One Man's Heaven is Another Man's Hell
Title: One Man's Heaven is Another Man's Hell
Author:
jooles34
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Words: 2,533
Rating: 18 to be safe
Warnings: Multiple Character deaths and descriptions of injuries.
Prompt: Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, post-COE - whenever Jack dies, he sees Ianto, only to be ripped from him every time he revives.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood
AN: Thanks to my lovely
emyrldlady for betaing. Written for
dark_fest.
Jack felt the bullet corkscrew through his chest. The sudden loss of breath and tightness under his ribs told him it had nicked his heart. He had seconds before his heart would pump all its blood out into his chest cavity. As the thought entered his head, he noticed with detached interest how quickly the ground was rushing towards him, hard concrete cushioning his fall.
Then the darkness came.
“Jack… Jack.”
Jack stirred. This was different. He’d sometimes heard whisperings in the darkness, like a million voices calling to him, just on the edge of hearing, but he had never heard anyone say his name so distinctly before.
He kept his eyes closed.
Was this it? Was this finally the end? Was the darkness going to claim him for good this time? Keep him, hold him, enslave him to whatever it was that existed on the other side?
Jack decided to keep his eyes closed. He didn’t think he wanted to face whatever it was just yet.
How embarrassing. His final death at the hands of a teenage wannabe-gangster who was meddling with the wrong things. After all he had seen and done it was laughable.
The voice was still calling him. It sounded familiar.
Suddenly he felt the familiar pull of life dragging him back, dispelling his theory.
“What?” he asked out loud, opening his eyes.
He just had time to register the man in the suit standing in front of him before the world was full of Mexican back-ally again.
He lay on the filthy ground, panting, eyes wide, trying to process what had just happened.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Two months and a few thousand light years later Jack found himself running across roof tops and swearing to himself. Roaming Earth hadn’t been enough, not far away enough, so he had said goodbye to Gwen and Rhys and escaped. He was running away; he knew it and he didn’t care.
So he had got away and decided to leave it all behind. Which didn’t explain why he was now chasing a con man and murderer through a city he didn’t know, to protect people he didn’t care about.
But his internal preoccupation with his reasons for being there became his rather literal downfall. The ‘man’ he was chasing leapt over a gap between two buildings and Jack followed. Belatedly Jack realised that the alien had a physiology that allowed him to jump greater distances than he could. At the same time he was reminded that gravity on this planet was just the same as gravity on Earth.
He took the little time he had to re-arrange himself in the air. A fall from this height would certainly break most of his bones and it would hurt like hell while he waited for his body to repair itself. But, if he could land on his head, then…
The darkness came swiftly.
“Are you going to open your eyes this time, or am I going to be talking to myself again?”
The voice made its way into Jack’s consciousness.
“Ianto?” he barely dared voice his suspicions.
“Yes, Jack,” the voice said softly. “Open your eyes.”
Jack did as he was told and, somehow illuminated in the darkness, in front of him crouched Ianto. Be-suited but without a jacket, looking just as he had the day he died. Concern was etched on his face.
“Ianto?” Jack asked again.
This time he earned himself an eyebrow raise.
“Die from a head injury?”
“Well, yes actually. But I think I can be excused for being a little surprised. I don’t normally get a welcoming committee when I die.”
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
“More than I can say. Which is why it’s hard to believe. Is this it? Is, is this it for me? The end?”
“I don’t know. Sadly the afterlife has not come with a manual.”
“You should do something about that. You like to write a good manual.” Jack grinned and a laugh bubbled up inside him. “Or maybe I’m just going mad. Finally going mad.”
“Do you feel mad? Is it even possible to be mad while you’re dead?”
“Can I touch you?”
Ianto moved from his crouch to a kneel, leaning his body closer to Jack. Jack reached out a tentative hand and his chest clenched as he cupped his palm around Ianto’s cheek.
“You’re here, you’re real. God, Ianto,” he breathed.
Ianto smiled back at him and Jack’s heart soared until a second later he felt the familiar tug.
“No! No! Let me stay. Let me stay!” he raged to the air.
But the air didn’t listen and he gasped into life the feel of Ianto still on his hand. He reached for his gun, intending to put a bullet in his brain, his only thought to have the touch of that skin on his again.
But his hand came up empty, his gun missing, stolen as he lay dead. He yelled in anguish and collapsed back into a pool of his own blood, eyes blinking in the night, trying to make sense of what he had seen.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack avoided death with more vigour than usual. The memory of Ianto in the darkness had stuck with him, tormenting him. He didn’t know how his head was being played with and what sort of cosmic joke he was now the butt of, but he didn’t like it. He was running from the memory of Ianto; running so far he was in star systems he’d never visited before, even with the Time Agency. But now the memories haunted and taunted him even in death.
There was nowhere left to run.
But just as death wasn’t an escape, he couldn’t escape death. A lonely girl, a predatory male, a primal urge to defend, an avoidable bar fight, a concealed knife and he should have known better. His guts spilt to the ground and the darkness came again.
“Jack. Please don’t ignore me again. Please.”
Jack groaned at the sound of Ianto’s voice seeping into his brain.
“Please. Please don’t. Anyone, but don’t use him, please,” Jack begged.
“Jack, it’s really me. And I am just as lost in this as you are.”
Jack opened his eyes. This time Ianto was sitting cross legged on the floor in front of him, pain and concern vying for position on his face. He sat up and gave Ianto a sceptical look.
“I want to believe it’s really you. But, it’s tricky given that you’re dead.”
“And you’re here because you’re the picture of health.” Sarcasm poured from Ianto’s tone and eyebrows.
Jack laughed again, a humourless sound in the dark. “You certainly sound like Ianto.”
He watched as Ianto gave one of his patented eye rolls. That was very Ianto. And then Ianto leant forward, cupped his face, a thumb running along his jaw, and kissed him.
Jack melted into the kiss, lost himself and all sense of time, and didn’t even notice the pull until he woke gasping in front of some very surprised drinkers.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack believed now and took the memories into his life. And he took them into another bar. A real low-life bar; one where you didn’t have to wait for the guy to attack the girl to get into a fight. In fact Jack discovered that a lascivious leer in the right direction had him pulled outside and his head stamped into a bloody pulp before he had even finished his first drink.
“Do we have to go through the ‘you’re not real’ performance again?”
Jack looked up and saw Ianto standing above him, hands in pockets. He smiled broadly and stood up.
“No. No performances. I don’t know why the Universe has decided to give me this, but I’m going to stop complaining and stop fighting it.”
Ianto smiled back and his eyes flashed blue.
“So, can we continue where we left off?”
Jack smiled and used Ianto’s tie to pull him closer. They were both still smiling as their lips met. Jack pressed his body close to Ianto’s and moaned softly as Ianto’s arms wrapped around his waist and held him close. He lost himself in the gentle reminder of the Welshman’s embrace. They held each other tight, but their kisses remained soft and unhurried.
By the time he was dragged back into life outside the bar he already had a plan in his head.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took Jack a few days to set it up, but finally he was ready. He locked himself into the fright container he had hired, rubbing a thumb on the metal walls that he knew would keep heat and fire contained. Even more so than the metals on Earth were capable of. He checked that the oxygen pipe that he had installed was pumping air into the small room. He’d need that during and after. Then he splashed the walls and floor with accelerant before dousing himself with the same.
He sat on the floor and pulled a small box out of his pocket. Inside was a syringe and he jabbed it unceremoniously into his thigh, injecting a clear liquid into himself. Jack lay down and pulled a small flash charge out of another pocket. It worked like an Earth grenade. He pulled out the pin and clutched the handle tight to the grenade. Didn’t want it going off too early. He may have a death wish, but he’d burnt to death before and had no desire to feel that again.
As the sedative started to take effect Jack gradually slipped into unconsciousness. He concentrated on keeping his hand clenched for as long as he could, but he became dimly aware of his fingers falling open and the grenade slipping from his grasp and rolling away. A bang as the flash grenade exploded and a faint whoosh as the accelerant caught were the last things Jack was aware of before the sedative pulled him fully under.
“Hello again.”
Jack opened his eyes and grinned up at Ianto.
“Hi.”
“Are you planning to stay down there?” Ianto asked that damn perfect eyebrow raised again.
“Yup, and I thought you could join me.” The eyebrow raised higher and Jack’s smile got broader. “I burnt to death. It’s going to take ages for my body to pull itself together again, so you’ve got me for a while. How about it?”
Ianto shook his head and tried to look put out. But he was pulling at his tie as he leant towards Jack.
Afterwards Jack lay contentedly in Ianto’s arms, but his head was still working more than he wanted it to.
“So, is this heaven?”
Ianto snorted. “I wish I knew. Sometimes I think it’s heaven. I mean, there are no fires of eternal damnation and there’s you. But…” Ianto trailed off.
“But what?”
Jack tipped his head to see Ianto give a wry grin. “I have to spend eternity waiting for you in the knowledge that every time I do see you it means you are dead. Probably painfully. So how can I enjoy what I am given?”
“So, this is hell for you?” Jack asked.
Eyes that had turned to grey with sadness slipped from his to look down their bodies and Jack knew he wasn’t going to get a reply. He let the silence continue for a moment.
“It feels like heaven to me. I would die a thousand times over, each more painful than the last, to be able to spend more time with you.”
Then he felt the tug of life pulling him back and Ianto started to fade around him.
“This part is hell,” Ianto said, before he vanished.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack was back in his freight container two days later addressing an issue that he had not considered last time. When he had been dragged back he had put up with the pain of his body finishing its re-growth, but then he’d had to deal with the problem of his clothes not re-growing. And on this planet he was laughed at for having just the one penis as he had tried to make his way to his lodgings. Not making that mistake again.
He prepared his container. This time in one corner he had a metal box which contained a change of clothes. And he had advanced from fire. This time he had a sonic bomb. All he had to do was hold it, press the detonator and let it blow him to little pieces. That should keep him out for a while. He stood in the middle of the container and pressed the button. He heard the click of the detonator and felt rather than heard a wall of sound hit him.
“What was it this time?” Ianto asked.
“Sonic bomb,” Jack said, standing up and brushing himself down needlessly. “Figure it should give me a good while here again.” He stood and pressed himself against Ianto kissing any further questions from his lips.
Jack was pressing kisses against Ianto’s naked and sweaty chest as they lay sated, both trying to get their breath back. But as soon as he felt Ianto take a deep breath he realised that the distraction, as good as it was, was over.
Ianto’s hand kept stroking through Jack’s hair as he spoke quietly. “Now, I know that time moves differently up…down…whichever direction we are here, but it seems that you are coming here more and more frequently.”
“Of course I am, Ianto. I’ll do whatever it takes to see you as often as I can.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Jack. You can’t keep killing yourself in more and more vicious ways just to get back here.”
“I can do whatever I like, Ianto, it’s my life, and I’m going to be living it for a very long time.”
“And I am going to be here for every single one of your deaths until one day you get to stop and maybe then we’ll be together. But unless you actually want this to be hell for me; unless you want me to not only know that each time I see you it’s not only because you’ve been hurt, but because you’ve done it to yourself, you will stop and stop now.”
Silence hit Jack like a wall. He let it slam against him for a moment before knocking it down.
“I just want to see you.”
“I know, but you need to be alive, Jack; you need to live.”
“Why?” Jack asked, not even trying to keep the petulant tone from his voice.
“The world needs a hero, Jack, and that’s you.” Ianto’s tone had softened again.
“I don’t feel like a hero, I don’t want to be a hero.”
“And that’s why you are. If you wanted it, you’d be a super villain instead. Blofeld instead of Bond.”
Jack looked at Ianto for a beat before replying.
“The man who talks about waiting in hell for me to arrive thinks that I am a hero?”
He didn’t have a chance to say anything more or receive a reply before he was dragged back to life.
“The world’s already lost its hero,” Jack told the empty container and reached for his gun.
Author:
jooles34
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Words: 2,533
Rating: 18 to be safe
Warnings: Multiple Character deaths and descriptions of injuries.
Prompt: Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, post-COE - whenever Jack dies, he sees Ianto, only to be ripped from him every time he revives.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood
AN: Thanks to my lovely
emyrldlady for betaing. Written for
dark_fest.
Jack felt the bullet corkscrew through his chest. The sudden loss of breath and tightness under his ribs told him it had nicked his heart. He had seconds before his heart would pump all its blood out into his chest cavity. As the thought entered his head, he noticed with detached interest how quickly the ground was rushing towards him, hard concrete cushioning his fall.
Then the darkness came.
“Jack… Jack.”
Jack stirred. This was different. He’d sometimes heard whisperings in the darkness, like a million voices calling to him, just on the edge of hearing, but he had never heard anyone say his name so distinctly before.
He kept his eyes closed.
Was this it? Was this finally the end? Was the darkness going to claim him for good this time? Keep him, hold him, enslave him to whatever it was that existed on the other side?
Jack decided to keep his eyes closed. He didn’t think he wanted to face whatever it was just yet.
How embarrassing. His final death at the hands of a teenage wannabe-gangster who was meddling with the wrong things. After all he had seen and done it was laughable.
The voice was still calling him. It sounded familiar.
Suddenly he felt the familiar pull of life dragging him back, dispelling his theory.
“What?” he asked out loud, opening his eyes.
He just had time to register the man in the suit standing in front of him before the world was full of Mexican back-ally again.
He lay on the filthy ground, panting, eyes wide, trying to process what had just happened.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Two months and a few thousand light years later Jack found himself running across roof tops and swearing to himself. Roaming Earth hadn’t been enough, not far away enough, so he had said goodbye to Gwen and Rhys and escaped. He was running away; he knew it and he didn’t care.
So he had got away and decided to leave it all behind. Which didn’t explain why he was now chasing a con man and murderer through a city he didn’t know, to protect people he didn’t care about.
But his internal preoccupation with his reasons for being there became his rather literal downfall. The ‘man’ he was chasing leapt over a gap between two buildings and Jack followed. Belatedly Jack realised that the alien had a physiology that allowed him to jump greater distances than he could. At the same time he was reminded that gravity on this planet was just the same as gravity on Earth.
He took the little time he had to re-arrange himself in the air. A fall from this height would certainly break most of his bones and it would hurt like hell while he waited for his body to repair itself. But, if he could land on his head, then…
The darkness came swiftly.
“Are you going to open your eyes this time, or am I going to be talking to myself again?”
The voice made its way into Jack’s consciousness.
“Ianto?” he barely dared voice his suspicions.
“Yes, Jack,” the voice said softly. “Open your eyes.”
Jack did as he was told and, somehow illuminated in the darkness, in front of him crouched Ianto. Be-suited but without a jacket, looking just as he had the day he died. Concern was etched on his face.
“Ianto?” Jack asked again.
This time he earned himself an eyebrow raise.
“Die from a head injury?”
“Well, yes actually. But I think I can be excused for being a little surprised. I don’t normally get a welcoming committee when I die.”
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
“More than I can say. Which is why it’s hard to believe. Is this it? Is, is this it for me? The end?”
“I don’t know. Sadly the afterlife has not come with a manual.”
“You should do something about that. You like to write a good manual.” Jack grinned and a laugh bubbled up inside him. “Or maybe I’m just going mad. Finally going mad.”
“Do you feel mad? Is it even possible to be mad while you’re dead?”
“Can I touch you?”
Ianto moved from his crouch to a kneel, leaning his body closer to Jack. Jack reached out a tentative hand and his chest clenched as he cupped his palm around Ianto’s cheek.
“You’re here, you’re real. God, Ianto,” he breathed.
Ianto smiled back at him and Jack’s heart soared until a second later he felt the familiar tug.
“No! No! Let me stay. Let me stay!” he raged to the air.
But the air didn’t listen and he gasped into life the feel of Ianto still on his hand. He reached for his gun, intending to put a bullet in his brain, his only thought to have the touch of that skin on his again.
But his hand came up empty, his gun missing, stolen as he lay dead. He yelled in anguish and collapsed back into a pool of his own blood, eyes blinking in the night, trying to make sense of what he had seen.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack avoided death with more vigour than usual. The memory of Ianto in the darkness had stuck with him, tormenting him. He didn’t know how his head was being played with and what sort of cosmic joke he was now the butt of, but he didn’t like it. He was running from the memory of Ianto; running so far he was in star systems he’d never visited before, even with the Time Agency. But now the memories haunted and taunted him even in death.
There was nowhere left to run.
But just as death wasn’t an escape, he couldn’t escape death. A lonely girl, a predatory male, a primal urge to defend, an avoidable bar fight, a concealed knife and he should have known better. His guts spilt to the ground and the darkness came again.
“Jack. Please don’t ignore me again. Please.”
Jack groaned at the sound of Ianto’s voice seeping into his brain.
“Please. Please don’t. Anyone, but don’t use him, please,” Jack begged.
“Jack, it’s really me. And I am just as lost in this as you are.”
Jack opened his eyes. This time Ianto was sitting cross legged on the floor in front of him, pain and concern vying for position on his face. He sat up and gave Ianto a sceptical look.
“I want to believe it’s really you. But, it’s tricky given that you’re dead.”
“And you’re here because you’re the picture of health.” Sarcasm poured from Ianto’s tone and eyebrows.
Jack laughed again, a humourless sound in the dark. “You certainly sound like Ianto.”
He watched as Ianto gave one of his patented eye rolls. That was very Ianto. And then Ianto leant forward, cupped his face, a thumb running along his jaw, and kissed him.
Jack melted into the kiss, lost himself and all sense of time, and didn’t even notice the pull until he woke gasping in front of some very surprised drinkers.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack believed now and took the memories into his life. And he took them into another bar. A real low-life bar; one where you didn’t have to wait for the guy to attack the girl to get into a fight. In fact Jack discovered that a lascivious leer in the right direction had him pulled outside and his head stamped into a bloody pulp before he had even finished his first drink.
“Do we have to go through the ‘you’re not real’ performance again?”
Jack looked up and saw Ianto standing above him, hands in pockets. He smiled broadly and stood up.
“No. No performances. I don’t know why the Universe has decided to give me this, but I’m going to stop complaining and stop fighting it.”
Ianto smiled back and his eyes flashed blue.
“So, can we continue where we left off?”
Jack smiled and used Ianto’s tie to pull him closer. They were both still smiling as their lips met. Jack pressed his body close to Ianto’s and moaned softly as Ianto’s arms wrapped around his waist and held him close. He lost himself in the gentle reminder of the Welshman’s embrace. They held each other tight, but their kisses remained soft and unhurried.
By the time he was dragged back into life outside the bar he already had a plan in his head.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took Jack a few days to set it up, but finally he was ready. He locked himself into the fright container he had hired, rubbing a thumb on the metal walls that he knew would keep heat and fire contained. Even more so than the metals on Earth were capable of. He checked that the oxygen pipe that he had installed was pumping air into the small room. He’d need that during and after. Then he splashed the walls and floor with accelerant before dousing himself with the same.
He sat on the floor and pulled a small box out of his pocket. Inside was a syringe and he jabbed it unceremoniously into his thigh, injecting a clear liquid into himself. Jack lay down and pulled a small flash charge out of another pocket. It worked like an Earth grenade. He pulled out the pin and clutched the handle tight to the grenade. Didn’t want it going off too early. He may have a death wish, but he’d burnt to death before and had no desire to feel that again.
As the sedative started to take effect Jack gradually slipped into unconsciousness. He concentrated on keeping his hand clenched for as long as he could, but he became dimly aware of his fingers falling open and the grenade slipping from his grasp and rolling away. A bang as the flash grenade exploded and a faint whoosh as the accelerant caught were the last things Jack was aware of before the sedative pulled him fully under.
“Hello again.”
Jack opened his eyes and grinned up at Ianto.
“Hi.”
“Are you planning to stay down there?” Ianto asked that damn perfect eyebrow raised again.
“Yup, and I thought you could join me.” The eyebrow raised higher and Jack’s smile got broader. “I burnt to death. It’s going to take ages for my body to pull itself together again, so you’ve got me for a while. How about it?”
Ianto shook his head and tried to look put out. But he was pulling at his tie as he leant towards Jack.
Afterwards Jack lay contentedly in Ianto’s arms, but his head was still working more than he wanted it to.
“So, is this heaven?”
Ianto snorted. “I wish I knew. Sometimes I think it’s heaven. I mean, there are no fires of eternal damnation and there’s you. But…” Ianto trailed off.
“But what?”
Jack tipped his head to see Ianto give a wry grin. “I have to spend eternity waiting for you in the knowledge that every time I do see you it means you are dead. Probably painfully. So how can I enjoy what I am given?”
“So, this is hell for you?” Jack asked.
Eyes that had turned to grey with sadness slipped from his to look down their bodies and Jack knew he wasn’t going to get a reply. He let the silence continue for a moment.
“It feels like heaven to me. I would die a thousand times over, each more painful than the last, to be able to spend more time with you.”
Then he felt the tug of life pulling him back and Ianto started to fade around him.
“This part is hell,” Ianto said, before he vanished.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack was back in his freight container two days later addressing an issue that he had not considered last time. When he had been dragged back he had put up with the pain of his body finishing its re-growth, but then he’d had to deal with the problem of his clothes not re-growing. And on this planet he was laughed at for having just the one penis as he had tried to make his way to his lodgings. Not making that mistake again.
He prepared his container. This time in one corner he had a metal box which contained a change of clothes. And he had advanced from fire. This time he had a sonic bomb. All he had to do was hold it, press the detonator and let it blow him to little pieces. That should keep him out for a while. He stood in the middle of the container and pressed the button. He heard the click of the detonator and felt rather than heard a wall of sound hit him.
“What was it this time?” Ianto asked.
“Sonic bomb,” Jack said, standing up and brushing himself down needlessly. “Figure it should give me a good while here again.” He stood and pressed himself against Ianto kissing any further questions from his lips.
Jack was pressing kisses against Ianto’s naked and sweaty chest as they lay sated, both trying to get their breath back. But as soon as he felt Ianto take a deep breath he realised that the distraction, as good as it was, was over.
Ianto’s hand kept stroking through Jack’s hair as he spoke quietly. “Now, I know that time moves differently up…down…whichever direction we are here, but it seems that you are coming here more and more frequently.”
“Of course I am, Ianto. I’ll do whatever it takes to see you as often as I can.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Jack. You can’t keep killing yourself in more and more vicious ways just to get back here.”
“I can do whatever I like, Ianto, it’s my life, and I’m going to be living it for a very long time.”
“And I am going to be here for every single one of your deaths until one day you get to stop and maybe then we’ll be together. But unless you actually want this to be hell for me; unless you want me to not only know that each time I see you it’s not only because you’ve been hurt, but because you’ve done it to yourself, you will stop and stop now.”
Silence hit Jack like a wall. He let it slam against him for a moment before knocking it down.
“I just want to see you.”
“I know, but you need to be alive, Jack; you need to live.”
“Why?” Jack asked, not even trying to keep the petulant tone from his voice.
“The world needs a hero, Jack, and that’s you.” Ianto’s tone had softened again.
“I don’t feel like a hero, I don’t want to be a hero.”
“And that’s why you are. If you wanted it, you’d be a super villain instead. Blofeld instead of Bond.”
Jack looked at Ianto for a beat before replying.
“The man who talks about waiting in hell for me to arrive thinks that I am a hero?”
He didn’t have a chance to say anything more or receive a reply before he was dragged back to life.
“The world’s already lost its hero,” Jack told the empty container and reached for his gun.