Deviations from the Norm -- Its Eyes Are For The Stars
Title: Deviations from the Norm
Chapter Six: Its Eyes Are For The Stars
dwtwprompt prompt: Writer's Choice: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
Date Written: 5/22/08
Rating: PG/K+
Word Count: 2,136
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Spoilers: Torchwood Season 1 and 2, Doctor Who up to Season 03-ish
Warnings: Mentions m/m sex
Author's Notes: Something I've had bouncing in my head since I first saw this quote. Oscar Wilde was just so brilliant. Set during Season 1, with spoilers for Fragments, particularly. Title is a quote from Sir Gilbert Parker; the full quote is "Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars..."
1/?: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum Dicendum Est
2/?: It's Like Battle, But Harder
3.1/?: I'll Know It When I See It
3.2/?: Some Cupid Kills With Arrows, Some With Traps
3.3/?: Keeping Up With The Joneses
3.4/?: Speak Low, If You Speak Love
3.5/?: Shall I Never See a Bachelor of Threescore Again?
4/?: Paint By Numbers
5/?: There's No Place That Far
"Get up, get dressed, there's something I want to show you."
Ianto blinked up at Jack, his mind still sleep-fogged. "How did you get in here?" he muttered in Welsh. Confusion washed across Jack's face and he repeated the question in English.
Honestly, for someone who'd lived over a century in Wales, it was downright disgraceful that Jack didn't speak the language better than Ianto himself.
The Captain tapped at his wrist strap. "Easy. Come on!" Jack urged, throwing Ianto's clothing at him.
Ianto glared at Jack but climbed obediently out of bed. "Breaking and entering is a crime, Captain," he said sleepily as he pulled his clothing on.
Jack just grinned back at him. That lovely Welsh accent was thicker whenever Ianto was tired. "Then give me a key."
"Like hell, you'll be coming in at all hours of the day and night," the Welshman grumbled, swearing in those beautiful round vowels as he realized he'd misbuttoned his shirt.
The Captain had to bite his lower lip to keep from laughing. Adorable. He had to leave the room when Ianto frowned, because Ianto would probably kill him if he laughed. He waited until Ianto came out of the bedroom before handing him a steaming cup of coffee.
Ianto arched an eyebrow at the cup, giving it a suspicious look.
He laughed. "I used some of the coffee you keep around here, and I can operate the normal human coffee maker," he argued.
Ianto gave him a dubious look, but took the cup anyway. He sniffed it hesitantly before taking an experimental sip. "Not bad," Ianto said after careful consideration. Which, coming from Coffee King Ianto, was a high compliment.
"Grab your coat," the immortal said after a moment. "I want to show you something."
Jack didn't look up from his never-bloody-ending paperwork when Ianto came into his office. The Welshman set Jack's mug on the edge of his desk. "If there's nothing else for tonight, sir, I thought I would go close up," he said.
"Sounds good," Jack replied, nodding a little. "It was quiet today, so the others are gone."
"Your conference call with Japan is scheduled in two hours," Ianto reminded him. "There's extra coffee in the kitchen."
The Captain finally looked up at Ianto, giving him a smile. "You're a lifesaver, Ianto."
"I try my best, sir," the Welshman replied with a soft laugh. "It would be rather inappropriate for you to fall asleep whilst on the phone," he jibed gently.
Jack laughed and sat back in his chair. "You're welcome to stay," he said, watching Ianto carefully. "The call shouldn't take as long as we have scheduled."
The younger man contemplated the proposition, his tongue slipping out to touch his lower lip as he thought. "Sir -- Jack, I..."
Jack cocked his head to the side. It wasn't often that one saw an Ianto Jones at a loss for words. And it definitely wasn't that Ianto thought Jack was being inappropriate, since Ianto had started this little arrangement in the first place.
No, it had started earlier than that. Over a hundred years ago, and a thousands years in the future. This -- whatever it was -- was going to either have to alter into something else or it would end in tears. Fucking someone while both of you were still in love with someone else was never a good arrangement; it probably was even worse because of their... unique connection.
"Jack, I realize that I have no right to demand, or to even ask, about this." Ianto quietly laid a manila file on Jack's desk. The Torchwood logo was printed on the front, and his own name -- Harkness, Jack -- was scrawled in the corner, in Alex's perpetually messy handwriting.
"This is just a preliminary report," Ianto informed him quietly as Jack opened the file. A picture of himself, an old one of him in his uniform during World War II stared back at him, along with a nice, long report. "There's more -- much, much more -- in the Archives. You had a whole cabinet to yourself in Torchwood One."
Jack looked up at him. "Really? You remembered that?"
"I have a very good memory, sir," he said softly, without a trace of arrogance. "Besides, it was a file that no one could break into, in a cabinet that took up half the room it occupied. Everyone in Research was dying to get into it, but it was locked up with so much alien technology that no one dared to even to try."
The Captain gave a little bit of a smirk at that. Yvonne had always been so paranoid. If only she had shared secrets between the Torchwood branches, things could have been, would have been oh-so-different.
"I didn't read it," Ianto told him before giving a little bit of a smile. "I know that you're immortal, and I figured that's what the file contained."
"Part of it, yes," Jack agreed, closing the file and tapping it against his chin. "There's a lot more in here."
"I'd rather you told me yourself."
The answer caught Jack off-guard, and it must have shown in his face because Ianto gave one of his rare, real smiles. "I hold no pretenses over what our relationship is, Jack, I never have. A friendship with... mutual benefits." The Vidara necklace flared gentle warmth against Jack's chest as Ianto shifted his stance, hands moving into his pants pockets. He continued to smile at the immortal. "You know I can keep secrets. If you wished to share any of them with me, as a friend to a friend, I would be willing to listen. However," he continued, stemming off Jack's ready protest, "if you wish to keep things to yourself, I will respect that."
"Why are you doing this?"
Ianto pulled his hands from his pockets and held one out to Jack. The Captain automatically handed over the file. "Partly because I'm interested in knowing more about you," Ianto admitted, "but mostly because I can see you floundering under the weight of something heavy. Sometimes a mindless pleasure isn't enough to keep a demon at bay."
Jack watched, still leaning back in his chair as Ianto dismissed himself with a nod and left his superior's office.
Ianto Jones was too damn smart for his own good, sometimes.
Ianto was still yawning and quietly muttering when Jack finally pulled the car over to the side of the two-lane road and put the SUV in park. The Welshman gave a nervous look around, realizing they were a little too close to the Brecon Beacons for his comfort.
Jack leaned over and touched his knee. "It's okay, Ianto," he said softly, reassuringly. "I wanted to show you something, but if you want, we can turn right around and I"ll take you home."
The younger man shook his head. "We should face our demons, right?" he said, giving a tight smile before throwing back the remains of his coffee.
The Captain felt his heart swell with pride as Ianto unbuckled and opened his door -- albeit before looking around cautiously and grabbing a torch to check the area around the SUV. Jack climbed out as well and aided Ianto with his search before going around and opening the boot of the vehicle.
Ianto watched, holding the torch up as Jack pulled out a rolled-up camping air mattress. The older man winked at Ianto before flipping the switch on the side of it and carefully unfolding it as the fan whirled. Within moments, the mattress was inflated.
"Sit down," Jack said, pulling a thermos out of the boot as well before shutting and locking the SUV up. Ianto did as he was ordered, clicking off the torch.
The darkness was sudden and oppressing, and Ianto jumped a little when he felt the mattress shift. Jack's hand was on his arm. "Shh, relax. It's just you and me," he said reassuringly, and Ianto rubbed his eyes as his sight adjusted to the faint light.
"Jack, what are we doing out here?"
Jack laughed a little, unscrewing the cap of the thermos. "There's a meteor shower tonight."
"I know." The confusion was evident in the Welsh voice. "Toshiko ran scans, just honest-to-goodness space debris."
"Yup." There was the glug-glug-glug of liquid being poured and a warm thermos cap was pressed into his hands. He smiled as the aroma of fresh coffee filled his senses. "I thought we'd watch it."
The cap paused halfway up to Ianto's mouth. "Watch a meteor shower?"
"Why not?"
Ianto shrugged a little.
"It's been a long time since I went stargazing," Jack admitted, and Ianto instinctively looked upwards.
Out in the countryside, there was no light pollution. Sure, they could see the stars from the Plass, but out here Ianto could see the millions and billions of stars, of all different colors and strengths, the fainter ones revealing themselves the longer he watched. The moon was at the new, so the only light came from the stars twinkling overhead.
He'd forgotten how beautiful it was.
"Me too," Ianto said with a laugh. "It's hard not to look up and see planet systems and the aliens that live in them." A faint streak of white appeared then vanished across the fabric of the sky and he laughed and pointed. "Ha! First one."
Jack laughed as well. "There's a quote someone said once, sometimes Torchwood reminds me of it. 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'"
"Oscar Wilde," Ianto said absently, raising his finger to trace the outline of the Big Dipper.
"Ah, so it was Oscar then? He always was such a wordsmith. You would have liked him."
"Oscar Wilde had been dead for over eighty years when I was born." Ianto paused for a moment, then laughed. "You talk like you knew him."
Jack was suspiciously quiet.
"You didn't..."
"Before you start, he was just a friend, no benefits there," Jack defended. "Although not from lack of trying on my part! Which really was a pity, although he was so much fun to just talk to."
Ianto laughed, a full-body laugh and Jack looked away from the sky to his... team mate? Lover? Friend? "You're taking this in stride."
"You can't die, Jack, it would follow that you're probably older than you look." Jack saw a flash of white teeth as Ianto smiled. "So you're at least a hundred."
"And looking good!"
"Not denying that." Ianto shifted and laid back on the mattress, looking up at the sky. "When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut," he said suddenly.
Jack smiled and laid back as well. "Really? You're smart enough for it, why didn't you?"
"Well, for one I'm British, really scales down the dreams," Ianto said, and Jack laughed. "I never had the grades. I was always bored in school, never paid much attention." He reached up, pointing to a random star. "I just always thought it would be fun to go out there, among the stars."
"It is."
Ianto looked over at Jack. He could faintly see Jack looking upwards, a look of blissful rapture on his face. "There's nothing like it, Ianto. It's... indescribable. Imagine every emotion you've ever felt, every one you've ever heard of, and ball it all up. That's space travel. I'll take out out there one day," he finished suddenly, taking himself by surprise.
"You really have gone out there, haven't you?" Ianto asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice.
"Yeah. I was born out there." He pulled the younger man down next to him and raised his arm, pointing off towards the west. "Over there, about ninety-eight billion light-years away, there's a solar system. The fourth planet from that sun is called Isatri."
"You're from outer space," Ianto said slowly.
"A little place called the Boeshane Peninsula," Jack agreed.
"Are you an alien?" There wasn't fear in his voice, just curiosity.
"Human. Well, as human as possible, being immortal."
"A human, born in Space." He scratched his head. "How?"
"I think we'll save that one for another time," Jack said, smiling in the dark.
Ianto made a small -- slightly disappointed -- noise of agreement, and they lapsed into silence, Jack's arm trapped under the warm weight of Ianto's shoulders. A bright white streak crossed the sky, the tail a lingering glittery trail from horizon to horizon. "Big one," the Welshman commented.
"Yup."
"You'll really take me out there?"
Jack couldn't help but smile at the thought of traveling with Ianto. He would be a dream to travel with -- a quick thinker, brilliant beyond the age he was born, technologically inclined, and he would absolutely adore it. He squeezed his shoulders a little. "Yeah. I promise."
ETA: Chapter seven here
Chapter Six: Its Eyes Are For The Stars
dwtwprompt prompt: Writer's Choice: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
Date Written: 5/22/08
Rating: PG/K+
Word Count: 2,136
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Spoilers: Torchwood Season 1 and 2, Doctor Who up to Season 03-ish
Warnings: Mentions m/m sex
Author's Notes: Something I've had bouncing in my head since I first saw this quote. Oscar Wilde was just so brilliant. Set during Season 1, with spoilers for Fragments, particularly. Title is a quote from Sir Gilbert Parker; the full quote is "Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars..."
1/?: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum Dicendum Est
2/?: It's Like Battle, But Harder
3.1/?: I'll Know It When I See It
3.2/?: Some Cupid Kills With Arrows, Some With Traps
3.3/?: Keeping Up With The Joneses
3.4/?: Speak Low, If You Speak Love
3.5/?: Shall I Never See a Bachelor of Threescore Again?
4/?: Paint By Numbers
5/?: There's No Place That Far
"Get up, get dressed, there's something I want to show you."
Ianto blinked up at Jack, his mind still sleep-fogged. "How did you get in here?" he muttered in Welsh. Confusion washed across Jack's face and he repeated the question in English.
Honestly, for someone who'd lived over a century in Wales, it was downright disgraceful that Jack didn't speak the language better than Ianto himself.
The Captain tapped at his wrist strap. "Easy. Come on!" Jack urged, throwing Ianto's clothing at him.
Ianto glared at Jack but climbed obediently out of bed. "Breaking and entering is a crime, Captain," he said sleepily as he pulled his clothing on.
Jack just grinned back at him. That lovely Welsh accent was thicker whenever Ianto was tired. "Then give me a key."
"Like hell, you'll be coming in at all hours of the day and night," the Welshman grumbled, swearing in those beautiful round vowels as he realized he'd misbuttoned his shirt.
The Captain had to bite his lower lip to keep from laughing. Adorable. He had to leave the room when Ianto frowned, because Ianto would probably kill him if he laughed. He waited until Ianto came out of the bedroom before handing him a steaming cup of coffee.
Ianto arched an eyebrow at the cup, giving it a suspicious look.
He laughed. "I used some of the coffee you keep around here, and I can operate the normal human coffee maker," he argued.
Ianto gave him a dubious look, but took the cup anyway. He sniffed it hesitantly before taking an experimental sip. "Not bad," Ianto said after careful consideration. Which, coming from Coffee King Ianto, was a high compliment.
"Grab your coat," the immortal said after a moment. "I want to show you something."
Jack didn't look up from his never-bloody-ending paperwork when Ianto came into his office. The Welshman set Jack's mug on the edge of his desk. "If there's nothing else for tonight, sir, I thought I would go close up," he said.
"Sounds good," Jack replied, nodding a little. "It was quiet today, so the others are gone."
"Your conference call with Japan is scheduled in two hours," Ianto reminded him. "There's extra coffee in the kitchen."
The Captain finally looked up at Ianto, giving him a smile. "You're a lifesaver, Ianto."
"I try my best, sir," the Welshman replied with a soft laugh. "It would be rather inappropriate for you to fall asleep whilst on the phone," he jibed gently.
Jack laughed and sat back in his chair. "You're welcome to stay," he said, watching Ianto carefully. "The call shouldn't take as long as we have scheduled."
The younger man contemplated the proposition, his tongue slipping out to touch his lower lip as he thought. "Sir -- Jack, I..."
Jack cocked his head to the side. It wasn't often that one saw an Ianto Jones at a loss for words. And it definitely wasn't that Ianto thought Jack was being inappropriate, since Ianto had started this little arrangement in the first place.
No, it had started earlier than that. Over a hundred years ago, and a thousands years in the future. This -- whatever it was -- was going to either have to alter into something else or it would end in tears. Fucking someone while both of you were still in love with someone else was never a good arrangement; it probably was even worse because of their... unique connection.
"Jack, I realize that I have no right to demand, or to even ask, about this." Ianto quietly laid a manila file on Jack's desk. The Torchwood logo was printed on the front, and his own name -- Harkness, Jack -- was scrawled in the corner, in Alex's perpetually messy handwriting.
"This is just a preliminary report," Ianto informed him quietly as Jack opened the file. A picture of himself, an old one of him in his uniform during World War II stared back at him, along with a nice, long report. "There's more -- much, much more -- in the Archives. You had a whole cabinet to yourself in Torchwood One."
Jack looked up at him. "Really? You remembered that?"
"I have a very good memory, sir," he said softly, without a trace of arrogance. "Besides, it was a file that no one could break into, in a cabinet that took up half the room it occupied. Everyone in Research was dying to get into it, but it was locked up with so much alien technology that no one dared to even to try."
The Captain gave a little bit of a smirk at that. Yvonne had always been so paranoid. If only she had shared secrets between the Torchwood branches, things could have been, would have been oh-so-different.
"I didn't read it," Ianto told him before giving a little bit of a smile. "I know that you're immortal, and I figured that's what the file contained."
"Part of it, yes," Jack agreed, closing the file and tapping it against his chin. "There's a lot more in here."
"I'd rather you told me yourself."
The answer caught Jack off-guard, and it must have shown in his face because Ianto gave one of his rare, real smiles. "I hold no pretenses over what our relationship is, Jack, I never have. A friendship with... mutual benefits." The Vidara necklace flared gentle warmth against Jack's chest as Ianto shifted his stance, hands moving into his pants pockets. He continued to smile at the immortal. "You know I can keep secrets. If you wished to share any of them with me, as a friend to a friend, I would be willing to listen. However," he continued, stemming off Jack's ready protest, "if you wish to keep things to yourself, I will respect that."
"Why are you doing this?"
Ianto pulled his hands from his pockets and held one out to Jack. The Captain automatically handed over the file. "Partly because I'm interested in knowing more about you," Ianto admitted, "but mostly because I can see you floundering under the weight of something heavy. Sometimes a mindless pleasure isn't enough to keep a demon at bay."
Jack watched, still leaning back in his chair as Ianto dismissed himself with a nod and left his superior's office.
Ianto Jones was too damn smart for his own good, sometimes.
Ianto was still yawning and quietly muttering when Jack finally pulled the car over to the side of the two-lane road and put the SUV in park. The Welshman gave a nervous look around, realizing they were a little too close to the Brecon Beacons for his comfort.
Jack leaned over and touched his knee. "It's okay, Ianto," he said softly, reassuringly. "I wanted to show you something, but if you want, we can turn right around and I"ll take you home."
The younger man shook his head. "We should face our demons, right?" he said, giving a tight smile before throwing back the remains of his coffee.
The Captain felt his heart swell with pride as Ianto unbuckled and opened his door -- albeit before looking around cautiously and grabbing a torch to check the area around the SUV. Jack climbed out as well and aided Ianto with his search before going around and opening the boot of the vehicle.
Ianto watched, holding the torch up as Jack pulled out a rolled-up camping air mattress. The older man winked at Ianto before flipping the switch on the side of it and carefully unfolding it as the fan whirled. Within moments, the mattress was inflated.
"Sit down," Jack said, pulling a thermos out of the boot as well before shutting and locking the SUV up. Ianto did as he was ordered, clicking off the torch.
The darkness was sudden and oppressing, and Ianto jumped a little when he felt the mattress shift. Jack's hand was on his arm. "Shh, relax. It's just you and me," he said reassuringly, and Ianto rubbed his eyes as his sight adjusted to the faint light.
"Jack, what are we doing out here?"
Jack laughed a little, unscrewing the cap of the thermos. "There's a meteor shower tonight."
"I know." The confusion was evident in the Welsh voice. "Toshiko ran scans, just honest-to-goodness space debris."
"Yup." There was the glug-glug-glug of liquid being poured and a warm thermos cap was pressed into his hands. He smiled as the aroma of fresh coffee filled his senses. "I thought we'd watch it."
The cap paused halfway up to Ianto's mouth. "Watch a meteor shower?"
"Why not?"
Ianto shrugged a little.
"It's been a long time since I went stargazing," Jack admitted, and Ianto instinctively looked upwards.
Out in the countryside, there was no light pollution. Sure, they could see the stars from the Plass, but out here Ianto could see the millions and billions of stars, of all different colors and strengths, the fainter ones revealing themselves the longer he watched. The moon was at the new, so the only light came from the stars twinkling overhead.
He'd forgotten how beautiful it was.
"Me too," Ianto said with a laugh. "It's hard not to look up and see planet systems and the aliens that live in them." A faint streak of white appeared then vanished across the fabric of the sky and he laughed and pointed. "Ha! First one."
Jack laughed as well. "There's a quote someone said once, sometimes Torchwood reminds me of it. 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'"
"Oscar Wilde," Ianto said absently, raising his finger to trace the outline of the Big Dipper.
"Ah, so it was Oscar then? He always was such a wordsmith. You would have liked him."
"Oscar Wilde had been dead for over eighty years when I was born." Ianto paused for a moment, then laughed. "You talk like you knew him."
Jack was suspiciously quiet.
"You didn't..."
"Before you start, he was just a friend, no benefits there," Jack defended. "Although not from lack of trying on my part! Which really was a pity, although he was so much fun to just talk to."
Ianto laughed, a full-body laugh and Jack looked away from the sky to his... team mate? Lover? Friend? "You're taking this in stride."
"You can't die, Jack, it would follow that you're probably older than you look." Jack saw a flash of white teeth as Ianto smiled. "So you're at least a hundred."
"And looking good!"
"Not denying that." Ianto shifted and laid back on the mattress, looking up at the sky. "When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut," he said suddenly.
Jack smiled and laid back as well. "Really? You're smart enough for it, why didn't you?"
"Well, for one I'm British, really scales down the dreams," Ianto said, and Jack laughed. "I never had the grades. I was always bored in school, never paid much attention." He reached up, pointing to a random star. "I just always thought it would be fun to go out there, among the stars."
"It is."
Ianto looked over at Jack. He could faintly see Jack looking upwards, a look of blissful rapture on his face. "There's nothing like it, Ianto. It's... indescribable. Imagine every emotion you've ever felt, every one you've ever heard of, and ball it all up. That's space travel. I'll take out out there one day," he finished suddenly, taking himself by surprise.
"You really have gone out there, haven't you?" Ianto asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice.
"Yeah. I was born out there." He pulled the younger man down next to him and raised his arm, pointing off towards the west. "Over there, about ninety-eight billion light-years away, there's a solar system. The fourth planet from that sun is called Isatri."
"You're from outer space," Ianto said slowly.
"A little place called the Boeshane Peninsula," Jack agreed.
"Are you an alien?" There wasn't fear in his voice, just curiosity.
"Human. Well, as human as possible, being immortal."
"A human, born in Space." He scratched his head. "How?"
"I think we'll save that one for another time," Jack said, smiling in the dark.
Ianto made a small -- slightly disappointed -- noise of agreement, and they lapsed into silence, Jack's arm trapped under the warm weight of Ianto's shoulders. A bright white streak crossed the sky, the tail a lingering glittery trail from horizon to horizon. "Big one," the Welshman commented.
"Yup."
"You'll really take me out there?"
Jack couldn't help but smile at the thought of traveling with Ianto. He would be a dream to travel with -- a quick thinker, brilliant beyond the age he was born, technologically inclined, and he would absolutely adore it. He squeezed his shoulders a little. "Yeah. I promise."
ETA: Chapter seven here