[Locked to Winter] [Locked against other members of Torchwood]
[[OOC: Yes, this is addressed to one of Leona's whores who isn't actually played by anyone. This would probably be a good time to mention that I'd be incredibly grateful to anyone who could bring him in as an NPC. I can do it myself, if needed, but that would be a bit muncesty, so if anyone's feeling like playing a pretty albino Glaysa as an NPC,
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And, truth be told, my infatuation with the Cure died quickly, but I still have a lingering fondness for the Smiths. It's mostly nostalgia, really, for when I was sixteen years old and in the grip of the sort of intense hatred of everything in my life that seems obligatory at that age, along with the heartfelt conviction that no one understood me. Faux-misery, if you will. Real misery comes later, when life catches up to you, and there are worse problems than how you never knew your mum as anything but a headstone, and your dad works in a department store and expects to live vicariously through the success you must achieve at all costs, and there's never enough money and you're stuck shoplifting CDs and peroxide so you can show the entire world how desperately rebellious and misunderstood you are.
Faux-misery, at least, can be alleviated by stolen CDs in which someone seems to have a deep and personal understanding of your pain, and every song could have been written about you. I listened to the standard cliche angry music, just for the sake of properly identifying myself as a disaffected youth, but the Smiths were my guilty pleasure.
Ah, for the days when listening to Morrissey whinge his way through an entire album was still therapeutic.
I've never told anyone about that. I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you. Perhaps it's just to see when, exactly, you'll get tired of me going on and on about trivialities.
Still with me, or do you need another moment to roll your eyes?
Right. On to more practical concerns: I'm still in one piece, and the most drastic thing I've contemplated is just walking out of here... which, all things considered, likely qualifies as drastic in and of itself.
Still, there are things to be done: dolphin tanks to be acquired, coffee to be attempted. (Apparently, while the stove still works, we've sufficiently altered the coffeemaker for it to have gone dead along with everything else. I'm soldiering on with an improvised press, at present, now that I no longer have to worry about suicidal fleas with a pencheant for drowning themselves in Sumatra Mandheling.)
I'll admit, though, that I'm tempted.
Gwen's currently offering the Kashtta Tower as a refuge for anyone who doesn't care to be kept calm against their will, as Mr. Elashte was generous enough to offer us some of his surplus of lamb's blood.
I can't promise I won't be needed, but I'll try and find my way over there. If nothing else, I can tell her, honestly enough, that I'd very much like to be where he isn't for a while. And there aren't many opportunities for me to leave here in relative safety, anyway. I might as well take advantage of one when it presents itself.
As for Mr. Flagg... Ms. Dalton knew, and she was crucified for telling me. Perhaps it's best that it wasn't common knowledge.
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I have a hard time believing that your life is ever trivial, Ianto. If anything, having a little taste of adolescent Cardiff flavor makes the fact that I've been stuck in the Estates for days a little bit more bearable.
A day out would do us all good, I think. I hear that CLF activity has died down; really, the fact that they're not out stampeding over the Chicago metropolitan area is surprising given our case of the Plagues, and their tendency to flare up like certain unmentionable diseases whenever the light hits an angel's wings. You really had fleas in your coffee?
Words can't express how sorry I am.
We've got a rather lovely swimming pool here, though Monday was a little dicey. I imagine that bringing your dolphin here wouldn't even fall close to the realm of possibilities, though.
...I never had anything to do with Ms. Dalton, but it did come as a shock when she died. She was quite well-known here. Quite a few of us... well, we had questions we didn't, by and large, ask.
If she did tell you, I'm glad nothing's come after you out of that. I hope. Would it be prying to hope you'd tell us if you found yourself in some sort of trouble?
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We'll see whether or not that theory has any basis in fact, though, now that he's dead. If it picks up again, I'll call it coincidence and leave it at that. If it doesn't...
It would be nice to go outside again.
And yes, fleas in the coffee. It wasn't the best of days. It got better, at least, thanks to a woman who had the brilliant idea of extreme cold to help ease the bites, so I wound up standing in a walk-in freezer and sharing a bottle of whiskey with her. Not my usual coping mechanism, I'll admit, but it did make the day substantially more bearable.
As far as the dolphin goes... Even if the Organization wasn't quite firmly out of favour with Torchwood at the moment, I wouldn't want to bring him there. If I go back -- if -- I don't want anything there to remind me of him.
Yes, J -- apparently, that's what he's going by now, just J -- has gone and turned into a dolphin. I was always, always irrationally fond of them, too, so this has to be some sick cosmic joke on all of us. Funny how neither he nor I are laughing.
If I was more vindictive, I'd be enjoying the fact that he's slowly suffocating under his own weight. Instead, I'm frantically trying to find him a tank.
...Actually, failing any better options, I might just be able to improvise something. It won't be perfectly water-tight, and I can't make it big enough for him to be truly comfortable, but it'll keep him from organ damage, at least. Put it in one of the toilets upstairs that's near him -- drains in the floors.
[Private]
[A few quick sketches follow, illustrating double and triple layers of thick plastic tarps, and a very rough support system cobbled together from various items already in the tower, with lots of question marks and notations about adhesive substances, and a quick notation of, "FUCK, need to lock this."]
[/Private]
I really shouldn't care so much about him, but I don't know how to stop. Even knowing everything I do now, even when sometimes I think I hate him.
Only sometimes, though.
Perhaps it might help if I knew him better -- him, not Jack Harkness or John Thane. Of course, that's unlikely to happen for a multitude of reasons, and we're back to me acting the adolescent girl.
I'll stop now, before this becomes even more ridiculous.
...I'm sorry about Ms. Dalton. Even if you didn't know her personally, it must have been difficult.
Nothing's come after me so far. I expected something would, when I learned what happened, but so far, there's been nothing.
...That raises some rather interesting questions about why, exactly, nothing has. I've been trying not to think about it, but perhaps I should. Perhaps I should also be writing to Ms. Sandric. But not now.
Now, I have an improbable makeshift tank to assemble. Let's hope it doesn't burst. Or collapse. Or disintegrate. Or get ripped to shreds by an angry dolphin.
And there you are, a little taste of Torchwood -- this really is the sort of thing we deal with all the time, just not usually our former boss.
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Our solution to the fleas involved quite a long time spent in tubs. My face still itches, and by the end we were more wrinkle than skin and skimming dead lice off the surface of the water, but it was more pleasant than itching all day. And I imagine significantly warmer than a walk-in freezer, whiskey or none.
...I can't fault you for caring, Ianto. Show me a man who's never cared for something he perhaps shouldn't and I'll show you a man who's likely never cared for something he should.
I wish I could ease some of that frustration for you. I will say this: after everything, I can't imagine that you deserve another chance any less than he does.
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And... thank you for that. For everything. You've done a great deal to ease the frustration just by being there and listening, trust me.
I wish I could see you.
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I wish I could see you, too. Hopefully Gwen will see her way to letting you go on Wednesday.
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