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fandomweekly2025-09-08 08:43 pm
a_little_apocalypse) wrote in fandomweekly2025-09-08 08:43 pm
Entry tags:
[#272] on the precipice (Control)
Theme Prompt: #272 - Choose Your Battles
Title: On The Precipice
Fandom: Control
Rating/Warnings: PG13 | Spoilers
Bonus: No
Word Count: 997
Summary: Trench remembers his days on the field fondly.
There were still moments, infrequent though they were, in which Darling could judge the correct level of alcohol needed in order to loosen Trench up just enough for them to be able to talk like the old days - even, perhaps, to be able to laugh with one another, like all of the stressors of their day-to-day duties could fall away and they could be left with each other, and let me tell you what I heard them talking about in the Ritual Division last week--
Darling knew that they walked a fine line, each and every time. That for every silence that Trench fell into, it felt like a coin toss on whether Darling would be able to summon the levity to talk him out of it. There was drinking and then there was drinking, and Darling would wonder, sometimes, if this was anything that should possibly register as a problem. (He knew, however, that it was never anything that Trench would acknowledge as a problem, and as such, there was little point in thinking about it further.)
"I could still do it, you know."
"I know you could." Trench's statement had been decisive, although spoken in the blunt and halting tone of someone quite comfortably inebriated. Darling, too, felt quite comfortable - the warmth of the alcohol and the familiarity between them settled into his bones, like there was no more desirable thing than for them to be drunk together in Trench's office close to midnight on a Tuesday night. He answered Trench's statement in turn, fully believing it - before realising, after few belated moments, that he wasn't really sure what it was he was agreeing to in the first place. "Do what?"
"Go out on the field. I've still got it. They've not seen me out there but they don't know. They don't know, Casper--! They weren't fuckin' there."
"I--..." Darling glanced down, his own memories of Agent Trench, out on the field-- coming to mind. To an extent, he felt like some of the privilege of their respective positions within the Bureau surely had to be that they didn't have to do that sort of thing anymore - that they had people they could rely on to do those things, and it was up to them to interpret the results and make the decisions afterwards. Darling had taken on a number of field missions in his time (usually in pursuit of impressing Agent Trench, that trailblazer--) and he could easily admit how long it had been since those days of being a junior researcher with the freedom to take on those assignments, but he wasn't sure that he held any desire to re-live those experiences. Could he still do it? Possibly, if asked. Fortunately, nobody was asking.
"You don't think I can? That I'm just some fuckin'--... washed-up executive, sat up in his fucking ivory tower, what does that guy know of what's really going on, down on the ground? Fuckin' management. Fuckin' suits."
"No, I--... I don't think that at all. I just think--..." Darling paused, choosing his words carefully. "You're too important to the Bureau, Zach. What if--... what if you went out there, and something happened? Talking to you as my friend Zach, I have every belief that you'd run rings round all of them! ...But as Zachariah Trench, Director of the Federal Bureau of Control...? You know just as well as I do that there's no--... back-up. Christ, there's no-one in this building knows that better than you or I. It's too risky. It's too much of a risk."
"So you don't think I can do it, is what you're saying."
"That's not what I'm saying. It's not about whether you can or not, that's--... really not the issue! It's just--... that you really shouldn't."
Trench fixed him with a steady gaze, then. "You don't miss those days?" He downed the last of his glass, leaving a few silent seconds before reaching for the bottle. "Just a couple of young bucks out on the road, chasin' rumours of the latest AWE. Nights spent camping under the stars. Those heat-haze days and motel nights. When's the last time you even went anywhere that wasn't either your house or your fuckin' laboratory...?"
Darling hesitated in his response; it almost felt like a low blow to be reminded of those days, for Trench to speak of them like some halcyon period of carefree nostalgia - and there were certainly memories of that time that he cherished, but he was under no illusion of the past being anything other than the past, and that to try to recreate any of that could only be a fool's errand.
The manner of inebriation meant various subjects would rise and fall over the course of a drunken conversation, pleasant and jovial and largely forgotten by the morning. Therefore, it came as something as a surprise for Darling to hear Trench speak so decisively afterward.
"I meant what I said, you know."
"Oh?" (Darling didn't want to admit that he couldn't really remember what Trench had said.)
"The slidescape. You and me. Like old times."
The thing about drunken suggestion tended to be the ways in which logistics would provide obstacles in the cold light of day; it was all very well to recall the glory days of AWE investigations, but to actually seriously suggest that - where would they go? When, and why? The practicalities got in the way, and the subject would be dropped (until the next time).
The slidescape, however, held no such issue. Darling knew that if Trench gave the word, they could have teams ready to go that day, if desired. If desired. It suddenly felt all too possible that he could, and that he just might.
"... Like old times." Darling wasn't sure of the last time he'd seen Trench so driven to do anything. The thought made him smile; maybe it'll be good for you. "... Alright. Whenever you're ready."
Title: On The Precipice
Fandom: Control
Rating/Warnings: PG13 | Spoilers
Bonus: No
Word Count: 997
Summary: Trench remembers his days on the field fondly.
There were still moments, infrequent though they were, in which Darling could judge the correct level of alcohol needed in order to loosen Trench up just enough for them to be able to talk like the old days - even, perhaps, to be able to laugh with one another, like all of the stressors of their day-to-day duties could fall away and they could be left with each other, and let me tell you what I heard them talking about in the Ritual Division last week--
Darling knew that they walked a fine line, each and every time. That for every silence that Trench fell into, it felt like a coin toss on whether Darling would be able to summon the levity to talk him out of it. There was drinking and then there was drinking, and Darling would wonder, sometimes, if this was anything that should possibly register as a problem. (He knew, however, that it was never anything that Trench would acknowledge as a problem, and as such, there was little point in thinking about it further.)
"I could still do it, you know."
"I know you could." Trench's statement had been decisive, although spoken in the blunt and halting tone of someone quite comfortably inebriated. Darling, too, felt quite comfortable - the warmth of the alcohol and the familiarity between them settled into his bones, like there was no more desirable thing than for them to be drunk together in Trench's office close to midnight on a Tuesday night. He answered Trench's statement in turn, fully believing it - before realising, after few belated moments, that he wasn't really sure what it was he was agreeing to in the first place. "Do what?"
"Go out on the field. I've still got it. They've not seen me out there but they don't know. They don't know, Casper--! They weren't fuckin' there."
"I--..." Darling glanced down, his own memories of Agent Trench, out on the field-- coming to mind. To an extent, he felt like some of the privilege of their respective positions within the Bureau surely had to be that they didn't have to do that sort of thing anymore - that they had people they could rely on to do those things, and it was up to them to interpret the results and make the decisions afterwards. Darling had taken on a number of field missions in his time (usually in pursuit of impressing Agent Trench, that trailblazer--) and he could easily admit how long it had been since those days of being a junior researcher with the freedom to take on those assignments, but he wasn't sure that he held any desire to re-live those experiences. Could he still do it? Possibly, if asked. Fortunately, nobody was asking.
"You don't think I can? That I'm just some fuckin'--... washed-up executive, sat up in his fucking ivory tower, what does that guy know of what's really going on, down on the ground? Fuckin' management. Fuckin' suits."
"No, I--... I don't think that at all. I just think--..." Darling paused, choosing his words carefully. "You're too important to the Bureau, Zach. What if--... what if you went out there, and something happened? Talking to you as my friend Zach, I have every belief that you'd run rings round all of them! ...But as Zachariah Trench, Director of the Federal Bureau of Control...? You know just as well as I do that there's no--... back-up. Christ, there's no-one in this building knows that better than you or I. It's too risky. It's too much of a risk."
"So you don't think I can do it, is what you're saying."
"That's not what I'm saying. It's not about whether you can or not, that's--... really not the issue! It's just--... that you really shouldn't."
Trench fixed him with a steady gaze, then. "You don't miss those days?" He downed the last of his glass, leaving a few silent seconds before reaching for the bottle. "Just a couple of young bucks out on the road, chasin' rumours of the latest AWE. Nights spent camping under the stars. Those heat-haze days and motel nights. When's the last time you even went anywhere that wasn't either your house or your fuckin' laboratory...?"
Darling hesitated in his response; it almost felt like a low blow to be reminded of those days, for Trench to speak of them like some halcyon period of carefree nostalgia - and there were certainly memories of that time that he cherished, but he was under no illusion of the past being anything other than the past, and that to try to recreate any of that could only be a fool's errand.
The manner of inebriation meant various subjects would rise and fall over the course of a drunken conversation, pleasant and jovial and largely forgotten by the morning. Therefore, it came as something as a surprise for Darling to hear Trench speak so decisively afterward.
"I meant what I said, you know."
"Oh?" (Darling didn't want to admit that he couldn't really remember what Trench had said.)
"The slidescape. You and me. Like old times."
The thing about drunken suggestion tended to be the ways in which logistics would provide obstacles in the cold light of day; it was all very well to recall the glory days of AWE investigations, but to actually seriously suggest that - where would they go? When, and why? The practicalities got in the way, and the subject would be dropped (until the next time).
The slidescape, however, held no such issue. Darling knew that if Trench gave the word, they could have teams ready to go that day, if desired. If desired. It suddenly felt all too possible that he could, and that he just might.
"... Like old times." Darling wasn't sure of the last time he'd seen Trench so driven to do anything. The thought made him smile; maybe it'll be good for you. "... Alright. Whenever you're ready."
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