If I were you...[fic]
Title: If I were you...
Author:
shadowbyrd
Rating(s): PG - 13
Characters: Owen, Jack
Prompt: 26. Teammates for
fanfic100
Warning(s): Allusions to the finale.
Summary: It's not you, it's me.
It’s not that Owen doesn’t like Jack. He actually quite likes him - one of the best (worst) bosses he’s ever had, but then this is the best (worst) job he’s ever had, so it’s only fitting.
Not liking him would be nice. Nice and put-away-in-a-box-during-work-hours neat. Hating him would be wonderful; so liberating, so simple.
The truth is painfully complicated and disgustingly clichéd.
He hates himself.
(It’s not you - it’s me)
He’s the wanker he is purely (well, partly) because he is all too aware of all those cock ups he is bound to make, and incredibly paranoid about other people seeing, other people knowing. He had that all the time at the hospital; no place like it for gossip. He hated the place. It was like being confined in a cell full of hidden cameras; somehow every one knew every thing you’d done and there was no escape from it. It was slightly more bearable if people thought you didn’t really care.
There were always a few people who could tell, though. Tosh sees it sometimes and, whenever she does, remembers all the other times she glimpsed something like dedication in him. Whenever he sees it, or anything remotely like it, switches flick in his head and he snaps something cruel to get her away or does something pointless and stupid to knock that idea out of her head. It always works, but each time she gets harder to shake, which probably means one day she’s going to look at him and just see it, and see the cover-up attempts for what they really are.
Like Jack.
It’s the reason (one which apparently eludes and confuses the rest of them, even Suzie back in her day) that Jack only takes one or two more digs at Owen than he does at any of the others and then moves on. It would make him hate Jack - it should make him hate Jack. But he doesn’t, because every now and again it’s actually quite nice to drop the act every now and again, to have someone who knows and will understand when you make certain remarks, rather than look at you with surprise as if to ask and since when did you start caring?
But in the same breath he really can’t stand it, because after all these years he’s figured out exactly what it is that let Jack figure him out (and be so quick about it).
Thing is, Jack’s Owen. Or Owen’s Jack. Not like one of those twisty time-travel side-effects where someone becomes his own father and someone else wipes himself from existence by killing some evil old git who happened to be his future self. They’re the same kind of person, within inches of being the same person, except Jack’s slightly better - the one the photocopier didn’t mangle. He’s attractive in a way that undeniably has wider appeal than Owen’s particular features and demeanour, screws up but has been rendered apathetic by its inevitability and so continues on with things, and never once does he let it slow him down. He’s seen to care, though only in a roundabout way - after all, he’s the one who has to call the shots, including those rather unfortunate ones that will leave people dead on the ground, perhaps unnecessarily.
Except Owen knows that last bit isn’t entirely true; Jack cares. Not in the over-board “I will lose sleep tonight because of this and so should you” way Gwen has, but he cares enough for it to bother him and to have him tired and fed up of pretending that he doesn’t; so much so that he gets himself a person who knows. Or rather, one who thinks she does and whom he can just talk at when the day’s work is going to leave him with a hangover tomorrow.
Owen knows Jack, or maybe, like Gwen, only thinks he does. Maybe she’s seeing all the good points and the old-style American hero he stole that chin from, and Owen’s seeing all the bad points, remembering all those mistakes and indiscretions that have piled up under the carpet over the years. He might not be seeing all of him but what he does see is like looking in a mirror. Or at least one that shows him what he’d be like if he were a few inches taller, had a thing for period military and had a little bit of a shine to him. Maybe he’s just seeing the bits where the gloss has peeled off - that layer of varnish that keeps them separate, stops Jack from morphing somehow into Owen.
Maybe Owen’s just projecting heavily onto the nearest available authority figure.
Being able to do the empty chair thing might be quite useful about now.
“You know what I’m really sick of?” he asks Jack, on one of those rare days after Diane flew away to glory and mystery where he’s in work, and in one of those even rarer moments when it’s just them sitting alone and just a little bit cold in the SUV. “People looking down on me. Thinking they’re better than me because they don’t think I’m putting the effort in, or because I’m a bit rough around the edges or I’m not caring loudly enough.”
“You know what I hate?” Jack asks, eyes never moving from the windscreen in front of him. “I’m sick of everyone trying to tell that I’m not right all the time. I know not I’m right all the time. I remember that without you four bleating it at me at every opportunity. And while it’s nice to know you’re all aware of this fact, one day, one of you is going to take it into your heads to try doing things another way and everything is going to go to shit. Because while my way sucks, and people die, it also usually gets the job done with minimum collateral.”
He looks over at Owen like he’s expecting him to say something, or challenge him. He doesn’t. Because conviction’s yet another thing that Owen hasn’t got but Jack’s picked up somewhere.
He should probably do something about that.
Author:
shadowbyrd
Rating(s): PG - 13
Characters: Owen, Jack
Prompt: 26. Teammates for
fanfic100
Warning(s): Allusions to the finale.
Summary: It's not you, it's me.
It’s not that Owen doesn’t like Jack. He actually quite likes him - one of the best (worst) bosses he’s ever had, but then this is the best (worst) job he’s ever had, so it’s only fitting.
Not liking him would be nice. Nice and put-away-in-a-box-during-work-hours neat. Hating him would be wonderful; so liberating, so simple.
The truth is painfully complicated and disgustingly clichéd.
He hates himself.
(It’s not you - it’s me)
He’s the wanker he is purely (well, partly) because he is all too aware of all those cock ups he is bound to make, and incredibly paranoid about other people seeing, other people knowing. He had that all the time at the hospital; no place like it for gossip. He hated the place. It was like being confined in a cell full of hidden cameras; somehow every one knew every thing you’d done and there was no escape from it. It was slightly more bearable if people thought you didn’t really care.
There were always a few people who could tell, though. Tosh sees it sometimes and, whenever she does, remembers all the other times she glimpsed something like dedication in him. Whenever he sees it, or anything remotely like it, switches flick in his head and he snaps something cruel to get her away or does something pointless and stupid to knock that idea out of her head. It always works, but each time she gets harder to shake, which probably means one day she’s going to look at him and just see it, and see the cover-up attempts for what they really are.
Like Jack.
It’s the reason (one which apparently eludes and confuses the rest of them, even Suzie back in her day) that Jack only takes one or two more digs at Owen than he does at any of the others and then moves on. It would make him hate Jack - it should make him hate Jack. But he doesn’t, because every now and again it’s actually quite nice to drop the act every now and again, to have someone who knows and will understand when you make certain remarks, rather than look at you with surprise as if to ask and since when did you start caring?
But in the same breath he really can’t stand it, because after all these years he’s figured out exactly what it is that let Jack figure him out (and be so quick about it).
Thing is, Jack’s Owen. Or Owen’s Jack. Not like one of those twisty time-travel side-effects where someone becomes his own father and someone else wipes himself from existence by killing some evil old git who happened to be his future self. They’re the same kind of person, within inches of being the same person, except Jack’s slightly better - the one the photocopier didn’t mangle. He’s attractive in a way that undeniably has wider appeal than Owen’s particular features and demeanour, screws up but has been rendered apathetic by its inevitability and so continues on with things, and never once does he let it slow him down. He’s seen to care, though only in a roundabout way - after all, he’s the one who has to call the shots, including those rather unfortunate ones that will leave people dead on the ground, perhaps unnecessarily.
Except Owen knows that last bit isn’t entirely true; Jack cares. Not in the over-board “I will lose sleep tonight because of this and so should you” way Gwen has, but he cares enough for it to bother him and to have him tired and fed up of pretending that he doesn’t; so much so that he gets himself a person who knows. Or rather, one who thinks she does and whom he can just talk at when the day’s work is going to leave him with a hangover tomorrow.
Owen knows Jack, or maybe, like Gwen, only thinks he does. Maybe she’s seeing all the good points and the old-style American hero he stole that chin from, and Owen’s seeing all the bad points, remembering all those mistakes and indiscretions that have piled up under the carpet over the years. He might not be seeing all of him but what he does see is like looking in a mirror. Or at least one that shows him what he’d be like if he were a few inches taller, had a thing for period military and had a little bit of a shine to him. Maybe he’s just seeing the bits where the gloss has peeled off - that layer of varnish that keeps them separate, stops Jack from morphing somehow into Owen.
Maybe Owen’s just projecting heavily onto the nearest available authority figure.
Being able to do the empty chair thing might be quite useful about now.
“You know what I’m really sick of?” he asks Jack, on one of those rare days after Diane flew away to glory and mystery where he’s in work, and in one of those even rarer moments when it’s just them sitting alone and just a little bit cold in the SUV. “People looking down on me. Thinking they’re better than me because they don’t think I’m putting the effort in, or because I’m a bit rough around the edges or I’m not caring loudly enough.”
“You know what I hate?” Jack asks, eyes never moving from the windscreen in front of him. “I’m sick of everyone trying to tell that I’m not right all the time. I know not I’m right all the time. I remember that without you four bleating it at me at every opportunity. And while it’s nice to know you’re all aware of this fact, one day, one of you is going to take it into your heads to try doing things another way and everything is going to go to shit. Because while my way sucks, and people die, it also usually gets the job done with minimum collateral.”
He looks over at Owen like he’s expecting him to say something, or challenge him. He doesn’t. Because conviction’s yet another thing that Owen hasn’t got but Jack’s picked up somewhere.
He should probably do something about that.