shoulders.

"Daniel! C'mon, give me a break. I just got here after 24 hours on some godforsaken dustbowl of a planet. All I want is a shower and a shave and something to eat. Okay?"

Daniel's tongue streaked out, following the trail of abraded, sensitive skin until Jack's back arched and his fingers curled around cool white porcelain to steady himself.

"Hey, flyboy, you aren't the only one that's had it rough. While SG1 were off gallivanting across the galaxy, I had to translate a whole new language. Do you have any idea how hard that is?" As if to illustrate his 'point', Daniel ground his swelling erection against Jack's butt.

"No, but you keep doing that and I'll be showing you how hard MY job is." Daniel grinned over Jack's shoulder as his lover attempted to finish shaving. He focused the reflection of Jack's eyes in the steamed up mirror as he slipped his hands round to find the drawstring that kept Jack's pyjama bottoms in place.

Jack loved it when Daniel got playful like this. Under normal circumstances, he would already have the younger man spread-eagled against the wall, but he really was tired this morning, and didn't mind taking things a little more slowly.

"Danny don't," he groaned in mock exasperation, "I have a headache."

Daniel's eyes widened. "You WHAT?" he asked, incredulously. That was one phrase he had never expected to hear coming out of Jack O'Neill's mouth. Jack started the shaver again and this time managed to finish the job while explaining himself to his lover.

"It was a tough mission okay? I haven't worked that hard since I was at the academy. You know I'm not exactly a young man anymore Daniel?"

Daniel snorted and began nibbling his way towards Jack's ear. "You think translating is easy? I haven't pulled so many all-nighters since I was at Cambridge."

But Jack was not about to be out-done. "You think you had it tough, puleese! Don't start whining until you've had to run 20k in the rain with the full pack on your back and a drill sergeant chewing on your ass the whole way."

"Cairo, 1989, it hadn't rained for nearly seven months, and when it did, I was in an excavation trench trying to recover a priceless Egyptian artefact. I nearly drowned, but they managed to pull me out before the walls collapsed. The resulting flash flood washed away all our tents and supplies and made the road back to town impassable. We had to carry everything back on foot. Eight hours in the baking sun with no sun block. I think I know a thing or three about 'tough' Jack."

"Oh really? El Salvador, 1983. I got trapped behind enemy lines and had to survive for three days with nothing to eat or drink and a whole regiment of guerrillas out looking for me. Beat that."

"I died."

Okay, that wasn't fair.

"I died, and then came back to life after a brief respite in a sarcophagus. Surely you remember that?"

Jack smiled as the smug face in the mirror. "Sure I remember. But then, so did I. Several times actually."

"Okay, lets not go there, Jack. It always ends badly."

Jack turned and wrapped his arms around Daniel's waist. That episode in their lives was too painful to go over again. They had reached an understanding about what happened, forgiven each other and begun again. Jack tightened his grip momentarily then drew back, trailing his hands up the naked chest.

"Don't worry. I'm slowly learning that there are certain things you and I will never see eye to eye about. But believe it or not, I do think we have stumbled onto something here."

"We have?"

"Oh yeah. In the beginning, there was the big butch Colonel, protecting his ragtag bunch of raw recruits, comprising one geeky scientist, one blonde bimbo and a great big huge alien with a hallmark stamp of approval on his forehead."

"Alien...? Blonde bimbo...? Geek...?" Daniel took one step backwards with each word.

"Not my words Daniel I assure you. Anyway, that was 'then'. These days, after all the briefings, and all the on-the-spot history lessons, not to mention all those perfectly good Saturday afternoons spent tailing you round 'this' museum or 'that' gallery, I could probably do your job with my eyes closed."

"I beg your pardon?"

Daniel's eyebrows came together in one very straight line. Jack continued to grin like an idiot.

"Think about it. I've picked up some Goa'uld, I read the lingo, to a certain extent, I've been goa'ulded so I can pose as one convincingly, and I can even dig in mud. What more do you want in an archaeologist?"

"You think you could do my job?"

"Sure. All I need is the geeky specs and I'm all set." As he spoke, Jack reached forward and slid Daniel's glasses from his nose, quickly slipping them on his own. Daniel crossed his arms tightly over his chest and adopted an aggressive stance, making Jack wonder if he may have pushed the joke a little too far.

"Oh yeah? Well while its remotely possible that on a bad day, and in a very bad light, you could pass yourself off as an archaeologist to a blind octogenarian whose seeing-eye dog is at the vets getting rabies shots, I, on the other hand, could very convincingly pass myself off as a colonel."

"Ha!"

"Scoff all you like fly-boy. I already wear the uniform on a daily basis, I carry a handgun, and I can even fire a P90 when necessary. I've got all the same hand-to-hand combat skills as you, and I can shout my mouth off and swear like a real colonel."

"Daniel you can't hold your liqueur. You cant be a real colonel until you can drink every other man in the room under the table."

Jack turned back to face the mirror, using his fingers like a comb as he admired his new 'academic' look. Suddenly he felt Daniel pressing up against him again, but this time, he felt no fluffy towel between them. Jack covered his heart with his hand and modulated his voice to sound breathless.

"Why Daniel, I do believe you are nekkid!" He quickly drew the glasses off and tried to turn round for a better view, but two strong hands wrapped around his chest holding him in place. Daniel's voice was low and sultry.

"There is one other thing I need. These." His fingers tangled in the chain.

"You want my tags?"

"Yeah Jack, and I want you to put my glasses back on."

Jack smiled widely. Dress up was his favourite game. "Do I have to call you sir?"

"That would be totally out of character for me." Growled Daniel as he slipped the tags over Jack's head. Jack put the glasses back on and turned in Daniel's embrace. Hazily, he saw his tags swinging against the broad chest, before his mouth was captured in a, big-butch-Colonel-protecting-his-ragtag-bunch-of-raw-recruits, sort of a way.

"Daniel?"

"Hmmph?"

"How the hell do you see in these things?"