pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs

catslash33@gmail.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:42:30 GMT

Torchwood!

BAHAHAHAHA.

That's pretty much all I got. I armed myself with vodka and watched the ep with sotto_voice, and frankly I am in no condition to pick it apart. All I can say for now is, that coda was fucking hilarious.

Also: they really have no intention of making a fourth series, do they?

Also also: FUCKING CANON.

That is all.

catslash33@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:02:37 GMT

Torchwood.

Well, fuck.

I'll, uh. Be gleeful over being right and the impending implosion of fandom later.

* Although I would like to share this: I found the spoiler about .05 seconds after the ep aired in the UK, and afterward headed out to pick up some snacks, MP3 player on full blast.

As I headed out of the store to go home, John Barrowman's cover of "Being Alive" started playing.

You know, the song about the guy who wants someone to make him totally miserable so he'll know he's alive? (Yeah, I get the idea, but seriously, with these lyrics - sung in the first person as Barrowman does rather than second as the link shows - the literal interpretation is much funnier.)

I just started giggling right there in the parking lot. Under the circumstances, with the confirmation of Ianto's death fresh in my mind, it was hideously appropriate. I will never be able to hear that song and not laugh again.

* Has anyone ever seen the movie Conspiracy? It's about the meeting in which the Nazi Party decided precisely how to address the "Jewish problem." I know I'm getting dangerously and inappropriately close to Godwin's Law here, but I couldn't help but be reminded of it during the meeting scenes. It's the thing about working out the logistics of dooming a substantial section of the population - with Conspiracy, it's creepily easy to get caught up in the math and the mundane details, which didn't quite happen for me here, but still. The similarities, with the reminder of a real situation injected into this fictional one, made the whole issue more unsettling for me.

* CLEM. Oh noes. I loved Clem. And I loved how Gwen was with him, and the very natural, tender chemistry between them. I will miss him, and the kickass actor whose name I keep forgetting to look up.

* I think I strongly object to how accurate the opening scene of my latest Torchwood fic was to the end of this ep. And, um, with the theme of family and Rhys accepting his role in the Torchwood family and yeah. I SWEAR I had the idea over a year ago.

* Seriously: "Somebody crowd me with love, somebody force me to care/Somebody make me come through, I'll always be there/As frightened as you of being alive." HAHAHAHA wow.

So. Yep. Tomorrow I'm going to be watching the finale with sotto_voice. That'll be FUN, right, Lexie? Right?

catslash33@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:45:10 GMT

Torchwood!

Still holding up, quality-wise. Not as absorbing as the past two episodes, but still among the best Torchwood has had to offer thus far.

* IANTO. YOU ARE SO DUMB. "Die of old age"? Did you really say that? In your profession? You are doomed. Doomed, smothered in doom sauce, with a side of doom potatoes and doom-frosted doom for dessert.

* Also: Clem is awesome. I haven't stopped yet to give credit here, but his actor is just kicking ass all over the place with this character. As written, Clem's kinda cookie-cutter, but the performance is bringing to life this wonderfully fascinating character who's just brilliant to watch. I love him.

* I like how, during the negotiation scene with the American rep all up in Green's face about international protocol of blah, nobody ever pointed out that, hey, another reason it would be bad to bring in the President in person on short notice is because the last time a British Prime Minister arranged a meeting with an alien species with little to no notice for the rest of the world leaders to get their shit together, America ended up with a DEAD PRESIDENT. Maybe the entire world (esp. the part with democracy) is just really embarrassed about Saxon and has agreed not to talk about that.

* I love Rhys cheerfully making the most of the bizarre situation he's found himself in (HUB 2! ♥!!)! And when he and Ianto were tearing outside, he was visibly struggling to keep up in the later shots. I am going to be nice and assume that was a bit of smart acting from Kai Owen, because really, no way Rhys would be able to keep up with Ianto for much more than a (very) short sprint.

* I do object, however, to the discussion about who found out about the pregnancy when being kept offscreen. With an hour of screentime, surely that could have gotten three minutes? Obviously, Gwen was able to talk Rhys down, which makes sense - he's a reasonable guy, he'd have to concede that it would have been impossible under the circumstances for Jack not to find out first - but with the emphasis the pregnancy has gotten, it felt weird for that conversation to be left out.

* But Jack's smirk after he "accidentally" let it slip? Hilarious. Jack had a shitty day, dammit, and he's going to spread the misery around a little!

* Everything else Jack-related: meh. Jack is a dick, with a dicky past, of dickdom, and that thing I said about not being able to take him seriously since "Exit Wounds"? Yep. *yawn*

In conclusion, Ianto is doomed. Remember a couple of days ago, when I mentioned the classic scenario of the cop in a horror movie set to retire in two weeks? Being in a dangerous job and talking about dying of old age is RIGHT up there.

. . . of course, the more I run my mouth about my predictions, the more wrong I usually end up being. So I'm still wrapping Rhys up in Kevlar and bubble wrap, just to be safe.

catslash33@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:39:34 GMT

Torchwood!

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, man, THAT'S more like it. Hilarity. And a reminder of why I haven't been able to take Jack seriously since "Exit Wounds." Buried alive again! In concrete! AND IANTO STEALING HIM WITH A FORKLIFT. (I may not have the terminology right. I do not, in fact, actually care.) I laughed so hard I had to hit Pause.

In other news:

* I had a feeling I'd like Ianto's brother-in-law. I got the impression yesterday that he isn't really a jerk, he's just crude. He was pretty awesome in this ep and I approve.

* Prime Minister Green? Played by Horatio from Branagh's Hamlet. I didn't spot it yesterday, because Nicholas Farrell has aged quite a bit, but it's definitely him and now I get to supplement my viewing pleasure with Hamlet-themed snark.

* A FORKLIFT YOU GUYS HAHAHAHA.

* RHYS. I LOVE RHYS. So protective and smart and trying so hard, bless him.

There was probably a bunch of other stuff to say, and I may well edit once I've been off reading others' reactions and I'm reminded, but it was all wiped out of my brain by FORKLIFT HILARITY. Oh my god, sometimes this show just hits the exact right note of STUPID and AWESOME and then I just love it SO MUCH.

Edit: You know, I bet PM Green bites it too. Jesus, that country really burns through Prime Ministers, doesn't it?

catslash33@gmail.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:35:29 GMT

Torchwood! Man, I haven't written an episode reaction since - uh, the last Doctor Who special.

That was shockingly not crap. It was even . . . kind of awesome. I am sure this oversight will be rectified down the line.

Either Rhys or Ianto is totally going to die. Totally, totally, totally. So dead.

Counting against Rhys:

* Not a main character.
* Established emotional support for a major character. And that was pretty much all, but now:
* Gwen is pregnant. And Rhys is the one wanting children.

That's not encouraging. That's a red alert right there. It's not quite "In two weeks, I am retiring from the force oh hey there's a new serial killer/evil alien/murderous supernatural force in town," but it's pretty close.

Counting against Ianto:

* Previous established willingness to kill off major characters.
* Fourth series not guaranteed.
* Even if there is one, it's fucking Torchwood, they could find a way to bring him back.
* After two full series with Ianto's family entirely offscreen, we suddenly meet what are presumably his remaining living relatives (wtf happened to his mother again? Oh, wait, it's Rusty's Whoniverse, mothers are useless anyway) and there is screentime and a "charming" bonding scene.
* Weirdness with Jack in re: relationship status, probably primed to resolve itself in romantic fashion.
* Also, RTD likes to fuck with us.

Tie all this together, throw in the standard conventional death taking place five minutes after said romantic resolution, and it's looking pretty bad for Ianto. It's not quite "My wife is pregnant and I'm going to be thrilled when I find out and wouldn't it be ironic if I, the spouse with the safe and reliably boring job, died horribly?" but it's pretty close.

. . . shit. I'm gonna miss Rhys.

* In other news, I am bored to tears and possible nausea with Jack/Ianto, so I'm unlikely to have much to say about that subplot unless it results in Ianto's tragic death. *crosses fingers* Oh god, I want to watch fandom implode so very very badly.

* While never having given Jack's potential family any thought beyond "Oh Jesus, not another fanfic Mary Sue, scroooooolling along," I have to say that I'm a little surprised I didn't. It seems kind of obvious that Jack would have children, and that that would ultimately suck. What's-her-face probably isn't the first. I wonder if her mother is the wife from Jack's picture in "From Out of the Rain"?

* Nice fake-out with Rupesh! I did not believe he was going to be dead until he was dead. I was sure they'd find some way around the whole thing where he betrayed Jack and blah, because it's not like IANTO'S never done that. Twice. I am a bit sad, because I liked him. I wonder what was up with making all the missing bodies minorities? And, uh, then killing the non-white guy who was presented as a future member of Torchwood? Interesting and confusing message there.

* Confidential to Milliwaysers: I guess I better keep Cal real low profile, huh? Scary assassin guys getting wind of Jack's look-alike in New York would probably be BAD. I mean, damn, that's why I took care to drop him well past the year that wasn't. Sorry, Cal, no second attempt at a decent political career for you. At least I don't have to try to figure out a way around the fabricated background thing anymore.

And no, he does not approve of my rooting for Ianto's death. Just so you know.

catslash33@gmail.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:40:01 GMT

A rare meme appearance! I grabbed this one from austen.

Inspired by Doctor Who's "Turn Left:" Pick one of my stories (here) and tell me a point in the tale that you'd change. Something tiny (e.g. "and then Fay chose silver glitter instead of gold") or big (e.g. "and then Rose was arrested instead of Jack") and I'll tell you how that one difference would have altered the course of the entire story.

I'm about to head off to bed, and I'm working all day tomorrow, and then there will be Torchwood (I still cannot believe that I intend to WATCH it), but I will get to this.

catslash33@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:32:49 GMT

As I'm sure many of you have done, I have lost multiple chunks of my life to TV Tropes. The most recent chunk was at the Wild Mass Guessing page, which is a gathering of pages on different fandoms discussing fanon theories from the sensible to the insane. Many of them have an "X is a Time Lord" guess, and since Dollhouse, there are a lot of "X is a Doll" guesses popping up, too.

So! In my idleness, I have decided to pose this - I don't know, meme I just made up to you guys.

Name me a fandom I'm familiar with, and I'll tell you who's a Time Lord, who's a Doll, or both (probably both) and why.

Feel free to swipe and use this yourself, if you could stand to kill some time.

"Full Circle," PG, Rhys, Gwen, Jack

catslash33@gmail.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:40:46 GMT

My first non-Owencentric Torchwood fic is finally complete! Just in time to be completely contradicted in a few weeks.

TITLE: "Full Circle"
AUTHOR: Cathryn (catslash)
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: Approximately 1600
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Rhys, Gwen, Jack. Gwen/Rhys, offscreen Jack/Ianto.
SUMMARY: Rhys had come to understand, after Tosh and Owen, that he had married into that family; now, while Gwen and Jack tried to keep each other from falling apart, he had to keep them from drowning. Near-future AU.
WARNING: Offscreen character death.
NOTES: I started writing this not long after "Exit Wounds" aired, so any resemblance to spoilers or speculation for series three is pure coincidence.
NOTES THE SECOND: Also, if you can spot the reference to one of the novels, you get an internet cookie of your choice.
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood was created by Russell T Davies and belongs to the BBC. I take no credit and make no money.

Rhys Williams came home that day to find his wife on the floor, sobbing in her employer's arms. Jack Harkness was holding Gwen gently, cradling her. His expression was blank, tears falling down his face into Gwen's hair.

Rhys knew immediately what had happened. He crossed the room and knelt next to them, putting his arms around Gwen. Jack sat back, relinquishing his hold. Gwen clung to Rhys, pressing her face into his shoulder and choking out his name.

"It's all right, Gwen, I'm here." He held her tight and looked up at Jack. Jack had composed himself and looked, aside from red eyes, as though he had never been crying.

"Who?" Rhys asked quietly.

Things beyond the obvious had changed after Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper had died. It wasn't just that Mickey Smith and James Mayer had joined Torchwood, or that Gwen had struggled with grief and the accompanying moodswings that hurt Rhys to see. It was that she hovered closer to Rhys, touching him frequently, holding on for a few extra seconds whenever they hugged. It was that Jack and Ianto Jones started coming round, sometimes separately but mostly together, just to socialize, and as they all sat together and drank wine and avoided talk of Torchwood, Rhys watched the three of them stare at each other to make sure no one disappeared. Mickey and James had come round a few times too - James had a knack for making Gwen laugh that made Rhys wish he would visit more often - but those visits were more relaxed. They were Torchwood, but they weren't part of what Gwen and Jack and Ianto carried with them any more than Rhys was.

Rhys listened to Gwen's sobs and looked at Jack's resolute face and thought, I liked Ianto.

"I'm sorry," he said before Jack could speak. Jack's expression tightened and he broke eye contact, looking at Gwen.

"I didn't want her to be alone," he said after a moment. "Now that you're here, I should go."

"No." Gwen raised her head sharply and twisted round in Rhys's arms. Her grip on his shoulder was painfully tight as she reached out with her other hand to grab Jack's sleeve. "Please, Jack, you can't go."

Jack didn't dislodge her hand, but he said mildly, "It's not as if anything's going to happen to me."

"But what if it does?" Fear strengthened Gwen's voice rather than making it shake. "What if it does, and this time you don't come back?"

Jack looked at her for a long moment. Something flashed in his eyes before they softened and he put his hand over hers.

("It's all right for you," Rhys told Ianto over a six-pack, after Gwen had given up on the both of them and gone to bed before she could let herself drink too much. "Your boyfriend gets killed, you can just stick him in the car till he comes back and then it's business as usual. Not all of us are so lucky."

Ianto glanced at him. "There's no guarantee it's always going to work that way.")

It wasn't all that long ago that part of Rhys would have been quietly, seethingly jealous over the look that passed between Gwen and Jack in that moment. And, perhaps, not long ago he would have been right. But now there was nothing of that between them, just the desperation of family trying to keep each other sane. Rhys had come to understand, after Tosh and Owen, that he had married into that family; now, while Gwen and Jack tried to keep each other from falling apart, he had to keep them from drowning.

"Can't have you wandering off by yourself tonight, Jack," he said quietly. Jack's gaze flicked up to meet his.

"You gonna stop me?" he asked, but there was no heat in the question. Just weariness. Rhys nodded.

"'Course I am. And you know I'd hate to have to embarrass you," he answered. Jack's expression lightened just a touch.

"Guess I'm staying, then."

**********

Jack shared their bed that night, Gwen in the middle and both of them lying close to her. She slept deeply, but clutched them as if she were awake and terrified they'd disappear if she wasn't careful. Rhys closed his eyes and didn't sleep at all, and he knew Jack was doing the same thing. It was still dark when he heard Jack give up and carefully extricate himself from Gwen's hold, getting up and going out into the kitchen. Gwen shifted and wrapped herself around Rhys. He held her as close as he could, unable to sleep, half-listening to Jack. He was talking, voice low and indistinct through the closed door. Must've rung James or Mickey, Rhys thought. Checking up on them. The breaking of the silence that had taken hold of the flat proved to be oddly lulling, and Rhys finally found himself dozing off.

He woke a couple hours later, stomach sour from too little sleep. Gwen's hold on him had relaxed, and she'd gotten hold of the pillow Jack had been using, one arm wrapped firmly around it. Rhys could hear only silence from the kitchen, and after a moment or two, he couldn't tolerate lying still any longer. He kissed Gwen's temple and got out of bed slowly, taking as much care as he could not to disturb her. She sighed a little and tightened her grip on the pillow, but her eyes stayed closed, so Rhys made his way out to the kitchen.

"Morning, Rhys." Jack was leaning against the counter, hands wrapped around a mug. "I've made some coffee, if you're interested."

Rhys was tempted - not only did the coffee smell wonderful, but the maker was a gift from Ianto not too long ago, and it seemed appropriate today. He knew from bitter experience, though, that taking in that much caffeine on so little sleep would only make him nauseous, jittery, and irritable, none of which would do any of them any favors right now.

"Thanks, but I'm just going to have some tea," he said, filling the kettle and switching it on.

"You sure? C'mon, I spent twenty minutes cleaning this thing out. Do you guys ever use it?"

Rhys glanced over him. "We just kept it out so Ianto would think we did," he admitted. A painful flicker of emotion played over Jack's face for just a second before his expression froze.

"I don't think he was fooled," he said, too light, too smooth. He took one of the mugs already sitting out and filled it, then held it out to Rhys.

"Have some coffee, Rhys," he said quietly.

Rhys didn't have the heart to turn him down a second time. He nodded and took the mug, murmuring thanks as he raised it to sip.

"Don't drink it, Rhys." He looked up, surprised, to see Gwen in the doorway of the bedroom. Her eyes were tired and sharp all at once as they flicked from him to Jack. "What are you doing, Jack?"

Jack exhaled, looked down, looked back up at her.

"You're fired, Gwen."

"No," she said, crossing the flat into the kitchen. "No, I'm not leaving you alone, Jack -"

"Yes," he interrupted, "you are. This isn't up for discussion."

Gwen took the mug from Rhys and emptied it into the sink.

"So you were just going to Retcon us without warning?" she asked. "Retcon Rhys? You can't fire him, he doesn't work for you."

"That is kind of how we operate, yeah," Jack said tightly. "Allowing Rhys to keep his memory of Torchwood was completely unprecedented and highly unorthodox. What do you expect me to do, Gwen, Retcon you and leave his memory intact?"

"Wait a minute," Rhys said. "The memory drug? You've put the memory drug in the coffee?"

"Ex-employees aren't permitted to remember Torchwood," Jack answered, glancing toward him. "In this case, that extends to you." His gaze lingered for just a second before he turned his attention back to Gwen.

"I'm not leaving you," she said again, stubborn as Rhys had ever heard her. "James and Mickey, they're great, but Jack, you and I are . . . we're all that's left from before." Her voice broke a little; she took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and kept going. "It would be like leaving them, too."

"Would you rather join them?" Jack's veneer cracked for a moment before he lifted his chin and gave Gwen a challenging stare.

In the silence that followed, the kettle began to whistle. Rhys switched it off. Then he picked up the pot of Jack's coffee, filled the mug Gwen had emptied, and started drinking.

"Rhys!" Gwen gasped, hurrying to him and catching hold of his wrist. He looked at her, putting his hand to her cheek.

"If you die, Gwen," he said, "it'll kill me."

"Oh, Rhys," she whispered, letting go of his wrist to cradle his face in her hands.

"Please, Gwen. He's right. Please." He could already feel the sedative in the drug kicking in, making things fuzzy around the edges.

She looked at him for a long moment, then looked at Jack. Then she looked back at Rhys and, without breaking eye contact, she took the mug from him, raised it to her lips, and drank.

catslash33@gmail.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:05:59 GMT

Wow, I have been with the fail at posting lately. I'm getting back into the swing of working after the semester, and it's been tiring. Also my manager sucks at life, but I don't want to get pissed off all over again talking about it, so I'm not going any further into that.

Instead, I want to talk about the upcoming new series of Torchwood. (. . . Yeah, I know I quit the show after "Exit Wounds." I am continuing to watch it because SHUT UP, that's why.)

I'm always wrong when I say that. But anyway, I just wanna ask you guys a question. When you consider the following information:

* That there's gonna be a bunch of annoying couple-y Jack/Ianto stuff (seriously, I'm not violently against the ship or anything, but it is SO BORING AND BADLY WRITTEN AND IT IS THE SHIP THAT ATE FANDOM ANYWAY AAAAAUGH so blech)

* That Jack is going to be evasive about said couple-y stuff

* That Ianto's family is going to show up

* That this will all likely culminate in an exchange of heartfelt blah blah blah

. . . when you have considered all this, then tell me, on a scale of one to ten: exactly how violent and gruesome do you think Ianto's death is going to be?

Nobody survives shit like that on TV. It's just too much.

Also: someone is (this is speculation, not a spoiler!) definitely going to die, and I say better Ianto than Rhys.

. . .

Yeah, I know, I just killed Rhys.

catslash33@gmail.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:15:56 GMT

My sister has dug up and posted a picture of me which I think is one of the better ones of me I've ever seen. So:

I'm not one of those people who thinks I am OMG SOOOO un-photogenic, but it is surprisingly difficult to get a picture of me smiling that doesn't look a bit odd, which is the main reason why I like this picture.

. . . and which is kind of ironic, since it was taken after my grandfather's funeral in 2007.

Ah, well.

catslash33@gmail.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:57:21 GMT

I never do anon memes, either throwing my hat in or commenting (laaaazy, also if I want you to know something I will tell you it), but someone started a new one over on JournalFen, so what the hell.

Anonymous Feedback/Concrit Post is my thread. You should also hit up the post proper to add your name, especially if the LJ ones are too freakily big for you and you'd like to start out someplace a little quieter.

"Second Look," PG-13, genfic, Owen, Ianto

catslash33@gmail.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:50:32 GMT

OMG. You guys. YOU GUYS. The Owen in the recent past 'verse. I THINK I FINISHED IT. I figured out where to end it (!!!!!), so then I wrote it. And now it's done.

So, uh. HERE IT IS.

TITLE: "Second Look"
AUTHOR: Cathryn (catslash)
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Owen, Ianto; Ianto/Lisa, past Owen/Katie
RATING: PG-13 for language. Genfic.
WORD COUNT: Approximately 6000.
SUMMARY: Sometimes, you get a chance to see the past through a different pair of eyes: your own. Set between "From Out of the Rain" and "Adrift," and during/after "Cyberwoman."
NOTES: Thanks to gileonnen, who first inspired the idea during some random conversation; to nightanddaze, for looking over the finished result to make sure it made sense; and to those two again and other folks on the flist for staying interested and thus helping to keep me interested. This fic has been a nightmare to complete (over a year from start to finish! It even got a tag of its own on my journal, the name of which I got from supervillainess, so thanks to her, too) and I never could have gotten it done without you guys.
NOTES PART THE SECOND: Take the timeline here with a grain of salt. Since the Whoniverse timeline is so notoriously fuzzy, and I needed solid dates, I ended up just pulling a timeframe out of thin air and hoping that it would make sense.
SPOILERS: Up through 2x12, "Fragments."
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood was created by Russell T Davies and belongs to the BBC. I take no credit and make no money.

Owen always sort of thought that something like this might happen to one of them eventually. He just thought it would be more - dramatic. But it doesn't happen in the midst of chaos, with the Hub shaking and Jack shouting orders while Tosh calls out numbers and the rest of them run about trying to get things done faster than humanly possible. It doesn't happen when Owen's walking home, lost in thought, looking up in astonishment to see the flare of the Rift.

It happens when he's in the medical bay, organizing supplies. It takes extra concentration - he can't feel what his hands are doing, so he has to watch them closely - which is why he doesn't realize right away that Ianto is there.

"Jesus Christ, Ianto, you have to sneak up on me like that?" he snaps, annoyed because the startle reflex is one thing he hasn't lost, though god only knows what use it is now except making him look like a prat.

"It's June seventeenth," Ianto says. Owen searches his memory for some kind of significance attached to the date, comes up with nothing, and looks at him blankly.

"So?" he asks.

Ianto looks back at him for a couple of seconds, then his gaze flicks past Owen, catching on something else.

"You'll see," he says. A flare of white light washes out his face. Owen turns and everything has changed.

He's alone, in a white, half-lit hallway he's never seen before. At the end of it is a door, sporting a chipped and faded Torchwood logo.

"What the fuck?" he mutters blankly as his mind takes a few seconds to catch up with events. The thing about having spent the last four years working for Torchwood, though, is that he really only needs a few seconds before he's able to start thinking again. He looks around him, taking in details and sorting them out. He has, not through any effort or fault of his own, changed locations instantaneously. The logo on the door seems to indicate that he's still in Torchwood, probably buried in one of the deep lower levels that hasn't been used for decades.

His hand is almost to his earpiece before he realizes - from Ianto's perspective, he must have simply disappeared, a good twenty seconds ago by now. Plenty of time to alert the others. But they haven't contacted him. Either something's interfering with the signal, or . . .

. . . or he works on top of a Rift in space and time.

"Fuck," Owen whispers, letting his hand drop. He tries out of habit to take a steadying breath, remembers that it doesn't really work like that for him anymore, and settles for quietly swearing again instead.

Fucking wonderful. He's going to have to find out, somehow, exactly when he is before he goes back up to the Hub. Standard Torchwood protocol, as well as being common fucking sense, and isn't it an exciting moment when those two mesh? He glances down at his hip before he remembers that he isn't armed, either. Even better. In an unknown area of Torchwood at an unknown point in time and he has no way to defend himself.

About the only positive in all this is that, if he does run into any staff, this is Torchwood. He won't have to waste time inventing a story to explain his presence.

On the other hand - this is Torchwood. Ianto's inflicted upon them all sorts of stories he's dug up about how things have been run here in the past. Owen may not get a chance to tell where he's from before he finds himself having to explain why being shot is more a permanent inconvenience than anything else.

Owen swears one last time, then starts walking cautiously toward the door. It seems like as good a place as any to start. As he draws closer, he can see in the poor light of the hallway that the room on the other side is fully lit. He stands at the door and listens carefully, but he hears nothing except the faint sounds of - medical equipment?

He forgets his nerves for a moment amidst curiosity. Why is someone who's ill enough to need monitoring hidden so far down in the complex? If the alarms go off, who could possibly get here in time, if anyone hears them at all?

There is no way the answer to that can be anything I want to know about, he thinks, but carefully eases the door open anyway.

The occupant is a sleeping woman, partially encased in metal, nightmarishly familiar. Owen stares, stunned, then hastily and quietly closes the door before she can wake up and see him.

"Oh, my god."

The voice is not his. Owen whips around to find a stark-white Ianto staring at him from the other end of the hall.

"'June seventeenth,'" Owen realizes aloud. "You bastard, you knew."

Then he remembers that there is a soon-to-be homicidal Cyberman less than ten feet away from him on the other side of the door, and he'd just as soon not wake her up. He starts down the hall toward Ianto, who is already talking.

"Owen - Owen, I can explain what you just saw -"

"Ianto."

"- It isn't what it looks like, she's not one of them -"

"Ianto."

" - her name is Lisa, Lisa Hallett, Owen, please, you can't tell Jack -"

"IANTO!" Owen barks. "Can I get a word in edgeways here?"

"I - of course, Owen, I'm sorry," Ianto says. The desperation in his voice irritates Owen further. Stupid fucking kid, he thinks, though whether it's because Ianto doesn't seem to have made any plans for his girlfriend's discovery other than grovelling, or because he brought her down here in the first place, Owen isn't sure.

"All right, Ianto," he says, in the clear and deliberate tones of addressing the slightly impaired, "let's just get this clear right off. I don't give a shit about your metal girlfriend, all right? I have much bigger problems. Do you understand?"

". . . all right. Yes," Ianto says carefully. His panicked expression smooths out, though he doesn't relax.

"Good. Now tell me, what is the date?"

"The - ?" Ianto looks at him blankly for a moment. Then his gaze sharpens and he starts really looking at Owen. Owen watches him take things in - the bandaged hand, the clothes that don't match whatever he saw Owen wearing earlier - and recants his previous exasperated assessment of Ianto's intelligence. He can actually see it all click into place behind Ianto's eyes.

"September twenty-third, 2008," Ianto says slowly. "Though I expect that's not the answer you want to hear."

"September 2008," Owen repeats incredulously.

"I'm afraid so."

"Nine months? I've gone back in time nine months? What's the fucking point of that?"

Ianto actually looks amused for half a second. "You would have preferred 1908?"

"At least that would make sense! Nine sodding months, that's just the Rift taking the piss!"

Ianto shrugs. "At least you're not stuck fifty years out from when you were born or something. Jack can probably even find a way to send you back."

"Jack - fuck! No. No, he can't find out." The hope ignited by Ianto's words is crushed almost immediately as Owen realizes what's likely to happen if Jack sees him up close enough to realize that he's - different now, and god, it would be nice to save himself like that, but he did the reading when he signed on. He knows better than to create a time paradox.

"Why not?" Ianto asks in surprise, and some wariness.

"There are things he can't know," Owen says simply, not quite successful at keeping the disappointment from his voice.

Ianto raises an eyebrow. "And I can?" he says, making no apparent effort to keep the skepticism from his.

Owen would like to think it won't come to that, but Ianto knows how to fit things together. Eventually, it will come to that. But that prospect doesn't send up the same warning flags in Owen's mind as does the thought of Jack finding him and working it out. "Yes," he says. "You are, in spite of all current evidence to the contrary" - he glances pointedly toward Lisa's door - "the sensible type. Jack - isn't." Which was putting it mildly sometimes.

Ianto nods in agreement, or at least understanding, with a promptness that forces Owen to stifle a sudden grin. He knows his Ianto is under no illusions about Jack, but he had assumed that development came about as a result of their esteemed leader's recent absence. He hadn't known it had started a bit earlier than that.

"You know a thing or two about keeping people hidden down here," Owen continues. "I can't risk going to Jack for help. I'm going to have to wait this out and I'll probably need every trick you know to do it." He looks Ianto in the eye. "And I know I can trust you not to ask questions I can't answer."

"Of course not," Ianto says, but he darts a longing glance toward Lisa's door. Owen thinks about the secrets he's going to have to keep, about some of the things he won't be able to save them all from, and begins to understand exactly how hard the next nine months are going to be.

**********

There's a wing full of furnished, if heavily dusty, bedrooms on the floor above Lisa; Ianto explains matter-of-factly that, once upon a time, Torchwood employees were "encouraged" to live on the premises, but that stopped back in 1963 when an alien virus wiped out almost the entire staff.

"I love our job," Owen says in response to this. Whatever Ianto's reply was going to be gets lost when he takes a breath to speak and immediately sneezes four times in a row.

"Perhaps," he says when he's finished, pulling out an immaculate handkerchief, "we should start cleaning up in here."

"Just bring down the stuff and I'll do it," Owen answers. He hates cleaning and he's so hopeless at it that Ianto will probably end up doing it himself anyway out of some uncontrollable neat freak urge, but if he's going to be stuck with Ianto as his only human contact for the better part of a year then he'd just as soon start things off on the right foot.

Ianto raises his eyebrows. "I think I know why you don't want Jack to find you. You've had a personality transplant, haven't you?"

Owen laughs, not without an edge to it. "Something like that."

Ianto slides him a look. "Best get things taken care of, then."

Ianto's efficient nature, which Owen has taken for granted more often than not in the past - or the future, or both, god, this is going to be nine straight months of headaches - is a godsend now. The room is an inhabitable space within two hours, with Ianto lasting an impressive twenty-five minutes before he takes the dustrag away from Owen. The CCTV cameras on this floor are disabled and the footage they'd already taken deleted, Ianto has solved more mundane problems like clothing and keeping clean, and he's even remembered that Owen will go mad with boredom without anything to occupy his attention.

"I'll bring you some books," Ianto says, "and I've got this." He presents Owen with a sleek laptop. In the back, plugged in where the power adaptor should go, is a small round piece of equipment, metallic green and about three centimeters across. Ianto taps it. "It's alien, came through the Rift about three years ago. It can hijack just about any signal within ten miles or so. You can use it to ring my mobile if you need to, watch telly, or download whatever sort of appalling pornography is no doubt to your taste."

Owen takes the laptop and grins. The Internet isn't exactly his idea of a social life, but it'll be better than relying solely on Ianto to keep him abreast of what's going on outside. "Ianto, you're brilliant."

Ianto smiles, pleased, but keeps going. "I believe I've worked something out for food storage -"

Owen winces. He can't believe he didn't see this coming. Ianto sees the expression and falls silent. Owen casts about for the least suspicious way to put it, then decides that there is no least suspicious way for a human being to explain that he won't need feeding any time soon and simply plunges on ahead.

"No need," he says. Ianto frowns.

"'No need'?"

"No need. Don't waste your time." He fixes Ianto with a serious look. "There are certain things you are going to have to trust me on, Ianto. This is one of them. And don't give me that Torchwood look, if I had any sort of nefarious plan, I'd bloody well pretend to be normal as possible, wouldn't I?"

Ianto keeps the look on him for another few seconds, but apparently can't find anything in his logic to object to, because he finally says, "Then if we're done here for now, I have other business to see to."

Owen nods. "Tell Lisa I said hi." Of course, he thinks. Ianto has no choice but to trust him for the time being. He won't want Jack poking around down here.

Which, if Owen is remembering correctly, gives him about three days to prove to Ianto that he can be trusted for the next nine months.

**********

In the end, winning Ianto's trust is so easy it's almost depressing.

Owen is sitting on the bed in his little hideaway, exploring the alien tech on the laptop to see how far he can push it and how well it covers its tracks, when he hears, very faintly, the sound of medical alarms rising through the floor. Doctor's instinct kicks in and he's on his feet and halfway down the hall to the stairs when he realizes - it's Lisa, of course.

It isn't that day, not yet. But should he really be getting involved? Shouldn't he just let it be, let things run their course?

But what happens if she dies ahead of schedule?

. . . what if now is when she was supposed to die and it was his interference that led to that disaster?

No, he thinks. What happened happened and if he spends the next nine months second-guessing his every step he will drive himself mad. Just make sure things happen now the way they happened before. Right now, that means seeing to it that Lisa doesn't die.

He hasn't stopped moving as the questions flash through his mind. He already knew on some level what his decision would be. He is a doctor, there is a patient who needs help, and no one else can get there in time. He wonders as he enters Lisa's room how Ianto has managed on his own for so long.

Lisa is lying quietly in her unit, her breathing even and steady. Owen's own mental alarms go off. There's no way she's completely unresponsive, not when she's going to be up and committing murder in two days' time. He approaches cautiously, tense and ready to run if he has to, but she doesn't move.

It only takes about thirty seconds to find the problem once he's close enough to take a good look. Some of the wiring hooking her up to the machinery has been knocked loose. Owen fixes it and the alarm falls silent.

He takes a slow step back and looks at her face, so still and serene he can't tell if she's faking or not. She's given no sign of being aware of his presence. She must be, though; that wiring can't have come loose on its own. Not about to give herself away, he thinks, and wonders exactly how long she's had Ianto fooled.

She probably thinks he is Ianto. He'd be wise to leave before she changes her mind on that count.

Owen slips out of the room. At least he knows he hasn't changed anything. Lisa was never in any danger. Only someone without formal medical training, someone gone half-mad with grief and desperation, would believe her to be as ill as she's making herself out to be. She hasn't survived in spite of Ianto's inexperience - she's thrived because of it.

That had been his theory when this first happened, the only explanation he could come up with as to how the hell she could have possibly lived in this little room for over a year with only a secretary to attend to her needs. He is, even in the grimness of the situation, pleased to find that he was right.

He hears footsteps on the stairs just as he's closing the door, and tenses in panic for a few agonizing seconds before Ianto emerges into the hallway. He pulls up short when he sees Owen, eyes flicking toward Owen's hand, and lets out a long exhale when he sees the bandages.

"For just a second I thought -" he begins.

"Yeah, me too," Owen says. "I was wondering how the fuck I was going to explain this one." Yes, Jack, I am a walking corpse from the future, but no, the half-converted cyberman does not belong to me. That'd go over well.

"Is Lisa all right?" Ianto asks, moving toward him and the door.

"Yeah. She's fine." He gives Ianto a reassuring smile, thinking fast. Can't have Ianto getting suspicious now. But then, this can't be the first time this has happened, either, and if there's one thing Ianto excels at when it comes to Lisa, it's denial. He settles on the truth. Easier to remember later. "Loose wires is all. I've seen better equipment. How'd you know to come down, anyway?" he asks. A minor subject change wouldn't hurt, just in case.

Ianto digs into his pocket and pulls out his mobile, holding it up. "I've got it wired to go off when the alarms do. Lisa told me how."

"She conscious often?" Owen asks casually.

"Off and on. More on than off lately." Ianto smiles, a bright, open expression that makes him look as young as he really is. Owen's not sure he's ever seen Ianto look happy in quite this way. He's a bit taken aback by the novelty of seeing such an uncomplicated look on Ianto's face and almost misses what Ianto says next.

"Thank you, Owen."

He wasn't expecting that, and fumbles a little. "Oh. Not a problem. I mean, 'smy job."

Ianto steps closer, looking at him seriously now. "Taking care of Lisa is my job right now." He pauses. His eyes search Owen's face for something - a hint of times beyond "right now," Owen thinks. He puts a hand on Ianto's shoulder to distract his attention.

"Stop that," he says gently. Ianto flushes faintly, dropping his gaze.

"I know," he says, "I don't mean to - and I won't ask. It's just so hard not to wonder." He looks up with a small smile. "And good to know that you'll run to her side if she needs you."

It takes everything Owen's got not to flinch at the hope in Ianto's eyes. Fuck. He drops his hand and says,

"I'm a doctor. I heard the alarms. It's instinct. Now," he continues, making his tone a bit more brisk, "I've got a patient in there who's probably asleep, but might like a visit anyway if you've got time to spare before you're missed." He gives Ianto a smile and steps aside.

Ianto smiles back, another of the simple, joyful smiles Owen has never seen before and knows he won't ever see again. "Thank you, Owen."

Owen nods and turns toward the stairs before his own smile can start looking too strained. It shouldn't be possible, but he feels sick.

**********

Two days later, Ianto stops by briefly in the early morning.

"I've got a visitor coming in to see Lisa," he says, eyes shining with excitement, "so if you hear extra noise downstairs, don't worry, it's just us."

"All right," Owen says. He makes himself wait until he's sure Ianto is on the stairs before he gets up and locks his door.

The entire day passes, shredding away at his nerves, before he finally hears Tanizaki's screams rising through the floor. Owen gets up slowly and slides under his bed, just in case. He looks at his watch and waits.

**********

Owen came in with the worst hangover he'd had in years, from trying to drink Katie away, trying to drown thoughts of how far he would have gone to save her if he'd had the chance. It hadn't worked.

And now this.

"Tanizaki doesn't need an autopsy, Jack, we already know what he died of."

"Do the autopsy, Owen. Ianto will be bearing witness."

"It's an autopsy, not a wedding, I don't need a witness. And you're not fooling anyone, least of all me. Whyn't you just cut to the chase and thrash him with your belt? I'll even hold him down if you're so bloody keen to have me involved."

"Owen, I'm going to thrash you with my belt in a minute if you don't do what you're damn well told."

So he did the autopsy, or started to, but after half an hour of Ianto's silent, shellshocked presence wearing on his nerves (anythingiwouldhavedoneanything) he threw down his scalpel and snarled into the microphone,

"And it turns out he died of a great fucking piece of metal lodged in his skull, what a surprise, and if you ever even think of pulling a stunt like this again, Jack, you can go fuck yourself." He ripped off his gloves, threw them next to the scalpel, and stalked out of the autopsy room.

"I'm going out!" he yelled. "Someone ring me if any real medical work needs doing!"

Jack never said anything to him about it, and if he'd opted to punish Ianto any further after that, he'd done so in private.

**********

It turns out hiding was unnecessary. Owen can hear some of the goings-on downstairs drifting up through the floor, but he never hears anything in the hall outside his door. Eventually, when things have gone quiet, he pulls himself out from under the bed and sits on the edge of it. The thought of just staying here is unexpectedly maddening. He knows what's happened and what is probably still playing out in the Hub, but the urge to check it's all going the way it's meant to is strong.

That's completely out of the question, though, so Owen picks up the laptop to try and distract himself. He's still failing utterly at being distracted some time later when there's a knock at his door.

"Owen?" Ianto's voice is rough and hoarse, but composed. Owen stares at the door in surprise; he'd expected Ianto to be a bit too busy to come see him, tonight as well as for the next few days. He wonders briefly if Jack might be standing out there, too, having pulled the confession of Owen's presence out of a drained and stunned Ianto - but, no. No, even unstable as he is right now, Ianto can be counted on to have kept quiet, if only because continuing to keep a secret from Jack would appeal as some level of vengeance for Lisa. Owen gets up, unlocks, and opens the door.

Ianto looks even worse than he remembers from that night - from this night. His suit is covered in blood, face streaked with grime and tears. His expression collapses in relief under the tear tracks when he sees Owen.

"Thank god," he breathes. He reaches out and puts a hand on Owen's arm. Owen glances down and sees Ianto's knuckles going white from the force of his grip. Probably leaving a bruise, not that it really matters.

"Come on, come inside, we'll shut the door," he says. Just in case Jack comes looking. Ianto lets Owen draw him into the room, still holding his arm, saying,

"I didn't - I didn't know if she'd come through here, I didn't have a chance to check, I didn't know if you -"

"It's all right, mate," Owen soothes, forcing himself to meet Ianto's desperate gaze. Little wonder he'd run tonight, nine months ago, the moment he could. He'd seen that look in the mirror for a long time after Katie died. Even now, with everything that's happened to force him to finally accept her loss, looking into Ianto's eyes and facing that pain is the last thing he wants to do. He does it, though, because nine months ago no one else did and Owen can't leave him alone in this, no matter how badly Ianto may have fucked up. "I'm right here, see? I'm fine. She didn't even come anywhere near here."

"Oh, god, Owen," Ianto says brokenly. Owen waits for it, for Ianto to continue with, You knew and you didn't tell me, but Ianto's face crumples and Owen sees that that level of thinking and making connections is beyond Ianto's reach right now. No doubt that conversation will come later, but for the moment Owen has a different problem. He puts his hands on Ianto's shoulder and says, not ungently,

"None of that, Ianto. Come on. No time for that. How long d'you think you've got before Jack comes to check up on you?" He sees the flash in Ianto's eyes at the sound of Jack's name and seizes on it, sharpening his voice a bit. "That's right, keep it together. Don't give that bastard the fucking satisfaction."

Ianto takes a deep breath, his mouth hardening into a thin line. Owen drops his hands and glances away for a few seconds to give Ianto space to compose himself. Ianto lets go of his arm.

"Right. I just. Needed to make sure you were all right. I should go - I have to get Tanizaki into the lift and bring him upstairs."

Of course. Of course Jack is making him do that. And then tomorrow, that stunt with the autopsy . . . and, Owen realizes, undoubtedly leaving Ianto to clear up the mess Owen will storm out on.

Funny, how the last few months have changed his perspective of this night. Of Jack.

"All right," he says impulsively, "I'll help." Ianto shakes his head.

"Better not. He might come down."

Owen suspects Jack probably won't - all the better for letting Ianto steep in the atrocities he helped to happen, after all - but he nods anyway.

"Yeah. Better keep clear for a few days," he added. "He'll be watching where you go."

Ianto's expression tightens further. "Yes," he says. "I'll come back when I can." He turns to the door and grabs the handle, then pauses and turns back. "I'm glad you're all right," he tells Owen, then leaves before Owen can reply. Not that he'd know what to say.

**********

Owen's never been very good at patience. Or at waiting. He's beginning to settle in down here, to see exactly what his routine is going to look like for months, and he thinks he might break his teeth from grinding them in frustration. This is nothing but waiting. Waiting for the next big thing to happen, as a way of marking the time. Waiting for Ianto's next visit (six days and counting since Lisa). Waiting for time to come back round so he can join the world again.

And to add insult to injury, he can't even do half the things that would help pass the time a bit faster and keep him sane. He can't sleep, so he's awake for every sodding second of every sodding day. He can't drink, which would have been an excellent way to make this ordeal go by in a garbled flash. He can't even have a wank.

He reads every book Ianto brought down, even the boring ones, and it's Ianto who picked them so most of them are boring. He spends so much time on the laptop that he thinks he will have managed to view the entire Internet before this is all over. He works on a technique he was trying out before, a sort of meditation that would at least let him shut his mind down for a while. That one was Tosh's idea. When he'd objected, since meditation was for Buddhists and hippies, she'd said reasonably, "You may not physically require sleep, but no one can survive - mentally, I mean - being on all the time." He'd given in, because that did make sense, and because he owed it to Tosh to listen to her every now and then.

He's getting better at it, sort of, and he does get some mileage out of imagining how she'll smile when he tells her in nine months how her Buddhist hippy nonsense saved his sanity. He'll likely have perfected it beyond her wildest dreams by then.

He's half-sunk into it when there finally comes a knock on the door. He blinks to refocus himself, then gets up and opens the door to let Ianto in.

Ianto steps in past him, saying, "You might want to check who it is before you just open the door."

Owen snorts. "Ianto, if anyone else finds out there's a reason to come down to this particular room, I don't think they'll bother knocking."

Ianto concedes the point with a nod. "I'm sorry it's been so long. It's been - difficult to get a moment to myself." He doesn't quite meet Owen's eyes when he says that, but looks back up as he continues, "Have you been all right down here?"

"Fantastic," Owen says. "This is going to be the best nine months ever."

An uncertain frown flickers across Ianto's face, and Owen reminds himself that Ianto's sarcasm detector probably isn't up to snuff at the moment. "I'm fine," he corrects himself quickly. "It's been fine. Not very exciting, but thanks to you I've at least got enough to do to keep myself halfway sane."

It's the right thing to say - Ianto smiles. Not the bright smile of a week and a half ago - it's thin and subdued, looking more like the kinds of smiles he's used to seeing on Ianto - but it still counts. Owen smiles back.

"That's good," Ianto says, then falls silent. The smile disappears, but he keeps looking at Owen. Here it is, Owen thinks, now's the conversation he was expecting before. He doesn't want to have it any more than he did then, but he can't put it off, either. It doesn't seem fair to make Ianto ask, so Owen says,

"You know I couldn't tell you." That's the sum of his argument, so he stops there, folding his arms across his chest and uncomfortably returning Ianto's look. Ianto's face went blank the second Owen opened his mouth to speak; his tone is equally featureless as he answers,

"I know."

And that's just unfair, it really fucking is, worse than an argument. Owen knows it's not okay with Ianto, because how could it be, if someone had known what would happen to Katie and not said word one Owen would not have been fucking okay with that and he would have let them know about it, loudly and violently. If Ianto had a go at him, he could handle that. But instead he's just standing there, looking at Owen, totally closed down, so Owen keeps talking.

"I'd have said if I could. I would have. Hell, I'd write you a fucking list for the next few months if I could. But -"

"Time paradox," Ianto interrupts. "Owen, I know." The stress on the last two words is sharp enough to stop Owen talking and make him take a closer look at Ianto. He looks - tense round the edges all of a sudden, a veiled hardness in his eyes and a faint line between his eyebrows.

"All right," Owen says, forcing himself to back off. "I just - I'm sorry. That's all. I remember it all and I'm sorry."

Ianto closes his eyes hard. "Thank you," he says, just above a whisper. Owen hesitates, then, not sure which of them he's doing it for, he says briskly,

"Right, now that's settled." He goes over to the semi-organized stack of books and holds a couple of them up, saying, "Overall, I'm afraid your taste in books is rubbish, but these two were good, so if you're taking requests . . ." He keeps talking, not quite watching as Ianto's face clears and the tension smooths away. By the time Owen's done, Ianto looks completely bland and neutral once more, and Owen thinks that Ianto's much better at barely keeping it together than he ever was. He turns to put the books back down, thinking that maybe he'll tell Ianto about Katie one of these days.

Then he sees his shadow on the wall, black and sharply defined when it wasn't even there a moment ago, and says, "Oh, fucking wonderful."

When he turns back round, he is so surprised to see Ianto there still - or again, whatever - that he doesn't immediately take in the change in their surroundings. Ianto looks completely different to how he did ten comparative seconds ago, his expression mirroring Owen's surprise.

"Now what's the date?" Owen asks, wincing at the plaintive tone to his voice. But honest to god, if the Rift's decided to make a career of bouncing him around -

"June seventeenth," Ianto says. "You've been gone about fifteen seconds."

Owen absorbs this in silence for a moment, trying to get his mind up to speed with the sudden shift from that Ianto to this. "How tidy."

"It wasn't quite what I expected," Ianto agrees. He speaks quietly, catching Owen's attention; Owen takes a closer look at him and sees, for the first time, that nine months isn't very long at all. The change between that Ianto and this isn't as dramatic as he's had them all believing.

"Ianto -" he begins, but he's interrupted as Ianto tilts his head slightly in a familiar gesture, putting his hand to his earpiece.

". . . No, we're fine . . . understood, sir." He looks at Owen. "They've noticed the Rift activity. We're wanted upstairs."

"'Course we are," Owen says. "God forbid I get five minutes to get my bearings." He's not sure whether it's lingering paranoia, or maybe something else that brought itself to his attention in the last week and a half, but Jack is the last person he wants to talk to right now.

"Don't let me punch him," he continues, holding up his bandaged hand. "I can't afford to do any more damage than I already have."

"I'll do my best," Ianto says, then hesitates. "I know you'll have just come from being on the other end of this conversation, but -" He reaches out and takes Owen's hand in his, running his fingertips over the bandages. "I am sorry."

"I know," Owen says, meeting his eyes. "So am I."

"I know." Ianto lets go of his hand. Owen lets it drop.

"So let's go get this over with," he says. "Then -" He pauses for a long moment. "Then there's someone I want to tell you about."

catslash33@gmail.com — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:19:10 GMT

I have one more Dreamwidth code. First come, first served.

catslash33@gmail.com — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:43:01 GMT

AUGH.

My usual source for Dollhouse is falling down on the job tonight. Can anyone hook me up?

Comments are screened, so you're safe.

And saved! I love my flist, I really do.

catslash33@gmail.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:21:29 GMT

Baldacci signs same-sex marriage into law.

That would be the Governor of Maine.

I don't even know what to say, you guys. I never dreamed this would happen here so soon. I thought maybe, you know, within the next decade or so. I mean, socially progressive Maine is not. It took repeated efforts over years of votes and referendums just to get equal rights made into law. I kinda figured we'd be one of the last, and but here we are, right up there in the first ten. In the first five.

I just . . . I'll be over here, being totally overwhelmed.

catslash33@gmail.com — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:49:24 GMT

Yeah, so. You know Chuck and Dollhouse? The shows I was grousing about the other day? No? Well. I was. So, of course, I ended up writing a crossover snippet. It would not go away.

And so I give you Chuck/Dollhouse: A crossover that makes perfect sense as long as you don't think about it too deeply. No real spoilers for either show beyond the basic premises.

Chuck is running late.

He's long since given up worrying about this affecting his job, and or indeed wondering why Big Mike even bothers making up schedules when everyone seems to come in whenever they please. Still, he likes to at least try to be on time. He pretends that it helps make up for the fact that he seems to spend more of his shift time in the Castle than in the Buy More.

He's about fifteen minutes behind when he pulls into employee parking; as he gets out of the car, he sees Casey over at the delivery dock, loading something into a black van. He's dismissing it, focused on the time and on getting inside the store, when he sees a woman step out of the van. She's dressed conservatively, dark-colored business dress, looking like she's heading in for a day at the office. Chuck slows down, watching her put a hand on the dolly Casey's pushing.

Interesting outfit for helping to wrestle a big, heavy box into a van.

"Casey, it's time for your treatment," he hears her say.

Casey looks at her and lets go of the dolly. "All right."

Chuck changes direction, making a beeline for the van.

"Hey, Casey," he says, putting on his best look-I'm-so-harmless smile (which is, despite all the practice he's had, still twitchy around the edges), "what -"

The woman turns and looks at him. Chuck stops cold.

Jane Guerin. Rossum Corporation employee. The Rossum building, another building, underground schematics, a series of faces going past so rapidly that Chuck's eyes could never keep up but his mind sees them all and Casey is there.

Chuck comes back to himself with a gasp.

Oh my god.

"What. What's up Casey can I talk to you for a second in private guy talk sorry you know how it is.' His words tumble over each other, the smile he aims at Jane Guerin more of a rictus than a smile.

"After my treatment," Casey says.

"What? Noooo," Chuck says with painful forced joviality. "You don't need a treatment. For anything! Look at you!" He gives Casey a thumping pat on the chest. Casey answers with a glare and subvocal snarl, but for once they don't even register. Chuck just grins at him desperately. "Picture of health! That's our Casey, healthiest guy I know, you must have the wrong guy because this one doesn't need any treatments . . ."

Clue in, Casey, any time, any time just clue in -

But Casey's face stays blankly annoyed, and that's wrong, he should have noticed something was up about three seconds after Chuck started talking, what the hell is going on?

No. Chuck knows what's going on, what happens in that underground building, and he's this close to throwing up as Casey turns his back on him and gets into the van.

"No no no! No treatment! Casey, Casey, c'mon, Casey!" He tries to climb in after Casey, but Jane Guerin grabs his arm in a grip strong enough to bruise.

"If you don't want your handler to have a nervous breakdown, Mr Bartowski," she says, "you'll walk away now."

Handler? Chuck stares. "Who are you?" She's not Fulcrum. The flash would have said.

"You'll get him back in one piece," she replies. "Tomorrow."

Chuck opens his mouth to say he doesn't even know what - to beg her to at least let him go with Casey, to keep an eye on him, to do whatever - but she gets into the van and closes the door. The van drives away. Chuck stares after it, then turns and runs to the Orange Orange.

*

"Hello, Delta. How are you feeling?"

"Did I fall asleep?"

"For a little while."

"Shall I go now?"

"If you like."

catslash33@gmail.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:22:54 GMT

I work at a sandwich/pizza/pasta shop, and while we of course maintain perfect food hygiene at all times (. . . ahahahaha), there's been an additional notice posted about being even stricter about hygiene due to the swine flu. (I think we're up to five confirmed cases in Maine?)

It starts out with the obvious stuff about washing hands a lot and not sneezing on people, and then it - sort of unravels, until it gets to the following gem:

"If you have the swine flu, stay home and call your manager immediately."

. . . if I am diagnosed with the swine flu, my ass is probably in quarantine, and [shop name redacted] doesn't even make the list of my priorities, okay? I mean, there's probably some set of laws or guidelines in effect that would require some kind of contact, but believe you me, I'm not thinking of that without being reminded.

Oh, [shop name redacted because I don't feel like turning up on a Google search with this particular entry]. Never change.

catslash33@gmail.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:27:13 GMT

. . . wow, okay. So. You know what's a really good way to highlight Chuck's inherently juvenile and creepy treatment of women? Watching an episode of it right after tonight's episode of Dollhouse.

(Yeah, I've resumed watching the second season of Chuck after exasperation with the Buy More subplots chased me off when I was marathoning the show a couple months ago. Those subplots still suck. I'm tired of all those people and I have no idea why none of them have quit or gotten fired. But the actual interesting part of the show has proven worth sitting through the annoying and boring parts.)

Buuut anyway. See, Dollhouse has its issues too, many of which are FOX-induced, but it knows it. These past couple of episodes have deliberately ramped up the creepiness factor, with Joss making the entire premise as queasy as possible without actually causing people to vomit. It's made the show better, because it's thought-provoking and it won't let you settle down and choose a side, because EVERYONE is horrifying.

Chuck just - does it accidentally. And I gloss over that, probably because of internalized blah blah blah, but going into it with the mindset Dollhouse put me in ended up with me getting pretty pissed off.

I'm not really sure what my point is here. Don't watch fun goofy stuff with women issues after watching dark creepy fucked-up stuff with women issues, I guess.

I think it's time for me to sleep now.

catslash33@gmail.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:01:24 GMT

* Dreamwidth codes. I got ~~five~~ ~~two~~ ONE of 'em. You guys can has.

* I am slowly but surely working my way along on the crossover challenge, commenting with finished snippets as I go. There's no way I'm going to finish all of them - some of them just aren't happening for me, or they're ideas I've already read and I can't get that out of my head to come up with my own take - but I'm working. I'll make a post with all the ones I finish when I, uh. Finish.

* . . . there would be more stuff, but I'm tired.

catslash33@gmail.com — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:59:43 GMT

Well. It's nice when the episode titles are true.

Sorry, Supernatural. Acknowledging the cliché doesn't make it less of one.

catslash33@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:22:05 GMT

Also, I am now catslash over at Dreamwidth. Yay for random OpenID invite drawings! Feel free to ~~friend me~~ add me to your Circle. Or - whatever. I don't know how much use it'll see right away, but considering how many people have been talking about it, it seems like a good idea to have an account there. Just in case.

catslash33@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:13:15 GMT

A few random WTFs.

* Fresh from 0-16, Detroit Lions adopts [sic] a fiercer logo.

*facepalm* Yes. Because. The logo. That was the problem. Superbowl next year for sure!

* I am so sick of my Shakespeare professor. You know what? I do not believe that every single syllable of every single play Shakespeare ever wrote has eighteen different meanings. I just don't. I think some of it is exactly what it looks like on the surface, and some of it BUT NOT ALL OF IT is a lot more complex, just like any other quality work of entertainment. Okay?

* I've been playing this great game called Human Age for well over a year now, possibly pushing two. I'm not sure. It's one of those very low-key game that only requires a few minutes of play every day, and I'm completely addicted and I love it. It's got a quirky sense of humor, which is compounded by the fact that it's a French game translated imperfectly into English - the translations are clear and always coherent, but some of the word choices add an extra layer of entertainment.

Anyway. In the Second Age, you can end up with a pet snake, whose venom you can harvest and sell. The game practically insists that you do this. When you do, it knocks off seventy-five percent of your snake's health (the game doesn't allow you to do it until the snake is over seventy-five percent, so you won't kill it), which then leads to text guilt-tripping you about your unhealthy snake. IT IS A VICIOUS CYCLE.

And yes, I named my snake Grahame.

* A word of RP advice: Be aware of the headache you are taking on if you choose to play a character that is meant primarily as a metaphorical construct. Because when you start treating the character as a character and trying to create something cohesive and playable, it turns out to be IMPOSSIBLE and you end up with stupid questions like, "If he thinks all religious figures tell one hundred percent of the truth one hundred percent of the time, and the Bishop of Digne says the silver was a gift, why the fuck does he think Valjean stole it anyway?" And you CANNOT ANSWER THEM and you end up hoping an awful lot of shit just never comes up in-game. Thanks, Victor Hugo.

Why couldn't I have picked Marius instead?

catslash33@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:52:59 GMT

Last year, I issued a request for crossover challenges, and wrote snippets for them. I got damn near all of them done (I never finish every challenge for these things, I'm afraid; some of them just don't gel for me) and had a lot of fun. So I'm gonna do another round.

Pick a crossover of fandoms from this list - I'm willing to try a fandom not on the list (no, Alex, not that one), as long as a) I'm familiar with it and b) you can offer a specific thing you're looking for - and you can offer a scenario too, if you want. I might use it, I might use part of it, I might use someone else's instead, I might ignore it altogether, but go ahead and throw one out there.

Supernatural
Buffy
Angel
Les Miserables
Doctor Who
Torchwood
The Sarah Jane Adventures
Dollhouse
Gossip Girl
The Fix
Ultraviolet
Red Dwarf

catslash33@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:16:18 GMT

I assume everyone on my flist knows by now that Amazon is made of douchebags, so I'll just get to the point:

Amazon Rank.

Why.

And here is a bunch of contact information for Amazon.

catslash33@gmail.com — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:15:56 GMT

Doctor Who!

* They totes should have ended up on Miranda. I would love to see the Doctor's reaction to the Death Prozac. And how he would deal with Reavers.

* Dear Doctor Who: I will not love a character just because you tell me to. In fact, telling me to will make me hate them. And the more you tell, the more I hate.

Thus: Man, did I hate Christina. I would have liked her just fine if the script didn't INSIST that I LOVE HER OMG. But it shoved that bullshit so hard down my throat that I'll be coughing up brown for a week. Thank god she was just a one-shot character. I would not be pleased to have to deal with another round of that.

* On the other hand: MORE MALCOLM TAYLOR PLEASE. I loved him. So much. He was awesome. "I love you!" ad infinitum was a bit overdone, but the rest of the stuff with him was really fun both and well-written and well-acted. Even if he was a clear stand-in for The Fans. I mean, really, UNIT must have its share of fanboys. Malcolm's going to be able to drink for free with that story for the rest of his life.

* Subtle Foreshadowing in Psychic Form: "He will knock four times"? Excellent, it will be lovely to see the Master again.