| Date: 13 January 2008
Characters: Brant Hysmith, Owen Harper Location: hotel Link to IJ: thread #35227 |
 Brant had found a set of interconnecting blocks in the toy-store, and dragged the thing back to the hotel. At the moment he was at a table near the door, glass of water at his elbow, building what looked like some sort of multi-colored spaceship.It was late. There wasn't a whole lot to do. He was making his own fun. |
 Owen had just stared for the longest moment, wondering if his eyes were playing a trick on him. It was Jack. But then again, it wasn't Jack. This kid couldn't have been...what, 18, 19? If he was that. And he was playing with blocks.Out of all of the things Owen had seen with Torchwood, this was blowing his mind so much more than all of that. "Having fun?" Owen asked after a moment, finally collecting his mental resources enough to put two words together. |
| Brant looked up and around and gave the guy a sunny smile. "All things considered, I am having a blast. Want to play?" Because as childish as that sounded, he really was playing with blocks, and the guy looked kind of like he needed to sit down. |
| All right. That did it. His mind was never going to recover after this. Owen raised a hand to run through his hair, Owen wordlessly sat down at the table across from... "What's your name?" Owen asked, his tone a little more brisk than it should have been, given that this kid wasn't doing anything to him. But it wasn't like he could help it. |
| He used his palm and pushed the loose blocks away from him and toward the center of the table. "Brant," he answered, easily. He glanced up at Owen. "Yours?" He wasn't being quite as casual as he sounded, really. Just. This guy seemed wired. |
| "Owen," Owen said, glancing down at the blocks before shaking off his mind and the overthinking that it was doing. "I didn't figure I'd come across someone so young here," He said, explaining away his initially stunned reaction. |
| He looked up from what he was doing, again, and through his hair. "Why not?" he asked, a little blankly. |
| "Well, I've only come across older individuals so far," Owen said. "I don't know why I didn't expect to, but I didn't." |
| He shrugged a little, and snapped another couple of blocks together. "That's fair," he admitted. "How old are you?" |
| "36," Owen said, snorting slightly. "Almost the dreaded Four Oh. You?" |
| "Half your age," he said, grinning brilliantly. "Built something, Owen. It'll give you something to do with your hands." |
| "Figured it was something like that," Owen said, eyeing the blocks for a moment before relenting. He played computer games when he was bored. This wasn't... too different, really. Reaching out, he started to fiddle with the blocks that were sitting in front of him. "Where did you come in from, then, Brant? And when, exactly?" |
| He kept half an eye on Owen while he went back to his building. "I was on my way to school. Stepped off the transport and ended up here, instead of there. When exactly? Um. Five thousand and twelve." |
| Owen started, almost knocking over the construct that he was working on. 5012?! Hell, no wonder Jack never told them anything. This on top of the apparently not dying thing and the whole WWII obsession would have just lead to a lot of complicated questions. "Bloody hell. Really?" Owen asked after a moment. "That year seems... Well, almost incomprehensible to me." Especially since the world had been so near destruction when he was from. "I'm just a poor 21st century man." |
| He started to reach out to stop the topple, but it steadied and he pulled his head back. "Really." He grinned, again. "Tiny, tiny little place though. Boring as anything. The twenty-first though - now that sounds like a good time." |
| "Really?" Owen asked, lifting an eyebrow at this Brant. He honestly thought the 21st century sounded like a good time? "I guess it's all right. I mean, if you ignore the tedium that some people settle into. It's gotten a lot more interesting in the past few years. Interesting and dangerous." |
| "You think people don't get stuck in ruts when I'm from?" he asked, sounding every bit the exasperated teenager. "New always sounds more exciting, and I think I'm young and stupid enough for dangerous to just sound like something." |
| Owen laughed, grinning at Brant before shaking his head slowly, "After you see more people than you care to die, dangerous won't sound like such a good idea anymore." |
| "Yeah," he agreed, a little more serious. "Probably not. How about we trade for a while. I'll do dangerous, and you go hang out on a beach in the fifty-first century. We'll swap in another 18 years, when I'm worn out and you're well rested." |
| "Do you have medical training? Cause if you do, I think my boss actually wouldn't protest to the trade," Owen said, grinning to bit to himself. It was easier to pretend that he was still in a time before everything went to shit with a conversation like this. This boy didn't need to know what was really happening. "Hell, even if you don't, he probably wouldn't protest too much." |
| "Uh, no. No real medical training. At least nothing most people wouldn't know. First Aid kind of stuff." He frowned, a little. "Who's your boss, and why doesn't he like you?" |
| "Captain Jack Harkness," Owen said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "And as for why he doesn't like me... Well, it's a lot of things really. A friend of mine, once, said it was because both our egos were too big to fit in one room." |
| "Jack?" he asked, and oh yes he knew that name. "I can see him having an ego big enough to clash with just about anyone's. I can't see either one of you being an ass about it, though." |
| "We're only asses about it when the stress gets to us," Owen said before looking up at Brant. "Met him then, have you?" He asked curiously. Had this boy recognized himself in the older man? Or had he looked right past it like an article Owen had read once said that most people would do if face to face with themselves? |
| "We've met. He seems like a pretty decent guy." Which was an understatement. A huge understatement. "Like you said, pretty stressed and wound up at first, but decent." He had no idea. |
| "Seem...at all familiar to you?" Owen asked, lifting an eyebrow at Brant curiously. Not exactly the most subtle way to ask the question, but at least Owen hadn't leapt straight to annoyingly blunt. |
| "Did a guy from the twenty-first century seem at all familiar to me?" He cocked his eyebrow up. "No...." He didn't outright ask if Owen was insane, but there was a hint of 'well duh' in his tone. |
| "Do you lot not have mirrors in the 51st century, then?" |
| His other eyebrow went up. |
| "I'll take that as a no, then?" Owen asked, snorting a bit in amusement. |
| "Of course there are mirrors." He was just. Bewildered. Not because he couldn't see some similarity between them, but because the possibility was so freaking ridiculous that there was no way to put the pieces together. The time gap alone was bewildering, not to mention the age and attitude and clothes, and the fact that Jack was broader and tireder, and *had* aged. It was just. Not. |
| "Then I take it he hasn't bothered to tell you he can't die?" Owen asked, lifting an eyebrow at Brant curiously. How long would it take this kid to get it through his head? |
| Until he wanted it through his head, probably, and from the look on his face that was going to be a while. The mere suggestion was making him want to throw up. "Yeah, actually he did." |
| "Then he bothered to tell you a bit more than he told me," Owen said, smiling bitterly. "I didn't learn about it until after he pushed me enough that I shot him in the head." |
| "Oh, well he pushed me until I shot him in the head, too. Maybe it's a habit?" |
| "I doubt it was in the same realm," Owen said softly, shaking his head and pushing off the memory. "It might be insanity, but the resemblance has to be more than just a freakish consequence." |
| "Yeah, maybe," he agreed. "I don't know. I don't actually want to know. What's it matter, anyway? This place is. Temporary." |
| "I don't plan on going back." |
| "Why not?" He had no idea if staying here was possible or not, but it didn't matter right now. |
| "Because where I came from is the last place I want to be if I can at all avoid it," Owen said, hanging his head as he placed the blocks together idly. |
| "Where did you come from?" he asked, quietly. He realized he'd been looking directly at Owen for a while, and turned his attention back to the space-ship he was working on. |
| "Honest truth? A nice little four walled cell where I was being tortured and starved all in the name of a madman's enjoyment," Owen said, smiling bitterly. |
| "Why?" he asked, going from quiet to soft, but without looking up. |
| "Because I was seen as a threat," Owen said. "Or at least, I think that was why. It's hard to say. Maybe it could have just been one of those whims that certifiable people have." |
| "Or maybe you were useful," he said, very gently but still thoughtfully. |
| "Can't see how," The Master had never really...put them to much of a use. |
| "If he's crazy, it's probably pretty hard to tell." He didn't know. |
| Owen shrugged idly. It wasn't like he had to worry about it. He'd die before he'd get dragged back there, even if by accident. "I think it was just more perverse enjoyment than anything else. We were toys that he could play with and then break once they stopped being entertaining," Owen said, gaze going distant as he idly put the blocks together. "I just haven't stopped being entertaining yet." |
| "I'm sorry," he said, quietly. He didn't really have anything else to say, and he really, truly, was sorry. "I wish there was something I could do to help." |
| Oh, the irony. If Owen hadn't known it would prompt questions, he would have laughed. "They're all dead now. It doesn't matter anymore. If I go back, it'll just be a matter of time until he kills me, too." Owen shrugged, "So there' not much anyone can do anymore." |
| "Yeah," he said, just a little blandly and giving Owen a bit of a look. "I kind of got that. Who's they?" |
| The team? My co-workers? Torchwood? No, none of those would do. They were true, but they still weren't right. "My friends." |
| "Have you found them here?" It was, after all, all about time. |
| "Not all of them, not yet, but I'm heard they're all here," Owen said, glancing up at Brant. "Some of them several times over, it seems." |
| "The several times over thing is weird," he admitted. "Are you going to try to see them all?" |
| Owen wouldn't have bothered before. Before all of this happened, before they had been taken away from him, he would have thought the idea of actually actively tracking them down just to talk would have been utterly ridiculous. But now... "I need to. I miss them." Words that he would have had to have been plastered to say before. |
| "You need to miss them, or you need to talk to them because you miss you?" He wasn't quite reading that right. At least he was asking. |
| "I need to talk to them because I miss them," Owen said, shaking his head slowly. "There's too much I never said, never had the chance to say. And it sounds like I'm reciting corny dialog from some really bad B movie," Owen said, groaning as he raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Do you have a last name?" He had the opportunity now. Owen was going to find out as much as he could. |
| "You've probably had a lot of time to think of things you wanted to say," he agreed, almost gently. Because if he was left alone and hurt and lost everyone that much, he was pretty sure he'd end up sounding like he was reciting, too. He propped his chin in his hand to watch Owen, and lifted his eyebrow. "Hysmith." |
| The information was filed away for later. Owen wanted to get past the last subject, try and lighten the atmosphere a bit, "Family? Any siblings?" |
| He was willing to let it go, and rolled with it really, really easily. "My family's around. Mom, anyway. Dad died when I was younger. No siblings, but I've got my parents family around." |
| Only child. The excessive confidence made sense now. "Any friends?" |
| He blinked. "Yeah?" Utter bewilderment there. Of course he had friends. |
| "Lots of acquaintances or just a few close ones?" Owen was playing psychiatrist. |
| "Lots of casual ones, mostly. Why?" |
| That's what he figured. "Just curious. That's all," Owen said, offering Brant a smile. |
| He shrugged. "What about you?" |
| "What about me?" Owen asked in a dismissive tone. |
| "How close do you get to people?" |
| "Depends." A vague and cagey response, typical Owen Harper. "Why do you want to know?" |
| "Because you've given me a lot of personal information already, including some fairly painful stuff. Either you get closer to people than your, uh, kind of prickly demeanor might suggest, you're more cracked than you're pretending and desperately need to talk, or both." ...Ask a question... |
| Both. It was probably a little bit of both since Owen knew that he got closer to people than he either wanted to, liked to, or pretended that he did. And he had a feeling that the cracks that had been made in his personality by being caged up for nearly a year ran deeper than he liked to admit. But still, that was neither here nor there. "You look like someone I used to consider a friend. I guess that makes it easier." |
| "Then I'm glad," he said, simply and very honestly. He kept his eyes on Owen's. "Have you looked around the town, yet?" |
| "I took a peek into a few of the places. But I haven't given a thorough looking over, no." |
| "You should put it on the list. With finding your friends." |