[PERCHANCE TO DREAM] with our final breath, we'll fight to the death, we are soldiers

[theydrewfirstblood]

It's stupid...but John's lonely.

Everything's been fine, but Gray, Jack's brother...he's been out of sorts. Nothing bad--John knows he has a lot of the same kind of baggage Jack has, so that means a lot in the grand scheme of things--but the two of them have been working through some personal shit. Recovering lost memories, sharing their common history in different worlds...

They need time. The two of them, together, so John spends a couple days going through the stuff stored in the loft of the barn, and satisfied that his old camping equipment is still good, corners Jack and threatens him with bodily harm if he doesn't make use of it and take care of his brother.

...okay, so not bodily harm. More like promises Jack a future date with him, a nice dinner, and an evening by the fire with a book John found in the library showing some shibari suspensions he wants to try.

John's even gone so far as to pick out a horse to offer Gray, if he wants it. Once Jack agrees to the impromptu little camping trip, John takes Gray out to the stable and introduces him to the skittish but affectionate black mustang stallion. A stallion who John can't get close enough to groom without twenty minutes of cajoling, but who spends five minutes with Gray letting him eat carrot sticks from his hand, then another half hour just standing there with his nose tucked into Gray's shoulder, snuffling in quiet contentment.

Gray names the horse Mickey, and after some discussion the brothers Harkness head out to one of the far corners of the ranch. It's maybe three miles out, give or take, so not terribly far, and Jack has his pendant with him--and zero excuses. John's heard about things like the Beacons, the ranch is mostly flatland...he's not going to let them go anywhere or do anything that would make them even feel unsafe.

Jack still swears they're only going to be out there for three days, including travel time. John threatens to sleep on the couch and wear baggy shirts for a week if Jack shows back up early or with any sort of punctuality to indicate the brothers were rushing.

That was yesterday, and John is already lonely. It's pathetic...but at the same time, it's also kind of nice. It's been too long since he had someone in his life like Jack, someone he could miss because of something as stupid as a weekend vacation with his little brother.

So waking up alone in bed sucks, but it's a sweet disappointment. Eating breakfast alone feels hollow, but it's an emptiness that hums at the edges, waiting to be filled. Taking care of the horses that afternoon is weird without having to negotiate Estelle's endearingly prissy behavior or enjoy Jack's company while he keeps her in line, but there's an anticipation to having that all put to rights in a few days.

John is lonely by the end of the first day, and it’s stupid…but it’s also a good problem to have, being lonesome for someone who’s coming back.

The next day isn’t as lonely. It’s nicer, because he’s missing Jack less than he is looking forward to him coming home. The morning of the third day, John gets a message saying they’ll be back by early evening—and John only agrees not to punish Jack because they’re heading back early to visit a little creek they found about a mile and a half from the house. John knows it, remembers it fondly from his childhood…and starts considering a future camping trip for just him and Jack out that way. It could be a lot of fun…

It’s early afternoon when Jack seems to finally get lonely, too—or just horny, based on the messages John starts getting. He’s grinning the whole time he’s trying to put Jack off, but he does have to fix one of the paddock gates again and he needs to concentrate…and to keep his head together. His last panic attack was set off while doing that.

I’m leaving my pendant in the kitchen. Bring it to me when you get home and we can pool our feathers, get a couple phones, and have phone sex you psychotic old lech. Promise—love you, pet Estelle for me, see you tonight.

John drops his pendant on the kitchen counter with a smile and heads out to the barn to get his toolbox.

When he emerges from the barn, the toolbox is a rifle, there’s a torture-ravaged American soldier at his side, and the ranch is gone.

”Rambo!”

John’s heart shatters at the sound of that voice. Turning to look over his shoulder…

She’s the same as he remembers. Big, dark eyes wet and desperate, shoulders squared, fighting every impulse she had to follow him.

Co Bao—the one that got him out. The first one that believed in him…the one he killed by caring.

”…you not expendable.”

Just for a moment, John’s eyes shut and burn, the words ripping a hole through him. The hole that was there when he heard them the first time—the hole those words smoothed the edges of so Jack could fill that hole in the present with dozens of touches, kisses, more words—with a night spent rendering him completely senseless with how much he’s valued.

John nods, opening his eyes.

He can do this. Get through the nightmare. Get out—get back to Jack.

Get through what he knows is coming next.

Leading the POW to the rendezvous. Standing against soldiers that never stop coming, trying to remember it’s not real.

When the recoil of the rifle shakes him to the bone. When the panic rises as the chopper overhead starts to turn, and he catches the pilot’s eye.

“Don’t leave!!!”

Get through. Get out. Get back to Jack.

He tries to remember as the rifle finally slips from his fingers. As he gets hit—as he’s taken back into the camp.

Get through. Get out. Get back to Jack.

As he’s stripped and humiliated, as they start trying to break him again in a river of shit, as leeches leave behind new wounds, sap less his blood or strength and more his pride.

Get through. Get back to Jack.

Hour after hour.

Get through. Get to Jack.

…after hour…

Get to Jack. Get to Jack. Get to Jack.

As he’s hauled from the filth and beaten. Hosed down and brought to the Russians—mercifully, back into an arena he knows better, a circle of Hell he’s built for: torture.

Jack…Jack…Jack…

It’s all he can remember. It’s all he can focus on.

It’s the only thing he has left to hope for.

Comments

[capthardness]

While Jack's enjoyed these three days with Gray, really--the longest stretch they've been together since they were separated all those centuries ago, enough time to talk about nothing important and things that were and just be together--he really has missed John. Not just the sex, honestly, as bloody fantastic as that is. It's just been so damned nice to be with someone who knows at least a decent portion of the truth of him and hasn't been repulsed by it. Sure, John doesn't know a tenth of it really--the cons, the people he'd killed who hadn't deserved it, the horrible things he'd done for the 'greater good' that he still doubted--but he knows enough, has seen enough, and still found Jack worth keeping around for more than the sex.

All that said, the last message he'd received did warm a lot more than Jack's heart, and he was grinning like an idiot on the whole walk back to the house..

Which he suddenly can't see in the distance anymore. Instead, seemingly in the blink of an eye, the landscape's shifted to…something closer to a jungle.

And without even venturing through, Jack knows it isn't any jungle he's seen, alien or otherwise. But he's sure John's seen it. Is probably seeing more of it than he ever wanted to again right now.

Before he even realizes he's doing it, Jack's broken into a run and it takes him a second to realize his clothes have changed. That he's in full goddamn uniform--not the dark blue he'd donned in the Second, but the green-brown from the First.

Still has his Webley, though. Even when he's fucking terrified, his subconscious still loves throwing in fun anachronisms. He'd find that a lot more hilarious at almost any other time.

It doesn't take him long to come in sight of some kind of bamboo structure, and he knows without even looking that it has to be where…where something inevitably terrible has to be happening to John. Again.

Knowing this isn't real and that even if it were he'd be fine if he got hurt, Jack doesn't hesitate in getting close enough to--probably hear things he doesn't want to hear, to find out what he'll be up against when he almost certainly kicks the goddamn door down and starts slaughtering ghosts.

[theydrewfirstblood]

The first sound Jack hears is the meaty strike of fist to flesh before the telltale wheeze and gag of strangulation—of John being strangled—gives way to coughing and gasping for breath as the garrote around his neck is finally released.

”That is all—thank you, Captain Vihn! Leave one guard, please.”

John doubles over, even as it causes the arms bound behind him to pull at shoulders already badly abused by hours of being dunked in that cesspit. He welcomes the ache, flexes his fingers and pulls a little at the coarse rope holding him to make them throb a little harder.

There’s a reason. He has a reason, the pain will help with…with…

Jack.

Reminds him of better times, of the sweet ache after fucking him, holding his weight off of Jack too long until Jack just tugs him down to blanket himself with the heat of John’s body.

”I see you are no stranger to pain. Perhaps you have been among my Vietnamese comrades before.”

John lifts his head to narrow his eyes at Podovsky. He could, perhaps, speak—it might…help. Help…help…

Jack. Jack…get to Jack.

”No answer?…do you wish to give your name? What possible harm can that cause?”

You not expendable.

…all I see are reminders of how goddamn strong you’ve been to survive in hells I can’t imagine.

A wave of fatigue and clarity sweep words away from him, leaving him feeling hollow, defeated…so tired…

…but sure of himself all the same.

”Pride is a poor substitute for intelligence.”

John just breathes. He has no pride. He has only the mission—even alone, abandoned, he’s built to win. To hold on…

…Jack. Hold on. For Jack…

[capthardness]

The sound of something hard striking soft flesh might not have done it--could be John fighting back--but Jack knows the sound of someone being strangled, has been on both sides of it too often, and somehow he's sure it's not due to John's hands.

That certainty grows as he hears another figure speaking. Russian accent. He remembers John telling him about what some Russians had done. That seals it.

Only taking enough time to get his grip steady, Jack kicks the door in and when he takes in the scene--John tied up and some bastard getting in his face, doubtlessly planning to do some other terrible thing--he immediately shifts into something he's been so careful to never unleash around John. Not the cold, detached Captain or even the grief-filled rage he'd had in his own nightmare. This…this is the man he'd been in the Beacons, when he'd truly been prepared to do anything to save his team, even things he'd once sworn to never do again.

He steps forward with his gun aimed right at the bastard's head. He wants to do more, so badly, but he can wait. Wait to see if the little nightmare has any self preservation. If it doesn't…well. Then he'll do whatever he needs to.

"You're going to want to step away from that man if you don't want me to turn you into a real ugly vegetable." He says, voice low and sharp--not commanding as he had when John had shut down but purely threatening

[theydrewfirstblood]

Podovsky lifts his head from where he stands, then smiles, lifting into view the knife he is holding—John’s knife—while John sits, shoulders hunched, gaze distant and lost somewhere in his own head.

”What you must understand is that we have to interrogate him. To Sergeant Yushin here, he is a piece of meat, this soldier—a laboratory experiment.”

As Podovsky gestures to the mammoth soldier standing off to one side, impassive, John blinks slowly.

Interrogate him. He is a piece of meat. This soldier. That wasn’t right.

”But to me? He is a comrade, similar to myself! Just opposed by an act of fate.”

As Podovsky circles around, dismissive of the weapon aimed at him, John lets go of the thought he’s been holding onto so desperately so he can focus on the fact that Podovsky is shoving his knife into the coals of a small stove where tea is brewing. He knows that’s a mistake, letting that thought go—he needs it, and he can’t remember why now…

…except that he looks up, his eyes focus—and he doesn’t need the thought anymore. It’s been pulled out of his head, made flesh: Jack Harkness, dressed for the trenches with blood in his eyes.

He’s the most beautiful thing John has ever seen.

”I would be happy to release him, if he will—“

“Fuck you.”

The words are for Podovsky, despite the fact that John is watching Jack like a mirage that will disappear if he blinks.

Podovsky glances at John, raising an eyebrow.

”You wish to test your strength. Good…good. Yushin?…”

[capthardness]

Jack watches the man, seeing a similar kind of smile to the one he feels spreading across his own face without a thought as he sees the knife go into the coals. And any regrets or disgust he might have felt of having to drag this version of himself out of the past crumble into dust.

He charges forward, heedless of the threat presented by that knife--he knows what it might feel like no matter where it would land from very personal experience and would rather take it a thousand times than watch it inflicted on John once--as he grabs the bastard's elbow with deadly speed, twisting it back. He doesn't give the asshole the mercy of letting it snap or letting the knife actually do its work, not yet. Let him feel that fear. Even if he's an echo, he deserves to suffer that much and far more.

"I understand plenty," he hisses, as he keeps his pistol aimed at the other figure. "See, I've done far worse than whatever you did here, I promise." He forces more of his weight against the man to make his knees bend, not enough to fall but to get him off balance. "And this time I've got a really good reason to do it. You go back when you came from, or we all get to find out if I can make a memory beg for death."

At least focusing on the nasty little ghosts gives him good reason not to look at John's face, to see the reaction of someone who has called him 'beautiful' and 'good' after he's transformed into someone he's fought to escape for over a hundred years.

[theydrewfirstblood]

”YUSHIN!”

Before the bigger man can move towards Jack, a dark blur launches at the big Russian soldier, knocking him to the ground.

John’s hands are still bound, he’s unarmed, and he’s pretty sure he just dislocated his shoulder—but he’s fueled by panic, the fury and fear of this, even by Jack’s own hand reaching out to make Podovsky scream in pain—this is John’s greatest fear. This is his nightmare.

Watching it happen again: someone hurt, someone dying because they care about him.

So John ignores the pain. He rises from his bench and just tackles the bigger man to the ground, and trusts the man above him—the screams of the tormented in the voice he barely recognizes, the death in the hand gripping his pistol and the river of fucking blood in those bright blue eyes.

John runs blindly forward to help his vicious guardian angel, and trusts Jack to protect him.

[capthardness]

Some other moment, seeing John tackling the larger figure--Yushin, apparently, not that Jack gives a single fuck what these monsters' names had been--might have made Jack's heart stop in fear. Instead, it makes the blood in his veins run cold with something so much more deadly.

"Still not fucking off where you belong? Fine." Jack shifts his hold on the man's arm, finding the spot he knows will send fire shooting from his elbow all through his fingertips and pressing down. "I could just blow your pathetic brains out," he whispers. "But we're gonna see how long you'll try to keep that knife outta my hand. How long until you're begging me to let go."

Distantly, Jack realizes this is worse than how he'd been in the Beacons. He'd at least needed information then. And sure, saving his people had been personal, but not like this.

Luckily, he's too blinded by rage and manic bloodlust to worry about the implications of that right now.

[theydrewfirstblood]

As Podovsky screams in pain, while keeping hold of the knife and still trying to struggle against Jack’s grip, John’s fear has reached a tipping point of its own as he struggles frantically to avoid getting pinned under the bulk of the torturer he’s facing.

The point where he no longer pays attention to the pain. The point where the world narrows to one single, clear focus and everything else becomes data to accomplish the mission.

The point where John Rambo dies another death, and the soldier rises from his ashes.

Yushin hits John with a right cross. It has him seeing stars, but the advantage is that it knocks him back at an angle he can use to twist, feet free and facing the figment so he can retaliate with a kick to the head. It hits the right angle to knock him out with a sick, telltale crunch of bone at his temple, but unconscious is all that matters.

John struggles to his feet and crouches beside the body, fingers searching for a knife he’d seen on the man’s belt. While he works blind, facing Jack and the specter of Podovsky that’s crying out in agony, for a moment John is perfectly transfixed.

The screams, the black rage in Jack’s face, half mad, borderline gleeful at every wail and shriek—so much color in violence against the drab browns of his uniform…

For a split second, John is overwhelmed by a sense of safety and of love so intense the nightmare fractures—the body behind him is gone, his hands are free, and the pain of his injuries starts to creep back into his awareness because it’s okay. He can rest, he can recover…

He wasn’t left behind again.

Except that moment, the shade of Podovsky tries to twist free, to try and strike a blow with the arm that isn’t being twisted and ravaged by the use of pressure points—

—John only turned away for a second, only went to grab his stuff off the rock when the shots started, when he watched Co fall—

“JACK!”

[capthardness]

John's voice breaks through the red haze, just barely. Enough for Jack's focus to clear to notice the arm swinging towards him.

Idiot. he thinks--of himself as well as the man struggling in his hold--for just a moment. He's out of practice, been too long since he's let himself turn back into what the universe shaped him into long before he met the Doctor.

(for that instant he's somewhen else; watching a teenage boy being tortured to death, forced to watch, and if he wasn't so fucking angry he'd be terrified.)

That's all he has time for before the bastard's elbow is slamming very solidly right into his solar plexus.

Sady for both of them, Jack's taken far worse and stayed on his feet even before his first death.

He does let out a very pained noise, but doesn't let go--and instead of grabbing the arm that just hit him or letting go, Jack raises the arm still gripping his Webley and slams the butt right into he shitty little nightmare's head.

"See why you're here," he wheezes, slamming the gun down again. "You're pretty nasty. But I was worse long before you were born."

He's barely aware of John again, or the fact he's still digging his fingers into the shade's flesh, that he hasn't stopped at just those two strikes.

He'll realize that's another thing to be terrified by later.

[theydrewfirstblood]

The grunt of pain from Jack dissolves everything in a sea of red.

For John, however, it doesn’t mean a lesser man’s screaming fury or even the manic, icy method of Jack’s violence.

For John, it’s nothing. It’s everything the military ever wanted out of him, a total disconnect from what makes him human—with just enough pleasure thrown in to keep him moving.

He scans the room. He finds a handgun, a spare clip.

He turns, and he fires into Podovsy’s foot. His ankle. His knee.

He advances, like he did on Alex, and he just keeps shooting, mindful of Jack’s presence. Clip him so he doesn’t shoot Jack, wait patiently until Jack moves out of his line of sight to execute each squeeze of the trigger.

John shoots Podovsky (he can still hear the bullets riddling Co Bao full of holes, still hear Jack’s strangled sound of pain), and when he runs out of bullets he ejects the clip, slides in the fresh one, and just.

Keeps.

Shooting.

[capthardness]

The sound of gunfire wakes the part of Jack's mind that thought to put on a uniform (not anything he'd worn in the Agency, what he'd worn when he'd died in the trenches to the screams of men who had fallen deathly silent by the time he gasped back to life), makes him start--not enough to do something foolish like dropping his own weapon but enough to realize what he's been doing.

What's done.

He still doesn't see body (hard to call it a man, now) as anything that had been worth preserving, and the only regret he has is that he didn't get the chance to tie the bastard up the same way John had been, take his time making the piece of shit--

Stop breathing. Like he has, now--John's bullets or the force of Jack's gun ramming against his skull, doesn't make a difference.

Jack can't seem to convince his fingers there's no reason to keep pressing into nerves that can no longer feel his fury. He's dimly aware of how much he's focusing on every sound he can identify as belonging to John, reassurance he did the right thing--what he would have done, if he'd had the chance, when this really happened.

[theydrewfirstblood]

John doesn’t—can’t stop shooting until the second clip is empty—until there’s nothing left to recognize.

Until the room is quiet save for Jack’s breathing. Jack, breathing…

Jack. Still holding on, still angry, still trying to hurt Podovsky—

The gun drops bonelessly from John’s fingers. His heavy footfall crosses the space.

Then John’s one good hand is cradling, gripping Jack’s face to tilt it up so John can kiss him—slow, gentle, deep, pulling his next breath from Jack’s lungs because he needs to feel that burn of bloodlust and fury inside him, shielding him, making him safe and sure that Jack is safe.

And when the kiss breaks, John half collapses against Jack, tucking his face into the curve of his neck as the body of Podovsky vanishes and the Vietnamese jungle goes eerily quiet around them.

[capthardness]

John's kiss doesn't entirely clear Jack's vision of the rage-fueled haze, but it does cool the fiery bloodlust coursing through his veins somewhat so he no longer feels like it's going to consume him from the inside. He'd forgotten how wonderful and terrifying that feeling could be--when he didn't hold anything back and his hands remembered everything they'd been trained to inflict on a body, human and otherwise.

Like the body they're no longer holding.

Still feeling more than a little detached from himself, from the man he's fought to be, Jack immediately holsters his gun and wraps one arm around John's waist and places the other against his nape--heedless, for now, of the blood staining his fingers.

"I'm okay," he rasps against John's hair--knowing none of this can be, even with John's demons turned back to dust, and remembering what John had told him about what had happened for the woman who'd saved him. There's no way his presence hadn't stirred up that old terror. "I'm okay, he just knocked the wind outta me, I'm okay."

[theydrewfirstblood]

It doesn’t help—knowing even that, knowing one of the monsters in his head touched him in a way that did him a single moment of harm…

John shifts to press his mouth to the pulse in Jack’s throat, just burrows there and feels it pounding against his lips, beating strong against Jack’s skin. That heartbeat that will never lie still, that surge of hot blood under skin that will never stop flowing.

They can’t kill him. He can’t die. He won’t leave me behind.

John can only stand there and drink it in—the tacky damp of blood on Jack’s hand, cradling his nape. The smell of gunfire and blood and sweat, the too-tight way Jack holds him, still vibrating with fury and still cradling him close…

A heavy sigh of relief leaves John’s lungs, and the world grows darker around them—not the blazing daylight heat of the jungle, but the cool air of the encroaching desert twilight of the ranch.

[capthardness]

Jack's anchored himself in warm bodies after walking out of yet another version of Hell too many times not to recognize it--fuck, he's doing it now, even as some part of him is starting to wonder what the hell he's doing, holding John like this just moments after bashing a man's skull in.

Reminding himself the bastard wasn't real doesn't smother that doubt. Because he knows he would have done worse up against an enemy that fought him with a sentient being's thoughts and force.

But the way John's pressing against him makes it impossible for anything really approaching guilt to set in just yet. Because he knows what was about to happen when he stepped in, how much worse it was going to get and maybe he couldn't change the past but at least he'd been able to stop John from reliving some of it.

He barely feels the weight of his uniform fall away, leaving the thinner material of his oxford covering his arms, as he shifts his mouth to John's temple, pressing his lips there for a second.

"I'll always be okay," he murmurs--it's not really a lie, not by his standards, because he will be. Take a few minutes, few hours, but he'll still be back up and ready to…

Torture a man again. Even a properly breathing one. Far more than one, if that's what it takes to protect his own.

(He could have done something else. He could have just shot-)

He closes his eyes, leaning his head against John's as he dimly recognizes the shift in temperature and light around them.

[theydrewfirstblood]

John knows that shock will set in, eventually. He needs to pop his shoulder back in, needs to clean off the blood and filth of the jungle and the fight—John knows there are things he has to do. There’s no time to rest the guards are coming he has to run has to kill then for what they did to Co, what they would have done to Jack—

John jerks away, trembling, but he doesn’t free himself from Jack’s arms. He just catches the hand at his nape, brings it to his lips, and presses a lingering kiss to the inside of Jack’s wrist. He can smell the blood, Podovsky’s blood, feel drying flakes of the spatter against his mouth.

The shakes ease by half, and his racing heart seems to calm a little. Turning his head, careless of the blood, he presses his cheek into Jack’s palm, and his eyes slide shut, more of the tension going out of him.

“Don’t leave me, please…”

[capthardness]

Jack feels his gut clench when John kisses his stained skin, the briefest flash of Rose's horrified face when she'd just seen evidence of the fact he'd erased people from time--not even the killing--flickering in his mind for just a second.

It fades away before the reflex to run out of shame can actually kick in, as John relaxes against him. It'll come back, because just like him it always does, but hopefully it will wait until he's alone.

For now, he brushes his thumb over John's cheekbone. "Wasn't planning on it," he whispers, pressing his lips against John's hairline. "I'll stay as long as you need me to."

[theydrewfirstblood]

“Forever.”

John lets that linger for a long moment, lets it wrap him in the comfort of home before he finally draws away from Jack and looks down at his arm.

This is gonna hurt like hell—and there’s something in Jack’s eyes that makes John think helping him pop his shoulder back in might do more harm than good. Something shaken, haunted…

John turns around and leans back against Jack’s chest, a compromise as he grabs his own wrist and starts to elevate the arm in front of him, pulling it perpendicular to his body carefully, slowly—until an uncomfortable click rings out and John’s whole body tenses.

He doesn’t cry out. He just sags, lets Jack support him, lets the cool air chill the sweat on his skin.

He’s back. He’s safe. Jack came for him. Jack came for him.

John’s eyes burn, so he shuts them. The edges of his lids grow damp, but no tears fall as he lets his head fall back against Jack’s shoulder and keeps reminding himself that he’s safe, that Jack’s safe.

“…thank you.”