![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fictionalTitle: To Learn This Holding And The Holding Back
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Tosh, Gwen, Owen
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, mostly plot this time, with a serving of porn for dessert.
Summary: With every night, a morning after. Jack and Ianto try to cope.
Author's Notes: Concludes the triptych begun with A Strange Fashion of Forsaking and Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny; takes place after those two stories somewhere in between 2x05: Adam and 2x06: Reset. Title adapted from a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido. The next story in this 'verse will be coming soon; it will pick up after 2x09: Something Borrowed. Third installment of I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling
Wordcount: 16,700
Part 1
Part 2
When the song ended Jack knew they should drop hands and clap politely and pretend they weren't being quite so over the top, but it was hard to do that with a smirking, panting Ianto staring at his mouth, and he stuttered into it, only managing to pick up the clapping just as it was dying out.
Jack applauded loudly anyway, throwing in a whistle for good measure. Everyone was indeed looking at them, and Jack smirked at the crowd, decided what the hell, and leaned in to planted a kiss on Ianto's upturned mouth. The kiss quickly turned sloppy and hot, as Ianto's tongue darted into his mouth, and Jack tasted the alcohol on his breath and grinned.
“We should really do this more often,” he whispered against Ianto's mouth. “I like you like this. I like it when you let go.”
“Mmm,” Ianto mumbled, and fumbled at Jack's collar as he pressed up against him.
“Hey,” Jack said, laughing as he fended him off slightly, only because he was sure Ianto would never forgive him if he remembered this the next day. “Whoa there.”
“No,” Ianto said. “This is fun.” He bit at Jack's neck clumsily, and Jack felt himself heat up as he saw all the people watching, their mouths hanging open.
“Okay,” Jack said firmly. “That's it. We're going to go now.”
“Go?” Ianto said.
“Yes,” Jack said, pulling him by the hand. “I'm going to take you home and do indescribably filthy things to you. Don't say you haven't been warned.”
"But the descriptions are so interesting," Ianto protested as Jack led him out of the hall, wondering that Ianto apparently now had him so well-trained that he was respecting the very restraint that the other man had somehow abandoned.
"Yes, but there's something to be said for the element of surprise and whatever filthy things your mind is going to come up with while you try to figure it out," Jack said, trying to be as efficient as possible about getting them to the car. That way, even if they didn't make it back to Ianto's flat directly, they could have at each other with some small degree of discretion. Jack just hoped that Ianto would remain in this perfect place, before he got bored or tired as people drinking invariably did at the most inconvenient times.
Ianto kissed him again when he opened the door to the car.
"Get in," he said, and helped guide the man into his seat before closing the door and walking around to the other side.
"I assume I'm not taking the long way tonight?" Jack asked.
"No," Ianto said and placed his hand on Jack's thigh.
Jack laughed and raised an eyebrow. "Careful."
“Why?” Ianto asked.
“Because,” Jack said, as he started up the car. “I don't want to run you into a tree.”
Ianto moved his hand up to Jack's crotch, and he sucked in his breath.
“Can't you multi-task, sir?” Ianto said.
“I'd like to be able to give you my full attention,” Jack replied, flooring the gas. “You can keep doing that, though, if you want.”
Ianto had his head thrown back, and his eyes were half-lidded with arousal. “I think I'm getting drunker,” he said. “I thought I'd hit the peak, but it just keeps on building. Everything is...it's nice. It glows. And the car. And you. I like it. ”
“Lightweight,” Jack said, with a smile.
Distantly, Ianto was glad Jack hadn't called him a cheap date. This was kinder. Fond. Jack was fond of him. It seemed obvious, but also desperately peculiar. After all, he had invested so much energy in thinking of Jack as selfish. Selfish for always being the center of attention, selfish for not ever saying anything about himself. Selfish for Lisa. And for leaving. And for John fucking Hart and for taking his car. But Jack was fond of him. And generous in his way. And very, very bad at it. The thought made Ianto smile.
Jack caught it out of the corner of his eye as he pulled the car out into traffic. "What?" he asked, and Ianto decided to lie, although the lie was true too.
"With my eyes closed," he said, "I can pretend we're out there, up there," he said.
"Would you like that?" Jack asked, curious. Ianto had always seemed so happily fixed in place. The wonders that drifted in on the Rift enough for him when they weren't too much.
"I know how you drive. So that, that must be something."
Jack chuckled. "I'm pretty good. Thing is, and I hate to disappoint you, but so much of what you'd call a spaceship is so over-engineered, and believe me, it has to be, that you'd never feel it, never feel the speed or the rush or what would seem like the impossibility of it to you. Unless we were in trouble."
Ianto opened his eyes and rolled his head against the headrest to look at Jack. "Only you could make crash landings seem appealing."
“Maybe I'll be able to take you up. Someday. Show you the planet-rise. It's a sight to see. Better than a sunset, I think.”
“Is that what they do? Lovers, I mean, where you come from? Is that what you did to impress your dates? Sixteen year old boys and girls sighing for you and your tarted up spaceship....”
“Not me. I was poor, growing up. Didn't have a ship of my own. But later, sure. When I had money.”
“The world's spinning,” Ianto said. “In my head. I can feel it. It's funny how you feel things when you can't see them.”
“Funny,” Jack agreed.
“D'you miss it? Flying?”
Jack glanced over at him, and saw that he had his eyes closed, and a hand out of the window, playing with the wind. “Why are you always asking me about the things I miss?”
"Because I want to know what you think about when you're alone, when no one's watching. That's who a man is, isn't it? Besides, I rather imagine you miss things I'll never even get to see."
There it was. An exact, perfect summation of everything Jack was worried about with Ianto.
"Does it bother you?" he asked.
"That I'm earthbound? Timebound?" Ianto asked.
"Yeah."
"Yes. No. It depends. I like to go deep into things. Maybe the life I have is best for that. I don't know. It only really bothers me when you won't tell me about things."
"Why?"
"Who doesn't want to be told stories, Jack?"
"Lots of people," he said and shrugged.
"Really? Who?"
"People who get jealous. People who find it common."
"Being up there is not common, Jack. And jealous doesn't matter."
"You do it though."
"Sure, how could I not? Don't you? Doesn't everyone? Who wouldn't want all the stars for themselves?"
"It'd get lonely," Jack noted.
"I'd share," Ianto said softly.
There was a long silence. Jack kept his eyes on the road, feeling the unaccustomed sting of tears. He blinked a few times and luckily none fell.
“I don't want to miss things,” he said finally. “It seems disrespectful. I love it here. And even with all the time in the world, it seems like murder to waste it on regret. And yet, I do. I can't... there's so much loss to look forward to. Every time I get something, I worry now that all I'll be able to see is the end. I can't keep anything.”
There was no reply. Jack looked over at Ianto and realized his hand was lying slack next to him. Somewhere in there he'd dropped off. Jack shook his head. He was glad that Ianto hadn't heard his maudlin rambling.
A long time ago, orbiting a far off star -- how many lifetimes ago was it now? -- when here, this time and place, was just something he'd fallen in love with from books and vids, when it was just an obsession, a period, when he'd loved it the way you only can when it's not real, when he'd swallowed up every last piece of information about it he could find, he'd read a poem.
“Nothing gold can stay,” he whispered into the night. He was quiet for a few minutes, before looking over at Ianto sleeping next to him and smiled to himself.
“And you,” he said. “how do you always manage to surprise me?”
Jack parked the car in front of Ianto's house and got out to open Ianto's door.
“Come on, sleeping beauty,” he said “Time to wake up.”
Ianto stretched like a cat and smiled, oddly not feeling guilty about falling asleep at all. Well, a little. He and Jack had been talking about something serious, and it wasn't cruel, and he felt a little stupid to have missed that, but it was all right. Maybe his falling asleep was what had managed to keep it good.
Jack bent over to help Ianto out of the car. Surely he wasn't so drunk he couldn't have forced himself to do it on his own, but Jack saw Ianto not wanting to sober up, to stretch this moment past the bounds of ordinary seconds and minutes and moments, and Jack was more than glad to be complicit, especially when he pulled Ianto up and into his arms, lips moving against his neck murmuring something Jack couldn't catch. Hell, he wasn't even sure it was actually words.
Ianto looked up. And then told Jack to do the same. There were stars, but not what there should have been -- there weren't in any earth city in this time, Jack knew. It was too hard to see with the lights of buildings, of towers, of a world that really didn't need to be turned on all the time and yet insisted on it.
"What am I looking at?" Jack asked, tilting his head up and keeping an arm around Ianto's shoulders.
Ianto shrugged. "Have to share from here for now. Thought I should practice."
Jack kissed his cheek. "Inside," he said gently and shoved the car door closed with a bump of his hip and nudged Ianto towards his front door. "You now. The stars'll wait."
Ianto let Jack feel in his pocket for the keys, let Jack man-handle him up the stairs, and then just stood still in the center of his sitting room, feeling the unaccustomed languor just seep through his bones.
Jack was undressing him now, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders, undoing his tie, pressing kisses into his collarbone as he unbuttoned his shirt.
“I can't--” Ianto said. Somehow he almost felt like he was still in the car, hurtling down the road, in circles though now. Or like he was falling in a long tunnel as everything moved round him.
“Shhh,” Jack said. “I've got you.”
Jack bent to undo his shoes, and Ianto felt his eyes water. “You shouldn't be...I should--”
“You're fine,” Jack said. “Let me do this. I want to.”
"Why?" Ianto finally managed.
"You offered to share the stars with me. Least I can do is share my dexterity," Jack said lightly as he got Ianto out of his shoes and socks.
It seemed to placate Ianto, who said, "Okay," albeit somewhat dubiously, as Jack got him out of the last of his clothes, skimming his trousers down over his hips and smoothing his hands over Ianto's legs far more than was necessary as he helped the man step out of them.
Jack stood and took his hand. "Let's get you in bed," he said.
"I don't want to go back to sleep," he replied, and it was a perfectly simple statement that somehow made Jack's breath catch.
"I won't let you," Jack said, glad for a promise he could make in secret.
He led Ianto into the bedroom, pulled back the bed clothes, and pushed him down onto the bed. He was still dressed, and he felt the other man clutch at his shirt as he bit at his lip and ran his hands up over Ianto's shoulders. Ianto lay pliant beneath him, his mouth open for Jack's kisses, and Jack was happy to oblige. With his tongue he traced a slow, wet line from the corner of his jaw to his collarbone, before biting Ianto's neck, and feeling the skin and muscle between his teeth.
Ianto moaned.
“I'm going to lick every inch of you,” Jack muttered hoarsely. “You'll be singing my name before I'm done.”
He kissed down Ianto's chest, sucked a nipple into his mouth, flicked it with his tongue. Ianto made no sound, and Jack looked up. Was he drifting?
“Stay with me, damn it,” he said.
Ianto hummed happily. "'S'nice," he mumbled, "half asleep."
"Just half," Jack said firmly, although he supposed matters of consent and consciousness were complex enough between them that this should barely be at issue.
"Just half," Ianto repeated with a lazy smile.
"All right," Jack said, "but you want this? I want to hear you."
"Yes," Ianto breathed as Jack's tongue found the hollow of his throat and then returned to his nipple, this time pressing it between tongue and teeth. He hissed, and Jack was pleased.
He dragged his face down Ianto's side, listened to the rasp of his stubble against Ianto's skin, felt the other man twist under him.
"All over, I said. Which does not mean you're getting your cock sucked this instant."
Ianto arched his back and laughed, quiet, breathy, like he wanted it all to be a dream.
Jack pressed one of Ianto's legs up, licked the back of his thigh, sucked at the dangerously soft skin behind his knee, fitted his lips along the edge of his calf muscle, kissed the arch of his foot. Ianto moaned, but it was high and startled, and Jack knew that Lisa or whoever else Ianto had been with might have been and done many things, but they hadn't had the faintest clue how to adore and worship and praise a man. It was too complicated, too messy for the struggles of the 21st century. And it was a shame, Jack thought, for everyone, as he licked a circle around Ianto's ankle bone and then blew on it.
Ianto gasped. This was a strange, easy, lazy thing, but he needed to be here, be present, he reminded himself. Lest Jack think he was alone in the dark. Jack hated the dark, no matter what he said.
Ianto hummed, and said Jack's name as the man ran his nails up his leg and along his side. He shoved a hand into Jack's hair, tightened his fingers and pulled just a bit. It was so nice, drifting and holding on any way he could. And it made him sad that there was no way to do this same thing for Jack because Jack could never get drunk again.
"Less clothes," he said instead. As much as there really was something for the rough wool and smooth cotton of Jack's clothes, he wanted to feel him, skin against skin in this warm, wet place without stars.
He felt Jack pull away, heard the rustle of clothes coming off and falling to the floor, realized from somewhere far away that he could ask for anything now, and Jack would try to give it to him. Anything he wanted, but this was all there was. Jack against him now, feeling the warmth of his body, naked now, smooth and hard.
Jack's tongue traced designs on his hip bone, patterned with careful intent, but he couldn't follow them, except to gasp.
“Are you writing words on my skin?” he whispered
“Yes,” Jack said, his words muffled against Ianto's thigh.
“I can't understand them,” he confessed.
“They're not letters you know,” Jack said, and Ianto felt as if he might drown in the grief and wonder of it, laid out here as a canvas for the author of an alphabet not yet born.
Jack nipped gently at Ianto's balls, blew into his hair, and Ianto whimpered. Each touch felt like it was searing itself into him, and he writhed into it, wanting Jack to press harder, deeper, swallow him whole.
Jack turned him over then, licked down his spine, and Ianto shivered. He felt Jack's mouth on the back of his thigh, felt his tongue flick teasingly at the curve of his arse.
Ianto's back arched at that.
“You like that, don't you?” Jack said.
"Of course," Ianto said, and while it was with a breathless laugh, it felt like every word meant something other than the obvious.
Jack did it again, and Ianto moaned. And when he held him open Ianto gasped in the moment before Jack's tongue touched him, because he knew what he was going to do and knew somehow that he'd want to die from the perfection of it.
"That's right," Jack murmured, as if he'd heard the thought.
Ianto shifted, impatient. Jack finally put his tongue to him, laving across his hole, and Ianto moaned. When Jack echoed the sound, he started to beg, and then tried to stop, lest he sob or offer too strange praise, and if Jack weren't careful, he'd come just like this, hips circling against his mattress and Jack's face buried against his arse.
He felt Jack reach under him, and wrap his fist around his cock, stroking it just right, as he pressed his tongue further into him, swirling it into his hole. Ianto's fingers mindlessly clenched and unclenched on the sheets, and he felt himself yearn helplessly toward the orgasm Jack was pulling out of him with every lick and thrust, every time he felt his fingers rub over his cock.
“I can't..I...I'm going to come,” he moaned, almost in despair.
Jack only plunged his tongue in deeper, stroked him harder, and when Jack cupped his balls with his other hand, Ianto could could hold on no longer, and he came in Jack's fist with four pulsing jets that blazed through his body like bullets.
When he could think again, he realized Jack was still idly kissing the curve of his arse.
“I --” he started, trying to move.
“Don't you dare,” Jack said, restraining him.
Jack slithered his way up the bed, and then pulled Ianto against him so they could lie spoon fashion. He pressed two fingers to Ianto's lips.
“Taste yourself,” he said, and Ianto obediently sucked them into his mouth. His come was, as always, bitter and astringent, but he swirled his tongue around Jack's fingers anyway, loving the feel of them in his mouth.
When they were clean, Jack pulled them out of his mouth, and Ianto made a protesting noise.
“Don't you want to come?” he asked sleepily.
“I'm good,” Jack said. “Really. That was... Thank you.”
Ianto wanted to tell Jack he was strange or a liar, but something in the man's wordless wonder made him stop. It would be cruel to ruin the moment. Besides Ianto was so very tired.
"Are you staying?" he asked.
Ianto hoped he was staying.
Jack shook his head. "The Rift waits for no man," he murmured dryly.
"Need a better solution," Ianto said, and Jack knew, that on some level he was supposed to run screaming from the matter of fact possessive domesticity of what was really just Ianto wanting his comfort. Certainly he was getting awfully close to being the boyfriend now, from being a cad every time he had to leave, to making up for it with elaborate schemes, but it wasn't like he was running off to sleep elsewhere. Hell, he wasn't even running off to sleep. He was running off to save the world. And hide from this. Just a little.
"You need sleep," Jack said. "I'll stay 'til you drift off," he added, petting Ianto's hair.
"Won't be long," Ianto said a bit sadly.
"No, but you are fun all muzzy like this."
Ianto growled at him playfully, and Jack smiled. He listened to Ianto's breaths even out slowly, and he was starting to think that he had gone around the corner when Ianto spoke, startling him.
“Did you really call me an egg before? Or did I dream it?” he mumbled.
Jack chuckled soundlessly against Ianto's hair.
“No,” he replied. “I did.”
Ianto made a questioning noise.
“There's all this inside you,” Jack said softly, knowing there was no way Ianto would remember this come morning. “Hidden behind this fragile, beautiful shell of suits and restraint. I want to break it open and spill you out. Turn you into what you're meant to be. I can see it, you know. All that potential.”
There was no reply.
“And that's why I like you off balance,” he finished. “I want to see what you'll do.”
"Potential for what?" Ianto asked sleepily.
"Anything you want, I think," Jack said. "Once you really learn how, you'll probably be a better leader than me in a lot of ways."
Ianto snorted. "Captain Ianto. Sounds silly."
"Well, yes. Wrong title for you."
"Not a soldier," Ianto mumbled.
"Not always, if you're lucky," Jack agreed softly.
Ianto stirred against him, as if trying to get their bodies closer, and Jack smiled in the dark.
“You won't be here when I wake up,” he said, as if trying to repeat a lesson learned by rote, his voice sounding really half asleep now.
“No,” Jack said. “I won't.”
“You-”
“Don't worry,” Jack said. “I'll be there, waiting for you. It all will. New day. New work.”
He looked down at Ianto's face and laughed a little.
“New hangover,” he added. “Go to sleep now.”
He felt Ianto relax against him, as if all he'd needed was that command, to fall away from Jack into that place where he could no longer follow.
Jack waited in the dark, alone now, counting breaths, until he felt it was safe to pull away, gently slide out of the bed, cover Ianto with the blanket, collect his clothes and walk softly out of the room.
After he was dressed and had shrugged on his coat, he slipped Ianto's car and house keys out of his pocket and left them by the coffee maker. He thought about leaving a note but decided maybe silence said more. It wasn't right to be proud of yourself for doing what should be done...especially if it should have been obvious in the first place, Jack thought with some irony. He remembered that lesson from his childhood, although he'd never been very good at it.
He let himself out of Ianto's apartment quietly, checking to make sure the door had locked behind him automatically.
He took a deep breath and looked up at the meager stars Ianto had promised he'd share. He shook his head and laughed. It was a beautiful night, and he was thankful for that. It was, after all, a long walk back to the Hub, but he was glad of that too. There was a lot to think about, and sometimes it was easier to do it in motion.
Not often, but sometimes, in the night as the city slept around him, Jack felt so very small against the backdrop of even this tiny world, and all those ordinary lives rushing past him as he tried and failed to hold on, dwarfed as he was by his own life span, stretching out behind him, and so much further in front of him that he knew – even with all his newfound acceptance gained in that long year which never was – he couldn't even begin to imagine.
But not tonight. As he walked through the streets, feeling his heels click against the pavement, his coat open and blowing behind him in the breeze, the night swirling around him, he owned this moment. He didn't have much, he thought ruefully, and what he did have, he couldn't keep. But still, for now, there was this moment, and there were all the ghosts who walked with him, all those people and places and times to which he'd given all of his heart, poured out all of himself, those he'd defended, and those he'd failed. They were all lost to him, and yet they were his, he thought, with a kind of fierce exaltation, and for now at least, he could still remember, still walk through this city and cry all their names.
And his work - that went on, that survived.
Behind him, somewhere there was a boy, asleep in his bed. Not yet a ghost, but one day, not so very far away, he would be. And there was nothing that Jack could do about it but endure.
He laughed again.
“Okay,” he said to the silent dark. “It doesn't matter. I give up. I give in. No more running. No more rebellion. It never worked anyway. After all, it got me here.”
But whether he spoke to the ghosts, or to the long future ahead, or to the boy, or even if he spoke the truth, he wasn't sure.
end
Continue to The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Tosh, Gwen, Owen
Authors:
rm & kalichanRating/Warning: NC-17, mostly plot this time, with a serving of porn for dessert.
Summary: With every night, a morning after. Jack and Ianto try to cope.
Author's Notes: Concludes the triptych begun with A Strange Fashion of Forsaking and Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny; takes place after those two stories somewhere in between 2x05: Adam and 2x06: Reset. Title adapted from a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido. The next story in this 'verse will be coming soon; it will pick up after 2x09: Something Borrowed. Third installment of I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling
Wordcount: 16,700
Part 1
Part 2
When the song ended Jack knew they should drop hands and clap politely and pretend they weren't being quite so over the top, but it was hard to do that with a smirking, panting Ianto staring at his mouth, and he stuttered into it, only managing to pick up the clapping just as it was dying out.
Jack applauded loudly anyway, throwing in a whistle for good measure. Everyone was indeed looking at them, and Jack smirked at the crowd, decided what the hell, and leaned in to planted a kiss on Ianto's upturned mouth. The kiss quickly turned sloppy and hot, as Ianto's tongue darted into his mouth, and Jack tasted the alcohol on his breath and grinned.
“We should really do this more often,” he whispered against Ianto's mouth. “I like you like this. I like it when you let go.”
“Mmm,” Ianto mumbled, and fumbled at Jack's collar as he pressed up against him.
“Hey,” Jack said, laughing as he fended him off slightly, only because he was sure Ianto would never forgive him if he remembered this the next day. “Whoa there.”
“No,” Ianto said. “This is fun.” He bit at Jack's neck clumsily, and Jack felt himself heat up as he saw all the people watching, their mouths hanging open.
“Okay,” Jack said firmly. “That's it. We're going to go now.”
“Go?” Ianto said.
“Yes,” Jack said, pulling him by the hand. “I'm going to take you home and do indescribably filthy things to you. Don't say you haven't been warned.”
"But the descriptions are so interesting," Ianto protested as Jack led him out of the hall, wondering that Ianto apparently now had him so well-trained that he was respecting the very restraint that the other man had somehow abandoned.
"Yes, but there's something to be said for the element of surprise and whatever filthy things your mind is going to come up with while you try to figure it out," Jack said, trying to be as efficient as possible about getting them to the car. That way, even if they didn't make it back to Ianto's flat directly, they could have at each other with some small degree of discretion. Jack just hoped that Ianto would remain in this perfect place, before he got bored or tired as people drinking invariably did at the most inconvenient times.
Ianto kissed him again when he opened the door to the car.
"Get in," he said, and helped guide the man into his seat before closing the door and walking around to the other side.
"I assume I'm not taking the long way tonight?" Jack asked.
"No," Ianto said and placed his hand on Jack's thigh.
Jack laughed and raised an eyebrow. "Careful."
“Why?” Ianto asked.
“Because,” Jack said, as he started up the car. “I don't want to run you into a tree.”
Ianto moved his hand up to Jack's crotch, and he sucked in his breath.
“Can't you multi-task, sir?” Ianto said.
“I'd like to be able to give you my full attention,” Jack replied, flooring the gas. “You can keep doing that, though, if you want.”
Ianto had his head thrown back, and his eyes were half-lidded with arousal. “I think I'm getting drunker,” he said. “I thought I'd hit the peak, but it just keeps on building. Everything is...it's nice. It glows. And the car. And you. I like it. ”
“Lightweight,” Jack said, with a smile.
Distantly, Ianto was glad Jack hadn't called him a cheap date. This was kinder. Fond. Jack was fond of him. It seemed obvious, but also desperately peculiar. After all, he had invested so much energy in thinking of Jack as selfish. Selfish for always being the center of attention, selfish for not ever saying anything about himself. Selfish for Lisa. And for leaving. And for John fucking Hart and for taking his car. But Jack was fond of him. And generous in his way. And very, very bad at it. The thought made Ianto smile.
Jack caught it out of the corner of his eye as he pulled the car out into traffic. "What?" he asked, and Ianto decided to lie, although the lie was true too.
"With my eyes closed," he said, "I can pretend we're out there, up there," he said.
"Would you like that?" Jack asked, curious. Ianto had always seemed so happily fixed in place. The wonders that drifted in on the Rift enough for him when they weren't too much.
"I know how you drive. So that, that must be something."
Jack chuckled. "I'm pretty good. Thing is, and I hate to disappoint you, but so much of what you'd call a spaceship is so over-engineered, and believe me, it has to be, that you'd never feel it, never feel the speed or the rush or what would seem like the impossibility of it to you. Unless we were in trouble."
Ianto opened his eyes and rolled his head against the headrest to look at Jack. "Only you could make crash landings seem appealing."
“Maybe I'll be able to take you up. Someday. Show you the planet-rise. It's a sight to see. Better than a sunset, I think.”
“Is that what they do? Lovers, I mean, where you come from? Is that what you did to impress your dates? Sixteen year old boys and girls sighing for you and your tarted up spaceship....”
“Not me. I was poor, growing up. Didn't have a ship of my own. But later, sure. When I had money.”
“The world's spinning,” Ianto said. “In my head. I can feel it. It's funny how you feel things when you can't see them.”
“Funny,” Jack agreed.
“D'you miss it? Flying?”
Jack glanced over at him, and saw that he had his eyes closed, and a hand out of the window, playing with the wind. “Why are you always asking me about the things I miss?”
"Because I want to know what you think about when you're alone, when no one's watching. That's who a man is, isn't it? Besides, I rather imagine you miss things I'll never even get to see."
There it was. An exact, perfect summation of everything Jack was worried about with Ianto.
"Does it bother you?" he asked.
"That I'm earthbound? Timebound?" Ianto asked.
"Yeah."
"Yes. No. It depends. I like to go deep into things. Maybe the life I have is best for that. I don't know. It only really bothers me when you won't tell me about things."
"Why?"
"Who doesn't want to be told stories, Jack?"
"Lots of people," he said and shrugged.
"Really? Who?"
"People who get jealous. People who find it common."
"Being up there is not common, Jack. And jealous doesn't matter."
"You do it though."
"Sure, how could I not? Don't you? Doesn't everyone? Who wouldn't want all the stars for themselves?"
"It'd get lonely," Jack noted.
"I'd share," Ianto said softly.
There was a long silence. Jack kept his eyes on the road, feeling the unaccustomed sting of tears. He blinked a few times and luckily none fell.
“I don't want to miss things,” he said finally. “It seems disrespectful. I love it here. And even with all the time in the world, it seems like murder to waste it on regret. And yet, I do. I can't... there's so much loss to look forward to. Every time I get something, I worry now that all I'll be able to see is the end. I can't keep anything.”
There was no reply. Jack looked over at Ianto and realized his hand was lying slack next to him. Somewhere in there he'd dropped off. Jack shook his head. He was glad that Ianto hadn't heard his maudlin rambling.
A long time ago, orbiting a far off star -- how many lifetimes ago was it now? -- when here, this time and place, was just something he'd fallen in love with from books and vids, when it was just an obsession, a period, when he'd loved it the way you only can when it's not real, when he'd swallowed up every last piece of information about it he could find, he'd read a poem.
“Nothing gold can stay,” he whispered into the night. He was quiet for a few minutes, before looking over at Ianto sleeping next to him and smiled to himself.
“And you,” he said. “how do you always manage to surprise me?”
Jack parked the car in front of Ianto's house and got out to open Ianto's door.
“Come on, sleeping beauty,” he said “Time to wake up.”
Ianto stretched like a cat and smiled, oddly not feeling guilty about falling asleep at all. Well, a little. He and Jack had been talking about something serious, and it wasn't cruel, and he felt a little stupid to have missed that, but it was all right. Maybe his falling asleep was what had managed to keep it good.
Jack bent over to help Ianto out of the car. Surely he wasn't so drunk he couldn't have forced himself to do it on his own, but Jack saw Ianto not wanting to sober up, to stretch this moment past the bounds of ordinary seconds and minutes and moments, and Jack was more than glad to be complicit, especially when he pulled Ianto up and into his arms, lips moving against his neck murmuring something Jack couldn't catch. Hell, he wasn't even sure it was actually words.
Ianto looked up. And then told Jack to do the same. There were stars, but not what there should have been -- there weren't in any earth city in this time, Jack knew. It was too hard to see with the lights of buildings, of towers, of a world that really didn't need to be turned on all the time and yet insisted on it.
"What am I looking at?" Jack asked, tilting his head up and keeping an arm around Ianto's shoulders.
Ianto shrugged. "Have to share from here for now. Thought I should practice."
Jack kissed his cheek. "Inside," he said gently and shoved the car door closed with a bump of his hip and nudged Ianto towards his front door. "You now. The stars'll wait."
Ianto let Jack feel in his pocket for the keys, let Jack man-handle him up the stairs, and then just stood still in the center of his sitting room, feeling the unaccustomed languor just seep through his bones.
Jack was undressing him now, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders, undoing his tie, pressing kisses into his collarbone as he unbuttoned his shirt.
“I can't--” Ianto said. Somehow he almost felt like he was still in the car, hurtling down the road, in circles though now. Or like he was falling in a long tunnel as everything moved round him.
“Shhh,” Jack said. “I've got you.”
Jack bent to undo his shoes, and Ianto felt his eyes water. “You shouldn't be...I should--”
“You're fine,” Jack said. “Let me do this. I want to.”
"Why?" Ianto finally managed.
"You offered to share the stars with me. Least I can do is share my dexterity," Jack said lightly as he got Ianto out of his shoes and socks.
It seemed to placate Ianto, who said, "Okay," albeit somewhat dubiously, as Jack got him out of the last of his clothes, skimming his trousers down over his hips and smoothing his hands over Ianto's legs far more than was necessary as he helped the man step out of them.
Jack stood and took his hand. "Let's get you in bed," he said.
"I don't want to go back to sleep," he replied, and it was a perfectly simple statement that somehow made Jack's breath catch.
"I won't let you," Jack said, glad for a promise he could make in secret.
He led Ianto into the bedroom, pulled back the bed clothes, and pushed him down onto the bed. He was still dressed, and he felt the other man clutch at his shirt as he bit at his lip and ran his hands up over Ianto's shoulders. Ianto lay pliant beneath him, his mouth open for Jack's kisses, and Jack was happy to oblige. With his tongue he traced a slow, wet line from the corner of his jaw to his collarbone, before biting Ianto's neck, and feeling the skin and muscle between his teeth.
Ianto moaned.
“I'm going to lick every inch of you,” Jack muttered hoarsely. “You'll be singing my name before I'm done.”
He kissed down Ianto's chest, sucked a nipple into his mouth, flicked it with his tongue. Ianto made no sound, and Jack looked up. Was he drifting?
“Stay with me, damn it,” he said.
Ianto hummed happily. "'S'nice," he mumbled, "half asleep."
"Just half," Jack said firmly, although he supposed matters of consent and consciousness were complex enough between them that this should barely be at issue.
"Just half," Ianto repeated with a lazy smile.
"All right," Jack said, "but you want this? I want to hear you."
"Yes," Ianto breathed as Jack's tongue found the hollow of his throat and then returned to his nipple, this time pressing it between tongue and teeth. He hissed, and Jack was pleased.
He dragged his face down Ianto's side, listened to the rasp of his stubble against Ianto's skin, felt the other man twist under him.
"All over, I said. Which does not mean you're getting your cock sucked this instant."
Ianto arched his back and laughed, quiet, breathy, like he wanted it all to be a dream.
Jack pressed one of Ianto's legs up, licked the back of his thigh, sucked at the dangerously soft skin behind his knee, fitted his lips along the edge of his calf muscle, kissed the arch of his foot. Ianto moaned, but it was high and startled, and Jack knew that Lisa or whoever else Ianto had been with might have been and done many things, but they hadn't had the faintest clue how to adore and worship and praise a man. It was too complicated, too messy for the struggles of the 21st century. And it was a shame, Jack thought, for everyone, as he licked a circle around Ianto's ankle bone and then blew on it.
Ianto gasped. This was a strange, easy, lazy thing, but he needed to be here, be present, he reminded himself. Lest Jack think he was alone in the dark. Jack hated the dark, no matter what he said.
Ianto hummed, and said Jack's name as the man ran his nails up his leg and along his side. He shoved a hand into Jack's hair, tightened his fingers and pulled just a bit. It was so nice, drifting and holding on any way he could. And it made him sad that there was no way to do this same thing for Jack because Jack could never get drunk again.
"Less clothes," he said instead. As much as there really was something for the rough wool and smooth cotton of Jack's clothes, he wanted to feel him, skin against skin in this warm, wet place without stars.
He felt Jack pull away, heard the rustle of clothes coming off and falling to the floor, realized from somewhere far away that he could ask for anything now, and Jack would try to give it to him. Anything he wanted, but this was all there was. Jack against him now, feeling the warmth of his body, naked now, smooth and hard.
Jack's tongue traced designs on his hip bone, patterned with careful intent, but he couldn't follow them, except to gasp.
“Are you writing words on my skin?” he whispered
“Yes,” Jack said, his words muffled against Ianto's thigh.
“I can't understand them,” he confessed.
“They're not letters you know,” Jack said, and Ianto felt as if he might drown in the grief and wonder of it, laid out here as a canvas for the author of an alphabet not yet born.
Jack nipped gently at Ianto's balls, blew into his hair, and Ianto whimpered. Each touch felt like it was searing itself into him, and he writhed into it, wanting Jack to press harder, deeper, swallow him whole.
Jack turned him over then, licked down his spine, and Ianto shivered. He felt Jack's mouth on the back of his thigh, felt his tongue flick teasingly at the curve of his arse.
Ianto's back arched at that.
“You like that, don't you?” Jack said.
"Of course," Ianto said, and while it was with a breathless laugh, it felt like every word meant something other than the obvious.
Jack did it again, and Ianto moaned. And when he held him open Ianto gasped in the moment before Jack's tongue touched him, because he knew what he was going to do and knew somehow that he'd want to die from the perfection of it.
"That's right," Jack murmured, as if he'd heard the thought.
Ianto shifted, impatient. Jack finally put his tongue to him, laving across his hole, and Ianto moaned. When Jack echoed the sound, he started to beg, and then tried to stop, lest he sob or offer too strange praise, and if Jack weren't careful, he'd come just like this, hips circling against his mattress and Jack's face buried against his arse.
He felt Jack reach under him, and wrap his fist around his cock, stroking it just right, as he pressed his tongue further into him, swirling it into his hole. Ianto's fingers mindlessly clenched and unclenched on the sheets, and he felt himself yearn helplessly toward the orgasm Jack was pulling out of him with every lick and thrust, every time he felt his fingers rub over his cock.
“I can't..I...I'm going to come,” he moaned, almost in despair.
Jack only plunged his tongue in deeper, stroked him harder, and when Jack cupped his balls with his other hand, Ianto could could hold on no longer, and he came in Jack's fist with four pulsing jets that blazed through his body like bullets.
When he could think again, he realized Jack was still idly kissing the curve of his arse.
“I --” he started, trying to move.
“Don't you dare,” Jack said, restraining him.
Jack slithered his way up the bed, and then pulled Ianto against him so they could lie spoon fashion. He pressed two fingers to Ianto's lips.
“Taste yourself,” he said, and Ianto obediently sucked them into his mouth. His come was, as always, bitter and astringent, but he swirled his tongue around Jack's fingers anyway, loving the feel of them in his mouth.
When they were clean, Jack pulled them out of his mouth, and Ianto made a protesting noise.
“Don't you want to come?” he asked sleepily.
“I'm good,” Jack said. “Really. That was... Thank you.”
Ianto wanted to tell Jack he was strange or a liar, but something in the man's wordless wonder made him stop. It would be cruel to ruin the moment. Besides Ianto was so very tired.
"Are you staying?" he asked.
Ianto hoped he was staying.
Jack shook his head. "The Rift waits for no man," he murmured dryly.
"Need a better solution," Ianto said, and Jack knew, that on some level he was supposed to run screaming from the matter of fact possessive domesticity of what was really just Ianto wanting his comfort. Certainly he was getting awfully close to being the boyfriend now, from being a cad every time he had to leave, to making up for it with elaborate schemes, but it wasn't like he was running off to sleep elsewhere. Hell, he wasn't even running off to sleep. He was running off to save the world. And hide from this. Just a little.
"You need sleep," Jack said. "I'll stay 'til you drift off," he added, petting Ianto's hair.
"Won't be long," Ianto said a bit sadly.
"No, but you are fun all muzzy like this."
Ianto growled at him playfully, and Jack smiled. He listened to Ianto's breaths even out slowly, and he was starting to think that he had gone around the corner when Ianto spoke, startling him.
“Did you really call me an egg before? Or did I dream it?” he mumbled.
Jack chuckled soundlessly against Ianto's hair.
“No,” he replied. “I did.”
Ianto made a questioning noise.
“There's all this inside you,” Jack said softly, knowing there was no way Ianto would remember this come morning. “Hidden behind this fragile, beautiful shell of suits and restraint. I want to break it open and spill you out. Turn you into what you're meant to be. I can see it, you know. All that potential.”
There was no reply.
“And that's why I like you off balance,” he finished. “I want to see what you'll do.”
"Potential for what?" Ianto asked sleepily.
"Anything you want, I think," Jack said. "Once you really learn how, you'll probably be a better leader than me in a lot of ways."
Ianto snorted. "Captain Ianto. Sounds silly."
"Well, yes. Wrong title for you."
"Not a soldier," Ianto mumbled.
"Not always, if you're lucky," Jack agreed softly.
Ianto stirred against him, as if trying to get their bodies closer, and Jack smiled in the dark.
“You won't be here when I wake up,” he said, as if trying to repeat a lesson learned by rote, his voice sounding really half asleep now.
“No,” Jack said. “I won't.”
“You-”
“Don't worry,” Jack said. “I'll be there, waiting for you. It all will. New day. New work.”
He looked down at Ianto's face and laughed a little.
“New hangover,” he added. “Go to sleep now.”
He felt Ianto relax against him, as if all he'd needed was that command, to fall away from Jack into that place where he could no longer follow.
Jack waited in the dark, alone now, counting breaths, until he felt it was safe to pull away, gently slide out of the bed, cover Ianto with the blanket, collect his clothes and walk softly out of the room.
After he was dressed and had shrugged on his coat, he slipped Ianto's car and house keys out of his pocket and left them by the coffee maker. He thought about leaving a note but decided maybe silence said more. It wasn't right to be proud of yourself for doing what should be done...especially if it should have been obvious in the first place, Jack thought with some irony. He remembered that lesson from his childhood, although he'd never been very good at it.
He let himself out of Ianto's apartment quietly, checking to make sure the door had locked behind him automatically.
He took a deep breath and looked up at the meager stars Ianto had promised he'd share. He shook his head and laughed. It was a beautiful night, and he was thankful for that. It was, after all, a long walk back to the Hub, but he was glad of that too. There was a lot to think about, and sometimes it was easier to do it in motion.
Not often, but sometimes, in the night as the city slept around him, Jack felt so very small against the backdrop of even this tiny world, and all those ordinary lives rushing past him as he tried and failed to hold on, dwarfed as he was by his own life span, stretching out behind him, and so much further in front of him that he knew – even with all his newfound acceptance gained in that long year which never was – he couldn't even begin to imagine.
But not tonight. As he walked through the streets, feeling his heels click against the pavement, his coat open and blowing behind him in the breeze, the night swirling around him, he owned this moment. He didn't have much, he thought ruefully, and what he did have, he couldn't keep. But still, for now, there was this moment, and there were all the ghosts who walked with him, all those people and places and times to which he'd given all of his heart, poured out all of himself, those he'd defended, and those he'd failed. They were all lost to him, and yet they were his, he thought, with a kind of fierce exaltation, and for now at least, he could still remember, still walk through this city and cry all their names.
And his work - that went on, that survived.
Behind him, somewhere there was a boy, asleep in his bed. Not yet a ghost, but one day, not so very far away, he would be. And there was nothing that Jack could do about it but endure.
He laughed again.
“Okay,” he said to the silent dark. “It doesn't matter. I give up. I give in. No more running. No more rebellion. It never worked anyway. After all, it got me here.”
But whether he spoke to the ghosts, or to the long future ahead, or to the boy, or even if he spoke the truth, he wasn't sure.
Continue to The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 04:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 06:16 pm (UTC)Can I ask what you had trouble with in the earlier part of the story? *is curious*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 07:44 pm (UTC)As a reader, I find it very frustrating to see Ianto so angry, so quickly and for an extended period time, when the premise of his anger is fairly easily resolved via straight-forward communication and when part of Jack's impetus was supposed to be at least somewhat generous; Ianto comes off as petty and irrational. Maybe if the buildup had been slower, like Jack's been shown doing those sorts of condescending things repeatedly, and Ianto had tried to talk about that previously, I would have been more inclined to be open to that rather than just frustrated with the premise.
I also don't buy Jack as being surprised or bewildered or oblivious to Ianto's fears about homophobia, especially in the company of the older generation. To your credit, you included that bit about "thank god for the 70s," but we all know that it's still relatively taboo, and I just don't believe that Jack wouldn't have considered it. I'm not saying that he wouldn't have basically behaved that way, and I liked the way you had Jack take the "fuck them" position, but the fact you had Jack behave so dismissively about it in the first place did not sit right with me. He lived 100 years (or more) in the 20th Century: Jack understands people, even (maybe especially) their homophobia.
Please don't mistake me: I think this is a beautifully written piece -- erudite and ultimately *very* moving -- and those things I point out above are probably more a product of seeing similar things done really badly by other authors. But I did find myself resistant to those two plot elements, which was all the more highlighted because I liked this so much at a higher level.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:18 pm (UTC)Talking about this stuff is one of my favorite things, so here are a few of my thoughts re: the things you mentioned.
Am pondering your point about Ianto's anger. I think it's an easy space (too easy?) for writers to go to in order to create conflict, and it's possible that we fell prey to that. I do think that Jack would be a very hard person to be in a relationship with, especially if you worked for him. How does someone stand up for themselves, without being totally bowled over by his superior, well, everything? We don't see Ianto being angry on the show ever; he never shouts at Jack, or really goes up against him in any way besides the occasional snarky comment. But on the other hand, we know he has a huge fund of anger inside him. (i.e. normal ppl do not keep cybergirlfriends in the basement at work.) Trying to make all the pieces fit can be very hard, and it's something we struggled with, and clearly should struggle with even more ;-)
In regards to the homophobia thing, I do think that Jack has the potential to really understand people, especially when he thinks about it. However, in the show, I also see him repeatedly misjudging or giving people too much credit for getting past their own bullshit, and I think that being dismissive of homophobia can be one of those things. I was specifically thinking of (what I actually think is a very awesome momement) when Jack kisses real Jack in the dance hall, in the ep. Captain Jack Harkness. I was forced to wonder: When real!Jack gets shot down the next day - will his men be *ahem* covering him the same way they would have otherwise? Torchwood is a very queer space, which I love. It reflects, in many ways, the atmosphere in which I personally grew up, and live in now - I think actually
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:42 pm (UTC)It sounds overwrought, but it works, and it's a question someone needed to ask.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:57 pm (UTC)In regard to the kiss, though, it is real!Jack who takes that first public step: he's the one who asks Jack to dance, and their initial almost-kiss on the dance floor seems to be utterly mutual and very in-the-heat-of-the-moment for both of them.
But, anyway, I do want to say that you have a point overall about this sort of Jack depiction in canon. I certainly have my own ideas about Jack that I sometimes forget are my extrapolation from his situation on a logical level (and from personal experience with cross cultural assimilation). That frustration with the idea that Jack is a strange visitor in a strange land kind of rankles -- even when shown canon -- because while his "heritage" (if you will) is part of who he is, its not entirely his intrinsic frame of reference any more. After 130ish years in one place through mostly linear time, my perception of his adaptation to the culture is stronger than most others.
In regard to what rm said about Ianto's short temper and unresolved issues with Jack, I can see where you're coming from there. Like I said, I don't have a problem with the idea that you can explore the work/power aspect of their relationship, because it certainly has been a difficult sticking point in my perception of where they are "as a couple" (particularly after "Adam"); however, I would reiterate that it would have worked better for me if there had been a slower buildup to the point of his anger, or some context relating the other stuff has been bothering him. Because we never do see Ianto expressing anger over those sorts of things, it does take the reader by surprise and seem a little disjointed.
Again, please don't mistake me; I certainly do not perceive either one of them as being one-dimensional or Mary Sue like. Like the work, think it's interesting and smart.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 09:13 pm (UTC)With regards to the Ianto thing, I think you are right about the slower build up in order to show more of the path to where he is. We knew where we wanted to get, but the getting there, that's a different story all together ;-)
Seriously no worries about anything you've said - we love & appreciate hearing this stuff, and you being willing to talk about it. We can get really solipsistic when we are eaten by characters and worlds, so your feedback is really helpful and lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 10:01 pm (UTC)Thanking about Jack in the context of his 100 years in the 20th Century is something that I've pondered for awhile now. Ever since antelope_writes referred to him as a cultural alien, I've been relating to Jack in a different way. Strangely, I never really thought of my father as "an immigrant," though he certainly is, until I started thinking of Jack in that context; but I'm very much informed in that perception of Jack by my dad's experience. If nothing else, I can definitively say that my dad is certainly not what he would have been had he stayed in Mexico, and I know that when he goes there now he finds himself as much of a foreigner there as I would be. And yet, he is certainly not what he would have been had he been born American.
To understand this, I actually think back to classics (I *knew* that Latin degree would come in handy one day. Hah!), and the liberal cultural policies of the Roman Empire. One of the more esoteric and unexpected results of invasion by Rome was an output of high-quality of art and literature. The juxtaposition of the two cultures -- Rome allowed most of the conquered culture's general mores and society to remain somewhat in tact -- gave rise to some very high quality, innovative work, and I believe that the same can be said of Jack's persona. He's a work of art! (Sorry, couldn't resist.) But certainly, a product of sharply separate cultures that he'd eventually absorb into his characters and perceptions to ultimately change his personality and beliefs. (And certainly the ultimate outsider characteristic, the immortality, might be perceived as a third society of one).
I've also wondered whether with every new generation Jack must face a new cultural adaptation. Just like I don't *really* know what "ballin'" means (no, not the sex ballin', and you can't imagine the look on my face when 20-year-old Stewart told me my hat was ballin'), Jack has to learn those things all over again, too. He doesn't have the luxury of his own social peers to keep him insulated from the need to adapt, either (like, none of my friends would use the word ballin', so I might never had needed to learn the expression).
Oh... um, now I really do apologize for jacking (sorry again!) your LJ.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 10:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 10:34 pm (UTC)And your thoughts on Rome are very useful. Actually,
I myself am a first generation American as well, so I totally grok. With my parents though, I often wonder if they left the Old Country because there was something inside them that just didn't fit. They were misfits there, and they put themselves (and to some extent me) into a place where they could never completely belong, because somehow that not-belonging was coded in. After your comment, I started thinking about that in relationship to Jack and the Time Agency. Would someone who really fit in the time and place that they were born ever really take that as a job? I don't know if you also watch Who along with Torchwood, but that's very much a running theme with the Doctor as well. Last of the Timelords, blah blah blah, but really he was a total misfit who never got along with any of them and has spent his entire life running away like mad.
I really like your every new generation Jack having to learn cultural mores over again idea. I used to be (am still) an enormous Buffy fan, and one of the things that bugged me with later seasons was the way in which immortals didn't seem to evolve through the course of the show. Like when we met Spike for instance, we knew he'd changed his look prior to the show, but for the seven seasons of his time on the Joss-verse, he never really altered.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 10:38 pm (UTC)Dude, I totally started a fic about that two nights ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 09:30 am (UTC)...if the job provides the space they need to go, yes. That's exactly the reason I go to sea. I can get there what I will never, ever be able to get on land.
Living on a spaceship and living on a ship aren't far different.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 11:47 pm (UTC)And, as you brought it up: I often find myself referring to the Jossverse for answers and justifications when it comes to TW, and I get what you're saying about the immortality thing. I do understand Spike for about 6 seasons. Change and growth requires a certain selflessness, the recognition that your own wide world is, in fact, a small piece of a bigger world to which you're marginally obligated to adapt to as a member of society. But vampire Spike had no need to make those acknowledgments for most of those seasons; the demon in him was fundamentally selfish and interior. The demon had no need of the larger society because he didn't need to participate in it for any reason other than food. Ergo, change to adapt to it, not necessary.
I think there were the obvious changes to his character in season seven, but what *really, really* flummoxed me was old Spike, basically, showing up in the last season of Angel. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Spike!classic and was ecstatic to see him, BUT it really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, character-wise. Now that he has the soul, he would have that fundamental need to participate in society again, to have social peers, to interact and evolve to his current cultural environment. Hard to say to what degree that might have happened, but, in the end, he really was so much like Buffy season 4 and 5 as to be utterly confusing in the context of having the soul back.
Angel, however, was a different story, and there are lots of corollaries to Jack that I find informative but also odd. For example, it always bugged me that Angel was so in love with Buffy at the age of 16. Granted, she's not your typical 16 year old. And I'm totally willing to concede that Angel was NOT emotionally 240 (is that the right number? Well, something like that anyway); all the years spent as vampire don't count because it wasn't really him (and, per above, vampires have no emotional growth). So then he gets his soul back and goes stark raving mad, and even then I'm willing to give him a lot of latitude for profound state of arrested development due to lunacy.
But yet... well, thatitself should be enough to provide an enormous developmental gap between himself and Buffy, especially to start off with. (I buy it a lot more after she's gone through hell and back.) Those things that typically make a partnership strong (common values, perspectives, goals, methods of communication), the ability to fundamentally relate to the core of your partner's character seems impossible to me on opposite sides of Angel's vast experience. Other than taking "destiny" and "true love" on faith in the early season, I never could quite make the idea of them as emotional equals work in my head until much later. Being seduced by the idealized version of a person like Buffy - someone so special as to change the world - makes sense only for so long, and I think it was a good thing Angel left for LA.
Which brings me back around to Jack, and the difference in his experience in the 20th Century. I don't see him as having had the massive mental breakdown that Angel did, but I do imagine he spent some time bonkers (I firmly believe this, and wrote him nuts for a chapter in a fic I wrote). And I wonder how much TW itself plays into his emotional growth in those 130/40ish years. How much did TW remove him from the society that he couldn't possibly hope to fit into? Probably a lot, now that I think of it. And yet, culturally, he still has to relate to each new batch of field agents as they come in. (In society, but not of it, like we said.)
Maybe that's what so different about his current team, why he might be plausibly seen as falling for Gwen (as originally intended) or Ianto (like I hope); they really show Jack as being an outsider even to TW team members in "Fragments," so he'd have been more isolated than he became when he finally has his own team to run and protect. Maybe Torchwood is his own state of arrested development until it's his to run, and Jack *has* to "re-enter" society.
Of course, all that speculative rambling seems to be overstating things a bit, and discounts the army as well as his general personality.
*returns the crumpet. does not deserve for illogical ramblings*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-21 03:26 am (UTC)Okay, that was scary. Sorry. *stepping away slowly now.*
Er, yeah. Your actual points. I completely agree with you re: Spike on Angel. That was in fact what I meant, though looking back, I totally failed to make clear. His appearance there did not evolve linearly or even logically from where we left him in season 7 of Buffy. For that matter, Angel's appearance on season 7 also didn't make any sense; it was like all the ways in which he'd altered on his own show were poof! gone.
The degree to which the Jossverse seems to inform Torchwood are sort of stunning, in my opinion, and the way Jack plays against Angel in particular. Both of them are tied to the other characters on the show by bonds of work, and yet Jack's ability to give affection to his team outclasses Angel by a significant percentage. He really loves them, and for Angel, love always seemed very, very hard.
Jack built Torchwood 3 as we know it in homage to his idealized love for the Doctor; Angel on the other hand is trying to get away from something; Jack on the other hand is running towards, and in the service of that, he seems to really be crafting something intentional. For Angel, his companions in many ways seem incidental to what he's on about (which is usually some epic level of angst.)
For Jack, Ianto and Gwen were both the facets of Torchwood that he didn't create and rescue; they forced themselves in, they weren't part of the plan. So they can break into that shell of Doctor love that's isolating him from the world in a way that the others, though he does love them, can't.
BTW, I totally think that Jack as the 19th century Torchwood kinky lesbians knew him (Wow, I love them so much) was not, shall we say, right in the head. See also riding around with carnivals killing himself for fun & profit? Ooookay Jack. Not really playing with a full deck there.
Hey, this is fun! Mind if I friend?
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Date: 2008-07-21 03:32 am (UTC)Of course, my initial question here is one of the ways in which we got to snuff fic in the first place. But seriously, what the hell? I can see Owen blowing past the issue, but Ianto and Gwen?
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Date: 2008-07-21 04:00 am (UTC)The thing I'm currently working on is totally inspired by the "I Will Remember You" episode of "Angel" where he chooses to be what he is because I thought Jack needed an episode like that, too. (It's unfortunately been having a hard 2 months trying to make it out of my notebook [spiral] onto my notebook [Mac].) Although, mine's more about Jack trying to learn how to be vulnerable again than struggling with all his angst.
And damn if you're not right about Angel's epic ability to angst. I think that's one of the biggest differences between them: Jack is all action, all forward momentum. Angel's much more cerebral (did I just say that?) and emotional, and it's Jack's ability to live in the current moment that really makes him so much better suited for the life of an immortal.
(Please do friend away! I did.)
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Date: 2008-07-21 04:13 am (UTC)I lol'd, because I wrote a very long Phantom Menace AU set in ancient Rome, which came out of daydreaming in Latin class while translating sentences: The teacher gave the boy a cookie. XD XD XD
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Date: 2008-07-21 12:17 pm (UTC)And I liked the story a whole lot for being beautiful.
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Date: 2008-07-21 06:23 pm (UTC)p.s.
Date: 2008-07-20 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-20 08:39 pm (UTC)I work hard not to write these folks as Mary Sues (and it's really not a problem I feel like I have at all with Ianto, because he's not the character I identify with at all), but as someone with a short and sometimes peculiar temper, I don't think I even really stopped to question.
Anyway, I will let Kali go back to being SMRT for us, because I too enjoy talking through our stuff and trying to figure out why and how we did what we did (we've been writing together for a long time, but the process for TW is very different than our other projects). So thank you for being willing to engage the discussion (and finish the story!)
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Date: 2008-07-25 04:10 pm (UTC)