Fic: Plastic Dolls Floating Across the Atlantic, Toy Soldiers Crowding the Pacific [Complete, 2/7]
Title: Plastic Dolls Floating Across the Atlantic, Toy Soldiers Crowding the Pacific - Two, "Titim Gan Éirí Ort"
Author: heddychaa
Characters: Jack, John, OCs, references to past Jack/John and Jack/Ianto
Rating: Hard R, leaning toward NC-17
Genre: Action, Suspense, Sci-Fi
Wordcount: 786/7,307
Warnings: Non-spoilery references to Series 5 of Doctor Who.
Disclaimer: Torchwood's characters, concepts, and events belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russell T Davies and the BBC. This is a work of fan-appreciation and no profit is being made.
Summary: After the disbanding of the Time Agency, only seven former Agents survive, scattered throughout time and space. Who are these seven? How do they live now that the Agency, once the defining factor in their respective lives, is gone? And what ominous presence is stalking them across the centuries?
A/N: A series of seven episodic interlinked vignettes. Complete, but due to their format I'll be posting one every day over the next seven days, excluding Sunday. This story is self-contained, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't putting this out there to see whether it would be worth it to invest my time in writing something longer!
Credits: Beta-d, as always, by the patient, smart, and oh-so-helpful azn_jack_fiend and _lullabelle_. Title from this poem, the title of which isn't fit to print, by the late and great Allen Ginsberg. Fic's concept inspired by this brilliant fanvid.
Two: Titim Gan Éirí Ort
5117, Maldovarium
“Hey Time Agent!” someone calls. Diarmuid casts a glance over his shoulder before returning, disinterested, to his drink. The vortex manipulator is like a fucking brand. Eventually he’s going to have to let it go.
A woman settles into the stool behind him and lights a cigarette.
“Agency’s disbanded,” he tells her, twisting the leather strap of the vortex manipulator over the skin of his wrist. It’s tight, tugging at his skin like a snakebite. He doesn’t even look in her direction. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her exposed thighs as she crosses one leg over the other. He resists the urge to somehow twist that bit of information about the Agency into some kind of sad pick-up line.
“Oh, I know,” the woman retorts playfully. He hears the crackle of her cigarette as she draws in a deep lungful. “But once a Time Agent, always a Time Agent, isn’t that right? That’s why you all still wear those wrist-straps like badges of honour, even now. Even soldiers take off their uniforms eventually, but not you lot.”
He touches the aged black strap, stroking the smooth spot where the protrusion of his wrist bone has worn the leather thin. “What do you want?” he asks her. Takes a bitter, forceful swig of his drink. “I’m assuming you’re not chatting me up in the hopes of fulfilling some weird fetish.”
She runs a finger up the length of his closest arm, toying at the edge of the strap when she comes to it. “Well, I can’t say I have a particular sexual appetite for Time Agents, no, but I’m sure you could make a fair go at convincing me to re-evaluate my tastes.”
He snorts, finally looking over in her direction. She’s olive-skinned, with a Marilyn Monroe bob of wavy platinum blonde hair and mean brown eyes. “And what’s in it for you?” he asks her.
“Besides adding an especially memorable notch to my bedpost?” she says, laughing, and then continues, “The truth is, I need a ride. I’ve become ever so bored of the 52nd century, and I’d love a change of scenery. You can take me anywhere.” The innuendo hangs heavy between them.
“Tempting,” he lies, waving the bartender for another drink. She pays his tab, making a show of counting through the thick wad of bills stuffed into her wallet.
“What’s your name?” she asks him, stubbing out the cigarette and watching him down his drink from beneath lowered lashes.
He doesn’t have one, not really. None of them do. He’s gone through so many aliases he doesn’t have a damn clue what his parents used to call him. But then, the Agency had ways of making you forget things that were inconvenient to them. Maybe it’s less his lifestyle and lack of regard than it is that someone, somewhere along the line, decided on his behalf that he was better off without a name or a childhood. He doesn’t feel particularly remorseful about it, though, and that’s definitely all him.
“Diarmuid,” he replies. His last job was infiltrating the clann of some twat who’d decided Gaelic Ireland would be better off with him as high king. It was such a protracted job, working his way through the ranks and gaining the trust of the locals, that the name stuck. He still finds himself mentally code-switching into Old Irish from time to time.
“Pleased to meet you, Diarmuid,” she says, and it sounds clumsy in her mouth. “I’m Scarlett. What do you say we get out of here?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he replies.
He takes his time on her. Drives himself in deep and bares his teeth when she lifts her hips to meet him. He pulls out before he finishes and spends himself out over her pelvis and stomach. She smiles, panting, when he finally deigns to lean down and kiss her. His kiss is firm and demanding, too much teeth and tongue. She goes rigid underneath it.
As he’s buttoning his fly, he watches her eyes roll in their sockets helplessly until the movement becomes halting. Before it slows and stops altogether. He stoops to help himself to the cash in her wallet.
“I’m not a bad guy,” he tells her conversationally, sitting on the edge of the bed to strap into his boots. “So believe me when I say that I sincerely hope someone finds you before that paralysing agent reaches your vital organs. But believe me, too, when I say that I am not a taxi driver.”
He’s not a bad guy. He leaves the door to her room open a crack when he leaves.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
Author: heddychaa
Characters: Jack, John, OCs, references to past Jack/John and Jack/Ianto
Rating: Hard R, leaning toward NC-17
Genre: Action, Suspense, Sci-Fi
Wordcount: 786/7,307
Warnings: Non-spoilery references to Series 5 of Doctor Who.
Disclaimer: Torchwood's characters, concepts, and events belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russell T Davies and the BBC. This is a work of fan-appreciation and no profit is being made.
Summary: After the disbanding of the Time Agency, only seven former Agents survive, scattered throughout time and space. Who are these seven? How do they live now that the Agency, once the defining factor in their respective lives, is gone? And what ominous presence is stalking them across the centuries?
A/N: A series of seven episodic interlinked vignettes. Complete, but due to their format I'll be posting one every day over the next seven days, excluding Sunday. This story is self-contained, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't putting this out there to see whether it would be worth it to invest my time in writing something longer!
Credits: Beta-d, as always, by the patient, smart, and oh-so-helpful azn_jack_fiend and _lullabelle_. Title from this poem, the title of which isn't fit to print, by the late and great Allen Ginsberg. Fic's concept inspired by this brilliant fanvid.
Two: Titim Gan Éirí Ort
5117, Maldovarium
“Hey Time Agent!” someone calls. Diarmuid casts a glance over his shoulder before returning, disinterested, to his drink. The vortex manipulator is like a fucking brand. Eventually he’s going to have to let it go.
A woman settles into the stool behind him and lights a cigarette.
“Agency’s disbanded,” he tells her, twisting the leather strap of the vortex manipulator over the skin of his wrist. It’s tight, tugging at his skin like a snakebite. He doesn’t even look in her direction. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her exposed thighs as she crosses one leg over the other. He resists the urge to somehow twist that bit of information about the Agency into some kind of sad pick-up line.
“Oh, I know,” the woman retorts playfully. He hears the crackle of her cigarette as she draws in a deep lungful. “But once a Time Agent, always a Time Agent, isn’t that right? That’s why you all still wear those wrist-straps like badges of honour, even now. Even soldiers take off their uniforms eventually, but not you lot.”
He touches the aged black strap, stroking the smooth spot where the protrusion of his wrist bone has worn the leather thin. “What do you want?” he asks her. Takes a bitter, forceful swig of his drink. “I’m assuming you’re not chatting me up in the hopes of fulfilling some weird fetish.”
She runs a finger up the length of his closest arm, toying at the edge of the strap when she comes to it. “Well, I can’t say I have a particular sexual appetite for Time Agents, no, but I’m sure you could make a fair go at convincing me to re-evaluate my tastes.”
He snorts, finally looking over in her direction. She’s olive-skinned, with a Marilyn Monroe bob of wavy platinum blonde hair and mean brown eyes. “And what’s in it for you?” he asks her.
“Besides adding an especially memorable notch to my bedpost?” she says, laughing, and then continues, “The truth is, I need a ride. I’ve become ever so bored of the 52nd century, and I’d love a change of scenery. You can take me anywhere.” The innuendo hangs heavy between them.
“Tempting,” he lies, waving the bartender for another drink. She pays his tab, making a show of counting through the thick wad of bills stuffed into her wallet.
“What’s your name?” she asks him, stubbing out the cigarette and watching him down his drink from beneath lowered lashes.
He doesn’t have one, not really. None of them do. He’s gone through so many aliases he doesn’t have a damn clue what his parents used to call him. But then, the Agency had ways of making you forget things that were inconvenient to them. Maybe it’s less his lifestyle and lack of regard than it is that someone, somewhere along the line, decided on his behalf that he was better off without a name or a childhood. He doesn’t feel particularly remorseful about it, though, and that’s definitely all him.
“Diarmuid,” he replies. His last job was infiltrating the clann of some twat who’d decided Gaelic Ireland would be better off with him as high king. It was such a protracted job, working his way through the ranks and gaining the trust of the locals, that the name stuck. He still finds himself mentally code-switching into Old Irish from time to time.
“Pleased to meet you, Diarmuid,” she says, and it sounds clumsy in her mouth. “I’m Scarlett. What do you say we get out of here?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he replies.
He takes his time on her. Drives himself in deep and bares his teeth when she lifts her hips to meet him. He pulls out before he finishes and spends himself out over her pelvis and stomach. She smiles, panting, when he finally deigns to lean down and kiss her. His kiss is firm and demanding, too much teeth and tongue. She goes rigid underneath it.
As he’s buttoning his fly, he watches her eyes roll in their sockets helplessly until the movement becomes halting. Before it slows and stops altogether. He stoops to help himself to the cash in her wallet.
“I’m not a bad guy,” he tells her conversationally, sitting on the edge of the bed to strap into his boots. “So believe me when I say that I sincerely hope someone finds you before that paralysing agent reaches your vital organs. But believe me, too, when I say that I am not a taxi driver.”
He’s not a bad guy. He leaves the door to her room open a crack when he leaves.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.