[DV]
27 Aug. 08 prompt
Write about an awkard moment where someone almost touched (gasp!) your dæmon.
The Agency didn't send anyone into the field without contemporary cultural training, and for someone who'd never worked outside the 51st Century or the few centuries on either side, heading into the 20th and 21st required one hell of an intensive course. When it came to interpersonal relationships, there was one point they drilled into all 20/21C agents hard.
You do not touch another's dæmon without explicit permission.
For short visits in the 1940s, it was easy enough, even when Leighn never wanted to be held sacrosanct. Living there, though, as the years and decades turned, with the day-in, day out casual repression of physicality, with the outmoded social norms (but they wouldn't be outmoded for centuries to come) pressing in on them...
That was harder.
-
"You know," Jack said, one day. It was the late 80s and he was sitting out by the bay, sharing a plate of chips in a cool ocean breeze, "I could get another dog, or something. Pretend you're the normal one. They might not notice. It's-"
"I don't want to be pet and coddled," Leighn snapped back. "Besides, with you, I think a brown rat might be more convincing. I want touch. The kind you have. The kind that means something."
Jack let his hand drop down, rubbing along her flank. She leaned into him, snorting. "Sion was good," Jack said. Was, past tense, because that's always the way with Torchwood. "For both of us."
"Was," Leighn agreed. "Most of a year of holding his hand. I had to jump into his lap to convince him. You remember the fit Kendall pitched."
Jack chuckled. "I had an angry kingfisher feinting at my eyes. You think I'd forget?"
Leighn didn't chuckle back. "I want someone, Jack. How would you feel if they wrapped you up and told you you could never touch again?"
Jack was silent. After a moment, he slid down to his knees, wrapping his arms around Leighn and holding her to his chest.
"It isn't forever," he said. "This place, this time... it's just a stopover. We'll find the Doctor, we'll..."
Leighn closed her eyes. "You've been saying that forever," she said.
"No. Not forever." Jack closed his own eyes, settling his weight against Leighn's warmth. "It just feels like it, sometimes."
-
Late 2007. It was a mild season, all told, at least when it came to the weather. Torchwood never had mild seasons when it came to the job, and it wasn't made easier after Lisa took apart the Hub, after Jack took her down. Jack watched Ianto picking up the pieces, the damage done by his lovers, the traces of his betrayals. Ianto looked up at him before he turned away, Aeronwy following with her tail between her legs.
When Jack went back into his office Leighn slipped out before the door closed, running after him and making Aeronwy shy away. "He'll forgive you," she said, and damn to hell the social niceties and regulations of a dæmon talking to another man. "He's going to forgive you. Are you going to forgive him?"
"It doesn't matter," Ianto said, picking up another piece of the debris and dropping it into the trash sack. "Forgiveness only matters when you're not the one in power."
Leighn ducked around him, putting her paw down on an old pizza box as Ianto reached for it. Ianto looked up to meet her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Leighn said.
Ianto raised one hand.
How Ianto had managed with Lisa - and they'd never seen Lisa's dæmon, and that was haunting in itself - was a question. How one managed when one could barely touch, when one could never help the one they loved. It was a question Leighn understood, and she yearned forward. He'll forgive you. Let me help you. Let me help you how I can.
Ianto dropped his hand. He found a napkin, crumpled it in his glove, and tossed it into the sack. "As I've said before, it doesn't matter. If you'll excuse me, I have rather a lot of the Hub to clean."
Aeronwy bared her teeth and whimpered, and Leighn stepped away. She wandered back up to Jack's office and curled in a ball outside the door, watching the cleaning crew move below her, all lost in the prisons they wouldn't break through.