Drabble: Half Life

[bk_forever]

 

Title: Half Life

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Owen

Rating: G

Written For: Challenge 255 – Sink or Swim at tw100

Spoilers: A Day In The Death

Summary: Owen’s not handling his death too well.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or any of the characters.

 

 

 

Owen ran, faster than he’d ever run when he’d been alive. Feet pounding, arms pumping, never tiring, he reached the end of the pier, leaping as far as he could, out over the cold waters of Cardiff bay.

 

He hit the surface with a splash and went under. No need to hold the breath he no longer had, no need to struggle or try to swim, no need to do anything but let himself sink deeper and deeper beneath the surface.

 

It changed nothing. He wasn’t alive, so he couldn’t drown. He was trapped, halfway between life and death. Forever.

 

The End

Comments

[sassysailorgirl.livejournal.com]

Poor Owen. If only he'd let Tosh love him. She could have made things a little less dark.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, I guess by the time he realised he could have had something with her, her was the walking dead and didn't think he had anything to offer =(

Thankfully, in most of my fics he survived being shot by Copley and Tosh survived being shot by Gray, and they're gradually moving towards being something more than friends so he'll be happy there. This is just one of my canon-compliant drabbles ;)

Thank you!

[kul-breez.livejournal.com]

Oh... ouch... poor Owen. I just watched Reset last night (I love Netflix!!!) and it is all very sad for him. You captured this wonderfully.

[bk_forever]

Thank you. I had this idea niggling at the back of my mind for a few days, I wanted to write it but it took a while to turn the vague idea into something thast made sense. In some ways, it's probably the hardest I've worked on a drabble. I got what I wanted in the end, I think.

[iantojjackh.livejournal.com]

Hey I remember this, poor poor Owen. He really got the shit end of the stick with this deal, great Drabble.

[bk_forever]

Lol!

Yeah, I didn't come up with a better summary in the end. I did come up with one, but I didn't write it down and I forgot it.

Being dead bit still walking around would be a difficult thing to adjust to, it's no wonder he freaked out for a while.

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

Very nice. You really got inside his head.
I watched this scene about half a dozen times the other day looking for inspiration, wondering if I could use it for my h/c attempted suicide prompt. Still not sure if it is attempted suicide when he's already dead?

[bk_forever]

It's hard to say if he was seriously trying to kill himself or if it was just frustration and an attempt to escape everything for a while.

Took a bit of work to knock this one into shape, but I'm happy with the result.

Thank you!

[bluelilacs.livejournal.com]

Even if Owen wasn't your favorite character on the show, there's no way you could not feel for him being stuck like this for God knows how long. He obviously did it out of a freaked out sense of love for Owen, but it was definitely not one of Jack's better ideas.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, it didn't turn out well for poor Owen. I wonder if Jack thought the second glove was like the first and that Owen would just be able to live off Jack's excess of life force.

Thank you =)

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Poor Owen--sink or swim, it's all the same to him at this point. That episode was so emotionally powerful, I always thought it should get some sort of award.

Good job capturing Owen's anguish here. :)

[bk_forever]

Thanks! =D

Owen was a man who threw himself into life, over-indulging in the pleasures of the flesh. Now he has to adjust to an existence with none of that. It's no wonder he freaked out for a while.

[too-beauty.livejournal.com]

You could truly describe Owen's despair so well here!
Sad but beautifully written!

[bk_forever]

Thank you. *hugs* It was tough to write.

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

A brilliant look at Owen after he was brought back

[bk_forever]

Thank you =)

I really wanted to write this one but it was hard. Owen was in such a bad place emotionally.

[emyrldlady.livejournal.com]

This was the idea I had from the prompt only done better!

[bk_forever]

Thank you, I'm flattered! I'm a drabble novice, just learning the art, so it's encouraging to get such lovely comments.

Did you get yours written?

[emyrldlady.livejournal.com]

Drabbles are actually quite hard, you wouldn't think so but 100 words exactly and getting your point across is tricky.

I do a lot of twitter flash fiction that's 100, 200, 250 words.

I didn't get mine written but this was the theme I was toying with.

[bk_forever]

They are very hard. I've always admired people who can write a complete story in 100 words and I never imagined trying it myself until I got stuck with a short fic I'd started and it matched the prompt that week. So I cut a few words out instead of trying to make it longer. After that, I decided to try again and became slightly hooked.


One of mine this week, I had 147 words to start with and it was hard to pare away words while still keeping the sense of the piece. I've written 10 now over the past 5 weeks - some I'm happier with than others - but it's a good way to learn to be more concise, I'm generally rather long-winded in my fic writing.

[emyrldlady.livejournal.com]

Be warned, the reverse is true. When you have the luxury of unlimited words I tend to be too concise.

[bk_forever]

So far I'm not having that problem - the fic I'm working on was supposed to be a short follow-up to one of my drabbles and is so far over 5k words. Still not finished, lol! Being concise is not really in my nature, obviously!

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Such an awful, climactic moment for him. Nice choice.

[bk_forever]

Thank you.

It was all too much for Owen, I almost felt he was trying to run away from himself or at least from the situation he found himself in, but there really was no escape.