42footprints: Sense Memory (Jack/Ten) [PG]

[neon-footprint.livejournal.com]

Title: Sense Memory
Author: 42footprints
Challenge: Senses
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: No matter how hard they try to forget, their senses remember.

 

Sense Memory

 

Shoulders squared to the prevailing wind,

there’s a man who stands, in a winter coat,

a hundred feet above the sea,

watching massing clouds bruise the sky.

 

The lift of his chin; he doesn’t search

for the hand that dropped him like a child’s toy.

He won’t be expendable, not with so many

lives to lead.  His eyes are closed.

 

Still, the storm can draw him in,

the taste of his loss on electric air,

sharp on his tongue, crackling under

salt skin.  Sensations he will not seek.

 

Queuing for food in an unknown market,

strangely incongruous in his pinstripe suit,

there’s a man who watches the roasting fat

flare like a beacon; a flash of distress.

 

Just for a moment, he fumbles his words,

as they tumble, unbidden, into the flame

of a face he remembers; the man he lost.

Decided to lose.  He won’t go back.

 

But somehow this market smells of him,

the pheromonal sweat of the hunt,

thick on the throat like honey, like his laugh

from a stranger’s chest.  Try to forget.

Comments

[thrace-adams.livejournal.com]

Oh this was really good. Very visceral all the senses, the fat roasting, the sweat of the hunt, thick like honey - really great imagery here...love the bit about the man being dropped like a child's toy - so true and yet so sad. Very beautiful.

[neon-footprint.livejournal.com]

Thank you, darling. Their relationship taps into something in me, a sadness, that I try not to let out too often. Glad all the senses worked, I wondered whether it might be a bit heavy <3

[crowson75.livejournal.com]

Very good but also very sad. The line about standing in a market in a pinstripe suit really got to me, actually. A man always out of place.

[neon-footprint.livejournal.com]

Thank you sweetheart. I was just remembering the end of series four, that aching, aching sorrow. I'm really glad you liked it.