Theseus' Paradox, chapter 2
Okay, more than one person expressed interest so I'm going to keep posting the story here for (hopefully) constructive feedback purposes. Seriously, guys, just a few words about high points and/or low points would be great. I'm confident about my own spelling and grammar, so I'm not looking for a proofreader. If you're familiar with the fandoms, I just want to know if my voices sound in-character. If you don't know the fandoms but you'd like to read it anyway, could you just let me know if anything sounds awkward or stupid? (Or like incredibly fake British? Because that's what it is.)
But, all seriousness aside, I just hope even a few people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I might start releasing it into the wider world soon, and it's going to hurt to let it go.
Title: Theseus’ Paradox | Part I: All Roads
Author: ravenclaw42
Fandom: Supernatural, Torchwood, Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, action/drama, crossover
“Anything?”
Sam shrugged. “Crop circles in Iowa.”
Dean grunted. “Anything that isn’t an X-Files rerun, genius?”
Sam leaned back from the table and picked up his coffee. “You’d think there’d be more than this, y’know?”
“We’ve had this conversation already.”
“But really. An army, even scattered... the loss of a general doesn’t stop a war.”
“We are at war, Sammy. Same as always, takin’ em out one at a time, except now there’s more out there.” Dean threw his hands up in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “But we’ve got the Colt back to demon-killing caliber, so what’s the big? Same old job. It’s all about the arsenal.”
“You just said it, Dean. There’s more out there. You think they’re the ones making crop circles in Iowa for shits and giggles? Dean, where’s the war?”
“Sam,” Dean began, exasperated, before giving up and rolling his eyes instead. “I know. But we can’t do anything, so just let things happen, will ya? We look for signs, we kill what we find. Are you sure there isn’t anything besides Iowa?”
Sam looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but he pulled a face instead and drank some coffee. “Fine. No. It’s some stupid kids flattening corn, or squat.”
“Call Bobby?”
“Bobby would call us. If there was anything. Which there isn’t.”
“There isn’t nothing.”
“You want to look?”
“I’m goin’nuts here, there has to be --”
“Dean,” Sam warned, and nodded discreetly to the side. A burly guy was looking at them sideways from a booth across the cafe.
“Dude, I don’t need an invitation to do some ass-kicking right now --”
“I’ve never seen him before, have you?” Sam moved his hand slowly towards his pocket and the flask of holy water in it.
But right then, the guy turned his gaze somewhere else and seemed to forget the two of them.
“Aw, that was a lot of excitement for nothing,” Dean deadpanned. “You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Sammy.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Dean shrugged. “Check the rounds again and then we’ll head out?” he asked.
“There won’t be anything,” Sam grumbled. “And we’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Joy of the open road, bro.” Dean pushed back onto two chair legs and rocked that way until a waitress glared at him. He shot her a brilliant grin. She did not look impressed, and turned her gaze pointedly to the chair and then the floor.
The chair legs thumped down. “Man, I gotta move,” Dean moaned. “This slow stuff is killing me. I want a decent hardcore fight before I die.”
“Just... whatever, Dean,” Sam muttered. He knew why they were both snappish, but he didn’t know what to do about it. They’d rehashed their frustration back and forth so much over the past couple of months that both of them were ready to kill the first even vaguely suspicious thing that crossed their paths.
And Sam hated it when Dean brought up his death deal. Hated it with a slow, sick passion that he didn’t let show, because if Dean wanted to laugh at the dark, that was fine. Dean either wouldn’t or couldn’t do the real heartfelt talking thing, not with anyone, not with Dad, even. But Sam hated what Dean had done and he hated the way Dean talked like it didn’t matter, even though it did, and sometimes he found Dean staring into motel bathroom mirrors and touching his face as if trying to convince himself it was still real. Sometimes Dean stared out the window while Sam was driving, trying to look like he was asleep, and Sam knew he was wondering if they’d pass through that state again in the next ten months, and that he was trying to memorize what it all looked like in case they didn’t.
Dean was humming Eagles tunes across the table. Sam rolled his eyes inwardly. Existential angst Dean may have occasionally had, but it never stuck to him for long.
Something caught his eye. He kept digging, bringing up both hands to type instead of just half-heartedly working the trackpad with one thumb.
“Uh... Chicago,” he said.
“Don’t sound excited or anything.”
“Well, it’s... mixed signals. Might be real, might be big-city crazies. Reports of weird murders, hearts torn out, but that investigation is closed already... strange weather patterns... and there’s this absolutely crap video that claims to be of a cop shooting a werewolf. I dunno, Dean, it’s all I got.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Dean flung his chair back and stood up. “At the very least we can traumatize some more dumb kids with camcorders who think they know what’s out there.”
Sam shrugged, snapped his laptop shut and stuffed it in his bag. He pulled out his wallet, and with an apologetic glance at the waitress who was wincing at Dean’s treatment of the furniture, he counted out a fairly large tip and dropped it on the formica tabletop.
Dean wandered outside and left him to pay up front. By the time Sam walked out onto the street, his brother was leaning against the driver-side door of the Impala, tapping his foot.
“Scenic or fast?” Dean asked.
“Don’t care,” said Sam, walking around to the other side and pulling open the passenger door. “I’m sleeping. Only got two hours last night.”
“Dreams?” Dean actually sounded halfway serious.
“Your snoring,” Sam said dryly, and got in.
Dean snorted, opened the door, swung in behind the wheel and gunned it. Sam sighed. It was going to be a long drive.
----
Somewhere under the slanted roof of a New Orleans tenement house, an elegant, dark-skinned finger was dipping into a bowl of blood and twirling three times counterclockwise.
The garrett was dusty and smelled of incense and dried herbs. Honking traffic and the clattering of human life from the street outside filtered in through the tarnished windows. The old woman who had lived here had dabbled in hoodoo just enough to draw attention to herself and not enough to know how to cast a decent protection; she’d tried to bring back her grandson, lost in the big flood of Katrina, and had snagged a bigger fish on the end of her line instead. A pirahna.
The young woman with the silver chalice in her hands had been an innocent downstairs neighbor a month ago. Now she looked into the opaque surface of the scrying bowl with black eyes and an empty smile on her lips.
After a moment, there was an answer at the other end. She bowed her head.
“Isaac’s wife is dead,” she said. Her accent was thick with French Quarter history. “And somebody’s asking the right questions in Chicago. A man from across the pond.”
She tilted her head, listening. Her smile quirked a little.
“Yessah,” she murmured. “I’ll cut ‘em off at the pass.”
The connection broke. She set the bowl down carefully; she’d find a tupperware container in the old woman’s kitchen and keep the pint of blood she’d gathered. Only fresh, hot blood worked for the scry, but cold blood had its uses too. Waste not...
Humming to herself, she leaned over and closed the old woman’s glassy eyes. “Sorry about the mess, ma’am,” she murmured.
To Chicago, then, to catch the Winchesters before they found the Englishman and started comparing notes and coming up with all the right answers. Or, failing that, back to Wyoming. They could make it to the Gate, but it wouldn’t be them who opened it this time, not Sam the deserter or Dean the abomination. They could hardly conceive of what was coming. Of what was moving in the dark.
She could. It was God.
----
You’ve reached Ianto Jones’ mobile. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you if and when work allows. Thank you.
----
Ianto, it’s Gwen. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. It’s been quiet here... Owen took down a Weevil by himself, if you’d imagine. We’re better than we thought we were, reckon? (laugh, light cough) So, I, uh, I don’t suppose you’ll call back, I only wanted to say... all the best. From all of us. Come back in one piece. (trailing laugh) Then. Bye, Ianto.
----
Ianto? It’s Gwen again -- Ianto, pick up, pick up, you must pick up -- ahh -- well, phone back when you get this -- it’s Jack, Jack’s here. Answer, please. We can’t wait to have the team back together. Oh, please phone, Ianto, he wants to know where you are.
----
It’s Tosh. Jack showed up this morning -- the Doctor brought him. Your guess was right. He asked for you first, but he went quiet when we said you’d gone. Gwen’s insufferable and Owen’s sulking. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to stay away. I, uh... we miss you. Well, I miss you. Be safe, Ianto.
----
You never showed us how to work the bloody coffee machine, you tosser, and this creation of Jack’s is unfit for human consumption. Get back here so he stops being an enormous prick. Never should have gone on bloody leave, this shit always happens all at once. You’d better still be alive somewhere.
----
Ianto, it’s Gwen again. Please return our calls. Just a word would do. I know it’s personal for you, but we need you here. I know Jack needs you. Just... soon. Bless.
----
(message opens; long silence, a released breath) I’ll find you. (message ends)
----
But, all seriousness aside, I just hope even a few people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I might start releasing it into the wider world soon, and it's going to hurt to let it go.
Title: Theseus’ Paradox | Part I: All Roads
Author: ravenclaw42
Fandom: Supernatural, Torchwood, Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, action/drama, crossover
“Anything?”
Sam shrugged. “Crop circles in Iowa.”
Dean grunted. “Anything that isn’t an X-Files rerun, genius?”
Sam leaned back from the table and picked up his coffee. “You’d think there’d be more than this, y’know?”
“We’ve had this conversation already.”
“But really. An army, even scattered... the loss of a general doesn’t stop a war.”
“We are at war, Sammy. Same as always, takin’ em out one at a time, except now there’s more out there.” Dean threw his hands up in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “But we’ve got the Colt back to demon-killing caliber, so what’s the big? Same old job. It’s all about the arsenal.”
“You just said it, Dean. There’s more out there. You think they’re the ones making crop circles in Iowa for shits and giggles? Dean, where’s the war?”
“Sam,” Dean began, exasperated, before giving up and rolling his eyes instead. “I know. But we can’t do anything, so just let things happen, will ya? We look for signs, we kill what we find. Are you sure there isn’t anything besides Iowa?”
Sam looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but he pulled a face instead and drank some coffee. “Fine. No. It’s some stupid kids flattening corn, or squat.”
“Call Bobby?”
“Bobby would call us. If there was anything. Which there isn’t.”
“There isn’t nothing.”
“You want to look?”
“I’m goin’nuts here, there has to be --”
“Dean,” Sam warned, and nodded discreetly to the side. A burly guy was looking at them sideways from a booth across the cafe.
“Dude, I don’t need an invitation to do some ass-kicking right now --”
“I’ve never seen him before, have you?” Sam moved his hand slowly towards his pocket and the flask of holy water in it.
But right then, the guy turned his gaze somewhere else and seemed to forget the two of them.
“Aw, that was a lot of excitement for nothing,” Dean deadpanned. “You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Sammy.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Dean shrugged. “Check the rounds again and then we’ll head out?” he asked.
“There won’t be anything,” Sam grumbled. “And we’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Joy of the open road, bro.” Dean pushed back onto two chair legs and rocked that way until a waitress glared at him. He shot her a brilliant grin. She did not look impressed, and turned her gaze pointedly to the chair and then the floor.
The chair legs thumped down. “Man, I gotta move,” Dean moaned. “This slow stuff is killing me. I want a decent hardcore fight before I die.”
“Just... whatever, Dean,” Sam muttered. He knew why they were both snappish, but he didn’t know what to do about it. They’d rehashed their frustration back and forth so much over the past couple of months that both of them were ready to kill the first even vaguely suspicious thing that crossed their paths.
And Sam hated it when Dean brought up his death deal. Hated it with a slow, sick passion that he didn’t let show, because if Dean wanted to laugh at the dark, that was fine. Dean either wouldn’t or couldn’t do the real heartfelt talking thing, not with anyone, not with Dad, even. But Sam hated what Dean had done and he hated the way Dean talked like it didn’t matter, even though it did, and sometimes he found Dean staring into motel bathroom mirrors and touching his face as if trying to convince himself it was still real. Sometimes Dean stared out the window while Sam was driving, trying to look like he was asleep, and Sam knew he was wondering if they’d pass through that state again in the next ten months, and that he was trying to memorize what it all looked like in case they didn’t.
Dean was humming Eagles tunes across the table. Sam rolled his eyes inwardly. Existential angst Dean may have occasionally had, but it never stuck to him for long.
Something caught his eye. He kept digging, bringing up both hands to type instead of just half-heartedly working the trackpad with one thumb.
“Uh... Chicago,” he said.
“Don’t sound excited or anything.”
“Well, it’s... mixed signals. Might be real, might be big-city crazies. Reports of weird murders, hearts torn out, but that investigation is closed already... strange weather patterns... and there’s this absolutely crap video that claims to be of a cop shooting a werewolf. I dunno, Dean, it’s all I got.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Dean flung his chair back and stood up. “At the very least we can traumatize some more dumb kids with camcorders who think they know what’s out there.”
Sam shrugged, snapped his laptop shut and stuffed it in his bag. He pulled out his wallet, and with an apologetic glance at the waitress who was wincing at Dean’s treatment of the furniture, he counted out a fairly large tip and dropped it on the formica tabletop.
Dean wandered outside and left him to pay up front. By the time Sam walked out onto the street, his brother was leaning against the driver-side door of the Impala, tapping his foot.
“Scenic or fast?” Dean asked.
“Don’t care,” said Sam, walking around to the other side and pulling open the passenger door. “I’m sleeping. Only got two hours last night.”
“Dreams?” Dean actually sounded halfway serious.
“Your snoring,” Sam said dryly, and got in.
Dean snorted, opened the door, swung in behind the wheel and gunned it. Sam sighed. It was going to be a long drive.
----
Somewhere under the slanted roof of a New Orleans tenement house, an elegant, dark-skinned finger was dipping into a bowl of blood and twirling three times counterclockwise.
The garrett was dusty and smelled of incense and dried herbs. Honking traffic and the clattering of human life from the street outside filtered in through the tarnished windows. The old woman who had lived here had dabbled in hoodoo just enough to draw attention to herself and not enough to know how to cast a decent protection; she’d tried to bring back her grandson, lost in the big flood of Katrina, and had snagged a bigger fish on the end of her line instead. A pirahna.
The young woman with the silver chalice in her hands had been an innocent downstairs neighbor a month ago. Now she looked into the opaque surface of the scrying bowl with black eyes and an empty smile on her lips.
After a moment, there was an answer at the other end. She bowed her head.
“Isaac’s wife is dead,” she said. Her accent was thick with French Quarter history. “And somebody’s asking the right questions in Chicago. A man from across the pond.”
She tilted her head, listening. Her smile quirked a little.
“Yessah,” she murmured. “I’ll cut ‘em off at the pass.”
The connection broke. She set the bowl down carefully; she’d find a tupperware container in the old woman’s kitchen and keep the pint of blood she’d gathered. Only fresh, hot blood worked for the scry, but cold blood had its uses too. Waste not...
Humming to herself, she leaned over and closed the old woman’s glassy eyes. “Sorry about the mess, ma’am,” she murmured.
To Chicago, then, to catch the Winchesters before they found the Englishman and started comparing notes and coming up with all the right answers. Or, failing that, back to Wyoming. They could make it to the Gate, but it wouldn’t be them who opened it this time, not Sam the deserter or Dean the abomination. They could hardly conceive of what was coming. Of what was moving in the dark.
She could. It was God.
----
You’ve reached Ianto Jones’ mobile. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you if and when work allows. Thank you.
----
Ianto, it’s Gwen. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. It’s been quiet here... Owen took down a Weevil by himself, if you’d imagine. We’re better than we thought we were, reckon? (laugh, light cough) So, I, uh, I don’t suppose you’ll call back, I only wanted to say... all the best. From all of us. Come back in one piece. (trailing laugh) Then. Bye, Ianto.
----
Ianto? It’s Gwen again -- Ianto, pick up, pick up, you must pick up -- ahh -- well, phone back when you get this -- it’s Jack, Jack’s here. Answer, please. We can’t wait to have the team back together. Oh, please phone, Ianto, he wants to know where you are.
----
It’s Tosh. Jack showed up this morning -- the Doctor brought him. Your guess was right. He asked for you first, but he went quiet when we said you’d gone. Gwen’s insufferable and Owen’s sulking. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to stay away. I, uh... we miss you. Well, I miss you. Be safe, Ianto.
----
You never showed us how to work the bloody coffee machine, you tosser, and this creation of Jack’s is unfit for human consumption. Get back here so he stops being an enormous prick. Never should have gone on bloody leave, this shit always happens all at once. You’d better still be alive somewhere.
----
Ianto, it’s Gwen again. Please return our calls. Just a word would do. I know it’s personal for you, but we need you here. I know Jack needs you. Just... soon. Bless.
----
(message opens; long silence, a released breath) I’ll find you. (message ends)
----