She believes that life is made up of all that you're used to

[superiorspectre]

In the Kashtta Tower's lounge, Suzie Costello is sipping an unholy concoction made mostly of hot cocoa, with some coffee and whiskey added for flavour. It has whipped cream on the top. She's frowning down at a small device, probably alien in origin, which is rattling in a regular repeating pattern, and poking at it

Comments

[hey_capn_jack]

So far, 2010 has been... still the early 21st century. Still absolutely wretched, though to be fair that's mostly overflow from 2009. And it may be because the year is only a handful of days old, but so far it hasn't gone out of its way to screw with him.

Pity that's about to change.

J is wandering, keeping to back hallways and odd corners of the building. Like he does. He's trying to use the rhythm of his footsteps to moderate his own emotions, to keep anyone - the people he's trying not to run into, the one person who will feel it regardless - from picking up that his mind's nowhere near the Tower, that it's turning over theories of morphogenic field transmission and the like instead.

He opens a door, not really curious as to what's inside. It's probably an unused custodial hallway. Most of the ones on this floor are unused.

Except that beyond the door, there's a room far, far too large for this part of the building.

What the...?He glances behind him. Same old hallway. And it's not exactly unheard-of for the Tower to

[twdenmother]

There's a clip-clop of cloven hooves, and a faun in a kilt comes around the corner, jotting things down in a notebook... Things about pH levels and salinity and how perhaps he ought to just keep this thing full of fish anyway, just in case.

And there's a J. Who is not supposed to be down here.

Well, really, no one ever told J he wasn't supposed to be down here, as that particular prohibition exists only in Ianto's head, but... Well, it does not help, to his mind, that this is the second time he's setting up a habitat in a basement for someone who used to be someone he loved and isn't anymore.

So he's been thinking of Lisa, and Jack, and... Well, doing quite a bit of thinking about when he might get out and see Winter again. He's starting to get that twitchy, hungry look again, and it's possible he's forgotten to shave in the past couple of days. Again

[hey_capn_jack]

J isn't really listening to anything. His own footsteps are quiet here, and there's enough background noise - the thump of the boilers, the hum of electricity, the hiss and murmur of his own thoughts and the constant quiet keen of his blood - that he can earmark the entire spectrum as white noise and focus on other things, like not theorizing why there's a tank down here and missing the clop of hooves until they come down the corner and are suddenly not that easy to ignore any more.

And-

Well.

FuckJ freezes entirely when Ianto comes into view, tenses very muscle he can focus on to keep any of them from shifting, and cringes back slightly, ready to extract himself if there's any possibility that Ianto doesn't notice him immediately, which of course he does

[twdenmother]

Ianto hears the voice -- call it a trick of acoustics, or magical teaboy powers, or the fact that he's simply that hyper-aware of anything having to do with people who are or were Jack Harkness -- and a moment later, there's a somewhat scruffy head with teeny, tiny horns poking into the room J's in.

He starts off with a soft, "Is everything all right?" and, after a moment to consider the room J's in vs. where he was seen, follows it with, "And should I start looking for something that might make you teleport randomly...?"

He forces himself to leave the 'sir' off.

[der_weevilkonig]

Owen has been having various infirmary adventures, trying to work out what the hell is wrong with the universe, but right now? Now is the time for booze. Copious amounts, if possible, so heeeee's just going to head down to the kitchen...

He's going to notice someone out of the corner of his eye as he passes the lounge and give serious consideration to finding a set of blinders. Like that would help.

He tries to walk on past, but the gnawing sense of personal responsibility is unbearable by the time he's walked down three steps and he has to backtrack, cursing every damn step of the way.

Maybe he'll get lucky, he thinks, heading to hang his head in though the doorway. Maybe it will be one of the Tower residents he can actually stand.

"I don't suppose you n-"

...or maybe it will be Suzie.

There's a moment when he just stares at her, jaw clenched, fingers digging into the doorframe, wondering if he'd survive the ensuing guilt from asking the tower just to eat her - maybe he could tell it to eat him, honestly, but that would

[superiorspectre]

Suzie takes a moment to just... blink at Owen. That was... the opposite of what she'd expect from him. Ever.

The first words she can think to say are, "Are you all right?" That might even be concern in her expression: Owen being nice is distinctly unusual, and suggests something very wrong.

She sets the alien device aside and takes a careful sip of her rather alcoholic coffee drink, with a little frown that suggests she's re-evaluating just how much whiskey is in it.

"Oh, and yes. But I doubt you're the sort of person who'd willingly put up with it, so why don't we focus on the part where you've got this pathological need to ask me that in the first place?"

[der_weevilkonig]

"No, not particularly, and thank you for asking, but loathe as I am to say it, this really isn't about me, it's about you right now," Owen says. "Because, you see, for reasons beyond my understanding, I care, and as I can't seem to stop caring, and I would like to help, if there's a way in which I can help, I'd appreciate knowing how so I can get that done with."

He is a font of compassion and concern, Suzie. Please, please help bleed that dry.

"So, if you would like to talk..." He gestures to himself. "I'm here to listen."

[superiorspectre]

Suzie's briefly tempted to tell him that he can help her by going away. But that wouldn't be quite true. As much as she's tried to hide it when working for Torchwood, there was a reason she kept talking to Max and then retconning him.

She glances up at Owen, as if to say, Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? When he doesn't take the opportunity to run for the hills, though, she shrugs.

"Feel free to tell me to shut it whenever you like," she begins. "But... right. A good friend of mine -- which everyone here has ample reasons to hate -- is missing, after showing up with signs of having been tortured. I had to swallow my pride and go to Tosh for help, and she's got the most reason to hate him of anyone here. Let's add to that the fact that J's several kinds of insane all at once, and the Master's here in Chicago. You'd know him as Harold Saxon. He's a Time Lord. And he got in my head and made me -- I won't go into the details of what he made me do, but before him, at least I'd always been in control of my own mind. He took

[techniclybrill]

Tosh's version of being social involves sitting around where people might exist as well, but as she steps into the lounge... well, it's hard to miss the fact that Suzie's there. They haven't exactly talked since their not-quite fight about Sark, but she doesn't want to back out of the room... so she does the next best thing, which is pretending that nothing happened at all.

She nods to the device as she crosses the room with slow, cautious steps. "Where did that come from?"

[superiorspectre]

"Junk shop," Suzie says, offering it to Tosh for her inspection. "If you know where to look, you can find all sorts of odds and ends the Rift brought here."

Pretending nothing happened at all is a plan Suzie can get behind.

"I think it's a puzzle of some sort. It's set up to hold a charge -- I was able to get enough power into it that it's letting me manipulate it further, but if it ever opened on its own, that mechanism's been jammed somehow."

[techniclybrill]

Tosh takes it and sits down beside Suzie - not quite touching her, but close enough. She focuses on the device rather than Suzie, delicately turning it over in her hands. She's not exactly a tactile problem solver the way Suzie is, but it gives her something to pay attention to that isn't... well. Suzie.

"Have you scanned it with anything? If you could get a look at what's inside..."

[superiorspectre]

"You're the one with all the quality kit around here," Suzie points out. "I've been roughing it. Not that it isn't fun."

Most of her attention, however, is focused on Tosh sitting next to her, and the palpable wave of relief that comes with it. She'd thought, for a while, that she might've ruined things with Tosh, after bringing Julian up. The fact that Tosh is sitting here, poking at tech with her... That's something.

"Though if you'd like to scan it, by all means." Come on, Tosh. Poke at the puzzle-box with her. The narration promises it's not Lemarchand's box.