![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So the first line meme got me looking through what I'd written and I came across some things I'd forgotten about but that are basically finished. I didn't post these at the time because I hadn't posted any fic yet and I wanted to post something substantial first. And then I got caught up in writing more and forgot about them...
So here are two drabbles and a double drabble all musing on Jack's immortality. All written around May this year.
Title: Immortality
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unfeathered
Character: Jack Harkness
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 400 (2 x 100, 1 x 200)
Spoilers: up to End of Days
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: Three separate musings on Jack's immortality
Author’s Note: All written before Season 3 of Doctor Who so rendered a little bit AU by the information revealed in Utopia
Laughing at Death
The first time Jack died, he’d thought the Daleks had somehow just stunned him.
The second time, burning up on re-entry, he’d been terrified. He’d known he only had a tiny chance of making it to Earth alive but three long years alone in space had made him risk it. But he’d died, still alone.
And he’d woken up in the Brecon Beacons. Alive. Whole. Not even burned.
He’d laughed.
The third time, he was less scared. And he laughed again.
The fourth time, he laughed as he was dying.
By the twentieth time, he wasn’t laughing. He’d had enough.
Never-Ending
Jack used to wonder what it would be like to be immortal, back when he was a Time Agent and then when he was a con-man. Wondered what it would be like to live linearly, day after day, year after year, instead of dipping in and out of eras as he pleased.
Now he knows. Now he wonders what it would be like to die, and not come back. Wonders if killing himself would work. Doesn’t dare try, just in case it does.
So he lives and he suffers, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Life never-ending.
Eternity
Inspired byxwingace's fic Stuck in Traffic at the Magic Roundabout and set in that ’verse.
Three thousand years. Thirty centuries. Forty-three average human lifetimes. One million and ninety-five thousand days.
It’s an inconceivable amount of time, but Jack has lived it.
The despair of trying to conceive it has sent him mad over and over again, sometimes for decades, until he dies somehow and comes back sane. It’s driven him to suicide a few dozen times, but he always comes back.
He laughs when he remembers how hard it was at first just to get through a whole day, trapped in the slow lane, unable to hop to a different time the moment he got bored. If he’d known then that he’d still be here three thousand years later… it wouldn’t have helped. Because he has no choice. There’s nothing he can do but live. Forever. He’ll still be around when the human race has spread itself across countless planets, when the Earth has gone, when everything has died and the Universe is black and cold. He’ll die because there won’t be any air but he’ll come back to die again. He’ll always come back. And it will never, ever end.
It’s inconceivable, but Jack has the rest of eternity to try and comprehend it.
So here are two drabbles and a double drabble all musing on Jack's immortality. All written around May this year.
Title: Immortality
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Author:
unfeatheredCharacter: Jack Harkness
Genre: Gen
Word Count: 400 (2 x 100, 1 x 200)
Spoilers: up to End of Days
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: Three separate musings on Jack's immortality
Author’s Note: All written before Season 3 of Doctor Who so rendered a little bit AU by the information revealed in Utopia
Laughing at Death
The first time Jack died, he’d thought the Daleks had somehow just stunned him.
The second time, burning up on re-entry, he’d been terrified. He’d known he only had a tiny chance of making it to Earth alive but three long years alone in space had made him risk it. But he’d died, still alone.
And he’d woken up in the Brecon Beacons. Alive. Whole. Not even burned.
He’d laughed.
The third time, he was less scared. And he laughed again.
The fourth time, he laughed as he was dying.
By the twentieth time, he wasn’t laughing. He’d had enough.
Never-Ending
Jack used to wonder what it would be like to be immortal, back when he was a Time Agent and then when he was a con-man. Wondered what it would be like to live linearly, day after day, year after year, instead of dipping in and out of eras as he pleased.
Now he knows. Now he wonders what it would be like to die, and not come back. Wonders if killing himself would work. Doesn’t dare try, just in case it does.
So he lives and he suffers, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Life never-ending.
Eternity
Inspired by
xwingace's fic Stuck in Traffic at the Magic Roundabout and set in that ’verse.Three thousand years. Thirty centuries. Forty-three average human lifetimes. One million and ninety-five thousand days.
It’s an inconceivable amount of time, but Jack has lived it.
The despair of trying to conceive it has sent him mad over and over again, sometimes for decades, until he dies somehow and comes back sane. It’s driven him to suicide a few dozen times, but he always comes back.
He laughs when he remembers how hard it was at first just to get through a whole day, trapped in the slow lane, unable to hop to a different time the moment he got bored. If he’d known then that he’d still be here three thousand years later… it wouldn’t have helped. Because he has no choice. There’s nothing he can do but live. Forever. He’ll still be around when the human race has spread itself across countless planets, when the Earth has gone, when everything has died and the Universe is black and cold. He’ll die because there won’t be any air but he’ll come back to die again. He’ll always come back. And it will never, ever end.
It’s inconceivable, but Jack has the rest of eternity to try and comprehend it.
Tags:
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Anyway, you can still have the body - just without the head! *eg*
no subject
no subject
They're all gorgeous, but the last one just about killed me ..
no subject
That was me trying to come to terms with the concept of living forever. I think DW S3 did help dull that a bit.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I can promise he'll be having some sex in the near future, though, if that helps - when I'm well enough to write porn again! *g*
no subject
no subject
But that's why I wrote them in the first place, because I simply couldn't get my head round the concept of 'forever'. And I think having got them out of my head has helped. Plus Utopia etc. have helped a little too.
But yeah, it kind of makes me like the FoB thing too!
no subject
no subject
no subject
Doesn’t dare try, just in case it does
is much more his style I feel -
And as for this By the twentieth time, he wasn’t laughing. He’d had enough
That just hurt *wibbles*
no subject
Because while I can't imagine normal human Jack attempting suicide, I certainly can imagine immortal Jack doing it. Just for some temporary relief. It's not really death for him, after all, not the end. It's just such a horrendously long amount of time that he faces.
And thank you for the compliments! :-)
no subject
It's a good look at some of the things Jack has to deal with, too.
XWA
Small typo: He always comes back not He always come back.
no subject
That story of yours really started me thinking about exactly what not being able to die meant for Jack. I hadn't really thought further than a couple of centuries - but you had him living in the slow lane until (at least)the 51st Century. Hence the three thousand years bit. And it brought it home to me just exactly how unthinkable that is.
I still love that fic, too. :-)
And thanks for the typo - will amend!
no subject
I would imagine, at some point, it just becomes a matter of living life one day at a time. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've just misquoted Methos somehow...
XWA
no subject
And I don't know any Highlander (Methos is Highlander, isn't he?) so I wouldn't know if you were quoting him anyway... *g*