daemonprompts: Hello Darkness, my old friend...
daemonprompts : "Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Armed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything.
But silence breaks the heart."
-Phyllis McGinley
Solitary confinement is, by its definition, solitary. The reason that it tends to drive men mad isn't the total lack of human contact or the lack of stimuli- it's the thick metal wall between you and you and your daemon, cutting the two of you off until you find yourself pressing yourself against the wall as if somehow you'll phase through it and be reunited with your daemon again. Even the hardest of men, men you wouldn't believe cared for anything, tend to break under the strain of knowing that their daemon is there, right on the other side of that wall, but not being able to reach out and touch her and reassure themselves that they're both really still alive.
For an innocent man, it's worst than torture.
For Jack Bristow, it's the silence that gets to him more than anything.
He can see Deena clearly in his head- he knows she's curled up and pressed against the wall, whining softly, staring vaguely off into the distance with her head resting on her paws, but he can't hear her. He always keeps his back pressed against the wall with one ear on the cool metal, as if maybe if he listens hard enough he can maybe hear, but it's always abysmal silence that greets him. He'd go mad if not for the knowledge of his own innocence and how soon this might be all in the past, but even that can't stave off the overbearing silence when days become weeks and weeks become months. Not being able to hear Deena nagging at him to eat, sleep, and, for God's sakes, stop picking apart everything is the most deafening thing he's ever heard and it damn near breaks his heart.
~*~
Months later when the two of them are free to touch and free to speak to one another, Jack spends most of his time absorbed in his studies, tearing the house apart while Sydney's at school, trying to find anything that belonged to Laura that might have made it obvious what she and Mischa were up to, all while Deena follows him around, fretting at him and begging him to eat or sleep or stop trying to pry open the past. By the third month of this insanity, he's made himself a nest in his study made up of various documents and found himself on the floor in the middle of it, staring at report after report until the words began to blur together.
He thinks he's close though, closer than he's been. There's just one piece of the puzzle missing, one thing he hasn't figured out yet, but suddenly there's Deena putting her paw down on the papers before he can reach for the next one he needs, her fur bristling. “Jack, no. This has to stop. You’re driving yourself crazy.”
Having a snarling wolf in his face does nothing to dispel Jack’s determination and earns her an expression of utter disdain he never imagined he'd use on his daemon. He tries to reach for her paw to pull it away, but she snaps at him so roughly that they're both surprised. In that moment, she backs away, ears flat to her skull, and Jack's too shocked at her display of aggression to do much more than stare at her as she presses herself to the floor.
“They betrayed us, Jack,” she whispers. “Can’t we just move on?”
He blinks at her steadily and slowly reaches for the report again. He's just so close. If he stops now, it'll all be for nothing. "I'm sorry, Aberdeen," he whispers back, his voice devoid of any and all emotion. He lost all that in solitary- there's just obsession, the company man devoid of the father, the husband, and the companion that Deena once knew.
Deena rises slowly and looks at him and he fights the urge not to look at her until he can't fight it anymore and the betrayed look in her brown eyes hits him like a punch to the gut. She doesn't say a word as she turns and walks out of the room- she can go as far as she'd like, thanks to his training, but it's not the distance that breaks him. After all, she can't truly leave him.
It's her silence, worst than the silence between them in solitary, because this time the only wall between them is the one he built with his own hands. The same one he just can't bear to tear down, even if it means she'll speak to him again. Not yet.
Muse: Jack Bristow
Word Count: 755
Armed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything.
But silence breaks the heart."
-Phyllis McGinley
Solitary confinement is, by its definition, solitary. The reason that it tends to drive men mad isn't the total lack of human contact or the lack of stimuli- it's the thick metal wall between you and you and your daemon, cutting the two of you off until you find yourself pressing yourself against the wall as if somehow you'll phase through it and be reunited with your daemon again. Even the hardest of men, men you wouldn't believe cared for anything, tend to break under the strain of knowing that their daemon is there, right on the other side of that wall, but not being able to reach out and touch her and reassure themselves that they're both really still alive.
For an innocent man, it's worst than torture.
For Jack Bristow, it's the silence that gets to him more than anything.
He can see Deena clearly in his head- he knows she's curled up and pressed against the wall, whining softly, staring vaguely off into the distance with her head resting on her paws, but he can't hear her. He always keeps his back pressed against the wall with one ear on the cool metal, as if maybe if he listens hard enough he can maybe hear, but it's always abysmal silence that greets him. He'd go mad if not for the knowledge of his own innocence and how soon this might be all in the past, but even that can't stave off the overbearing silence when days become weeks and weeks become months. Not being able to hear Deena nagging at him to eat, sleep, and, for God's sakes, stop picking apart everything is the most deafening thing he's ever heard and it damn near breaks his heart.
~*~
Months later when the two of them are free to touch and free to speak to one another, Jack spends most of his time absorbed in his studies, tearing the house apart while Sydney's at school, trying to find anything that belonged to Laura that might have made it obvious what she and Mischa were up to, all while Deena follows him around, fretting at him and begging him to eat or sleep or stop trying to pry open the past. By the third month of this insanity, he's made himself a nest in his study made up of various documents and found himself on the floor in the middle of it, staring at report after report until the words began to blur together.
He thinks he's close though, closer than he's been. There's just one piece of the puzzle missing, one thing he hasn't figured out yet, but suddenly there's Deena putting her paw down on the papers before he can reach for the next one he needs, her fur bristling. “Jack, no. This has to stop. You’re driving yourself crazy.”
Having a snarling wolf in his face does nothing to dispel Jack’s determination and earns her an expression of utter disdain he never imagined he'd use on his daemon. He tries to reach for her paw to pull it away, but she snaps at him so roughly that they're both surprised. In that moment, she backs away, ears flat to her skull, and Jack's too shocked at her display of aggression to do much more than stare at her as she presses herself to the floor.
“They betrayed us, Jack,” she whispers. “Can’t we just move on?”
He blinks at her steadily and slowly reaches for the report again. He's just so close. If he stops now, it'll all be for nothing. "I'm sorry, Aberdeen," he whispers back, his voice devoid of any and all emotion. He lost all that in solitary- there's just obsession, the company man devoid of the father, the husband, and the companion that Deena once knew.
Deena rises slowly and looks at him and he fights the urge not to look at her until he can't fight it anymore and the betrayed look in her brown eyes hits him like a punch to the gut. She doesn't say a word as she turns and walks out of the room- she can go as far as she'd like, thanks to his training, but it's not the distance that breaks him. After all, she can't truly leave him.
It's her silence, worst than the silence between them in solitary, because this time the only wall between them is the one he built with his own hands. The same one he just can't bear to tear down, even if it means she'll speak to him again. Not yet.
Muse: Jack Bristow
Word Count: 755