Drabble dump, August edition
Everything changed the day Gwen discovered Torchwood.
The rogue who'd spied her up there was Captain Jack Harkness, but he didn't seem captain of much, running up to greet her when she arrived with the pizza boxes. "I'm so going to get in trouble with the boss," he said, grinning.
"Correction," said a sharp female voice. "You already are in trouble with the boss."
"Aw, Tosh--" Jack began, but the woman standing at the crest of the stairs silenced him with a look. He slinked down into the pit.
"Forgive Jack," Tosh said as she walked down. "He can be a little... overeager." She held out a hand to Gwen, and her handshake was firm and solid. "Toshiko Sato. Welcome to Torchwood." Gwen shrank a little, just reflexively, from the sheer power of her presence. She'd realize later that the woman stood a head shorter than she, but that didn't even occur to her now. She seemed to fill the room.
Round eyes blinked behind black-rimmed glasses. "We've had rift activity, people," she announced, with a brief handclap to grab attention. "Jack, I'll relay the coordinates to the van. See what you can find out. Suzie, I want you on the CCTV--"
"You'll send him alone?" Gwen burst out. "To face whatever's out there?"
Toshiko smiled demurely. "Jack's a great asset to us in that way. He can't die."
"That's ridiculous," Gwen spat immediately.
"As ridiculous as bringing the dead back to life?" Toshiko replied without a beat, and resumed her litany of orders in the speechless moment that ensued. "CCTV, Suzie. See if we have any footage. Ianto, I'm afraid I need another cup, do you mind?"
"Yes, ma'am," said a dapper Welsh gent Gwen hadn't seen before.
"Thank you." Her voice was musical. "And Owen?"
A man popped up from behind a railing. "Yes, ma'am?"
"Come see me in-- Ianto, when do you suppose the coffee will be done?"
"About three minutes," Ianto volunteered.
A small smile graced Toshiko's face, and her cheeks went slightly pink. "Come see me in about four minutes."
--
Gooseflesh
Gooseflesh and moonlight went together in Sam's memory. It had been a full moon the first time, and when he'd stepped into the water (tentatively-- as usual, Sam was tentative and Dean was gung-ho about the experience) his flesh had erupted in a million small bumps. Dean, all gleaming chest and brawny arms, had run his hands up Sam's arm and teased him, but that hadn't made the least bit of difference to the stubborn little bumps. In fact, they stood up prouder than ever, and Sam eventually sank down up to his neck just to avoid Dean's taunting gaze. Beneath the surface, his whole body shivered.
A few lazy laps later and Sam was getting used to the water, though his skin still prickled with each exposure to air. The calm persisted until he turned over to dive beneath the surface and realized in the half-second before submersion that Dean was treading water, watching him, his look blank. The vision so surprised him that he came gasping to the surface a bare moment later, whipping his head around like a dog to shake the excess water from it. When his eyes cleared of lake water, he found himself a scant few feet from Dean. It was almost thoughtlessly that he closed the gap.
"You're staring," he said quietly.
Dean flushed and averted his eyes. "Well, it's a full moon."
"And that explains it." Close enough now that he could feel the heat of Dean's body, radiating through the water at his own. Another few inches and he'd be able to feel Dean's excitement, unshielded by clothing and unhindered by the chill of the water.
He couldn't help himself.
Dean whimpered as hot cock pressed up against belly. Then amusement twisted his face, and he ran ghostlike hands up Sam's tingling arms. "You still have them," he marveled.
"So do you," whispered Sam, and he slid his arms around Dean for a kiss.
-
"Jack," Ianto had said on the verge of sleep, "remember me."
If he hadn't fallen asleep right then and there, Jack would surely have given him a tongue-lashing, and not the good kind, either. Part of Ianto's charm was that knew better. He knew that Jack would forget him eventually, as he forgot all his lovers, traveling agelessly through the world as he did. So he never asked, never demanded more, even as his eyes pleaded for it, as his body begged beneath Jack's.
At least, Jack had thought he knew better. He stared at the man beside him, whose breaths rose and fell evenly, whose lips turned up in contented languor. He sighed and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was too bad, really, that Ianto had to go and ask to be remembered. Because until that moment, he'd really been on the road to becoming one of the few Jack did remember.
-
"Has anyone ever told you that when you fight, you sound like you're-- uh..." Nate faltered.
Eliot's cue missed the ball entirely and went skidding into the felt. "What."
Not a question, a statement. An accusation. Eyes sharp as darts were on Nate all of a sudden. "Nothing," he said hastily. "Never mind."
Eliot gave one of his knowing half-smiles and put down the pool cue, walking over to where Nate sat with his brandy in hand. "No, I want to know," he said with that deceptively easy drawl. His eyebrows were twitching. "What were you going to say?"
"Nothing, I just--" God damn, this wasn't going to end well, and even the master of daring escapes couldn't see a way out of it. "--I was on the line when you were taking care of those brownshirts the other day and it was sort of like..."
"Like what?" His shoes bumped against Nate's, four black smudges on golden slats of wood.
Now Nate's mouth was on autopilot. "Well, you grunt and you groan and there's a lot of heavy breathing, and it sounds a little pornographic, that's all."
Eliot just kept on smiling, his default when his brain was busy processing dangerous information. An explosion was imminent, but the buildup was slow. Nate clutched his hands in his lap and waited for the bottle to burst.
A blur of motion. Now the brandy was in Eliot's hand. He swallowed it in one go and stepped between Nate's spread knees, leaning forward to slam his hands on the arms of his chair.
"I'll bet you want to know," he said evenly, "if it sounds like fighting when I'm having sex, too."
"Not particularly, no," Nate said, and he was embarrassed to realize he was lying.
-
Jim clawed at the window. "Stop--! God, you can't! Bastard, stop it!"
By now there was nothing left to stop. The void had swallowed the last crumbles of dirt, the last whispers of home to so many on that bridge. Uhura was quietly weeping; Chekov sat agape, big tears brimming in his round eyes. Sulu was murmuring a chant, and McCoy had crumpled into a ball, hiding his face. Only Jim continued to rail, and it was damn lucky that the monitor was reinforced with twenty layers of fiberglass and insulation, because mere plate glass would surely have shattered beneath the fury of his pounding fists.
"Your actions serve no purpose," Spock said, quietly and coldly, behind him. "Calm yourself."
"Calm myself, what the fuck!?" Jim wheeled and Spock was the one now fending off a battery of blows. "Did you see what he fucking did? All those people down there, had no chance, and my home, my goddamn family, you heartless Vulcan bastard, what would you know?"
A knock to his shoulder that Spock didn't expect. His mouth went round and shocked, and there was a moment of silence where he teetered, off balance. Then he went to the floor, toppled by heartbroken passion.
Jim went down with him, and he kept trying to beat furious fists against Spock's chest, sobbing and screaming, until patient white hands found his back, the nape of his neck. "I'm sorry," Spock said, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry."
His tears frozen, Jim fell silent. His breath began to calm. Surrendering to the strange warmth of Spock's grip, he closed his eyes.
-
The smoke was still pouring from Merlin's hand after the spell was long since cast. He had no explanations, no excuses to offer Arthur when he arrived, just a whimper of pain and helpless, glassy eyes. "Blast it," Arthur grumbled, ripping a strip from his tunic, "did you touch the damn thing when it burst into flame? How did--"
"Water," Merlin gasped.
"Water. Right." Arthur looked around, but in the embers of the still-burning forest, he could find none. A moment of decision, and he pressed his mouth firmly to the wound, cursing as he did. Merlin's eyes widened.
-
But really, Gwen was all about Gwen. She could break your heart to keep her own status quo, be it Rhys or be it Torchwood or be it whatever peace of mind she felt she needed. She'd left Owen for the same reason she'd slept with him in the first place: to still her own unquiet heart.
It didn't at all surprise Andy that she'd slept with him; as much as he put Gwen on a pedestal he never saw her as a saint. In fact, it was probably the bad girl that perpetual nice guy Andy saw in her.
-
"We should talk about this, Doctor," Spock said, turning his head only to catch lazy kisses from a talented mouth. "As much as this might be pleasurable--" kisses on his neck now, making him squirm -- "I really think it is advisable that we keep..." A tongue lapped at his nipples. "our relationship... professional."
McCoy's mouth was moving down his stomach. "Professional. Right."
Spock had to crack a smile. "According to your rhetorical pattern, Doctor, I suspect you're about to tell me you're a doctor, not a--"
"Don't," McCoy warned, looking up at him.
Spock didn't.
-
He looked in the mirror and saw a villain. In all his attempts to be a hero, that's how he'd ended up.
He looked for a mirror that would reflect back on him an image of the hero he wanted to be.
In the arms of a villain who sought no forgiveness, he could look in the mirror and see himself reflected as a victim, not a monster. The monster was already there. That made him the hero.
And beneath the body of a man who did not search for redemption, he learned to live without asking for it.
-
"Give me that-- oh, for Christ's sake, Pete, you just nicked it."
More wailing.
"Pete. You did not just cut your finger off."
Didn't help.
"What? What do you want me to do? Hmm?"
Big eyes looked up at him, blinking back tears. "Kiss it and make it better?"
-
Peter remembers, walking into the kitchen, the smell of waffles and the sound of a knife cutting melon, slice slice slice. He sees his mother's face, and he remembers that she's been gone for a week now. It's silly, really, that he should miss her in the kitchen, of all things. It's not like she spent a lot of time there. But some memories are indelible.
Nathan walks in, and the first thing he does is go to that countertop and fix his hands in the frame of the cutting board. "Melon," he says.
Peter runs right into his arms.
-
"Captain."
"Let me guess. Another of your visions."
"Captain, as a half-Betazoid the quality of my empathy is what drove you to offer me a position aboard the USS Impala. Disregarding my advice now would be--"
"Relax, Number One. I'm just taking the piss out of you."
"That is not possible, captain."
"And there's your Vulcan half again. It's a figure of speech. Whats wrong with you?"
"What's... Never mind that. I've sensed a distress call in the Idaho system. People are disappearing there. I think it must be the Vengeful Spirit."
"That damn pirate vessel. Warp II, engage."
-
Roswell isn't a very exiting name for a place,when you think about it. It's not Ros-fantastic or Ros-amazing, it's Ros-well. Might as well be Ros-so-so. Hardly the place you might expect to see aliens, of all places. Why not go to a city named "The Angels," or something that's called the Mile-High City, or something like that to make your debut on the Terran stage? But Roswell it was, and Roswell it ever shall be, world without end, amen, and all that jazz. Funniest thing about the whole jazz? It isn't even that Roswell.
Yeah, you heard me. The one down south is a decoy. A diversion. Mankind's first contact with an alien race took place on the corner of Picket Street and March Ave., in Roswell, North Dakota.
I should know. I was there.
The rogue who'd spied her up there was Captain Jack Harkness, but he didn't seem captain of much, running up to greet her when she arrived with the pizza boxes. "I'm so going to get in trouble with the boss," he said, grinning.
"Correction," said a sharp female voice. "You already are in trouble with the boss."
"Aw, Tosh--" Jack began, but the woman standing at the crest of the stairs silenced him with a look. He slinked down into the pit.
"Forgive Jack," Tosh said as she walked down. "He can be a little... overeager." She held out a hand to Gwen, and her handshake was firm and solid. "Toshiko Sato. Welcome to Torchwood." Gwen shrank a little, just reflexively, from the sheer power of her presence. She'd realize later that the woman stood a head shorter than she, but that didn't even occur to her now. She seemed to fill the room.
Round eyes blinked behind black-rimmed glasses. "We've had rift activity, people," she announced, with a brief handclap to grab attention. "Jack, I'll relay the coordinates to the van. See what you can find out. Suzie, I want you on the CCTV--"
"You'll send him alone?" Gwen burst out. "To face whatever's out there?"
Toshiko smiled demurely. "Jack's a great asset to us in that way. He can't die."
"That's ridiculous," Gwen spat immediately.
"As ridiculous as bringing the dead back to life?" Toshiko replied without a beat, and resumed her litany of orders in the speechless moment that ensued. "CCTV, Suzie. See if we have any footage. Ianto, I'm afraid I need another cup, do you mind?"
"Yes, ma'am," said a dapper Welsh gent Gwen hadn't seen before.
"Thank you." Her voice was musical. "And Owen?"
A man popped up from behind a railing. "Yes, ma'am?"
"Come see me in-- Ianto, when do you suppose the coffee will be done?"
"About three minutes," Ianto volunteered.
A small smile graced Toshiko's face, and her cheeks went slightly pink. "Come see me in about four minutes."
--
Gooseflesh
Gooseflesh and moonlight went together in Sam's memory. It had been a full moon the first time, and when he'd stepped into the water (tentatively-- as usual, Sam was tentative and Dean was gung-ho about the experience) his flesh had erupted in a million small bumps. Dean, all gleaming chest and brawny arms, had run his hands up Sam's arm and teased him, but that hadn't made the least bit of difference to the stubborn little bumps. In fact, they stood up prouder than ever, and Sam eventually sank down up to his neck just to avoid Dean's taunting gaze. Beneath the surface, his whole body shivered.
A few lazy laps later and Sam was getting used to the water, though his skin still prickled with each exposure to air. The calm persisted until he turned over to dive beneath the surface and realized in the half-second before submersion that Dean was treading water, watching him, his look blank. The vision so surprised him that he came gasping to the surface a bare moment later, whipping his head around like a dog to shake the excess water from it. When his eyes cleared of lake water, he found himself a scant few feet from Dean. It was almost thoughtlessly that he closed the gap.
"You're staring," he said quietly.
Dean flushed and averted his eyes. "Well, it's a full moon."
"And that explains it." Close enough now that he could feel the heat of Dean's body, radiating through the water at his own. Another few inches and he'd be able to feel Dean's excitement, unshielded by clothing and unhindered by the chill of the water.
He couldn't help himself.
Dean whimpered as hot cock pressed up against belly. Then amusement twisted his face, and he ran ghostlike hands up Sam's tingling arms. "You still have them," he marveled.
"So do you," whispered Sam, and he slid his arms around Dean for a kiss.
-
"Jack," Ianto had said on the verge of sleep, "remember me."
If he hadn't fallen asleep right then and there, Jack would surely have given him a tongue-lashing, and not the good kind, either. Part of Ianto's charm was that knew better. He knew that Jack would forget him eventually, as he forgot all his lovers, traveling agelessly through the world as he did. So he never asked, never demanded more, even as his eyes pleaded for it, as his body begged beneath Jack's.
At least, Jack had thought he knew better. He stared at the man beside him, whose breaths rose and fell evenly, whose lips turned up in contented languor. He sighed and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was too bad, really, that Ianto had to go and ask to be remembered. Because until that moment, he'd really been on the road to becoming one of the few Jack did remember.
-
"Has anyone ever told you that when you fight, you sound like you're-- uh..." Nate faltered.
Eliot's cue missed the ball entirely and went skidding into the felt. "What."
Not a question, a statement. An accusation. Eyes sharp as darts were on Nate all of a sudden. "Nothing," he said hastily. "Never mind."
Eliot gave one of his knowing half-smiles and put down the pool cue, walking over to where Nate sat with his brandy in hand. "No, I want to know," he said with that deceptively easy drawl. His eyebrows were twitching. "What were you going to say?"
"Nothing, I just--" God damn, this wasn't going to end well, and even the master of daring escapes couldn't see a way out of it. "--I was on the line when you were taking care of those brownshirts the other day and it was sort of like..."
"Like what?" His shoes bumped against Nate's, four black smudges on golden slats of wood.
Now Nate's mouth was on autopilot. "Well, you grunt and you groan and there's a lot of heavy breathing, and it sounds a little pornographic, that's all."
Eliot just kept on smiling, his default when his brain was busy processing dangerous information. An explosion was imminent, but the buildup was slow. Nate clutched his hands in his lap and waited for the bottle to burst.
A blur of motion. Now the brandy was in Eliot's hand. He swallowed it in one go and stepped between Nate's spread knees, leaning forward to slam his hands on the arms of his chair.
"I'll bet you want to know," he said evenly, "if it sounds like fighting when I'm having sex, too."
"Not particularly, no," Nate said, and he was embarrassed to realize he was lying.
-
Jim clawed at the window. "Stop--! God, you can't! Bastard, stop it!"
By now there was nothing left to stop. The void had swallowed the last crumbles of dirt, the last whispers of home to so many on that bridge. Uhura was quietly weeping; Chekov sat agape, big tears brimming in his round eyes. Sulu was murmuring a chant, and McCoy had crumpled into a ball, hiding his face. Only Jim continued to rail, and it was damn lucky that the monitor was reinforced with twenty layers of fiberglass and insulation, because mere plate glass would surely have shattered beneath the fury of his pounding fists.
"Your actions serve no purpose," Spock said, quietly and coldly, behind him. "Calm yourself."
"Calm myself, what the fuck!?" Jim wheeled and Spock was the one now fending off a battery of blows. "Did you see what he fucking did? All those people down there, had no chance, and my home, my goddamn family, you heartless Vulcan bastard, what would you know?"
A knock to his shoulder that Spock didn't expect. His mouth went round and shocked, and there was a moment of silence where he teetered, off balance. Then he went to the floor, toppled by heartbroken passion.
Jim went down with him, and he kept trying to beat furious fists against Spock's chest, sobbing and screaming, until patient white hands found his back, the nape of his neck. "I'm sorry," Spock said, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry."
His tears frozen, Jim fell silent. His breath began to calm. Surrendering to the strange warmth of Spock's grip, he closed his eyes.
-
The smoke was still pouring from Merlin's hand after the spell was long since cast. He had no explanations, no excuses to offer Arthur when he arrived, just a whimper of pain and helpless, glassy eyes. "Blast it," Arthur grumbled, ripping a strip from his tunic, "did you touch the damn thing when it burst into flame? How did--"
"Water," Merlin gasped.
"Water. Right." Arthur looked around, but in the embers of the still-burning forest, he could find none. A moment of decision, and he pressed his mouth firmly to the wound, cursing as he did. Merlin's eyes widened.
-
But really, Gwen was all about Gwen. She could break your heart to keep her own status quo, be it Rhys or be it Torchwood or be it whatever peace of mind she felt she needed. She'd left Owen for the same reason she'd slept with him in the first place: to still her own unquiet heart.
It didn't at all surprise Andy that she'd slept with him; as much as he put Gwen on a pedestal he never saw her as a saint. In fact, it was probably the bad girl that perpetual nice guy Andy saw in her.
-
"We should talk about this, Doctor," Spock said, turning his head only to catch lazy kisses from a talented mouth. "As much as this might be pleasurable--" kisses on his neck now, making him squirm -- "I really think it is advisable that we keep..." A tongue lapped at his nipples. "our relationship... professional."
McCoy's mouth was moving down his stomach. "Professional. Right."
Spock had to crack a smile. "According to your rhetorical pattern, Doctor, I suspect you're about to tell me you're a doctor, not a--"
"Don't," McCoy warned, looking up at him.
Spock didn't.
-
He looked in the mirror and saw a villain. In all his attempts to be a hero, that's how he'd ended up.
He looked for a mirror that would reflect back on him an image of the hero he wanted to be.
In the arms of a villain who sought no forgiveness, he could look in the mirror and see himself reflected as a victim, not a monster. The monster was already there. That made him the hero.
And beneath the body of a man who did not search for redemption, he learned to live without asking for it.
-
"Give me that-- oh, for Christ's sake, Pete, you just nicked it."
More wailing.
"Pete. You did not just cut your finger off."
Didn't help.
"What? What do you want me to do? Hmm?"
Big eyes looked up at him, blinking back tears. "Kiss it and make it better?"
-
Peter remembers, walking into the kitchen, the smell of waffles and the sound of a knife cutting melon, slice slice slice. He sees his mother's face, and he remembers that she's been gone for a week now. It's silly, really, that he should miss her in the kitchen, of all things. It's not like she spent a lot of time there. But some memories are indelible.
Nathan walks in, and the first thing he does is go to that countertop and fix his hands in the frame of the cutting board. "Melon," he says.
Peter runs right into his arms.
-
"Captain."
"Let me guess. Another of your visions."
"Captain, as a half-Betazoid the quality of my empathy is what drove you to offer me a position aboard the USS Impala. Disregarding my advice now would be--"
"Relax, Number One. I'm just taking the piss out of you."
"That is not possible, captain."
"And there's your Vulcan half again. It's a figure of speech. Whats wrong with you?"
"What's... Never mind that. I've sensed a distress call in the Idaho system. People are disappearing there. I think it must be the Vengeful Spirit."
"That damn pirate vessel. Warp II, engage."
-
Roswell isn't a very exiting name for a place,when you think about it. It's not Ros-fantastic or Ros-amazing, it's Ros-well. Might as well be Ros-so-so. Hardly the place you might expect to see aliens, of all places. Why not go to a city named "The Angels," or something that's called the Mile-High City, or something like that to make your debut on the Terran stage? But Roswell it was, and Roswell it ever shall be, world without end, amen, and all that jazz. Funniest thing about the whole jazz? It isn't even that Roswell.
Yeah, you heard me. The one down south is a decoy. A diversion. Mankind's first contact with an alien race took place on the corner of Picket Street and March Ave., in Roswell, North Dakota.
I should know. I was there.