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fandomweekly2023-03-05 12:27 pm
m_findlow) wrote in fandomweekly2023-03-05 12:27 pm
Entry tags:
[#170] A DAY AT A TIME (TORCHWOOD)
Theme Prompt: #170 - Progress
Title: A day at a time
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG. A post CoE AU.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Ianto has a job to do, even if he doesn't find much joy in it.
Ianto breathed a sigh of relief as he opened the pantry door and found the bottles of red wine still sitting there on the otherwise almost bare shelves. He couldn't remember if there were still any left, so was pleased that there were two rather than just the one he'd hoped for. He plucked it out and set it on the bench, snapping off the screw top lid and then reaching into the cupboard overhead to extract a glass. No need to panic whether he had a corkscrew anymore. In some ways the modern world had moved on in a good way.
The blister pack of paracetamol was still lying in the top drawer where he'd left it yesterday and he popped out two onto the granite benchtop before scooping them up with his hand and putting them both in his mouth at once, knocking them back with a mouthful of wine.
Slippery slope, he told himself, mixing drugs and alcohol, taking another deep swallow of wine and feeling that slightly warm sensation travel all the way down into his stomach as he carried the glass across the room and flopped back on the sofa. In another lifetime he wouldn't have dared to bring a glass of red anywhere near a white leather sofa – or indeed ever own a white sofa in the first place – but it wasn't his and so he wasn't concerned about accidental spillage.
In fact, none of it was his, apart from the clothes in the wardrobe and the bottles of red wine and frozen lasagne kept in the pantry and freezer respectively. He was a guest and not much more, despite the months he'd now been here. He wondered if his new employer would expect him to eventually move out, or perhaps buy the place. They hadn't gotten into specifics back then when he'd negotiated the position. They'd simply thrown in the luxurious accommodations without his asking. It was their way of getting him here as quickly as possible with minimal fuss. He'd hoped that by now it would feel more permanent but he felt just as displaced and drifting as the day he'd moved back to London.
He sipped the wine, trying to enjoy it, but he wasn't there to savour it. It was serving the purpose of settling him. He'd never drunk much wine before, preferring a decent single malt, but with the amount he was drinking, wine was the safer option. He could drink all night now and still not be hungover in the morning. And he only had two bottles, he reminded himself. Not nearly enough to do any damage tonight.
He leaned back on the sofa and sighed, staring out at the large wraparound windows of the thirty-fourth storey apartment – not quite the penthouse, but close. Who needed the eighty inch television when you had views like this of the entire London city skyline and beyond, the Thames snaking its way in between, segregating the north and south banks. Each time he looked out at the city, it felt just that little bit less corruptible, thanks to the work he was doing.
After Torchwood had been destroyed he'd gone hat in hand to UNIT for a job. Perhaps it was the obvious lateral move, but his assignment was to weed out the bad eggs inside their organisation; those individuals who'd been selling information and cutting deals with the politicians that had nearly brought Earth to its recent calamitous end. It was work he wanted to do, if only to justify his Torchwood failings, but it made him unpopular. People at UNIT avoided him because Torchwood had always been their rivals, and now because he was here to question their failings. He made people disappear, even if it was with the highest possible level of authority granted to him from Kate Lethbridge-Stewart herself, and that was enough to unsettle anyone.
Today was a good day from UNIT's perspective. Ianto had uncovered yet another double agent and that individual would now spend the rest of their lives in one of UNIT's less than pleasant facilities. No one understood how he did it, unearthing emails and transcripts from secure chat rooms in Dark Web circles, gathering the kind of evidence that became irrefutable. That he still had access to some of the Torchwood software that had survived the blast had gone unmentioned. Torchwood had redundancies for their redundancies and backups on servers all across the globe. He felt guilty using them, knowing what price they'd all paid, but Ianto was determined to have something good come out of all the bad. Torchwood might be gone, just him alone left to pick up the pieces, but he'd do it his own way.
The interrogation was the final act, laying it all out on the table so that the insider would crumble. Ianto was the bad cop in the room, because there was no one else to do it. In the past he'd always played good cop to Jack's bad cop and enjoyed it. But not anymore. Now he understood why Jack said the bad cop routine often left him feeling dirty. These people got under your skin with their duplicity and wanton disregard. These people would sell out the lives of children just to feather their own nests.
People should be afraid of him. Once upon a time he'd hunted, and sometimes killed, aliens. Now he hunted and killed something far worse. But no amount of Kate sitting opposite him at her desk with a fresh pile of damning evidence against one of her own, ready to be arrested, saying "we've accomplished something" made him feel like progress was something to celebrate. At night he simply went back to the apartment and drank. Ianto would weed them out, root and stem, one by one, until UNIT was the kind of organisation he could be proud to work for. Until then, he'd just have to live with the way it ate away at his soul.
Title: A day at a time
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG. A post CoE AU.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Ianto has a job to do, even if he doesn't find much joy in it.
Ianto breathed a sigh of relief as he opened the pantry door and found the bottles of red wine still sitting there on the otherwise almost bare shelves. He couldn't remember if there were still any left, so was pleased that there were two rather than just the one he'd hoped for. He plucked it out and set it on the bench, snapping off the screw top lid and then reaching into the cupboard overhead to extract a glass. No need to panic whether he had a corkscrew anymore. In some ways the modern world had moved on in a good way.
The blister pack of paracetamol was still lying in the top drawer where he'd left it yesterday and he popped out two onto the granite benchtop before scooping them up with his hand and putting them both in his mouth at once, knocking them back with a mouthful of wine.
Slippery slope, he told himself, mixing drugs and alcohol, taking another deep swallow of wine and feeling that slightly warm sensation travel all the way down into his stomach as he carried the glass across the room and flopped back on the sofa. In another lifetime he wouldn't have dared to bring a glass of red anywhere near a white leather sofa – or indeed ever own a white sofa in the first place – but it wasn't his and so he wasn't concerned about accidental spillage.
In fact, none of it was his, apart from the clothes in the wardrobe and the bottles of red wine and frozen lasagne kept in the pantry and freezer respectively. He was a guest and not much more, despite the months he'd now been here. He wondered if his new employer would expect him to eventually move out, or perhaps buy the place. They hadn't gotten into specifics back then when he'd negotiated the position. They'd simply thrown in the luxurious accommodations without his asking. It was their way of getting him here as quickly as possible with minimal fuss. He'd hoped that by now it would feel more permanent but he felt just as displaced and drifting as the day he'd moved back to London.
He sipped the wine, trying to enjoy it, but he wasn't there to savour it. It was serving the purpose of settling him. He'd never drunk much wine before, preferring a decent single malt, but with the amount he was drinking, wine was the safer option. He could drink all night now and still not be hungover in the morning. And he only had two bottles, he reminded himself. Not nearly enough to do any damage tonight.
He leaned back on the sofa and sighed, staring out at the large wraparound windows of the thirty-fourth storey apartment – not quite the penthouse, but close. Who needed the eighty inch television when you had views like this of the entire London city skyline and beyond, the Thames snaking its way in between, segregating the north and south banks. Each time he looked out at the city, it felt just that little bit less corruptible, thanks to the work he was doing.
After Torchwood had been destroyed he'd gone hat in hand to UNIT for a job. Perhaps it was the obvious lateral move, but his assignment was to weed out the bad eggs inside their organisation; those individuals who'd been selling information and cutting deals with the politicians that had nearly brought Earth to its recent calamitous end. It was work he wanted to do, if only to justify his Torchwood failings, but it made him unpopular. People at UNIT avoided him because Torchwood had always been their rivals, and now because he was here to question their failings. He made people disappear, even if it was with the highest possible level of authority granted to him from Kate Lethbridge-Stewart herself, and that was enough to unsettle anyone.
Today was a good day from UNIT's perspective. Ianto had uncovered yet another double agent and that individual would now spend the rest of their lives in one of UNIT's less than pleasant facilities. No one understood how he did it, unearthing emails and transcripts from secure chat rooms in Dark Web circles, gathering the kind of evidence that became irrefutable. That he still had access to some of the Torchwood software that had survived the blast had gone unmentioned. Torchwood had redundancies for their redundancies and backups on servers all across the globe. He felt guilty using them, knowing what price they'd all paid, but Ianto was determined to have something good come out of all the bad. Torchwood might be gone, just him alone left to pick up the pieces, but he'd do it his own way.
The interrogation was the final act, laying it all out on the table so that the insider would crumble. Ianto was the bad cop in the room, because there was no one else to do it. In the past he'd always played good cop to Jack's bad cop and enjoyed it. But not anymore. Now he understood why Jack said the bad cop routine often left him feeling dirty. These people got under your skin with their duplicity and wanton disregard. These people would sell out the lives of children just to feather their own nests.
People should be afraid of him. Once upon a time he'd hunted, and sometimes killed, aliens. Now he hunted and killed something far worse. But no amount of Kate sitting opposite him at her desk with a fresh pile of damning evidence against one of her own, ready to be arrested, saying "we've accomplished something" made him feel like progress was something to celebrate. At night he simply went back to the apartment and drank. Ianto would weed them out, root and stem, one by one, until UNIT was the kind of organisation he could be proud to work for. Until then, he'd just have to live with the way it ate away at his soul.
no subject
And yet, what he's doing is important, weeding out corruption, making the good people safer by putting the bad ones where they can't harm anyone. It's just not a pleasant job.