It'll End in Tears #24: "Nadir and Zenith, Dancing"
Title: "Nadir and Zenith, Dancing"
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the PG-13 range, mostly for language.
Notes/Summary: Part #24 of the " It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #21 on the table. Thanks to sanginmychains for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu.
Geographical Note: Forte's is the cafe where they filmed the Gwen and Andy coffee scenes in "Adrift." In the real world, the restaurant is actually in Barry. Like the real production team, however, I have relocated it to Cardiff for my own nefarious purposes.
“Ooh. Tea and cake? Yeah, you’ll do.”
Andy lets out a good-natured huff as he lays out the plates and cups he’s brought from the counter. “And what did your last slave die of?”
“Happiness,” Gwen tells him through a forkful of her dessert before letting out a little moan. “God, that’s fantastic.”
Whatever Gwen does at Torchwood, it keeps her busy. That’s fair, Andy supposes, but he misses working with her. It’s hard not to be pleased about the way he’s struck lucky catching her tonight, free both from work and Rhys. Apparently, the chance to socialize over something that isn’t a dead body for once is too good for her to pass up.
Gwen points her fork at him. “You’re smiling.”
“Yep,” he says, and feels the smile break into a broad grin.
“And?”
“It’s good to see you.” Andy raises his tea to his mouth and takes a sip. It’s weaker than he’s used to, but then again the stuff back at the station is fit to strip paint. When he puts his mug down, she’s still watching him. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says, and takes another bite of cake. “We never get to just chat anymore unless it’s for work. I can’t remember the last time we did this.”
Andy chokes on his tea and winces.
Gwen gives him a guilty look. “Uh oh. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he replies with a shake of his head. “I just...when you say you don’t remember? Neither do I. I literally can’t remember. That’s…well, it’s kind of why I called you.”
She puts her fork down. “Andy, if you’re taking the piss - ”
“I’m not,” Andy says abruptly and runs his fingers through his hair. He hasn’t actually discussed this in depth with anyone other than his doctors, all of whom were more interested in physical trauma over personal. Now that he’s in a position to, he wonders if maybe he’d rather not. “I woke up in hospital last Friday with no idea how I got there.”
“You’ve got amnesia?” Gwen’s eyes go wide. She looks him over, and he would swear he can already see the wheels turning in her head. “What happened?”
“Somebody slipped me one hell of a Mickey, apparently.” Andy shifts in his seat. “The doctors called it a bad drug interaction. Easy for them to say. They’re not the ones missing the last few months. I’m still sorting it out.”
Gwen covers her mouth. “Oh Jesus. That’s awful.”
“Thing is,” he continues, “it isn’t like someone just put something in my drink at a bar and nicked my wallet. There are things missing from my flat - personal things, like my notebook - and Trav makes it sound like…well, I don’t know what he makes it sound like. It’s Trav. The whole thing sounds crazy, but I swear to you, it’s true.”
“Are the police investigating?”
Andy’s eyes go wide. “Oh god, no. I -“ His hands open up in a gesture of helplessness. “Look, long story short, I’d just as soon the rest of the station forgot about it, okay?”
“Andy, if you don’t pursue it -“ she starts, but he cuts her off.
“If I don’t pursue it, the legal system can’t work. I know,” he says into his cup. The look of pity she gives him stings, but it’s the disapproval beneath it that guts him. “It isn’t…it’s not good policing. I just can’t, alright? I can’t.”
“But why?” She reaches out to touch his hand. “I mean, I understand it can be difficult - “
He yanks his hand away. “Do you? Do you really? Because last I checked, you’re not the one who had to walk through dead silence on the way to his locker today, or sit across from Temple’s desk and listen to him read the bloody report aloud like it was your fault someone drugged you and fucked you and left you in a park.”
Andy pushes further into the booth and wraps his arms around himself in an effort to hold everything in. This isn’t what he wanted. He needs to calm down and breathe, but Gwen is watching him, all agape at his outburst.
“You’re not the one whose bloody private life - a private life I’m decidedly unclear on at the moment, incidentally - would go on display for fucking everyone. As it stands, I’m lucky they’re not compelling an investigation. This is my life, Gwen. It’s selfish. I know it’s selfish. But given a choice between being a cop and being a victim, I chose cop, alright?”
“Andy -“
“Don’t fucking ‘Andy’ me!” he snaps, and glances around the café. He feels on display, uncomfortably visible, but no one’s really noticed him. Why would they? Nobody ever notices him these days except to scold him or put him in his place.
“I’m sorry,” she soothes. It rankles him, because she sounds like she’s talking him down from a ledge. “I didn’t think. Why don’t you sit back down and we’ll talk about this properly, yeah?”
Good old Gwen.
Back with the police, Gwen would listen to anyone. She gave every nutter on the street a chance, and some of them more than one.
“No,” he says finally. “I don’t think so.”
He slides out of the booth with his backpack in hand and is relieved when she doesn’t try to follow him out onto the street. If the world were just - and it is not, Andy thinks angrily, because if there were he would be irrelevant - he would be trudging alone through hammering rain instead of slouching through a pack of drunks on what ought to be a nice night. He’d be able to walk and walk and walk (and why was that familiar of all things?) until there was nothing left of this rage and the ache in his chest and the dread coiled in his stomach.
Instead, he goes home and falls asleep in front of the telly.
# # #
Ianto is clearing away the mugs from the afternoon briefing when he notices Gwen hovering. She’d never use that word, of course. More likely she merely intends to wait politely until he’s not in motion, at which point she might clear her throat, or say his name. As a courtesy, he pretends not to notice until she starts to look fidgety, at which point he lets the smile he’s holding back creep across his lips.
“Whatever it is, Gwen, you may as well ask.”
“Sorry,” she tells him, looking every bit like a guilty five-year-old. “You looked busy.”
He finishes loading the tray and then wipes his hands clean. “Right now, I’m only as busy as Owen’s sandwich crumbs make me. Which, at this point, is rather less busy than I think he was trying for.”
Gwen glances uncomfortably at her own usual spot as if to check it for any tell-tale crumbs of her own, but Ianto has already cleared them away. “Well, it’s sort of random, but I was wondering if you happened to know anything about my old partner Andy. Has he ever been mixed up with Torchwood at all?”
Ianto schools his expression into an attitude of bemused indifference. Unlike Jack, Gwen hasn’t learned him. He suspects it’s more comfortable for Gwen to maintain certain assumptions in the name of privacy, or maybe her own comfort. Jack, of course, believes in neither.
“He’s a constable in Cardiff. It would be a miracle if he hasn’t,” he points out, and starts straightening chairs. Why none of them except Toshiko can push a bloody chair in properly is beyond him.
“That’s not what I mean,” Gwen answers, more intently. “I’m talking about whether he’s ever been a proper witness to something, or gotten in the way enough that we’d need to Retcon him.”
He does not look up. “Any particular reason you’re curious?”
She shifts on her feet and sighs. “Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but he called me last night for help, and I let him down. I sort of feel I owe it to him to look into it, even if I can’t tell him what happened.”
“And you think we’re involved?”
She shrugs. “It’s possible.”
Ianto considers it. He isn’t surprised that Andy called on Gwen, exactly, but he’s not at all comfortable with the prospect of her investigating too closely either. A flat lie or direct obstruction might only serve to encourage her, but so might the right tidbit of information. Whatever Ianto himself might feel about the situation on the whole is immaterial. Andy’s well-being is better served by keeping Gwen in the dark.
A gamble, then.
Without disturbing his own handiwork, Ianto steps around the boardroom table to the workstation and leans down to search the database. It only takes him a moment to pull up the appropriate information.
“Aha. Here we go,” he says and turns the monitor so that Gwen can see. “Tongwynlais. Not long before you started. He spotted a crash site near a bike trail. Not far from the meteorite landing your first week, actually.”
“So nothing recent?”
Ianto shrugs. “Nothing official on record, though it’s possible a recent intervention hasn’t been logged. As I said, he’s a policeman in our primary area of influence. It’s not unreasonable that there could be contact which might necessitate a bit of Retcon.”
“But we don’t normally blank out significant periods for non-employees, do we?”
Ianto shakes his head and goes to pick up his tray. “Not typically, no. I suppose, though, under the right circumstances we might, but there’s nothing in the file to indicate our involvement.”
“Oh. That’s good then.” She looks almost disappointed, or maybe just chastened. “I just thought, you know, if it was us...”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more use. Anything else you need help with?”
Gwen gives him a little smile. “No, you’ve been great. Thanks, Ianto.”
“Anytime.”
# # #
Jack presses his knuckles into the muscles of Ianto’s back and shoulders. The low groans that carry through the pillow make him chuckle. It’s the first time they’ve been properly alone and off duty for a couple of weeks. They’ve played at sex a few times back at the Hub, but the tone of the thing has been off, like the act is all familiarity and no intimacy.
It reminds him of the bad old days, and Jack isn’t having that again without a fight.
As his fingers travel across Ianto’s skin, it’s impossible not to notice the scars he wouldn’t have if not for Torchwood. There’s no comfort in the knowledge that it could be so much worse. The Cybermen would have taken this body apart, he thinks. The Daleks might have exterminated it. A pack of rustic sickos wanted to taste it in ways that Jack refuses to contemplate concretely - deltoid, trapezius, alive and whole - and would have butchered him. No wonder Ianto wears so many layers. Without those ruined jackets, he’d have so many more where these came from. And these are only the visible scars.
A final, stubborn knotted muscle relaxes under Jack’s hands and Ianto lets out a long sigh of pleasure. This is as close to naked Jack has seen him in a while and he intends to enjoy it.
How many layers does he still have to take off after I get him out of his clothes?
He strokes lightly now, scalp and neck, shoulders and back and sides. Ianto’s breaths are slow and regular, though not quite asleep.
“How’s that?”
“S’good,” Ianto murmurs.
Jack nestles down into the sheets next to him and Ianto rolls onto his side to face him. Their legs tangle as Ianto explores one of Jack’s calves with his toes. He doesn’t meet Jack’s eyes, though, and that’s worrisome.
“Something on your mind?”
Ianto rests his hands against Jack’s chest. “Depends. Is now a good time to talk about work?”
“If it’ll make you feel better, yes.” Jack isn’t sure he likes the look of concentration that crosses Ianto’s features. He reaches up to brush a stray curl away from the younger man’s face.
Ianto’s eyes flick away and he rolls onto his back. “Gwen’s asking about Andy. Apparently he came to her for help last night.”
“And?”
“Well, I told her about Tongwynlais and then disavowed all knowledge of everything else. She seemed upset about it, like something that happened between them could have gone better, so I checked the CCTV. They met at a café, but only briefly.”
Jack frowns a little. “You think they had a fight?”
“Not sure. She said she feels like she owes him. For letting him down.” Ianto pauses. “Do you think she’ll keep investigating?”
“Hard to say,” Jack says as he sits up. “I know Andy isn’t pursuing it, and the police won’t be compelling an investigation any time soon.”
Ianto raises his eyebrows.
“Let’s just say somebody on the force owes me a few favors.”
“Ah,” Ianto says and pulls a face.
Jack reaches over and ruffles Ianto’s hair. “Now, now. Not those sorts of favors. Though I sort of wonder if DI Henderson might be interested in -“
“Henderson’s the one with the hands?”
“They’re enormous!” Jack exclaims with a grin. “I mean, can you imagine?”
Ianto rolls his eyes and grumbles sleepily. “Right now? I’m not sure I have much of a choice.”
“Spoilsport,” he teases as he leans back against the headboard and traces a finger along Ianto’s collarbone. “I’ll keep an eye on her. In a purely work-appropriate sort of way, of course.”
“Right,” Ianto replies with a tiny smirk. He scoots closer to Jack, who pets him and smoothes down his hair with soft strokes until he falls asleep.
---
Prev (Pt #23) (Warnings: language and smut)
-
Next (Pt #25) (Warnings: language)
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the PG-13 range, mostly for language.
Notes/Summary: Part #24 of the " It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #21 on the table. Thanks to sanginmychains for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu.
Geographical Note: Forte's is the cafe where they filmed the Gwen and Andy coffee scenes in "Adrift." In the real world, the restaurant is actually in Barry. Like the real production team, however, I have relocated it to Cardiff for my own nefarious purposes.
“Ooh. Tea and cake? Yeah, you’ll do.”
Andy lets out a good-natured huff as he lays out the plates and cups he’s brought from the counter. “And what did your last slave die of?”
“Happiness,” Gwen tells him through a forkful of her dessert before letting out a little moan. “God, that’s fantastic.”
Whatever Gwen does at Torchwood, it keeps her busy. That’s fair, Andy supposes, but he misses working with her. It’s hard not to be pleased about the way he’s struck lucky catching her tonight, free both from work and Rhys. Apparently, the chance to socialize over something that isn’t a dead body for once is too good for her to pass up.
Gwen points her fork at him. “You’re smiling.”
“Yep,” he says, and feels the smile break into a broad grin.
“And?”
“It’s good to see you.” Andy raises his tea to his mouth and takes a sip. It’s weaker than he’s used to, but then again the stuff back at the station is fit to strip paint. When he puts his mug down, she’s still watching him. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says, and takes another bite of cake. “We never get to just chat anymore unless it’s for work. I can’t remember the last time we did this.”
Andy chokes on his tea and winces.
Gwen gives him a guilty look. “Uh oh. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he replies with a shake of his head. “I just...when you say you don’t remember? Neither do I. I literally can’t remember. That’s…well, it’s kind of why I called you.”
She puts her fork down. “Andy, if you’re taking the piss - ”
“I’m not,” Andy says abruptly and runs his fingers through his hair. He hasn’t actually discussed this in depth with anyone other than his doctors, all of whom were more interested in physical trauma over personal. Now that he’s in a position to, he wonders if maybe he’d rather not. “I woke up in hospital last Friday with no idea how I got there.”
“You’ve got amnesia?” Gwen’s eyes go wide. She looks him over, and he would swear he can already see the wheels turning in her head. “What happened?”
“Somebody slipped me one hell of a Mickey, apparently.” Andy shifts in his seat. “The doctors called it a bad drug interaction. Easy for them to say. They’re not the ones missing the last few months. I’m still sorting it out.”
Gwen covers her mouth. “Oh Jesus. That’s awful.”
“Thing is,” he continues, “it isn’t like someone just put something in my drink at a bar and nicked my wallet. There are things missing from my flat - personal things, like my notebook - and Trav makes it sound like…well, I don’t know what he makes it sound like. It’s Trav. The whole thing sounds crazy, but I swear to you, it’s true.”
“Are the police investigating?”
Andy’s eyes go wide. “Oh god, no. I -“ His hands open up in a gesture of helplessness. “Look, long story short, I’d just as soon the rest of the station forgot about it, okay?”
“Andy, if you don’t pursue it -“ she starts, but he cuts her off.
“If I don’t pursue it, the legal system can’t work. I know,” he says into his cup. The look of pity she gives him stings, but it’s the disapproval beneath it that guts him. “It isn’t…it’s not good policing. I just can’t, alright? I can’t.”
“But why?” She reaches out to touch his hand. “I mean, I understand it can be difficult - “
He yanks his hand away. “Do you? Do you really? Because last I checked, you’re not the one who had to walk through dead silence on the way to his locker today, or sit across from Temple’s desk and listen to him read the bloody report aloud like it was your fault someone drugged you and fucked you and left you in a park.”
Andy pushes further into the booth and wraps his arms around himself in an effort to hold everything in. This isn’t what he wanted. He needs to calm down and breathe, but Gwen is watching him, all agape at his outburst.
“You’re not the one whose bloody private life - a private life I’m decidedly unclear on at the moment, incidentally - would go on display for fucking everyone. As it stands, I’m lucky they’re not compelling an investigation. This is my life, Gwen. It’s selfish. I know it’s selfish. But given a choice between being a cop and being a victim, I chose cop, alright?”
“Andy -“
“Don’t fucking ‘Andy’ me!” he snaps, and glances around the café. He feels on display, uncomfortably visible, but no one’s really noticed him. Why would they? Nobody ever notices him these days except to scold him or put him in his place.
“I’m sorry,” she soothes. It rankles him, because she sounds like she’s talking him down from a ledge. “I didn’t think. Why don’t you sit back down and we’ll talk about this properly, yeah?”
Good old Gwen.
Back with the police, Gwen would listen to anyone. She gave every nutter on the street a chance, and some of them more than one.
“No,” he says finally. “I don’t think so.”
He slides out of the booth with his backpack in hand and is relieved when she doesn’t try to follow him out onto the street. If the world were just - and it is not, Andy thinks angrily, because if there were he would be irrelevant - he would be trudging alone through hammering rain instead of slouching through a pack of drunks on what ought to be a nice night. He’d be able to walk and walk and walk (and why was that familiar of all things?) until there was nothing left of this rage and the ache in his chest and the dread coiled in his stomach.
Instead, he goes home and falls asleep in front of the telly.
# # #
Ianto is clearing away the mugs from the afternoon briefing when he notices Gwen hovering. She’d never use that word, of course. More likely she merely intends to wait politely until he’s not in motion, at which point she might clear her throat, or say his name. As a courtesy, he pretends not to notice until she starts to look fidgety, at which point he lets the smile he’s holding back creep across his lips.
“Whatever it is, Gwen, you may as well ask.”
“Sorry,” she tells him, looking every bit like a guilty five-year-old. “You looked busy.”
He finishes loading the tray and then wipes his hands clean. “Right now, I’m only as busy as Owen’s sandwich crumbs make me. Which, at this point, is rather less busy than I think he was trying for.”
Gwen glances uncomfortably at her own usual spot as if to check it for any tell-tale crumbs of her own, but Ianto has already cleared them away. “Well, it’s sort of random, but I was wondering if you happened to know anything about my old partner Andy. Has he ever been mixed up with Torchwood at all?”
Ianto schools his expression into an attitude of bemused indifference. Unlike Jack, Gwen hasn’t learned him. He suspects it’s more comfortable for Gwen to maintain certain assumptions in the name of privacy, or maybe her own comfort. Jack, of course, believes in neither.
“He’s a constable in Cardiff. It would be a miracle if he hasn’t,” he points out, and starts straightening chairs. Why none of them except Toshiko can push a bloody chair in properly is beyond him.
“That’s not what I mean,” Gwen answers, more intently. “I’m talking about whether he’s ever been a proper witness to something, or gotten in the way enough that we’d need to Retcon him.”
He does not look up. “Any particular reason you’re curious?”
She shifts on her feet and sighs. “Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but he called me last night for help, and I let him down. I sort of feel I owe it to him to look into it, even if I can’t tell him what happened.”
“And you think we’re involved?”
She shrugs. “It’s possible.”
Ianto considers it. He isn’t surprised that Andy called on Gwen, exactly, but he’s not at all comfortable with the prospect of her investigating too closely either. A flat lie or direct obstruction might only serve to encourage her, but so might the right tidbit of information. Whatever Ianto himself might feel about the situation on the whole is immaterial. Andy’s well-being is better served by keeping Gwen in the dark.
A gamble, then.
Without disturbing his own handiwork, Ianto steps around the boardroom table to the workstation and leans down to search the database. It only takes him a moment to pull up the appropriate information.
“Aha. Here we go,” he says and turns the monitor so that Gwen can see. “Tongwynlais. Not long before you started. He spotted a crash site near a bike trail. Not far from the meteorite landing your first week, actually.”
“So nothing recent?”
Ianto shrugs. “Nothing official on record, though it’s possible a recent intervention hasn’t been logged. As I said, he’s a policeman in our primary area of influence. It’s not unreasonable that there could be contact which might necessitate a bit of Retcon.”
“But we don’t normally blank out significant periods for non-employees, do we?”
Ianto shakes his head and goes to pick up his tray. “Not typically, no. I suppose, though, under the right circumstances we might, but there’s nothing in the file to indicate our involvement.”
“Oh. That’s good then.” She looks almost disappointed, or maybe just chastened. “I just thought, you know, if it was us...”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more use. Anything else you need help with?”
Gwen gives him a little smile. “No, you’ve been great. Thanks, Ianto.”
“Anytime.”
# # #
Jack presses his knuckles into the muscles of Ianto’s back and shoulders. The low groans that carry through the pillow make him chuckle. It’s the first time they’ve been properly alone and off duty for a couple of weeks. They’ve played at sex a few times back at the Hub, but the tone of the thing has been off, like the act is all familiarity and no intimacy.
It reminds him of the bad old days, and Jack isn’t having that again without a fight.
As his fingers travel across Ianto’s skin, it’s impossible not to notice the scars he wouldn’t have if not for Torchwood. There’s no comfort in the knowledge that it could be so much worse. The Cybermen would have taken this body apart, he thinks. The Daleks might have exterminated it. A pack of rustic sickos wanted to taste it in ways that Jack refuses to contemplate concretely - deltoid, trapezius, alive and whole - and would have butchered him. No wonder Ianto wears so many layers. Without those ruined jackets, he’d have so many more where these came from. And these are only the visible scars.
A final, stubborn knotted muscle relaxes under Jack’s hands and Ianto lets out a long sigh of pleasure. This is as close to naked Jack has seen him in a while and he intends to enjoy it.
How many layers does he still have to take off after I get him out of his clothes?
He strokes lightly now, scalp and neck, shoulders and back and sides. Ianto’s breaths are slow and regular, though not quite asleep.
“How’s that?”
“S’good,” Ianto murmurs.
Jack nestles down into the sheets next to him and Ianto rolls onto his side to face him. Their legs tangle as Ianto explores one of Jack’s calves with his toes. He doesn’t meet Jack’s eyes, though, and that’s worrisome.
“Something on your mind?”
Ianto rests his hands against Jack’s chest. “Depends. Is now a good time to talk about work?”
“If it’ll make you feel better, yes.” Jack isn’t sure he likes the look of concentration that crosses Ianto’s features. He reaches up to brush a stray curl away from the younger man’s face.
Ianto’s eyes flick away and he rolls onto his back. “Gwen’s asking about Andy. Apparently he came to her for help last night.”
“And?”
“Well, I told her about Tongwynlais and then disavowed all knowledge of everything else. She seemed upset about it, like something that happened between them could have gone better, so I checked the CCTV. They met at a café, but only briefly.”
Jack frowns a little. “You think they had a fight?”
“Not sure. She said she feels like she owes him. For letting him down.” Ianto pauses. “Do you think she’ll keep investigating?”
“Hard to say,” Jack says as he sits up. “I know Andy isn’t pursuing it, and the police won’t be compelling an investigation any time soon.”
Ianto raises his eyebrows.
“Let’s just say somebody on the force owes me a few favors.”
“Ah,” Ianto says and pulls a face.
Jack reaches over and ruffles Ianto’s hair. “Now, now. Not those sorts of favors. Though I sort of wonder if DI Henderson might be interested in -“
“Henderson’s the one with the hands?”
“They’re enormous!” Jack exclaims with a grin. “I mean, can you imagine?”
Ianto rolls his eyes and grumbles sleepily. “Right now? I’m not sure I have much of a choice.”
“Spoilsport,” he teases as he leans back against the headboard and traces a finger along Ianto’s collarbone. “I’ll keep an eye on her. In a purely work-appropriate sort of way, of course.”
“Right,” Ianto replies with a tiny smirk. He scoots closer to Jack, who pets him and smoothes down his hair with soft strokes until he falls asleep.
---
Prev (Pt #23) (Warnings: language and smut)
-
Next (Pt #25) (Warnings: language)