This Darkness, Night

[decreeddarkness]

Who: The Lone Power/Adam, Dairine, and Toshiko.
What: Perhaps they'll regret living with Adam now. Perhaps they'll regret living with him later.
When: It's the middle of the night, for goodness' sake!
Where: Tosh's
Rating: S for why does everybody in this town have a sleep disturbance?
Status: Private and incomplete.

Comments

[geniustoshiko]

Toshiko, sadly, was no stranger to hearing people cry out in the middle of the night- the first time Owen had done it, it had scared her out of her wits, but she'd gradually come to not be quite as surprised.

Not that she really enjoyed being woken up in the middle of the night, but at least she could deal with it.

The cry woke Tosh with a start, her heart pounding for a moment. It certainly wasn't the sound of someone trying to get into the house, and it didn't sound like Dairine, which left only one possibility.

Getting out of bed, Tosh softly padded down the hall in her bare feet, tank top, and sleep pants.

"Adam?" Tosh called quietly, softly knocking on the door. "Everything alright?"

[decreeddarkness]

Shadows--no, darker things than shadows, things he couldn't name--skittered and slithered and slid away from Adam's mind, and were quickly forgotten. In their place, the memory of dreams he had had, dreams of memories.

Adam gathered himself, sitting up and swinging his legs over the bed. He swept his hands over his face for a moment.

Then he got up and went to the door. He looked at Tosh sheepishly. "Yeah, I--had some bad dreams. I'm sorry about waking you."

[geniustoshiko]

Tosh's eyes quickly glanced over Adam when he opened the door, blushing a tiny bit as she did so. She quickly met his eyes, though, shaking her head.

"Not at all," she murmured, her quiet voice full of understanding. "I'm no stranger to bad dreams- mine or someone else's," she explained, a touch of sadness in the words as she thought of Owen.

There were times when Tosh could take charge of a situation- many instances at Torchwood, of course, or when she was in her element, surrounded by computers. Other times, though, she reverted back to the shy, unsure girl she'd been for so many years. For some reason, she tended towards shyness around Adam- whether it was from not knowing him very well yet, or some other reason, she didn't know.

Still, even with that shyness, she wanted to help.

"Would you, ah-" she began, biting her lip. "I mean, if you want to talk about it, I'm a good listener," she said, the words sounding stupid in her head the moment they were out of her mouth.

[decreeddarkness]

"I'd like that, actually." Normally, Adam would have preferred to deal with his problems on his own, but somehow, these dreams had left him less than willing to be alone. He'd been relieved when Dairine had pressured Tosh into inviting him into her home, a perfect stranger without enough memory of his own past to know who he was, or what he might be capable of doing.

Having had his attention drawn to his state of undress, Adam retreated into his room for a moment to fetch a crumpled shirt, the one he'd been wearing that day. He put his arms into the sleeves and pulled it over his shoulders, and returned to the door feeling a bit less blatantly exposed.

[redfive_exe]

After her mother's death, the school assigned Dairine a counselor. She hated that woman. Dairine grieved poorly -- or, too well, in fact. Ever the studious one, she cut class, becoming a bitter and sullen version of herself

[decreeddarkness]

With a cry, Adam was out of his chair, toppling it over. Reflexively, he had reached into a jacket that wasn't there for a gun that wasn't there, and now he stood pointing nothing at the source of the percussive concussion.

But it was Dairine. It was only Dairine.

[geniustoshiko]

More comforting words were on the tip of her tongue, when all of a sudden there was a loud bang and Tosh found herself being thrown back by a rapidly-moving Adam.

Her heart pounding, Tosh also reached for a gun that wasn't there, but half a moment later processed what she was looking at.

Dairine

"What on earth are you doing!?!?" Tosh cried, the adrenaline still pumping through her system. She glanced over at Adam, who looked just as startled as she.

"You scared us half to death!" Tosh added, turning back to Dairine.

[redfive_exe]

"Uh." This was a rare and historic moment -- Dairine rendered speechless. Her mouth closed sharply and she attempted to regain herself, hand moving through her hair in a short, controlled stroke.

"Ew, would you guys like...keep that out of the living room please?" Vaguely, she waved a hand at whatever it was they'd been doing, which, while on the outside innocent -- Dairine didn't want to think too much of what it had really been. "I mean, if you wanna smooch or something, I'm going to bed. See ya!" She started for the stairs, hoping for an exit just as smooth as her entrance.