alive
Genre: gen, character study, dark!fic
Character: Jack O'Neill
Summary: Stay alive.
Notes: written and posted to dreamwidth in 2014.
alive
Stay alive.
All of Jack's thoughts, his world, his life boiled down to those two words. Stay alive. His team would come for him.
He tried not to listen to the sounds coming from the ring on the other side of the doorway. He didn't want to hear the kid's cries getting weaker, or the blows of his opponent falling faster. It didn't matter that he couldn't see them; Jack knew exactly what was happening because he knew exactly how he'd do it. He'd catalogued the kid's strengths and weaknesses along with everyone else's. No one knew who was fighting whom until they were thrown into the ring.
The kid wasn't making any noise anymore, but the sadistic bastards weren't stopping the fight. Jack could hear each blow land as clearly as if they were right in front of him. He hoped the kid was dead. Arrogant little shit that he was, he still didn't deserve that.
None of us do, Jack reminded himself sharply. The lines were getting blurred, though. He couldn't afford to think like that here, couldn't really afford even the little sympathy he'd mustered up for the kid, watching him bulldoze his way through his first couple of fights with bravado and dumb luck.
Well, his luck had run out, as Jack had known it would. He was just glad he hadn't been the one to deliver the lesson. The raucous cries of the crowd grew more intense as victory was declared, and Jack closed his eyes as a guard dragged the kid's body past the holding area.
He waited. There weren't many of them left now. The previous fights' winners had been taken back to their cells, the dead dumped like so much carrion. Jack opened his eyes as booted footsteps came to a halt in front of him.
"You."
Without a word, Jack rose. He didn't favor the knee that burned under the brunt of his weight, and he didn't wince at the pain from his bruised ribs as he straightened. He held himself straight and tall as he waited to see who he would kill tonight. Because there was no choice. He had to win. He had to stay alive.
His team would come for him.