Torchwood fic for counterfeitcoin: "Fairy-Tale Ending"
Well, apathocles said we could post 'em if we got 'em, so here's mine. (Also crossposted to my LJ.)
Title: Fairy-Tale Ending
Author: astrogirl2
Fandom: Torchwood.
Word Count: About 775.
Rating/Warning: Rated R-ish for generally disturbing and icky content. Unlike my previous zombie stories, this really ain't a comedy. Also, this is an AU story, but it contains spoilers for Torchwood's "End of Days."
Author's notes: This was written for counterfeitcoin, who said, "Zombie porn is totally a plus but not a requirement." It isn't quite zombie porn, but it's probably as close as you're ever going to get from me. I apologize in advance for, um, everything.
Fairy-Tale Ending
by AstroGirl
Jack lies on the slab, cold and gray. Dead. No rational person would have any doubt of it, but Gwen's left rationality far behind, somewhere in her old life. She's seen too many impossible things, and all of them have taught her the importance of clinging to hope. Of trying, of caring, of not giving in to numbness even when the entire world seems lifeless and cold. Isn't that what Jack wanted her here for? She isn't going to let him down now.
But as time passes and every flickering eyelid, every whisper of breath turns out to be a figment of her imagination, she can't help but feel despair creeping up on her, and somewhere, lurking behind it, the wrenching possibility of acceptance. Everyone else seems to have reached that point already; sooner or later, she may have to admit that they're right.
It's not bloody fair. In a world where fairies -- even evil fairies -- exist, things ought to work differently. Faith and devotion ought to be enough. Of course, in fairy tales, there's usually something else...
Whatever rational part of her still exists tells itself that it's a goodbye kiss. That acts of closure are healthy, that a man who was a friend to her, whatever else he was, deserves a gesture of farewell. But the rest of her thinks of miracles, of Snow White, of all the things she was told as a child about the power of human love, and believes, as a child believes, that she can breathe her warmth, her life into him, if only her heart is good enough.
His lips are cold beneath hers. Even when they begin to move, they are cold.
She cries startled joy into his mouth, her heart leaping as if it's trying to beat for both of them. She begins to pull away, wanting to look into his eyes and see them twinkling again with life, but his arm shoots up, clamping her head in place, her lips against his. His hand is cold on the back of her head.
She kisses harder, offering him the warm, moist life of her lips to absorb by whatever magic he possesses, and her hand caresses his cold, bare body as if rubbing circulation back to the limbs of a frostbite victim.
He groans a little -- air in his lungs!, she thinks triumphantly -- and his body shifts beneath her. His tongue slips between her lips and explores her for a moment, as if trying to remember what tasting and touching are like. It's disconcertingly like having cold, raw meat pushed around her mouth, but surely it's already growing warmer. And surely what she can see of his face from the position in which she's held is shading slowly from gray to pink. Surely. It must simply be too slow to notice.
She tries to pull away again, to say something -- she isn't sure what -- but his grip on her skull is astonishingly strong. His tongue slides across hers, sucking it hard into his mouth, and despite the disturbing coldness that surrounds her now and the faint, strange taste of decay, she feels a surge of rightness, of pleasure. What could be more life-affirming, on returning from death, than a kiss? What could be more symbolic?
She thrusts her tongue deeper, caught up in the ecstasy of the miracle she's working, urging him silently to take from her what he needs: warmth, breath, humanity, hope. To draw on her life to rekindle his.
Given these thoughts, these musings on flesh and life, perhaps she should expect the sudden taste of blood, the pain of teeth clamping down upon her tongue. But when it happens, the shock of it freezes her. It takes a full second for her brain to accept reality, and another before she begins to struggle.
Too late. Pain bursts outward into tearing, searing agony, blood fills her mouth and trickles down her throat. The hand on her skull releases her at last, and she reels backward, screaming Jack's name. It comes out as a gurgle, and she realizes that her tongue has been replaced by a spurting fountain of blood.
Jack swallows.
Gwen claps a hand across her mouth, holding in blood and screams, and looks, at last, into his eyes. They are not twinkling. They do not recognize her. They are cold, and gray, and dead. Long and horrible moments later, so is she.
Covered in gore, the thing that once was Jack shambles down the corridor in search of more food. It is very hungry, but it will never, ever be warm.
Title: Fairy-Tale Ending
Author: astrogirl2
Fandom: Torchwood.
Word Count: About 775.
Rating/Warning: Rated R-ish for generally disturbing and icky content. Unlike my previous zombie stories, this really ain't a comedy. Also, this is an AU story, but it contains spoilers for Torchwood's "End of Days."
Author's notes: This was written for counterfeitcoin, who said, "Zombie porn is totally a plus but not a requirement." It isn't quite zombie porn, but it's probably as close as you're ever going to get from me. I apologize in advance for, um, everything.
Fairy-Tale Ending
by AstroGirl
Jack lies on the slab, cold and gray. Dead. No rational person would have any doubt of it, but Gwen's left rationality far behind, somewhere in her old life. She's seen too many impossible things, and all of them have taught her the importance of clinging to hope. Of trying, of caring, of not giving in to numbness even when the entire world seems lifeless and cold. Isn't that what Jack wanted her here for? She isn't going to let him down now.
But as time passes and every flickering eyelid, every whisper of breath turns out to be a figment of her imagination, she can't help but feel despair creeping up on her, and somewhere, lurking behind it, the wrenching possibility of acceptance. Everyone else seems to have reached that point already; sooner or later, she may have to admit that they're right.
It's not bloody fair. In a world where fairies -- even evil fairies -- exist, things ought to work differently. Faith and devotion ought to be enough. Of course, in fairy tales, there's usually something else...
Whatever rational part of her still exists tells itself that it's a goodbye kiss. That acts of closure are healthy, that a man who was a friend to her, whatever else he was, deserves a gesture of farewell. But the rest of her thinks of miracles, of Snow White, of all the things she was told as a child about the power of human love, and believes, as a child believes, that she can breathe her warmth, her life into him, if only her heart is good enough.
His lips are cold beneath hers. Even when they begin to move, they are cold.
She cries startled joy into his mouth, her heart leaping as if it's trying to beat for both of them. She begins to pull away, wanting to look into his eyes and see them twinkling again with life, but his arm shoots up, clamping her head in place, her lips against his. His hand is cold on the back of her head.
She kisses harder, offering him the warm, moist life of her lips to absorb by whatever magic he possesses, and her hand caresses his cold, bare body as if rubbing circulation back to the limbs of a frostbite victim.
He groans a little -- air in his lungs!, she thinks triumphantly -- and his body shifts beneath her. His tongue slips between her lips and explores her for a moment, as if trying to remember what tasting and touching are like. It's disconcertingly like having cold, raw meat pushed around her mouth, but surely it's already growing warmer. And surely what she can see of his face from the position in which she's held is shading slowly from gray to pink. Surely. It must simply be too slow to notice.
She tries to pull away again, to say something -- she isn't sure what -- but his grip on her skull is astonishingly strong. His tongue slides across hers, sucking it hard into his mouth, and despite the disturbing coldness that surrounds her now and the faint, strange taste of decay, she feels a surge of rightness, of pleasure. What could be more life-affirming, on returning from death, than a kiss? What could be more symbolic?
She thrusts her tongue deeper, caught up in the ecstasy of the miracle she's working, urging him silently to take from her what he needs: warmth, breath, humanity, hope. To draw on her life to rekindle his.
Given these thoughts, these musings on flesh and life, perhaps she should expect the sudden taste of blood, the pain of teeth clamping down upon her tongue. But when it happens, the shock of it freezes her. It takes a full second for her brain to accept reality, and another before she begins to struggle.
Too late. Pain bursts outward into tearing, searing agony, blood fills her mouth and trickles down her throat. The hand on her skull releases her at last, and she reels backward, screaming Jack's name. It comes out as a gurgle, and she realizes that her tongue has been replaced by a spurting fountain of blood.
Jack swallows.
Gwen claps a hand across her mouth, holding in blood and screams, and looks, at last, into his eyes. They are not twinkling. They do not recognize her. They are cold, and gray, and dead. Long and horrible moments later, so is she.
Covered in gore, the thing that once was Jack shambles down the corridor in search of more food. It is very hungry, but it will never, ever be warm.