Better Than Silence

[sariagray]

Title: Better Than Silence
Author: sariagray
Characters/Pairings: Suzie/Jack, Suzie/Owen, Suzie/Tosh, Suzie/Ianto, mentions of Jack/Ianto and Tosh/Owen.
Word Count: ~650
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: All of Season 1, just to be safe.
Warnings: Talk of sex, mentions of possible child abuse in unspecified form, dark themes.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, its characters, or its environs, nor do I receive any monetary gain.
Beta: analineblue <3
Summary: Suzie’s good with people, in her own way.
Author’s Note: Written for the final post of Suzie’s womenlovefest entry. Go out with a bang, as it were? Also, hey! It’s been a year since I posted my first TW fic! That’s…a bit terrifying, really?



Better Than Silence
"We're just animals, howling in the night, ‘cause it's better than silence." – Suzie Costello

With Jack, it had been all hands and lips and burden-sharing, like passing sips of wine from mouth to mouth. It was unremarkable, really, which isn’t to say that it wasn’t good, but it was as meaningful as soldiers in the battlefield, or the night before an execution, and just as fleeting. It happened and then the next morning it didn’t.

After the first night, Jack had seemed astonished. She hadn’t expected his look of confusion, but it made sense in retrospect (much, much later retrospect, after dying and coming back to find out that Jack had beat her to it a thousand times over. Bastard.)

He reminded her of her father, if she thought about it too much; lecherous eyes and condescending grins. But only in those things, those expressions that ate away at her like acid, and in the way she sought his approval (Daddy, Daddy, did you see? Did you see me?) . Sometimes, he’d put a hand on her back, on her shoulder, and she’d flinch or go rigid and he’d frown at her like she was some strange alien life form.

Owen and Toshiko were an exercise in understanding people. She knew that Toshiko carried a bit of a torch for Owen, and so she'd slept with them both to see if they were compatible, just to satisfy the itch of curiosity that kept her awake at night. Ultimately, the experiment was a failure - she'd ended up in a legitimate, messy affair with Owen as the prize for her hard work, and not much else. The attachment was nice at first, but it grew tiresome quite quickly and was severed as neatly as possible. (Owen and his damn smug face, like he’d won her.) And all she found out from her trial was what she already knew - Toshiko wanted something to remember, while Owen just wanted to forget.

It was different with Ianto, born of a desire to crack him open and see the inside of his brain spilled out like the cogs and coils of a pocket watch. He was quiet and unassuming and respectful, but there was a darkness there inside of him, dormant, like he was balanced on the razor's edge of madness. He intrigued her and she wanted to know if he was anything like she was.

His hands shook fiercely that first time, and he protested, but it was obvious that he wanted it. She could tell by the way he held her wrists above her head, and the tight seam of his shut eyes. At least, he wanted something. Probably not from her, and that was a bit of a shame. She’d been asked to run Ianto’s background check, back before he’d been hired, and she hopes even now that he'd finally been able to get over that dead girlfriend.

She likes him, always had, more than any of the others, and so she's let him alone while twisting the guilt-knife, shoving it in between the ribs, with everyone else; she has no grudges to air, no quarrel with him. Poor kid probably had to mop up her blood and the sticky clumps of brain matter.

She taps her fingers against the metal table, a rhythm that she can’t quite place but seems comfortingly familiar all the same, and waits for Gwen. Gwen’s easy to read, even with all of her clothes on, because Gwen is Suzie as she once was. As she would’ve been. She adjusts her scarf and bites her lip impatiently.

She still can't get a good read on Ianto, though, and she wonders, after seeing him walk across the hub with an unfamiliar air of confidence, if Jack's had him yet. She’d been watching it escalate day by day for weeks before she died, and she would kill for a status update right about now. But Gwen’s clearly smitten with Jack and terrified of her, so she doubts she’ll get one even if she asks.

Suzie smiles to herself. If Jack hasn’t had Ianto yet, he will soon enough. Jack always gets his way. Except now, with this. Now it's her turn.

The End

Comments

[nancybrown.livejournal.com]

Ooo, very creepy Suzie POV. I love how she sees inside each character's head through her own broken mirror. :)

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

♥ Thank you, squared. ;) Suzie is...not the easiest to write. Now I remember why I stick to, you know, "Jack and Ianto eat dinner and discuss life and stuff."

[xrai-namere.livejournal.com]

I loved Suzie's perspective of her teammates, and I liked that you addressed her discomfort with Jack and his problem with personal space (among other things).

Also, I love you so much for making Suzie be nice to Ianto. So many fics have her being mean and blackmailing him, and yet I always see them as two people with very much in common (dark secrets, sarcasm, daddy issues) who would probably (in my headcanon anyway) have spent at least some time commiserating with each other about the team, sitting on the gantries in the middle of the night and feeding Myfanwy. (According to the BBC online supplements, Suzie was involved in Myfanwy's training. I'd love to see a fic where she and Ianto bond that way. *hint, hint*)

Ramble over.

Lovely fic. :)

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I definitely think Ianto and Suzie had a lot in common, and at worst I figure she probably ignored him. Honestly, I don't see her being outwardly mean to anyone on the team - otherwise, there wouldn't have been so much shock. But I do prefer the idea of them getting along. The difference is in their motivations, but other than that, they were really similar.

Your hint has been noted! :D

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

I love this. I love Suzie, actually. She's so messed up, and so barely fleshed out as a character that she's a playground to write!

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

She really is unexplored territory! And yet, with a whole range of emotions in only two episodes. Thanks! :D

[coldwater1010.livejournal.com]

I love the relationships you create between Suzie and the team and how she sees them. I like the idea of her relationship with Owen comes about unintentially and is not entirely wanted, that she's both attracted to and discomforted by Jack and his daddy figure role in their lives.

I also like how you explain the fact that we see her relationship with everyone on the show except Ianto. The idea that it's because she likes him and so decides to let him be is a nice twist.

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I always wanted an explanation for why she mentions everyone except Ianto in TKKS. Yes, he was in the shadows then, but she says something nasty to all the people she does mention, so I figured maybe she just has nothing mean to say to him. Maybe she's even a little protective of him, at that. :)

[sandysan2013.livejournal.com]

Hummmmmm.., I love it when a story makes me re-evaluate what I think I know or believe, Good job.

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm really honored that this little piece was able to do that for you!

[bloodredroses1.livejournal.com]

I've always had a soft spot for Suzie because she's such a complex & conflicted character. The fact that we never got to see much of it on the screen is the 'viewers' loss & fandom's gain.

Also I think I may have just figured out why I never got into Gwen that much - she's not complex nor very conflicted at all. The rest of the team have layers upon layers of things that make them who and what they are but she just comes across as a spoiled little girl, who hero worships Jack & thinks she's always right. Over the past four series she has seen moments of growth but she seems to offset them w/ falling back into being a sanctamonus bitch again.

Anyway thanks for the story!

Morgan

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Suzie is really complex, and yet there's nothing really to go on, which makes writing her really intriguing :)

[bk_forever]

I love this! Looking inside Suzie's head and then out through her eyes at the rest of the team, with Ianto being the only one she could never quite fathom.

I wish Suzie had stayed, not become obsessed and taken over by the glove, because I think she would have made a fascinating character. Even before the glove, she must have been seriously damaged to have such a grudge against her father, even though it's left to the imagination exactly why she hated him so much. Then again, maybe the glove twisted her memories so that she hated without even having a real reason. I've often wondered just how much using the glove twisted her mind, how much power it had over her and how much she'd been changed by it. Was the darkness there in her even before or did the glove put it there?

Oops, sorry, gone completely off track and I'm rambling. You've really got me thinking about Suzie!

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

Ramble away! I'm so pleased to have made people really think about her with this piece! :D I do wish Suzie had stayed, but that might also have something to do with my schoolgirl crush on Indira Varma, too. And I really think that Suzie was a little damaged prior to TW (because, well, you kind of have to be, really?), but I think that the glove definitely made it worse. And maybe not just the glove itself, but the inherent frustration in not being able to use it to save people. That's why I think she mirrors Gwen - and really, what if she was exactly like Gwen when she started?

[welsh-scotsman.livejournal.com]

very nice. i really liked how you showed her reactions to all of them and how each reaction seemed fitting for both the character being reacted to and her. i find it very believeable that she did all these things.

i really liked her thoughts on jack as i can see her being one of those people who really likes her own space and doesn't like to be crowded and i can see how that would come from her experiences with her father and how she sees the father parallel there as i think all of torchwood sees jack at least partly as a father figure.

i also really liked her interactions with ianto as like the others have said, she was nice to him and that's why we dont see her with him in the show. i think it would have been interesting to see at least a sentence or two exchanged between them.

where you havr her tapping an undefinable rhythm, is it just me who thought of the master at that point or am i reading waaaaaaay too much into that? ;)

[sariagray.livejournal.com]

10 points to Gryffindor! Or something like that. That is EXACTLY why she's tapping like that! I'm so happy someone caught it!

I wanted to showcase Suzie as not...hating the team, per se, but being so utterly annoyed/frustrated/bothered by them. Because she's on a mission, she's so focused, and they're...well. They're them. But Ianto's different. He's...well, he's just as focused, and no-nonsense, but also has the strange mixture of kindness and darkness that she does. Because I don't think Suzie's really evil, actually. Just damaged. So damaged.

Thank you, as always! :D

[chamilet]

I, too, was wondering if it was the sound of drums she was tapping on the table. Nice character study!

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

oh, she's scary - great story