DW/TW Drabbles
I was up most of the night writing increasingly weird poems and waiting for ibuprofen to work, and this lack of sleep coupled with the fact that ff.net isn't loading means I'm posting here. This sentence makes sense in my head.
Becoming
Torchwood/Doctor Who | Gen | Jack Harkness becomes The Face of Boe.
They pretend to give him a choice. They sit him down, and they lay it out in plain facts. He's going to live forever, but his body isn't and they can't fix it.
“We have a prototype of a vessel into which we think we can transfer your brain.”
“A vessel?” Jack asks.
“Well,” the other being said, shuffling the papers in front of it distractedly, “it's a giant head, in a jar. We don't think we could transplant your brain into another body and expect that body to live when you...die. Here,” it hands Jack a paper, “there's a drawing of it.”
Jack lifts his trembling, thin hand and takes the paper gingerly. “The head would live forever?” he asks after a moment.
“Long enough for the world to develop another solution.”
Jack opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted by a dry, hacking cough. He slams a weak hand against his chest and that's when he notices it. Underneath the drawing of the head, tiny and neat as though added as a after-thought attempt at a title, is written “The Face of Boe.”
The cough turns into a bitter laugh. Jack thinks of adventures in a long-lost city called Cardiff, and warnings a time-traveller who deserted him long ago still needs to hear. Then he thinks of Martha in a bar after the death of a member of Torchwood, drunk and melancholy and mortal, and though the memory of her face has long since faded from his mind, he can remember her words perfectly. “I think I met you, in the future,” she had said, quiet and amazed. “Except it wasn't...quite you, as you are. You're...you're going to live forever, Jack.” Then, sad and yearning, she had repeated “Forever.”
He's tired of pretending he has any other options.
“How soon can it happen?”
The being smiles at him thinly, already organizing its papers and preparing to leave. “I will arrange for someone to discuss the details with you,” it says, heading for the door. “You have made the right decision, Mr. Harkness.”
Jack smiles back, too wide and too bright, a smile only a young man should wear. It has long since stopped feeling natural on his face. “As if I made one,” he says, but the being is already gone.
Fin
just this human heart
Torchwood | Jack/Ianto | Drabble set during Adam | Title from “All My Stars Aligned” by St.Vincent
You want to hate that his kiss feels like absolution, but you can't. Jack Harkness gives you one thing and you follow him blindly forever more. That has always been the extent of your relationship. Jack Harkness is a trap, and your heart stumbled blindly onto it. He kisses you and you forget the blood on your hands, the way your tears mixed with the rain as you crouched beside the body, a sniveling monster.
“Ianto,” Jack moans, gripping you, and like a dam your thoughts unravel into snapshots-the patter of rain, the smell of her blood, the way your hands looked locked on her throat-and the disjointed images swirl away with the touch of his tongue. Absolution.
Becoming
Torchwood/Doctor Who | Gen | Jack Harkness becomes The Face of Boe.
They pretend to give him a choice. They sit him down, and they lay it out in plain facts. He's going to live forever, but his body isn't and they can't fix it.
“We have a prototype of a vessel into which we think we can transfer your brain.”
“A vessel?” Jack asks.
“Well,” the other being said, shuffling the papers in front of it distractedly, “it's a giant head, in a jar. We don't think we could transplant your brain into another body and expect that body to live when you...die. Here,” it hands Jack a paper, “there's a drawing of it.”
Jack lifts his trembling, thin hand and takes the paper gingerly. “The head would live forever?” he asks after a moment.
“Long enough for the world to develop another solution.”
Jack opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted by a dry, hacking cough. He slams a weak hand against his chest and that's when he notices it. Underneath the drawing of the head, tiny and neat as though added as a after-thought attempt at a title, is written “The Face of Boe.”
The cough turns into a bitter laugh. Jack thinks of adventures in a long-lost city called Cardiff, and warnings a time-traveller who deserted him long ago still needs to hear. Then he thinks of Martha in a bar after the death of a member of Torchwood, drunk and melancholy and mortal, and though the memory of her face has long since faded from his mind, he can remember her words perfectly. “I think I met you, in the future,” she had said, quiet and amazed. “Except it wasn't...quite you, as you are. You're...you're going to live forever, Jack.” Then, sad and yearning, she had repeated “Forever.”
He's tired of pretending he has any other options.
“How soon can it happen?”
The being smiles at him thinly, already organizing its papers and preparing to leave. “I will arrange for someone to discuss the details with you,” it says, heading for the door. “You have made the right decision, Mr. Harkness.”
Jack smiles back, too wide and too bright, a smile only a young man should wear. It has long since stopped feeling natural on his face. “As if I made one,” he says, but the being is already gone.
Fin
just this human heart
Torchwood | Jack/Ianto | Drabble set during Adam | Title from “All My Stars Aligned” by St.Vincent
You want to hate that his kiss feels like absolution, but you can't. Jack Harkness gives you one thing and you follow him blindly forever more. That has always been the extent of your relationship. Jack Harkness is a trap, and your heart stumbled blindly onto it. He kisses you and you forget the blood on your hands, the way your tears mixed with the rain as you crouched beside the body, a sniveling monster.
“Ianto,” Jack moans, gripping you, and like a dam your thoughts unravel into snapshots-the patter of rain, the smell of her blood, the way your hands looked locked on her throat-and the disjointed images swirl away with the touch of his tongue. Absolution.