fic: The Glutton of Castle Gate - POV Rhys
Title: The Glutton of Castle Gate
Author: wynkat1313
Characters: Rhys/Gwen, team, mentions of Jack/Ianto, Andy, Banana Boat
Rating: PG
Word count: 2544
Beta’s by: the lovely temporal_witch
Author's Notes: Written for tw_lucky_7 , Sin number four: Gluttony. POV: Rhys
Summary: Glutton for punishment - that was Jack, alright, and when he thought about it, yeah, that was him too. They both ran in where they didn’t need to go, offered their hearts and their souls when their hands or arms would be enough, because neither one of them was certain that they were enough at all by themselves.
This is part of "The Sins of Castle Gate", part one is here
Gluttony / Rhys Williams
n one of his rare moments of blinding insight, Banana Boat had told Rhy that Rhys was a glutton for punishment. Rhys had known with that same painful insight that Banana was right; he just didn’t know why. Now, as he stood in a musty room under the Black Tower of Cardiff Castle behind his wife (who was in full Special Ops Don’t-Mess-With-Me mode), watching Captain Harkness get tossed around by a seven-foot-tall crustacean with a bad attitude and more arms than were necessary, he was starting to think he might finally understand Banana’s point.
Not two months ago, Rhys had stepped in front of Gwen and taken a bullet for his wife, thinking that this is what husbands do. They protect their women, don’t they? They shelter them and keep them safe. They put up with their talking and nagging and late nights out with the overly-good-looking coworkers and their bitching about the leaky faucet and (understandable) complaints about his mother. And they do everything in their power to make their wives - the women they love - happy and safe and feel loved in return.
The problem was, Rhys had gradually come to realise he was really the wife. Oh, he was the man in the house, no question; even if Gwen looked more than a bit fine in her skin-tight jeans, he still wore the trousers. He still held down an honest job and worked hard at doing it well. But who was he kidding? She gave most of the orders in their marriage and he followed her around the way he had done since he had fallen in love with her way back in Uni days. And now here they were: her, working for Torchwood, guns a-blazing, leather jacket hugging her body like a second skin; and him, willing to do anything to keep her safe, but knowing that the only thing he could really do was stay the hell out of the way and pick up the pieces at the end of the day.
So he stood there, watching from behind her unflinching back as she ordered the alien to put her Captain down. Of course, it didn’t.
Rhys could just make out Jack’s face in the dim light. It was as open and exposed as he had ever seen it in the short time he’d known the man. His pain was clear; the damn alien was squeezing the life out of him, but there was something else there - something that looked very much like the love and fear that Rhys felt for Gwen.
Gwen had cursed a blue streak, not far off from the one in Rhys’ own head, when Owen had called them, interrupting their dinner at Zizzi's. It had taken him three weeks to get Gwen out to dinner, what with her job, that damn Rift, and his gunshot wound healing. He supposed he should be happy that they had at least made it to dessert before the world tried to end again. According to Owen, Jack and Ianto hadn’t been so lucky. And of course, Gwen had tried to send him home, but Rhys was having none of that. Zizzi’s was bloody walking distance from the entrance to the castle, so he could just go with her, maybe provide a little back up to her reconnaissance, and then they could go home together and finish up their evening together, just they way they had intended.
He really should have known better. This was Torchwood, after all, and while he’d only really known about Gwen's work for a couple of months, he’d known about all the times things had gotten cocked up on her “job” in the past. So really, he should have remembered that. But he wanted to be with her and help her out. Right. Who was he kidding? He, the lorrie driver and househusband, was still trying to protect her.
Of course, it had all gone wrong. Gwen hadn’t explained, but he could figure things out from the evidence in front of his eyes. Jack was just like him, always trying to protect his family, taking care of them when he didn’t need to - hell, maybe even when he shouldn’t have tried. How was Rhys to know? But from everything Gwen said, Jack spent all his time running into the fire when running around it would do just fine.
This was how Rhys finally came to understand Banana Boat’s oddly brilliant logic. Glutton for punishment - that was Jack, alright, and when he thought about it, yeah, that was him too. They both ran in where they didn’t need to go, offered their hearts and their souls when their hands or arms would be enough, because neither one of them was certain that they were enough at all by themselves.
Rhys just wished he could explain Banana’s flash of logic to Jack, or Gwen, or even Banana - not that Banana would understand. Banana’s moments of brilliance were really that, only flashes in the pan, and then they were gone and he was lucky if he remembered his own name before he’d had his first pint of the day. But given that the alien-lobster-thing was doing something to Jack’s face, licking him or something with long tendrils that framed its mouth like whiskers on a catfish, while holding Jack off the ground, Rhys didn’t think it likely he was going to get to explain his own moment of clarity to anyone anytime soon.
Rhys saw the alien shaking Jack around like a rag-doll and shuddered. Jack was taller than Rhys and had to have at least a stone on him in muscle, which meant the alien was, under all that shell carapace nonsense, stronger than Rhys wanted to think about.
After bouncing Jack around for a bit, it had pulled him in close to its shell and started sticking its tendrils into Jack’s mouth. Rhys shared a full body shiver with Jack over that, and watched Jack’s eyes bore into Gwen; she was the one with the gun and the one with the power to do something about this situation. At least, Rhys really hoped she could intervene. Right about now, as much as Rhys was consistently uncertain about Jack, he at least knew that he didn’t want the man to die at the hands - claws? - of a giant lobster.
Gwen stepped away from him and closer to the alien, and it took everything Rhys had to stop himself reaching out and pulling her back into what he liked to think was the safety of his arms.
“I said, put him down!” Gwen’s was the voice of a Torchwood operative and a killer. Rhys barely heard his Gwenny in there at all.
“Make me!” the alien shouted. It flicked its whiskers across Jack’s neck and Rhys thought he saw blood on them as they slid into its mouth. He shivered.
Gunshots echoed through the guard room, surprising the hell out of both him and the alien.
When Rhys looked from Gwen’s back to the alien, it was falling to its knees in slow motion, just like in a movie, and Jack was sliding to ground under it. A second set of shots had Rhys covering his ears and blinking, trying to understand how the alien’s head could be there and then suddenly just gone. Then the body fell to the floor and the room went quiet except for Gwen’s harsh whisper.
“Okay. We will.”
Rhys let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding and gave in to the need to hold Gwen. He stepped up against her back and prayed she wouldn’t push him away. She didn’t, but she also didn’t sink into him as he so desperately wished she would. She gave him a small half-smile over her shoulder, like she was thanking him or letting him know she appreciated his presence. Whatever it was, he was happy for it, happy she was alive, happy to have the scent of her in his nose and the solidity of her under his fingertips.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” Owen shouted into Gwen’s face.
Rhys couldn’t help it. He tightened his grip on Gwen’s arms, suddenly furious at the diminutive doctor. Couldn’t he see that she had just saved them all? Maybe Rhys had no idea how she’d done it, but he knew that she managed to coordinate with Ianto and Tosh (both of whom he’d finally seen coming out of the shadows, guns drawn, after the alien went down). His Gwenny had managed that. What had Owen done?
“You could have gotten us all killed!”
Gwen surprised Rhys. She didn’t answer Owen; instead, she looked over to her former partner. Rhys had forgotten that Andy was even there, dragged into this mess with the rest of them… no, not with the rest of them… but rather like Rhys - because of Gwen and his own insatiable curiosity.
“Andy,” she called out.
Rhys watched Andy shudder and then turn slowly towards them, clearly dazed.
“Andy, it’s okay. Jack’s different. He’s special. Just trust me on this, yeah?”
Andy’s eyes were glazed, but he nodded and Rhys followed Andy’s eyes as he looked back to where Ianto was sitting with Jack on the ground.
“He’s dead,” Andy said.
“He’ll be okay,” she said again.
Rhys didn’t know what to make of that, though Gwen had hinted on more than one occasion that Jack’s position as leader of Torchwood might have more to do with some obscure special skills than with his ability to actually lead.
He didn’t get a chance to wonder about that as Owen was clearly not done being angry with Gwen. The doctor grabbed her arm to get her attention.
“Damn it, Gwen!”
“Let go of my wife!” Rhys said, stepping between Gwen and Owen, the anxiety of the last few minutes snapping his reserve. He might be the househusband and doomed to sit back while Gwen fought aliens, but he was damned if any twerp of a doctor was going try manhandling his wife!
Gwen put a hand on Rhys’ arm. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Let me handle this.” She looked up at him. She smiled, just a little, and his anger receded. She knew him so well. She knew he was angry and scared and wanted to help and was trying to be good and stay out of the way. And she was still asking him to let her deal with things her way. Damn it, he wanted to do this for her. Wanted to defend her and care for her.
He sighed and stepped back. He could do this, too; he could be this other, supporting presence for her instead. He had made his choice and he would stick by it.
He watched her turn to face Owen, her back straight with not a sign of fear or worry in her voice, and he couldn’t help but feel proud of her.
“I did what I had to do, Owen. You know that. Jack’s the one who nearly got us all killed with his lack of planning. If he had just listened to me this once…”
There was a shout from Andy that drew their attention to Ianto and Jack, who was now coughing and trying to sit up in Ianto’s arms. Rhys shook his head. Too many wonders for one day.
“See, Andy, I told you it would be fine…” Gwen said, pulling Andy away. “Tosh, will you explain things to Andy, please?”
Rhys barely heard Tosh’s quiet answer. He suddenly caught sight of a logo on one of the boxes beside the petite woman. He’d seen it before, not two days ago.
“Gwen,” he called out.
“Hmm?” She looked over her shoulder at him, her thoughts obviously still on the others.
“Gwen!”
“What?” She turned, irritation in her eyes, Rhys thought. At least she was looking at him, and listening to him, at last.
“That logo, there, on the box.” He pointed.
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it before.” Rhys walked around Tosh to crouch beside the box, running his hand over the blue and green circle and tree design.
“Where?” Owen asked. Rhys could feel both Gwen and the doctor standing behind him.
“On a shipping invoice.” Rhys stood up and turned to the others. “It was for some environmental group out of London. ‘Heart of the Earth’, or something like that. Never heard of them before, but their credit check came back clear so we took the job.”
“What job?” Gwen of Torchwood asked, all sharp edges and calculating mind.
“A single 40-foot ocean container loaded to capacity to be picked up from a warehouse over in Newport and taken out to the port for transfer to the Coral Strut.”
“Coral Strut?” Owen scoffed. “What the hell is that?”
“Name of a TransOceanic tanker. No idea why they named it that, but there you are.”
“What was it carrying?” Ianto asked. Rhys noticed he was still seated on the ground with his arms around Jack, but was very clearly listening to the conversation.
“Didn’t tell us, but Glenn, my driver, said he saw a couple of pallets of boxes with labels for things like medical supplies, very similar to these, before they locked it up tight.” He jabbed a thumb at the boxes behind them. “Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now…”
“Now we might have a connection,” Gwen said with a grin. Rhys grinned back, happy to be able to help at last.
“Did you make the delivery?” Jack asked from Ianto’s lap.
“Yep, two days ago.”
“Any idea when the ship was scheduled to leave port?”
“As a matter of fact,” Rhys replied, smiling - he loved when he could surprise the Torchwood smarty-pants - “I do. I make it my business to check those sorts of things, in case there’s a cock-up in transit. The Coral Strut is scheduled to depart with the morning tide.”
Gwen’s smile was bright enough to warm his heart for weeks to come. Maybe, Rhys thought, this being in the background wasn’t such a bad thing after all. If he could he help out of with the handy piece of information now and then (and stay away from the bullets and crazed alien water creatures), maybe, just maybe, he could vicariously get his fill of adventure and life. After all, every super-world-saving-team needed cheerleaders and people to look after them. They had to eat, didn’t they? He could maybe make some meals to send into work with Gwen and help keep them fed better than all that take-out she said they were always eating. Maybe something simple, like beans and rice to start with.
Rhys looked at Jack. There was dried blood on his cheek and deep hollows under his eyes, but he looked happy, lying in Ianto’s arms. They were mad fools, him and the Captain both. In love with people who did insane jobs and madly trying to keep them all safe.
Banana was more right than he knew. Rhys’d have to buy him a pint the next time they were out, maybe two. Banana wouldn’t understand why, but that would be okay. Rhys would know.
Wrath / Toshiko Sato
Author: wynkat1313
Characters: Rhys/Gwen, team, mentions of Jack/Ianto, Andy, Banana Boat
Rating: PG
Word count: 2544
Beta’s by: the lovely temporal_witch
Author's Notes: Written for tw_lucky_7 , Sin number four: Gluttony. POV: Rhys
Summary: Glutton for punishment - that was Jack, alright, and when he thought about it, yeah, that was him too. They both ran in where they didn’t need to go, offered their hearts and their souls when their hands or arms would be enough, because neither one of them was certain that they were enough at all by themselves.
This is part of "The Sins of Castle Gate", part one is here
Gluttony / Rhys Williams
n one of his rare moments of blinding insight, Banana Boat had told Rhy that Rhys was a glutton for punishment. Rhys had known with that same painful insight that Banana was right; he just didn’t know why. Now, as he stood in a musty room under the Black Tower of Cardiff Castle behind his wife (who was in full Special Ops Don’t-Mess-With-Me mode), watching Captain Harkness get tossed around by a seven-foot-tall crustacean with a bad attitude and more arms than were necessary, he was starting to think he might finally understand Banana’s point.
Not two months ago, Rhys had stepped in front of Gwen and taken a bullet for his wife, thinking that this is what husbands do. They protect their women, don’t they? They shelter them and keep them safe. They put up with their talking and nagging and late nights out with the overly-good-looking coworkers and their bitching about the leaky faucet and (understandable) complaints about his mother. And they do everything in their power to make their wives - the women they love - happy and safe and feel loved in return.
The problem was, Rhys had gradually come to realise he was really the wife. Oh, he was the man in the house, no question; even if Gwen looked more than a bit fine in her skin-tight jeans, he still wore the trousers. He still held down an honest job and worked hard at doing it well. But who was he kidding? She gave most of the orders in their marriage and he followed her around the way he had done since he had fallen in love with her way back in Uni days. And now here they were: her, working for Torchwood, guns a-blazing, leather jacket hugging her body like a second skin; and him, willing to do anything to keep her safe, but knowing that the only thing he could really do was stay the hell out of the way and pick up the pieces at the end of the day.
So he stood there, watching from behind her unflinching back as she ordered the alien to put her Captain down. Of course, it didn’t.
Rhys could just make out Jack’s face in the dim light. It was as open and exposed as he had ever seen it in the short time he’d known the man. His pain was clear; the damn alien was squeezing the life out of him, but there was something else there - something that looked very much like the love and fear that Rhys felt for Gwen.
Gwen had cursed a blue streak, not far off from the one in Rhys’ own head, when Owen had called them, interrupting their dinner at Zizzi's. It had taken him three weeks to get Gwen out to dinner, what with her job, that damn Rift, and his gunshot wound healing. He supposed he should be happy that they had at least made it to dessert before the world tried to end again. According to Owen, Jack and Ianto hadn’t been so lucky. And of course, Gwen had tried to send him home, but Rhys was having none of that. Zizzi’s was bloody walking distance from the entrance to the castle, so he could just go with her, maybe provide a little back up to her reconnaissance, and then they could go home together and finish up their evening together, just they way they had intended.
He really should have known better. This was Torchwood, after all, and while he’d only really known about Gwen's work for a couple of months, he’d known about all the times things had gotten cocked up on her “job” in the past. So really, he should have remembered that. But he wanted to be with her and help her out. Right. Who was he kidding? He, the lorrie driver and househusband, was still trying to protect her.
Of course, it had all gone wrong. Gwen hadn’t explained, but he could figure things out from the evidence in front of his eyes. Jack was just like him, always trying to protect his family, taking care of them when he didn’t need to - hell, maybe even when he shouldn’t have tried. How was Rhys to know? But from everything Gwen said, Jack spent all his time running into the fire when running around it would do just fine.
This was how Rhys finally came to understand Banana Boat’s oddly brilliant logic. Glutton for punishment - that was Jack, alright, and when he thought about it, yeah, that was him too. They both ran in where they didn’t need to go, offered their hearts and their souls when their hands or arms would be enough, because neither one of them was certain that they were enough at all by themselves.
Rhys just wished he could explain Banana’s flash of logic to Jack, or Gwen, or even Banana - not that Banana would understand. Banana’s moments of brilliance were really that, only flashes in the pan, and then they were gone and he was lucky if he remembered his own name before he’d had his first pint of the day. But given that the alien-lobster-thing was doing something to Jack’s face, licking him or something with long tendrils that framed its mouth like whiskers on a catfish, while holding Jack off the ground, Rhys didn’t think it likely he was going to get to explain his own moment of clarity to anyone anytime soon.
Rhys saw the alien shaking Jack around like a rag-doll and shuddered. Jack was taller than Rhys and had to have at least a stone on him in muscle, which meant the alien was, under all that shell carapace nonsense, stronger than Rhys wanted to think about.
After bouncing Jack around for a bit, it had pulled him in close to its shell and started sticking its tendrils into Jack’s mouth. Rhys shared a full body shiver with Jack over that, and watched Jack’s eyes bore into Gwen; she was the one with the gun and the one with the power to do something about this situation. At least, Rhys really hoped she could intervene. Right about now, as much as Rhys was consistently uncertain about Jack, he at least knew that he didn’t want the man to die at the hands - claws? - of a giant lobster.
Gwen stepped away from him and closer to the alien, and it took everything Rhys had to stop himself reaching out and pulling her back into what he liked to think was the safety of his arms.
“I said, put him down!” Gwen’s was the voice of a Torchwood operative and a killer. Rhys barely heard his Gwenny in there at all.
“Make me!” the alien shouted. It flicked its whiskers across Jack’s neck and Rhys thought he saw blood on them as they slid into its mouth. He shivered.
Gunshots echoed through the guard room, surprising the hell out of both him and the alien.
When Rhys looked from Gwen’s back to the alien, it was falling to its knees in slow motion, just like in a movie, and Jack was sliding to ground under it. A second set of shots had Rhys covering his ears and blinking, trying to understand how the alien’s head could be there and then suddenly just gone. Then the body fell to the floor and the room went quiet except for Gwen’s harsh whisper.
“Okay. We will.”
Rhys let out the breath he didn’t know he had been holding and gave in to the need to hold Gwen. He stepped up against her back and prayed she wouldn’t push him away. She didn’t, but she also didn’t sink into him as he so desperately wished she would. She gave him a small half-smile over her shoulder, like she was thanking him or letting him know she appreciated his presence. Whatever it was, he was happy for it, happy she was alive, happy to have the scent of her in his nose and the solidity of her under his fingertips.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” Owen shouted into Gwen’s face.
Rhys couldn’t help it. He tightened his grip on Gwen’s arms, suddenly furious at the diminutive doctor. Couldn’t he see that she had just saved them all? Maybe Rhys had no idea how she’d done it, but he knew that she managed to coordinate with Ianto and Tosh (both of whom he’d finally seen coming out of the shadows, guns drawn, after the alien went down). His Gwenny had managed that. What had Owen done?
“You could have gotten us all killed!”
Gwen surprised Rhys. She didn’t answer Owen; instead, she looked over to her former partner. Rhys had forgotten that Andy was even there, dragged into this mess with the rest of them… no, not with the rest of them… but rather like Rhys - because of Gwen and his own insatiable curiosity.
“Andy,” she called out.
Rhys watched Andy shudder and then turn slowly towards them, clearly dazed.
“Andy, it’s okay. Jack’s different. He’s special. Just trust me on this, yeah?”
Andy’s eyes were glazed, but he nodded and Rhys followed Andy’s eyes as he looked back to where Ianto was sitting with Jack on the ground.
“He’s dead,” Andy said.
“He’ll be okay,” she said again.
Rhys didn’t know what to make of that, though Gwen had hinted on more than one occasion that Jack’s position as leader of Torchwood might have more to do with some obscure special skills than with his ability to actually lead.
He didn’t get a chance to wonder about that as Owen was clearly not done being angry with Gwen. The doctor grabbed her arm to get her attention.
“Damn it, Gwen!”
“Let go of my wife!” Rhys said, stepping between Gwen and Owen, the anxiety of the last few minutes snapping his reserve. He might be the househusband and doomed to sit back while Gwen fought aliens, but he was damned if any twerp of a doctor was going try manhandling his wife!
Gwen put a hand on Rhys’ arm. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Let me handle this.” She looked up at him. She smiled, just a little, and his anger receded. She knew him so well. She knew he was angry and scared and wanted to help and was trying to be good and stay out of the way. And she was still asking him to let her deal with things her way. Damn it, he wanted to do this for her. Wanted to defend her and care for her.
He sighed and stepped back. He could do this, too; he could be this other, supporting presence for her instead. He had made his choice and he would stick by it.
He watched her turn to face Owen, her back straight with not a sign of fear or worry in her voice, and he couldn’t help but feel proud of her.
“I did what I had to do, Owen. You know that. Jack’s the one who nearly got us all killed with his lack of planning. If he had just listened to me this once…”
There was a shout from Andy that drew their attention to Ianto and Jack, who was now coughing and trying to sit up in Ianto’s arms. Rhys shook his head. Too many wonders for one day.
“See, Andy, I told you it would be fine…” Gwen said, pulling Andy away. “Tosh, will you explain things to Andy, please?”
Rhys barely heard Tosh’s quiet answer. He suddenly caught sight of a logo on one of the boxes beside the petite woman. He’d seen it before, not two days ago.
“Gwen,” he called out.
“Hmm?” She looked over her shoulder at him, her thoughts obviously still on the others.
“Gwen!”
“What?” She turned, irritation in her eyes, Rhys thought. At least she was looking at him, and listening to him, at last.
“That logo, there, on the box.” He pointed.
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it before.” Rhys walked around Tosh to crouch beside the box, running his hand over the blue and green circle and tree design.
“Where?” Owen asked. Rhys could feel both Gwen and the doctor standing behind him.
“On a shipping invoice.” Rhys stood up and turned to the others. “It was for some environmental group out of London. ‘Heart of the Earth’, or something like that. Never heard of them before, but their credit check came back clear so we took the job.”
“What job?” Gwen of Torchwood asked, all sharp edges and calculating mind.
“A single 40-foot ocean container loaded to capacity to be picked up from a warehouse over in Newport and taken out to the port for transfer to the Coral Strut.”
“Coral Strut?” Owen scoffed. “What the hell is that?”
“Name of a TransOceanic tanker. No idea why they named it that, but there you are.”
“What was it carrying?” Ianto asked. Rhys noticed he was still seated on the ground with his arms around Jack, but was very clearly listening to the conversation.
“Didn’t tell us, but Glenn, my driver, said he saw a couple of pallets of boxes with labels for things like medical supplies, very similar to these, before they locked it up tight.” He jabbed a thumb at the boxes behind them. “Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now…”
“Now we might have a connection,” Gwen said with a grin. Rhys grinned back, happy to be able to help at last.
“Did you make the delivery?” Jack asked from Ianto’s lap.
“Yep, two days ago.”
“Any idea when the ship was scheduled to leave port?”
“As a matter of fact,” Rhys replied, smiling - he loved when he could surprise the Torchwood smarty-pants - “I do. I make it my business to check those sorts of things, in case there’s a cock-up in transit. The Coral Strut is scheduled to depart with the morning tide.”
Gwen’s smile was bright enough to warm his heart for weeks to come. Maybe, Rhys thought, this being in the background wasn’t such a bad thing after all. If he could he help out of with the handy piece of information now and then (and stay away from the bullets and crazed alien water creatures), maybe, just maybe, he could vicariously get his fill of adventure and life. After all, every super-world-saving-team needed cheerleaders and people to look after them. They had to eat, didn’t they? He could maybe make some meals to send into work with Gwen and help keep them fed better than all that take-out she said they were always eating. Maybe something simple, like beans and rice to start with.
Rhys looked at Jack. There was dried blood on his cheek and deep hollows under his eyes, but he looked happy, lying in Ianto’s arms. They were mad fools, him and the Captain both. In love with people who did insane jobs and madly trying to keep them all safe.
Banana was more right than he knew. Rhys’d have to buy him a pint the next time they were out, maybe two. Banana wouldn’t understand why, but that would be okay. Rhys would know.
Wrath / Toshiko Sato