He went consenting, or else he was no king. (Locked)
Being a hotel, the Conrad's doors are never closed. But being a business, one with administrative needs and peak hours, there are certain times of day where the front desk will be more staffed than it would at others.
Jason - and how quickly did that name turn from a convenient camouflage into a baggage tag like all the rest? - is walking in the door at 8:30 AM, pausing as he enters to hold the door open for a woman who's just leaving. He's dressed uncharacteristically for this persona - a button-up shirt in a restrained shade of gunmetal grey, a pair of black slacks.
He might as well look his best.
He went out, Friday night, after the inn's bar closed, with the intention of sitting down with his unfinished transmitter and seeing what he could do to make it functional without advanced technology. Torchwood knew he was here, after all; he didn't need to worry so much about stealth. If they wanted to eavesdrop on his running away from the world, let them.
Then he'd snuck into the abandoned house he'd stashed the machine and found it missing.
And after two minutes and a mostly-abortive stab of anger, he found himself not so angry as he should have been.
Earlier that day, thunderstorms had swept across the Chicagoland area, clearing out by the time the sun set and the city didn't quite go to sleep. The weather here isn't quite like weather by the Cardiff bay - its capriciousness is sharpened by the extremes of summer and winter, Lake Michigan barely belying the landlocked state of Illinois. The entire place, threaded through with L-trains and the leftovers of American industry, feels alien - foreign, not nonhuman, and he hasn't belonged here since the beginning.
This is a new sort of displacement, as though he doesn't belong in his own name or skin. An entire history is still looking to own him, independent of any of the people in it who refrain from tracking him down. Running to Indiana hadn't changed that, just as running into Suzie hadn't caused it; running into the broader universe might change nothing, as well.
He didn't belong in the Agency after Boe-Shayne was erased. He didn't belong on the Game Station when the Doctor disappeared, or in London, New York, Cardiff when he made his way back to Earth...
He'd never had a choice, then or now. He'd made the best of it.
You try harder the next time.
A young man with a nervous disposition is checking out with the second receptionist when Jason gets to the counter, and it's easy to read all the cues of unease Jason's become so good at hiding. Jason doesn't watch him long; the woman behind the desk calls his attention with a "How can I help you, sir?" and he takes a moment to clear his throat.
No trace of a false accent, this time. No pretense. It'd do no good, anyway.
"I need to speak with Vincent Sterling," he says.
Jason - and how quickly did that name turn from a convenient camouflage into a baggage tag like all the rest? - is walking in the door at 8:30 AM, pausing as he enters to hold the door open for a woman who's just leaving. He's dressed uncharacteristically for this persona - a button-up shirt in a restrained shade of gunmetal grey, a pair of black slacks.
He might as well look his best.
He went out, Friday night, after the inn's bar closed, with the intention of sitting down with his unfinished transmitter and seeing what he could do to make it functional without advanced technology. Torchwood knew he was here, after all; he didn't need to worry so much about stealth. If they wanted to eavesdrop on his running away from the world, let them.
Then he'd snuck into the abandoned house he'd stashed the machine and found it missing.
And after two minutes and a mostly-abortive stab of anger, he found himself not so angry as he should have been.
Earlier that day, thunderstorms had swept across the Chicagoland area, clearing out by the time the sun set and the city didn't quite go to sleep. The weather here isn't quite like weather by the Cardiff bay - its capriciousness is sharpened by the extremes of summer and winter, Lake Michigan barely belying the landlocked state of Illinois. The entire place, threaded through with L-trains and the leftovers of American industry, feels alien - foreign, not nonhuman, and he hasn't belonged here since the beginning.
This is a new sort of displacement, as though he doesn't belong in his own name or skin. An entire history is still looking to own him, independent of any of the people in it who refrain from tracking him down. Running to Indiana hadn't changed that, just as running into Suzie hadn't caused it; running into the broader universe might change nothing, as well.
He didn't belong in the Agency after Boe-Shayne was erased. He didn't belong on the Game Station when the Doctor disappeared, or in London, New York, Cardiff when he made his way back to Earth...
He'd never had a choice, then or now. He'd made the best of it.
You try harder the next time.
A young man with a nervous disposition is checking out with the second receptionist when Jason gets to the counter, and it's easy to read all the cues of unease Jason's become so good at hiding. Jason doesn't watch him long; the woman behind the desk calls his attention with a "How can I help you, sir?" and he takes a moment to clear his throat.
No trace of a false accent, this time. No pretense. It'd do no good, anyway.
"I need to speak with Vincent Sterling," he says.