Title: gaze into the abyss (and survive this viper's nest)
Author:
jadehunterFandom: Torchwood
Pairing(s): Gen, with mentioned Gwen/Rhys and Jack being Jack
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Some bad language, some dead bodies, lots of casual talk of dead bodies and dying, poorly researched stuff on ancient things, and made up stuff about ritual sacrificing.
Word Count: ~17k
Summary: Written for
au_bigbang. "Everything you've ever dreaded was under your bed but told yourself couldn't be by the light of day... They're all real." Supernatural!AU. There are no such things as aliens, but everything else is fair game. This is how it starts.
LJ:
Masterpost --
Part 1,
Part 2 DW:
MasterpostAO3:
Here Art by
scandalbaby:
Here Author's Note: I planned this all out as a team fic with no pov, but it ended being all through Gwen's POV after the initial introduction simply because she was so useful as an audience proxy. Using her as the newbie, I could not only introduce everyone to the laws of this supernatural!au, but also keep everyone else terribly mysterious, lol. Gwen was never a character I identified with in particular (sometimes she was annoying, other times she was just there), so writing from her POV was a struggle at times; I hope I did her justice.
This was also the first thing I've written in many years...I think maybe as much as 7 or 8 years, so forgive me for being rusty. Also, I had a wonderful Brit-picker named vae who looked over my rough draft, but I sadly couldn't get to her in time with my final draft. Any horrible Americanisms that glare out at you are my own mistakes, not hers.
Disclaimer: Torchwood doesn't belong to me, of course. Much of the supernatural lore and magical theory in the fic also probably don't belong to me, but to a variety of different tv shows and fantasy books that helped spark my imagination.