This is a coda to my even sillier 'A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Athens'. It is a Xena/Torchwood crossover. I hope it's an internet first. :)
I do not own Xena, Ares, Torchwood, Doctor Who, or the internet... or so you think!
Drowning Sorrow
Some bar, some where, some time in the middle of the 20th century
Jack Harkness really couldn't get drunk any more, so why was he hearing voices? Or rather, a voice, echoing the thoughts at the back of his mind.
"'lwayz look'd so good in black leather. Those blue eyes. Steel blue, ice blue, piercing… oh, yeah."
Oh, yeah. He remembered so vividly that cool gaze that made him feel like a rookie Time Agent again.
"And those cheekbones. I could sharpen a sword on those cheekbones."
Sharp, severe: not pretty at all but a beauty that was purely masculine. Jack had thought he'd kicked over the traces of authority, but it was natural to find himself calling the Doctor, 'Sir.'
"And that look. That look got me every time, that 'I don't care who you are, I'm going to take you down.' Not only courage but that incredible mind, coming up with tactics that no one else would dare try. It was like nothing was impossible."
'Never doubted him; never will,' Jack had said, and his faith had turned to ashes, piles of dust in an empty space station.
"I can't believe all that was left was the irritating blonde."
'Rose, you are worth' (?)
"Sure, she was hot in those skimpy tops she wore, but she was always so self-righteous." The deep male voice turned mocking. 'My path, my friend, my loss.' I'm the immortal, dammit. I'm the one who has to keep living with the pain." The sniff was like the sniff of a big dog.
Jack clawed his way out of his abstracted misery and realized that had not been a voice in his head. The voice belonged to a big man in a studded black leather duster. His dark hair was a curly, shaggy mess on his shoulders, and his sideburns were blending into his heavy stubble. But under all that mess lay a clean bone structure making the whole effect one of brutal beauty. Also, he was practically flinging bucket loads of testosterone into the air around him despite the drunken stupor of misery. He looked like the God of Bikers.
"What are you staring at?" The question had the claw-ripping menace of a tiger's growl. The big man was ready to turn his sorrow into anger, if Jack gave him the least encouragement.
"I lost someone like that once. I thought he could do anything, no matter how impossible, and walk alive out of the wreckage of worlds. I just never thought the Doctor would leave me." Jack watched the man's face for recognition.
He got it. "What, the Time Lord dumped you? That's rough. But I'm pretty sure he was more into girls. Always dragging some cute little number in a short skirt through history." The big man leaned in and took a deep breath in the vicinity of Jack's throat. He froze in his seat. "Time traveler, immortal…hmmm." He thrust his fingers into Jack's chest, through cloth and flesh. Golden light spilled out around his hand. "You've been knotted into the tapestry of Fate so hard that Atropos' shears must break on you."
Jack sat there panting, his deaths passing before his eyes until the stranger pulled his hand free.
"You look familiar. Weren't you working in the baths at Pompeii? You had quite a reputation, Antoninus." The big man cocked his head as a wolf might before burying its teeth in your flesh. His eyes had a speculative light that Jack recognized.
"Just another alias. Call me Jack." Jack couldn't stop the smile that curved his lips. He was probably losing his mind, but it was better than brooding.
"Call me Ares." He leaned closer again, his broad shoulders casting an inexplicably deep shadow. He smelt of leather, beer, and male. "Do you still remember how to use a strigil after all these years?"
"With a little practice, I think I could manage." Jack refused to drop the other man's gaze. He was in over his head, and tonight, he wanted it that way.
"My place or yours? Oh…" he grimaced. "Definitely mine." Ares snapped his fingers. Golden light took Jack, akin to the force that dwelt inside him. He didn't remember much after that. For the space of a night, one sorrow can drown another. Some things are more intoxicating than beer.
The End