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checkingout2015-03-17 09:21 pm
alifetime) wrote in checkingout2015-03-17 09:21 pm
Entry tags:
There Once Was a Man Who Could Never Die
Who: Jack Harkness and you!
What: In all the madness going around, Jack is trying to help those he can while not losing himself in the ghosts that cluster around him.
When: From 17-28
Warnings: Jack Harkness is a warning in and of himself. That said, Jack hasn't always led a pleasant life. Mentions of blood, gore, hauntings, death, trauma, etc. Can switch to brackets or prose to suit your prefs!
[March 17-22]
He barely glanced at the group of men in the mirror he passed, paid even less attention to the rose petals that drifted from their mouths. It wasn't that Jack didn't remember them, he did. It wasn't that he couldn't look them in the eyes. He could.
It was that he knew they weren't real. They were people he had been laughing with in the moments before the faeries had come. The dead man who lurked at their edges was disregarded along with them when he caught their image again in the polished tabletop. The boyfriend if he remembered rightly. Yeah, he remembered them. He had done what he needed to, what saved all of them. It was he did. It was what he always did.
They were growing stronger, every hour or every day. Jack had the bad feeling that things were going to get worse before they got any better. Those he had met in this place where the ones he hunted now: Thea, Clara, Harry, and the Doctor, but he wasn't going to turn down anyone if they needed him.
Anything to distract him from the long dead that were waiting in the shadows. Movie star smile fixed in place, he headed for the figure down the hall.
[March 23-28]
It wasn't just the name of 'Jack' that he heard following him down the hallways, echoing through the rooms, but the multitude of names that had been his over the years. His brother trailed along behind him, trying to touch his hand and hold on... the same hand that had let go of him long ago. A pack of small children waited up ahead of him, clustered together as if they were the sole survivors when they had really been a sacrifice.
He fell into one of the chairs by the fireplace, chin propped on a curled hand as he watched them come closer. Gray was first, of course he was. His own little brother who's hand he let slip from his own. Behind him came the children, those that Earth had sacrificed. He counted off all eleven of them that had been taken. Clement McDonald wasn't there. Their little hands went through his as they tried to touch him and pull him along.
"I had to. The Indonesian flu would have mutated and killed twenty-five million people. They thought I wouldn't care, that I was cold enough to be able to do it."
Estelle Cole lifted a hand and waved to him.
"All you wanted was to spend the rest of your life with me," he told her. To a watcher, he must have looked like a madman talking to empty air by the check-in desk. "It was what... 1935? It was the Astoria Ballroom. You were so beautiful. We said we would be together until we died. Then I saw you again in 2007, and you thought I was my son. You kept my picture all those years."
Near her lurked another man, one that Jack could never deny. Someone he had loved enough to tell things to that he wouldn't another for at least a few decades.
"It was 1927, and you stole my visa. It all ended so badly."
Its only his name that Angelo whispered, holding out a hand to him.
"Then you thought I was the Devil because I couldn't die. How many times did you let that crowd kill me? Shouldn't I be haunting you instead of you me?"
The old man limped around the corner, Jack sighing heavily. He tried to smile and failed badly.
"It was 1898. Hello, Anthony. You're looking much older. I keep going on, I keep living on. And everyone else just dies."
What: In all the madness going around, Jack is trying to help those he can while not losing himself in the ghosts that cluster around him.
When: From 17-28
Warnings: Jack Harkness is a warning in and of himself. That said, Jack hasn't always led a pleasant life. Mentions of blood, gore, hauntings, death, trauma, etc. Can switch to brackets or prose to suit your prefs!
[March 17-22]
He barely glanced at the group of men in the mirror he passed, paid even less attention to the rose petals that drifted from their mouths. It wasn't that Jack didn't remember them, he did. It wasn't that he couldn't look them in the eyes. He could.
It was that he knew they weren't real. They were people he had been laughing with in the moments before the faeries had come. The dead man who lurked at their edges was disregarded along with them when he caught their image again in the polished tabletop. The boyfriend if he remembered rightly. Yeah, he remembered them. He had done what he needed to, what saved all of them. It was he did. It was what he always did.
They were growing stronger, every hour or every day. Jack had the bad feeling that things were going to get worse before they got any better. Those he had met in this place where the ones he hunted now: Thea, Clara, Harry, and the Doctor, but he wasn't going to turn down anyone if they needed him.
Anything to distract him from the long dead that were waiting in the shadows. Movie star smile fixed in place, he headed for the figure down the hall.
[March 23-28]
It wasn't just the name of 'Jack' that he heard following him down the hallways, echoing through the rooms, but the multitude of names that had been his over the years. His brother trailed along behind him, trying to touch his hand and hold on... the same hand that had let go of him long ago. A pack of small children waited up ahead of him, clustered together as if they were the sole survivors when they had really been a sacrifice.
He fell into one of the chairs by the fireplace, chin propped on a curled hand as he watched them come closer. Gray was first, of course he was. His own little brother who's hand he let slip from his own. Behind him came the children, those that Earth had sacrificed. He counted off all eleven of them that had been taken. Clement McDonald wasn't there. Their little hands went through his as they tried to touch him and pull him along.
"I had to. The Indonesian flu would have mutated and killed twenty-five million people. They thought I wouldn't care, that I was cold enough to be able to do it."
Estelle Cole lifted a hand and waved to him.
"All you wanted was to spend the rest of your life with me," he told her. To a watcher, he must have looked like a madman talking to empty air by the check-in desk. "It was what... 1935? It was the Astoria Ballroom. You were so beautiful. We said we would be together until we died. Then I saw you again in 2007, and you thought I was my son. You kept my picture all those years."
Near her lurked another man, one that Jack could never deny. Someone he had loved enough to tell things to that he wouldn't another for at least a few decades.
"It was 1927, and you stole my visa. It all ended so badly."
Its only his name that Angelo whispered, holding out a hand to him.
"Then you thought I was the Devil because I couldn't die. How many times did you let that crowd kill me? Shouldn't I be haunting you instead of you me?"
The old man limped around the corner, Jack sighing heavily. He tried to smile and failed badly.
"It was 1898. Hello, Anthony. You're looking much older. I keep going on, I keep living on. And everyone else just dies."
no subject
"Good to meet you, Doctor. And yeah, 1898 if I remember right. It's been a long time since then. I had been in the twenty-first century before ending up here."
It was easier to focus on her, see Helen instead of the shades that pressed at his sides. His dead brother's attempts to hold his hand weren't felt as much with another's presence. Good thing since Jack hated being alone anyway.
"The 1800s on Earth weren't the best of times no matter what anyone says. Never understood the history buffs wanting to go back there. Sorry about that. Hadn't realized anyone was overhearing me."
It was a sly poke at her for eavesdropping, but he softened it with a smile.
no subject
She smiled slightly, a hint of apology in the gesture, though it was likely ruined by the flicker of amusement in her eyes. Being well acquainted with the 1800's herself, she understood that sentiment. "Yes, well, they didn't have the benefit of living through them, did they?" Her expression shifted, unreadable, her eyes not betraying her for once, but there was a soft fondness to her next statement, "Times have certainly changed."
And because it had been terribly rude of her to eavesdrop, "I would have been 48. Things were different then."
no subject
"You well your age well if you were only forty-eight then. Seems like you've found a way to roll back the clock. You're what... thirty-three now?"
While his smile remained, there was no sign of teasing in him. If anything, he looked honest about it.
"Yeah, times have changed. Remember when an uncovered ankle was cause for a scandal? I have to say though that I love the direction the bikini is going in. The last one I saw looked like a few little strips of cloth with fishing line attached. Now if I could only convince them to make the Speedo smaller."
He sighed heavily. These were the challenges of being immortal for one Captain Jack Harkness.
no subject
"Very flattering, but no. And I didn't roll it back, so much as slow it down." She was still smiling, and that hint of amusement hadn't gone anywhere. But there was nothing to suggest she was being anything less than serious.
As for his trouble with the design of the Speedo, well, she had no comment. Still too much the Victorian, perhaps. Or perhaps she simply wasn't sure what to make of it. It was hard to tell, really.
no subject
The good thing about having been around multiple blocks a whole lot of times is that Jack was open minded about a lot of things others might scoff at. Hell, he worked for an organization that was all about aliens. Wasn't as if he had a whole lot of space to get judgmental in.
"Would you mind if I asked why too? I know people like the idea of living forever, but by your age, most realize it isn't what it's cracked up to be."
no subject
It might not have been purely scientific interest. It hadn't been for the others. But she wanted to believe she'd done it for what she felt were the right reasons at the time.
"The truth is, I had no idea what was going to happen." That it wasn't something she would have chosen for herself went unspoken. And knowing what she did now, how much of a curse her longevity had become, she wouldn't choose it for anyone else either.
"And you?"