"Not All Luck Is Bad" Torchwood-fic Gwen/Martha Rated-R Wordcount 2370
Title: Not All Luck is Bad
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Gwen/Martha (References to other pairings.)
Rating-R
Wordcount-2370
Authors Notes: Spoilers thru the end of Reset. Special Warning: If you hate Gwen Cooper, you will dislike this fic immensely, especially if you're a big J/I schmoop fan.
Written in Maui for fallen_arazil who made my bee-you-ti-ful icon and mentioned how pretty Martha and Gwen would be together.
Yet another brilliant beta job by beta_goddess.
Summary: A special moment for Gwen and Martha. Takes place between Reset and Dead Man Walking.
“Do keep your eyes open while you’re inside Torchwood, Dr. Jones. Harkness is an odd fellow and it’s rather a dodgy lot he’s accumulated over there.”
UNIT-speak for “Captain Jack is running his own fiefdom out of Cardiff and there’s nothing we can do about it, so if you can feed us any information to use against him, we’d greatly appreciate it.”
They clearly didn’t understand what she and Jack had been through together and that she would no more give up his secrets than she would those of the Doctor. On the other hand, she didn’t have to be a spy to notice a few obvious facts about the “dodgy lot.”
Knowing Jack, it was no surprise that both the men and the women were attractive, conventionally or otherwise, or that he was currently involved with at least one of them. Martha would have bet anything on Gwen, based on Jack’s obvious regard and affection. The Ianto thing, with Jack’s crude request for a UNIT cap, came as a surprise. Of course, sleeping with Ianto didn’t mean he wasn’t sharing the sheets with Gwen as well, but between Ianto’s smirk and Gwen’s flustered denials, Martha decided that for the time being Jack and Gwen really were just friends.
This was encouraging. When she’d turned down Owen’s offer of a date, it wasn’t just because she had a devoted boyfriend with his own life-saving credentials.
None of that mattered now.
Owen was dead. His body was lying on a table in the Torchwood autopsy room. The only thing holding up the post mortem was Jack’s order that they all get some sleep. As if any of them could.
She hadn’t questioned the order, especially when he took her aside to request that she look after Gwen, even though Gwen struck Martha as the least in need of caretaking.
Tosh was clearly gutted, which made sense. Her feelings for Owen had been there for all to see. Jack had so many losses behind him and so many yet to come. You think he’d want someone to share his pain with, but he’d dispatched Ianto as Tosh’s escort home and turned away from them all. Ianto’s expression of pain and anger was hard to miss.
She assumed that taking care of Gwen would be a simple matter of getting her home safely. She wouldn’t mind meeting the boyfriend. He must be some man if Gwen had been able to resist temptation in the form of Jack Harkness, not to mention being the guy who’d won her in the first place.
“Let’s get you home,” she said to Gwen as they left the Hub, clicking her rental car key and hearing a soft chirp in the darkness.
“No.”
In the glow of the streetlight, she saw Gwen’s face, grim, numb, but still strong and lovely.
“Jack said we should all get some rest.”
“Sod Jack! I need a drink.”
“I’m sure you can get that at home. And your boyfriend…”
“Sod him too.”
This wasn’t going well at all.
“Gwen, it’s been a beast of a day…”
“You’re staying at a hotel, yeah?”
The hotel she’d left 48 hours earlier. So much had happened since then. Not as bad as a year of death and destruction, but enough that she wouldn’t mind a drink herself. And some company.
“All right then. One drink.”
“Yes, mum.”
In spite of everything they’d been through, Martha noticed a hint of a smile. With her long hair and fair skin, Gwen reminded her of her friend Vickie, the one she’d told to get out of her hopeless one-way love because she never looked at anybody else. Including Martha.
Gwen wasn’t looking at her now either. Clearly something very deep and painful was occupying her mind. Martha knew that Gwen was strong, but after a day like today, there had to be an emotional breakdown coming. Martha decided to skip the lobby bar and bring Gwen up to her hotel room to shed her tears in peace.
She broke the seal on the minibar, wondering momentarily if a drink in this case meant a beer or something stronger.
“I shagged him, you know?”
Make that whiskey. For two. Out of bottles so small they emptied the first one in a few sips apiece before Martha had the nerve to ask the unavoidable question.
“Shagged who?”
She assumed it must be Jack, despite their earlier conversation, although why Gwen would feel the need to tell her now was a mystery.
“Owen,” she answered, as though it were obvious. Martha decided they needed a second bottle.
“Owen? Owen Harper? You and Owen? But…”
“Yes,” Gwen said, accepting the bottle for her own gulp as she paced the room, making Martha feel slightly dizzy, or maybe that was the alcohol combined with the events of the last two days, including her latest brush with death.
“Horrible person, aren’t I? Got a wonderful fellow who treats me like gold and I end up fucking a miserable bastard who treats me like shite.”
“But why…” Martha managed to hold in what she really thought. Why him when you could have Jack?
“I don’t know,” Gwen began, with a wave and a giggle that held the hint of a sob. The laughter ended abruptly. “That’s rubbish. I felt so overwhelmed by it all. The aliens, the danger, the pure evil that’s out there. I had no idea, Martha. No idea. “
Martha nodded, remembering her own innocence until a certain blue box came into her life.
“I couldn’t talk to Rhys, or any of my girlfriends, and Owen was just….He promised me…”
She trailed off with a sigh before resuming her pacing. This time Martha focused on her legs in their close-fitting jeans, below the shiny black jacket she still wore despite the warmth of the room.
“I knew Tosh fancied him and I did it anyway. Not just once either,” she emphasised. “It went on for months. Everybody knew. Oh god, it was good!”
Martha didn’t know how much information she could actually handle. It wasn’t embarrassment, it was jealousy. Of a dead man, she reminded herself.
“So…that’s why you and Jack never…?”
“Mostly because of Ianto.”
Gwen seemed to have run out of nervous energy. She ceased her frantic pacing and dropped her jacket onto the floor and herself onto the bed next to where Martha was sitting.
“Come on. Jack may be playing his games with Ianto, but I’ve seen what he looks like when he’s longing. He’s mad for you.”
“You know about Jack, right? The whole immortal thing?”
“First time I laid eyes on Jack Harkness, he was lying on the ground in front of me, stone cold dead, and not five seconds later he was introducing himself and flirting with me.”
“That’s Jack, all right. It makes him callous. Makes him hurt people, even ones he cares about.” Gwen sighed, stretching out on the bed, kicking her trainers over the side. Martha smiled at the taste in footwear. No wonder Jack liked her. If Gwen could relax enough, maybe they’d both get some rest. Martha felt as though if she just closed her eyes, she’d nod off, but she was caught up in the lilt of Gwen’s voice and the scent of her closeness, as well as the possibility of learning more about Jack. “After the thing with Owen, he caught me moping and feeling sorry for myself. He told me it happens to everybody at Torchwood eventually and that the next time I should come to him.”
“Sounds pretty sweet to me.”
“Except Ianto was standing there, hovering the way he does, and for all Jack cared he could have been invisible. So Owen thought I was manipulative, Tosh thought I was a bitch and I’m sure Ianto would have called me a slut, given half a chance. You don’t think that, do you?”
She looked into Martha’s eyes and grasped one of her hands, clearly needing some kind of validation, even though her coworkers seemed to have long since forgiven, possibly in the wake of Jack’s disappearance.
“’Course not. That could happen to anybody.”
She said whatever was most likely to keep Gwen talking, keep her lying on the bed, so close that Martha could feel her breath; so far away that Martha tried to pull her hand back. There was no guilt about Tom: she loved him, but she knew how quickly things could be taken away. If she stopped now, it would be because Gwen had enough to deal with. She didn’t want to be like Jack, not that way. It wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of Gwen’s emotional fragility.
Gwen seemed to have different ideas, tightening her grip and bringing Martha’s hand up to her mouth. Martha blinked as she realised that Gwen was kissing her fingers, followed by her palm and the inside of her wrist.
The expression on Gwen’s face didn’t look anything like sorrow, much less guilt or remorse.
Gwen Cooper, you manipulative, slutty bitch!
“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Gwen sweetly, with an apparent disregard for any objection Martha might have since she was already kissing Martha’s forehead and eyelids before Martha could even think to say “I don’t mind,” the way she had a billion years in the future.
She smiled at the reminder of Jack, and how much she’d been thinking about him and now even acting like him, before she closed her eyes, deciding to let Gwen do whatever she needed to work out her feelings about Owen’s death.
Yeah, regular saint you are, she thought, breathing in sharply at the feeling of Gwen’s tongue against her neck and the heat that followed it.
Martha could practically feel Gwen’s amusement, a certain smugness at her ability to make Martha respond to her touch. Well, two could certainly play that game, no props required.
She pulled Gwen’s head down to kiss her properly, or quite improperly, thank you very much. It was better than she’d let herself imagine. Gwen did this thing with her tongue against Martha’s teeth that made her nearly lose control, pulling at Gwen’s hair, so soft and smooth under her hands.
It felt almost unreal until Gwen moved off her long enough to strip and Martha found herself doing the same thing and then they were naked under the covers, Martha on top this time because she wasn’t going to miss out on those tits. Gorgeous things they were, too, firm and full and oh-so-responsive to Martha’s fingers and mouth.
This was more like it. Gwen Cooper on her back, making lovely moaning sounds as Martha stroked and sucked. Most of the pleasure was aural and tactile, but she couldn’t resist a moment to appreciate the contrast of her skin against Gwen’s, something Gwen was almost certainly too busy to notice.
“Oh, Martha… Martha, slow down.”
The rising pitch of Gwen’s voice as her excitement grew was another delight, but Martha had no intention of letting up or slowing down. She’d moved down to Gwen’s legs and was proving that the ankle could be just as sensitive as the wrist.
“Please… Martha… Oh my god!”
Jack was an idiot. He needed to take what he obviously wanted, the way she was.
“What’s the matter with us?”
Not a damn thing that Martha could see or feel or taste as she teased at Gwen, making her squeal and thrash about like an unruly child. Would Jack know how to do this, she wondered? Of course he would. Probably had more tricks up his sleeve than she’d ever heard of, but he was a fool and tonight that was his loss and Martha’s gain. She heard Gwen let out a noise that was both a wail and a gasp at the same time. Gwen’s body jerked up and down, and Martha could feel a tremble letting her know that for now she’d been somewhere the Captain hadn’t.
On the other hand, it wasn’t Jack holding and kissing Gwen as she started crying, full-blooded sobs of mourning and anger and whatever else one feels over the death of someone who’d been a colleague, friend and ex-lover. The taste of Gwen’s tears felt more intimate against Martha’s tongue than the sex had and strangely arousing as well. Gwen must have felt it too. The crying jag ended abruptly.
“Sorry about that. Where were we then?”
Once again, no answer was required. Gwen was all nuzzling lips and inquisitive fingers, and that air of self-satisfaction that Martha might have resented if it all didn’t feel so good, especially the fingers inside her, pressing deeply, making Martha’s fists clench and toes curl as they moved in and out. Martha wanted to scream every obscenity she knew, including a few she’d picked up walking the world, to make Gwen give her more. More fingers, more friction, more pressure, her mouth, everything, anything that would bring release.
“Gwen,” she barely managed to squeak, but it was enough. Gwen pushed down and found the right spot and the right angle, and the right words,
“Come on Martha,” she urged, and Martha felt the tension rise into a crescendo, pulsing through her as Gwen’s fingers kept pushing, pressing, forcing her to keep going, taking more pleasure than her brain could actually absorb until she felt both giddy and absolutely exhausted and maybe a little bit like crying herself.
They huddled and cuddled, sharing a few stories and getting just enough sleep to look presentable if not especially innocent when they arrived back at the Hub for the grim business of Owen’s autopsy. Tosh might have been too consumed by her own grief to notice much of anything, including the fact that Gwen had showered but was wearing the same clothes, but Martha caught Ianto taking in the sight of her and Gwen arriving together. Her eyes met his. She thought she saw a hint of relief behind the demeanour appropriate to the day.
Martha felt sorry for all of them, Jack included. Maybe Owen was actually the luckiest one of all. He’d wanted a date with her and now he had one.
It wouldn’t do to keep a dead man waiting.
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Gwen/Martha (References to other pairings.)
Rating-R
Wordcount-2370
Authors Notes: Spoilers thru the end of Reset. Special Warning: If you hate Gwen Cooper, you will dislike this fic immensely, especially if you're a big J/I schmoop fan.
Written in Maui for fallen_arazil who made my bee-you-ti-ful icon and mentioned how pretty Martha and Gwen would be together.
Yet another brilliant beta job by beta_goddess.
Summary: A special moment for Gwen and Martha. Takes place between Reset and Dead Man Walking.
“Do keep your eyes open while you’re inside Torchwood, Dr. Jones. Harkness is an odd fellow and it’s rather a dodgy lot he’s accumulated over there.”
UNIT-speak for “Captain Jack is running his own fiefdom out of Cardiff and there’s nothing we can do about it, so if you can feed us any information to use against him, we’d greatly appreciate it.”
They clearly didn’t understand what she and Jack had been through together and that she would no more give up his secrets than she would those of the Doctor. On the other hand, she didn’t have to be a spy to notice a few obvious facts about the “dodgy lot.”
Knowing Jack, it was no surprise that both the men and the women were attractive, conventionally or otherwise, or that he was currently involved with at least one of them. Martha would have bet anything on Gwen, based on Jack’s obvious regard and affection. The Ianto thing, with Jack’s crude request for a UNIT cap, came as a surprise. Of course, sleeping with Ianto didn’t mean he wasn’t sharing the sheets with Gwen as well, but between Ianto’s smirk and Gwen’s flustered denials, Martha decided that for the time being Jack and Gwen really were just friends.
This was encouraging. When she’d turned down Owen’s offer of a date, it wasn’t just because she had a devoted boyfriend with his own life-saving credentials.
None of that mattered now.
Owen was dead. His body was lying on a table in the Torchwood autopsy room. The only thing holding up the post mortem was Jack’s order that they all get some sleep. As if any of them could.
She hadn’t questioned the order, especially when he took her aside to request that she look after Gwen, even though Gwen struck Martha as the least in need of caretaking.
Tosh was clearly gutted, which made sense. Her feelings for Owen had been there for all to see. Jack had so many losses behind him and so many yet to come. You think he’d want someone to share his pain with, but he’d dispatched Ianto as Tosh’s escort home and turned away from them all. Ianto’s expression of pain and anger was hard to miss.
She assumed that taking care of Gwen would be a simple matter of getting her home safely. She wouldn’t mind meeting the boyfriend. He must be some man if Gwen had been able to resist temptation in the form of Jack Harkness, not to mention being the guy who’d won her in the first place.
“Let’s get you home,” she said to Gwen as they left the Hub, clicking her rental car key and hearing a soft chirp in the darkness.
“No.”
In the glow of the streetlight, she saw Gwen’s face, grim, numb, but still strong and lovely.
“Jack said we should all get some rest.”
“Sod Jack! I need a drink.”
“I’m sure you can get that at home. And your boyfriend…”
“Sod him too.”
This wasn’t going well at all.
“Gwen, it’s been a beast of a day…”
“You’re staying at a hotel, yeah?”
The hotel she’d left 48 hours earlier. So much had happened since then. Not as bad as a year of death and destruction, but enough that she wouldn’t mind a drink herself. And some company.
“All right then. One drink.”
“Yes, mum.”
In spite of everything they’d been through, Martha noticed a hint of a smile. With her long hair and fair skin, Gwen reminded her of her friend Vickie, the one she’d told to get out of her hopeless one-way love because she never looked at anybody else. Including Martha.
Gwen wasn’t looking at her now either. Clearly something very deep and painful was occupying her mind. Martha knew that Gwen was strong, but after a day like today, there had to be an emotional breakdown coming. Martha decided to skip the lobby bar and bring Gwen up to her hotel room to shed her tears in peace.
She broke the seal on the minibar, wondering momentarily if a drink in this case meant a beer or something stronger.
“I shagged him, you know?”
Make that whiskey. For two. Out of bottles so small they emptied the first one in a few sips apiece before Martha had the nerve to ask the unavoidable question.
“Shagged who?”
She assumed it must be Jack, despite their earlier conversation, although why Gwen would feel the need to tell her now was a mystery.
“Owen,” she answered, as though it were obvious. Martha decided they needed a second bottle.
“Owen? Owen Harper? You and Owen? But…”
“Yes,” Gwen said, accepting the bottle for her own gulp as she paced the room, making Martha feel slightly dizzy, or maybe that was the alcohol combined with the events of the last two days, including her latest brush with death.
“Horrible person, aren’t I? Got a wonderful fellow who treats me like gold and I end up fucking a miserable bastard who treats me like shite.”
“But why…” Martha managed to hold in what she really thought. Why him when you could have Jack?
“I don’t know,” Gwen began, with a wave and a giggle that held the hint of a sob. The laughter ended abruptly. “That’s rubbish. I felt so overwhelmed by it all. The aliens, the danger, the pure evil that’s out there. I had no idea, Martha. No idea. “
Martha nodded, remembering her own innocence until a certain blue box came into her life.
“I couldn’t talk to Rhys, or any of my girlfriends, and Owen was just….He promised me…”
She trailed off with a sigh before resuming her pacing. This time Martha focused on her legs in their close-fitting jeans, below the shiny black jacket she still wore despite the warmth of the room.
“I knew Tosh fancied him and I did it anyway. Not just once either,” she emphasised. “It went on for months. Everybody knew. Oh god, it was good!”
Martha didn’t know how much information she could actually handle. It wasn’t embarrassment, it was jealousy. Of a dead man, she reminded herself.
“So…that’s why you and Jack never…?”
“Mostly because of Ianto.”
Gwen seemed to have run out of nervous energy. She ceased her frantic pacing and dropped her jacket onto the floor and herself onto the bed next to where Martha was sitting.
“Come on. Jack may be playing his games with Ianto, but I’ve seen what he looks like when he’s longing. He’s mad for you.”
“You know about Jack, right? The whole immortal thing?”
“First time I laid eyes on Jack Harkness, he was lying on the ground in front of me, stone cold dead, and not five seconds later he was introducing himself and flirting with me.”
“That’s Jack, all right. It makes him callous. Makes him hurt people, even ones he cares about.” Gwen sighed, stretching out on the bed, kicking her trainers over the side. Martha smiled at the taste in footwear. No wonder Jack liked her. If Gwen could relax enough, maybe they’d both get some rest. Martha felt as though if she just closed her eyes, she’d nod off, but she was caught up in the lilt of Gwen’s voice and the scent of her closeness, as well as the possibility of learning more about Jack. “After the thing with Owen, he caught me moping and feeling sorry for myself. He told me it happens to everybody at Torchwood eventually and that the next time I should come to him.”
“Sounds pretty sweet to me.”
“Except Ianto was standing there, hovering the way he does, and for all Jack cared he could have been invisible. So Owen thought I was manipulative, Tosh thought I was a bitch and I’m sure Ianto would have called me a slut, given half a chance. You don’t think that, do you?”
She looked into Martha’s eyes and grasped one of her hands, clearly needing some kind of validation, even though her coworkers seemed to have long since forgiven, possibly in the wake of Jack’s disappearance.
“’Course not. That could happen to anybody.”
She said whatever was most likely to keep Gwen talking, keep her lying on the bed, so close that Martha could feel her breath; so far away that Martha tried to pull her hand back. There was no guilt about Tom: she loved him, but she knew how quickly things could be taken away. If she stopped now, it would be because Gwen had enough to deal with. She didn’t want to be like Jack, not that way. It wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of Gwen’s emotional fragility.
Gwen seemed to have different ideas, tightening her grip and bringing Martha’s hand up to her mouth. Martha blinked as she realised that Gwen was kissing her fingers, followed by her palm and the inside of her wrist.
The expression on Gwen’s face didn’t look anything like sorrow, much less guilt or remorse.
Gwen Cooper, you manipulative, slutty bitch!
“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Gwen sweetly, with an apparent disregard for any objection Martha might have since she was already kissing Martha’s forehead and eyelids before Martha could even think to say “I don’t mind,” the way she had a billion years in the future.
She smiled at the reminder of Jack, and how much she’d been thinking about him and now even acting like him, before she closed her eyes, deciding to let Gwen do whatever she needed to work out her feelings about Owen’s death.
Yeah, regular saint you are, she thought, breathing in sharply at the feeling of Gwen’s tongue against her neck and the heat that followed it.
Martha could practically feel Gwen’s amusement, a certain smugness at her ability to make Martha respond to her touch. Well, two could certainly play that game, no props required.
She pulled Gwen’s head down to kiss her properly, or quite improperly, thank you very much. It was better than she’d let herself imagine. Gwen did this thing with her tongue against Martha’s teeth that made her nearly lose control, pulling at Gwen’s hair, so soft and smooth under her hands.
It felt almost unreal until Gwen moved off her long enough to strip and Martha found herself doing the same thing and then they were naked under the covers, Martha on top this time because she wasn’t going to miss out on those tits. Gorgeous things they were, too, firm and full and oh-so-responsive to Martha’s fingers and mouth.
This was more like it. Gwen Cooper on her back, making lovely moaning sounds as Martha stroked and sucked. Most of the pleasure was aural and tactile, but she couldn’t resist a moment to appreciate the contrast of her skin against Gwen’s, something Gwen was almost certainly too busy to notice.
“Oh, Martha… Martha, slow down.”
The rising pitch of Gwen’s voice as her excitement grew was another delight, but Martha had no intention of letting up or slowing down. She’d moved down to Gwen’s legs and was proving that the ankle could be just as sensitive as the wrist.
“Please… Martha… Oh my god!”
Jack was an idiot. He needed to take what he obviously wanted, the way she was.
“What’s the matter with us?”
Not a damn thing that Martha could see or feel or taste as she teased at Gwen, making her squeal and thrash about like an unruly child. Would Jack know how to do this, she wondered? Of course he would. Probably had more tricks up his sleeve than she’d ever heard of, but he was a fool and tonight that was his loss and Martha’s gain. She heard Gwen let out a noise that was both a wail and a gasp at the same time. Gwen’s body jerked up and down, and Martha could feel a tremble letting her know that for now she’d been somewhere the Captain hadn’t.
On the other hand, it wasn’t Jack holding and kissing Gwen as she started crying, full-blooded sobs of mourning and anger and whatever else one feels over the death of someone who’d been a colleague, friend and ex-lover. The taste of Gwen’s tears felt more intimate against Martha’s tongue than the sex had and strangely arousing as well. Gwen must have felt it too. The crying jag ended abruptly.
“Sorry about that. Where were we then?”
Once again, no answer was required. Gwen was all nuzzling lips and inquisitive fingers, and that air of self-satisfaction that Martha might have resented if it all didn’t feel so good, especially the fingers inside her, pressing deeply, making Martha’s fists clench and toes curl as they moved in and out. Martha wanted to scream every obscenity she knew, including a few she’d picked up walking the world, to make Gwen give her more. More fingers, more friction, more pressure, her mouth, everything, anything that would bring release.
“Gwen,” she barely managed to squeak, but it was enough. Gwen pushed down and found the right spot and the right angle, and the right words,
“Come on Martha,” she urged, and Martha felt the tension rise into a crescendo, pulsing through her as Gwen’s fingers kept pushing, pressing, forcing her to keep going, taking more pleasure than her brain could actually absorb until she felt both giddy and absolutely exhausted and maybe a little bit like crying herself.
They huddled and cuddled, sharing a few stories and getting just enough sleep to look presentable if not especially innocent when they arrived back at the Hub for the grim business of Owen’s autopsy. Tosh might have been too consumed by her own grief to notice much of anything, including the fact that Gwen had showered but was wearing the same clothes, but Martha caught Ianto taking in the sight of her and Gwen arriving together. Her eyes met his. She thought she saw a hint of relief behind the demeanour appropriate to the day.
Martha felt sorry for all of them, Jack included. Maybe Owen was actually the luckiest one of all. He’d wanted a date with her and now he had one.
It wouldn’t do to keep a dead man waiting.