What you see is never what you're gonna get.

justprompts : "Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much" from Repo! The Genetic Opera

It comes down to a street.

One street in Chicago that hundreds of people cross constantly, none of them so much as meeting each other's eyes, and then suddenly there's one little girl in a city of thousands of them picking him out of a crowd. So many people in this bloody city and so many streets she could have been walking down that day and she picked that one.

She picked him.

And no one's ever granted him that grace before. It's always a game of usefulness and tactics and being the best dog in the race and beyond that, who even cares? What does he have to offer beyond his skills? Maybe nothing. Maybe April just really needed that kindred spirit. Maybe she knew he needed it too. He could analyze it- and has, actually- but it's not something that needs to be analyzed. It just was.

And he came to that realization probably far too late.

It comes down to a street.

One street in Chicago that hundreds of people are crossing, pretending he doesn't exist as he stands as still as a statue, wondering if he waits here long enough if time will turn back on itself and let him have one more chance to do this properly, now that he understands how much he's lost since she's been gone.

In the end, it probably still wouldn't be enough time.

Muse: Julian Sark
Word Count: 227

Request fic for trollopfop with the prompt "Alienation."

Sometimes he wonders if things would have been much easier if he hadn't completely alienated Torchwood. The more he considers what he wants, the more he realizes that the only people even slightly legitimate that could give it to him are the only people that he's managed to give probable cause to despise him. Crawling on his belly, begging for forgiveness, isn't something he's likely to do anyway, much less do when he knows there's a good chance that it won't do him a damn bit of good. He made his mistakes when it comes to Torchwood and he'll probably be paying for them until he either backslides or dies of ennui.

And yet, even where there's untrustwothy stares and the occasional physical representation of Sato's subconscious latching herself to his head and attempting to claw him to death, there's also Suzie. Suzie, who listens to him, even when he's not sure he ought to be talking so much. Suzie, who knows what it's like not to trust anyone and knows the benefits of being on no one's side but her own. Suzie, who understands what it's like to stand in the middle of Torchwood's moral superiority and be judged. And it's when his mind vanishes into that dark place, that he wonders why he needs them at all. Why Suzie needs them and her illusions of a noble captain, come to save her if he can and kill her if he has to. Why it can't be enough that she has him, and...

...And suddenly he's seven years old again, throwing a temper tantrum in Russian- the first time almost everyone in the entire boarding school had even heard him speak, much less scream- about why he wasn't good enough for his own father. Suddenly, he's eighteen and realizing that Irina's world doesn't revolve around him when he catches her reminiscing about the family she betrayed and left behind. Suddenly, he's remembering that rise of bile in the back of his throat every time Sydney Bristow looks at Michael Vaughn and just dismisses him like he never existed. Suddenly, he's back in that construction site, watching April and Thane's little dance and wanting to scream.
 

Suddenly, it's not about Torchwood or Suzie or any of them. It's about him and how he's utterly afraid of being left behind, like he's constantly teetering on the precipice of abandonment, just waiting for the moment where it all falls apart, one way or another. It's about being jealous of ghosts and people he has no reason to be jealous of. It's about being egocentric and unable to accept that the world doesn't revolve around him and that, eventually, this too shall pass and he'd best understand that or else he'll wind up alienating everyone.

And he can't alienate Suzie, after everything that's happened and may happen yet. He just... Can't.

Word Count: 474