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fandomweekly2024-09-02 01:56 pm
a_little_apocalypse) wrote in fandomweekly2024-09-02 01:56 pm
Entry tags:
[#231] Upward Mobility (Control)
Theme Prompt: #231 - Mystery
Title: Upward Mobility
Fandom: Control
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: No
Word Count: 911
Summary: People change when they get promoted. Sometimes, the changes never stop.
"What do you think of Zachariah these days?"
It was rare for Marshall to initiate a conversation with Darling that wasn't about Bureau matters, strict and immediate. Although, Darling thought, stood next to her and considering his answer over long sips of coffee, he is the Bureau now - its representative, its figurehead. They're one and the same. Nonetheless, to talk about him behind his back still felt like gossip, like something they could be told off for like unruly schoolchildren. Something small and forbidden that Trench would not thank them for.
"Well, I think he's--... settling into the role. As are we all, wouldn't you say?" (Helen Marshall, Head of Operations. Casper Darling, Head of Research. Trench's best and brightest.) "I think he's doing great!... All things considered. Everything needs an adjustment period, doesn't it?"
Marshall's expression was unmoving, something that indicated to Darling that, as he'd suspected, this was not the sort of answer she was looking for.
"I think he's changed. I think picking that thing up changed him." (This, apparently, drew a line under the conversation; without elaboration she finished her coffee and, without waiting for a response, walked away.)
Darling thought about that conversation in the time - the months, the years - that followed. That Trench had changed, that he was different somehow; it was easy to downplay it - of course there would be life changes in essentially receiving a promotion, but Darling also knew it's not like that. It's not like that at all.
To Darling, Trench had felt inscrutable and straightforward both at once. He spoke of himself infrequently and of his feelings even less, long held stares and withering sighs usually indicating something, as much as he felt willing to communicate. He didn't know what part of Trench held himself at a distance and of what circumstances had to align for him to close that distance, for him to come to Darling for anything that felt like conceding to an indulgence; push and pull, hot and cold, thrilling--... (but unpredictable).
If anybody were to ask him - although he didn't know that anybody ever would - Darling would have said that he, perhaps, was the person closest to Zachariah Trench. The person who knew him the most, the plans and collusions within their history wrapping around them and binding them, preventing escape. Trench trusted Marshall, but Darling had witnessed his desolation - moments of reluctant vulnerability that Darling drew close and treasured, that Trench wouldn't acknowledge but that Darling remembered.
There, too, had been the first time that, pressed together and held close, Darling had dared whisper Director Trench-- to his ear. Breathless and desperate, that new distinction held the potential for something--... Trench had stared at him then, recalibrating, relenting. It was almost like a game, to tread the line between my friend Zach and Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, Zachariah Trench. Any mode of address seemed to come with its own shift in expectation; he still remembered the first time, way back when, that referring to Trench with a cheery nickname had earnt him an instantly exasperated glare. At the time, it had felt like nobody else would have dared; as such, to Darling, that felt like something that was his.
("...That's what my wife calls me," Trench had later told him, between drags of a cigarette. Darling didn't take that as any sort of discouragement.)
Divorce changed him. Loss changed him. Grief changed him. Darling thought over Marshall's question in the time afterward, wondering if there was any way in which to take that concept on its own terms. Darling quietly suspected that Trench wouldn't have tried the Service Weapon in the first place without the cumulative pressure of those previous experiences; he tried not to think too hard about that, or on what the other outcome could have been. The situation is as it is, and that's all there is to it. Still, to call him 'changed' - long before the Service Weapon, the Bureau itself had changed him. It changed all of them, in one way or another.
Marshall hadn't meant that, though, and Darling knew it. Still a private mystery of a man, Trench had largely been frank and forthright on official duties, the most unyielding aspect of his behaviour being that he would get the job done. He was reliable and he was dependable, although Darling knew that Trench wouldn't have thanked anybody for saying that; "They need to worry about their own damn selves first. Handle their own responsibilities."
What now counted as 'the job' was something less defined. Darling had held no doubt that Trench would dedicate himself to the Bureau as its Director just as he had a field agent, but he would think of Marshall's words and think, with a note of concern at the back of his mind, that she was right. He'd thought in the past that he hadn't known what Trench was thinking as a matter of circumstance, but knew that, to some extent, this was now an impossibility; to hear things like phantom phonecalls and the voice of the Board were things that Darling knew that he couldn't know, that he couldn't understand, that he was locked out of experiencing. And he was fascinated, and wanted Trench to tell him everything--... but Darling came to know the silences and the distant look in his eyes, moments of pause that wordlessly spoke of things that Trench would never begin to try to explain.
Title: Upward Mobility
Fandom: Control
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: No
Word Count: 911
Summary: People change when they get promoted. Sometimes, the changes never stop.
"What do you think of Zachariah these days?"
It was rare for Marshall to initiate a conversation with Darling that wasn't about Bureau matters, strict and immediate. Although, Darling thought, stood next to her and considering his answer over long sips of coffee, he is the Bureau now - its representative, its figurehead. They're one and the same. Nonetheless, to talk about him behind his back still felt like gossip, like something they could be told off for like unruly schoolchildren. Something small and forbidden that Trench would not thank them for.
"Well, I think he's--... settling into the role. As are we all, wouldn't you say?" (Helen Marshall, Head of Operations. Casper Darling, Head of Research. Trench's best and brightest.) "I think he's doing great!... All things considered. Everything needs an adjustment period, doesn't it?"
Marshall's expression was unmoving, something that indicated to Darling that, as he'd suspected, this was not the sort of answer she was looking for.
"I think he's changed. I think picking that thing up changed him." (This, apparently, drew a line under the conversation; without elaboration she finished her coffee and, without waiting for a response, walked away.)
Darling thought about that conversation in the time - the months, the years - that followed. That Trench had changed, that he was different somehow; it was easy to downplay it - of course there would be life changes in essentially receiving a promotion, but Darling also knew it's not like that. It's not like that at all.
To Darling, Trench had felt inscrutable and straightforward both at once. He spoke of himself infrequently and of his feelings even less, long held stares and withering sighs usually indicating something, as much as he felt willing to communicate. He didn't know what part of Trench held himself at a distance and of what circumstances had to align for him to close that distance, for him to come to Darling for anything that felt like conceding to an indulgence; push and pull, hot and cold, thrilling--... (but unpredictable).
If anybody were to ask him - although he didn't know that anybody ever would - Darling would have said that he, perhaps, was the person closest to Zachariah Trench. The person who knew him the most, the plans and collusions within their history wrapping around them and binding them, preventing escape. Trench trusted Marshall, but Darling had witnessed his desolation - moments of reluctant vulnerability that Darling drew close and treasured, that Trench wouldn't acknowledge but that Darling remembered.
There, too, had been the first time that, pressed together and held close, Darling had dared whisper Director Trench-- to his ear. Breathless and desperate, that new distinction held the potential for something--... Trench had stared at him then, recalibrating, relenting. It was almost like a game, to tread the line between my friend Zach and Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, Zachariah Trench. Any mode of address seemed to come with its own shift in expectation; he still remembered the first time, way back when, that referring to Trench with a cheery nickname had earnt him an instantly exasperated glare. At the time, it had felt like nobody else would have dared; as such, to Darling, that felt like something that was his.
("...That's what my wife calls me," Trench had later told him, between drags of a cigarette. Darling didn't take that as any sort of discouragement.)
Divorce changed him. Loss changed him. Grief changed him. Darling thought over Marshall's question in the time afterward, wondering if there was any way in which to take that concept on its own terms. Darling quietly suspected that Trench wouldn't have tried the Service Weapon in the first place without the cumulative pressure of those previous experiences; he tried not to think too hard about that, or on what the other outcome could have been. The situation is as it is, and that's all there is to it. Still, to call him 'changed' - long before the Service Weapon, the Bureau itself had changed him. It changed all of them, in one way or another.
Marshall hadn't meant that, though, and Darling knew it. Still a private mystery of a man, Trench had largely been frank and forthright on official duties, the most unyielding aspect of his behaviour being that he would get the job done. He was reliable and he was dependable, although Darling knew that Trench wouldn't have thanked anybody for saying that; "They need to worry about their own damn selves first. Handle their own responsibilities."
What now counted as 'the job' was something less defined. Darling had held no doubt that Trench would dedicate himself to the Bureau as its Director just as he had a field agent, but he would think of Marshall's words and think, with a note of concern at the back of his mind, that she was right. He'd thought in the past that he hadn't known what Trench was thinking as a matter of circumstance, but knew that, to some extent, this was now an impossibility; to hear things like phantom phonecalls and the voice of the Board were things that Darling knew that he couldn't know, that he couldn't understand, that he was locked out of experiencing. And he was fascinated, and wanted Trench to tell him everything--... but Darling came to know the silences and the distant look in his eyes, moments of pause that wordlessly spoke of things that Trench would never begin to try to explain.
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