On Leave
Title: On Leave
Fandom: Torchwood
Character(s): Jack Harkness (before he was Jack)
Setting: Before he quit the Time Agency
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: On leave without a home. Where do you go? Drinking, of course.
He was on leave.
His first break in three months, and he was spending it here?
He slammed his glass down on the countertop and watched as the blue-skinned bartender refilled it. Normally this would be the point where he made a few passing remarks, got her attention, worked a few innuendos into otherwise perfectly innocent flirting and woke up next morning naked and handcuffed to a bedpost.
But, surprisingly, she wasn’t quite up to his standards. He was surprised too - he hadn’t even known that he had standards.
He looked around at the dingy, dirty little bar that somehow managed to cling to business in this remote corner of the galaxy. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up there; he remembered wondering where, exactly, he was supposed to go when he was on leave - his mother had passed away a year ago in his personal timeline, the rest of his family was long dead, and it wasn’t like he had any kind of long-term relationship unless you considered his thing with John, and he didn’t - and then saying to hell with knowing where you’re going and setting the coordinates to several sex positions and the birthday of someone he couldn’t quite recall. Next thing he knew he was holed up in the seediest bar in the entire fucking universe and couldn’t even find a decent screw to tide him over until he was back at the Agency.
Several rounds later his irritation and general “fuck you all” attitude had darkened to plain old morbidness.
He’d always said that if he had to go down he’d like to go down in a blaze of glory . . . or a blaze of guns, at least; he’d never been big on glory. Or maybe a blaze of sex . . . yeah, that’d be nice . . . But not dying at all would be better.
He thought it would be fun to never die. Get shot or stabbed or sick and then just pop right back up and keep going like nothing happened at all. And aging, he’d have to do away with the aging. He’d never liked the thought of getting old, and the very last thing he wanted was to be stuck in some dingy little hospital on a deserted moon somewhere slowly dying of old age.
Immortality, then. Yeah.
He tipped his head back and had another drink.
Fandom: Torchwood
Character(s): Jack Harkness (before he was Jack)
Setting: Before he quit the Time Agency
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: On leave without a home. Where do you go? Drinking, of course.
He was on leave.
His first break in three months, and he was spending it here?
He slammed his glass down on the countertop and watched as the blue-skinned bartender refilled it. Normally this would be the point where he made a few passing remarks, got her attention, worked a few innuendos into otherwise perfectly innocent flirting and woke up next morning naked and handcuffed to a bedpost.
But, surprisingly, she wasn’t quite up to his standards. He was surprised too - he hadn’t even known that he had standards.
He looked around at the dingy, dirty little bar that somehow managed to cling to business in this remote corner of the galaxy. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up there; he remembered wondering where, exactly, he was supposed to go when he was on leave - his mother had passed away a year ago in his personal timeline, the rest of his family was long dead, and it wasn’t like he had any kind of long-term relationship unless you considered his thing with John, and he didn’t - and then saying to hell with knowing where you’re going and setting the coordinates to several sex positions and the birthday of someone he couldn’t quite recall. Next thing he knew he was holed up in the seediest bar in the entire fucking universe and couldn’t even find a decent screw to tide him over until he was back at the Agency.
Several rounds later his irritation and general “fuck you all” attitude had darkened to plain old morbidness.
He’d always said that if he had to go down he’d like to go down in a blaze of glory . . . or a blaze of guns, at least; he’d never been big on glory. Or maybe a blaze of sex . . . yeah, that’d be nice . . . But not dying at all would be better.
He thought it would be fun to never die. Get shot or stabbed or sick and then just pop right back up and keep going like nothing happened at all. And aging, he’d have to do away with the aging. He’d never liked the thought of getting old, and the very last thing he wanted was to be stuck in some dingy little hospital on a deserted moon somewhere slowly dying of old age.
Immortality, then. Yeah.
He tipped his head back and had another drink.