Torchwood: Gossamer Ghosts
Torchwood: Gossamer Ghosts
A Pride Month One-Shot with the Parody/God Among Us Cast
Contains Characters from and Flashbacks To Emily's Gone by Gallifrey_Immigrant
The Majority of This Story Takes Place Nearly Immediately After God Among Us
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A young person slowly walks through a city. They’re tired, and more importantly, they’re lost. They see a park bench, with one person sitting there. They hate sitting near complete strangers, but they’re so tired. So they sit.The person sitting next to them is a lady. She’s Japanese, with blond hair, and blue eyes. There’s a scar on her right eye. Her clothes look nothing like the young person has never seen.
After a long silence, the young person accidentally bumps into the female. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said. Then, “are you okay?”
“Yes,” they said. “Just a little tired.”
“I’m been tired too. Needed a rest,” she said. “My name’s Emily.”
“Oh. Nice name,” they said. “If you’re resting, I can be quiet.”
. . .
Emily turned to look at the young person. “What’s your name?”
“It’s stupid. I’d rather you not know it… it’s Ash--”
“Why not just go with Ash?”
The young person considered. It was a nice name… but no, it could never work.
It all began with Queen Victoria. Many things did.
That isn't a euphemism, either, the whole scenario actually started because of Queen Victoria. She did the whole "let's set up Torchwood" thing, and bang, bang, boom, suddenly there was someone to combat those weird assholes in Cardiff who kidnapped women and murdered them in basements, or those silly old aliens that tried to commit ethnic cleansing.
No, it legitimately all started because of Queen Victoria.
Someday, it would all end with a fellow named Oip, the last Torchwood agent to live, and who eventually would sizzle out at the heat death of the universe, bringing this chapter in history (and indeed history) to a close.
From Queen Victoria to Oip, there were quite a lot of important, relevant and amazing people from pretty much every year in history you could count. From the 1800s to The Year "Everyone's Super Duper Dead Now", there was Torchwood pretty much everywhere.
Somewhere in the middle, there was Ash.
* * *
The last day Ash lived in his parent's house, Ash saw ghosts that morning. He got out of bed, looked down at his body with incredible disappointment, and checked his closet.
None of the dresses appealed - well, they never really did.
Upon getting dressed in the clothes from hell, Ash looked out the window and saw a ghost.
Ash jumped, horrified, of the strange androgynous figure on the lawn.
It floated about an inch from the ground. Not by much, but you could see the feet standing on midair just slightly enough above the ground that it wasn't like it was floating, like could almost pass as ordinary - just not quite.
The skin and clothes were the same tone of bleached off-white which glowed iridescently in the morning dawn.
They were beautiful.
Ash pressed himself against the window, a little bit of fear, a little bit of wonder and excitement, a feeling of danger. Oh, it made him feel utterly scandalous.
Him.
There isn't a single moment of realization on what you are as a person, it's a developing thing. A tender thing, that twists and changes depending on your experiences. Ash didn't have a single moment when he knew the dresses weren't right, or that the name was wrong, it all comes to you gradually, the slow realization of, well, life. But occasionally there are sparks, little things that stick in the mind for you to think about.
The Ghost was gone. But the feeling was there.
Ash came out later that afternoon.
Ash left the house later that afternoon.
* * *
Ash met a girl named Emily. Emily had her own story, her own path in the universe, but she was kind. Emily took Ash out to buy clothes that didn't make him feel rubbish, and Emily lent Ash a room in her apartment, and quite soon, they were legitimate Roommates. Emily was kind, and that was important. Emily was there for him at the right time in his life, in fact, she was for four years, but Eventually, Emily was gone, on her own developing story, and Ash moved from London to Cardiff.
He moved because he saw a Ghost in the Newspaper.
* * *
Journalism was always one of Ash's passions. They liked writing, (in fact, writing under a Pen Name was one of their first happy experiences) and so they took a job for the Cardiff Times.
Meeting the organizer of the Cardiff Times was a fascinating experience to be sure. "Tyler Steele, nice to meet you." The Man said. "There are a few ground rules about Journalism in Cardiff."
* * *
The Ground Rules were established to keep the population safe, Tyler had said. Ever since the mass flooding in the early 2010s caused by some organization named Torchwood, Cardiff was a sharp and nasty place, only barely beginning to rebuild, and still fuelled by anarchy. Rotten things lay in the depths. There were Urban Explorers who went into the Sewers, or into abandoned buildings, and were mauled to death by certain things. There were pictures of them, but you couldn't print them in the Newspaper.
You weren't to go off the beaten path in Cardiff, or you would get hurt.
You weren't to talk about the right things - they were the wrong things.
You weren't to look into cases not pre-approved by the Cardiff Times whatsoever.
You weren't to challenge this whatsoever, or you'd disappear for a few days, and then show up back at the office with an unnaturally happy grin and very little memory whatsoever.
You weren't to look into that either.
Being a Journalist in Cardiff was stupid.
One Month Later
Ash walked through the streets of Cardiff a lot at night.
He wasn't supposed to - it was dangerous, and although it had only been a month or so after the Disaster Recovery Committee had collapsed, and it wouldn't be safe on these streets for quite some time, he still found them irresistible.
There was rubble, and there were small huts littering the borders of the road, the refugees forced out of their homes when half the city had been drenched underwater. The sky was always reddish, the sunsets in Cardiff didn't seem to end anymore. The city was a recovering Hell.
And in the distant rubble, he saw a ghost tending to the refugees, offering them food.
"Hey!" Ash called, and he ran, desperately trying not to trip over the brick and rebar strewn rubble. "Hey, stop!"
The ghost turned. It wasn't his ghost - their face twisted and morphed into a pale white alien face.
"Apologies. I am Orr." They said.
* * *
"So...you appear as what people want to see? What they need to see?"
"Or what they want." Orr replied.
"What they want?"
"What kind of attraction to this creature that you've seen do you have? Why do you want to find it?" Orr asked.
"It's the unknown." Ash mused.
"Fascinating," Orr's voice whispered. "Humans are so fascinating," They said joyfully.
Their feminine features were melting away the more they talked with Ash, constantly attempting to seem appealing. "I apologize for appearing as what you wanted to find, Ash. I have little control over that, appearing as this...Ghost, you say? You are aware that no such things exist."
"You appear fairly ghostly." Ash said. "Not to seem offensive."
"No, that's because you want that." Orr replied. "I am usually much more solid. I could be more solid for you if it would make you happy."
Ash tried his best not to feel disoriented. "Um. Whatever you like, I suppose."
"Of course, if you came to Cardiff you have probably come to the conclusion that aliens do exist. Psychic Echoes, displaced temporal figures, data signatures, there are many things your Ghost could be. I however do doubt that it is a legitimate Ghost, as you say. And you have followed it from London. Curious. Have you heard of Torchwood?"
"Only in Whispers. They're the corrupt organization run by Yvonne Hartman. She's on trial for War Crimes right now."
"I highly advise you speak to her. There is more to Yvonne Hartman than meets the eye." Orr stated. "Torchwood is not a corrupt organization, we do our best to help. But we are disappearing. We must, in order to survive. The eye of scrutiny is a hard one, and it looks upon us with great anger. We all try to disappear. You want to find your Alien? There's your starting point." Orr seemed to think thoughtfully for a moment. "You are a very repressed person, Ash. You want to be seen, yet you still hide-"
"Please leave me alone. I don't want to be involved with Torchwood, or Yvonne Hartman. She's a criminal. I'm a journalist." Ash turned to leave.
"You haven't noticed why a journalist in Cardiff can't say anything important, have you?" Orr called, as Ash walked off.
He turned back. "What? What are you talking about?"
"Torchwood." Orr smirked. "I hope you find your Ghost, Journalist."
They turned and strolled into the fog.
Four Months Later...
Ash kept living their life. Looking for more, occasionally, but mostly doing the 9 to 5. Writing the articles about nothing important and trying to pass as normal. Being unseen.
They had few friends in Cardiff. They hadn't seen Emily for quite some time.
They were tired, mostly.
This is why they soon discovered Coffee. One of the few surviving street corner shops - right by Jubilee Pizza, actually, soon became where Ash practically lived. Journalism was a job you could get away with doing a lot of work out of the office if you were especially good with deadlines.
So Ash was engrossed in work, and very tired, and This is why Ash didn't notice for a full two-minutes, waiting for his order of Coffee and resetting the CSS code on the Cardiff Times website, that a man had walked in and sat down at his table.
"Eep!" Ash shrieked, when looking up from his work, he suddenly noticed the suave yet effeminate man in the white suit.
"Julien Blacklock." The Man said, smiling. "Torchwood Assessor."
He had the same face as the Ghost.
* * *
Ash offered Julien a coffee and out of the corner of his eye slowly considered what the hell was going on.
Minus the whole thing that he was not translucent, floating, and the slight differences in shades of skin and appearance - he was much less pallid than the ghost, his hair was done differently, combed back, and his eyes had shorter, more sharp features, likely due to a good deal of makeup, and actually - was that lipstick? - the Korean man still had the same stark white suit, androgynous but masculine leaning appearance, bleach blonde hair and young vigor to him that made him unmistakable.
Ash decided not to say anything, as to not horrify the man, but he was certain something was wrong. Ash's interest in that of the supernatural, the alien, was quite consistent, but now face to face with the actual unknown, he could not deny the feeling that he had of feeling unnerved.
"Ash, He/Them pronouns," He said quietly as for the other patrons of the Coffee shop not to hear. "How do you do?"
"Nice to meet you, Ash." Julien said, and it was friendly and sounded like he was smiling and joyful even if he continued to look rather intense. That was the word. He was intense, focused. Directed. "Over the past six months Yvonne Hartman has been on trial. Torchwood has been besmirched, it's name put out into the open and dragged through the mud." Julien said in an accent that suggested, he, like Ash, was not a native to Cardiff. "We know you don't trust us. We wouldn't either."
"You're damn right." Ash said, trying to seem aloof, even though, honestly, he was not only unnerved, but extremely excited.
"We'd like you to do a job for us, Ash." Julien said.
Ash tried to raise a complaint.
"-Stop right there. Think about what you're going to say. This is an offer. If you don't want to be involved in Torchwood, if you think we're grimy criminals, which by the way, is blatantly false, I will leave you here, and you will continue to edit your articles in the Cardiff times about Cardiff's top 5 Dogs instead of learning what's really going on. Or you can come with me, and I can show you."
Ash thought for a moment. Torchwood was responsible for the floodings, that nearly destroyed this city, according to every single thing, every bit of public information that he had heard. These guys were sketchy. On the other hand, could he really not know what was going on? How Julien was on his lawn four and a half years ago, floating above the ground and oddly, giving him that one important moment of inspiration, the day his life completely changed? How he had moved to Cardiff due to sightings of similar strange sightings that he saw - and had seen once more once he came here and had met whoever Orr was? Proof in the things beyond the normal? But still, If these guys were organized crime or something like the news said, like his news said, Was Ash really going to let himself get mixed up in them because of a boy?
He looked into Julien's eyes for a moment.
"Tell me more." Ash said.
* * *
"In every city in the world, there's at least one trap street. You look where you're not supposed to look, and it's there. Not every trap street is an alien refuge - some of them are just forgotten, dilapidated corners where the sun doesn't shine down through the cracks of the buildings, and the piping drips a slow trickle of water onto long lost crates and cans. Some trap streets are forgotten for a reason. Some of them are just forgotten. Lost. Wherever they are, they're thin places in the spacetime fabric of the world. Not so much a rift - but a gossamer. In a trap street, things from beyond sometimes push through. "
"You're telling me this, why?"
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it-" and Julien paused to give a cheesy look: "Is to find what's been pushing through the gossamer in Talmouth."
"Talmouth? Nothing happens in Talmouth."
"You would think." Julien said.
* * *
Talmouth. Seaside town. The sea air smelled more like fish and chips than actual fish there, and with a bit of apprehension at the grey skies and wooden dock planks that made up the seaside boardwalk - the only important part of a town like this; Ash stepped out of the cab.
"You said you would show me," Ash said. "Not drop me off for me to figure it out."
Julien smirked, something that was not only consistent about him, but annoying to boot. "Tell me what you see."
"Town. Lots of Seagulls, honking their beaks off. Teenagers with cheap Pizza. Slightly older teenagers in the corner, smoking something...I don't know, it's vile. Old Lady walking her dog down by the carousel. Town. It's just a Town."
"Good, good, yeah," Julien said almost absentmindedly. "Yeah, that's good."
"You want to chime in?"
"I'm giving you marks. Go on."
"This isn't a job interview, you said you wanted to show me-"
"Isn't it? Look at the people."
Ash looked. Closely - and he could feel his eyes rolling away from them. He forced himself to look closer. A perception filter.
There were no people there.
The town was empty.
* * *
Ash carefully considered the likelihood of what was going on. You see aliens in the newspaper, but it's not as if you're prepared to really see them in person, actually see them exist. They're like politicians! This was mad, utterly mad.
They were super into it.
They moved across the street, examining the empty boardwalk. The most they found was a rat scurrying across a bench.
"A ghost town," Julien mused, and Ash tried their best not to feel unsettled.
Ash thought to himself. Whatever was going on, it was connected inexorably to him - on several levels.
They tried walking slowly through the town, tiptoeing cautiously across the creaky boardwalk. They had the feeling they were not alone.
"Julien?" Ash asked. Julien was gone. Damn it.
Of course. Was this all a test? It felt real, but it felt like those moments you had in school when the teacher passed you a sheet of questions that you had not been taught whatsoever and insisted that they were totally legitimate and you should have prepared better.
There was no way in hell Ash was going back to school.
"Hello!!" Ash called. "Anyone there?"
There was a tingle up the back of their spine, and they turned. Something was pushing out of the brick wall. An impression of an arm stretching out, pushing forward and stretching this solid wall as if it was bubble gum. Textured with the same brick, but with The impression of a face and arm walking forward but being held back by the thin stretchy surface....that was a solid wall. It tried to scream, but the world was silent.
Ash raised his hands. "It's alright, I'm unarmed-" They said, but the creature snarled out into the air, slashing and shrieking out of the wall until the elastic force dragged it back.
Ash breathed a sigh of relief, but then an wooden arm of the same elastic texture snapped out of the wood and slashed at him.
Ash turned and ran.
* * *
Julien came to in a darkened hallway illuminated by small tinkling lights. Where was he? It was dark, and he couldn't see much. He had...he had been dragged into a wall by one of those dimensional anomalies. Hm.
Wherever they were, it wasn't Talmouth nor Planet Earth. Some kind of Spacestation is seemed, the turquoise lighting and black reminded him of the old eerie ships you would see in movies.
"Ah, yes yes yes yes yes yes," said a Ragged Man with a beard the size of Gandalf, long wispy hair and bloodshot eyes. "Oh dear dear oh my oh me, I do seem to have dragged out another boyboy. Oh yes!" He rambled psychotically. "Oh, apologies, great sadness and condolences, my fellow, indeed, indeed." He blubbered on, glaring with crazed eyes at a computer. Throughout the entirety of this conversation so far he had not stopped typing frenzied code into the computer for one second. The keys clicked and clacked as he murmured on at great speed. "Didn't mean to take anyone! Keep taking people, oh dear, it's so sad! So sad I can never get them back! But the priority is myself, you see. I have to get back! I have to!!"
"What's going on? Who are you?"
"My name is Oip, my dear boyboy. In a few minutes, I am going to die!" He winked. "And so will everyone else. They all die. They all go put-put."
Julien stared with horror.
"It's...it's the last days of the universe, isn't it?"
"The End! The End! It is Nigh!" Oip shrieked, and Julien could tell that he meant it.
* * *
Ash rushed through the town, dodging the arms and screaming faces rippling out of the walls. They could not talk or scream, or even make a single sound, but their faces were contorted into miserable agony.
It wasn't that they couldn't scream - they were certainly trying.
They clawed out, desparately reaching, but they couldn't touch him, and they couldn't last long before the elastic force stretched them back to wherever they came.
Alright. Think rationally. Alien Stretchy Walls. ...Were they alien though? The faces in the walls had all the shape and appearance of being nearly human - something scarred, and slightly evolved over time, but... Yeah, they were human. Aliens wouldn't look like that - it wasn't like Star Trek where all aliens had a wrinkly forehead and were otherwise identical.
What was that Julien said, about the Gossamer being thinner here? Not a rift, not a hole like that, but something with enough strength could push through...
None of these people had enough strength, did they? What if these were people that were trying to get out through the rift back to the real world, but came out at the wrong point? And were stuck? God knows how long... and they had dragged the people of the town back to where they came from with them.
Ash whipped out their cell phone - they weren't ready for this, and dialed 999.
"Hello? I need help, I'm here in Talmouth, there are...there are alien things. Well, not alien, I believe the correct term is...anomolous?"
"Please wait while your call is being forwarded to an operator. Your call is important to us," said what was probably Siri.
Ash hung up.
What did they have to work with? Dimensional people trapped beyond our world, trying to push through the fabric of our reality, but off the mark. Oh, he couldn't think of anything. He didn't even have anything on him.
...Wait, was was that whole thing with the Perception Filter about?
* * *
"This is the last days of the universe." Julien repeated to himself. Stunned.
"This is the last days of Torchwood," Oip said, just the right level of completely horrifying.
"So what are you doing with that computer for? Why are you typing at it constantly - it's outdated even for my century."
"I have to get back! Back to where it is safe, my boy boy!"
"What do you mean?"
"Go back! Go back!" Oip squawked.
He was utterly insane. Driven mad by the isolation, the lost hope for even another moment in the universe, the dread and apprehension of the end of the universe had sent him to a point that he could not recover from.
"..Go back." Julien stated.
"Go back! Go Back!"
"To...to where I came from."
"I must travel back in time! I must land at the correct time period, punch through the rift! Live in the safe again! Live in the safe!"
"My time."
"Yes! Your time! It is easier to take the people away from your time - I do it on accident, see. But is good! I practice on the formulae. Perfect the formula. I get closer to doing it right, you know. Send them back as I would myself. It does not work." He paused for a moment to then say maniacally. "But I get closer!"
"You're... You're responsible for all those people sent back in no time. Unable to push through. Living in Un-Life, an unbearable agony." Julien said with hatred.
"Honk honk!"
* * *
Ash rushed over to the corner of the dock. "Perception filter - perception filter - perception filter," He mumbled, raking his hands over a plastic wall of a cheap theme park ride until he found a chip on a higher level that he couldn't see. With some effort, he tore it off, and the perception filtered people disappeared with a flash. The people moved forward, stretching out of every surface Ash could see, and moving closer and closer. He frantically tapped at the small chip, attempting to try and turn it on, and the creatures moved closer - barely inches away from his face, and then he was gone.
But not because of the creatures, thank god. He had activated the perception filter and made himself invisible.
The People creature things that stretched out of the ground seemed unsure of what to do, and disappeared into the ground and walls once more. Evidently without a goal in mind for someone to reach out to, they didn't know what they were doing really. Just trying to ask for help, probably.
Not that Ash wasn't convinced it wasn't incredibly dangerous.
Alright. So. He was in a pickle. He needed to figure out how to help these people trapped beyond wherever he was. He needed to figure out what was going on, really, and he needed to get these people either back into the real world, or at least stop their pain at the very least.
And he had no clue how, and no way to call for help.
* * *
"The Townspeople were scared of you, It's how you controlled them. Sent them back in time to their doom. That's your only real weapon, is it?" Julien whispered. "Why you act crazy? Because you want people to be afraid? Well. I'm not."
Oip raised a singular eyebrow (the other one was burnt off). "My dear fellow, do you honestly think you can stop. the individual primarily known as Oip!? Improbable! Improbable, my dear fellow!"
Julien took off his nice coat jacket, as to not get it dirty, and slugged Oip in the jaw. He fell unconscious immediately.
What an idiot.
Julien moved over to the computer, and tapped at the keys, but the sequences of data on the computer were the incipherable ramblings of an madman, who went slowly mad from the isolation at the end of the universe. Even Torchwood had an end.
Everything did.
* * *
"Ash?" A staticky voice out of the nothing called. Ash turned, and saw that it was coming out of the Boardwalk intercom system, something that prior to this moment had only had played tinny carnival music.
"Julien?" Ash responded. "Where are you?"
"I...I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the future. At the End. I've...I've stopped him, I think. The Madman behind this. His name was Oip. I'm using his computer, his time-launcher to get this transmission through. It's delicate work."
"The people, they're still struggling, here. I don't know what to do."
"I'll try and edit the time-launcher Oip was using from here, see if I can alleviate their pain." Julien said. "I don't imagine I have much time left, Ash. Before the end."
"...What?"
"Everything ends sometimes, Ash." Julien whispered through the static. "I really liked you, you know."
"Oh, hell." Ash rummaged through his pockets, although obviously he couldn't exactly travel in time. "Look, I- I'll get you out of there."
The static flared. "You'll get me out, huh? Well. I'd like to see that. And if I do get out, do, um, you want to get a drink after this?"
"Asking me out from the end of the universe?"
There was a laugh, and then the static overtook the speakers. And then nothing. The transmission shut down. The End of the Universe had hurtled over the transmission like a wave, and washed it all away.
Later
There was no option. Sometimes there's only a way to limit the damage.
That's sometimes what Torchwood is.
Ash stood in front of the hideout. He knocked on the door.
"I'm looking for Torchwood." He said.
The door opened, and Jack Harkness stepped out. "Torchwood doesn't exist. We're in hiding."
"If that's the case, tell Orr and Tyler to be a little more subtle in the future."
"Noted. Um...Why do you want to join Torchwood?" Jack Harkness asked.
"I don't." said Ash, quietly. "Not after today. An insane madman from the future kidnapped people from the present day and tried to send them back but made them into horrible beings of pain and agony."
"I heard about that. You were good. You used the perception filter, placed it over the town so no one else goes there and gets dragged into the future. Really good. Smart cleanup. That's something a top tier Torchwood agent would struggle with, and you set it up simply. Impressive."
"Limited." Ash responded. "I didn't save anyone."
"You aren't limited." Jack pursed his lips slightly. He wasn't good at these interactions. "Sad about Julien though. He was a new recruit, bright and brilliant. Torchwood will miss him. But we'll have you, right?"
"I'm not here for that. I'm only here for a request."
Jack considered Ash carefully. "What?"
"I want to forget." Ash said.
* * *
Jack didn't give him the Retcon. He said something about someone named Ianto. How it's sometimes easier to forget, but we don't improve as people if we do.
Ash thought that it was rubbish.
And he walked through the city streets back to his apartment. Alone. Dejected.
And as he walked, he thought about life. And he wasn't very happy about it.
And then a flicker of light.
The same blue florescence that he saw out on the lawn all those years ago.
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