DW/TW Fic: Harbour
Feb. 2nd, 2009 02:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fictionalTitle: Harbour
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Ten + appearances by TW Team
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, slash, some hints of d/s, toys, romance, angst.
Summary: Everything happens only a certain number of times.
Wordcount: ~30,000 words, posted in 4 parts.
Authors' Notes: This is the final installment of our series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. Next up (eventually): some digressions and interludes, and a dvd commentary! Also, we'll be bringing you a new 'verse, with our as-yet-untitled Jenny/Ianto/Jack fic. Thank you all for coming on this journey with us. We've had a brilliant time.
Previous installments:
1. A Strange Fashion of Forsaking | 2. Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny | 3. To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back | 4. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World | 5. I Imagine You Now in That Other City | 6. Many of My Favorite Things Are Broken | 6.5 Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Truth, Beauty: or, A Child's Guide to Modern Physics | 7. In Our Bedroom After the War | 8. And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You [Jack/Nine/Rose] | 9. The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood [Ianto/OFCs, Ianto/Lisa] | 10. There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains To Bear Their Names To Time
In the constellation Yggdrasil there is a star around which several planets orbit. The second of these -- a small planet with a warm and humid climate -- is called Villengard. Once upon a time, it was a factory-planet, known throughout the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire and beyond as the finest producer of sonic weaponry in five galaxies, providing arms and armaments to legitimate governments, all manner of mercenary forces, and other even less savoury groups and individuals. But that was all a very long time ago, and almost no one alive still remembers it.
A good thing, probably. In the dark corners where the universe whispers secretly to itself, totting up accounts, it is surely understood that there are children alive who would not have been had the great factories continued their stark, steady march of inventive brilliance and technological terror.
Yet for this to be so... somehow, sometime, there was a choice made, a moment where it was decided what would live and what must die. And when.
There is always a choice.
Because of this particular one, where the heart of the factory and its fusion reactor core were once situated now stands an enormous grove of plants with huge fibrous leaves and clusters of low-hanging yellow fruit. In a small clearing at the center of this grove is a little wooden open-air shack with a lopsided sign that looks like a chalk-board hanging from its ragged awning. Those familiar with the language would observe that it bears the legend: "Happy Hour: Banana Daiquiris, Three Credits."
At the moment, the place is practically deserted and gives no indication that this is an uncommon state. The barman, bare-chested and sweating, appears to be half-asleep behind the counter. Only one of the little, decrepit tables is occupied; a solitary man sits there, dressed inappropriately for the climate in a brown pin-striped suit, but he is apparently entirely comfortable with this fact. He is staring pensively into his glass -- which holds something that could probably be described, if one were being charitable, as a banana daiquiri -- as if it contains the answers to all the questions in the universe.
Someone else steps into the clearing, surveys the scene, smiles briefly to himself, strolls leisurely over to the occupied table, and takes a seat.
"Thought I might find you here," he says. "Buy you a drink?"
If he was hoping for some sign of surprise, he is disappointed. The brown suited man, still staring into his drink, simply says brusquely, "Haven't finished the one I've got yet."
It's almost rude, but the newcomer doesn't rise to the bait. It's as if he's used to it. "You don't look surprised to see me," he remarks off-handedly instead.
"Sensed you miles off. Well, a mile and three Villengardian years at least."
"Been quite a while though." He eyes the brown-suited man fondly, his eyes resting on him as if he is at once incredibly familiar and also long-missed.
"For you, maybe."
"And you?"
"Earth standard? A few months."
"Everything all right?"
"I'm always all right."
"Uh huh," the man says, leaning back in his chair as if he's settling in for a long stay. He raises his hand slightly revealing the black cuff that wraps snugly around his wrist and snaps his fingers. Like magic, the barman comes to life. With only a slight gesture and a rapid exchange of glances to guide him, he brings a fresh banana daiquiri to the table. The man thanks him with an appreciative wink, and the barman gives him a flirtatious smile in return.
The brown-suited man sighs ostentatiously. Looking askance at his companion, he raises an eyebrow. "Fixed your toy, I see," he says.
"Had some help," the man with the wrist cuff says.
"Oh?" The brown-suited man looks as if he's trying -- but not very hard -- to appear marginally interested. "Someone thought that was a good idea? Really?"
"Someone did, yeah."
"Well, s'pose it'll all make sense at the time."
"Everyone needs help once in a while," the man with the wrist cuff says, before taking a long pull at his daiquiri.
"How's your drink?" the other man says abruptly, as if anxious to change the subject.
"Honestly? I don't really care all that much for bananas."
The brown-suited man bristles at that. "How can you not like bananas? They're lovely! Did you know that under UV radiation they glow blue when they're ripe?"
"Yeah, I did," the man with the wrist cuff responds. "I don't like it when my food glows, personally."
"You're so small-minded. Not like you can see it anyway."
"Not yet. You never know what might happen. Found another few white hairs last week."
"Fair point."
"Guess you must see that blue glow on bananas all the time then."
The brown-suited man nods, disconsolately. "Yeah. See the whole spectrum, UV, everything. It's even there on the green ones."
"You can see what they'll become."
Taking another swallow of his neglected drink, he nods again. "Wish I didn't sometimes. Wish it'd all stop. Well, no. Just wish I could stop."
"You don't really," the man with the wrist cuff says. "Or you would."
The other man shrugs. "Where are you off to anyway?"
"Nowhere in particular. Wanted to find you."
"You expect me to believe that's the reason you're here?"
"Well, yeah. It is the reason. Why wouldn't you believe it?"
"Seems unlikely. People don't come and find me just for the fun of it. And you've never been all that good at finding me anyway."
"Feeling sorry for yourself, are you? Maybe if you let people find you, they would more often." There is a pause, and the brown-suited man does not reply. The man with the wrist cuff continues. "I wanted to thank you, actually. Don't think I ever did."
The man in brown grimaces. "For what? Did I ever bring you anything but trouble? Do I ever bring anyone anything but trouble?"
"Life is trouble. You save people," the man with the wrist cuff points out. "You saved me."
"That was someone else," the brown-suited man says savagely. "And she's gone."
The other man smiles, as if he's suddenly understood something. "That's not what I meant."
The man in the brown suit looks at him quizzically. "What do you mean then?"
"Before that business with Torchwood. Before..." he trails off, as if the words just aren't there. "Don't know what I would have done if you hadn't... You know."
The man in the brown suit cocks his head consideringly. "I don't, actually."
There is a pause. "Thank you in advance then," the man with the wrist cuff says finally. "For being there. Before everything. And after. It made a difference."
"I was there?" the brown-suited man asks, straightening his tie, and taking his jacket by the lapels and resettling it around his shoulders. "Blimey. Me? Are you sure?"
"Yep."
"Doesn't sound like me," he says bitterly, and there is a silence which his companion chooses not to break. Then he adds slowly, straightening his already straight tie once more, and running a hand through his hair, "Besides, don't know how much longer I've got left like this. It's all been... so hard lately."
"Better hurry then, if that's how you feel," the man with the wrist cuff says calmly.
The man in brown thinks for a while (as the man with the wrist cuff entertains himself by flipping through a very, very old earth-style leather-backed book that he produces from a hold-all at his feet). "I'll just finish this daiquiri first," he finally decides. "What d'you think?"
"No rush, that's what I think," the man with the wrist cuff replies casually, setting his book down on the table, leaning back in his chair again, and signaling for another drink. "Could even stick around awhile. Or travel. See some sights. Cheer up a bit. After all, we've got all the time in the world."
~*~
It had been quiet for the past few days, and Ianto had about resolved to take the opportunity to clean the cells that they normally used for incoming weevils, because when it came to weevils, there would always be more. It'd been a while since anyone had bollocksed things up enough to have the chore assigned to them, and although it was tedious and annoying, it still needed to be done.
"Just wait," Jack suggested. "I'm sure Andy will do something moronic eventually. Or Ravi. He's about due, isn't he?"
"In a few day's time, I'm sure you're right. But we can't make them live in squalor just because we've all finally learnt to do our jobs, Jack."
"Isn't squalor relative? They live in the sewers," Jack said more for the banter than any real attempt to dissuade Ianto from returning to his work.
"Be that as it may -- "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Hey, am I seeing you for dinner tonight?" Jack asked as Ianto laid a hand on his knee to lever himself off the battered couch.
"I don't know. Are you? I mean, I could blindfold you and feed you grapes."
Jack barked with laughter. "I wouldn't complain."
"And I'd be bored. Yes, Jack, you're seeing me for dinner tonight. Choose a restaurant," he said, shaking his head as he exited the room.
"And he emerges, suit unscathed," Ravi called out to the rest of the team as Ianto clattered down the stairs from Jack's office.
"And I'll wager you didn't know he cared," Andy said as Ianto frowned.
"Betting pool," Maeve said dryly.
"On -- " Ianto started, but didn't finish. It seemed better not to dignify this latest burden of cameraderie with details.
He heard Jack laugh delightedly from above. "Kids, kids, kids. You're waaaay too interested in what mom and dad get up to behind closed doors.
"Um," Gwen interjected, almost hesitantly.
"Jack --" Ianto said, his voice clearly warning.
"Aaaaw, don't worry Ianto. I''ll happily wear the dress. Maybe even a little apron if you're good," Jack said, kissing the top of Ianto's head as he passed him on the steps. Ianto shoved at him half-heartedly.
"Jack," Gwen said, trying to get his attention.
"Hey, Gwen, wanna go shopping?" Jack asked, enjoying basking in everyone's attention.
"Um, I think you should look at this first," she said, not taking her eyes off her monitor.
"What?" Jack said, instantly switching gears as he headed to her work station. He let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be.... Ianto! I think this one's for you."
Ianto sighed. The banter, even at his expense, was all very well and good, but he did actually have work to do. With the nearly malicious glee in Jack's voice he was half expecting to see a drunk Blowfish on the CCTV Gwen was monitoring.
Instead it was the Doctor, pulling faces and waving at them. Well, there wasn't really anything all that unusual about that, Ianto thought a bit cruelly. He might have been a master of time and space, but he was also completely undignified.
"Great," he said curtly. "And why for me? He's your ex."
"He's not my ex," Jack said emphatically, still staring at the screen.
"Whatever. He's your... whatever," Ianto said, flapping his hands a bit ineffectually.
"Hey, you got the ride, last time," Jack noted.
Someone let out a low whistle.
"Not like that," Ianto snapped. Then softly, he asked, "Since when are you avoiding him?" as the Doctor continued to ape for the camera.
Jack considered his answers and realized he didn't want to say any of them aloud. Since he stole you; since he broke my heart; since he always seems to bring the end of the world -- none of those were very nice. Or reassuring. Or fair. To anyone. He sighed.
"You know," Gwen said, obviously losing patience with the tension emanating from them. "You could both go see what he wants."
"But --"
"I said go see what he wants, not necessarily run off for a joy ride," she snapped.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at Jack. "After you," he said, "since you're wearing the dress and all."
As the invisible lift rose towards street level, Ianto looked down at the rest of the team clustered around the base. Gwen winked at him, and Ianto wondered why it was that she didn't seem inclined to want to run off with the Doctor to see the stars. He'd have thought she'd be the type. Just went to show you that things weren't always what you expected. He thought he ought to hold onto that idea, because when the Doctor dropped by, embracing the unexpected seemed to be the only way to hold onto one's sanity.
Ianto glanced at Jack out of the corner of his eye, noting that his jawline was tense and his expression grim.
"You all right?" he murmured.
"Fine."
"You're not really still hacked off about the last time, surely?" he asked incredulously. "It was ages ago."
"Two years," Jack snapped. "Not that long. And of course not, why would I be?"
"Right," Ianto said. "Of course not. Silly question."
The lift clicked into place, and they were outside. The Doctor was standing in front of the TARDIS, and he seemed now to be chatting away to someone on a mobile.
Even though they hadn't moved off of the paving stone and were still masked by the perception filter, the Doctor snapped his phone shut and shoved it into his pocket, while an enormous smile stretched across his face. "Took you long enough," he called across to them.
Ianto looked at Jack, who shrugged, and then bounded off the lift. "Doctor," he said, "to what do we owe this pleasure? End of the world? Again?"
"Always so suspicious," the Doctor said, shaking his head in mock dismay. "Maybe I just missed you."
Even though the back of Jack's head was to him, Ianto could see from the set of his shoulders that he was unwillingly charmed by that last. He shook his head and chuckled to himself softly, before following Jack off the paving stone and coming up behind him.
"You never just miss me," Jack pointed out.
Ignoring him, the Doctor said, "Mr. Jones, lovely to see you again."
"Likewise," Ianto lied, not sure what else to say. "It's been some time."
"So what can we do for you, Doctor?" Jack said. "Or are you just here to refuel?"
"Well, that's a bit of a story actually."
"We have time," Jack said. "Don't we?"
"Thing is, Jack, I've a bit of a problem to sort out, and I was wondering if you might come along and help me."
"Really."
"Yes, it was quite a show actually. You see, they've got these elephants, well, not elephants really, but close enough, except they've got fangs. And horns. And spikes. And six limbs. So not a lot like elephants, really, and they're guarding this object, but what they don't know, is that it's giving off this dilithiolic radiation -- you have heard of that, haven't you? Causes living material to mutate? -- and so it's got to be nicked, because otherwise their whole planet's doomed, and I thought, well, this is the kind of job where you need a man who can't die -- because even if you do get by the elephants, there's still the radiation to deal with, and the lethal gas pocket around the object itself -- and funny thing really, because I've got one, haven't I?"
The Doctor looked at Jack brightly, and Ianto grinned to himself again because Jack was so clearly fighting against giving in completely, and well, he was losing, and Ianto didn't get to watch Jack out-blustered very often. Somewhat to his surprise, he was quite enjoying it.
"How do you mean 'you've got one'? One what?"
"Well, that's you, isn't it? Try to keep up, Jack."
Jack sputtered, and Ianto actually laughed out loud. The Doctor turned to face him. "And you, Mr. Jones--"
"Please," Ianto interrupted, "stop calling me that. Ianto's fine. You used it before."
"Did I? Brilliant. Ianto then."
"You should go, Jack," Ianto said. "Mutating elephants. Doesn't sound too good."
Jack hesitated and looked back at the waterfall which ran down into the Hub.
"Oh, but you'll come too, won't you?" the Doctor asked Ianto. "Be lovely to have someone sensible aboard to talk to."
"I can't," he assured him. "Someone's got to stay and look after this lot."
"Ahhh, yes. Team Torchwood!"
"Yes, that is our name, so glad you've remembered," Jack snapped, never particularly fond of the Doctor's views on the subject. Sure, the original Torchwood was evil, but Jack was pretty sure his Torchwood was, if not good -- okay, probably not good -- then at least not actively evil. Per se.
"No, I was actually just saying hello," said the Doctor, his tone still somewhat tinged with distaste.
Ianto and Jack spun round, and saw that the whole team had somehow snuck up behind them. Gwen and Andy appeared to be carrying a pack each.
Jack stared at them in horror. "What is this wholesale migration?!"
Gwen grinned at him. "Here's yours," she said, shoving the pack at Jack. Andy handed his over to Ianto, who took it without thinking, still goggling.
"Have a nice time," she said firmly. "We'll look after things till you get back."
"But you can't--" Ianto said, finding his voice. "There's all this--"
"Somehow," Maeve interjected dryly, "I think we can handle clearing out the weevil cages without your expert assistance."
"And," Gwen added, "the Doctor's phoned Martha, and she'll be coming down to keep us company while you're off gallivanting."
"When did you talk to Gwen?" Ianto blurted out, before remembering the conversation the Doctor had been in the middle of, before he and Jack had appeared on the scene. “And why are you getting them to help? You hate Torchwood!”
The Doctor winked at him. "Looks like it's all sorted then. I'll have them back before you know it. You're a wonder, Gwen Cooper. They're lucky to have you." He put his arm about her, and looked at Jack. "She'll keep the world ticking away while you're gone, Jack, there's no need to worry. The earth's safe in their keeping. I promise you." He looked down at Gwen fondly. “One thing I'll never much like about Jack. Always tries to keep the good ones for himself...”
“Are you flirting with me?” an incredulous Gwen asked.
The Doctor considered her for a moment. “Naaaaaah. Not my department. You are something though.”
She beamed at him, though a little uncertainly.
"Gwen, what've I told you about mutinous conspiracies?" Jack interjected.
"You need to go, apparently," she said, sounding a bit annoyed, Ianto thought, at being relegated by Jack to the role of minor character in the Jack as the Center of the Universe show. "And it's not mutiny. What are you always saying about your commanding officer?"
"Yes, Jack, what are you always saying about that?" the Doctor asked with malicious glee.
Jack narrowed his eyes at him. "You're up to something," he said, ignoring the question.
"Of course I'm up to something. I'm the Doctor!"
"Great," Ianto muttered, brain finally catching up to the knapsack in his hands. He looked sharply at Andy. "Did you fold one of my suits?" he asked in horror.
"You know, I have closets. With hangers that have the nice little grippy thing for trousers and everything," the Doctor noted.
"I... this better not be like last time," Ianto said sharply.
The Doctor leaned into his personal space. "Why? Did I scare you?" he asked with relish.
Ianto shoved his pack at the Doctor in self-defense as Jack looked on curiously. He had promised the day that Ianto had come back to let it lie, and he had, although more for Ianto's comfort than real paradox concerns. Maybe that made him a bad ex-Time Agent or Torchwood operative or whatever, but Jack didn't really care.
Ianto had been markedly strange (and oh so terribly sweet) with him in the weeks after that incident, and if finding out more about it had seemed likely to help, Jack knew he would have pressed. But Ianto liked privacy for his grief, a legacy of Lisa or losing his parents young, Jack wasn't sure, and so he had left it alone despite the way it had nagged at him with a dull horror.
But past discretion on his part sure as hell didn't mean he wasn't curious to see Ianto and the Doctor interact now, even if the curiosity did remind him to bristle with indecisive jealousy.
"Still with us, Jack?" the Doctor asked quietly, still clutching Ianto's bag.
"Wha-- sorry," Jack said and chuckled, turning to Ianto. "You made him the porter."
"It's the least he could do," Ianto said tartly.
"Why don't we all get back to work," Maeve suggested loudly, and Jack realized it was to remind him of their presence as surely as it was to get the team back underground.
Jack turned and looked them over, proud of their fierceness and fragility and humour.
"You ready to do this?" he asked Ianto in a low voice, without turning to face him.
"I don't know what this is."
"Yeah, me neither. If you don't --"
"Oh no," Ianto said quickly. "I may not like it. But I'm coming with."
"Okay. Say your goodbyes then."
"We'll be--?"
"Yeah, just in case," Jack said, cutting the question off.
"Right," Ianto said cautiously, before stammering through three hugs and then an awkward handshake with Maeve, who laughed.
"So, we'll be back in -- when will be we back, Doctor?"
"A week. Tops. Promise. Very important. Wouldn't want to let these hooligans get up to too much without you," the Doctor said, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"But it was only three days for me, before," Ianto protested.
"Oh?" the Doctor said dubiously. "Was it? I get so forgetful these days. 900 plus and counting. Memory's the first thing to go, you know."
"Right then. See you in a week, kids," Jack said with a mock salute. "Don't let the world blow up without us."
Jack looked at Ianto who raised his eyebrows. "Again, dress. After you," he said, with a grim chuckle.
As they stepped inside the TARDIS, the Doctor tossed Ianto's rucksack back to him and Ianto watched as Jack dropped his own to immediately run both his palms over the Tardis walls and struts and console. He couldn't help but smile at the sight. This was Jack in love, and it was markedly easier to watch directed at a ship, no matter how sentient, than at the Doctor, which had sort of been what Ianto was expecting. However, things between the two men seemed slightly tense and definitively awkward, and on some level Ianto couldn't help but preen just a little, even if it was going to make this radioactive elephant situation all the more unpleasant.
He wondered if the Doctor was lying about that, or if they were real and just the lure for whatever ridiculous, miserable object lesson they were both no doubt in for this time.
The Doctor stood back, arms crossed as he watched Jack caress the TARDIS; Ianto thought he looked suddenly reserved, and he shivered a bit, remembering what lay behind the daft mask that he usually favoured for whatever alien reason.
"She still seems a bit edgy," Jack remarked. "But less than before."
"She's got used to you, I suppose. Exposure does wonders," the Doctor said, before dashing over to the console, and winding something that looked like the inner workings of a clock. "So? Ready? Allons'y!"
Jack stepped back from the console, and put his arm about Ianto's shoulders. They stared into the viewscreen that showed the Millenium Centre and the Plass. It was deserted; the team had already retreated back to the Hub. Gwen had probably chivvied them downstairs before the TARDIS door had completely swung shut.
"They're probably watching from the CCTV," Ianto said softly.
"Probably," Jack agreed.
And then the screen switched to its strange symbols -- Ianto wondered briefly if they read as anything in Gallifreyan, or whatever the Doctor's language was, because presumably, like Jack, he hadn't been born speaking English -- and he knew they were in the Vortex. The Doctor turned to face them and smiled.
"So what's the plan, Doctor?" Jack said, stepping forward, a hint of belligerence underlying his usual cheer. "Rogue elephants? Radioactive? Lethal gas? Should get going, yeah?"
"Why in such a hurry, Jack?"
"You did mention it was important, sir," Ianto answered him, and Jack's head swiveled slowly to stare at him.
Ianto shrugged. "What?" he said. "It just came out."
"Right. Whatever," Jack said, glaring a little before turning to face the Doctor again, who was trying to hide his smirk, but not very successfully.
"So, you said you needed my help. Our help. Why don't we get on with it then?"
"I think," the Doctor said firmly, "that you should be fully rested before coping with something of this scale. Why don't you find your room, and put your baggage away before Ianto's suits wrinkle, and then we'll meet in the kitchen."
Jack looked suspiciously at him, but couldn't find anything in the suggestion to quibble at, and who was he kidding anyway? It had been phrased as a suggestion, but it was, in fact, an order, however gently put, and therefore there was only one thing to do.
The Doctor nodded at him, and Jack mentally threw up his hands. They'd climbed on board, so now they might as well enjoy the ride.
"Ianto can share your room, can't he?"
"Sure enough," Jack agreed. Looking towards Ianto, he jerked his head towards the door that led into the rest of the ship. "Let's go."
"Oh, and Jack," the Doctor said innocently. "Don't be too long, all right? Plenty of time for all that later."
Jack winked. "You never know," he said as cheekily as he could. "Better make hay while the sun shines."
"I am not a field," Ianto told him firmly, and Jack laughed as he turned to the Doctor to add, "We won't be a moment."
As he followed Jack down the maze of hallways he only dimly recognized from the last time, Ianto wondered why they'd bothered to bring anything for Jack at all. He surely had plenty of changes aboard.
They walked into the same bedroom that Ianto remembered from before, still pleasing and blue, except the bed seemed to have expanded somewhat in size.
Jack plopped down upon it with a sigh. "Nice of her to make the change," he remarked, "even if I don't really need it."
"She? Oh, the ship," Ianto said, still a bit uncomfortable with the sentience of the dimensionally expanding vessel. "Right." A little embarrassed at his uncertainty, he busied himself with unpacking first Jack's bag and then his own.
Jack watched Ianto as he fussed with their clothes more than was strictly necessary, even for him.
"You've been in here before," Jack eventually said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"I like that," Jack said, trying to ignore Ianto's obvious discomfort. "Did you sleep here?"
"No," Ianto said shortly, not even looking at him.
Jack frowned. "Did you --"
"Jesus Christ, Jack, I didn't sleep with your fucking Doctor," Ianto said, whirling on him.
Jack held up his hands. "Hey, that wasn't what I was asking."
"Wasn't it?"
Jack chuckled. "Well, yeah. But not 'cause I wanted a fight."
"Well, what do you want?" Ianto asked, knowing that if Jack said threesome, he was just going to punch him and have done with it.
Jack sighed. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. Even with access to space and time, crises can't usually wait."
"As I noted."
"Yes, as you noted, my clever, clever Ianto," Jack said, somehow managing to be both fond and sarcastic. "My point, is that we're lacking a shocking amount of data here, but there's the very real possibility that you have more than I do, since you're the one who saw him last and I don't enjoy having to play catch up."
"I didn't sleep here," Ianto said, still clearly furious, "because I was stuck on some ridiculous planet. When he retrieved me -- oh yes, that's right Jack -- he just left me on some fucking rock and said he'd be back and I had no goddamn clue what was going on, he refused to bring me home straight away, because I was too distraught. He tried to get me to take a nap. And so I sat here wondering if you'd fucked him in this bed. Happy?"
"Um... no," Jack said, hesitantly. He wasn't enjoying this at all, and he wondered how viscerally this was calling up Ianto's secret adventure. After everything he had been through, neither of them needed a run-in with PTSD now, not with, and Jack's mouth couldn't help but twist into a bitter smile at this, radioactive elephants on the loose.
He took a deep breath. "No one's ever slept, or done anything else, in this bed but me. To my knowledge. That's why I liked the idea of you having slept here. That's all."
"I hate this," Ianto said, knowing he sounded like a child.
"Well, don't," Jack said, sitting up. "Let's find out what this is about and then get the Doc to make it up to us. He knows some fabulous beaches."
Ianto continued to glare at him.
"Look, we can keep fighting, or we can try to muddle through this. Either way, if we go at this much longer, he is going to think we're screwing in here, and if he's going to be in a huff about that, I'd rather it was because we actually were."
"I still can't tell you what happened," Ianto said, stuck somehow back in the earlier part of the conversation.
"I get that," Jack said placatingly. "But it may mean you figure out what's up here first. And when you do, I'd appreciate it if you told me, okay?"
"Tell you? Tell you?" Ianto exclaimed, refusing to be soothed, "Don't be ridiculous. I don't belong here. I'm so out of my element, I'm not even in the same periodic table. I should be home. I should be cleaning out the weevil cells. I should be doing logistics for the team. Things I can actually be useful at!"
Jack sighed. "It's not just you. Everyone feels that way with the Doctor, especially at first. Just try to relax."
"It's not that easy."
"It's exactly that easy," Jack told him. "Look, it's like going to an expensive restaurant. We looked at the menu in the window, thought it looked interesting, and we walked in. We've been seated. Now is not the time to be worrying about whether we can afford it and ordering soup to be cheap. We're here. Might as well enjoy it."
Ianto couldn't help but laugh at the analogy, and the laughter itself calmed him somewhat.
"Besides," Jack added, "we have credit cards. We can worry about the bill later."
"What are the credit cards representing in this scenario?"
"I don't know," he admitted, "but it sounded good."
"It did," Ianto agreed. And then he nodded. "Okay. Okay."
As they walked into the TARDIS kitchen, Ianto noticed that the Doctor had put the kettle on and it was whistling.
"I know you prefer coffee, Jack," the Doctor said without turning to look at them, "but I thought Ianto here might like a cuppa."
"You don't have a... a.. a machine that does that for you?" Ianto asked.
The Doctor spun round, and blinked at him. "What d'you mean?"
"I don't know, something better than a kettle."
"Of course not," he said, sounding shocked. "What else could get it just close to boiling, but not quite? And then the fresh, cold milk in the cup, and pouring the tea into it so it doesn't scald?"
"George Orwell says it ought to be the other way round. Tea first, then milk."
"Oh, Eric Blair? Lovely bloke, but wrong about the tea. Totally. Tried to get him to see it scientifically, but--"
"You knew him?" Ianto asked, astounded.
"Of course," the Doctor assured him.
"Me too," Jack said. "Hell of a guy to show you round Paris. And he had a nice--"
"And that's enough of that," the Doctor cut him off hurriedly.
"Aunt," Jack finished while Ianto glared at them both. "Nellie was her name. Always good for a few francs and a sofa to sleep on."
Ianto cleared his throat. "We seem to be straying from the point a bit. And actually, Doctor, like Jack, I prefer coffee. That is if I were in need of a caffeinated beverage, which in point of fact, I'm not. And what about these elephants? You don't seem too bothered about the whole thing. If it's so critical..." he trailed off, pointedly.
"Right," Jack said. "Why so relaxed?"
The Doctor turned back to his cup of tea. "Did I mention, this ship of mine? It also travels in time."
"We know that," Jack said, as he walked over to one of the cupboards, unearthed a tin of some sort of alien biscuits, brought them back over to Ianto, and offered him one.
Ianto noticed they had some strange green fur growing on them, tried to repress a shudder and shook his head to refuse the offer. Jack shrugged and ate one himself. He seemed completely at home in this kitchen, and Ianto couldn't help but think of how Jack was in his flat, or in the Hub. Because he was almost exactly the same here, and who knew how many more homes Jack had that he would almost certainly never see?
"Somehow," Jack went on, "you always seem like you're in a hurry anyway."
"Maybe that's just when you happen to be around. You're trouble, you know," the Doctor said, taking a sip of his tea. "Lovely. Sure you won't join me?"
"Trouble? Look who's talking," said Jack.
"All right then," the Doctor said, putting down his cup, and suddenly seeming all-business. "Here's the situation. We'll land on the planet as close to the cave as we can get."
"Of course it's a bloody cave," Ianto muttered to himself, taking a small notebook and his fountain pen out of his breast pocket to take down the plan.
The Doctor ignored him. "Hopefully there won't be too many guards around it."
"And these guards... they're elephants? You know that doesn't make any sense, right?"
"Well, if you want to get technical, they call themselves Hfs&^rn$@wlnbsfdfxzfstwsvss, but I thought elephants were simpler."
"Elephants it is," Jack agreed, before adding to Ianto, "And you thought your language lacked vowels."
"And then, it's just a matter of getting past them, into the cave where they've got the dilithiolically radioactive object -- don't know what that looks like, you might have to search a bit, Jack, but it must be there, because the Hfs&^rn$@wlnbsfdfxzfstwsvss definitely did not start out with fangs and spikes and such bad tempers -- getting past the pocket of lethal gas around it, taking the object out and destroying it, which we can easily do, by dousing it with an alkaline substance."
"Seems straightforward enough," Jack said.
"Well, it might have been, before you said that," Ianto told him, and the Doctor grinned.
~*~
Clearly Jack had to be the one to make the dash into the cave, so the Doctor and Ianto were on 'guard-distracting-detail'. This, Ianto discovered, seemed like a bigger deal than it actually was. Quite literally, in fact.
"You know," he said casually to the Doctor, "when you said that they were like elephants, we envisioned something... quite a bit larger."
"I did tell you I was simplifying."
"The largest is about four inches tall."
"I suppose I could have said miniature elephants," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"It might have clarified things a bit," Ianto agreed through his teeth, as he herded the little beasts into a fissure in the rock wall and then yelped as one of them stuck his finger.
"Careful there," the Doctor said as he rolled a small, stray boulder in front of the fissure, penning them in.
"Doctor, why are we here?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, it's obviously not because of vicious mutating rogue elephant aliens so what's the real reason?"
"You think because they're small, they don't have a right to exist free from radioactive mutation?"
"Of course not! But you didn't need us to help you with it! What is it, whenever you need something nicked, you come to Torchwood?!"
"Why do you say that? Are you lot particularly good at nicking things?"
"Not as such, no, but we seem to do it a lot. Or at least I do."
The Doctor laughed. "A misspent youth?"
"Suppose you could say that. And you haven't actually managed to distract me from my question, you know."
"No? Shocking. Points for effort though, eh?"
Ianto granted him the point with half a smile and then asked, abruptly, "Are you lonely?"
For a moment the Doctor just goggled at him in silence, and Ianto couldn't help but feel very, very satisfied.
"Well now," he eventually said, "Jack must be just terrified of you."
Ianto grinned. "I hope so," he said softly.
The Doctor smiled at that, but continued to study him quietly with a strangely sad sort of stare.
After the radiation source had been neutralized and Jack had finished vomiting and dying on the behalf of the tiny, tiny elephants and everyone had been bundled back into the TARDIS (but only after Ianto had made sure to verify that Jack himself was no longer radioactive), Ianto couldn't help but notice the temptation to be giddy. There was, after all, an odd joy in the chaos and absurdity of it all, and even if he didn't trust it, it was nice to watch Jack drown in it, just a little, all its complications and jealous making aside.
In the console room, Ianto had asked the Doctor if they could go home now, and while he could have probably understood at least half the man's babble if he tried, the simple gist of no was all that mattered, especially with Jack laughing and slipping his arms around his waist, hands dipping pointedly into Ianto's back pockets.
He thought Jack was surprised as anyone that he hadn't earned a scolding for that -- Ianto was getting the impression the Doctor had a rather dim view of sex -- and that they were shooed out of the ship's bridge instead. As they staggered down the halls kissing and laughing, he still couldn't shake this sense he had of the Doctor's sadness, but it seemed, especially after their earlier argument, the wrong time to ask Jack about it.
In their room, Ianto finally pushed Jack off of him.
"Is this the radiation talking?" he asked, laughing, knowing his fear of the notion was deeply particular to everything about his time and place in a way Jack or the Doctor probably couldn't even understand.
Jack shook his head. "No. It's the dying talking," he said laughing.
"Are you trying to tell me," Ianto asked, very slowly, "that it's an endorphin rush?"
"Sorta, yeah. I mean, that was awful, but hello, alive!"
Ianto shook his head. "I think the Doctor's madness is contagious."
"Isn't it? Aren't you...?"
"Aren't I, what?"
"Having the time of your life?"
Ianto frowned as he watched Jack idly pull out of his clothes. "Maybe. And we should go back."
"Look," Jack said, dropping his shirt to the floor and starting on his pants, "We're here, we can't drop back in sooner than a couple of days from when we left and how long we're here's got nothing to do with it--"
"And we also can't hijack this thing," Ianto offered helpfully.
"Uh. Yeah. Bad idea. Oh, come on, get undressed!"
"So we make the most of it?" Ianto asked dubiously.
"I did promise you I'd show you the stars once, if I could," Jack, now naked, said as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"But this isn't you showing me," Ianto said. "It's him."
Jack blinked at the unexpected cruelty of it. "You know," he said after a beat, as if Ianto hadn't spoken, "I used to lie here in this bed, aching."
"From what?"
"For what," Jack corrected him. "All these things. The life I had before I met them, the life they ruined me for."
"Them?" Ianto asked. "You mean the Doctor?"
"And Rose. I wasn't a good man, before I met them maybe. But I was someone I understood."
"So why did you stay?"
Jack smiled. "Nice answer? I wanted them more than I wanted to go back. Not so nice answer? They killed that man. Or I guess I did. Suicide by Team TARDIS. Both those answers are true."
"You got what you wanted, then," Ianto said flatly.
"No, I didn't," Jack told him. "I got to love them though. Which was okay. It was worth it."
Ianto looked at him steadily, but didn't say anything.
Jack sighed. "They made me, Ianto. If you hate that, you hate me too."
Ianto was ashamed. He felt young again, insecure and uncertain in a way that he hadn't felt in years. "I don't... hate him," he managed. "Or you."
"It's okay. You could. I have," Jack said sadly. "But if I thought of all the things that've been stolen... it's a slippery slope. And why waste time on regret?"
Searching desperately for something to say, something that wouldn't participate in this hideous melancholy that seemed to have descended over them, Ianto mumbled, "I suppose the stars are there to be shared."
Jack laughed with sudden delight. "You said something like that to me, a long time ago."
"I don't remember."
"You were drunk," Jack told him as he laid back on the bed.
There was a silence, and then Ianto broke it. "So, lying there, aching, you say?"
"Oh yeah. Bone-melting, gnaw-your-own-hand-off aching."
"Doesn't seem like you."
"I know," Jack agreed. "I'd never jerked off so much in my life."
Ianto was surprised into a laugh at the matter-of-factness of his tone.
"Show me," he said, sitting back at the foot of the bed, with his back against the wall.
Jack arched an eyebrow at him. "Yeah? You want to see that?"
Ianto nodded.
Jack closed his eyes briefly, remembering in a flash all those long, agonizing nights in this very room, desperately fisting his cock with one hand, trying to fuck himself with the other, till he thought he might die from sheer want; smelling Rose's soap and the Doctor's leather, trying to recapture the feel of their hands in his as they were running; and then muffling his howls into the pillow as he came so hard he thought he might turn inside out... but not feeling satisfied, not completely, not ever, and immediately afterwards, still wanting, the respite only physical.
It wasn't like Jack hadn't given Ianto a show before. Jack was fine to look at, spectacular really, and he knew it and basked in it, as if Ianto's gaze -- anyone's gaze -- could make him more beautiful.
On some level, Ianto found it completely absurd. Jack could be so shameless it made the erotic nearly comical. Too, for all the times in his life Ianto had found himself fancying men, he had never really expected to find himself staring at one with such desire. Women were for looking at; men were something else, some dark want. Maybe it was gnaw-your-own-hand-off desire, like Jack had said. Maybe it was just Jack.
He watched as Jack sucked two fingers into his mouth and then trailed them down his throat and paused to circle a nipple before letting his hand drift even further down.
Ianto knew what would happen next, knew the way Jack's fingers would linger over the arc of his hip bone and scratch through the hair at the base of his cock, while he stared at Ianto in challenge.
He knew it and liked it, but it wasn't what he wanted, not at all.
He wrapped a hand around Jack's ankle.
"No," he said.
Jack made an interrogative noise.
"I don't want a show," Ianto said, his hand moving so that he could knead his thumb along the arch of Jack's foot. "I want to know what it was like. The wanting. Show me like you never met me."
Jack offered him a small smile. "Maybe I was aching for you too," he said.
"Oh, Jack," Ianto said, melting at the lie of it. Because if Jack had been aching for him all those years ago in this bed, he'd been aching for a lot of other people too: Estelle, the unnamed wife, an assortment of loves named here and there, Gwen maybe, and people Jack hadn't even met yet and probably wouldn't until Ianto was gone.
He pressed his thumb hard into Jack's arch again and bent to kiss the top of his foot, knowing that the first time Jack had pleasured himself in this bed, the man had been mortal. Ianto mourned for it, the notion that he and Jack had once been the same, both human, both children, and yet somehow had never known it.
For a moment, Jack suspected he almost knew shame at this act, but he knew, in truth, it was just worry and mourning, because he had been delighted when they had stumbled back to this room, and he had wanted to share that with Ianto. And this, whatever it was, wasn't anything he could imagine being about delight. It was a past and a past that hurt, and that was fine, sometimes hurt was great after all -- like the ache in his balls when he'd first joined up with the Doctor and Rose. Oh, he'd wanted them straight off!
But hurt wasn't always great. It had the potential, he knew, to be anything but great now, but what Ianto asked for, Jack would give him, no matter how poor an idea it might be.
He closed his eyes, and let his hand go straight to his cock, squeezing a little roughly. He sighed, remembering it all and hoping Ianto and his damn permeable head couldn't hear him. Regardless, the ache was good, and Jack slipped his other hand down to cup his balls and squeezed them hard too. He explored back behind them, spreading his legs, before rolling onto his stomach, because that's how he'd always done it here -- eyes tight shut and face hidden so he could convince himself it was real, that it wasn't his hands, that if he were very, very lucky, in the midst of it the Doctor might wander in and grab his hips and pull him back and onto his cock.
Jack laughed and pumped his prick as he rubbed himself against the sheets, shifting to free an arm so he could run his nails over his own ass.
"Lube," Jack gasped, but Ianto said nothing and made no move to search. This wasn't his home, this wasn't his room, and this wasn't his fantasy. Jack was alone, Jack would have to find it himself.
A frantic moment then, and Ianto was riveted to see Jack desperate with no one to bend to, not really. He fumbled and twisted and reached back under the bed along the headboard, until he came up with a bottle.
Ianto wondered if it had been there all along.
He watched both fascinated and dismayed as Jack clumsily flipped the cap and poured it over his fingers, far too much of it for future comfort hitting the bed.
But then Jack was stretching his back and arching, not even really bothering to pull his knees up under him to press those fingers inside himself. It wasn't far, Ianto noted, not much more than the first knuckle, and he watched as Jack moaned in frustration, grinding against the bed. It was clear he was trying to maintain as much contact with things as possible, the illusion of flesh, of his lost lovers, more important than a nice simple and cheerful wank.
Ianto wondered if the ship knew.
Jack's mouth was opened in a perfect O, and Ianto considered whether he was imagining the Doctor's cock or Rose's fingers or god knows what else, but it was studied, deliberate, and Ianto was sure that whatever the narrative, Jack surely knew exactly what he wanted just there.
Ianto placed a hand on Jack's calf, unable to help himself and smiled as Jack moved his leg to rub against it, even if he really was just trying to get purchase against the mattress.
But then Jack made a noise like a request and while Ianto knew he was probably just begging for the Doctor, it was impossible for him not to respond, because all he wanted was Jack, and all he wanted was to make it better. He shifted up onto the bed to press himself against the length of Jack's back.
"Please," Jack gasped and Ianto wondered if he was pretending he was the Doctor.
He kissed Jack's shoulder.
"Ianto," Jack breathed then, face still hidden against the pillow and Ianto marveled at the discovery that his name was just so warm.
When Ianto pressed up behind him, Jack could feel each real, live sensation distinctly -- the slight scratch of the wool trousers against his thighs; the buttons of Ianto's shirt making small, sharp, singular imprints on his back; the warmth of his breath misting against Jack's neck; his fingers, precise and careful and firm, against Jack's hipbones -- as if each one banished another ghost.
Because this was really happening, here, and just as he'd wished so many times: another person, another's breath, motions that weren't his own, resistance that he hadn't created, and Jack knew he was bucking back frantically against him, unable to wait, afraid somehow that if he did, it would be gone, Ianto would be gone, just another dream, evaporating as he tried to cling to it.
Ianto shushed him, murmured words into his ear, but Jack was beyond understanding them now, there were just sounds blurring together, everything stinging and sweet, and he wanted it all at once, everything.
He felt Ianto slide away briefly, felt the rock and creak of the bed, and then there was naked skin against his back, and he was being pulled back onto Ianto's cock, just like he'd imagined, longed, burned for. There was the chemical tang of the lube in his nostrils, his own hand still desperately, frantically fisting his cock, and the damp sheets, rough and wet against his knees. Ianto's forearm was against the nape of his neck, pinning him down, and Jack arched his back to let him in, deeper, further, more, harder, Ianto fucking him as if he were the ephemeral, unknowable phantom that had to be written into being, as if it were Jack who might be lost with the waking.
If Jack could have, he would've laughed at the notion. As it was, he simply hung on, breathed in as deep as he could, wanting the moment to draw out, to last forever.
When he came, he was almost sorry.
As Ianto collapsed onto his back, still shaking from his own orgasm, both of them drenched with sweat, Jack smiled into the pillow. He twisted then, so that he could kiss Ianto's mouth, smell him -- slight hint of milk and new mint, ink and paper, metal, lavender and wool. The twenty-first century.
When Jack kissed him and then pulled back, Ianto found himself thinking all of a sudden of a girl named Laura and the nights he'd spent in his childhood room, just miserable and aching for her, wrapped in a sweaty tangle of sheets, and knowing that if he didn't have her, bury himself balls deep in her, he'd just die. Knowing that the desire must surely be radiating out of him, sinking permanently into the walls and the paint.
And it was with that memory, that he smiled at Jack, knowing his heart was in his eyes.
"So," he said finally. "Satisfying?"
"You have no idea," Jack said with a laugh.
"Oh, I think I have some idea."
Jack chuckled. "Maybe you do at that."
They lay in silence for a few moments, before Ianto remarked, "I didn't want to be the first to mention it, but there's lube everywhere."
"Listen, you're the one who refused to help. Don't bitch."
"Fine, but you're going to sleep in the wet spot."
"Well, okay, except, one, I don't sleep. And two, it's all wet spot."
Ianto elbowed him in the ribs, right where he knew Jack was ticklish, and then suddenly they were wrestling in a ridiculous and unscientific fashion that ended, as might have been predicted, with all the pillows and half the sheets on the floor, and Jack pinning him down, while making him howl and take it all back and make patently false promises about how he'd never do it again.
When they'd calmed down, regained their breath from laughing, and were lying quietly again, Ianto stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what exactly about the room made it so pleasing to the eye.
"So," he said idly, "I really got it wrong then. You and the Doctor never..." He trailed off.
Jack didn't answer straight away. Then, "Not in this room," he said finally. "But yeah. Just once with Rose. And once with the Doctor. Never together."
"Oh," Ianto said. "Oddly, and this isn't jealousy, mind, but I find it hard to imagine the Doctor having sex. He seems sort of put off by the whole idea."
"He was a different man then."
"Oh?"
"Literally."
Ianto laughed, and then buried his face in Jack's shoulder, thinking how strange it was that something so alien could feel so like home.
"We should get up," Jack said after a while.
"God, why?" Ianto said, faintly horrified at the thought of moving.
"She won't fix the bed if we're lying in it."
"Don't tell me he has a maid."
Jack laughed. "The ship."
"Oh, right. Ship. Girl. Talks to you. Keep forgetting. Does it ever stop getting weirder?"
"Nope," Jack said, sitting up. "But hey, at least there's hot water."
"Magic words," Ianto said, levering himself up and shaking his head in horror, not just at the state of them and the bed but really at the whole room.
Continue to Part 2
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Ten + appearances by TW Team
Authors:
rm & kalichanRating/Warning: NC-17, slash, some hints of d/s, toys, romance, angst.
Summary: Everything happens only a certain number of times.
Wordcount: ~30,000 words, posted in 4 parts.
Authors' Notes: This is the final installment of our series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. Next up (eventually): some digressions and interludes, and a dvd commentary! Also, we'll be bringing you a new 'verse, with our as-yet-untitled Jenny/Ianto/Jack fic. Thank you all for coming on this journey with us. We've had a brilliant time.
Previous installments:
1. A Strange Fashion of Forsaking | 2. Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny | 3. To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back | 4. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World | 5. I Imagine You Now in That Other City | 6. Many of My Favorite Things Are Broken | 6.5 Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Truth, Beauty: or, A Child's Guide to Modern Physics | 7. In Our Bedroom After the War | 8. And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You [Jack/Nine/Rose] | 9. The Spectacular Catastrophe of Your Endless Childhood [Ianto/OFCs, Ianto/Lisa] | 10. There Are Some Men Who Should Have Mountains To Bear Their Names To Time
In the constellation Yggdrasil there is a star around which several planets orbit. The second of these -- a small planet with a warm and humid climate -- is called Villengard. Once upon a time, it was a factory-planet, known throughout the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire and beyond as the finest producer of sonic weaponry in five galaxies, providing arms and armaments to legitimate governments, all manner of mercenary forces, and other even less savoury groups and individuals. But that was all a very long time ago, and almost no one alive still remembers it.
A good thing, probably. In the dark corners where the universe whispers secretly to itself, totting up accounts, it is surely understood that there are children alive who would not have been had the great factories continued their stark, steady march of inventive brilliance and technological terror.
Yet for this to be so... somehow, sometime, there was a choice made, a moment where it was decided what would live and what must die. And when.
There is always a choice.
Because of this particular one, where the heart of the factory and its fusion reactor core were once situated now stands an enormous grove of plants with huge fibrous leaves and clusters of low-hanging yellow fruit. In a small clearing at the center of this grove is a little wooden open-air shack with a lopsided sign that looks like a chalk-board hanging from its ragged awning. Those familiar with the language would observe that it bears the legend: "Happy Hour: Banana Daiquiris, Three Credits."
At the moment, the place is practically deserted and gives no indication that this is an uncommon state. The barman, bare-chested and sweating, appears to be half-asleep behind the counter. Only one of the little, decrepit tables is occupied; a solitary man sits there, dressed inappropriately for the climate in a brown pin-striped suit, but he is apparently entirely comfortable with this fact. He is staring pensively into his glass -- which holds something that could probably be described, if one were being charitable, as a banana daiquiri -- as if it contains the answers to all the questions in the universe.
Someone else steps into the clearing, surveys the scene, smiles briefly to himself, strolls leisurely over to the occupied table, and takes a seat.
"Thought I might find you here," he says. "Buy you a drink?"
If he was hoping for some sign of surprise, he is disappointed. The brown suited man, still staring into his drink, simply says brusquely, "Haven't finished the one I've got yet."
It's almost rude, but the newcomer doesn't rise to the bait. It's as if he's used to it. "You don't look surprised to see me," he remarks off-handedly instead.
"Sensed you miles off. Well, a mile and three Villengardian years at least."
"Been quite a while though." He eyes the brown-suited man fondly, his eyes resting on him as if he is at once incredibly familiar and also long-missed.
"For you, maybe."
"And you?"
"Earth standard? A few months."
"Everything all right?"
"I'm always all right."
"Uh huh," the man says, leaning back in his chair as if he's settling in for a long stay. He raises his hand slightly revealing the black cuff that wraps snugly around his wrist and snaps his fingers. Like magic, the barman comes to life. With only a slight gesture and a rapid exchange of glances to guide him, he brings a fresh banana daiquiri to the table. The man thanks him with an appreciative wink, and the barman gives him a flirtatious smile in return.
The brown-suited man sighs ostentatiously. Looking askance at his companion, he raises an eyebrow. "Fixed your toy, I see," he says.
"Had some help," the man with the wrist cuff says.
"Oh?" The brown-suited man looks as if he's trying -- but not very hard -- to appear marginally interested. "Someone thought that was a good idea? Really?"
"Someone did, yeah."
"Well, s'pose it'll all make sense at the time."
"Everyone needs help once in a while," the man with the wrist cuff says, before taking a long pull at his daiquiri.
"How's your drink?" the other man says abruptly, as if anxious to change the subject.
"Honestly? I don't really care all that much for bananas."
The brown-suited man bristles at that. "How can you not like bananas? They're lovely! Did you know that under UV radiation they glow blue when they're ripe?"
"Yeah, I did," the man with the wrist cuff responds. "I don't like it when my food glows, personally."
"You're so small-minded. Not like you can see it anyway."
"Not yet. You never know what might happen. Found another few white hairs last week."
"Fair point."
"Guess you must see that blue glow on bananas all the time then."
The brown-suited man nods, disconsolately. "Yeah. See the whole spectrum, UV, everything. It's even there on the green ones."
"You can see what they'll become."
Taking another swallow of his neglected drink, he nods again. "Wish I didn't sometimes. Wish it'd all stop. Well, no. Just wish I could stop."
"You don't really," the man with the wrist cuff says. "Or you would."
The other man shrugs. "Where are you off to anyway?"
"Nowhere in particular. Wanted to find you."
"You expect me to believe that's the reason you're here?"
"Well, yeah. It is the reason. Why wouldn't you believe it?"
"Seems unlikely. People don't come and find me just for the fun of it. And you've never been all that good at finding me anyway."
"Feeling sorry for yourself, are you? Maybe if you let people find you, they would more often." There is a pause, and the brown-suited man does not reply. The man with the wrist cuff continues. "I wanted to thank you, actually. Don't think I ever did."
The man in brown grimaces. "For what? Did I ever bring you anything but trouble? Do I ever bring anyone anything but trouble?"
"Life is trouble. You save people," the man with the wrist cuff points out. "You saved me."
"That was someone else," the brown-suited man says savagely. "And she's gone."
The other man smiles, as if he's suddenly understood something. "That's not what I meant."
The man in the brown suit looks at him quizzically. "What do you mean then?"
"Before that business with Torchwood. Before..." he trails off, as if the words just aren't there. "Don't know what I would have done if you hadn't... You know."
The man in the brown suit cocks his head consideringly. "I don't, actually."
There is a pause. "Thank you in advance then," the man with the wrist cuff says finally. "For being there. Before everything. And after. It made a difference."
"I was there?" the brown-suited man asks, straightening his tie, and taking his jacket by the lapels and resettling it around his shoulders. "Blimey. Me? Are you sure?"
"Yep."
"Doesn't sound like me," he says bitterly, and there is a silence which his companion chooses not to break. Then he adds slowly, straightening his already straight tie once more, and running a hand through his hair, "Besides, don't know how much longer I've got left like this. It's all been... so hard lately."
"Better hurry then, if that's how you feel," the man with the wrist cuff says calmly.
The man in brown thinks for a while (as the man with the wrist cuff entertains himself by flipping through a very, very old earth-style leather-backed book that he produces from a hold-all at his feet). "I'll just finish this daiquiri first," he finally decides. "What d'you think?"
"No rush, that's what I think," the man with the wrist cuff replies casually, setting his book down on the table, leaning back in his chair again, and signaling for another drink. "Could even stick around awhile. Or travel. See some sights. Cheer up a bit. After all, we've got all the time in the world."
It had been quiet for the past few days, and Ianto had about resolved to take the opportunity to clean the cells that they normally used for incoming weevils, because when it came to weevils, there would always be more. It'd been a while since anyone had bollocksed things up enough to have the chore assigned to them, and although it was tedious and annoying, it still needed to be done.
"Just wait," Jack suggested. "I'm sure Andy will do something moronic eventually. Or Ravi. He's about due, isn't he?"
"In a few day's time, I'm sure you're right. But we can't make them live in squalor just because we've all finally learnt to do our jobs, Jack."
"Isn't squalor relative? They live in the sewers," Jack said more for the banter than any real attempt to dissuade Ianto from returning to his work.
"Be that as it may -- "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Hey, am I seeing you for dinner tonight?" Jack asked as Ianto laid a hand on his knee to lever himself off the battered couch.
"I don't know. Are you? I mean, I could blindfold you and feed you grapes."
Jack barked with laughter. "I wouldn't complain."
"And I'd be bored. Yes, Jack, you're seeing me for dinner tonight. Choose a restaurant," he said, shaking his head as he exited the room.
"And he emerges, suit unscathed," Ravi called out to the rest of the team as Ianto clattered down the stairs from Jack's office.
"And I'll wager you didn't know he cared," Andy said as Ianto frowned.
"Betting pool," Maeve said dryly.
"On -- " Ianto started, but didn't finish. It seemed better not to dignify this latest burden of cameraderie with details.
He heard Jack laugh delightedly from above. "Kids, kids, kids. You're waaaay too interested in what mom and dad get up to behind closed doors.
"Um," Gwen interjected, almost hesitantly.
"Jack --" Ianto said, his voice clearly warning.
"Aaaaw, don't worry Ianto. I''ll happily wear the dress. Maybe even a little apron if you're good," Jack said, kissing the top of Ianto's head as he passed him on the steps. Ianto shoved at him half-heartedly.
"Jack," Gwen said, trying to get his attention.
"Hey, Gwen, wanna go shopping?" Jack asked, enjoying basking in everyone's attention.
"Um, I think you should look at this first," she said, not taking her eyes off her monitor.
"What?" Jack said, instantly switching gears as he headed to her work station. He let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be.... Ianto! I think this one's for you."
Ianto sighed. The banter, even at his expense, was all very well and good, but he did actually have work to do. With the nearly malicious glee in Jack's voice he was half expecting to see a drunk Blowfish on the CCTV Gwen was monitoring.
Instead it was the Doctor, pulling faces and waving at them. Well, there wasn't really anything all that unusual about that, Ianto thought a bit cruelly. He might have been a master of time and space, but he was also completely undignified.
"Great," he said curtly. "And why for me? He's your ex."
"He's not my ex," Jack said emphatically, still staring at the screen.
"Whatever. He's your... whatever," Ianto said, flapping his hands a bit ineffectually.
"Hey, you got the ride, last time," Jack noted.
Someone let out a low whistle.
"Not like that," Ianto snapped. Then softly, he asked, "Since when are you avoiding him?" as the Doctor continued to ape for the camera.
Jack considered his answers and realized he didn't want to say any of them aloud. Since he stole you; since he broke my heart; since he always seems to bring the end of the world -- none of those were very nice. Or reassuring. Or fair. To anyone. He sighed.
"You know," Gwen said, obviously losing patience with the tension emanating from them. "You could both go see what he wants."
"But --"
"I said go see what he wants, not necessarily run off for a joy ride," she snapped.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at Jack. "After you," he said, "since you're wearing the dress and all."
As the invisible lift rose towards street level, Ianto looked down at the rest of the team clustered around the base. Gwen winked at him, and Ianto wondered why it was that she didn't seem inclined to want to run off with the Doctor to see the stars. He'd have thought she'd be the type. Just went to show you that things weren't always what you expected. He thought he ought to hold onto that idea, because when the Doctor dropped by, embracing the unexpected seemed to be the only way to hold onto one's sanity.
Ianto glanced at Jack out of the corner of his eye, noting that his jawline was tense and his expression grim.
"You all right?" he murmured.
"Fine."
"You're not really still hacked off about the last time, surely?" he asked incredulously. "It was ages ago."
"Two years," Jack snapped. "Not that long. And of course not, why would I be?"
"Right," Ianto said. "Of course not. Silly question."
The lift clicked into place, and they were outside. The Doctor was standing in front of the TARDIS, and he seemed now to be chatting away to someone on a mobile.
Even though they hadn't moved off of the paving stone and were still masked by the perception filter, the Doctor snapped his phone shut and shoved it into his pocket, while an enormous smile stretched across his face. "Took you long enough," he called across to them.
Ianto looked at Jack, who shrugged, and then bounded off the lift. "Doctor," he said, "to what do we owe this pleasure? End of the world? Again?"
"Always so suspicious," the Doctor said, shaking his head in mock dismay. "Maybe I just missed you."
Even though the back of Jack's head was to him, Ianto could see from the set of his shoulders that he was unwillingly charmed by that last. He shook his head and chuckled to himself softly, before following Jack off the paving stone and coming up behind him.
"You never just miss me," Jack pointed out.
Ignoring him, the Doctor said, "Mr. Jones, lovely to see you again."
"Likewise," Ianto lied, not sure what else to say. "It's been some time."
"So what can we do for you, Doctor?" Jack said. "Or are you just here to refuel?"
"Well, that's a bit of a story actually."
"We have time," Jack said. "Don't we?"
"Thing is, Jack, I've a bit of a problem to sort out, and I was wondering if you might come along and help me."
"Really."
"Yes, it was quite a show actually. You see, they've got these elephants, well, not elephants really, but close enough, except they've got fangs. And horns. And spikes. And six limbs. So not a lot like elephants, really, and they're guarding this object, but what they don't know, is that it's giving off this dilithiolic radiation -- you have heard of that, haven't you? Causes living material to mutate? -- and so it's got to be nicked, because otherwise their whole planet's doomed, and I thought, well, this is the kind of job where you need a man who can't die -- because even if you do get by the elephants, there's still the radiation to deal with, and the lethal gas pocket around the object itself -- and funny thing really, because I've got one, haven't I?"
The Doctor looked at Jack brightly, and Ianto grinned to himself again because Jack was so clearly fighting against giving in completely, and well, he was losing, and Ianto didn't get to watch Jack out-blustered very often. Somewhat to his surprise, he was quite enjoying it.
"How do you mean 'you've got one'? One what?"
"Well, that's you, isn't it? Try to keep up, Jack."
Jack sputtered, and Ianto actually laughed out loud. The Doctor turned to face him. "And you, Mr. Jones--"
"Please," Ianto interrupted, "stop calling me that. Ianto's fine. You used it before."
"Did I? Brilliant. Ianto then."
"You should go, Jack," Ianto said. "Mutating elephants. Doesn't sound too good."
Jack hesitated and looked back at the waterfall which ran down into the Hub.
"Oh, but you'll come too, won't you?" the Doctor asked Ianto. "Be lovely to have someone sensible aboard to talk to."
"I can't," he assured him. "Someone's got to stay and look after this lot."
"Ahhh, yes. Team Torchwood!"
"Yes, that is our name, so glad you've remembered," Jack snapped, never particularly fond of the Doctor's views on the subject. Sure, the original Torchwood was evil, but Jack was pretty sure his Torchwood was, if not good -- okay, probably not good -- then at least not actively evil. Per se.
"No, I was actually just saying hello," said the Doctor, his tone still somewhat tinged with distaste.
Ianto and Jack spun round, and saw that the whole team had somehow snuck up behind them. Gwen and Andy appeared to be carrying a pack each.
Jack stared at them in horror. "What is this wholesale migration?!"
Gwen grinned at him. "Here's yours," she said, shoving the pack at Jack. Andy handed his over to Ianto, who took it without thinking, still goggling.
"Have a nice time," she said firmly. "We'll look after things till you get back."
"But you can't--" Ianto said, finding his voice. "There's all this--"
"Somehow," Maeve interjected dryly, "I think we can handle clearing out the weevil cages without your expert assistance."
"And," Gwen added, "the Doctor's phoned Martha, and she'll be coming down to keep us company while you're off gallivanting."
"When did you talk to Gwen?" Ianto blurted out, before remembering the conversation the Doctor had been in the middle of, before he and Jack had appeared on the scene. “And why are you getting them to help? You hate Torchwood!”
The Doctor winked at him. "Looks like it's all sorted then. I'll have them back before you know it. You're a wonder, Gwen Cooper. They're lucky to have you." He put his arm about her, and looked at Jack. "She'll keep the world ticking away while you're gone, Jack, there's no need to worry. The earth's safe in their keeping. I promise you." He looked down at Gwen fondly. “One thing I'll never much like about Jack. Always tries to keep the good ones for himself...”
“Are you flirting with me?” an incredulous Gwen asked.
The Doctor considered her for a moment. “Naaaaaah. Not my department. You are something though.”
She beamed at him, though a little uncertainly.
"Gwen, what've I told you about mutinous conspiracies?" Jack interjected.
"You need to go, apparently," she said, sounding a bit annoyed, Ianto thought, at being relegated by Jack to the role of minor character in the Jack as the Center of the Universe show. "And it's not mutiny. What are you always saying about your commanding officer?"
"Yes, Jack, what are you always saying about that?" the Doctor asked with malicious glee.
Jack narrowed his eyes at him. "You're up to something," he said, ignoring the question.
"Of course I'm up to something. I'm the Doctor!"
"Great," Ianto muttered, brain finally catching up to the knapsack in his hands. He looked sharply at Andy. "Did you fold one of my suits?" he asked in horror.
"You know, I have closets. With hangers that have the nice little grippy thing for trousers and everything," the Doctor noted.
"I... this better not be like last time," Ianto said sharply.
The Doctor leaned into his personal space. "Why? Did I scare you?" he asked with relish.
Ianto shoved his pack at the Doctor in self-defense as Jack looked on curiously. He had promised the day that Ianto had come back to let it lie, and he had, although more for Ianto's comfort than real paradox concerns. Maybe that made him a bad ex-Time Agent or Torchwood operative or whatever, but Jack didn't really care.
Ianto had been markedly strange (and oh so terribly sweet) with him in the weeks after that incident, and if finding out more about it had seemed likely to help, Jack knew he would have pressed. But Ianto liked privacy for his grief, a legacy of Lisa or losing his parents young, Jack wasn't sure, and so he had left it alone despite the way it had nagged at him with a dull horror.
But past discretion on his part sure as hell didn't mean he wasn't curious to see Ianto and the Doctor interact now, even if the curiosity did remind him to bristle with indecisive jealousy.
"Still with us, Jack?" the Doctor asked quietly, still clutching Ianto's bag.
"Wha-- sorry," Jack said and chuckled, turning to Ianto. "You made him the porter."
"It's the least he could do," Ianto said tartly.
"Why don't we all get back to work," Maeve suggested loudly, and Jack realized it was to remind him of their presence as surely as it was to get the team back underground.
Jack turned and looked them over, proud of their fierceness and fragility and humour.
"You ready to do this?" he asked Ianto in a low voice, without turning to face him.
"I don't know what this is."
"Yeah, me neither. If you don't --"
"Oh no," Ianto said quickly. "I may not like it. But I'm coming with."
"Okay. Say your goodbyes then."
"We'll be--?"
"Yeah, just in case," Jack said, cutting the question off.
"Right," Ianto said cautiously, before stammering through three hugs and then an awkward handshake with Maeve, who laughed.
"So, we'll be back in -- when will be we back, Doctor?"
"A week. Tops. Promise. Very important. Wouldn't want to let these hooligans get up to too much without you," the Doctor said, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"But it was only three days for me, before," Ianto protested.
"Oh?" the Doctor said dubiously. "Was it? I get so forgetful these days. 900 plus and counting. Memory's the first thing to go, you know."
"Right then. See you in a week, kids," Jack said with a mock salute. "Don't let the world blow up without us."
Jack looked at Ianto who raised his eyebrows. "Again, dress. After you," he said, with a grim chuckle.
As they stepped inside the TARDIS, the Doctor tossed Ianto's rucksack back to him and Ianto watched as Jack dropped his own to immediately run both his palms over the Tardis walls and struts and console. He couldn't help but smile at the sight. This was Jack in love, and it was markedly easier to watch directed at a ship, no matter how sentient, than at the Doctor, which had sort of been what Ianto was expecting. However, things between the two men seemed slightly tense and definitively awkward, and on some level Ianto couldn't help but preen just a little, even if it was going to make this radioactive elephant situation all the more unpleasant.
He wondered if the Doctor was lying about that, or if they were real and just the lure for whatever ridiculous, miserable object lesson they were both no doubt in for this time.
The Doctor stood back, arms crossed as he watched Jack caress the TARDIS; Ianto thought he looked suddenly reserved, and he shivered a bit, remembering what lay behind the daft mask that he usually favoured for whatever alien reason.
"She still seems a bit edgy," Jack remarked. "But less than before."
"She's got used to you, I suppose. Exposure does wonders," the Doctor said, before dashing over to the console, and winding something that looked like the inner workings of a clock. "So? Ready? Allons'y!"
Jack stepped back from the console, and put his arm about Ianto's shoulders. They stared into the viewscreen that showed the Millenium Centre and the Plass. It was deserted; the team had already retreated back to the Hub. Gwen had probably chivvied them downstairs before the TARDIS door had completely swung shut.
"They're probably watching from the CCTV," Ianto said softly.
"Probably," Jack agreed.
And then the screen switched to its strange symbols -- Ianto wondered briefly if they read as anything in Gallifreyan, or whatever the Doctor's language was, because presumably, like Jack, he hadn't been born speaking English -- and he knew they were in the Vortex. The Doctor turned to face them and smiled.
"So what's the plan, Doctor?" Jack said, stepping forward, a hint of belligerence underlying his usual cheer. "Rogue elephants? Radioactive? Lethal gas? Should get going, yeah?"
"Why in such a hurry, Jack?"
"You did mention it was important, sir," Ianto answered him, and Jack's head swiveled slowly to stare at him.
Ianto shrugged. "What?" he said. "It just came out."
"Right. Whatever," Jack said, glaring a little before turning to face the Doctor again, who was trying to hide his smirk, but not very successfully.
"So, you said you needed my help. Our help. Why don't we get on with it then?"
"I think," the Doctor said firmly, "that you should be fully rested before coping with something of this scale. Why don't you find your room, and put your baggage away before Ianto's suits wrinkle, and then we'll meet in the kitchen."
Jack looked suspiciously at him, but couldn't find anything in the suggestion to quibble at, and who was he kidding anyway? It had been phrased as a suggestion, but it was, in fact, an order, however gently put, and therefore there was only one thing to do.
The Doctor nodded at him, and Jack mentally threw up his hands. They'd climbed on board, so now they might as well enjoy the ride.
"Ianto can share your room, can't he?"
"Sure enough," Jack agreed. Looking towards Ianto, he jerked his head towards the door that led into the rest of the ship. "Let's go."
"Oh, and Jack," the Doctor said innocently. "Don't be too long, all right? Plenty of time for all that later."
Jack winked. "You never know," he said as cheekily as he could. "Better make hay while the sun shines."
"I am not a field," Ianto told him firmly, and Jack laughed as he turned to the Doctor to add, "We won't be a moment."
As he followed Jack down the maze of hallways he only dimly recognized from the last time, Ianto wondered why they'd bothered to bring anything for Jack at all. He surely had plenty of changes aboard.
They walked into the same bedroom that Ianto remembered from before, still pleasing and blue, except the bed seemed to have expanded somewhat in size.
Jack plopped down upon it with a sigh. "Nice of her to make the change," he remarked, "even if I don't really need it."
"She? Oh, the ship," Ianto said, still a bit uncomfortable with the sentience of the dimensionally expanding vessel. "Right." A little embarrassed at his uncertainty, he busied himself with unpacking first Jack's bag and then his own.
Jack watched Ianto as he fussed with their clothes more than was strictly necessary, even for him.
"You've been in here before," Jack eventually said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"I like that," Jack said, trying to ignore Ianto's obvious discomfort. "Did you sleep here?"
"No," Ianto said shortly, not even looking at him.
Jack frowned. "Did you --"
"Jesus Christ, Jack, I didn't sleep with your fucking Doctor," Ianto said, whirling on him.
Jack held up his hands. "Hey, that wasn't what I was asking."
"Wasn't it?"
Jack chuckled. "Well, yeah. But not 'cause I wanted a fight."
"Well, what do you want?" Ianto asked, knowing that if Jack said threesome, he was just going to punch him and have done with it.
Jack sighed. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. Even with access to space and time, crises can't usually wait."
"As I noted."
"Yes, as you noted, my clever, clever Ianto," Jack said, somehow managing to be both fond and sarcastic. "My point, is that we're lacking a shocking amount of data here, but there's the very real possibility that you have more than I do, since you're the one who saw him last and I don't enjoy having to play catch up."
"I didn't sleep here," Ianto said, still clearly furious, "because I was stuck on some ridiculous planet. When he retrieved me -- oh yes, that's right Jack -- he just left me on some fucking rock and said he'd be back and I had no goddamn clue what was going on, he refused to bring me home straight away, because I was too distraught. He tried to get me to take a nap. And so I sat here wondering if you'd fucked him in this bed. Happy?"
"Um... no," Jack said, hesitantly. He wasn't enjoying this at all, and he wondered how viscerally this was calling up Ianto's secret adventure. After everything he had been through, neither of them needed a run-in with PTSD now, not with, and Jack's mouth couldn't help but twist into a bitter smile at this, radioactive elephants on the loose.
He took a deep breath. "No one's ever slept, or done anything else, in this bed but me. To my knowledge. That's why I liked the idea of you having slept here. That's all."
"I hate this," Ianto said, knowing he sounded like a child.
"Well, don't," Jack said, sitting up. "Let's find out what this is about and then get the Doc to make it up to us. He knows some fabulous beaches."
Ianto continued to glare at him.
"Look, we can keep fighting, or we can try to muddle through this. Either way, if we go at this much longer, he is going to think we're screwing in here, and if he's going to be in a huff about that, I'd rather it was because we actually were."
"I still can't tell you what happened," Ianto said, stuck somehow back in the earlier part of the conversation.
"I get that," Jack said placatingly. "But it may mean you figure out what's up here first. And when you do, I'd appreciate it if you told me, okay?"
"Tell you? Tell you?" Ianto exclaimed, refusing to be soothed, "Don't be ridiculous. I don't belong here. I'm so out of my element, I'm not even in the same periodic table. I should be home. I should be cleaning out the weevil cells. I should be doing logistics for the team. Things I can actually be useful at!"
Jack sighed. "It's not just you. Everyone feels that way with the Doctor, especially at first. Just try to relax."
"It's not that easy."
"It's exactly that easy," Jack told him. "Look, it's like going to an expensive restaurant. We looked at the menu in the window, thought it looked interesting, and we walked in. We've been seated. Now is not the time to be worrying about whether we can afford it and ordering soup to be cheap. We're here. Might as well enjoy it."
Ianto couldn't help but laugh at the analogy, and the laughter itself calmed him somewhat.
"Besides," Jack added, "we have credit cards. We can worry about the bill later."
"What are the credit cards representing in this scenario?"
"I don't know," he admitted, "but it sounded good."
"It did," Ianto agreed. And then he nodded. "Okay. Okay."
As they walked into the TARDIS kitchen, Ianto noticed that the Doctor had put the kettle on and it was whistling.
"I know you prefer coffee, Jack," the Doctor said without turning to look at them, "but I thought Ianto here might like a cuppa."
"You don't have a... a.. a machine that does that for you?" Ianto asked.
The Doctor spun round, and blinked at him. "What d'you mean?"
"I don't know, something better than a kettle."
"Of course not," he said, sounding shocked. "What else could get it just close to boiling, but not quite? And then the fresh, cold milk in the cup, and pouring the tea into it so it doesn't scald?"
"George Orwell says it ought to be the other way round. Tea first, then milk."
"Oh, Eric Blair? Lovely bloke, but wrong about the tea. Totally. Tried to get him to see it scientifically, but--"
"You knew him?" Ianto asked, astounded.
"Of course," the Doctor assured him.
"Me too," Jack said. "Hell of a guy to show you round Paris. And he had a nice--"
"And that's enough of that," the Doctor cut him off hurriedly.
"Aunt," Jack finished while Ianto glared at them both. "Nellie was her name. Always good for a few francs and a sofa to sleep on."
Ianto cleared his throat. "We seem to be straying from the point a bit. And actually, Doctor, like Jack, I prefer coffee. That is if I were in need of a caffeinated beverage, which in point of fact, I'm not. And what about these elephants? You don't seem too bothered about the whole thing. If it's so critical..." he trailed off, pointedly.
"Right," Jack said. "Why so relaxed?"
The Doctor turned back to his cup of tea. "Did I mention, this ship of mine? It also travels in time."
"We know that," Jack said, as he walked over to one of the cupboards, unearthed a tin of some sort of alien biscuits, brought them back over to Ianto, and offered him one.
Ianto noticed they had some strange green fur growing on them, tried to repress a shudder and shook his head to refuse the offer. Jack shrugged and ate one himself. He seemed completely at home in this kitchen, and Ianto couldn't help but think of how Jack was in his flat, or in the Hub. Because he was almost exactly the same here, and who knew how many more homes Jack had that he would almost certainly never see?
"Somehow," Jack went on, "you always seem like you're in a hurry anyway."
"Maybe that's just when you happen to be around. You're trouble, you know," the Doctor said, taking a sip of his tea. "Lovely. Sure you won't join me?"
"Trouble? Look who's talking," said Jack.
"All right then," the Doctor said, putting down his cup, and suddenly seeming all-business. "Here's the situation. We'll land on the planet as close to the cave as we can get."
"Of course it's a bloody cave," Ianto muttered to himself, taking a small notebook and his fountain pen out of his breast pocket to take down the plan.
The Doctor ignored him. "Hopefully there won't be too many guards around it."
"And these guards... they're elephants? You know that doesn't make any sense, right?"
"Well, if you want to get technical, they call themselves Hfs&^rn$@wlnbsfdfxzfstwsvss, but I thought elephants were simpler."
"Elephants it is," Jack agreed, before adding to Ianto, "And you thought your language lacked vowels."
"And then, it's just a matter of getting past them, into the cave where they've got the dilithiolically radioactive object -- don't know what that looks like, you might have to search a bit, Jack, but it must be there, because the Hfs&^rn$@wlnbsfdfxzfstwsvss definitely did not start out with fangs and spikes and such bad tempers -- getting past the pocket of lethal gas around it, taking the object out and destroying it, which we can easily do, by dousing it with an alkaline substance."
"Seems straightforward enough," Jack said.
"Well, it might have been, before you said that," Ianto told him, and the Doctor grinned.
Clearly Jack had to be the one to make the dash into the cave, so the Doctor and Ianto were on 'guard-distracting-detail'. This, Ianto discovered, seemed like a bigger deal than it actually was. Quite literally, in fact.
"You know," he said casually to the Doctor, "when you said that they were like elephants, we envisioned something... quite a bit larger."
"I did tell you I was simplifying."
"The largest is about four inches tall."
"I suppose I could have said miniature elephants," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"It might have clarified things a bit," Ianto agreed through his teeth, as he herded the little beasts into a fissure in the rock wall and then yelped as one of them stuck his finger.
"Careful there," the Doctor said as he rolled a small, stray boulder in front of the fissure, penning them in.
"Doctor, why are we here?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, it's obviously not because of vicious mutating rogue elephant aliens so what's the real reason?"
"You think because they're small, they don't have a right to exist free from radioactive mutation?"
"Of course not! But you didn't need us to help you with it! What is it, whenever you need something nicked, you come to Torchwood?!"
"Why do you say that? Are you lot particularly good at nicking things?"
"Not as such, no, but we seem to do it a lot. Or at least I do."
The Doctor laughed. "A misspent youth?"
"Suppose you could say that. And you haven't actually managed to distract me from my question, you know."
"No? Shocking. Points for effort though, eh?"
Ianto granted him the point with half a smile and then asked, abruptly, "Are you lonely?"
For a moment the Doctor just goggled at him in silence, and Ianto couldn't help but feel very, very satisfied.
"Well now," he eventually said, "Jack must be just terrified of you."
Ianto grinned. "I hope so," he said softly.
The Doctor smiled at that, but continued to study him quietly with a strangely sad sort of stare.
After the radiation source had been neutralized and Jack had finished vomiting and dying on the behalf of the tiny, tiny elephants and everyone had been bundled back into the TARDIS (but only after Ianto had made sure to verify that Jack himself was no longer radioactive), Ianto couldn't help but notice the temptation to be giddy. There was, after all, an odd joy in the chaos and absurdity of it all, and even if he didn't trust it, it was nice to watch Jack drown in it, just a little, all its complications and jealous making aside.
In the console room, Ianto had asked the Doctor if they could go home now, and while he could have probably understood at least half the man's babble if he tried, the simple gist of no was all that mattered, especially with Jack laughing and slipping his arms around his waist, hands dipping pointedly into Ianto's back pockets.
He thought Jack was surprised as anyone that he hadn't earned a scolding for that -- Ianto was getting the impression the Doctor had a rather dim view of sex -- and that they were shooed out of the ship's bridge instead. As they staggered down the halls kissing and laughing, he still couldn't shake this sense he had of the Doctor's sadness, but it seemed, especially after their earlier argument, the wrong time to ask Jack about it.
In their room, Ianto finally pushed Jack off of him.
"Is this the radiation talking?" he asked, laughing, knowing his fear of the notion was deeply particular to everything about his time and place in a way Jack or the Doctor probably couldn't even understand.
Jack shook his head. "No. It's the dying talking," he said laughing.
"Are you trying to tell me," Ianto asked, very slowly, "that it's an endorphin rush?"
"Sorta, yeah. I mean, that was awful, but hello, alive!"
Ianto shook his head. "I think the Doctor's madness is contagious."
"Isn't it? Aren't you...?"
"Aren't I, what?"
"Having the time of your life?"
Ianto frowned as he watched Jack idly pull out of his clothes. "Maybe. And we should go back."
"Look," Jack said, dropping his shirt to the floor and starting on his pants, "We're here, we can't drop back in sooner than a couple of days from when we left and how long we're here's got nothing to do with it--"
"And we also can't hijack this thing," Ianto offered helpfully.
"Uh. Yeah. Bad idea. Oh, come on, get undressed!"
"So we make the most of it?" Ianto asked dubiously.
"I did promise you I'd show you the stars once, if I could," Jack, now naked, said as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"But this isn't you showing me," Ianto said. "It's him."
Jack blinked at the unexpected cruelty of it. "You know," he said after a beat, as if Ianto hadn't spoken, "I used to lie here in this bed, aching."
"From what?"
"For what," Jack corrected him. "All these things. The life I had before I met them, the life they ruined me for."
"Them?" Ianto asked. "You mean the Doctor?"
"And Rose. I wasn't a good man, before I met them maybe. But I was someone I understood."
"So why did you stay?"
Jack smiled. "Nice answer? I wanted them more than I wanted to go back. Not so nice answer? They killed that man. Or I guess I did. Suicide by Team TARDIS. Both those answers are true."
"You got what you wanted, then," Ianto said flatly.
"No, I didn't," Jack told him. "I got to love them though. Which was okay. It was worth it."
Ianto looked at him steadily, but didn't say anything.
Jack sighed. "They made me, Ianto. If you hate that, you hate me too."
Ianto was ashamed. He felt young again, insecure and uncertain in a way that he hadn't felt in years. "I don't... hate him," he managed. "Or you."
"It's okay. You could. I have," Jack said sadly. "But if I thought of all the things that've been stolen... it's a slippery slope. And why waste time on regret?"
Searching desperately for something to say, something that wouldn't participate in this hideous melancholy that seemed to have descended over them, Ianto mumbled, "I suppose the stars are there to be shared."
Jack laughed with sudden delight. "You said something like that to me, a long time ago."
"I don't remember."
"You were drunk," Jack told him as he laid back on the bed.
There was a silence, and then Ianto broke it. "So, lying there, aching, you say?"
"Oh yeah. Bone-melting, gnaw-your-own-hand-off aching."
"Doesn't seem like you."
"I know," Jack agreed. "I'd never jerked off so much in my life."
Ianto was surprised into a laugh at the matter-of-factness of his tone.
"Show me," he said, sitting back at the foot of the bed, with his back against the wall.
Jack arched an eyebrow at him. "Yeah? You want to see that?"
Ianto nodded.
Jack closed his eyes briefly, remembering in a flash all those long, agonizing nights in this very room, desperately fisting his cock with one hand, trying to fuck himself with the other, till he thought he might die from sheer want; smelling Rose's soap and the Doctor's leather, trying to recapture the feel of their hands in his as they were running; and then muffling his howls into the pillow as he came so hard he thought he might turn inside out... but not feeling satisfied, not completely, not ever, and immediately afterwards, still wanting, the respite only physical.
It wasn't like Jack hadn't given Ianto a show before. Jack was fine to look at, spectacular really, and he knew it and basked in it, as if Ianto's gaze -- anyone's gaze -- could make him more beautiful.
On some level, Ianto found it completely absurd. Jack could be so shameless it made the erotic nearly comical. Too, for all the times in his life Ianto had found himself fancying men, he had never really expected to find himself staring at one with such desire. Women were for looking at; men were something else, some dark want. Maybe it was gnaw-your-own-hand-off desire, like Jack had said. Maybe it was just Jack.
He watched as Jack sucked two fingers into his mouth and then trailed them down his throat and paused to circle a nipple before letting his hand drift even further down.
Ianto knew what would happen next, knew the way Jack's fingers would linger over the arc of his hip bone and scratch through the hair at the base of his cock, while he stared at Ianto in challenge.
He knew it and liked it, but it wasn't what he wanted, not at all.
He wrapped a hand around Jack's ankle.
"No," he said.
Jack made an interrogative noise.
"I don't want a show," Ianto said, his hand moving so that he could knead his thumb along the arch of Jack's foot. "I want to know what it was like. The wanting. Show me like you never met me."
Jack offered him a small smile. "Maybe I was aching for you too," he said.
"Oh, Jack," Ianto said, melting at the lie of it. Because if Jack had been aching for him all those years ago in this bed, he'd been aching for a lot of other people too: Estelle, the unnamed wife, an assortment of loves named here and there, Gwen maybe, and people Jack hadn't even met yet and probably wouldn't until Ianto was gone.
He pressed his thumb hard into Jack's arch again and bent to kiss the top of his foot, knowing that the first time Jack had pleasured himself in this bed, the man had been mortal. Ianto mourned for it, the notion that he and Jack had once been the same, both human, both children, and yet somehow had never known it.
For a moment, Jack suspected he almost knew shame at this act, but he knew, in truth, it was just worry and mourning, because he had been delighted when they had stumbled back to this room, and he had wanted to share that with Ianto. And this, whatever it was, wasn't anything he could imagine being about delight. It was a past and a past that hurt, and that was fine, sometimes hurt was great after all -- like the ache in his balls when he'd first joined up with the Doctor and Rose. Oh, he'd wanted them straight off!
But hurt wasn't always great. It had the potential, he knew, to be anything but great now, but what Ianto asked for, Jack would give him, no matter how poor an idea it might be.
He closed his eyes, and let his hand go straight to his cock, squeezing a little roughly. He sighed, remembering it all and hoping Ianto and his damn permeable head couldn't hear him. Regardless, the ache was good, and Jack slipped his other hand down to cup his balls and squeezed them hard too. He explored back behind them, spreading his legs, before rolling onto his stomach, because that's how he'd always done it here -- eyes tight shut and face hidden so he could convince himself it was real, that it wasn't his hands, that if he were very, very lucky, in the midst of it the Doctor might wander in and grab his hips and pull him back and onto his cock.
Jack laughed and pumped his prick as he rubbed himself against the sheets, shifting to free an arm so he could run his nails over his own ass.
"Lube," Jack gasped, but Ianto said nothing and made no move to search. This wasn't his home, this wasn't his room, and this wasn't his fantasy. Jack was alone, Jack would have to find it himself.
A frantic moment then, and Ianto was riveted to see Jack desperate with no one to bend to, not really. He fumbled and twisted and reached back under the bed along the headboard, until he came up with a bottle.
Ianto wondered if it had been there all along.
He watched both fascinated and dismayed as Jack clumsily flipped the cap and poured it over his fingers, far too much of it for future comfort hitting the bed.
But then Jack was stretching his back and arching, not even really bothering to pull his knees up under him to press those fingers inside himself. It wasn't far, Ianto noted, not much more than the first knuckle, and he watched as Jack moaned in frustration, grinding against the bed. It was clear he was trying to maintain as much contact with things as possible, the illusion of flesh, of his lost lovers, more important than a nice simple and cheerful wank.
Ianto wondered if the ship knew.
Jack's mouth was opened in a perfect O, and Ianto considered whether he was imagining the Doctor's cock or Rose's fingers or god knows what else, but it was studied, deliberate, and Ianto was sure that whatever the narrative, Jack surely knew exactly what he wanted just there.
Ianto placed a hand on Jack's calf, unable to help himself and smiled as Jack moved his leg to rub against it, even if he really was just trying to get purchase against the mattress.
But then Jack made a noise like a request and while Ianto knew he was probably just begging for the Doctor, it was impossible for him not to respond, because all he wanted was Jack, and all he wanted was to make it better. He shifted up onto the bed to press himself against the length of Jack's back.
"Please," Jack gasped and Ianto wondered if he was pretending he was the Doctor.
He kissed Jack's shoulder.
"Ianto," Jack breathed then, face still hidden against the pillow and Ianto marveled at the discovery that his name was just so warm.
When Ianto pressed up behind him, Jack could feel each real, live sensation distinctly -- the slight scratch of the wool trousers against his thighs; the buttons of Ianto's shirt making small, sharp, singular imprints on his back; the warmth of his breath misting against Jack's neck; his fingers, precise and careful and firm, against Jack's hipbones -- as if each one banished another ghost.
Because this was really happening, here, and just as he'd wished so many times: another person, another's breath, motions that weren't his own, resistance that he hadn't created, and Jack knew he was bucking back frantically against him, unable to wait, afraid somehow that if he did, it would be gone, Ianto would be gone, just another dream, evaporating as he tried to cling to it.
Ianto shushed him, murmured words into his ear, but Jack was beyond understanding them now, there were just sounds blurring together, everything stinging and sweet, and he wanted it all at once, everything.
He felt Ianto slide away briefly, felt the rock and creak of the bed, and then there was naked skin against his back, and he was being pulled back onto Ianto's cock, just like he'd imagined, longed, burned for. There was the chemical tang of the lube in his nostrils, his own hand still desperately, frantically fisting his cock, and the damp sheets, rough and wet against his knees. Ianto's forearm was against the nape of his neck, pinning him down, and Jack arched his back to let him in, deeper, further, more, harder, Ianto fucking him as if he were the ephemeral, unknowable phantom that had to be written into being, as if it were Jack who might be lost with the waking.
If Jack could have, he would've laughed at the notion. As it was, he simply hung on, breathed in as deep as he could, wanting the moment to draw out, to last forever.
When he came, he was almost sorry.
As Ianto collapsed onto his back, still shaking from his own orgasm, both of them drenched with sweat, Jack smiled into the pillow. He twisted then, so that he could kiss Ianto's mouth, smell him -- slight hint of milk and new mint, ink and paper, metal, lavender and wool. The twenty-first century.
When Jack kissed him and then pulled back, Ianto found himself thinking all of a sudden of a girl named Laura and the nights he'd spent in his childhood room, just miserable and aching for her, wrapped in a sweaty tangle of sheets, and knowing that if he didn't have her, bury himself balls deep in her, he'd just die. Knowing that the desire must surely be radiating out of him, sinking permanently into the walls and the paint.
And it was with that memory, that he smiled at Jack, knowing his heart was in his eyes.
"So," he said finally. "Satisfying?"
"You have no idea," Jack said with a laugh.
"Oh, I think I have some idea."
Jack chuckled. "Maybe you do at that."
They lay in silence for a few moments, before Ianto remarked, "I didn't want to be the first to mention it, but there's lube everywhere."
"Listen, you're the one who refused to help. Don't bitch."
"Fine, but you're going to sleep in the wet spot."
"Well, okay, except, one, I don't sleep. And two, it's all wet spot."
Ianto elbowed him in the ribs, right where he knew Jack was ticklish, and then suddenly they were wrestling in a ridiculous and unscientific fashion that ended, as might have been predicted, with all the pillows and half the sheets on the floor, and Jack pinning him down, while making him howl and take it all back and make patently false promises about how he'd never do it again.
When they'd calmed down, regained their breath from laughing, and were lying quietly again, Ianto stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what exactly about the room made it so pleasing to the eye.
"So," he said idly, "I really got it wrong then. You and the Doctor never..." He trailed off.
Jack didn't answer straight away. Then, "Not in this room," he said finally. "But yeah. Just once with Rose. And once with the Doctor. Never together."
"Oh," Ianto said. "Oddly, and this isn't jealousy, mind, but I find it hard to imagine the Doctor having sex. He seems sort of put off by the whole idea."
"He was a different man then."
"Oh?"
"Literally."
Ianto laughed, and then buried his face in Jack's shoulder, thinking how strange it was that something so alien could feel so like home.
"We should get up," Jack said after a while.
"God, why?" Ianto said, faintly horrified at the thought of moving.
"She won't fix the bed if we're lying in it."
"Don't tell me he has a maid."
Jack laughed. "The ship."
"Oh, right. Ship. Girl. Talks to you. Keep forgetting. Does it ever stop getting weirder?"
"Nope," Jack said, sitting up. "But hey, at least there's hot water."
"Magic words," Ianto said, levering himself up and shaking his head in horror, not just at the state of them and the bed but really at the whole room.
Continue to Part 2
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Date: 2009-02-02 06:51 pm (UTC)AW BUGFUCK I have to go to lunch. *bookmarkzors and runs*