Ficlet: Death By Fire

[bk_forever]

Title: Death By Fire

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Jack

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Nada.

Summary: Burning to death is bad. Coming back is worse.

Word Count: 154

Written For: juliet316’s prompt ‘Torchwood, Jack, he'd never been completely incinerated before,’ at fic_promptly.

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

The building had gone up in flames so fast that Jack, still groggy from a blow to the head, had no chance of getting out in time. The heat had been more intense than anything he’d ever experienced, and he only thanked whatever deities might exist that he would be dead from smoke inhalation long before he was burned to ashes.

Coming back had been torture, reconstituting from atoms, although by the time awareness returned to him, he was already mostly in one piece. It had to be noted that re-growing his entire body was deeply unpleasant rather than painful, at least until his nerves began to regenerate. After that, well, pain was an understatement; sheer agony came closer.

As he picked himself up out of the ashes, stark naked, he considered the experience. He’d never been completely incinerated before. On the whole, he decided, it was something he’d prefer never to do again.

The End.

Comments

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Well ewwwww.

[bk_forever]

I know! But that was the prompt, lol!

Thank you!

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, I think. LOL

[bk_forever]

Heeee! I write for some pretty grim prompts at times. During contest week, it's a case of writing for any prompt I think I can, because it's the numbers of prompts filled that matters.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Poor Jack!

[bk_forever]

Yeah, he goes through some serious pain!

Thank you!

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Better you than me. LOL

[akawho.livejournal.com]

There are some serious down-sides to immortality...

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

I had lightning bolt inspiration this morning on the way to work for next weeks remix challenge after reading this. I wasn't game to remix someone else's genius, but I couldn't let this one go. Hope it passes muster!

[bk_forever]

Well, I LIKE writing. Mostly, lol!

[bk_forever]

Ooh, that's something for me to look forward to! *grins*

[bk_forever]

And poor Jack is going to have to experience every on of them. It's a sobering thought.

Thank you!

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

Oh that is horrible!! poor Jack

Great ficlet

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

I can write my name. That's about as creative as I get. In other words, not at all. LOL

[bk_forever]

I'm sure you have other talents. Everyone's good at different things, wouldn't do if we were all the same!

[bk_forever]

Yeah, Jack has to go through some pretty horrible stuff!

Thank you.

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

I'm good with dirt. LOL Joke with my friends, because I seem to have a green thumb. Miss my garden.

[bk_forever]

I love to garden too, but I don't have the health or energy these days. I do have some lovely cacti on my windowsill though! *grins*

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

I have a spider plant that's doing fab, and a Christmas cactus, both plants Traci, my homemaker gave me at different times, and an African Violet that is limping along that I impulsively bought at the grocery store. I can't really do too many indoor plants, because there are only so many places Gertrude can't get at them. I had a huge spider plant before she came to live here, and she ate it to death, literally. Every new leaf it pushed out, she nibbled away. It finally decided to just quit trying. That was before I bought my fireplace. She can't get at the plants when they're on it. If I plant something specifically for her, she won't touch it. Animals can be very contrary. Especially cats. :)

[bk_forever]

Mum used to have a Parlour Palm on the windowsill, but one day her young budgie managed to reach it through the bars of its cage and shredded it. The budgie was never quite right after that, I think maybe the plant affected it. Anyway, it didn't live all that long and neither did the plant. Always best to keep plants away from pets where possible.

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

You can find lists of plants that are poisonous for different pets online. I'm pretty careful with that. But yes, better to keep them out of reach anyway.

[bk_forever]

This was way back before I had internet, and none of the plant books said it was poisonous, but that budgie just was never normal after eating it, it spent most of its time looking at its feet. It SHOULD have been out of reach, to this day I don't know how the budgie reached it, but things happen sometimes.

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Sneaky birds are sneaky.

[bk_forever]

He was such a bright and cheerful little thing until the fern.

One of my budgies liked to steal bits of biscuit if you happened to be eating one, she'd land on you and help herself lol!

[too-beauty.livejournal.com]

OMG! that must be really awful and painful!
Poor Jack, I'm sure Ianto will comfort him soon .....

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

I've never had a bird for a pet. My homemaker Traci has a cockatiel, among other animals in her menagerie. She is very good to them, too. I'm more a dog and cat person.

[bk_forever]

We had birds for years, including three cockatiels. My sister has one of them now, the other one died, but our first one lived for a long time despite only having one leg. We used to take in everyone's unwanted creatures. Two of my budgies were strays, drawn to us because my sister's then fiance built an aviary in our garden. He bred and showed budgies, I showed - and tried to breed - Zebra Finches, very cute tiny birds =)

[bk_forever]

I'm sure Ianto will take very good care of him. He just has to wait for Jack to pull himself together. Literally *winces*

Thank you.

[maldeluxx.livejournal.com]

Even though I can't see it, it's really pretty scary just like this *brrr* Poor Jack :(

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

They are cute. Seen them in pet stores. I think it was Zebra ones, anyway. One good thing about birds, you don't have to take them for walks. I think cockatiels are long-lived birds. They are so pretty, too.

[bk_forever]

They can be quite long lived, I think we had our first one about 15 years.

I love the Zebra Finch noise - watwatwat! They're cute birds, but mine would not breed with the partners I put them with.

Yeah, no walkies, but an aviary full of them takes a lot of cleaning out!

[bk_forever]

Yeah, I think it would be seriously unpleasant to endure, and almost as unpleasant to watch!

Thank you!

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Scoop the litter box everytime I go in the bathroom, which is where I keep it.

Walk the dog, pick up if not a designated bathroom area.

I'm all about the easy. LOL

[bk_forever]

My pet of choice is the guinea pig, despite having to clean them out they're just such good pets. These days though, aside from looking after myself, my only responsibility is to my action figures, and they never complain if I forget to give them their dinner ;)

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

I used to have guinea pigs someone gave me. They really were cute. I would block off the kitchen/dining room, which wasn't carpeted, and let them walk around. They would do the snow walk thing, where the back one would step where the front one had stepped, only not in snow. LOL Clickety, clickety, It was so cute. They were always so happy to see me when I came home from work, too. Loudly greeting me, although I have a sneaky suspicion they were saying, "Food, food ,food." , not 'So happy you're home." I had little leashes for them, and when I was doing daycare, we'd take them outside and play with them. Fun times.

[bk_forever]

They're fantastic little animals, and quite smart. Two of mine used to sit down like little dogs, which was adorable. I think over the years we've had sixteen of them and I still remember all their names =)

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Good memory. I don't even remember the names of the two I had. LOL

[bk_forever]

I remember a lot of useful information, but sometimes I can't remember what day it is, lol!

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

LOL

[bk_forever]

Yeah, my brain is very unhelpful o_O

(News flash - I'm busy writing the final chapter - I think - of Through Time and Space! Trying to post a chapter a week until it's all posted to my journals, might speed that up once I really have it finished, but all but the last chapter is already posted to fan_flashworks. It's taken more than a year, but it's almost done!)

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

What is fan-flashworks?

[bk_forever]

It's the challenge community whose prompts I've been using to write Through Time and Space. It's on both LJ and dreamwidth, though I post all my challenge entries on the LJ version for convenience.

[excentric397.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's great. They have Due South, too. It's really hard to find good Due South fanfic. Got to check it out.

[bk_forever]

It's a great place! You can search by author or by fandom too. Lots of different fandoms =)

Enjoy!

[black59.livejournal.com]

argh!!

[bk_forever]

That's probably what Jack thought too!

Thank you!