A Heaven Of Hell, A Hell Of Heaven - Sin/Tosh (2/13)
Chapter title: Moons And Horror Shows (2/13)
Series title: A Heaven Of Hell, A Hell Of Heaven
Fandom: A Torchwood/Paradise Lost crossover. Sounds odd, I know. Well, it is.
Characters/pairings: Sin, Tosh, and Sin/Tosh.
POV: Sin, for this chapter
Warnings: Set after Greeks Bearing Gifts, but will probably end up reaching to Exit Wounds, so there will almost certainly be spoilers. I (still) don't know what's going to happen, except in the vaguest possible terms, after this chapter, but this one's pretty unoffensive. Mentions of incest and rape, but only very brief ones.
Disclaimers: Unfortunately, Torchwood isn’t mine. I wish it was. Then I could have my own Tosh… ^-^ But it belongs to the BBC
Paradise Lost is also not mine. I don’t write epic Biblical poetry, and I wasn’t alive in the seventeenth century. John Milton wrote it, and he didn’t like speech marks.
Summary: Sin has spent the lifetime of the universe lonely and in pain. When she meets Tosh, and is invited to go home with her, she isn’t entirely sure how to react. But she’s glad, all the same.
Chapter 1 (Not A Lot To Do): http://fenrischained.livejournal.com/1289.html
A/N: Sin doesn’t have much to say in Paradise Lost, so I think she’s probably pretty open to interpretation. Which, of course, also means she’s very open to misinterpretation. With this, as with everything else, concrit is massively appreciated.
Beta’d by yarukage , who is now reading Paradise Lost. Don’t think she’s even got to the start of the story yet, though… ^-^’
Series title is from Paradise Lost (The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n); chapter title is from the album Who Killed... The Zutons. It does make it a little easier that I’ve pretty much decided, now, which order the titles are going in.
Sorry about any coding issues. It's being a bitch.
-------------
I’ve been on this earth a thousand lifetimes. I’ve been alive a thousand times as long.
I’m a mother, a daughter, a crone, and I am here.
There was a bridge, that I built with the aid of my son Death; a bridge leading to this world, a bridge over which demons and devils could cross. At least, that’s the story.
It’s sort of a mistranslation. I built one bridge, which separates into several, each of them closing at a point, at a Rift in time and space. I had to; Hell is not Earth, after all, nor even on the same plane of existence. But I built one bridge, separating into many, and the strongest of the many led to the place that would become Cardiff, Wales. I built the Rift there, tearing a hole in the reality that God created. The strongest of the Rifts, the first I created, and one of my most frequent haunts.
And it was on a visit there that I saw her. More to the point, it was on a visit there that she saw me.
They never picked it up, of course. Those mortals, with their toys and their technology - they call it background Rift activity. It is not background Rift activity.
It is me.
Me, and my son, and the thousands of demons who have entered this world without anybody ever knowing or caring.
And I was in Cardiff that night, by the bay that opens onto the oceans, under the bright glow of the lamps. The hounds baying and snarling around my belly, out from the darkness inside me. And I was there, and she turned, and she saw me.
No denying it. She saw me. Saw me, and heard me, and spoke to me.
And she was beautiful.
Beauty is an underrated art. And in the darkness of Hell, where I had spent so much life, a rare one. But she was beautiful.
Her hair, dark and cropped to her shoulders, leaping around her like a live thing when she leapt back, dropping her glass. Her eyes, deepset and wide with shock, and a deep, dark brown. Her skin, soft and smooth and human… I wanted to reach out and touch it. For a moment, I almost believed that I could; that if she could see me, perhaps she could touch me, too.
I couldn’t. She couldn’t. My hand passed straight through her, without any sensation. And I sighed inwardly, biting my lip.
“Would you like to come home with me, and tell me the long story when we’re there?” she asked, a few moments later, and I couldn’t believe that I had heard it.
Home.
It wasn’t a thing I’d ever had one of. Hell? Hell is no home. Hell is dark, and fierce, and filled with nightmares. And not least of them is my father and my son; my father who birthed me and raped me, my son who left me impregnated with the hounds that howl and snarl around my belly. Hell is no home.
But the idea of a home has always fascinated me.
Humans. They go to their boxes of stone and brick and glass each night, and they draw the curtains, and they switch on the lights, and they imagine that they are safe, even those who leave the doors unlocked and the windows open wide. And when they leave them, they miss them. And when they are gone too long, it is like a pain to them, or so I am told. In Wales, where this story began, they have a word for that feeling; hireath. It is a beautiful word. A word I never hoped to understand.
And I had never seen a home. Though I have roamed the earth since Earth itself began, I had never seen a home. Perhaps, I thought, that was why I could not understand why a home was.
So I nodded, watching the strange woman as she started off down the street. For a little while, I almost managed to forget about the hounds baying around me. They didn’t seem to matter. My eyes, my ears, my thoughts were elsewhere.
Who was she, this woman? She could see me, somehow, but more than that. I wondered why it was that, unlike all others who had known me, she was not horrified. There was something in those deepset Oriental eyes, though, which told me that she had seen more than she should, and I thought that perhaps that was why she hardly seemed surprised, once the original shock had worn off.
It took a moment for her question to register, as I uncoiled slowly and began to follow her. When it did, though, I had to think about it for a second, before I sped up and caught up with her.
“Sin,” I said, slowly. “I’m Sin.”
And she just nodded, looking almost as thoughtful as me.
“I’m Toshiko Sato. Tosh,” she said with a little nod, almost like a greeting. Lowering her eyes to the ground, she kept on walking. There was an emptiness to that stance that I understood. As though she had lost something. I had never lost anything; never had anything to lose. But I had seen enough humans in that pose, seen enough of their minds, to know that it signifies the same hollow feeling that I have had since the day I sprang from my father’s side, fully-formed.
And if I had had tears, at that moment, I would have wept for her.
A few minutes later, she turned to the door of one of the blocks of flats, rummaging in her bag for the keys. Neither of us had spoken for much of the journey, lost in our own thoughts, but now, as she pulled them out and shoved them into the keyhole, she looked at me over her shoulder and said apologetically, “I’m sorry. It’s been… a while since I had any company.”
And I didn’t know what to say.
Humans always have company, even if they don’t realise it. They live in a world, in a universe, that is a miniscule fraction of the size of Hell, and there are a billion billion sentient lifeforms in that tiny universe. Within a mile of most people on Earth, there will be hundreds of creatures, and nobody is ever so very far from one of their own species. And yet, it is astonishing how they can feel as alone as any demon, any angel. As alone as me.
She didn’t seem to mind my silence, though; she only gave me a sad little smile, twisting the key in the lock, and pushed the door open, wiping her shoes conscientiously on the mat as she stepped into the hallway. “It’s upstairs,” she said, as I slid my way up the step into the hall, and set off down the corridor towards the metal-banistered stairwell at the end.
The hounds suddenly seeming quieter - and to this day, I don’t know why they were - I glided after her as she started up the stairs. Occasionally, she would look back at me, as if checking I was still there, and I could see her beautiful face and that horrible, horrible sadness in her eyes. From the way her brow creased very slightly when she looked at me, I wondered what she was seeing. Whether she saw a monster when she looked at me.
And then that door was open, and she was holding it open for me. I fidgeted slightly, rubbing the back of my neck nervously.
“Are you sure?” I asked, and didn’t really know why I had.
She nodded, giving me a strange look. “Of course.”
I didn’t stop to question more. Perhaps I should have done, but I didn’t. Giving her a little smile, I made my way into the place, looking around as I did.
So, this was a home. I couldn’t see it. It seemed… cold, somehow. Too neat, too pristine, as though she didn’t really live there at all. Or as though it was a lie. Yes, that was it. It seemed as though she was lying to herself, trying to convince herself that she was like that.
Neat.
Pristine.
Perfect.
And what little heart I have went out to her.
Taking her shoes off and hanging her leather coat on the back of the door, she sat down in one of the chairs that was standing by the wall, crossing her legs and watching me. A little uncomfortable at her gaze, I coiled myself up opposite her, wishing that, for just one moment, I could have silence for this.
No such luck. The hounds went on baying. Outside, traffic flashed past. In the sky above, the bright moon shone down through the corona of light above the city. And in the bright, synthetic light of Toshiko Sato’s flat, I found my eyes meeting hers, and she held them for a long time before saying quietly, “Tell me, then.”
I blinked.
“The long story. Tell me. Please.” She sighed, giving me a little smile.
Nodding, I hesitated for a moment, trying to think how best to draw the strands of my life together. And I told her.
I told her about my creation; how I leapt from the side of my father Lucifer, how I fled, pregnant with his child, into the darkness of Hell. I told her about the birth of my son Death, and how he had pursued me with lust in his eyes, and led me to a second pregnancy. I told her of the hideous time when the hounds burst out of my belly, and of the more joyous time when we built our bridge to the universe she knew. I told her of everything and everyone that I remembered, and my memory was long indeed.
By the time I had finished, it was almost dawn.
She sat there for a moment, in total silence, and then she nodded.
“Eden, and God, and Adam and Eve? They happened? Really happened?”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. Of course they had happened.
“You built the Rift?” she went on, and I could hear the incredulity in her voice.
I nodded again, then, feeling that something was missing, added, “Well, sort of. I made the Rift into what it is. There was a… weakness there already.”
For a moment, she sat there, and stared. Then, sighing, she rubbed her eyes. “I don’t believe it. But somehow, coming from you… I almost do.” She smiled at me, then glanced up at the clock. “Damn. I have to be at work in a couple of hours. I should get some sleep.” Standing up, she gave me another of those smiles which I thought were the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and opened one of the doors, which I assumed led to the bedroom. Just before she went through, she turned around with one hand resting on the doorframe. “I’d like you to stay here,” she said, all in a rush, and I got the feeling she’d been building up to saying it for quite some time.
I nodded, of course, and she left the room, closing the door after her.
An hour or so later, when I was fairly sure she’d gone to sleep, I passed through the closed door. And for a moment, I watched her sleeping.
I have seen worlds rise and fall. I was there at the Creation, and I will be there at the End. But in all that time, I had never seen anything that made me feel quite so peaceful as her, with her eyes closed and her mouth set softly in sleep.
And it was then that I thought I might know what home was.
Series title: A Heaven Of Hell, A Hell Of Heaven
Fandom: A Torchwood/Paradise Lost crossover. Sounds odd, I know. Well, it is.
Characters/pairings: Sin, Tosh, and Sin/Tosh.
POV: Sin, for this chapter
Warnings: Set after Greeks Bearing Gifts, but will probably end up reaching to Exit Wounds, so there will almost certainly be spoilers. I (still) don't know what's going to happen, except in the vaguest possible terms, after this chapter, but this one's pretty unoffensive. Mentions of incest and rape, but only very brief ones.
Disclaimers: Unfortunately, Torchwood isn’t mine. I wish it was. Then I could have my own Tosh… ^-^ But it belongs to the BBC
Paradise Lost is also not mine. I don’t write epic Biblical poetry, and I wasn’t alive in the seventeenth century. John Milton wrote it, and he didn’t like speech marks.
Summary: Sin has spent the lifetime of the universe lonely and in pain. When she meets Tosh, and is invited to go home with her, she isn’t entirely sure how to react. But she’s glad, all the same.
Chapter 1 (Not A Lot To Do): http://fenrischained.livejournal.com/1289.html
A/N: Sin doesn’t have much to say in Paradise Lost, so I think she’s probably pretty open to interpretation. Which, of course, also means she’s very open to misinterpretation. With this, as with everything else, concrit is massively appreciated.
Beta’d by yarukage , who is now reading Paradise Lost. Don’t think she’s even got to the start of the story yet, though… ^-^’
Series title is from Paradise Lost (The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n); chapter title is from the album Who Killed... The Zutons. It does make it a little easier that I’ve pretty much decided, now, which order the titles are going in.
Sorry about any coding issues. It's being a bitch.
-------------
I’ve been on this earth a thousand lifetimes. I’ve been alive a thousand times as long.
I’m a mother, a daughter, a crone, and I am here.
There was a bridge, that I built with the aid of my son Death; a bridge leading to this world, a bridge over which demons and devils could cross. At least, that’s the story.
It’s sort of a mistranslation. I built one bridge, which separates into several, each of them closing at a point, at a Rift in time and space. I had to; Hell is not Earth, after all, nor even on the same plane of existence. But I built one bridge, separating into many, and the strongest of the many led to the place that would become Cardiff, Wales. I built the Rift there, tearing a hole in the reality that God created. The strongest of the Rifts, the first I created, and one of my most frequent haunts.
And it was on a visit there that I saw her. More to the point, it was on a visit there that she saw me.
They never picked it up, of course. Those mortals, with their toys and their technology - they call it background Rift activity. It is not background Rift activity.
It is me.
Me, and my son, and the thousands of demons who have entered this world without anybody ever knowing or caring.
And I was in Cardiff that night, by the bay that opens onto the oceans, under the bright glow of the lamps. The hounds baying and snarling around my belly, out from the darkness inside me. And I was there, and she turned, and she saw me.
No denying it. She saw me. Saw me, and heard me, and spoke to me.
And she was beautiful.
Beauty is an underrated art. And in the darkness of Hell, where I had spent so much life, a rare one. But she was beautiful.
Her hair, dark and cropped to her shoulders, leaping around her like a live thing when she leapt back, dropping her glass. Her eyes, deepset and wide with shock, and a deep, dark brown. Her skin, soft and smooth and human… I wanted to reach out and touch it. For a moment, I almost believed that I could; that if she could see me, perhaps she could touch me, too.
I couldn’t. She couldn’t. My hand passed straight through her, without any sensation. And I sighed inwardly, biting my lip.
“Would you like to come home with me, and tell me the long story when we’re there?” she asked, a few moments later, and I couldn’t believe that I had heard it.
Home.
It wasn’t a thing I’d ever had one of. Hell? Hell is no home. Hell is dark, and fierce, and filled with nightmares. And not least of them is my father and my son; my father who birthed me and raped me, my son who left me impregnated with the hounds that howl and snarl around my belly. Hell is no home.
But the idea of a home has always fascinated me.
Humans. They go to their boxes of stone and brick and glass each night, and they draw the curtains, and they switch on the lights, and they imagine that they are safe, even those who leave the doors unlocked and the windows open wide. And when they leave them, they miss them. And when they are gone too long, it is like a pain to them, or so I am told. In Wales, where this story began, they have a word for that feeling; hireath. It is a beautiful word. A word I never hoped to understand.
And I had never seen a home. Though I have roamed the earth since Earth itself began, I had never seen a home. Perhaps, I thought, that was why I could not understand why a home was.
So I nodded, watching the strange woman as she started off down the street. For a little while, I almost managed to forget about the hounds baying around me. They didn’t seem to matter. My eyes, my ears, my thoughts were elsewhere.
Who was she, this woman? She could see me, somehow, but more than that. I wondered why it was that, unlike all others who had known me, she was not horrified. There was something in those deepset Oriental eyes, though, which told me that she had seen more than she should, and I thought that perhaps that was why she hardly seemed surprised, once the original shock had worn off.
It took a moment for her question to register, as I uncoiled slowly and began to follow her. When it did, though, I had to think about it for a second, before I sped up and caught up with her.
“Sin,” I said, slowly. “I’m Sin.”
And she just nodded, looking almost as thoughtful as me.
“I’m Toshiko Sato. Tosh,” she said with a little nod, almost like a greeting. Lowering her eyes to the ground, she kept on walking. There was an emptiness to that stance that I understood. As though she had lost something. I had never lost anything; never had anything to lose. But I had seen enough humans in that pose, seen enough of their minds, to know that it signifies the same hollow feeling that I have had since the day I sprang from my father’s side, fully-formed.
And if I had had tears, at that moment, I would have wept for her.
A few minutes later, she turned to the door of one of the blocks of flats, rummaging in her bag for the keys. Neither of us had spoken for much of the journey, lost in our own thoughts, but now, as she pulled them out and shoved them into the keyhole, she looked at me over her shoulder and said apologetically, “I’m sorry. It’s been… a while since I had any company.”
And I didn’t know what to say.
Humans always have company, even if they don’t realise it. They live in a world, in a universe, that is a miniscule fraction of the size of Hell, and there are a billion billion sentient lifeforms in that tiny universe. Within a mile of most people on Earth, there will be hundreds of creatures, and nobody is ever so very far from one of their own species. And yet, it is astonishing how they can feel as alone as any demon, any angel. As alone as me.
She didn’t seem to mind my silence, though; she only gave me a sad little smile, twisting the key in the lock, and pushed the door open, wiping her shoes conscientiously on the mat as she stepped into the hallway. “It’s upstairs,” she said, as I slid my way up the step into the hall, and set off down the corridor towards the metal-banistered stairwell at the end.
The hounds suddenly seeming quieter - and to this day, I don’t know why they were - I glided after her as she started up the stairs. Occasionally, she would look back at me, as if checking I was still there, and I could see her beautiful face and that horrible, horrible sadness in her eyes. From the way her brow creased very slightly when she looked at me, I wondered what she was seeing. Whether she saw a monster when she looked at me.
And then that door was open, and she was holding it open for me. I fidgeted slightly, rubbing the back of my neck nervously.
“Are you sure?” I asked, and didn’t really know why I had.
She nodded, giving me a strange look. “Of course.”
I didn’t stop to question more. Perhaps I should have done, but I didn’t. Giving her a little smile, I made my way into the place, looking around as I did.
So, this was a home. I couldn’t see it. It seemed… cold, somehow. Too neat, too pristine, as though she didn’t really live there at all. Or as though it was a lie. Yes, that was it. It seemed as though she was lying to herself, trying to convince herself that she was like that.
Neat.
Pristine.
Perfect.
And what little heart I have went out to her.
Taking her shoes off and hanging her leather coat on the back of the door, she sat down in one of the chairs that was standing by the wall, crossing her legs and watching me. A little uncomfortable at her gaze, I coiled myself up opposite her, wishing that, for just one moment, I could have silence for this.
No such luck. The hounds went on baying. Outside, traffic flashed past. In the sky above, the bright moon shone down through the corona of light above the city. And in the bright, synthetic light of Toshiko Sato’s flat, I found my eyes meeting hers, and she held them for a long time before saying quietly, “Tell me, then.”
I blinked.
“The long story. Tell me. Please.” She sighed, giving me a little smile.
Nodding, I hesitated for a moment, trying to think how best to draw the strands of my life together. And I told her.
I told her about my creation; how I leapt from the side of my father Lucifer, how I fled, pregnant with his child, into the darkness of Hell. I told her about the birth of my son Death, and how he had pursued me with lust in his eyes, and led me to a second pregnancy. I told her of the hideous time when the hounds burst out of my belly, and of the more joyous time when we built our bridge to the universe she knew. I told her of everything and everyone that I remembered, and my memory was long indeed.
By the time I had finished, it was almost dawn.
She sat there for a moment, in total silence, and then she nodded.
“Eden, and God, and Adam and Eve? They happened? Really happened?”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. Of course they had happened.
“You built the Rift?” she went on, and I could hear the incredulity in her voice.
I nodded again, then, feeling that something was missing, added, “Well, sort of. I made the Rift into what it is. There was a… weakness there already.”
For a moment, she sat there, and stared. Then, sighing, she rubbed her eyes. “I don’t believe it. But somehow, coming from you… I almost do.” She smiled at me, then glanced up at the clock. “Damn. I have to be at work in a couple of hours. I should get some sleep.” Standing up, she gave me another of those smiles which I thought were the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and opened one of the doors, which I assumed led to the bedroom. Just before she went through, she turned around with one hand resting on the doorframe. “I’d like you to stay here,” she said, all in a rush, and I got the feeling she’d been building up to saying it for quite some time.
I nodded, of course, and she left the room, closing the door after her.
An hour or so later, when I was fairly sure she’d gone to sleep, I passed through the closed door. And for a moment, I watched her sleeping.
I have seen worlds rise and fall. I was there at the Creation, and I will be there at the End. But in all that time, I had never seen anything that made me feel quite so peaceful as her, with her eyes closed and her mouth set softly in sleep.
And it was then that I thought I might know what home was.