There's a new world shattering the silence. A new world I'm afraid to see.

[sendmyscourge]

One more midnight passes.

The firstborns are ripped out of their dreamworlds and dropped back into Chicago, disoriented and confused, but otherwise okay. With them, comes the return of all the tech and vehicles that were down while the plagues were going on.

As the sun rises, all that is left of the plagues are the corpses of monster and humanoid,

Comments

[sarkraticmethod]

It's an hour after midnight when Sark finds himself standing outside the Kashtta. The doors are unlocked and on closer examination of the lobby, it looks like something tore the floor a new one.

Dr. Burke is asleep at the front desk with her rifle in her lap, clearly having fallen asleep on watch of some sort. Sark quietly steps into the lobby, tsking to himself. Probably the need for security wasn't all that great with the thought that almost everyone was dead.

He should be dead. He walked around for an hour, repeating that thought to himself. Worst than that, he thought he had died and somehow gotten home, that this entire place was just a dream. It was a bittersweet thought. He had everything he's been craving, all the bad was just a bad memory, but Suzie and April had never existed.

Being back here was almost like a nightmare and all the memories of what happened before he vanished came rushing back, reminding him of what he couldn't escape with death. Clark nearly presented him with a fate worse than death and he'd love to go back to the flat and be angry and frustrated, but halfway there, his journal came back and he saw Suzie's frantic journal entry and he doesn't even know who is alive and who is dead anymore.

So he came here.

He's still conflicted, torn between wanting to go home again and wanting to be here to see what comes of it, with all the bad and the pain it entails. It's a stupid choice, especially when the answer should be obvious.

But Suzie needs him. And Clark deserves to not have to get away with what he did to him. So the stupid choice is the one he's stuck with, as if he has much of a choice at all. He can't go back to what he had for that one day.

The bandage around his neck has been torn away, revealing the horrible raw red mark around his neck that forms a perfect circle in the shape of a collar. He'd make a better effort at hiding it, but Suzie would find it somehow and he's too tired to bother.

He walks across the wet lobby floor and heads up the stairs. If anyone's still alive, someone should still be here. Somewhere.

[hey_capn_jack]

So far as J knows, everyone in Torchwood is comparing notes on what exactly happened to him. Which makes this a rare opportunity to move freely in the tower, surveying the damage.

He wasn't expecting the damage to come walking in the front door and up the main stairs.

He's just leaving the second-floor hallways and stepping onto the balcony when he sees Sark, looking like he was the other half of the split order of fifty different kinds of Hell this week has been. Or another third, or fourth, or fifth, or (number of people in Chicago)th. He pauses, then steps up to the balcony railing to rest his hands.

"She's probably debriefing," he says. Yeah, he can put things together. He always was good, when he paid attention.

[sarkraticmethod]

There are so many ways in which Sark DOES NOT WANT this. He stops as soon as his feet hit the landing, not quite looking at J, but there's no tension, no genuine fear response that one would expect from someone who, a month ago, considered one of J's identities to be his own personal Boogeyman.

So Suzie must have told him or he figured it out on his own, somehow. Far be it for Sark to suggest he understands what goes on in that head. He doesn't really care right now.

"I'll wait for her in the lounge," he says curtly. "I assume it hasn't been flooded."

He has nothing he particularly wants to say to the man right now... If ever.

[hey_capn_jack]

Surprisingly, J actually does possess the ability to put two and two together to get you and Suzie. You heard it here first, Sark.

"That'd be quite a feat," J says, tilting his head. In any case, the water would probably not stay in the lounge. It'd probably spill out into the hall and slowly make its way downward.

There's a lot that J could say. You look like seventeen kinds of hell, or You know, I could tell you your forture from the measure of your stride, or just Who was it? Who, not what, because Sark doesn't have the air of one roughed up by circumstance. Someone's gone and rewritten the way he interacts with the people he's already indicated both fear and submission to, and that doesn't tend to just happen.

What comes out is a surprisingly gentle "It's none of my business."

They've been through enough for the moment. There's no need to start this dance up again now.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark's halfway past J when he freezes.

Surprisingly gentle or not, not interested would be complete silence. None of my business means something entirely different and he considers how tired he is right now and how badly he wants to try to pick a fight and winds up biting his tongue on the worst of his retorts, and asking a question he already knows the answer to.

"What is none of your business?"

That, J, is not how one doesn't start up a dance. That is how one starts an emotional Paso Doble.

[hey_capn_jack]

...right. Some read nonagression, some read implication. Now, the question is, does J want to engage or disengage?

All his training says engage.

One! J's natural inclination to torture and violence!

Without turning his body away from Sark, J turns his cheek, focusing on nothing in particular. I'm not backing down, he's saying; I'm not signalling submission, but I'm removing myself from any challenge. Two dogs meet, and manage neutral territory. He shows both palms, fingers up. I mean nothing. I'll step away.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark turns to look over his shoulder, his eyes exhausted and heavy-lidded. Once upon a time, this would have sent him running- proximity and no bars. Now he knows the truth. Thane was only terrifying because he judged him worthless when they met and that was a scary concept for someone who had fought tooth and nail to be worth something.

And now that he actually is worth something to someone. The problem is, that someone wants to tear him apart. The subtle nuances between one and the other is that while one would have just killed him, the other means to destroy him.

It doesn't make J very scary in comparison. J has no actual interest in him. He all but said so, himself. And maybe if Sark were less exhausted, more willing to try to throw himself on the mercy of someone else to see where they take him and if it's any worse than where Clark takes him, and less anxious about coming near him after how close Clark got to destroying him without him trying that hard... He might actually take that neutral territory and see where he can go with it.

"You've never been that invested," he scoffs, in lieu of doing anything else. "There's no sense in starting now."

[hey_capn_jack]

For a moment, as he looks back, J's eyes narrow as if he's not sure whether or not that should sting. He's not sure. Investing himself in anything...

Two! The sustained distrust and judgement of the people he's already betrayed!

After a moment, he lets out a series of exhalations that sound almost nothing like a laugh. "' There are people here who love him. People who've been missing him. People who are going to go on like something's been ripped out of them because...'" He pulls the corners of his lips up. The expression - not a smile, just a shift - dissolves with the rest of his words. "The accusation's been levied. Few times, in fact. Different degrees. For all I'm trained in nuances, I do seem to operate in zeroes and ones. You want to see what happens when I am invested? Even I can't tell how that would end."

All of this said... not quietly, but softly, like all meaning's been swaddled in cotton and shoved on a shelf. Like they're examining the contents of that shelf, picking over what's useless and what's forgotten and what's archival, like this is the back room of some dusty museum and the two of them, the wreckage of Chicago, and all the honesty in the world are dry exhibit pieces ready to be unwrapped and evaluated. He can be honest, here. Honesty and dishonesty, action and inaction, Adrian already proved that one way might be no worse than the other.

All he can do is something.

[sarkraticmethod]

Someone already beat you to the punch.

Sark turns around and takes a few steps closer, more to prove a point than for any desire to get closer. Look. I'm not afraid. You hold no sway here. I'm not anymore interested in you, than you are I.

Except this conversation is still going on, so someone's lying to themself and Sark's too arrogant to think that it's him.

"I'm not asking you to become invested. Don't mistake me. A lot has changed since the trial." And now he's got a scar to prove it. "We're neither of us in any position to deal with the other."

So why are we still dancing like this?

Answer that. You'd be better off seeking the meaning of existence than trying.

[hey_capn_jack]

"' It'd be nice if we could manage it,'" he says, like he's going through his memories, looking for a key. No, they're not in any position to deal with each other. They're both trained to grab the upper hand. And yet the high ground is waiting while they're facing each other across the low, two pack dogs neither vying for alpha nor pushing for omega, at something that's not quite neutrality or stalemate or detente. It's an appraisal, readying itself for a cold war.

And neither one of those sets of memories and patterns is going to go away, is it? There's a quandary. He's spent so long with the cacophony of Jack Harkness and John Thane in his head, arguing on every point and protocol, and it's not as if the tumult of the last few days has quieted that. The cacopony is still going on in his head, where the urges and inclinations of John Thane say Step forward, take control of this and the iron-banded moral judgement of Jack Harkness says... Step forward. Take control of this.

What are you afraid of, Mr. Sark? And haven't you decided whether you're fighting or running?

J, the nonidentity, the interstitial state, has just been fighting to hold his own.

Three! An honest belief that it's the right thing to do!

"It kinda becomes my problem when you've chosen my people to bleed out on," he says.

[sarkraticmethod]

And, in that moment, Sark actually looks like he's been slapped.

Chosen. Like he asked for Suzie. Like he asked for April. Like he asked for any of them. He could have existed in some perfect state of oblivion, fallen off a grid, or gotten picked up by the next superpower and been made useful, but people happened to him and he made the mistake of letting him instead of kicking them to the curb where they belonged. Where everything in his training said they belonged.

He clenches his fists and tucks his chin against his chest, baring his teeth in an approximation of a snarl and looking up into J's eyes in a gesture of aggressive submission. How dare you...

"Of course not. I think we all know you've cornered the monopoly on that. You can tell Ms. Costello to contact me when she's through, and I'll be glad to meet with her."

It's said in a rush, like the last sentence will override the sharp bite of an insult and he can walk past and get down the stairs and out before J retaliates. Not likely, but he's tired of this and he wants out. Now.

Better I bleed out on them, then watch them bleed out.

[hey_capn_jack]

Not.

Quite.

Right.

J steps forward as soon as he catches the hint that Sark's going to disengage, one hand snapping out and catching the back of Sark's neck. It's not a hard grip, not yet, not if he's not struggling, and had they been two other people with another history and different expressions on each of their faces, it could almost be companionable.

It's really, really not.

"Because for some damn reason," he says, continuing on as though Sark hadn't spoken at all; It becomes my problem, because... " there seems to be some thought left that I'm one of them. There are people who still look for someone I stopped being a long time ago whenever I'm in the same room with them, and I'm not dense, Sark. You think I don't notice what it means to them? When the people who used to love me look over and see this broken thing that I've become?"

He's locked antlers, put them face-to-face, matched himself to Sark's every move and reaction - no, there's no disengaging this. Sark may not be afraid of him, but when all else fails there's crude brute strength ( The boot in the face, the brute, brute heart) and he's got the advantage there, too.

"So as long as I'm here, and you're here," he hisses, "so long as no one finds it convenient to just stop caring like we know they should, I suppose what's left is seeing to it that we don't fuck them up any more than we already have. And seeing as I can't find my way out of my own ass with both hands and Ariadne's thread, that leaves you, Julian. I took as many people as I could. How many are you planning on dragging down with you?"

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark jerks at the hand on the back of his neck, his heart speeding up, so he gives the impression of a scared, captured rabbit when J doesn't let him go. He grits his teeth and urges himself to calm down, because losing it right here, right now is not going to do much of anything.

Every now and then during J's speech, he'll give an unceremonious jerk, like maybe J will accidentally loosen his grip enough for him to run, but there's never any give and he's an idiot to think otherwise. He's always been better.

"I am damned no matter what I do," he hisses, his voice taking on a panicked, angry edge. "And my fight isn't theirs. I am not bowing down and letting other people fight my battles just for the sake of their comfort and if that offends you, then I'm sure you'll have no problem putting an end to this before I destroy anything else." He laughs in a way that isn't quite a laugh, more like a half-strangled cry. "And you know better than anyone that I'm more than willing to sacrifice a few pawns in any pathetic attempt at a chess game I try to play. The fewer I have, the fewer I'll destroy with inevitability."

He struggles again, more violently this time, like he'd do anything to get away, even if it took every last ounce of strength he had.

[hey_capn_jack]

"Their comfort. Your pride. You're projecting, and we're both fucking damned. We've done this dance already. So what'll we do, Sark? Resign ourselves to inevitability? You walked in. You always walk in."

There are so many ways he could press this advantage. His hindbrain is already numbering them off. He could, here on the balcony, in full view of anyone who came by, absolutely shatter this man if he put his mind to it. He's sure of it. It's not elegant, trampling all over someone else's work, but it is on occasion surprisingly easy.

"...and I always walk away," he says.

He closes his eyes.

After a moment, he lets his hand slip down to Sark's shoulder. He's still not letting him go, but he's not got his hands all over the trigger any more.

"Fucking... idiot," he says, and it's not entirely clear which one of them he's talking to.

[sarkraticmethod]

You walked in.

Calisto. Thane. J. Clark. Every one of them, he ran to for one reason or another. Calisto, because he needed a surrogate to keep from falling apart in a bad situation. Thane, because he thought he was better than he was. J, because he thought he owed him something. Clark, because he thought he had nothing to lose and everything to win back.

It's hard to be a come-home dog when you've got nothing to come home to, so you stand at every door that looks promising and whine for scraps and then bay in agony when they tighten the chain with the intent to break your neck at the most convenient opportunity.

Sark makes a noise in the back of his throat and still wriggles in J's grasp, even as his hand is off the trigger. It's the touch that's bothering him. It's the feeling like he can't get away.

"I'm tired," he finally says quietly, giving up on the struggle and allowing himself to go limp on his feet. Maybe he is an idiot. Maybe he's just getting himself in over his head, because the sensation of drowning is too good to pass up.

Maybe he's still avoiding hitting the ground.

"I'm so tired. I just want it to stop."

But, most importantly, he wants to stop it. One way or another. Either Clark wins or he does, but no one else gets in the middle of that war. Maybe it is his bloody pride screwing with him, but if he doesn't do this much, then he's worthless and he'd rather be dead.

Honestly, in his mind, there's not much difference between the two.

"Let me go," he adds in the same weak, quiet voice.

[hey_capn_jack]

"I know," J says. I'm- "...I'm tired too."

He doesn't let Sark go. Not yet.

"Call it strategy, Sark. Strength in numbers. Call it outflanking. Call it tactical support. No one sends agents out to fight wars; that's a job for armies. And no one sends a one-man team on a three-man job. If you're going to fight, fight smart. And if not..." He shrugs. "A bullet's a lot quicker."

He lets go. Takes a step back. This... he's not entirely sure what just happened here.

"There is a way out," he says, eyes locked on Sark's as he retreats a step at a time. "I've known people who've made it. Just... keep it in mind."

As he turns and walks back into the hall that he came from, he lets the mask drop. It worked, he thinks - he hopes. Just for that parting line. Maybe he was able to hide the fact that he didn't know if it was a lie.