Fic: Pick a Star on the Dark Horizon
Title: Pick a Star on the Dark Horizon
Characters: Sark, Vaughn, Marshall, Missy, Dan, Juliet, the Doctor, Des, Martha, Ariel, Sam, Jack, two mentions of April, and another implied appearance by Nonexistent Pre-Pilot Rift!Sydney. (I AM INSTIGATING NOTHING... Ai just had a request.)
Pairings: It's... Honestly, mostly gen, actually. I think. That one bit of implied Sark/Sydney, aside.
Word Count: 3539
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Another collection of Rift fics.
Notes: I fail at drabbles. Therefore it's more fics of indeterminate length... And more dealing with characters who aren't in the ruddy Rift yet. Bleah. And no, Marshall's probably not going to be a shapeshifter, but considering Sark almost was, I couldn't resist aggravating my other Alias kid. It was random. Most of these are. And I totally killed off a minor character from one of the ficlets in the last set, because I didn't want to think up another character. Poor Jake. Ummm... Yes. Random.
Disclaimer: Des and Missy are mine. I just play Sark, Marshall, Dan, and Juliet on TV in the Rift. Nothing else has any right to latch itself onto me and be claimed. Right.
I love you when I forget about me...
It went without saying that Sark was a completely different person when he was with April and whether that was just some random softening of his cold, generally black heart that he quickly covered up to overcompensate for and hide from when he was around others or something that occurred just because she impressed on him so much, no one would ever be able to say (and, honestly, it was probably both). It wasn’t in his nature- it wasn’t him, so, of course, he’d try to hide it. With that being so, most people never even knew he had an attachment to her at all and if they did, he denied it or made up some excuse that didn’t really help his rapport with anyone at all (not that he cared).
...Until Vaughn made some snide comment about it while Sam was around and Sark’s hastily defensive, "She means nothing to me" directed at both of them nearly brought Sam to his knees in pain. Then it became clearly obvious and Sark didn’t leave his room for almost a week in slightly humiliated protest.
These are the days of miracle and wonder...
Stumbling into a completely different universe filled with demons, angels, and superpowers is something that only existed in daydreams for one Marshall Flinkman. Sure, it was shocking to find that daydream suddenly very much real, but he got used to it after a little while. It was just far too fascinating to concern himself with too much worry for the most part.
This, however, was somewhat worrisome. He remembered talking with Tosh and watching her manipulate technology with just her mind and it made him deeply consider what sort of ability he might get because of his trip through the Rift... And now? Now he knew.
He planted tiny little paws on the edge of his keyboard and sniffed at the screen. The faces of tiny, innocuous creatures aren’t meant to be expressive, but this particular tiny, innocuous creature was making a great show of displaying a variety of emotions ranging from terror to confusion.
Right, because how does one emotionally deal with spontaneously turning into a guinea pig?
Particle by particle she slowly changes...
Missy didn’t work with a team. She didn’t need to, although most of her employers never believed her when she told them that she was an army of one. Of course, those employers were typically human and completely naive, so naturally her most recent human employer hired an entire team to go with her on a mission to take out a rival terrorist cell in Chechnya. They needed it done in a discreet manner that didn’t pinpoint who might have been behind the attack and thus they felt they needed as many hired mercs as possible like some kind of fucking Resevoir Dogs-esque cock-up. Honestly, if they really wanted to go that route, they should have believed her when she said she worked alone. It would have saved them a shitload of money.
None of the team even had time to raise a weapon before Missy charged in blindly, and none of them dared move when the screams started, occasionally punctuated by strange, savage wolfish growls. Five minutes later, Missy strolled out of the compound, completely stark naked and covered in blood, and asked sweetly if anyone had any extra clothes she could borrow like nothing had just happened.
After that, Missy never had to work with a team again, simply because every freelancer and mercenary in the business was too scared to work with her. That was pretty much her intention.
The only constant I am sure of is this accelerating rate of change...
Daniel was tinkering with something in his room when Juliet found him, having just returned from the morgue to identify Penny’s body. The images still made her sick to her stomach and she couldn’t bear to face most anyone right now when it came to confirming what Jack had already announced over the journals. Dan was the obvious exception, given they shared a world with Penny even if neither of them had ever met her before they came here.
"It’s broken," he accessed, not looking up from his project. "I could fix it, but... It doesn’t really look like much stays fixed around here, does it?"
She didn’t have a reply for that, so she just lingered in the door, face set in an expressionless mask. She retreated so far into herself after Johnny’s death and just threw herself into whatever work she could do for Torchwood ever since Sam approached her, so it was almost easy to pretend that she wasn’t screaming underneath the surface.
He went on, "You know she wasn’t as far along on the... The timeline as we were. She won’t be there to get that call from Desmond on Christmas Eve, and you know what’ll happen then?"
"He dies too," she responded softly. He’d rambled incessantly about the theory of constants to her when they first got here on top of what she’d heard in passing back on the island.
"Yeah," Dan sighed, rubbing his forehead and wincing as if he was fighting off a headache. "Everyone who died here wasn’t supposed to die here. We’re changing history every second we’re here. Butterfly effect." He looked up at her, gravely serious. "For all we know... We might not actually have anything to go back to if we do get back."
That was another thing she didn’t have a response for, although for an entirely different reason than the first.
There’ll be no end to the rock ’n roll...
The Doctor was understandably horrified by this entire situation and for something that didn’t involve genocide or the end of the world or anything of that nature, it had to be pretty horrifying to illicit that kind of response out of him.
"Can you get him to stop?" He asked feebly, directing the question to anyone in the crowd of people who were staring up at the stage with expressions that ranged from amusement to sheer apathy, and none of them really seemed to think the situation was deserving of the focus the Doctor seemed to think it deserved.
Not surprisingly, it was Martha who answered, thankfully not drunk, although she was working on it. "Why would I do that?"
The Doctor flailed a hand at the stage. "There is a murderer on the loose with his face, Martha. It’s bad enough that he insisted we come out here tonight, but at least he could have the decency to be discreet."
Martha nearly dropped her drink when she brought a hand to her mouth. "Good point. Better get him down then." She abandoned her drink with much trepidation in favor of grabbing the Doctor’s hand and leading him through the crowd to the stage. "You know for a minute there, I thought you were just embarrassed by his singing."
The Doctor frowned as if he hadn’t actually been listening to Des’s drunken rendition of "I Love Rock and Roll" in the heat of his panic and was just now hearing it as he allowed himself to be led. "Well, now that you mention it, he is a bit off-key, isn’t he?"
Born under a bad sign...
"...News reports indicate that this coffee shop took the brunt of the damage from the accident. Here we go live to the scene, and as you can see, there really isn’t much left to discuss. This is the sixth time in the past several months that this has happened, but the owners say that this won’t deter them in the slightest from rebuilding it anew..."
Des shut off the TV. "It’s the seventh time, jackass," he muttered, leaning back against the couch.
"I think everyone’s still denying that incident with the hellhound," the Doctor mused. "That’s human nature for you. It can be burnt down twice, or have a spontaneous meteor crash into it, or... What did they say happened this time?"
"A truck drove into it," Des supplied, giving him a look that suggested he was wondering how the Doctor missed that.
"Oh right," the Doctor nodded, shooting him back a look that said, in no uncertain terms, that he had more important things to be contemplating than the bad luck of that coffee shop. "All those disasters can be explained by mundane, ordinary things, but if a woman turns into a hellhound in the middle of the shop and tries to kill half of Torchwood then they’ll be content to pretend it didn’t happen even as they’re picking up the debris."
"Yeah." Des turned the TV back on and flipped through the channels absently before finally turning back to the Doctor. "Do you think we should tell them that they’re fighting a losing battle."
The Doctor shook his head. "We could and it would certainly lessen the number of civilian casualties, but I doubt they’d listen. That’s another thing about you humans. You’re unbearably stubborn when it comes to these things."
Des just shrugged in response. "We also like coffee."
On a little street in Singapore...
There were benefits to Sydney not knowing him, he supposed, although most of those benefits were things he missed. The fighting (well, they fought, but it wasn't the same), the tension, the passion (even if it was the sort of passion that comes from seething hatred on her part). The fact that her hatred of him kept them both in their proper places helped too. After all, her hating him was the whole reason his little flirtation never went beyond that. It was so much easier to kill and systematically break someone if they didn’t look at you the same way you looked at them... Or so went Sark’s logic.
Mostly, the whole thing just annoyed him. Sydney was Sydney, either way, and her not knowing anything about him beyond hearsay (which was enough to make her wary of him even if she hadn’t decided whether or not to like him yet), which made it difficult to keep his distance, and that was annoying it itself, but the fact that he couldn’t even goad her with casual reminiscing that she’d be loathe to recall.
He actually went off on a tangent once just for the sake of irritating her about a mission the two of them went on while he was still working for SD-6 in Singapore that was nearly compromised when one of the men she was trying to detain got a bit too fresh and she had to react to avoid having her cover blown (and, in turn, nearly had her cover blown anyway). He had to abandon his position (Dixon loved him for that one- not), throw his credentials around, and make her out to be some ignorant harlot in order to successfully abort the mission without loss of life or limb. The incident, in order to "make it more realistic" ended with him kissing her rather mercilessly and she’d nearly killed him when they got back to base. What she never knew was how badly Sloane cowed him when they got back to SD-6- not for abandoning his post, but for taking advantage of her. He never told her that before, but he openly admitted it then, right before he realized that none of the story he just told meant anything to her.
The one solace he took in that rather unfalteringly embarrassing scenario was that he was well aware that Vaughn was listening to the whole conversation with Marshall and he certainly remembered that mission.
Running up the tracks for a head on collision...
Anytime Ariel got her hands on Sark, it was usually perceived as a sign to drop whatever one was doing and covertly watch the show, because the fireworks were generally spectacular. Of all the guardian angel/ward pairs (with the exception of Tay and Elashte, obviously, but not very many knew about that particular pairing), they were probably the two most mismatched and it led to some interesting arguments... And usually Sark getting what was coming to him.
This time, much to Sark’s immediate satisfaction, there was no one around when Ariel dragged him out of the Rift room by his tie (she would have grabbed him by his ear, but at least nearly strangling him would keep him from talking until she was ready for him to speak).
She finally released her grip on him and whirled to face him. "Have you seriously gotten so good at pissing people off that they take one look at you and want to hurt you?"
"We’re old friends," Sark muttered, voice somewhat choked as he tried to adjust his tie and avoid looking at her at the same time.
Ariel resisted the urge to smack her forehead... Or his, for that matter. "Of course, because trying to wring your skinny neck is exactly what old friends do. What the hell did you do to him, kid?"
The look he gave her was completely indignant. "Apparently, I slept with his wife, tortured him, and conspired against him so thoroughly that it essentially ruined his life."
She balled up a hand into a fist at her side as if she was preparing to hit him so hard, it’d make his grandfather dizzy if he gave her an answer she didn't like... It would hurt her too, of course, but it would probably be worth it. "And did you do that?"
"Apparently, not yet," Sark shrugged. "Although I could see myself doing it."
Surprisingly, she didn’t punch him, but the smack across the side of the head that she gave him was just as effective.
Blood and bone and a little bit of night music...
Missy quirked a smile as she drummed her fingers on the table, tapping out the beat to the opening chords of "Bad Moon Rising." She always was something of a stickler for classic rock, which was odd since she looked like the sort who would get down on the dance floor to whatever passed for a modern Top 40 Hit... Then again, she was over forty, so it was only natural that she’d have a certain taste for the classics.
And that wasn’t all she had a taste for.
"A whole squad of archangels at their disposal and they send some little chickenshit like you out to chase me down? Your captain must be some kind of moron..." She paused and leaned down to check his dog tags to get a name he hadn’t given her. "...Jake."
Jake tried to curl up into a tighter ball on the floor, clutching a deep gash just above his stomach as if he was trying to hold himself together literally. His wings were chewed and mangled and one of them was broken nearly in half since she’d dragged him all the way to this outpost by it. He was torn between wondering if he was going to slowly bleed to death or if she was going to finish the job quickly and soon, and he wasn’t sure which one he would rather have happen.
"Aw come on, Jakey, don’t be like that," she practically purred, loosening hold on the robe she’d slipped on after she changed back into her humanoid shape and pinching his cheek. "It only hurts for a little bit and soldiers aren’t supposed to act like scared little rabbits. It just makes the big, bad wolf hungrier."
She straightened up and let the robe fall off her shoulders and pool at her feet with a swish of blood-stained satin. She hummed a little to the music, crossing to an area of the outpost big enough to comfortably suit her transformation.
"Hope you have got your things together," she sang, tossing her hair back over her shoulders and settling in for the bone-crunching, but almost delightful all the same, agony that was a transformation into her demon form. "Hope you are quite prepared to die."
And then she shifted and as soon as she was finished, Private Jake Travers, of one of the foremost archangel military squads in the world, died screaming.
Asskissing not required but appreciated...
"Juliet’s settled in nicely."
Sam looked up from a stack of reports about one thing or another, which really only served the purpose of making him look like he was doing something productive in a time when there was really nothing productive to do. Apparently, Torchwood 4 coming into fruition meant that the world decided not to engage in chaos for once.
"Sorry?" He blinked. Apparently, thinking about nothing of immediate value leads to not hearing Jack when he speaks.
Jack gestured across the room to where Juliet was engaged deeply with reading something on a clipboard. "Juliet. She’s settled in nicely." He paused. "You know, when I first met her, I thought there was something about her that was very... Torchwood. I just can’t put my finger on it."
"Well, she told me when I talked to her that she’s dealt with things beyond what’s considered... Normal, I guess. Before she came here, of course." Yes, because anyone who isn’t used to the abnormal since they came to this world should seriously consider having their head examined.
Jack frowned. "It’s not that, it’s..."
He trailed off as Juliet wandered over to the two of them, still checking her notes. "There’s been a string of recent deaths in clinics across the city, attributed to very specific and rare diseases. Now, according to my notes, some of the diseases the patients been coming down with can only been contracted from spending too much time in rain forests and some of the more savage parts of Africa, and none of them were missionaries or Indiana Jones, so I think we can safely assume it wasn't naturally contracted."
"A Poludnica, then?" Sam asked. One day it’ll hit him that he’s starting to understand this world a little too well and he’ll have to sit down for a second and figure out when that happened how he feels about that exactly.
"A suicidal one, it looks like," Jack crossed his arms over his chest, grinning. "I’ll get on that myself. Thankfully, we’ve got a good rapport with a former Polundica."
He started to saunter off, stopping only when he heard Sam compliment Juliet on her findings, a smile breaking out on his face when he heard her respond with a congenially smug (and probably teasing), "Asskissing is appreciated, but not required."
The minute he was sure Juliet was back to her station, Jack walked back to Sam and beamed. "That’s it."
Sam blinked. "That’s what?"
"That’s why she suits Torchwood. She’s like a more congenial Owen."
A head case, but his record was clean...
It wasn’t the first time Sark had been stopped in this hall and given his track record, it probably wouldn’t be the last, but the fact that it was Daniel Faraday standing in his way this time was a horse of a completely different color.
It wasn’t like Sark didn’t know who he was. He made it a point to know everyone by name and reputation (it’s probably best not to ask how, although most of it was merely observation), simply because it made his life that much easier, although if anyone else were to venture a guess, however, they’d say it was for far more nefarious purposes.
Dan wasn’t the sort to stand up to people from what he’d gathered. In fact, he was a step below Marshall on the "mostly harmless" scale in the sense that the "mostly" was completely absent. He was a bit crazy, certainly, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, more than likely. If Sark had to, he could move him and would do just that if he persisted, but he had restraint, dammit, and he didn't make it a habit to harm people these days unless they were a viable threat.
"You have three seconds to move out of my way, before I move you." Clipped, controlled, and completely serious. Marshall probably would have been gone by then or at least his persisted existence in that one specific spot would be altered slightly by the fact that his knees found themselves knocking together erratically in response. Dan, however, remained stark-still.
"She’s been hurt enough as it is," he said after a moment, completely seriously.
Sark quirked a brow. "Mr. Faraday, you’re not psychic and I only tolerate that kind of nonsensical statement from them, because I have no other choice. You, however, don’t have the luxury of being something I find utterly intimidating."
He abandoned all thought of polite behavior and just pushed past him as roughly as he could manage while still managing to look dignified doing it, and only stopped when he heard Dan snap out one word in a tone he was fairly certain the man had never used before, because even though it was dark, there was an edge of uncertainty to it, like maybe he wasn’t sure if that’s how frustration and anger are supposed to sound.
It wasn’t the tone that made him stop, however. It was the word, or the name, rather.
"April."
He didn’t turn to look at Dan and as still as he was, he might as well have stopped breathing. It was his only indication that he should continue and he was listening even if he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
And continue, he did, his voice oddly even for once, completely free of erratic pauses and odd emphasis, "You should let her show you sometime. What exactly they did to her. Maybe it’ll give you some perspective and make you think before you do something to hurt her."
It took him a few minutes to force out an oddly quiet, "I’m not going to hurt her."
It was just as well that Dan wasn’t behind him to hear it (having left the second he said what he had to say), since he doubted he, like everyone else, would have believed it. At this point, Sark had said it so often, he was actually starting to wonder if he was starting to believe it, even when he knew better than any of them how untrue it could turn out to be.
Characters: Sark, Vaughn, Marshall, Missy, Dan, Juliet, the Doctor, Des, Martha, Ariel, Sam, Jack, two mentions of April, and another implied appearance by Nonexistent Pre-Pilot Rift!Sydney. (I AM INSTIGATING NOTHING... Ai just had a request.)
Pairings: It's... Honestly, mostly gen, actually. I think. That one bit of implied Sark/Sydney, aside.
Word Count: 3539
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Another collection of Rift fics.
Notes: I fail at drabbles. Therefore it's more fics of indeterminate length... And more dealing with characters who aren't in the ruddy Rift yet. Bleah. And no, Marshall's probably not going to be a shapeshifter, but considering Sark almost was, I couldn't resist aggravating my other Alias kid. It was random. Most of these are. And I totally killed off a minor character from one of the ficlets in the last set, because I didn't want to think up another character. Poor Jake. Ummm... Yes. Random.
Disclaimer: Des and Missy are mine. I just play Sark, Marshall, Dan, and Juliet on TV in the Rift. Nothing else has any right to latch itself onto me and be claimed. Right.
I love you when I forget about me...
It went without saying that Sark was a completely different person when he was with April and whether that was just some random softening of his cold, generally black heart that he quickly covered up to overcompensate for and hide from when he was around others or something that occurred just because she impressed on him so much, no one would ever be able to say (and, honestly, it was probably both). It wasn’t in his nature- it wasn’t him, so, of course, he’d try to hide it. With that being so, most people never even knew he had an attachment to her at all and if they did, he denied it or made up some excuse that didn’t really help his rapport with anyone at all (not that he cared).
...Until Vaughn made some snide comment about it while Sam was around and Sark’s hastily defensive, "She means nothing to me" directed at both of them nearly brought Sam to his knees in pain. Then it became clearly obvious and Sark didn’t leave his room for almost a week in slightly humiliated protest.
These are the days of miracle and wonder...
Stumbling into a completely different universe filled with demons, angels, and superpowers is something that only existed in daydreams for one Marshall Flinkman. Sure, it was shocking to find that daydream suddenly very much real, but he got used to it after a little while. It was just far too fascinating to concern himself with too much worry for the most part.
This, however, was somewhat worrisome. He remembered talking with Tosh and watching her manipulate technology with just her mind and it made him deeply consider what sort of ability he might get because of his trip through the Rift... And now? Now he knew.
He planted tiny little paws on the edge of his keyboard and sniffed at the screen. The faces of tiny, innocuous creatures aren’t meant to be expressive, but this particular tiny, innocuous creature was making a great show of displaying a variety of emotions ranging from terror to confusion.
Right, because how does one emotionally deal with spontaneously turning into a guinea pig?
Particle by particle she slowly changes...
Missy didn’t work with a team. She didn’t need to, although most of her employers never believed her when she told them that she was an army of one. Of course, those employers were typically human and completely naive, so naturally her most recent human employer hired an entire team to go with her on a mission to take out a rival terrorist cell in Chechnya. They needed it done in a discreet manner that didn’t pinpoint who might have been behind the attack and thus they felt they needed as many hired mercs as possible like some kind of fucking Resevoir Dogs-esque cock-up. Honestly, if they really wanted to go that route, they should have believed her when she said she worked alone. It would have saved them a shitload of money.
None of the team even had time to raise a weapon before Missy charged in blindly, and none of them dared move when the screams started, occasionally punctuated by strange, savage wolfish growls. Five minutes later, Missy strolled out of the compound, completely stark naked and covered in blood, and asked sweetly if anyone had any extra clothes she could borrow like nothing had just happened.
After that, Missy never had to work with a team again, simply because every freelancer and mercenary in the business was too scared to work with her. That was pretty much her intention.
The only constant I am sure of is this accelerating rate of change...
Daniel was tinkering with something in his room when Juliet found him, having just returned from the morgue to identify Penny’s body. The images still made her sick to her stomach and she couldn’t bear to face most anyone right now when it came to confirming what Jack had already announced over the journals. Dan was the obvious exception, given they shared a world with Penny even if neither of them had ever met her before they came here.
"It’s broken," he accessed, not looking up from his project. "I could fix it, but... It doesn’t really look like much stays fixed around here, does it?"
She didn’t have a reply for that, so she just lingered in the door, face set in an expressionless mask. She retreated so far into herself after Johnny’s death and just threw herself into whatever work she could do for Torchwood ever since Sam approached her, so it was almost easy to pretend that she wasn’t screaming underneath the surface.
He went on, "You know she wasn’t as far along on the... The timeline as we were. She won’t be there to get that call from Desmond on Christmas Eve, and you know what’ll happen then?"
"He dies too," she responded softly. He’d rambled incessantly about the theory of constants to her when they first got here on top of what she’d heard in passing back on the island.
"Yeah," Dan sighed, rubbing his forehead and wincing as if he was fighting off a headache. "Everyone who died here wasn’t supposed to die here. We’re changing history every second we’re here. Butterfly effect." He looked up at her, gravely serious. "For all we know... We might not actually have anything to go back to if we do get back."
That was another thing she didn’t have a response for, although for an entirely different reason than the first.
There’ll be no end to the rock ’n roll...
The Doctor was understandably horrified by this entire situation and for something that didn’t involve genocide or the end of the world or anything of that nature, it had to be pretty horrifying to illicit that kind of response out of him.
"Can you get him to stop?" He asked feebly, directing the question to anyone in the crowd of people who were staring up at the stage with expressions that ranged from amusement to sheer apathy, and none of them really seemed to think the situation was deserving of the focus the Doctor seemed to think it deserved.
Not surprisingly, it was Martha who answered, thankfully not drunk, although she was working on it. "Why would I do that?"
The Doctor flailed a hand at the stage. "There is a murderer on the loose with his face, Martha. It’s bad enough that he insisted we come out here tonight, but at least he could have the decency to be discreet."
Martha nearly dropped her drink when she brought a hand to her mouth. "Good point. Better get him down then." She abandoned her drink with much trepidation in favor of grabbing the Doctor’s hand and leading him through the crowd to the stage. "You know for a minute there, I thought you were just embarrassed by his singing."
The Doctor frowned as if he hadn’t actually been listening to Des’s drunken rendition of "I Love Rock and Roll" in the heat of his panic and was just now hearing it as he allowed himself to be led. "Well, now that you mention it, he is a bit off-key, isn’t he?"
Born under a bad sign...
"...News reports indicate that this coffee shop took the brunt of the damage from the accident. Here we go live to the scene, and as you can see, there really isn’t much left to discuss. This is the sixth time in the past several months that this has happened, but the owners say that this won’t deter them in the slightest from rebuilding it anew..."
Des shut off the TV. "It’s the seventh time, jackass," he muttered, leaning back against the couch.
"I think everyone’s still denying that incident with the hellhound," the Doctor mused. "That’s human nature for you. It can be burnt down twice, or have a spontaneous meteor crash into it, or... What did they say happened this time?"
"A truck drove into it," Des supplied, giving him a look that suggested he was wondering how the Doctor missed that.
"Oh right," the Doctor nodded, shooting him back a look that said, in no uncertain terms, that he had more important things to be contemplating than the bad luck of that coffee shop. "All those disasters can be explained by mundane, ordinary things, but if a woman turns into a hellhound in the middle of the shop and tries to kill half of Torchwood then they’ll be content to pretend it didn’t happen even as they’re picking up the debris."
"Yeah." Des turned the TV back on and flipped through the channels absently before finally turning back to the Doctor. "Do you think we should tell them that they’re fighting a losing battle."
The Doctor shook his head. "We could and it would certainly lessen the number of civilian casualties, but I doubt they’d listen. That’s another thing about you humans. You’re unbearably stubborn when it comes to these things."
Des just shrugged in response. "We also like coffee."
On a little street in Singapore...
There were benefits to Sydney not knowing him, he supposed, although most of those benefits were things he missed. The fighting (well, they fought, but it wasn't the same), the tension, the passion (even if it was the sort of passion that comes from seething hatred on her part). The fact that her hatred of him kept them both in their proper places helped too. After all, her hating him was the whole reason his little flirtation never went beyond that. It was so much easier to kill and systematically break someone if they didn’t look at you the same way you looked at them... Or so went Sark’s logic.
Mostly, the whole thing just annoyed him. Sydney was Sydney, either way, and her not knowing anything about him beyond hearsay (which was enough to make her wary of him even if she hadn’t decided whether or not to like him yet), which made it difficult to keep his distance, and that was annoying it itself, but the fact that he couldn’t even goad her with casual reminiscing that she’d be loathe to recall.
He actually went off on a tangent once just for the sake of irritating her about a mission the two of them went on while he was still working for SD-6 in Singapore that was nearly compromised when one of the men she was trying to detain got a bit too fresh and she had to react to avoid having her cover blown (and, in turn, nearly had her cover blown anyway). He had to abandon his position (Dixon loved him for that one- not), throw his credentials around, and make her out to be some ignorant harlot in order to successfully abort the mission without loss of life or limb. The incident, in order to "make it more realistic" ended with him kissing her rather mercilessly and she’d nearly killed him when they got back to base. What she never knew was how badly Sloane cowed him when they got back to SD-6- not for abandoning his post, but for taking advantage of her. He never told her that before, but he openly admitted it then, right before he realized that none of the story he just told meant anything to her.
The one solace he took in that rather unfalteringly embarrassing scenario was that he was well aware that Vaughn was listening to the whole conversation with Marshall and he certainly remembered that mission.
Running up the tracks for a head on collision...
Anytime Ariel got her hands on Sark, it was usually perceived as a sign to drop whatever one was doing and covertly watch the show, because the fireworks were generally spectacular. Of all the guardian angel/ward pairs (with the exception of Tay and Elashte, obviously, but not very many knew about that particular pairing), they were probably the two most mismatched and it led to some interesting arguments... And usually Sark getting what was coming to him.
This time, much to Sark’s immediate satisfaction, there was no one around when Ariel dragged him out of the Rift room by his tie (she would have grabbed him by his ear, but at least nearly strangling him would keep him from talking until she was ready for him to speak).
She finally released her grip on him and whirled to face him. "Have you seriously gotten so good at pissing people off that they take one look at you and want to hurt you?"
"We’re old friends," Sark muttered, voice somewhat choked as he tried to adjust his tie and avoid looking at her at the same time.
Ariel resisted the urge to smack her forehead... Or his, for that matter. "Of course, because trying to wring your skinny neck is exactly what old friends do. What the hell did you do to him, kid?"
The look he gave her was completely indignant. "Apparently, I slept with his wife, tortured him, and conspired against him so thoroughly that it essentially ruined his life."
She balled up a hand into a fist at her side as if she was preparing to hit him so hard, it’d make his grandfather dizzy if he gave her an answer she didn't like... It would hurt her too, of course, but it would probably be worth it. "And did you do that?"
"Apparently, not yet," Sark shrugged. "Although I could see myself doing it."
Surprisingly, she didn’t punch him, but the smack across the side of the head that she gave him was just as effective.
Blood and bone and a little bit of night music...
Missy quirked a smile as she drummed her fingers on the table, tapping out the beat to the opening chords of "Bad Moon Rising." She always was something of a stickler for classic rock, which was odd since she looked like the sort who would get down on the dance floor to whatever passed for a modern Top 40 Hit... Then again, she was over forty, so it was only natural that she’d have a certain taste for the classics.
And that wasn’t all she had a taste for.
"A whole squad of archangels at their disposal and they send some little chickenshit like you out to chase me down? Your captain must be some kind of moron..." She paused and leaned down to check his dog tags to get a name he hadn’t given her. "...Jake."
Jake tried to curl up into a tighter ball on the floor, clutching a deep gash just above his stomach as if he was trying to hold himself together literally. His wings were chewed and mangled and one of them was broken nearly in half since she’d dragged him all the way to this outpost by it. He was torn between wondering if he was going to slowly bleed to death or if she was going to finish the job quickly and soon, and he wasn’t sure which one he would rather have happen.
"Aw come on, Jakey, don’t be like that," she practically purred, loosening hold on the robe she’d slipped on after she changed back into her humanoid shape and pinching his cheek. "It only hurts for a little bit and soldiers aren’t supposed to act like scared little rabbits. It just makes the big, bad wolf hungrier."
She straightened up and let the robe fall off her shoulders and pool at her feet with a swish of blood-stained satin. She hummed a little to the music, crossing to an area of the outpost big enough to comfortably suit her transformation.
"Hope you have got your things together," she sang, tossing her hair back over her shoulders and settling in for the bone-crunching, but almost delightful all the same, agony that was a transformation into her demon form. "Hope you are quite prepared to die."
And then she shifted and as soon as she was finished, Private Jake Travers, of one of the foremost archangel military squads in the world, died screaming.
Asskissing not required but appreciated...
"Juliet’s settled in nicely."
Sam looked up from a stack of reports about one thing or another, which really only served the purpose of making him look like he was doing something productive in a time when there was really nothing productive to do. Apparently, Torchwood 4 coming into fruition meant that the world decided not to engage in chaos for once.
"Sorry?" He blinked. Apparently, thinking about nothing of immediate value leads to not hearing Jack when he speaks.
Jack gestured across the room to where Juliet was engaged deeply with reading something on a clipboard. "Juliet. She’s settled in nicely." He paused. "You know, when I first met her, I thought there was something about her that was very... Torchwood. I just can’t put my finger on it."
"Well, she told me when I talked to her that she’s dealt with things beyond what’s considered... Normal, I guess. Before she came here, of course." Yes, because anyone who isn’t used to the abnormal since they came to this world should seriously consider having their head examined.
Jack frowned. "It’s not that, it’s..."
He trailed off as Juliet wandered over to the two of them, still checking her notes. "There’s been a string of recent deaths in clinics across the city, attributed to very specific and rare diseases. Now, according to my notes, some of the diseases the patients been coming down with can only been contracted from spending too much time in rain forests and some of the more savage parts of Africa, and none of them were missionaries or Indiana Jones, so I think we can safely assume it wasn't naturally contracted."
"A Poludnica, then?" Sam asked. One day it’ll hit him that he’s starting to understand this world a little too well and he’ll have to sit down for a second and figure out when that happened how he feels about that exactly.
"A suicidal one, it looks like," Jack crossed his arms over his chest, grinning. "I’ll get on that myself. Thankfully, we’ve got a good rapport with a former Polundica."
He started to saunter off, stopping only when he heard Sam compliment Juliet on her findings, a smile breaking out on his face when he heard her respond with a congenially smug (and probably teasing), "Asskissing is appreciated, but not required."
The minute he was sure Juliet was back to her station, Jack walked back to Sam and beamed. "That’s it."
Sam blinked. "That’s what?"
"That’s why she suits Torchwood. She’s like a more congenial Owen."
A head case, but his record was clean...
It wasn’t the first time Sark had been stopped in this hall and given his track record, it probably wouldn’t be the last, but the fact that it was Daniel Faraday standing in his way this time was a horse of a completely different color.
It wasn’t like Sark didn’t know who he was. He made it a point to know everyone by name and reputation (it’s probably best not to ask how, although most of it was merely observation), simply because it made his life that much easier, although if anyone else were to venture a guess, however, they’d say it was for far more nefarious purposes.
Dan wasn’t the sort to stand up to people from what he’d gathered. In fact, he was a step below Marshall on the "mostly harmless" scale in the sense that the "mostly" was completely absent. He was a bit crazy, certainly, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, more than likely. If Sark had to, he could move him and would do just that if he persisted, but he had restraint, dammit, and he didn't make it a habit to harm people these days unless they were a viable threat.
"You have three seconds to move out of my way, before I move you." Clipped, controlled, and completely serious. Marshall probably would have been gone by then or at least his persisted existence in that one specific spot would be altered slightly by the fact that his knees found themselves knocking together erratically in response. Dan, however, remained stark-still.
"She’s been hurt enough as it is," he said after a moment, completely seriously.
Sark quirked a brow. "Mr. Faraday, you’re not psychic and I only tolerate that kind of nonsensical statement from them, because I have no other choice. You, however, don’t have the luxury of being something I find utterly intimidating."
He abandoned all thought of polite behavior and just pushed past him as roughly as he could manage while still managing to look dignified doing it, and only stopped when he heard Dan snap out one word in a tone he was fairly certain the man had never used before, because even though it was dark, there was an edge of uncertainty to it, like maybe he wasn’t sure if that’s how frustration and anger are supposed to sound.
It wasn’t the tone that made him stop, however. It was the word, or the name, rather.
"April."
He didn’t turn to look at Dan and as still as he was, he might as well have stopped breathing. It was his only indication that he should continue and he was listening even if he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
And continue, he did, his voice oddly even for once, completely free of erratic pauses and odd emphasis, "You should let her show you sometime. What exactly they did to her. Maybe it’ll give you some perspective and make you think before you do something to hurt her."
It took him a few minutes to force out an oddly quiet, "I’m not going to hurt her."
It was just as well that Dan wasn’t behind him to hear it (having left the second he said what he had to say), since he doubted he, like everyone else, would have believed it. At this point, Sark had said it so often, he was actually starting to wonder if he was starting to believe it, even when he knew better than any of them how untrue it could turn out to be.