Angsty Torchwood Drabbles!
Why? Hell if I know. But if I can get *anything* done, I ain't complainin'.
Jack and Owen, after-- what was it called? The Fight Club episode.
He can practically taste the words on his lips, feel his tongue shaping the sounds-- for a moment he even thinks he's actually saying them, but he's held it back. He's held it back, and he just looks at the man at the hospital bed, wondering if that was the right choice. These words could fix it, save it, end it all, and isn't that what they both want? For it to be over?
No. He doesn't want it to be over. Not really.
So he just watches, plays it out, leaves with the words that would've ended it still clear in his mind.
You should've let me die.
Yes. I should.
-
Gwen, reasoning. Or, something. I just wanted to know what line of even illogic would lead to that...
She reaches into the box, fingers brushing the little white pill.
This is all right because:
Because-- she has to tell him. She can't keep it a secret any longer. And telling him will hurt him. And she doesn't want to hurt him. So, if he doesn't remember her telling him, then she'll have told him and he won't hurt and everything will be fine, just like always, it can all be fine.
So this is all right. It's for him.
She slips the pill in her pocket and walks away.
-
Rhys, about a day after the last one. AU.
"So, what're you doin' here?" says the man beside him on the bus, and he knows he can't tell him the truth. Can't say, I woke up this morning knowing I didn't drink last night and I still couldn't remember how I got home. Can't say, I know I shouldn't have a hangover but I do anyway, my head's all fuzzy and there's no reason for it at all. Especially can't say, but I've been fighting with my girl an' she's workin' for some top-secret government agency and when I woke up this morning the word "go" was written into my wrist so deeply I still can't get the ink out. I don't know why I did it but I'm one to take a hint, yeah?
So he says, "Girlfriend cheated on me."
"Oh, that's bad," says the man. "I know exactly how you feel."
-
Toshiko. Sometime post-Greeks Bearing Gifts.
If she looks on it objectively, she doesn't see why she ever liked him.
She's not especially attracted to him, though there could be any number of reasons for that; he's never been exceptionally nice to her; he's never shown the slightest hint that he thinks of her as anything but a coworker at all. She should never have been attracted to him-- she should at least have given it up a long time ago.
But there was more to him, she thought. Look under the surface and there was an intelligent, formidable, caring man, who just needed someone to-- oh, god, something ridiculous like "crack his tough shell" or "tame his wild ways" or "change him into an entirely different person", which is what those other phrases always boil down to, in the end.
You can't change anyone. You can only hope to get them to change themselves.
And Owen likes far too much of himself far too much for her, at least, to stand any chance at that.
The thoughts, god, the thoughts... one person in a thousand thinking anything worth remembering. No one's looking for her; no one's looking at her; no one cares.
And she's not sure anymore that there's ever anything "under the surface".
-
Honorh mentioned the question the series left of what the hell happened between Ianto wanting to beat the living crap out of Jack and seducing him. Poor boy-- gets character development out of acting like an idiot one episode, then the rest is all shunted offscreen. Raw deal. Anyway-- the very first step.
When he closes his eyes that night it's not her face he sees. Not her distorted, cyberized face; not her true one. He'd expected the nightmares would be of her, of her voice going mechanical, of her falling to the floor, pierced by god knew how many bullets from the people he'd called friends. What had been would meld into what was and he's not sure he could survive it.
But it's not her he sees. It's not her; it's not their past; it's not his "friends" when they were betraying him, or he betraying them, who can keep up.
What he sees is a dim-lit corridor, deep in the bowels of the Torchwood complex; twisty and dark with emergency lighting and the floor wet with groundwater and--
--with--
What he sees is himself dragging the heavy thing backward, muscles aching with the weight, because he's-- because it's so very heavy, heavier than you'd think, dead weight--
--dead--
--limp and heavy and he isn't doing this right, there's limbs flopping out and he can't get it to drag like it should and he keeps seeing his eyes.
He keeps seeing his eyes, the doctor he brought in to help her, the doctor she killed because he brought him there, the doctor who'd promised to keep his secret, and he was dragging his dead body through the corridor like any common murderer because he couldn't be found, he couldn't be found, they'd kill her and he'd do anything to keep that from happening.
Eyes.
She could've been saved if it hadn't been for--
--if it hadn't been--
There must have been a way it could've turned out differently; there's always a way. A trillion parallel universes and in one of them he must've got her back, he must have--
--and he can't see-- how.
He did everything he could and everything he shouldn't and hid her and guarded her and she'd turned-- but she remembered him-- she could've remembered--
Eyes. Eyes from a ruined head. Life gone and his only reaction was to hide the body.
When did he turn into... a person who was capable of that?
She could've been saved, he insists, blinking tears away as the sun-streaked ceiling blurs into view.
The way he'd sworn to laugh on his grave. Dead eyes accusing him.
Maybe he didn't think he had a choice.
There was always a choice, that arrogant son of a bitch just wouldn't see--
--dead eyes-- the shock of seeing him on the first time on the floor-- his first thought not what has she done, but what have I done?
Three people dead, and how much of that was Jack's fault? How much of it was hers, how much the Cybermen, how much the doctor-- how much of it was his?
He stares up into the light and finally lets himself think, Maybe it was a bit more complicated than that.
-
Even if Jack wouldn't have fallen for it, this should (must?) have happened. Last of the Time Lords, a talk with the Master.
"Aren't you getting just the teensiest bit tired of being betrayed?" says the Master.
Jack's got the feeling it's a ludicrous statement coming from him. He's also got the feeling that it's true.
"The Time Agency left you. My esteemed arch-nemesis left you. Didn't he leave last time you with you screaming at him to stay and clinging to the edge of his TARDIS like a child pulling at mummy's skirt for an ice-cream?"
Not a memory he wants to relive. Which guarantees the Master'll bring it up.
"You know, he could've skipped any one of half a dozen betrayals, and none of this could have happened," says the Master. "He could have picked you up, and you'd never have joined Torchwood. He could've refrained from behaving like a drug-addled simian around the Queen, and there wouldn't have been a Torchwood to join. If there hadn't been a Torchwood, Harriet Jones could never have shot down that ship-- and if she hadn't shot down that ship, the Doctor wouldn't have had any reason to betray her, and there wouldn't have been a vacancy open for me. And if he hadn't run away screaming rather than endure your presence for five minutes... well, you'd never have found me, and I'd have died a stupid, peaceful old man at the End of the World. All of this... he made it possible. Isn't it delicious?"
Jack has nothing to say. At this point, he has no idea what would come out if he were stupid enough to open his mouth.
"I should thank him. Even helped in my campaign-- I assure you, I never once looked tired." He grins maliciously. "Oh, that was a delicious bit of propaganda. It preyed so perfectly on all of your basest instincts. Your love for youth, the way you judge women on appearance, and worst yet, the importance of style over substance... Admirable! I'd never have thought he even knew your flaws so well, much less was willing or able to exploit them so... In fact, I would have thought he'd be sure such a campaign would never work. He'd have thought people were better than that. Ah... how people change in a mere few hundred years."
In a few months. In a few minutes.
"It's strange, isn't it?" he says. "I could've spent a century telling you about the Doctor... and never once would I have used the word 'betrayer'. He's changed. Not for the better, I'd say. And such a meddler as he is... Why, he could almost be as much of a threat to the fate of the universe as I am. Even more. At least I'm aware of what I'm doing..."
Lies, Jack knows. Lies piled on lies. And truth.
He's in pain and he's lost count of how many times he's died since he got here and he's exhausted and he's-- so very tired-- of being betrayed by him. 'You're such a disgusting freak of time and space that I couldn't stand to be in your presence for thirty seconds to explain why you've developed a mild inability to die.' Bullshit. He didn't care enough to explain. He didn't care about anyone and he was impulsive and reckless and...
"I think there's higher standards for people to whom the fate of the universe-- the fate of anything, for that matter-- is entrusted... wouldn't you agree?"
Screaming his name as the patch fo blue faded from reality for another few centuries. If he'd had his way.
"What is it you want me to do?" he asks.
This isn't a deal with the devil. He's not making a committment. He can go back on anything he says here in a heartbeat when the Doctor wins.
No matter how infernally the Master's eyes are gleaming.
-
AU. There's a fantastic Torchwood vid on YouTube to Fastball's "The Way"-- I'll never be able to unlink the two again. Hence:
A tap on her shoulder brings her out of it, abruptly; she draws in a quick, shuddering breath before she reminds herself where she is, what she's doing, who most likely the person is who was rude enough to bring her out this way. Well, not, maybe, rude, she thinks, somewhat absently, focusing on keeping her next breath calmer. Maybe just thoughtless.
Of course, she's not so sure anymore that thoughtlessness is any better. But: the screen, the white walls, the glazed psuedo-wood of her desk. Reality.
"Shit, I keep forgetting," says her boss. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she says, "yeah. But next time, could you maybe glance at my screen first, actually check what I'm working on? You can do that sort of thing if I'm working with a spreadsheet, but the Interface..."
"Yeah, I'll do that," he says. Maybe he'll remember, next time; he does sound truly sorry. "The Interface, again... How're they doing?"
She sighs, hearing the faint sound of the music she'd left on coming through the headphones on her desk. Anyone can see. "The same. They haven't noticed. It's... a hell of a thing to see. The signs are there, but they just-- don't notice... They're just-- this'll make them sound selfish, but they're wrapped up in themselves. They've made themselves a whole world, there. Their own little dramas. They only half make sense-- it could be the Interface, but I don't think so..."
"Like a dream," says her boss. "That's what Markham said, right?"
"Yes-- but they're all so dark... It's got to be the device doing it, I just wish I knew for sure why. In their world, they're the only branch left."
"Yeah? What happened to us?"
"Somehow we never bothered rebuilding after the... well, 'catastrophe' doesn't really cover it, but let's leave that for now. One branch mysteriously vanished, and the last is run by some crazy old man who apparently doesn't keep in touch."
"So it's just... them. Five people?"
"Whole of Torchwood."
"And that doesn't seem hopelessly inadequate to them."
"They don't think about it. Have I mentioned they've got the word 'Torchwood' on the side of their cars?"
"...Good lord."
"They're just wrapping themselves up in their own little stories, drifting further and further from reality, and-- I hope Lucy's right about that device running out of power, because I don't know..." If they can make it back on their own. What it'll do to them if they don't.
The song she'd put special on her player for wallowing after these sessions, still playing. They won't make it home, but they really don't care.
"Some of them are trained agents," her boss says, concerned. "Harkness, Sato-- you're really afraid we've lost all these people to that alien device forever?"
"Just-- take a look, sometime," she says, though she knows there's reasons he hasn't, because he might have prevented this and he's not good with the Interface. "Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold..."
He lets out a pained breath, and she can feel the sharp burst of unhappiness stab her throat like a dagger from inside.
-
Also, if I knew what sodding idiot decided many years ago that the counterclockwise bus routes at FSU just weren't as important as the clockwise ones, I would currently be threatening his life instead of posting fic. So: good luck all around, I hope. ^^
Jack and Owen, after-- what was it called? The Fight Club episode.
He can practically taste the words on his lips, feel his tongue shaping the sounds-- for a moment he even thinks he's actually saying them, but he's held it back. He's held it back, and he just looks at the man at the hospital bed, wondering if that was the right choice. These words could fix it, save it, end it all, and isn't that what they both want? For it to be over?
No. He doesn't want it to be over. Not really.
So he just watches, plays it out, leaves with the words that would've ended it still clear in his mind.
You should've let me die.
Yes. I should.
-
Gwen, reasoning. Or, something. I just wanted to know what line of even illogic would lead to that...
She reaches into the box, fingers brushing the little white pill.
This is all right because:
Because-- she has to tell him. She can't keep it a secret any longer. And telling him will hurt him. And she doesn't want to hurt him. So, if he doesn't remember her telling him, then she'll have told him and he won't hurt and everything will be fine, just like always, it can all be fine.
So this is all right. It's for him.
She slips the pill in her pocket and walks away.
-
Rhys, about a day after the last one. AU.
"So, what're you doin' here?" says the man beside him on the bus, and he knows he can't tell him the truth. Can't say, I woke up this morning knowing I didn't drink last night and I still couldn't remember how I got home. Can't say, I know I shouldn't have a hangover but I do anyway, my head's all fuzzy and there's no reason for it at all. Especially can't say, but I've been fighting with my girl an' she's workin' for some top-secret government agency and when I woke up this morning the word "go" was written into my wrist so deeply I still can't get the ink out. I don't know why I did it but I'm one to take a hint, yeah?
So he says, "Girlfriend cheated on me."
"Oh, that's bad," says the man. "I know exactly how you feel."
-
Toshiko. Sometime post-Greeks Bearing Gifts.
If she looks on it objectively, she doesn't see why she ever liked him.
She's not especially attracted to him, though there could be any number of reasons for that; he's never been exceptionally nice to her; he's never shown the slightest hint that he thinks of her as anything but a coworker at all. She should never have been attracted to him-- she should at least have given it up a long time ago.
But there was more to him, she thought. Look under the surface and there was an intelligent, formidable, caring man, who just needed someone to-- oh, god, something ridiculous like "crack his tough shell" or "tame his wild ways" or "change him into an entirely different person", which is what those other phrases always boil down to, in the end.
You can't change anyone. You can only hope to get them to change themselves.
And Owen likes far too much of himself far too much for her, at least, to stand any chance at that.
The thoughts, god, the thoughts... one person in a thousand thinking anything worth remembering. No one's looking for her; no one's looking at her; no one cares.
And she's not sure anymore that there's ever anything "under the surface".
-
Honorh mentioned the question the series left of what the hell happened between Ianto wanting to beat the living crap out of Jack and seducing him. Poor boy-- gets character development out of acting like an idiot one episode, then the rest is all shunted offscreen. Raw deal. Anyway-- the very first step.
When he closes his eyes that night it's not her face he sees. Not her distorted, cyberized face; not her true one. He'd expected the nightmares would be of her, of her voice going mechanical, of her falling to the floor, pierced by god knew how many bullets from the people he'd called friends. What had been would meld into what was and he's not sure he could survive it.
But it's not her he sees. It's not her; it's not their past; it's not his "friends" when they were betraying him, or he betraying them, who can keep up.
What he sees is a dim-lit corridor, deep in the bowels of the Torchwood complex; twisty and dark with emergency lighting and the floor wet with groundwater and--
--with--
What he sees is himself dragging the heavy thing backward, muscles aching with the weight, because he's-- because it's so very heavy, heavier than you'd think, dead weight--
--dead--
--limp and heavy and he isn't doing this right, there's limbs flopping out and he can't get it to drag like it should and he keeps seeing his eyes.
He keeps seeing his eyes, the doctor he brought in to help her, the doctor she killed because he brought him there, the doctor who'd promised to keep his secret, and he was dragging his dead body through the corridor like any common murderer because he couldn't be found, he couldn't be found, they'd kill her and he'd do anything to keep that from happening.
Eyes.
She could've been saved if it hadn't been for--
--if it hadn't been--
There must have been a way it could've turned out differently; there's always a way. A trillion parallel universes and in one of them he must've got her back, he must have--
--and he can't see-- how.
He did everything he could and everything he shouldn't and hid her and guarded her and she'd turned-- but she remembered him-- she could've remembered--
Eyes. Eyes from a ruined head. Life gone and his only reaction was to hide the body.
When did he turn into... a person who was capable of that?
She could've been saved, he insists, blinking tears away as the sun-streaked ceiling blurs into view.
The way he'd sworn to laugh on his grave. Dead eyes accusing him.
Maybe he didn't think he had a choice.
There was always a choice, that arrogant son of a bitch just wouldn't see--
--dead eyes-- the shock of seeing him on the first time on the floor-- his first thought not what has she done, but what have I done?
Three people dead, and how much of that was Jack's fault? How much of it was hers, how much the Cybermen, how much the doctor-- how much of it was his?
He stares up into the light and finally lets himself think, Maybe it was a bit more complicated than that.
-
Even if Jack wouldn't have fallen for it, this should (must?) have happened. Last of the Time Lords, a talk with the Master.
"Aren't you getting just the teensiest bit tired of being betrayed?" says the Master.
Jack's got the feeling it's a ludicrous statement coming from him. He's also got the feeling that it's true.
"The Time Agency left you. My esteemed arch-nemesis left you. Didn't he leave last time you with you screaming at him to stay and clinging to the edge of his TARDIS like a child pulling at mummy's skirt for an ice-cream?"
Not a memory he wants to relive. Which guarantees the Master'll bring it up.
"You know, he could've skipped any one of half a dozen betrayals, and none of this could have happened," says the Master. "He could have picked you up, and you'd never have joined Torchwood. He could've refrained from behaving like a drug-addled simian around the Queen, and there wouldn't have been a Torchwood to join. If there hadn't been a Torchwood, Harriet Jones could never have shot down that ship-- and if she hadn't shot down that ship, the Doctor wouldn't have had any reason to betray her, and there wouldn't have been a vacancy open for me. And if he hadn't run away screaming rather than endure your presence for five minutes... well, you'd never have found me, and I'd have died a stupid, peaceful old man at the End of the World. All of this... he made it possible. Isn't it delicious?"
Jack has nothing to say. At this point, he has no idea what would come out if he were stupid enough to open his mouth.
"I should thank him. Even helped in my campaign-- I assure you, I never once looked tired." He grins maliciously. "Oh, that was a delicious bit of propaganda. It preyed so perfectly on all of your basest instincts. Your love for youth, the way you judge women on appearance, and worst yet, the importance of style over substance... Admirable! I'd never have thought he even knew your flaws so well, much less was willing or able to exploit them so... In fact, I would have thought he'd be sure such a campaign would never work. He'd have thought people were better than that. Ah... how people change in a mere few hundred years."
In a few months. In a few minutes.
"It's strange, isn't it?" he says. "I could've spent a century telling you about the Doctor... and never once would I have used the word 'betrayer'. He's changed. Not for the better, I'd say. And such a meddler as he is... Why, he could almost be as much of a threat to the fate of the universe as I am. Even more. At least I'm aware of what I'm doing..."
Lies, Jack knows. Lies piled on lies. And truth.
He's in pain and he's lost count of how many times he's died since he got here and he's exhausted and he's-- so very tired-- of being betrayed by him. 'You're such a disgusting freak of time and space that I couldn't stand to be in your presence for thirty seconds to explain why you've developed a mild inability to die.' Bullshit. He didn't care enough to explain. He didn't care about anyone and he was impulsive and reckless and...
"I think there's higher standards for people to whom the fate of the universe-- the fate of anything, for that matter-- is entrusted... wouldn't you agree?"
Screaming his name as the patch fo blue faded from reality for another few centuries. If he'd had his way.
"What is it you want me to do?" he asks.
This isn't a deal with the devil. He's not making a committment. He can go back on anything he says here in a heartbeat when the Doctor wins.
No matter how infernally the Master's eyes are gleaming.
-
AU. There's a fantastic Torchwood vid on YouTube to Fastball's "The Way"-- I'll never be able to unlink the two again. Hence:
A tap on her shoulder brings her out of it, abruptly; she draws in a quick, shuddering breath before she reminds herself where she is, what she's doing, who most likely the person is who was rude enough to bring her out this way. Well, not, maybe, rude, she thinks, somewhat absently, focusing on keeping her next breath calmer. Maybe just thoughtless.
Of course, she's not so sure anymore that thoughtlessness is any better. But: the screen, the white walls, the glazed psuedo-wood of her desk. Reality.
"Shit, I keep forgetting," says her boss. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she says, "yeah. But next time, could you maybe glance at my screen first, actually check what I'm working on? You can do that sort of thing if I'm working with a spreadsheet, but the Interface..."
"Yeah, I'll do that," he says. Maybe he'll remember, next time; he does sound truly sorry. "The Interface, again... How're they doing?"
She sighs, hearing the faint sound of the music she'd left on coming through the headphones on her desk. Anyone can see. "The same. They haven't noticed. It's... a hell of a thing to see. The signs are there, but they just-- don't notice... They're just-- this'll make them sound selfish, but they're wrapped up in themselves. They've made themselves a whole world, there. Their own little dramas. They only half make sense-- it could be the Interface, but I don't think so..."
"Like a dream," says her boss. "That's what Markham said, right?"
"Yes-- but they're all so dark... It's got to be the device doing it, I just wish I knew for sure why. In their world, they're the only branch left."
"Yeah? What happened to us?"
"Somehow we never bothered rebuilding after the... well, 'catastrophe' doesn't really cover it, but let's leave that for now. One branch mysteriously vanished, and the last is run by some crazy old man who apparently doesn't keep in touch."
"So it's just... them. Five people?"
"Whole of Torchwood."
"And that doesn't seem hopelessly inadequate to them."
"They don't think about it. Have I mentioned they've got the word 'Torchwood' on the side of their cars?"
"...Good lord."
"They're just wrapping themselves up in their own little stories, drifting further and further from reality, and-- I hope Lucy's right about that device running out of power, because I don't know..." If they can make it back on their own. What it'll do to them if they don't.
The song she'd put special on her player for wallowing after these sessions, still playing. They won't make it home, but they really don't care.
"Some of them are trained agents," her boss says, concerned. "Harkness, Sato-- you're really afraid we've lost all these people to that alien device forever?"
"Just-- take a look, sometime," she says, though she knows there's reasons he hasn't, because he might have prevented this and he's not good with the Interface. "Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold..."
He lets out a pained breath, and she can feel the sharp burst of unhappiness stab her throat like a dagger from inside.
-
Also, if I knew what sodding idiot decided many years ago that the counterclockwise bus routes at FSU just weren't as important as the clockwise ones, I would currently be threatening his life instead of posting fic. So: good luck all around, I hope. ^^