Fic: "Jump" (Weekly Challenge #35, "A Place in My Heart")
Title: "Jump"
Author: Sgt. Mayhem
Rating: R-ish for dark themes
Warnings: Horrible, horrible angst.
Summary: Weekly challenge #35: "A Place in My Heart."
Sometimes you only love what you know you can't have. Real!Jack POV.
Feedback: Give me it. Comments or the.antirazor[at]gmail[dot]com.
My dad always told me, look before you jump. I don't think I ever really knew what he meant until now. I was always jumping, really...from a life at dad's filling station to college in Michigan, from college to the Air Service, from the Air Service to the Royal Air Force as a volunteer, once war broke out. Always figured that I'd land on my feet, somehow...or if I didn't, I guess I figured I'd find a way to right myself eventually. Took all my 29 years and a man named James Harper to show me that my dad was right, after all.
I didn't look or think, and I don't know why. It's not that I'm afraid of dying. I mean, everyone is, of course, but I never thought hard enough about it to be scared of it. I was always more afraid of someone I loved dying, than myself. So when I jumped after him, through that strange light, it wasn't because I was trying to save my skin; it wasn't anything as uncomplicated as that. I guess I just kept thinking, this is it, Jack...this is what it feels like, all those times you wondered...this is it. Thinking that, if I didn't follow him, well, I'd never know anything more, and I just can't stand not knowing. Still, jumping through that light--the Rift--was the scariest thing, bar none, I've ever done in my life. I don't know what I expected on the other side. Another planet? Heaven?
His arms, waiting for me, ready to hold me steady like he did when we were dancing...love for all Eternity?
I sure never expected all those machines and lights and people, staring at me like I'd just killed their pet dog. And him, staring too--not the expression I was expecting...not joy, not relief...something more akin to horror. Still, I was willing to attribute it all to shock. I'd just somehow appeared in the middle of their Top Secret Headquarters after all, sixty-six years, I later found out, after my own death. That's enough to throw anyone off. Standing there, that weird light still sparkling in the corners of my vision, I thought that this would all be worth it if he would just smile at me.
And he did. He recovered, and he brought me into his office, behind all those glass windows, where we could still half see the rest of his crew, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. He just stared at me for the longest time, the man who'd just kissed me moments ago, who'd woken something up inside me that I thought I'd killed for good, a long time ago. That soft smile played on his face and I felt relief, so immense I felt almost dizzy from it. I choked out his name, hands gripping the chair like I'd fall if I didn't hold on. Then he told me everything.
It was a lot to take in. The whole bit about me dying, him taking my name because he was a time traveller and he needed a new one. I didn't know at first whether to be pleased or angry. Mostly I just wanted him to tell me it was alright...that I hadn't made the biggest mistake of my life by following him. I guess he was just as lost as I was, though, because he kept looking at me with that dazed expression from time to time until I asked him flat out if I should've just died like I was supposed to. When I saw the tears light up his eyes as I said that, I thought, good...there's my proof. I felt justified. I leaned forward, and I kissed him, again...slow, soft...the feel of his lips intoxicating me and giving me some thread of reality to hold onto. What a damned idiot I was.
He showed me everything, too. Over the months, I got used to the Hub, computers, SUV's, cell 'phones, the Rift, and hell, even Weevils. But I never got used to the way my legs nearly gave out and my head filled with clouds whenever he touched me. How I thought that maybe I was dying, every time we did things I'd never even dreamed of together. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before, nothing I imagined I could feel. I'm not so stupid as to just assume that intercourse means love, but the way he touched me, made me float and fall all at the same time, I was sure willing to let myself believe it. It made it all worth it: the horrible disorientation of the Rift, the strangeness of the future world, the very grudging acceptance of the rest of the crew, and the nightmarish guilt at having abandoned my men, my duty...all of that could just fade away when James was with me, when he smiled or laughed, when he kissed or touched.
I should have known that things don't work that way. There's a reason that love and loss so often go close together; it's because most of the time, the reality can't ever match up to the ideal, and so you love the thing you can't have, because in your mind, it becomes everything you've ever wanted. In the year 1941, James loved me because I was a hero. In 2008, I can't even drive without screwing up.
At first, I tried to learn everything. I was constantly in the way, I knew, but if I couldn't go back and save my men from those Messerschmitts, you bet I was going to save the world from every last thing that came through that Rift. The crew, James' (Jack's) team of specialists, tolerated me, I guess. They tried to explain stuff I knew with dread I'd never understand--cultures from other planets, body-swapping, mind-reading, DNA, time paradoxes (though I was starting to get that one), intergalactic molecular biology, the Internet. Just about the only thing I had going for me with them was that I knew how to shoot a gun really well. I pretty much demanded to be included on their missions, and every time I did, I regretted it. It was all too weird, too foreign, with too many things to consider...I'd never been a failure before, but here, I knew it was only a matter of time. Still, I didn't give up...but the harder I tried, the more distant James got. His kisses and touches grew less frequent. His fond smiles more painful, as though I was just a reminder of something he'd like to forget. I started to notice how he'd spend more time away from the Hub if I was there, more time with Ianto. In a way, who could blame him? Ianto was more like him--he was someone who understood the world of the new Captain Jack Harkness...he was a squad mate, a wingman. I wasn't even really a fellow Captain anymore.
I remember the last time that James and I had sex. It was two months ago. He could still drive me wild, but he was somewhere else. I bit him, to get his mind back on the present, and when he looked at me, startled, it was like he was seeing me for the first time in months. When his mouth twisted in that sad smile, I knew it was over. My heart felt like it'd just been shot, only without pain--just the feeling of a tingling hole in the middle. It felt so terrifying that I put my
hand on his chest, over his heart, as though to protect it--as though he could possibly be feeling what I was feeling. All of the guilt came pouring back in, to fill that hole, and I just laid there, feeling nearly sick. "I'm sorry," I said, "I should never have jumped through."
"The thing about the past is that you can never really change it," he told me, gently. I didn't know whether he was trying to be kind, or if he was agreeing with me. I felt like I'd been punched in the guts, and "I'd better go," I told him. I dimly heard him ask, "Where?" but I was already half-clothed, out the door.
The sad thing is, I've still got a place for him in my heart, hard as I've tried to push him out in the last forty-eight hours, with the drinking and the morphine that Owen gave me that time after my first Weevil attack. As much as those damned bites hurt, the stern worry in James' eyes hurt worse, as though I were
some stupid kid who'd chased after a ball in the street and got hit by a car. I found out that morphine made a lot of things hurt less, and so ever since that day I've been a regular visitor to Owen's stash. If Owen knew, he sure didn't show it.
Now as I'm sitting here, all the empty glasses lined up around me, like all the empty days I've been here, I'm not sure what I'll do next. I feel a little sick, to tell the truth--haven't been feeling right for a while. My skin itches and aches, my jaw feels like it's been ratcheted too tight, my stomach is perpetually nauseated. I know my ribs are starting to push at the skin, but I'm not hungry. I just feel tired. I didn't really even say goodbye to James; I didn't know what to say. Seems like we had our goodbye sixty-six years ago, and I just didn't know it. Even now, though, with my head fogging up and my heart buzzing with that empty hurt, that wound that won't ever heal over the memory of him, I still can see that night clearer than I can see anything. I still feel his lips on mine, his soft breath against my neck, like every dream I ever had coming true. I'll keep him there, in that wounded pocket of my heart, forever, just that way: blue eyes shining with unshed tears, hands pulling me tighter to his gently swaying body. Maybe that was all I ever needed.
I'm going to get up now, from this rank-smelling booth at the back of the dive bar, maybe try to unstick my uniform trousers from whatever the hell that is on the seat. Leave this dark, ugly dungeon covered in crudely painted slogans and filled with pinging video games, run-down kids with weirdly shorn and colored hair. They all look like prisoners, and I can't stand the sight of them anymore. I need the air and the sky. I feel strange, like I can barely move, yet at the same time, like my mind is floating up out of my head, the room dissolving into a blur of colors and shadows, sounds fading into nothingness. I feel like I just want to sleep.
When I wake up, maybe I'll just take off. Go somewhere completely different. Just jump.
Additional Author's note: Man. I swear I'll write something happy. Still working on the monthly challenge fic! Anyone want to beta? :>
Author: Sgt. Mayhem
Rating: R-ish for dark themes
Warnings: Horrible, horrible angst.
Summary: Weekly challenge #35: "A Place in My Heart."
Sometimes you only love what you know you can't have. Real!Jack POV.
Feedback: Give me it. Comments or the.antirazor[at]gmail[dot]com.
My dad always told me, look before you jump. I don't think I ever really knew what he meant until now. I was always jumping, really...from a life at dad's filling station to college in Michigan, from college to the Air Service, from the Air Service to the Royal Air Force as a volunteer, once war broke out. Always figured that I'd land on my feet, somehow...or if I didn't, I guess I figured I'd find a way to right myself eventually. Took all my 29 years and a man named James Harper to show me that my dad was right, after all.
I didn't look or think, and I don't know why. It's not that I'm afraid of dying. I mean, everyone is, of course, but I never thought hard enough about it to be scared of it. I was always more afraid of someone I loved dying, than myself. So when I jumped after him, through that strange light, it wasn't because I was trying to save my skin; it wasn't anything as uncomplicated as that. I guess I just kept thinking, this is it, Jack...this is what it feels like, all those times you wondered...this is it. Thinking that, if I didn't follow him, well, I'd never know anything more, and I just can't stand not knowing. Still, jumping through that light--the Rift--was the scariest thing, bar none, I've ever done in my life. I don't know what I expected on the other side. Another planet? Heaven?
His arms, waiting for me, ready to hold me steady like he did when we were dancing...love for all Eternity?
I sure never expected all those machines and lights and people, staring at me like I'd just killed their pet dog. And him, staring too--not the expression I was expecting...not joy, not relief...something more akin to horror. Still, I was willing to attribute it all to shock. I'd just somehow appeared in the middle of their Top Secret Headquarters after all, sixty-six years, I later found out, after my own death. That's enough to throw anyone off. Standing there, that weird light still sparkling in the corners of my vision, I thought that this would all be worth it if he would just smile at me.
And he did. He recovered, and he brought me into his office, behind all those glass windows, where we could still half see the rest of his crew, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. He just stared at me for the longest time, the man who'd just kissed me moments ago, who'd woken something up inside me that I thought I'd killed for good, a long time ago. That soft smile played on his face and I felt relief, so immense I felt almost dizzy from it. I choked out his name, hands gripping the chair like I'd fall if I didn't hold on. Then he told me everything.
It was a lot to take in. The whole bit about me dying, him taking my name because he was a time traveller and he needed a new one. I didn't know at first whether to be pleased or angry. Mostly I just wanted him to tell me it was alright...that I hadn't made the biggest mistake of my life by following him. I guess he was just as lost as I was, though, because he kept looking at me with that dazed expression from time to time until I asked him flat out if I should've just died like I was supposed to. When I saw the tears light up his eyes as I said that, I thought, good...there's my proof. I felt justified. I leaned forward, and I kissed him, again...slow, soft...the feel of his lips intoxicating me and giving me some thread of reality to hold onto. What a damned idiot I was.
He showed me everything, too. Over the months, I got used to the Hub, computers, SUV's, cell 'phones, the Rift, and hell, even Weevils. But I never got used to the way my legs nearly gave out and my head filled with clouds whenever he touched me. How I thought that maybe I was dying, every time we did things I'd never even dreamed of together. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before, nothing I imagined I could feel. I'm not so stupid as to just assume that intercourse means love, but the way he touched me, made me float and fall all at the same time, I was sure willing to let myself believe it. It made it all worth it: the horrible disorientation of the Rift, the strangeness of the future world, the very grudging acceptance of the rest of the crew, and the nightmarish guilt at having abandoned my men, my duty...all of that could just fade away when James was with me, when he smiled or laughed, when he kissed or touched.
I should have known that things don't work that way. There's a reason that love and loss so often go close together; it's because most of the time, the reality can't ever match up to the ideal, and so you love the thing you can't have, because in your mind, it becomes everything you've ever wanted. In the year 1941, James loved me because I was a hero. In 2008, I can't even drive without screwing up.
At first, I tried to learn everything. I was constantly in the way, I knew, but if I couldn't go back and save my men from those Messerschmitts, you bet I was going to save the world from every last thing that came through that Rift. The crew, James' (Jack's) team of specialists, tolerated me, I guess. They tried to explain stuff I knew with dread I'd never understand--cultures from other planets, body-swapping, mind-reading, DNA, time paradoxes (though I was starting to get that one), intergalactic molecular biology, the Internet. Just about the only thing I had going for me with them was that I knew how to shoot a gun really well. I pretty much demanded to be included on their missions, and every time I did, I regretted it. It was all too weird, too foreign, with too many things to consider...I'd never been a failure before, but here, I knew it was only a matter of time. Still, I didn't give up...but the harder I tried, the more distant James got. His kisses and touches grew less frequent. His fond smiles more painful, as though I was just a reminder of something he'd like to forget. I started to notice how he'd spend more time away from the Hub if I was there, more time with Ianto. In a way, who could blame him? Ianto was more like him--he was someone who understood the world of the new Captain Jack Harkness...he was a squad mate, a wingman. I wasn't even really a fellow Captain anymore.
I remember the last time that James and I had sex. It was two months ago. He could still drive me wild, but he was somewhere else. I bit him, to get his mind back on the present, and when he looked at me, startled, it was like he was seeing me for the first time in months. When his mouth twisted in that sad smile, I knew it was over. My heart felt like it'd just been shot, only without pain--just the feeling of a tingling hole in the middle. It felt so terrifying that I put my
hand on his chest, over his heart, as though to protect it--as though he could possibly be feeling what I was feeling. All of the guilt came pouring back in, to fill that hole, and I just laid there, feeling nearly sick. "I'm sorry," I said, "I should never have jumped through."
"The thing about the past is that you can never really change it," he told me, gently. I didn't know whether he was trying to be kind, or if he was agreeing with me. I felt like I'd been punched in the guts, and "I'd better go," I told him. I dimly heard him ask, "Where?" but I was already half-clothed, out the door.
The sad thing is, I've still got a place for him in my heart, hard as I've tried to push him out in the last forty-eight hours, with the drinking and the morphine that Owen gave me that time after my first Weevil attack. As much as those damned bites hurt, the stern worry in James' eyes hurt worse, as though I were
some stupid kid who'd chased after a ball in the street and got hit by a car. I found out that morphine made a lot of things hurt less, and so ever since that day I've been a regular visitor to Owen's stash. If Owen knew, he sure didn't show it.
Now as I'm sitting here, all the empty glasses lined up around me, like all the empty days I've been here, I'm not sure what I'll do next. I feel a little sick, to tell the truth--haven't been feeling right for a while. My skin itches and aches, my jaw feels like it's been ratcheted too tight, my stomach is perpetually nauseated. I know my ribs are starting to push at the skin, but I'm not hungry. I just feel tired. I didn't really even say goodbye to James; I didn't know what to say. Seems like we had our goodbye sixty-six years ago, and I just didn't know it. Even now, though, with my head fogging up and my heart buzzing with that empty hurt, that wound that won't ever heal over the memory of him, I still can see that night clearer than I can see anything. I still feel his lips on mine, his soft breath against my neck, like every dream I ever had coming true. I'll keep him there, in that wounded pocket of my heart, forever, just that way: blue eyes shining with unshed tears, hands pulling me tighter to his gently swaying body. Maybe that was all I ever needed.
I'm going to get up now, from this rank-smelling booth at the back of the dive bar, maybe try to unstick my uniform trousers from whatever the hell that is on the seat. Leave this dark, ugly dungeon covered in crudely painted slogans and filled with pinging video games, run-down kids with weirdly shorn and colored hair. They all look like prisoners, and I can't stand the sight of them anymore. I need the air and the sky. I feel strange, like I can barely move, yet at the same time, like my mind is floating up out of my head, the room dissolving into a blur of colors and shadows, sounds fading into nothingness. I feel like I just want to sleep.
When I wake up, maybe I'll just take off. Go somewhere completely different. Just jump.
Additional Author's note: Man. I swear I'll write something happy. Still working on the monthly challenge fic! Anyone want to beta? :>