24, Milliways: The 28 Flavours Meme, Round 1 (1/2)
Fandom: 24, Milliways
Characters: Jack Bauer, Kim Bauer, Teri Bauer, Christine Chappelle, Nita Callahan, Kate Warner
Pairings: Jack/Teri, Jack/Kate, Jack/Chris
Rating: PG-R
Summary: Drabbles fitting different versions or aspects of Jack Bauer.
Warnings: Hint of sexual content, angst, character death
Challenges: Written for the 28 Flavours Meme.
Originally written: April 22-28, 2006
Jealous!Jack
They think that they manage to hide it well, but in an office with mostly glass walls, it's hard not to notice. Hard for him not to notice, when he has a clear view of Tony's office and his inability to concentrate means that his attention is flitting everywhere but the reports and leads from the Salazar mission on his computer screen.
It's not the occasional kisses that he catches sight of that get the green-eyed-monster in him going. It's the unconscious touch of a hand on an arm, the small smiles of understanding and gazes that replace words. It's the connection and the feeling that you and someone else were combined to amke something greater.
And when he knows he's going home to an empty apartment, when he knows he's going to refuse Kim's invitation to dinner that weekend and Kate's tentative attempts to get back together, that's when the monster rears up until he banishes it and all his other demons with the prick of a needle.
That demon, and the biggest one: the one that tells him he only has himself to blame.
On-his-Knees!Jack
Clang. "DAMMIT!"
Teri poked her head out of her home office and cocked an ear toward the kitchen. Clanking and muffled cursing followed, and she heaved a sigh.
"Jack, just call a plumber," she said, not getting a response. Walking out to the kitchen, the only part of her husband she could see was his ass sticking out from under the sink and his bare feet. She had a sudden urge to tickle the soles of his feet, but she'd probably just be asking for trouble. Though it might be the kind of "trouble" she'd rather enjoy.
There was more metallic clanking and a grunt of frustration. "I'm not calling a plumber for a blocked trap. Don't you have a project due for that big meeting tomorrow."
She leans against the wall, crossing her arms, a slightly wicked smile crossing her lips. "Oh, I'm almost done. I certainly have a minute to stand back and admire the view."
Obedient!Jack
The voice was quiet and a little harsh as it whispered in his ear. "Put your hands above your head."
Jack stared up into brown eyes that sparkled, glinted in the low light, not daring to shift under the weight around his waist. "What?"
"Put your hands above your head," said with slight emphasis on 'hands' and 'head', like someone talking to a five-year-old.
"Now why would I want to do that?" Jack asks, a slight smile curling one corner of his mouth.
The weight moved lower, hips pressing against his and moving there, slowly for a moment.
Chris leans down, her blouse falling away from her chest as she puts her hands on his wrists, pinning his hands to the bed.
"Because," she says, laughter lurking behind her seductive tone, her barely-controlled smile hinting at a certain lack of conviction in playing dominant, "It's my early birthday, and you have to do what ever I say."
Jack's smile is getting away from him as she releases the pressure on his wrists and slowly moves them above his head. "Yes, ma'am."
Horny!Jack
"Jack, are you sure you should be doing this--?"
Silencing her protests with a kiss, he pulls her down onto the bed so that she's almost straddling his waist. "Positive," he says, his voice husky, hands moving over her skin.
"But your doctor--"
"My doctor said I could resume sexual activity as soon as I could go up a couple flights of stairs without getting out of breath. I can, so it's fine." His hands aren't terribly steady as he unbuttons her blouse; urgency, not exertion, making his hands tremble. "Is this going too fast for you?" he asks, pausing with his hand hovering in front of the last couple buttons.
"No," she says, adding a small moan as he shifts beneath her, the bulge in his jeans pressing against her momentarily. He hadn't intended to have that effect, but he wasn't about to avoid causing it again. "But--"
"Then what is there to talk about, Kate?" he asks, softly, before tasting the skin at the base of her neck, determined to silence any more worrying in the best way he knew how.
Caring!Jack
"Daddy?"
Jack stops on his way down the hall, sticking his head into his daughter's room. She's tucked into bed, the ballerina lamp beside her bed casting a soft, warm glow over the room.
"What is it, sweetheart?" he asks, walking in and taking a seat on the bed. He can see Kim's eyes are still red-rimmed and puffy; she'd cried a lot during the movie they'd gone to see that night, curling up to him and leaning her head on his shoulder as tears trickled down her cheeks.
"You have to keep people safe, like Sara's daddy, don't you?" she asks in a small voice.
"Yes, I do, sweetheart."
"Are you ever going to go away, like Sara's daddy?" she asks, her small forehead creased with worry.
"Not exactly like that, sweetheart," he says, pausing for a moment, trying to figure out what's a lie and what's dodging the truth. "I don't have to go away for as long as Sara's daddy did, and it's not as dangerous. Besides, even her daddy didn't go away forever. He came back."
"So when you go away, you'll come back?"
"I will," he says, trying to sound certain; like it was always up to him.
"Promise?"
He hesitates for just a moment, before saying, "I promise."
"Okay," she says, softly, before wrapping her arms around him tightly. He holds her back, breathing in the smell of her strawberry shampoo, holding on to her, breathing a silent prayer that he never has to break his promise.
"Okay, time for bed, honey," he says, and she lies down, looking up at him with her big blue-green eyes.
"'Night daddy, I love you."
He tucks her in, kissing her forehead. "I love you too," he says, turning off the light, "Goodnight, my little princess."
Drunk Jack
[I have....no idea where this came from. Too much "Whiskey Lullabye" and "Atheist Christmas Carol", perhaps.]
No matter how much he drank, it still burned all the way down; a minor penance for doing something he knew he shouldn't. Knowing that he was replacing one addiction with another ate away at him, but never quite managed to hurt as much as everything else, and so he didn't think of stopping. The most minor of his numerous sins.
Brightly coloured lights blinked on the balconies of the condos across the street, palm trees swaying in a cold breeze. Car doors opened and shut in parking spaces, little girls in lace-edged dresses and patent leather shoes, little boys in suits that mirrored their fathers' work clothes piled into the backseats, giggling, by parents dressed in their Sunday best, off to Midnight Mass.
He watched them from his seat by the window, bottle dangling from his hand, muddy memories swirling through his head of carring a tiny blonde girl in a red velvet dress inside on this holiest night of the year, a dark-haried woman with her arm around him, smiling. It was someone else's life, a past life, not his life now. Something had shifted, he'd somehow turned into someone he no longer recognised; a junkie, a murderer, a failure, a drunk, a man without a soul to save. Somewhere he'd stumbled, tripped, fallen on his knees like the worst of sinners, prayers turned to dust in his mouth as he saw how far from the path he'd trod, without the strength to crawl back.
Red lights backed out of the parking spot, a light still shining inside the condo, a single white beacon's soft glow, like a star trying to call him to a place he couldn't find any more.
Turning away, he took a long draw from the bottle, trying to wash his sins away the only way he knew how.
Poorly-Sick-and-Dying Jack
(oh, and I shit you not, iTunes played stuff completely unrelated to this tag until I started typing this drabble. And then what does it play? "Into the West". I HATE YOU iTUNES.)
"Jack?"
Jack opens his eyes, squinting at the light, even though Chase had placed the lounger under a tree, giving him ample shade. Not that he would have minded the sun on him; he's always cold these days.
Nita's looming over him, her eyes wide. He manages a smile, knowing that it probably looks more ghastly than reassuring; his face a grinning skull with sunken eyes and the skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. "Hey, Nita."
Her eyes flicker upward, toward the patchy blond hair on his mostly-bald head (it was something of a relief when he and Ryan could mutually tease eachother about their lack of hair), down to the track marks in the tissue-paper skin of his arm. "Kim said you were out here," she says softly, her voice quivering.
"It's a nice spring day; might as well enjoy it while I can," he says, slurring his words just a little bit. Hank had upped the morphine dosage the day before and he's still building a tolerance to it.
Her lower lip starts to quiver, and he reaches up to her with both arms. She kneels next to him, wrapping her arms around him, him resting his arms around her, wishing he had the strength to squeeze her heartily.
"B-but, the treatment was working, it was--" a tear drips from her cheek, trickling down his neck.
"Just superficially. I should have known that using radiation to cure this wouldn't have worked. Though the irony wasn't lost on me," he says, trying to keep his tone light, though it's not as easy when Nita's crying on his shoulder. There's a pain deep within, but not in his diseased bones this time, one that morphine can't get rid of; it's in his heart.
"I c-could try and get permission from the Powers-that-Be for an intervention with your kernel; it'll p-probably just buy time but--"
"Nita, no. I've already bought enough time. George Mason bought me time when he took my place in that plane. Besides, then I'd have to go through all this again. It'd just draw the pain out more." He pushes her back so she can see his face, wiping her tears away from her cheeks with a bony hand. He knows that this can't be easier for her, particularly not after watching her mother die. "I'm ready. And I'd rather go here, with all my friends and family around me."
"I thought Death didn't work here?"
"This time, she decided to make an exception for a long-time employee," he says, his mouth curling in a lopsided smile. "This isn't it, anyway. 'The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it. White shores... and beyond. The far green country under a swift sunrise.'"
Nita gives him a watery smile, and he returns it. Her voice still cracks when she speaks, but it's a little stronger than before. "What's loved--"
"--Lives."
Swimming-in-the-Buff Jack
"Come on, Jack, the water's great." He can barely make out Chris' face in the moonlight, but he can tell from the tone of her voice that she's grinning. "Besides. It's not like I haven't seen it all before."
He hesitates for another moment, uncertain. He rarely goes swimming, because that requires baring scarred, tattooed skin. Even though this is Chris, and she's seen him naked in better lighting than this, it's been a while since the last time that happened. Nearly two years. She'd taken the loft the night before, while he'd taken the couch. They'd both agreed that they should take it slow.
That was before they'd downed most of a bottle of wine between them, though.
His debate is interrupted by the dim sight of something dark sailing toward him, but his reflexes are dulled by the alcohol and he only just spots it before it hits him with a wet thwock. He pulls it off his shoulder, his shirt soaked, his nose filled with the earthy smell of lake water. He holds it up, turning it until the material flops into shape; it's her bathing suit.
She swims up to the end of the dock, her skin bleached blue-white in the moonlight. Crossing her arms on the dock, she rests her chin. The trail of the moonlight is prefectly lined up with her body, transforming her into a mermaid with a mile-long tail.
"It's nice and warm in here," she says, aiming for seductive, and just sounding tipsy. Her eyes though, those are seductive.
Without a second thought, he stands, shucking off his jeans and boxers, pulling his shirt over his head and jumping in. He surfaces with a yelp. "It's freezing, you liar!"
She gives a tipsy giggle, swimming over to him, kissing his neck as her skin glides against his as they bob beneath the stars, the pine trees along the shore standing witness. "It'll warm up, trust me."
He tilts his head, his lips meeting hers as just off the point, a loon sings a long, haunting song to the forest around them.
Characters: Jack Bauer, Kim Bauer, Teri Bauer, Christine Chappelle, Nita Callahan, Kate Warner
Pairings: Jack/Teri, Jack/Kate, Jack/Chris
Rating: PG-R
Summary: Drabbles fitting different versions or aspects of Jack Bauer.
Warnings: Hint of sexual content, angst, character death
Challenges: Written for the 28 Flavours Meme.
Originally written: April 22-28, 2006
Jealous!Jack
They think that they manage to hide it well, but in an office with mostly glass walls, it's hard not to notice. Hard for him not to notice, when he has a clear view of Tony's office and his inability to concentrate means that his attention is flitting everywhere but the reports and leads from the Salazar mission on his computer screen.
It's not the occasional kisses that he catches sight of that get the green-eyed-monster in him going. It's the unconscious touch of a hand on an arm, the small smiles of understanding and gazes that replace words. It's the connection and the feeling that you and someone else were combined to amke something greater.
And when he knows he's going home to an empty apartment, when he knows he's going to refuse Kim's invitation to dinner that weekend and Kate's tentative attempts to get back together, that's when the monster rears up until he banishes it and all his other demons with the prick of a needle.
That demon, and the biggest one: the one that tells him he only has himself to blame.
On-his-Knees!Jack
Clang. "DAMMIT!"
Teri poked her head out of her home office and cocked an ear toward the kitchen. Clanking and muffled cursing followed, and she heaved a sigh.
"Jack, just call a plumber," she said, not getting a response. Walking out to the kitchen, the only part of her husband she could see was his ass sticking out from under the sink and his bare feet. She had a sudden urge to tickle the soles of his feet, but she'd probably just be asking for trouble. Though it might be the kind of "trouble" she'd rather enjoy.
There was more metallic clanking and a grunt of frustration. "I'm not calling a plumber for a blocked trap. Don't you have a project due for that big meeting tomorrow."
She leans against the wall, crossing her arms, a slightly wicked smile crossing her lips. "Oh, I'm almost done. I certainly have a minute to stand back and admire the view."
Obedient!Jack
The voice was quiet and a little harsh as it whispered in his ear. "Put your hands above your head."
Jack stared up into brown eyes that sparkled, glinted in the low light, not daring to shift under the weight around his waist. "What?"
"Put your hands above your head," said with slight emphasis on 'hands' and 'head', like someone talking to a five-year-old.
"Now why would I want to do that?" Jack asks, a slight smile curling one corner of his mouth.
The weight moved lower, hips pressing against his and moving there, slowly for a moment.
Chris leans down, her blouse falling away from her chest as she puts her hands on his wrists, pinning his hands to the bed.
"Because," she says, laughter lurking behind her seductive tone, her barely-controlled smile hinting at a certain lack of conviction in playing dominant, "It's my early birthday, and you have to do what ever I say."
Jack's smile is getting away from him as she releases the pressure on his wrists and slowly moves them above his head. "Yes, ma'am."
Horny!Jack
"Jack, are you sure you should be doing this--?"
Silencing her protests with a kiss, he pulls her down onto the bed so that she's almost straddling his waist. "Positive," he says, his voice husky, hands moving over her skin.
"But your doctor--"
"My doctor said I could resume sexual activity as soon as I could go up a couple flights of stairs without getting out of breath. I can, so it's fine." His hands aren't terribly steady as he unbuttons her blouse; urgency, not exertion, making his hands tremble. "Is this going too fast for you?" he asks, pausing with his hand hovering in front of the last couple buttons.
"No," she says, adding a small moan as he shifts beneath her, the bulge in his jeans pressing against her momentarily. He hadn't intended to have that effect, but he wasn't about to avoid causing it again. "But--"
"Then what is there to talk about, Kate?" he asks, softly, before tasting the skin at the base of her neck, determined to silence any more worrying in the best way he knew how.
Caring!Jack
"Daddy?"
Jack stops on his way down the hall, sticking his head into his daughter's room. She's tucked into bed, the ballerina lamp beside her bed casting a soft, warm glow over the room.
"What is it, sweetheart?" he asks, walking in and taking a seat on the bed. He can see Kim's eyes are still red-rimmed and puffy; she'd cried a lot during the movie they'd gone to see that night, curling up to him and leaning her head on his shoulder as tears trickled down her cheeks.
"You have to keep people safe, like Sara's daddy, don't you?" she asks in a small voice.
"Yes, I do, sweetheart."
"Are you ever going to go away, like Sara's daddy?" she asks, her small forehead creased with worry.
"Not exactly like that, sweetheart," he says, pausing for a moment, trying to figure out what's a lie and what's dodging the truth. "I don't have to go away for as long as Sara's daddy did, and it's not as dangerous. Besides, even her daddy didn't go away forever. He came back."
"So when you go away, you'll come back?"
"I will," he says, trying to sound certain; like it was always up to him.
"Promise?"
He hesitates for just a moment, before saying, "I promise."
"Okay," she says, softly, before wrapping her arms around him tightly. He holds her back, breathing in the smell of her strawberry shampoo, holding on to her, breathing a silent prayer that he never has to break his promise.
"Okay, time for bed, honey," he says, and she lies down, looking up at him with her big blue-green eyes.
"'Night daddy, I love you."
He tucks her in, kissing her forehead. "I love you too," he says, turning off the light, "Goodnight, my little princess."
Drunk Jack
[I have....no idea where this came from. Too much "Whiskey Lullabye" and "Atheist Christmas Carol", perhaps.]
No matter how much he drank, it still burned all the way down; a minor penance for doing something he knew he shouldn't. Knowing that he was replacing one addiction with another ate away at him, but never quite managed to hurt as much as everything else, and so he didn't think of stopping. The most minor of his numerous sins.
Brightly coloured lights blinked on the balconies of the condos across the street, palm trees swaying in a cold breeze. Car doors opened and shut in parking spaces, little girls in lace-edged dresses and patent leather shoes, little boys in suits that mirrored their fathers' work clothes piled into the backseats, giggling, by parents dressed in their Sunday best, off to Midnight Mass.
He watched them from his seat by the window, bottle dangling from his hand, muddy memories swirling through his head of carring a tiny blonde girl in a red velvet dress inside on this holiest night of the year, a dark-haried woman with her arm around him, smiling. It was someone else's life, a past life, not his life now. Something had shifted, he'd somehow turned into someone he no longer recognised; a junkie, a murderer, a failure, a drunk, a man without a soul to save. Somewhere he'd stumbled, tripped, fallen on his knees like the worst of sinners, prayers turned to dust in his mouth as he saw how far from the path he'd trod, without the strength to crawl back.
Red lights backed out of the parking spot, a light still shining inside the condo, a single white beacon's soft glow, like a star trying to call him to a place he couldn't find any more.
Turning away, he took a long draw from the bottle, trying to wash his sins away the only way he knew how.
Poorly-Sick-and-Dying Jack
(oh, and I shit you not, iTunes played stuff completely unrelated to this tag until I started typing this drabble. And then what does it play? "Into the West". I HATE YOU iTUNES.)
"Jack?"
Jack opens his eyes, squinting at the light, even though Chase had placed the lounger under a tree, giving him ample shade. Not that he would have minded the sun on him; he's always cold these days.
Nita's looming over him, her eyes wide. He manages a smile, knowing that it probably looks more ghastly than reassuring; his face a grinning skull with sunken eyes and the skin pulled tight over his cheekbones. "Hey, Nita."
Her eyes flicker upward, toward the patchy blond hair on his mostly-bald head (it was something of a relief when he and Ryan could mutually tease eachother about their lack of hair), down to the track marks in the tissue-paper skin of his arm. "Kim said you were out here," she says softly, her voice quivering.
"It's a nice spring day; might as well enjoy it while I can," he says, slurring his words just a little bit. Hank had upped the morphine dosage the day before and he's still building a tolerance to it.
Her lower lip starts to quiver, and he reaches up to her with both arms. She kneels next to him, wrapping her arms around him, him resting his arms around her, wishing he had the strength to squeeze her heartily.
"B-but, the treatment was working, it was--" a tear drips from her cheek, trickling down his neck.
"Just superficially. I should have known that using radiation to cure this wouldn't have worked. Though the irony wasn't lost on me," he says, trying to keep his tone light, though it's not as easy when Nita's crying on his shoulder. There's a pain deep within, but not in his diseased bones this time, one that morphine can't get rid of; it's in his heart.
"I c-could try and get permission from the Powers-that-Be for an intervention with your kernel; it'll p-probably just buy time but--"
"Nita, no. I've already bought enough time. George Mason bought me time when he took my place in that plane. Besides, then I'd have to go through all this again. It'd just draw the pain out more." He pushes her back so she can see his face, wiping her tears away from her cheeks with a bony hand. He knows that this can't be easier for her, particularly not after watching her mother die. "I'm ready. And I'd rather go here, with all my friends and family around me."
"I thought Death didn't work here?"
"This time, she decided to make an exception for a long-time employee," he says, his mouth curling in a lopsided smile. "This isn't it, anyway. 'The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it. White shores... and beyond. The far green country under a swift sunrise.'"
Nita gives him a watery smile, and he returns it. Her voice still cracks when she speaks, but it's a little stronger than before. "What's loved--"
"--Lives."
Swimming-in-the-Buff Jack
"Come on, Jack, the water's great." He can barely make out Chris' face in the moonlight, but he can tell from the tone of her voice that she's grinning. "Besides. It's not like I haven't seen it all before."
He hesitates for another moment, uncertain. He rarely goes swimming, because that requires baring scarred, tattooed skin. Even though this is Chris, and she's seen him naked in better lighting than this, it's been a while since the last time that happened. Nearly two years. She'd taken the loft the night before, while he'd taken the couch. They'd both agreed that they should take it slow.
That was before they'd downed most of a bottle of wine between them, though.
His debate is interrupted by the dim sight of something dark sailing toward him, but his reflexes are dulled by the alcohol and he only just spots it before it hits him with a wet thwock. He pulls it off his shoulder, his shirt soaked, his nose filled with the earthy smell of lake water. He holds it up, turning it until the material flops into shape; it's her bathing suit.
She swims up to the end of the dock, her skin bleached blue-white in the moonlight. Crossing her arms on the dock, she rests her chin. The trail of the moonlight is prefectly lined up with her body, transforming her into a mermaid with a mile-long tail.
"It's nice and warm in here," she says, aiming for seductive, and just sounding tipsy. Her eyes though, those are seductive.
Without a second thought, he stands, shucking off his jeans and boxers, pulling his shirt over his head and jumping in. He surfaces with a yelp. "It's freezing, you liar!"
She gives a tipsy giggle, swimming over to him, kissing his neck as her skin glides against his as they bob beneath the stars, the pine trees along the shore standing witness. "It'll warm up, trust me."
He tilts his head, his lips meeting hers as just off the point, a loon sings a long, haunting song to the forest around them.