Broken Space

Tory swears he's imagining it all. He's standing under the spray of the shower, having all but sweat through his monk's robes at the Halloween party. Not the most romantic way to end what has been a very romantic evening with Colin, which is why he hit the shower before bed. Colin, perfect as Tory thinks him, is probably immune to the heat and already asleep with three or four kittens curled up beside him.

Which is why it's so weird. Tory can swear he hears Colin's voice in the shower, though he can't quite make out what he's saying. Probably some trick of the sound of the water echoing off tile and wall and whatever else.

He shuts off the water and it's gone. Maybe he's tired, since he can't be drunk - he didn't drink anything for Colin's sake. He steps out of the shower, and as he's toweling his hair he can hear it again. Shaking his head and tucking his damp hair behind his ears, he finishes drying off and wraps the towel around his waist. He decides it's too late to be modest, and Colin's probably asleep anyway, as he opens the door and pads into their room.

What do you get when you combine one already creepy compound and two party addicts with way too much time on their hands?

One amazing party.

The entrance to the Compound has been lined with black and fake cobwebs, and an old tape recorder playing a casette of scary sound effects on a loop. All lights have been covered up, and the only lights one can see are at the end of the hallway.

The end of the hallway is the Lobby, and it's been turned into one hell of a party room (no pun intended). The walls are also covered in black, with the harsh fluorescent lights covered with sheer fabric and mounted squares of colored glass. There's a bar, a non-alcoholic fruit punch for the kiddies, a table full of appetizers and bowls of sugar cane sticks and other sweet things. There's not much left in the basement anymore--Bright and Johnny scoured the shelves and hijacked everything that could be used for a speaker system and begged Alec and the Doctor to help.

Well, Johnny begged. Because he's not above begging a Timelord to play the Professor from Gilligan's Island when it comes to wanting a kickass sound system.

Music from someone's forgotten ipod is now blaring, the bass so loud it makes Johnny's chest vibrate--the perfect volume, in his opinion.

And what would be Halloween without costumes? Because otherwise Johnny Storm wouldn't be the devil his sister always accused him of being and just be a man in a red catsuit, carrying a pitchfork with sparkly red horns on his head--and that would just be silly.


[Set to Halloween Night, naturally, but as we're all going to be gone...pre-play to your heart's content!]

A year ago, if someone had asked Tory how he thought he'd be spending his 18th birthday, 'stranded on a magical desert island' would have been, approximately, number 1,554 on the list.

And yet, that's where he is. The laundry room, in it's own quirky wisdom, had provided a battered but serviceable Burger King birthday crown which Tory wears proudly on his head as he labors at his latest task.

Pie.

He'd wanted a birthday cake, but poring over a few cookbooks, he found that pie was the easier option, given the abundance of fruit on the island. And it shouldn't be that hard to make: cooking is just chemistry, after all.

And yet...well, he has the mangoes and the bananas ready to go. But he isn't sure the lumpy mess on the kitchen counter can be called dough. Yet.

[Feel free to tag with anyone! I wanted to get this posted but I will not be back to tag until tonight.]

Tory isn't really thinking when he gathers up Colin and a hastily assembled backpack of his things and walks out of the house he's been sharing with Edward. Because this is just over. He isn't a pair of shoes to just belong to someone.

He slams the door behind him but the sound is lost in a thunderclap, and it's then that it occurs to him that there's some really bad rain going on and he's only wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He's soaked to the skin in moments, but he has too much pride to go back in. Instead, he puts Colin's carrier under his shirt to shelter him from the rain and makes his miserable way to the compound, slipping in the mud, head bent against the wind, falling to his knees several times and accumulating various scrapes and bruises.

He's dripping wet by the time he gets there, like he showered with his clothing on. His sandals are next to useless and he kicks them away. Shivering in the cooler air, he pulls the kitten out, finding that he's only a little ruffled and apparently hungry, but otherwise just fine.

Most people seem to be in their rooms, so after getting some milk for Colin in the kitchen, Tory heads to his.

It's only when he's halfway through the door that he realizes it's not his room anymore. And who it does belong to. "Shit, sorry," he mutters, pulling the door back so he's behind it, hoping he wasn't interrupting anything.

[locked to Colin]

Tory's been scouring the library for Torchwood stuff. It's a pretty standard day for him and one that generally keeps his mind occupied, which is good at this point. He's so intent on finding research materials that he's wholly unprepared for the 8 1/2 by 11, black, spiralbound journal that falls into his hands.

He doesn't even have to open it up to know what it is. But he does anyway, fingers tracing the faded lettering:

Saturday, September 25th. Somewhere in the vicinity of 12:41 A.M. to 1:25 A.M., Colin Stephens moved into 346 68th St., Woodridge, Queens, NY. But who can remember the time of this event precisely?

Tory closes it quickly, heart pounding, hands trembling slightly. How in the world? It's impossible. He pushes the books on the shelf out of the way, wondering if there's some sort of magic portal to his bedroom closet behind them. But it's only the wood of the bookshelf.

"What the hell is going on here?" He says out loud, to nobody in particular.

Colin is here, now. That's still a thought that's sinking in with Tory. It's a thought that makes him smile randomly, and a thought that makes him feel guilty as well. Mostly for the random smiling. Jealous as Edward can be, he'd have to be stupid not to realize something's up, and so accordingly Tory's been spending more time at the Hub. Partially, he's hoping to run into Colin, because he can't just get up the nerve to drop by and say hello more than once every couple of days.

Which is why he's sitting at the counter in the kitchen with a book and a half-eaten sandwich.

Jack still isn't sure how he became a cat owner, but the calico proof is currently standing on his chest. He's sprawled on the floor of the rec room with a cushion beneath his head, taunting Bloddeuwedd playfully with a finger and ignoring the needle-sharp bite of kitten claws through his shirt, laughing softly as she pounces, gnawing on his finger with a fierceness that seems out of place in such a small body. "Could've used you on some of our missions," he confides, amused. "I'll bet an acid-spitting alien wouldn't scare you." Bloddeuwedd's only response is to roll onto her back so she can put all four paws into the effort of separating Jack's finger from his hand.

This is a much better way to spend the night than lying in bed alone.

The first stop on the tour was Germany.

Colin hated Germany. It was the food, mostly, and the smoking. Clouds of cigarette smoke outside of buildings, and the lingering scent that clung to everything. Sort of like Nazism, he supposed, but that wasn't an opinion he shared out loud.

Not that he was ever asked his opinion. Opinions were Dr. Garrett's province. He was the poster boy, the prototype, the money shot.

Sometimes it felt that dirty. Despite the good that he hoped would come of it. That Dr. Garrett assured him would come of it.

He wraps his leather jacket and scarf more tightly around him, hands shoved into his pockets as he makes his way from the convention centre to the car.

Winter was always the most difficult season. Everything was in hibernation, and Colin wanted to be there too, buried under the soil, hiding away until spring. The fact that he couldn't just sleep through winter like the rest of the planet made him resentful, although he tried not to be.

Still, the cast of fluorescent lights on his skin that was a mockery of the sun's warmth made him ache for its heat. He closed his eyes and turned his face up towards the light, imagining he could feel it, the hot burn on his eyelids, the musky, humid air that was so full of life you could almost feel it, breathe it.

A car horn sounds, and Colin opens his eyes with a jolt, expecting to see a truck barreling down on him, but instead there's an open sea, and Colin realizes he's standing on a beach, and that really is sun shining down on him.

If this was a side effect, it's one that Dr. Garrett never mentioned before...