Fragments of a Shattered Mind - Torchwood - Rhys/Owen
Title: Fragments of a Shattered Mind
Pairing: Rhys/Gwen, Rhys/Owen
Word Count: 2204
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
A/N: Written with the varietypack100 'Insides' prompt.
Summary: He'd known the whole time how dangerous her job was - but he'd never truly understood until he received that life-stopping phone call.
It's driving him mad, one day at a time - one night at a time. The apartment is empty, hollow and echoing around him. Sometimes Rhys thinks he hears her coming in, late at night. He can hear the rattle of her keys in the door and can hear her as she shuffles through the rest of the flat in the darkness, stubbing her toe against the edge of the coffee table. At times like that he can close his eyes and almost feel her getting into bed beside him. The mattress seems to dip with her weight and he knows that any second he'll feel her curling beside him.
It's all a lie, a helpless fantasy. Gwen hasn't been home for nearly eight months now. There was an accident at work, they'd said. A casualty. A tragedy. And all of them had turned up at the funeral, sad-faced and grieving as bluntly as Rhys himself. After a couple of drinks he'd wanted to punch the lot of them. It was their fault, wasn't it? All them.
Now that's in the past. They faded away after the funeral and he hasn't seen them since. They've moved on and closed their little organisation off again. No doubt they've forgotten all about his Gwen already. Maybe they've replaced her completely.
And he hates that, because Gwen- Gwen's not someone who can or should just be replaced. She's different. She's special. She was - she is. She…
God, this is confusing. Rhys closes his eyes and leans back against the couch in his empty apartment. The television rumbles with late-night talk shows in front of him, but he can't even force himself to pretend to pay attention. Teen pregnancies and paternity tests. It's ridiculous.
He wants to sleep, he wants to rest, but most of all-
Most of all, he simply wants to forget.
*
Drowning his sorrows had always seemed like an excellent course of action before, but now the beer tastes bitter. The pub - his regular, once upon a time - doesn't feel as welcoming as it used to. The seats are uncomfortable and the music from the jukebox is too loud and Rhys finds it hard to keep up with the conversation of his friends.
It's hard to pay attention to football scores and work troubles when all he can think about is how Gwen should be here with him. Not that she would be. Even without that accident at work, she wouldn't have been here - she would have been there.
He hates knowing that despite how much he loved her, heart and soul and mind, he was only ever second best. Once Torchwood came along, he'd been shuffled to the bottom of her pile of priorities. It's not fair. He wonders if she'd have changed that if she'd known that within a year this would have happened. Would she have spent more time with him, knowing these months were her last, or would she have still clung to the exoticness of her new job.
Rhys tries not to think about it. He drinks his pint, fast as he can, because if he's drunk he won't have to remember and if he doesn't remember then-
*
He wakes up on his front on the couch in his apartment, not entirely sure how he got there. His head doesn't ache with the stirrings of a hangover and he supposes that he, perhaps, has that to be thankful for. It's been a while since he's got so drunk that he can't remember the night before. A long while.
He feels cold; there's no one there to pull a blanket over his shoulders as he sleeps. No one there to brush her fingers through his hair as he sleeps and roll her eyes at him. No one there to make fun of his pounding headache in the morning and to remind him that he brought it all on his head.
He groans and rolls over so that his back faces the living room and he stares at the faded colour of the couch instead, remembering movie nights and the night he'd proposed here. A long time ago, now - he reckons the memories are fuzzy around the edges already. Gwen almost seems fictional, as if he made her up entirely. She's too perfect, after all: what would a beautiful girl like her do with a bland guy like him, Rhys wonders.
He doesn't want to think about it at all. He closes his eyes tries hard to ignore that cruel, pounding headache. Sleep, he thinks. Sleep will be his salvation.
*
He's got a basket full of groceries and is winding his way through the aisles of supermarket shelves before he realises that someone's following him. They clearly think they're being subtle about it, lingering at the other side of the aisle from him and pretending to study bags of frozen peas. Worn black jacket, white t-shirt underneath, short dark hair… Rhys is sure he knows this guy. He's sure of it - and the recognition toys at the back of his mind as he tries to place it.
Maybe he's being paranoid, but he keeps his head down all the same and pretends as if he hasn't noticed. In the queue at the cashiers, the black-jacketed man waits behind him with a basket containing a single loaf of bread and nothing else. Rhys's heart thuds like he's going mad and he can hardly pay attention to a single thing when he pays. The plastic handles of his bags cut into his fingers as he steps out of the shop: only moment later he can sense that bloke following after him, having left behind his fake purchases.
He keeps his head down as he walks and wonders what the hell he's supposed to do: someone is following him - someone from Torchwood is following him - and he can confidently say that that won't lead to anything good. Everyone's heard the rumours around town about what it is that Torchwood gets up to. He doesn't want any of their attention directed at him.
Yet the footsteps behind him show no sign of disappearing and he doesn't think that his silent wishes to be left alone will be adhered to: if he wants to be left alone, he has to do something about it.
And he doesn't want to, god he doesn't want to get involved, but there's not choice any more. He turns the corner and stops out of sight, waiting for the man behind him to approach as well. His pursuer is only a few steps behind him and is there in seconds: Rhys grabs the front of his coat and yanks him roughly until he can-
*
He opens his eyes in his bedroom and isn't quite sure how he got there. It's dusky and the curtains are closed. The glow of the streetlights is almost visible, but other than that it's pitch black: his memories of the afternoon are distant and fuzzy. He can remember the supermarket - but not a lot else. There are flashes and half-seconds and scattered moments in his mind. Cups of teas and sympathetic frowns and the horror that had clawed in his stomach when he'd realised… When he'd…
He can't remember. His breath catches in his chest because- because he can't-
God, what's wrong with him?
*
Nothing at all, if the doctors are to be believed. He gets an appointment with his GP and tells him of the blots of time that keep disappearing from his mind - and though the young man tuts and frowns and investigates, he has to give up after the appointment is over. He's referred to the local hospital instead, and spends what seems like an eternity on a waiting list until they're able to make an appointment for him.
And still- Nothing. They prod him and prick him and scan his brain and do who knows what else to him, but there's nothing wrong. He's got a clean bill of health, but there's a hole in his mind that he can't work out. He feels numb and empty as he walks from the hospital, his stunned shoulders slumped and his head down.
Out of the corner of his eye, though, he can see that man: the man with the leather jacket who stirs the faint whispers of memory. He'd been at the supermarket, hadn't he? He'd been so many other places too, following him everywhere, and now he's just leaning against the white hospital wall and pretending to read a paper.
"Oi!" Rhys yells, speeding up to walk towards him. "You!"
"Aw, fuck," the man mutters, folding his paper in half. "Not again."
Again? Rhys thinks, his eyes wide, and-
*
It comes to him when he sleeps, a tickling remembrance at the back of his mind.
"She asked me to," Owen whispers, clutching his pint glass and staring at the sticky-topped bar. "Before she died- She asked me to look out for you. So I am."
- and -
"Wasn't supposed to work out like this," Owen gasps as Rhys holds him tightly against the wall, fury radiating from him. "You weren't supposed to know."
- and -
Owen's mouth tastes like coffee and alcohol, like misery and sin. When they kiss, confused and hurried, he moans like Rhys has punched him as hard as he can in the gut.
At night, the lost shadows of his mind start to creep forward and take their place: he remembers the water that had glistened in Owen's eyes the first time they touched and he remembers stumbling through this apartment to reach the bed and he remembers how Owen had stopped to stare blindly at the photos of Gwen and Rhys still up on the walls. He remembers the burn as Owen thrust blindly forward inside him and that gasping, painful stretch.
He remembers Owen softly kissing him goodbye - so many times now - as the drug started to strip the memories from him.
Distant, fuzzy and dark, he remembers; the fear builds in the pit of his stomach, and he knows he needs help.
*
"Guess you're building up a resistance to retcon," Owen says, frowning as he shines a pen-torch in Rhys's eyes. His hands linger too long by Rhys's jaw; Rhys can only swallow uncomfortably as those buried memories shift in his mind again, begging for attention. "Doesn't seem to be having as strong an effect as it used to."
"Good," Rhys says, as he looks around the building he's found himself in. This is where Gwen worked, he thinks, but the rooms are soulless, This is where Gwen died.
"Good?" Owen mutters. "Not quite. Jack'll kill me."
"Oh." Jack. Mysterious, interfering, cold-hearted Jack. Rhys hasn't met him too often. He finds that he's glad about that. "I just thought that maybe you didn't have to keep doing it any more. That maybe I could… Y'know. Maybe you could let me remember."
Owen pauses and lets the moment of silence between them stretch and twist uncomfortably. Rhys looks down at his hands and mutters under his breath - just a suggestion - and he knows it won't work. Torchwood wouldn't allow it. They're not a huge fan of happy endings in this place, are they? Crime and death and murder, that's all they know.
"I'm sorry," Owen says, as he hands Rhys a glass of water. He can see the faint discolouration of the drug that Owen poured in: more than normal, so much more. "You're gonna have to drink that."
"'course I am," Rhys agrees wearily. "'least you're not tricking me into it this time." No slipping it into his drink when he's not expecting it; this is upfront. This is new.
"Yeah," Owen says with a half-hearted flash of a grin. "That's one improvement."
Rhys raises the glass to his lips and drinks- drinks- drinks-. It's cold, straight from the fridge, and the drug tastes strange now that it's not masked by coffee or beer. It starts to go to his head almost immediately, the room spinning around him; Owen reaches out to steady him, shushing him under his breath. "I'm gonna miss you, Rhys," he whispers as he lets Rhys lie down on the medical centre's bed.
*
He wakes up on the sofa in his flat, with his mouth feeling dry and with a painful crick in his neck. His head feels full of cotton and he honestly couldn't say what he was up to last night: what's the date, anyway? He's lost track.
He props himself upright and groans as the world spins around him unpleasantly: Gwen's not home, he guesses, otherwise she'd be there to explain what the hell he got up to last night to make him feel quite this awful. Must still be at work, he reckons. That new job's keeping her out 'til all hours, isn't it?
He shakes his head and yawns, telling himself that he'll give it another hour or so before he tries to give her a call. In the meantime, his stomach rumbles as if he hasn't eaten in hours: time to go and raid the fridge, then. Time to get on with his life. Time to forget.
Pairing: Rhys/Gwen, Rhys/Owen
Word Count: 2204
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
A/N: Written with the varietypack100 'Insides' prompt.
Summary: He'd known the whole time how dangerous her job was - but he'd never truly understood until he received that life-stopping phone call.
It's driving him mad, one day at a time - one night at a time. The apartment is empty, hollow and echoing around him. Sometimes Rhys thinks he hears her coming in, late at night. He can hear the rattle of her keys in the door and can hear her as she shuffles through the rest of the flat in the darkness, stubbing her toe against the edge of the coffee table. At times like that he can close his eyes and almost feel her getting into bed beside him. The mattress seems to dip with her weight and he knows that any second he'll feel her curling beside him.
It's all a lie, a helpless fantasy. Gwen hasn't been home for nearly eight months now. There was an accident at work, they'd said. A casualty. A tragedy. And all of them had turned up at the funeral, sad-faced and grieving as bluntly as Rhys himself. After a couple of drinks he'd wanted to punch the lot of them. It was their fault, wasn't it? All them.
Now that's in the past. They faded away after the funeral and he hasn't seen them since. They've moved on and closed their little organisation off again. No doubt they've forgotten all about his Gwen already. Maybe they've replaced her completely.
And he hates that, because Gwen- Gwen's not someone who can or should just be replaced. She's different. She's special. She was - she is. She…
God, this is confusing. Rhys closes his eyes and leans back against the couch in his empty apartment. The television rumbles with late-night talk shows in front of him, but he can't even force himself to pretend to pay attention. Teen pregnancies and paternity tests. It's ridiculous.
He wants to sleep, he wants to rest, but most of all-
Most of all, he simply wants to forget.
*
Drowning his sorrows had always seemed like an excellent course of action before, but now the beer tastes bitter. The pub - his regular, once upon a time - doesn't feel as welcoming as it used to. The seats are uncomfortable and the music from the jukebox is too loud and Rhys finds it hard to keep up with the conversation of his friends.
It's hard to pay attention to football scores and work troubles when all he can think about is how Gwen should be here with him. Not that she would be. Even without that accident at work, she wouldn't have been here - she would have been there.
He hates knowing that despite how much he loved her, heart and soul and mind, he was only ever second best. Once Torchwood came along, he'd been shuffled to the bottom of her pile of priorities. It's not fair. He wonders if she'd have changed that if she'd known that within a year this would have happened. Would she have spent more time with him, knowing these months were her last, or would she have still clung to the exoticness of her new job.
Rhys tries not to think about it. He drinks his pint, fast as he can, because if he's drunk he won't have to remember and if he doesn't remember then-
*
He wakes up on his front on the couch in his apartment, not entirely sure how he got there. His head doesn't ache with the stirrings of a hangover and he supposes that he, perhaps, has that to be thankful for. It's been a while since he's got so drunk that he can't remember the night before. A long while.
He feels cold; there's no one there to pull a blanket over his shoulders as he sleeps. No one there to brush her fingers through his hair as he sleeps and roll her eyes at him. No one there to make fun of his pounding headache in the morning and to remind him that he brought it all on his head.
He groans and rolls over so that his back faces the living room and he stares at the faded colour of the couch instead, remembering movie nights and the night he'd proposed here. A long time ago, now - he reckons the memories are fuzzy around the edges already. Gwen almost seems fictional, as if he made her up entirely. She's too perfect, after all: what would a beautiful girl like her do with a bland guy like him, Rhys wonders.
He doesn't want to think about it at all. He closes his eyes tries hard to ignore that cruel, pounding headache. Sleep, he thinks. Sleep will be his salvation.
*
He's got a basket full of groceries and is winding his way through the aisles of supermarket shelves before he realises that someone's following him. They clearly think they're being subtle about it, lingering at the other side of the aisle from him and pretending to study bags of frozen peas. Worn black jacket, white t-shirt underneath, short dark hair… Rhys is sure he knows this guy. He's sure of it - and the recognition toys at the back of his mind as he tries to place it.
Maybe he's being paranoid, but he keeps his head down all the same and pretends as if he hasn't noticed. In the queue at the cashiers, the black-jacketed man waits behind him with a basket containing a single loaf of bread and nothing else. Rhys's heart thuds like he's going mad and he can hardly pay attention to a single thing when he pays. The plastic handles of his bags cut into his fingers as he steps out of the shop: only moment later he can sense that bloke following after him, having left behind his fake purchases.
He keeps his head down as he walks and wonders what the hell he's supposed to do: someone is following him - someone from Torchwood is following him - and he can confidently say that that won't lead to anything good. Everyone's heard the rumours around town about what it is that Torchwood gets up to. He doesn't want any of their attention directed at him.
Yet the footsteps behind him show no sign of disappearing and he doesn't think that his silent wishes to be left alone will be adhered to: if he wants to be left alone, he has to do something about it.
And he doesn't want to, god he doesn't want to get involved, but there's not choice any more. He turns the corner and stops out of sight, waiting for the man behind him to approach as well. His pursuer is only a few steps behind him and is there in seconds: Rhys grabs the front of his coat and yanks him roughly until he can-
*
He opens his eyes in his bedroom and isn't quite sure how he got there. It's dusky and the curtains are closed. The glow of the streetlights is almost visible, but other than that it's pitch black: his memories of the afternoon are distant and fuzzy. He can remember the supermarket - but not a lot else. There are flashes and half-seconds and scattered moments in his mind. Cups of teas and sympathetic frowns and the horror that had clawed in his stomach when he'd realised… When he'd…
He can't remember. His breath catches in his chest because- because he can't-
God, what's wrong with him?
*
Nothing at all, if the doctors are to be believed. He gets an appointment with his GP and tells him of the blots of time that keep disappearing from his mind - and though the young man tuts and frowns and investigates, he has to give up after the appointment is over. He's referred to the local hospital instead, and spends what seems like an eternity on a waiting list until they're able to make an appointment for him.
And still- Nothing. They prod him and prick him and scan his brain and do who knows what else to him, but there's nothing wrong. He's got a clean bill of health, but there's a hole in his mind that he can't work out. He feels numb and empty as he walks from the hospital, his stunned shoulders slumped and his head down.
Out of the corner of his eye, though, he can see that man: the man with the leather jacket who stirs the faint whispers of memory. He'd been at the supermarket, hadn't he? He'd been so many other places too, following him everywhere, and now he's just leaning against the white hospital wall and pretending to read a paper.
"Oi!" Rhys yells, speeding up to walk towards him. "You!"
"Aw, fuck," the man mutters, folding his paper in half. "Not again."
Again? Rhys thinks, his eyes wide, and-
*
It comes to him when he sleeps, a tickling remembrance at the back of his mind.
"She asked me to," Owen whispers, clutching his pint glass and staring at the sticky-topped bar. "Before she died- She asked me to look out for you. So I am."
- and -
"Wasn't supposed to work out like this," Owen gasps as Rhys holds him tightly against the wall, fury radiating from him. "You weren't supposed to know."
- and -
Owen's mouth tastes like coffee and alcohol, like misery and sin. When they kiss, confused and hurried, he moans like Rhys has punched him as hard as he can in the gut.
At night, the lost shadows of his mind start to creep forward and take their place: he remembers the water that had glistened in Owen's eyes the first time they touched and he remembers stumbling through this apartment to reach the bed and he remembers how Owen had stopped to stare blindly at the photos of Gwen and Rhys still up on the walls. He remembers the burn as Owen thrust blindly forward inside him and that gasping, painful stretch.
He remembers Owen softly kissing him goodbye - so many times now - as the drug started to strip the memories from him.
Distant, fuzzy and dark, he remembers; the fear builds in the pit of his stomach, and he knows he needs help.
*
"Guess you're building up a resistance to retcon," Owen says, frowning as he shines a pen-torch in Rhys's eyes. His hands linger too long by Rhys's jaw; Rhys can only swallow uncomfortably as those buried memories shift in his mind again, begging for attention. "Doesn't seem to be having as strong an effect as it used to."
"Good," Rhys says, as he looks around the building he's found himself in. This is where Gwen worked, he thinks, but the rooms are soulless, This is where Gwen died.
"Good?" Owen mutters. "Not quite. Jack'll kill me."
"Oh." Jack. Mysterious, interfering, cold-hearted Jack. Rhys hasn't met him too often. He finds that he's glad about that. "I just thought that maybe you didn't have to keep doing it any more. That maybe I could… Y'know. Maybe you could let me remember."
Owen pauses and lets the moment of silence between them stretch and twist uncomfortably. Rhys looks down at his hands and mutters under his breath - just a suggestion - and he knows it won't work. Torchwood wouldn't allow it. They're not a huge fan of happy endings in this place, are they? Crime and death and murder, that's all they know.
"I'm sorry," Owen says, as he hands Rhys a glass of water. He can see the faint discolouration of the drug that Owen poured in: more than normal, so much more. "You're gonna have to drink that."
"'course I am," Rhys agrees wearily. "'least you're not tricking me into it this time." No slipping it into his drink when he's not expecting it; this is upfront. This is new.
"Yeah," Owen says with a half-hearted flash of a grin. "That's one improvement."
Rhys raises the glass to his lips and drinks- drinks- drinks-. It's cold, straight from the fridge, and the drug tastes strange now that it's not masked by coffee or beer. It starts to go to his head almost immediately, the room spinning around him; Owen reaches out to steady him, shushing him under his breath. "I'm gonna miss you, Rhys," he whispers as he lets Rhys lie down on the medical centre's bed.
*
He wakes up on the sofa in his flat, with his mouth feeling dry and with a painful crick in his neck. His head feels full of cotton and he honestly couldn't say what he was up to last night: what's the date, anyway? He's lost track.
He props himself upright and groans as the world spins around him unpleasantly: Gwen's not home, he guesses, otherwise she'd be there to explain what the hell he got up to last night to make him feel quite this awful. Must still be at work, he reckons. That new job's keeping her out 'til all hours, isn't it?
He shakes his head and yawns, telling himself that he'll give it another hour or so before he tries to give her a call. In the meantime, his stomach rumbles as if he hasn't eaten in hours: time to go and raid the fridge, then. Time to get on with his life. Time to forget.