Fic: Reality Or Dream?

[bk_forever]

Title: Reality Or Dream?

Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Jack, mentions the Master and Team Torchwood

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Doctor Who: Last of the Time Lords/The Sound of Drums

Summary: Imprisoned aboard the Valiant, Jack is gradually losing touch with reality…

Word Count: 519

Written For: sidonie’s prompt ‘Any, any, the walls between dream and reality are beginning to blur.’ at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.

Jack no longer knows what’s real and what’s not. Sometime, weeks, maybe even months ago, he lost count of how many days he’s been here in this hot, stinking engine room, suspended in chains, He has no way of knowing whether it’s day or night, isn’t even sure if day and night still exist. Maybe the Master has found a way to stop the earth’s rotation by now.

Sometimes he sleeps and dreams that he’s chained in the Valliant’s engine room, waiting to be tortured and killed for the entertainment of a mad Time Lord; and then he wakes and finds it’s true. Or maybe he was awake before and fell asleep to dream the same existence he’s been living for what feels like eternity.

Waking or sleeping, it’s all the same now. Sometimes he’s fed, given lukewarm, brackish water to drink. It always tastes of engine oil, but then so does everything else. Even the air he breathes tastes the same as it smells.

Other times, he comes, the Master, jovial and merry, come to play with the Freak. Oh what fun they’ll have! Except it isn’t of course. Not for Jack. He clings to his name as if it’s all he has left, and maybe it is. The Master never calls him by name, he’s just ‘Freak’, the Master’s plaything, to be used and discarded as the Master sees fit. Even that doesn’t seem to happen as often as it used to and Jack’s never sure whether he should be glad about that or not. He’s died of dehydration so many times, ignored and neglected. It’s not a pleasant death, but then no death is pleasant. Nowadays, life isn’t either.

He tries to remember the time before, when he was Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood Three, but the memories have become blurred and fragmented, worn out from overuse. Not that it matters. His team are gone. Sweet Tosh, stubborn Gwen, prickly Owen, loyal Ianto, brought before him one by one and beheaded, their heads left on spikes in front of him for what seems like eternity, staring at him in accusation… Or was that another dream? Are they still out there somewhere, alive, maybe leading the resistance? When he opens his eyes (or has he closed them?) there are no heads on spikes. Have they been taken away? Were they ever there?

Closing his eyes plunges him into a nightmare, but opening them does the same so really whether he’s awake or asleep is immaterial. It’s all the same now, the only breaks in the monotony of his existence are his brief detours into the black abyss of death, and they never last long enough.

Time crawls by so slowly he can almost feel himself gradually sliding into madness. He doesn’t try to resist; sanity is overrated anyway, all sharp, hard edges. Madness is soft and blurry, like his mind and body are no longer connected and all the pain is far away. Or is he confusing madness with sleep?

Jack no longer knows what’s real and what’s not, but that’s okay because he no longer cares.

The End

Comments

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

Wow!
The queen of fluff has come over to the dark side with all guns blazing: that was brilliant!
Your writing has really come on in leaps and bounds as you challenge yourself with new genres and viewpoints and step outside your comfort zone.
That perfectly summed up Jack's pain and confusion and despair whilst keeping completely in character.
I'm sorry - it's late - I don't have the brain power or writing skills to say how much I enjoyed this :-)

[bk_forever]

On the contrary, thanks for a lovely and very encouraging review!

I'm enjoying where some of the prompts and challenges are taking me. I'm both looking forward to and dreading the next challenge week, because getting something written and posted each day to fit specific challenges while working from existing prompts is tough! And I still have to keep up with other challenges (well, fan_flashworks) at the same time. I need to find time to trawl through the fic_promptly lonely prompts so I have a good stock available to work from next time.

Thank you!

[matildabj.livejournal.com]

It's been ages since I've read any fic, and this is a wonderful one to come back to!

I don't think I've ever seen anything written about Jack's experiences during this period, and this was so good - he's sort of glossed-over in the episode, but this brings home what he must have been going through.

Thank you!

[bk_forever]

Thank you!

Yes, I agree. What he went through must surely have affected him, yet it's all just brushed aside and Jack is shown as being perfectly fine when in reality, his experiences would have driven him to the brink of insanity. Even if dying reset him so completely that all the trauma just disappeared, it would still build up again in the periods between deaths and there would still be a dislocation from reality caused by not being able to tell whether it's day or night, or how much tome has past.

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

Poor poor Jack, that was such a horrible time for him, this was beautifully written, it gave me a knot in my stomach reading this.

[bk_forever]

Thank you!

It was quite harrowing to write Jack slipping into madness.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

Oooookkkkk..... but I'm glad to see you delve into Jack's mindset on the Valiant; you spooked me with those heads! I still get pissed when I watch those episodes and see what short shrift Jack got from the Doctor over his suffering on the Valiant and it just doesn't make sense how the Doctor treated him-practically ignored him - while blathering over that nutcase. That's not what I would consider a friend. Maybe the Tardis was able to heal some of the damage done to Jack during the time he was on it after the paradox and time reset; Jack needed to be some place where there was no stress or demands placed on him. Coming back to the team may not have been a good idea, but he should have opened up to Ianto and even Tosh at the least (maybe Owen) but not Gwen and her constant demands for answers. Any chance you'll expand this? It sure seems to want a sequel... :D

[bk_forever]

It's doubtful I'll continue this particular one, I like the way it ended. That's not to say I won't write anything else on the subject though, I might well re-visit Jack's time on the Valiant, or after.

I don't know how much help the TARDIS could be, since she was suffering badly herself from being used to keep the paradox going. She must have been in as bad a state as Jack. The Doctor should have been lavishing hos time and care on her, not on the Master. I think Jack and Martha probably helped each other though.

The heads on spikes might have just been a dream. I like to think that Torchwood evaded capture, much to the Master's fury. He never got them, though he tried to make Jack believe he had.

Thank you.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything; I just wonder, after reading evalentine99's "Man in Gray" and another one by someone else that the Tardis was suffering very badly but she as much as created Jack and I believe would have tried to help his mind more than the Doctor did. The Master would not have caught the team; I believe Jack was hallucinating.

I hope you do revisit this; as usual, you did a masterful job with this subject :D

[bk_forever]

Perhaps she and Jack helped each other, once she was repaired and he was physically healed. The Doctor didn't take Jack straight back to Cardiff, since he had to build a funeral pyre for the Master and all that. It was probably a few weeks before Jack returned to Cardiff.

I'll have to see if a prompt gives me another idea.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

Can I say that this almost reads like a POV? This side is from Jack; the Tardis, though, I've seen a very few of how she reacts to what happened to Jack, especially after he was freed and helped repair her. Tardis did have a story where she kept Jack in a 'blue fog' after his ordeal and Martha's was a pink fog (why do I NOT keep these stories in a folder somewhere?!). Maybe 'healing' could make a good prompt because you really zero in on the characters so well and that could be a good trigger in your writer's hands.

BTW, my son is still laughing over the "Yoda" prompt you had ... I told him about your drabble about tequila, Jack and Ianto in jail.. I have the feeling when he comes home, I'm gonna lose my TW flashdrive ...

[bk_forever]

Better make a back-up copy before he swipes it! The 'texts from last night' prompts are always fun.

Right now, I'm up to my ears in the current fan_flashworks challenge, trying to get two fics written for it. AAAARRRGGHH!

[jedi-harkness.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was amazing! So heartwrenching! Well done.

[bk_forever]

Thank you! These prompt sites get some really good prompts.

[lilyrose225.livejournal.com]

*hugs Jack, then sends Ianto after him*

[bk_forever]

Once Jack was back with the team things started to get better for him.

Thank you!