Title: Driving Forces of Descent
Characters: Suzie Costello with mentions of Jack, Ianto, Owen, Toshiko and Max
Word Count: 906
Rating: pg-15
Summary: The forces behind Suzie's obsession with the glove and why she welcomed her descent into darkness.
Spoilers: Spoilers for Torchwood Series 1 Episodes 1 and 8.
Disclaimer: Torchwood doesn't belong to me but the BBC, I'm just borrowing.
Author's notes: Written for the tw_lucky_7 challenge involving the character Suzie and the prompt pick a sin – any sin!, making use of the prompts envy and lust.
It was hers, only hers, she was the one that it spoke to, it was her that had the connection. It was a connection that she was grateful for, it was the only thing tying her to reality at the moment, there was nothing else in her life that would. She worked for Torchwood, so aliens were her reality, but not the one she had grown up with. Her two realities had to merge or the new reality, not really new it was one in the same, but the real reality had to supersede the other. Everything she had learnt growing up was, not untrue, but rather lacking in certain knowledge.
But working in a job where your reality was far more advanced and secret than that of others was hard, her ties to the outside world frivolous at best. She had her father, but he was only holding on to life by a tenuous thread, he didn't have the strength to hold her into life as well. Then there was Pilgrim and Max, she knew that abusing him in the way she was doing was wrong, but she needed someone to talk to and he was there. It wasn't as if he could keep the knowledge of the things she had informed him of, so she had to do something, retcon wasn't that dangerous anyway, they had never had problems with it before. She couldn't have a relationship outside of work, the people were too different, and even if she did she couldn't tell them anything about her job, it was better that it was a random person, and not someone she cared about.
She couldn't talk to those at Torchwood either, Jack was too concerned with making sure that Torchwood is ready, for what she isn't sure, and trying to get the new boy into bed. Ianto, the new boy, ex-Torchwood One, is too wrapped up in his own misery, one of the few survivors of the battle, and she doesn't know him well enough to talk to. She can't talk to Owen, he doesn't understand as she does, but she can use him as an outlet for some of her other needs.
It's Toshiko she really wants to talk to, who she often talks to Max about, but the other woman is too preoccupied with her experiments and trying to get Owen to notice her. She was the reason that she had approached Owen in the first place, she'd never have slept with him without an ulterior motive, but she knew that she had to make sure Owen was unavailable. She wasn't trying to take him away from Tosh to be mean, not that Tosh ever had him, but because Owen didn't deserve her.
Toshiko was special, and so much more than Owen deserved, she shouldn't waste her time with him. She knew she was envious of the time that the woman spent thinking about Owen, but there was nothing she could do about it. Toshiko was too much in love with the idea of Owen that she would never even think of her in such a way as she wished she would. She knew that her jealousy had caused her to lose her grip on reality slightly, but talking to Max helped her in a way, allowing her to calm herself.
It was her connection that she had with the glove however that allowed her to stay focused on reality. The connection that she had with life and death and the power that the glove gave her over them was intoxicating. However, it also showed her how fleeting life can be at times, something that she was unwilling to accept. There were ways to avoid and beat death and there was nothing she wouldn't do to overcome him.
With Toshiko in mind, and the hopes that she may one day come to feel for her as she did, she set out to safeguard herself against death. She used the retcon and neuro-linguistic programming to program Max to carry out her orders after a period of time without contact with her, intending to see him weekly until she died to continue his programming. She made sure that she had set everything in place so that when she died it was only a matter of time before she was among the living once more.
Hopefully before she died she could prove to Toshiko that they were meant to be, her return from the dead would be the perfect time for a reunion between them. The glove only gave a few minutes of life, but as interconnect to it as she was she knew that it could restore her permanently, the power of it submitting to her will. She knew that there was more power that the glove could offer her, but that would have to wait until she was as intricately connected as she would be when it resurrected her.
She lusted for that power, just as she lusted for Toshiko, and she knew that one day they would both be hers. She was Suzie Costello, she knew what she was doing, and why she was doing it. That power and her Toshiko were what all her actions would take her towards, her lust for them was what drove her. The driving force that would ensure her descent to hell, then her reawakening and ascent into the power and love she was entitled to.