Fic: Need You/Forgive Me
This fic came into being because I am on a business trip in Malaysia, staying in a hotel room about, oh, 5 feet from what has to be the loudest mosque in southeast Asia. The call to prayer started at 5am and I can't sleep through it. So I wrote instead. Enjoy.
Title: Need You/Forgive Me
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13 for themes and language
Warnings: Spoilers for 2x13 "Exit Wounds"
Summary: After Exit Wounds, Jack and Ianto think about what happened. Two ficlets, the first from Ianto's POV and the second from Jack's POV. Very sad and angsty, and hopefully in keeping with their thoughts and feelings.
Need You
God, I don’t even know what to think…
I have no idea what to say to you, or what to do about you. There’s no way you’re the same man who danced with me at the wedding or who held my hand after those things came out of the Electro. You spent two thousand years buried alive and I couldn’t do anything about it. Nobody survives what he did and stays the same person, not even you, Jack.
I want you to be the same Jack, I need you to be the same Jack, God help me, I need you like a fish needs water and I’m so scared I can’t see straight. What can I do? What if you don’t want me anymore? What if I’m too much of a coward to face you now? I knew when we started getting closer to each other that life with you would never be easy or anything approaching normal, but I never, ever thought I’d have to deal with something like this. I don’t know if I can handle it. It’s one thing, seeing you come back from the dead; it’s another thing entirely knowing you waltzed out of a drawer in the fucking morgue and save the world. Again. I can’t handle this. I just can’t handle this. Stay with me, Jack. Don’t you make me go through this alone.
Sweet jesus, I thought I’d lost you, and then you found me, and I can’t leave you now. God, I’m so selfish, worrying about me when you’ve lost your entire world. Am I the only thing you have left now? Me and Torchwood, who if the records are true tried to kill you, then froze you like a monster? Am I the only thing in your life that can save you from the dark? Fuck, I’m not that strong. I’m not that good. I tried that once before, and wound up killing her and killing two other people and killing you almost getting killed myself. Lisa, oh my sweet, beautiful Lisa, how I loved her. I tried and tried and tried to save her and I just wasn’t good enough. And now you need me to save you? Listen to me, I’m laughing and in hysterics, and you’re going to look at me and trust me to save you and I can’t. I couldn’t be there for you when you needed it the most, I couldn’t help you, just like I couldn’t save Lisa or those people or anybody else.
I love you, god do I love you. I want you, I need you like I need air or like flowers need rain…I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t care how long it’s been, I need you. I need to know that there are people like you in the world, because that's the only way I'll survive. There isn’t anything you could do that would ever make me not want to be with you, because I know what kind of man you are now. You're not like anybody else in this whole wide world, probably not like anybody else in the whole universe given how that Hart bastard keeps coming back for you and...I just, oh hell, Jack, thank god you’re here in my arms…because if I can’t be here to hold you together, I don’t know how long it will be before I fly apart.
Forgive Me
I deserved that.
I let him go. I condemned him to being turned into a living corpse. I deserved that, and I had to do my penance to ease my soul. You didn’t, though, you didn’t ask for it, nor did you do anything that could have justified that. Nothing you did or didn’t do or could have done deserved that. The only thing you did wrong was to be near me.
How can you still be here? Why haven’t you run away, like all the others? I’m a freak, a sick joke of nature, hell, not even a sick joke of nature because nature herself hates me. I’m wrong, I’m a mess, my whole life is a series of fuckups and disasters and I should have put myself out of the universe’s misery thousands of years ago…and I can’t. I’m a parasite, I’m a curse. Everything I touch withers and dies away at my hand. I dread the day, and I know it’s coming, that something I do robs the breath from your lungs and the joy from your heart. I came close once, took your Lisa from you, and you called me a monster. You were right then, and you were wrong. You had no idea when you said that just how much a monster I am. What kind of a man are you, to look at me like you do, fearful and desperate but still full of love and hope, when I know you’re just as hurt and terrified as I am? Where do you get that courage? Why do you look at me like you are praying, as if you believe I'm your only hope and salvation? How could you possibly love a fucked-up thing like me?
And, oh, hell, the one thing you keep giving me over and over and over again is the one thing I will never deserve. You forgave me for Lisa, you forgave me for leaving you for the Doctor, you forgave me for the murders of hundreds, you forgave me for the destruction of the city you love, and you’re forgiving me now. You’re forgiving me for being a sick canker in the heart of the universe. You’re forgiving me for being taken, for bringing John into your world, for being his brother, for drawing fucking breath you’re forgiving me. How do you do that? Doesn’t it matter to you? Doesn’t it hurt you, seeing how fucked-up and broken I am? How can you even stand to touch me? What did I ever do to deserve forgiveness? What could you possibly see in me that is worthy of you?
But I’m here, in your bed, in your arms, and you’re sobbing into my neck. It hurts to be here, hurts to have you touch me, but I can’t leave you. I won’t leave you. I can't survive a minute without what you give me, and there is nothing I could ever give you in return that would be enough. Forgive me, Ianto, please forgive me, because without your absolution I’ll never be free.