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cyusTitle: Qalabani (Contents of the Drawer 1/12)
Characters/Pairing: OC, Jack Harkness
Rating: PG-13 for violence, implied sex
Category/Setting: Gen/Pre-Series
Length: 1800
Notes: Contents of the Drawer 1/12, prompt: "Seconds. Truth."
1. An iron spur, worn, specks of dirt still clinging to one of the joints.
The tread of the horses is soft, a thump-thumping that feels like the most natural rhythm. There's the cry of far off birds and the hushed whispers of his men among themselves. Cramer straightens, shifts the lance along his body. He squints into the night but the land lies still before them. An animal streaks in the distance, its eyes a warning glint with the moon's reflection. Cold air seeps into his bones. His horse neighs, shakes its head as it dances out of formation and he catches the reins a little tighter to force it back into the rank.
"Captain." There's the shuffling trot of another horse pulling up beside him. Harkness gives a nod of greeting.
"Lieutenant." Cramer's lips dip in brief acknowledgment, moustache tickling along the cheek. He turns to look outward again. The animal is streaking along their West flank, keeping careful watch on their movement.
There are shouts along the East flank, hushed commands that manage not to disturb their stealth as they begin the climb to one of the passes. Gravel rolls under their horses' hooves. White hot breath comes from their nostrils.
"Quiet night." Harkness pulls the reins, pushing in closer, their formation lengthening as the path narrows. Their boots touch, there's the clang of metal on metal of their spurs among the slow rise of similar noises among their group.
Cramer gives a brief nod, turns for the animal but it's disappeared behind them. He relaxes a little into the saddle, going with the horse's movement. He turns again, teeth gritted. "Something in the air, though, can't help the thought." The mutter is low and lies like an additional whisper among them.
A horse neighs sharply, rears, a communal intake of breath but the rider gets it under control, waves off any concern. "Lost the tread," the whisper comes through the rows and tension uncoils in shoulders. There's low laughter among a small group along the rear rank, the sound of dirty jokes carrying over. "And then I asked her where she wanted it and she said-"
"Should be in the camp by midday." Cramer yawns, rolls his shoulders in an awkward stretch. He shifts his lance to the other shoulder.
Harkness chuckles. "They have the women in the camp now?" The lips are pulled into a lop-sided expression even as the eyes roam the pass ahead, the high walls rising to their sides.
"They wish." Cramer gives a small, barked laughter and returns the nearly conspiratorial grin Harkness throws over one shoulder.
"I wish." Harkness teases a blown kiss from his palm and motions a woman's curves. He rides up closer to Cramer, boots and knees tangling, touching, hooking close. In the lowest of whispers, "I'll settle on something else though."
Cramer's eyebrows lift at Harkness, a slow shake of the head, exasperation and humor in it in equal parts. "Save it for your girl back home, Lieutenant." The laugh is teasing more than stern, but he still pulls up further.
Harkness's reply gets lost in the murmur of the men he passes, the tread of their horses on the stony path. It narrows further, maybe seven or eight wide. The high walls amplify the sounds of horses and men alike.
"I was joking, you know that." Harkness is beside him again, his face a little drawn.
"You weren't and you know it." Cramer snorts.
Harkness laughs, that twinkle in his eyes. "No, I wasn't, you're right." His lance sits slightly askew on his shoulders, the reins easy in one hand.
"And then once I have her, laid out and her mouth so-" The laughter drowns out the retelling of another amorous fantasy behind them. Seventeen and eighteen and off in their first war the lads have little difficulty finding a woman in every town they pass.
"HALT!" The shout comes from the front and instantly all laughter dies. Lances are grabbed. Harkness fumbles with his for a moment before he has it in a firm grip. Cramer looks about them. There's nothing he can see or hear, only the night's darkness, a bird in the distance and some type of cricket.
"Wha-" The yell rings out and dies the same instant it has been given voice, a horse rears without rider, and all hell breaks loose. Inhuman voices, like ancient battle cries, cascade above them, echoing between the walls along the pass, sounding like they are coming from the rear and the front, the up and the down, their midst and an entirely different place.
The horses break rank, riders among them, lances speared and forcing for both ends of the pass. Cramer spurs his horse towards the rear. Harkness is beside him, lances at the ready and heads low.
Stones. And knives. And bodies and horses underfoot and hooves almost in their faces. The moon shines through cracks between the high walls, illuminates faces with eyes so white and skin so dark. Their shouts disrupt any vocal command, all sense of rank and file broken as their men fall. One of the faces is still caught in mid-joke, in mid-laugh as the lad drops off the horse and is drawn away under hooves and tumult, disappearing.
"Cramer! Your Left!" Cramer swivels and his lance slides through a ribcage, twisting, turning. The gurgling breath rings loud in his ear. He pulls the weapon back, relief as it comes free from between bones without breaking.
There's no time for thanks, there is only time for survival. They battle left and right, killing some, harming more. Out of the corner of his eye Cramer sees Harkness, his horse pushed to the wall. Harkness topples off, is in the melee, only the lance and three men around him. Cramer tries to push through. A knife catches him on his calf and he turns the horse. His lance spears a throat, blood splatters him. Turning around again for Harkness he finds him, caught against that same wall. Their eyes meet. Harkness's eyes widen, he looks down - a knife slides into his gut. Comprehension, dread-
"RETREAT!" The shout is clear in the night air. Cramer is caught in terrified eyes. "RETREAT!" Blood wells from Harkness's lips. Eyes close. "RETREAT!" Cramer tears his horse around by its reins and follows down the pass in gallop, the horse flying over broken bodies of the men he's known, fought with. The victorious cries follow their backs into the valley.
They don't look left and right as they go, no file, no column. Ten, twenty bring up the rear behind Cramer and those in the middle, another ten in the front. The hooves bring up dust in their wake, stones flying from the hooves, whirled at other riders and whoever follows them down, if they follow. The camp's South, that's where they head, their horses spurred until their keening is too loud to ignore.
They slow to a trot when the sun begins to peek across the horizon. Cramer looks up from the slow rhythm of the horse, lulling, and the pale morning sun draws shadows over their faces. There are hands clinging to reins, hands clinging to horses' necks, slumped bodies and uniforms dyed red with blood. Weary gazes meet, nods and confusion, and hierarchy forgotten over the sheer survival. There are anguished sobs and dead eyes, horses that carry mere weight not riders.
The sun moves higher and Cramer has to squint to see further than his horse. He rubs his elbow over his face. Relief or anger or fear or despair, all of it is exhaustion for the moment. They'll have to make it to the camp, the tents loom in the distance, shadows against the sun's light.
A horse pulls up beside him. "Captain?"
Cramer turns his head to the left, brows drawn. "Harkness? I saw you- I thought you-"
Harkness shakes his head, eyes sunken, face splattered with blood. "Not me. Must have been someone else. Brown, maybe or Ferris, haven't seen them- Flesh wound-" He pulls a uniform flap to the side, then presses his hand to it even as the blood's only a mere trickle, the wound not deep. He shakes his head, murmuring the words in repeat as he pulls his horse up. The tread of the hooves blanket the silence. Throat cleared, and Harkness coughs, face tight in pain. "Ferris is gone, and Brown, the lad from Maidstone- the one with- just telling the joke-"
Cramer gives a tight nod. It's as much comfort as any of them get. Harkness falls silent, his fingers white on the reins. Bloodshot eyes chance another glance at Cramer, questions in them and Cramer has no answers. He looks away. The slow gait carries them further, the sun beating down upon their brows, blood stains drying to dark brown.
They slide off the horses at the camp. Derby and Wulf collapse to the dirt, are pulled up by others and drawn away to the tents. Harkness stands next to his horse, patting its neck, its flank. The horse gives a nervous sound, dances away and back, then Cramer takes the reins from Harkness. They slip from his fingers without any resistance.
"Go on." Cramer's voice is hoarse, nodding towards the tents, water and food and care for the wounded. His leg is burning from the knife, shallow cut and he'll tend to it himself.
Harkness looks as if to protest, then nods and slinks off, head bent, half falls as he stumbles over the jagged edge of a stone, then catches himself. He looks confused, no horse under him, only his feet, the hand pressing to the wound and letting go and pressing to it again as if to still the blood flow long stopped. Cramer watches before he turns away, cares for the horse, cares for himself, and a camp bed has never felt that soft. Faces pass before his mind's eye, indulgence and a moment for the dead.
A throat is cleared. "Captain?" Harkness stands in the tent's entrance, fingers curled into the open flap, the sun behind him a strange glow. "I wasn't joking." The heart broken, fingers flexing and the man looks like he may keel over any moment. He is still in his uniform, still in the boots. The spurs leave marks on the sandy ground. There's a question in his eyes, beneath the pain and despair.
"I know." Cramer sits up, rubs a hand over his cheek. "No women in the camp, are there." The tone tries for light, a tease and a stark reminder of the night.
Harkness shakes his head. There's the shrug to the shoulders, the arm that shakes from holding the tent flap up. The sounds of the camp filter in from behind Harkness, horses in the distance and shouts as the regiment regroups.
Cramer nods. It doesn't need thought.
Harkness lets go of the flap as he steps closer. It plunges them into dusty darkness. There are the sounds of the spurs as boots are toed off. There is them forgetting. There is.
(In October 1879, Basotho forces ambushed a mounted column of British Army lancers at Qalabani, killing 39.)
Characters/Pairing: OC, Jack Harkness
Rating: PG-13 for violence, implied sex
Category/Setting: Gen/Pre-Series
Length: 1800
Notes: Contents of the Drawer 1/12, prompt: "Seconds. Truth."
1. An iron spur, worn, specks of dirt still clinging to one of the joints.
The tread of the horses is soft, a thump-thumping that feels like the most natural rhythm. There's the cry of far off birds and the hushed whispers of his men among themselves. Cramer straightens, shifts the lance along his body. He squints into the night but the land lies still before them. An animal streaks in the distance, its eyes a warning glint with the moon's reflection. Cold air seeps into his bones. His horse neighs, shakes its head as it dances out of formation and he catches the reins a little tighter to force it back into the rank.
"Captain." There's the shuffling trot of another horse pulling up beside him. Harkness gives a nod of greeting.
"Lieutenant." Cramer's lips dip in brief acknowledgment, moustache tickling along the cheek. He turns to look outward again. The animal is streaking along their West flank, keeping careful watch on their movement.
There are shouts along the East flank, hushed commands that manage not to disturb their stealth as they begin the climb to one of the passes. Gravel rolls under their horses' hooves. White hot breath comes from their nostrils.
"Quiet night." Harkness pulls the reins, pushing in closer, their formation lengthening as the path narrows. Their boots touch, there's the clang of metal on metal of their spurs among the slow rise of similar noises among their group.
Cramer gives a brief nod, turns for the animal but it's disappeared behind them. He relaxes a little into the saddle, going with the horse's movement. He turns again, teeth gritted. "Something in the air, though, can't help the thought." The mutter is low and lies like an additional whisper among them.
A horse neighs sharply, rears, a communal intake of breath but the rider gets it under control, waves off any concern. "Lost the tread," the whisper comes through the rows and tension uncoils in shoulders. There's low laughter among a small group along the rear rank, the sound of dirty jokes carrying over. "And then I asked her where she wanted it and she said-"
"Should be in the camp by midday." Cramer yawns, rolls his shoulders in an awkward stretch. He shifts his lance to the other shoulder.
Harkness chuckles. "They have the women in the camp now?" The lips are pulled into a lop-sided expression even as the eyes roam the pass ahead, the high walls rising to their sides.
"They wish." Cramer gives a small, barked laughter and returns the nearly conspiratorial grin Harkness throws over one shoulder.
"I wish." Harkness teases a blown kiss from his palm and motions a woman's curves. He rides up closer to Cramer, boots and knees tangling, touching, hooking close. In the lowest of whispers, "I'll settle on something else though."
Cramer's eyebrows lift at Harkness, a slow shake of the head, exasperation and humor in it in equal parts. "Save it for your girl back home, Lieutenant." The laugh is teasing more than stern, but he still pulls up further.
Harkness's reply gets lost in the murmur of the men he passes, the tread of their horses on the stony path. It narrows further, maybe seven or eight wide. The high walls amplify the sounds of horses and men alike.
"I was joking, you know that." Harkness is beside him again, his face a little drawn.
"You weren't and you know it." Cramer snorts.
Harkness laughs, that twinkle in his eyes. "No, I wasn't, you're right." His lance sits slightly askew on his shoulders, the reins easy in one hand.
"And then once I have her, laid out and her mouth so-" The laughter drowns out the retelling of another amorous fantasy behind them. Seventeen and eighteen and off in their first war the lads have little difficulty finding a woman in every town they pass.
"HALT!" The shout comes from the front and instantly all laughter dies. Lances are grabbed. Harkness fumbles with his for a moment before he has it in a firm grip. Cramer looks about them. There's nothing he can see or hear, only the night's darkness, a bird in the distance and some type of cricket.
"Wha-" The yell rings out and dies the same instant it has been given voice, a horse rears without rider, and all hell breaks loose. Inhuman voices, like ancient battle cries, cascade above them, echoing between the walls along the pass, sounding like they are coming from the rear and the front, the up and the down, their midst and an entirely different place.
The horses break rank, riders among them, lances speared and forcing for both ends of the pass. Cramer spurs his horse towards the rear. Harkness is beside him, lances at the ready and heads low.
Stones. And knives. And bodies and horses underfoot and hooves almost in their faces. The moon shines through cracks between the high walls, illuminates faces with eyes so white and skin so dark. Their shouts disrupt any vocal command, all sense of rank and file broken as their men fall. One of the faces is still caught in mid-joke, in mid-laugh as the lad drops off the horse and is drawn away under hooves and tumult, disappearing.
"Cramer! Your Left!" Cramer swivels and his lance slides through a ribcage, twisting, turning. The gurgling breath rings loud in his ear. He pulls the weapon back, relief as it comes free from between bones without breaking.
There's no time for thanks, there is only time for survival. They battle left and right, killing some, harming more. Out of the corner of his eye Cramer sees Harkness, his horse pushed to the wall. Harkness topples off, is in the melee, only the lance and three men around him. Cramer tries to push through. A knife catches him on his calf and he turns the horse. His lance spears a throat, blood splatters him. Turning around again for Harkness he finds him, caught against that same wall. Their eyes meet. Harkness's eyes widen, he looks down - a knife slides into his gut. Comprehension, dread-
"RETREAT!" The shout is clear in the night air. Cramer is caught in terrified eyes. "RETREAT!" Blood wells from Harkness's lips. Eyes close. "RETREAT!" Cramer tears his horse around by its reins and follows down the pass in gallop, the horse flying over broken bodies of the men he's known, fought with. The victorious cries follow their backs into the valley.
They don't look left and right as they go, no file, no column. Ten, twenty bring up the rear behind Cramer and those in the middle, another ten in the front. The hooves bring up dust in their wake, stones flying from the hooves, whirled at other riders and whoever follows them down, if they follow. The camp's South, that's where they head, their horses spurred until their keening is too loud to ignore.
They slow to a trot when the sun begins to peek across the horizon. Cramer looks up from the slow rhythm of the horse, lulling, and the pale morning sun draws shadows over their faces. There are hands clinging to reins, hands clinging to horses' necks, slumped bodies and uniforms dyed red with blood. Weary gazes meet, nods and confusion, and hierarchy forgotten over the sheer survival. There are anguished sobs and dead eyes, horses that carry mere weight not riders.
The sun moves higher and Cramer has to squint to see further than his horse. He rubs his elbow over his face. Relief or anger or fear or despair, all of it is exhaustion for the moment. They'll have to make it to the camp, the tents loom in the distance, shadows against the sun's light.
A horse pulls up beside him. "Captain?"
Cramer turns his head to the left, brows drawn. "Harkness? I saw you- I thought you-"
Harkness shakes his head, eyes sunken, face splattered with blood. "Not me. Must have been someone else. Brown, maybe or Ferris, haven't seen them- Flesh wound-" He pulls a uniform flap to the side, then presses his hand to it even as the blood's only a mere trickle, the wound not deep. He shakes his head, murmuring the words in repeat as he pulls his horse up. The tread of the hooves blanket the silence. Throat cleared, and Harkness coughs, face tight in pain. "Ferris is gone, and Brown, the lad from Maidstone- the one with- just telling the joke-"
Cramer gives a tight nod. It's as much comfort as any of them get. Harkness falls silent, his fingers white on the reins. Bloodshot eyes chance another glance at Cramer, questions in them and Cramer has no answers. He looks away. The slow gait carries them further, the sun beating down upon their brows, blood stains drying to dark brown.
They slide off the horses at the camp. Derby and Wulf collapse to the dirt, are pulled up by others and drawn away to the tents. Harkness stands next to his horse, patting its neck, its flank. The horse gives a nervous sound, dances away and back, then Cramer takes the reins from Harkness. They slip from his fingers without any resistance.
"Go on." Cramer's voice is hoarse, nodding towards the tents, water and food and care for the wounded. His leg is burning from the knife, shallow cut and he'll tend to it himself.
Harkness looks as if to protest, then nods and slinks off, head bent, half falls as he stumbles over the jagged edge of a stone, then catches himself. He looks confused, no horse under him, only his feet, the hand pressing to the wound and letting go and pressing to it again as if to still the blood flow long stopped. Cramer watches before he turns away, cares for the horse, cares for himself, and a camp bed has never felt that soft. Faces pass before his mind's eye, indulgence and a moment for the dead.
A throat is cleared. "Captain?" Harkness stands in the tent's entrance, fingers curled into the open flap, the sun behind him a strange glow. "I wasn't joking." The heart broken, fingers flexing and the man looks like he may keel over any moment. He is still in his uniform, still in the boots. The spurs leave marks on the sandy ground. There's a question in his eyes, beneath the pain and despair.
"I know." Cramer sits up, rubs a hand over his cheek. "No women in the camp, are there." The tone tries for light, a tease and a stark reminder of the night.
Harkness shakes his head. There's the shrug to the shoulders, the arm that shakes from holding the tent flap up. The sounds of the camp filter in from behind Harkness, horses in the distance and shouts as the regiment regroups.
Cramer nods. It doesn't need thought.
Harkness lets go of the flap as he steps closer. It plunges them into dusty darkness. There are the sounds of the spurs as boots are toed off. There is them forgetting. There is.
(In October 1879, Basotho forces ambushed a mounted column of British Army lancers at Qalabani, killing 39.)
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 12:40 am (UTC)Love it.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-12 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 08:21 pm (UTC)(you might want to have a look at
no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 09:53 pm (UTC)Thanks for the links. I'll be looking into those.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 10:24 pm (UTC)And why resist? I've never quite understood why well-rounded OCs should be frowned upon while badly-OOC canon-characters-in-name-only should be welcomed with open arms - I know which I'd much prefer to read. If OCs are what you need to tell a story that wants telling, then go for it! Some of us will read it. :)
**waves the OC flag alongside the gen-fic flag**
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 11:10 am (UTC)Anyway, I adore well written historical Jack, and you deliver. Not only that, you write beautifully at the same time, with a sparsity of words I envy. Your imagery is flawless -- I had an outerworldly feeling long before it became clear they weren't anywhere in Europe.
Your OC is very, very good -- and I'm not usually a fan of OCs. However, Cramer is professional, very much his own man, and his observations make the picture of Jack that you paint starker. Jack, as a result, and because of the way you write him, is younger, less secure, more hurt, but still just as much his own man, and this is the sort of comfort I expect him to seek.
That is the last thing I want to say: kudos to you for having Jack seek out comfort, instead of being the one giving it. Inspired choice, original approach, very much one for the favourites folder. Thanks for sharing.