I did fic!
Mar. 7th, 2008 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piploverI started writing Torchwood sometime last week, after becoming obsessed with the series. Although I'm currently writing a larger story, this bunny came out of the dark and bit me hard. I haven't seen episode 2x09, so if there are any wrongdoings, please let me know. I wrote this based off spoilers and reactions from my flist. Also, it's a style I don't normally write. Let me know if it works and if it's worth posting somewhere else?
Oh, and isn't my icon cool? I got it frombm_shipper
Title: Those Who Serve
Author: Piplover
Rating: Gen
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Warning: Spoiler for ep 2x09
Author's Notes: Not beta'ed
I have many duties in my life. The simpler ones include making certain coffee is always at hand in the hub, providing snacks and nourishment for those I work with, and cleaning the general detritus that accumulates around the office when my back is turned.
As in life, however, there are layers to my duties, complexities that had to be learned through trial and error, fear and pain. The swiftest way to subdue a weevil without coming to harm myself was one such lesson thrust upon me through necessity. Cleaning blood out of upholstery and linen was another. (A paste of corn starch, corn meal, and talcum powder. Works like a charm every time.) Disposing of bodies, creating alibis, monitoring possibly compromised computers are a few others.
But these duties, essential though they are, are only the ones that my employer can see. And I do think of Jack Harkness as my employer, no matter what else he may have become to me. I may share a bed with him some nights, but in the morning it is me who changes the sheets. It may not be what I could wish for, but it is the way that it must be. No matter how my heart wishes otherwise.
But I digress.
It is those tasks which are not seen that I sometimes find the most arduous, though I do not doubt that there is a long line of prestigious menservants before me who have had the same complaint. To keep one’s employer from destroying himself, or those he cares most about, is the one duty that took me the longest to learn. And the hardest lesson to take to heart.
I am not blind. I have seen how Jack’s eyes lingered on Gwen, how her eyes followed him when they were not on Rhys or Owen. The closeness between them, whether self-destructive or not, is a fact, and one that I have come to accept, no matter how reluctantly. And so it is my duty, my obligation, to save them from themselves. I will not, can not, allow Torchwood 3 to fall. Canary Warf nearly destroyed me. To lose what I have found here in Cardiff surely would.
I had my misgivings about Gwen’s wedding long before today. For her to cling to a life outside of Torchwood is an admirable accomplishment, though how beneficial to either side I can not say. No one understands torn loyalty better than myself, and I know, with a certainty I wish I did not possess, that one day she will have to chose. And though it would be sad to see her go, I know that her choice will not be Torchwood. Or Jack.
Thus, when Jack takes Gwen from Rhys’ arms and distances them from the happy groom, as the two of them gaze into each other’s eyes with a longing I can see even from my distance, I know once more what my duty demands of me.
It is not hard to cut in between them, to offer a smile and a nod of recognition to what they are feeling. It is not difficult at all to shuffle Jack slowly away from the new bride, though his gaze lingers on her as they part and his hand in mine is lax. How presumptuous I must look, the tea-boy stealing an awkward dance with the honorable captain. How forward I was, many will think, to try and stake my claim on the handsome man.
I have done many things in the name of duty. I have mopped blood from stained cement floors, and disposed of bodies that will never be named into deep, watery graves. None of those, however, had left me feeling as small and invisible as making my way around the dance floor with a man who wished I were another.
This is my duty, to my captain and to my team. It is the burden that I bear, that countless servants have born, to keep those we love from destroying that which gives us purpose.
I am a shadow to whom the night details its secrets, a ghost who wanders the archives, seeking solace in the dusty and smoke-stained parchments of history. Why do I allow my heart to be put on display, to be second to a dreamer’s fantasy, you ask? The answer is simple.
I am Torchwood. And I live to serve.
Oh, and isn't my icon cool? I got it from
bm_shipperTitle: Those Who Serve
Author: Piplover
Rating: Gen
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Warning: Spoiler for ep 2x09
Author's Notes: Not beta'ed
I have many duties in my life. The simpler ones include making certain coffee is always at hand in the hub, providing snacks and nourishment for those I work with, and cleaning the general detritus that accumulates around the office when my back is turned.
As in life, however, there are layers to my duties, complexities that had to be learned through trial and error, fear and pain. The swiftest way to subdue a weevil without coming to harm myself was one such lesson thrust upon me through necessity. Cleaning blood out of upholstery and linen was another. (A paste of corn starch, corn meal, and talcum powder. Works like a charm every time.) Disposing of bodies, creating alibis, monitoring possibly compromised computers are a few others.
But these duties, essential though they are, are only the ones that my employer can see. And I do think of Jack Harkness as my employer, no matter what else he may have become to me. I may share a bed with him some nights, but in the morning it is me who changes the sheets. It may not be what I could wish for, but it is the way that it must be. No matter how my heart wishes otherwise.
But I digress.
It is those tasks which are not seen that I sometimes find the most arduous, though I do not doubt that there is a long line of prestigious menservants before me who have had the same complaint. To keep one’s employer from destroying himself, or those he cares most about, is the one duty that took me the longest to learn. And the hardest lesson to take to heart.
I am not blind. I have seen how Jack’s eyes lingered on Gwen, how her eyes followed him when they were not on Rhys or Owen. The closeness between them, whether self-destructive or not, is a fact, and one that I have come to accept, no matter how reluctantly. And so it is my duty, my obligation, to save them from themselves. I will not, can not, allow Torchwood 3 to fall. Canary Warf nearly destroyed me. To lose what I have found here in Cardiff surely would.
I had my misgivings about Gwen’s wedding long before today. For her to cling to a life outside of Torchwood is an admirable accomplishment, though how beneficial to either side I can not say. No one understands torn loyalty better than myself, and I know, with a certainty I wish I did not possess, that one day she will have to chose. And though it would be sad to see her go, I know that her choice will not be Torchwood. Or Jack.
Thus, when Jack takes Gwen from Rhys’ arms and distances them from the happy groom, as the two of them gaze into each other’s eyes with a longing I can see even from my distance, I know once more what my duty demands of me.
It is not hard to cut in between them, to offer a smile and a nod of recognition to what they are feeling. It is not difficult at all to shuffle Jack slowly away from the new bride, though his gaze lingers on her as they part and his hand in mine is lax. How presumptuous I must look, the tea-boy stealing an awkward dance with the honorable captain. How forward I was, many will think, to try and stake my claim on the handsome man.
I have done many things in the name of duty. I have mopped blood from stained cement floors, and disposed of bodies that will never be named into deep, watery graves. None of those, however, had left me feeling as small and invisible as making my way around the dance floor with a man who wished I were another.
This is my duty, to my captain and to my team. It is the burden that I bear, that countless servants have born, to keep those we love from destroying that which gives us purpose.
I am a shadow to whom the night details its secrets, a ghost who wanders the archives, seeking solace in the dusty and smoke-stained parchments of history. Why do I allow my heart to be put on display, to be second to a dreamer’s fantasy, you ask? The answer is simple.
I am Torchwood. And I live to serve.