he is dashing, you have to give him that.
In the middle of all my being-rubbish and being-busy, I somewhat bizarrely ended up writing Torchwood fic. Why? Well, I...don't know. It's a show of dubious quality, and I'm sure there's more than enough fic out there, but I had The Urge for some reason and it just sort of happened. OH WELL. (Apologies for the lack of Tosh, by the way - that's another story, which is to say that it may literally become one. I suppose that depends on if this goes down well or not. We'll see!)
Title: Chronology
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Various little scenes and moments, interactions with the team, just things that I kind of wanted to add.
A/N: First fic in this fandom, written at speed due to various commitments, usual warnings apply. Much love to strangeumbrella, who was as limitlessly awesome as ever while I was writing this.
In a crater that has ceased ever to exist, in a year that never was, Ianto Jones became the last member of Torchwood Three to die. (Although, unlike the first member of Torchwood Three to die, he sincerely doubted that he would be coming back to life at any point soon.) Dug into the side of a mountain, facing down a pack of spheres that had been tracking him for days, he tried to concentrate; he had one bullet left in his gun.
"Eeny, meeny," Ianto said, aiming wildly at each sphere in turn, because they seemed to hang back with a kind of odd playfulness. But not for long.
He never even had a chance to fire, in the end.
Still.
In a below-ground base, in a year that is, Jack watches his office-boy pour coffee and stares shamelessly at the straight line of his neck: the way it continues, tantalisingly hidden by clothing, into the equally straight line of his back; the way it burns red with the realisation that he is being stared at. Jack has kissed that stretch of skin.
Sometimes, Jack thinks about the months and months he spent bound in the hull of The Valiant, observed like an animal in a cage, his own skin prickling with discomfort and the Master’s eyes upon him, always. He remembers how he, the Master, how he had once touched Jack in that same place - the back of his neck - just the brush of an index finger making all the tiny hairs there stand on end. He’d said, "good boy," and Jack had gritted his teeth.
Chronologically speaking, Jack knows that this never happened - that the whole thing was created on a paradox, that it is both impossible and illogical for him to remember something which never actually took place - but he is still visited, sometimes, by the ghost of that moment, and those tiny hairs stand on end once again. He wonders what was happening to Ianto at that second, the exact second where the Master was speaking with a lover’s distance from his ear, and thinks occasionally that if he looks at him hard enough he will somehow be able to tell. But he never can.
***
"'Tell Jack' what?"
Gwen blinks and says, "I’m sorry?" She’s sat at her desk, working late (or maybe just avoiding going home), and looks up at Ianto with innocent measured confusion. Her hair is in her eyes.
Ianto passes the file he’s holding from hand to hand, the picture of guilty nosiness - some interrogation this has turned out to be - then clears his throat. He gestures vaguely in the direction of the outside world, "Before the bomb went off, when you were handcuffed to Captain John. You said, 'tell Jack', and I just, I wondered what-" He doesn’t know why he’s asking this, but he’s asking it just the same. "-what you were going to say."
"Oh," Gwen murmurs. Then she smiles - distantly, as if she knows a secret. "Oh, I don’t remember, really."
And Ianto nods, and looks busy, and he feels his face ache with the weight of affected nonchalance.
***
It is somehow both a relief and a disappointment to discover that Ianto has decided against wearing a suit to the cinema; it takes Jack almost a full minute to spot him, so unaccustomed is he to seeing Ianto in jeans. It’s the little things you miss, he thinks cheerfully, and holds out his bag of sweets by way of a greeting.
The evening has an oddly awkward feel to it, which isn't to say that they don't have anything to talk about, or enjoy themselves, or anything else: rather, it's a feeling of not wanting to behave in a certain way, because the mere fact of being on a Date - of having made a conscious effort to spend time together, as opposed to just being in the same place at the same time - changes the mood entirely. Physical contact is scarce and, when it occurs, understated, uncertain, and everything Jack absolutely isn't. Truth be told, he enjoys the novelty of it immensely. Besides, Ianto wears a blush very well indeed.
After the film - a poorly executed thriller which, for the most part, they scoffed their way through - Jack takes Ianto for coffee, the biggest cliché of them all, and he's halfway through a latte macchiato when he realises: this is what normal is, now. Jack’s been around a long time and a lot of years, and 'normal' is one of those things, like fashions and political enemies, that seems forever to be changing - for someone like him (and that’s a silly, inappropriate phrase, of course, because there is no one quite like Jack), it’s a surprising, unusual thing to find oneself suddenly a part of it all.
He thinks that it's probably a good thing. Probably.
And he has the good sense not to bring up Lisa, although Ianto presumably hasn’t dated anyone since her, and Ianto has the good sense not to bring up Captain John, or the Doctor, or any of the myriad other things Jack’s carefully not mentioned - but at the same time, Jack knows that sooner or later Ianto will ask him the kind of thing he must be going insane with curiosity over. Like: So, how long have you been immortal for, Jack?
But the idea suddenly doesn’t fill him with dread. And he’s beginning to think that, this time, he might even answer truthfully - that maybe he’d like to start telling Ianto the truth. Just...not tonight.
***
The first day after Jack left them was ringed with a certainty that, soon, he would be back. They spent an hour telling each other that he was probably just up on a rooftop somewhere, you know what he’s like, and another saying he’d popped out for something and would probably be back soon. By the time Gwen and Tosh were leaving for home, everyone was very carefully mentioning nothing. No one said, now, that they were certain he’d be back tomorrow. No one said anything.
"He’s fucked off, then, hasn’t he," said Owen, almost to himself, once he and Ianto were the only ones left. "I mean. Properly."
Ianto blinked. It was strange and horrible to hear someone give voice to the things he was thinking in such blunt, unequivocal terms - and now that it was just the two of them, somehow, he had no choice but to answer. He wanted to disagree, to dissent, to say, This is what Jack is doing and where he has gone and what he is thinking. ‘He needs me’ - that’s what he’d said. Ianto had honestly, actually said that. And yes, maybe Jack did need him, but he certainly had a funny way of showing it. Ianto felt warm with the embarrassment of admitting not only that Jack had indeed left, but also that he himself had no more clue as to his whereabouts than anyone else; he knew, of course he knew, that taking it personally was beyond stupid. But that didn’t make it feel like anything less than a betrayal.
"I’m sorry I shot you, Owen," Ianto said.
Owen looked taken aback; Ianto imagined his own expression to be equally surprised, because honestly, he hadn’t really been expecting those words to come out of his mouth - it just seemed a better prospect at the time than saying 'yes'. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Owen to regain his composure.
"No you’re not," he said.
There was a half-second of awkward silence before, impossibly, they both laughed: a strained, over-tired kind of laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, and Ianto reflected somewhat hysterically that it was probably the friendliest conversation they’d ever had.
A little bit later, before he left for home, Owen said, "Gwen takes over tomorrow, I guess. If he’s not back."
And that had been the most that anyone really said about it.
***
Then one night, this happens:
"What did you want to be when you were a Little Ianto?" Jack says, quite suddenly. He has his legs propped up on the table, peering intenly over his own boots, two foot of polished table and four separate stacks of innocuous grey files.
Ianto looks up with that half-exasperated, half-fond expression he seems to favour so much these days, fingers paused over the laptop keypad. Without the rhythmic incessant tapping, the room feels suddenly smaller. Quieter. Ianto says, "I wanted to work for a secret organisation that couldn’t do its own paperwork. I’d say I’m doing quite well."
Jack barks a laugh, and when he stands up it’s like the giant readying himself to shimmy down the beanstalk, one boot, two boots, stomp stomp. He heads towards the door, but stops behind Ianto’s chair before he reaches it, and places a hand on his shoulder. There are still no tapping sounds from the keyboard. The room is still quiet. Still small. Ianto doesn’t move a single muscle as Jack pushes the other hand into his hair, and leans forward just a little. He exhales.
Outside, it is night-time. Outside, normality is happening. In half an hour, the sun will come up and most people will still be asleep - even the people they work with - which makes Jack wonder if Ianto has somewhere he would rather be. And if there’s anywhere he himself would rather be. And how long it will be before they seriously consider saying things to each other that are true or important. Jack presses a single kiss into the back of Ianto’s neck.
And he says, "I’ll get you a coffee."
.
Title: Chronology
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Various little scenes and moments, interactions with the team, just things that I kind of wanted to add.
A/N: First fic in this fandom, written at speed due to various commitments, usual warnings apply. Much love to strangeumbrella, who was as limitlessly awesome as ever while I was writing this.
In a crater that has ceased ever to exist, in a year that never was, Ianto Jones became the last member of Torchwood Three to die. (Although, unlike the first member of Torchwood Three to die, he sincerely doubted that he would be coming back to life at any point soon.) Dug into the side of a mountain, facing down a pack of spheres that had been tracking him for days, he tried to concentrate; he had one bullet left in his gun.
"Eeny, meeny," Ianto said, aiming wildly at each sphere in turn, because they seemed to hang back with a kind of odd playfulness. But not for long.
He never even had a chance to fire, in the end.
Still.
In a below-ground base, in a year that is, Jack watches his office-boy pour coffee and stares shamelessly at the straight line of his neck: the way it continues, tantalisingly hidden by clothing, into the equally straight line of his back; the way it burns red with the realisation that he is being stared at. Jack has kissed that stretch of skin.
Sometimes, Jack thinks about the months and months he spent bound in the hull of The Valiant, observed like an animal in a cage, his own skin prickling with discomfort and the Master’s eyes upon him, always. He remembers how he, the Master, how he had once touched Jack in that same place - the back of his neck - just the brush of an index finger making all the tiny hairs there stand on end. He’d said, "good boy," and Jack had gritted his teeth.
Chronologically speaking, Jack knows that this never happened - that the whole thing was created on a paradox, that it is both impossible and illogical for him to remember something which never actually took place - but he is still visited, sometimes, by the ghost of that moment, and those tiny hairs stand on end once again. He wonders what was happening to Ianto at that second, the exact second where the Master was speaking with a lover’s distance from his ear, and thinks occasionally that if he looks at him hard enough he will somehow be able to tell. But he never can.
***
"'Tell Jack' what?"
Gwen blinks and says, "I’m sorry?" She’s sat at her desk, working late (or maybe just avoiding going home), and looks up at Ianto with innocent measured confusion. Her hair is in her eyes.
Ianto passes the file he’s holding from hand to hand, the picture of guilty nosiness - some interrogation this has turned out to be - then clears his throat. He gestures vaguely in the direction of the outside world, "Before the bomb went off, when you were handcuffed to Captain John. You said, 'tell Jack', and I just, I wondered what-" He doesn’t know why he’s asking this, but he’s asking it just the same. "-what you were going to say."
"Oh," Gwen murmurs. Then she smiles - distantly, as if she knows a secret. "Oh, I don’t remember, really."
And Ianto nods, and looks busy, and he feels his face ache with the weight of affected nonchalance.
***
It is somehow both a relief and a disappointment to discover that Ianto has decided against wearing a suit to the cinema; it takes Jack almost a full minute to spot him, so unaccustomed is he to seeing Ianto in jeans. It’s the little things you miss, he thinks cheerfully, and holds out his bag of sweets by way of a greeting.
The evening has an oddly awkward feel to it, which isn't to say that they don't have anything to talk about, or enjoy themselves, or anything else: rather, it's a feeling of not wanting to behave in a certain way, because the mere fact of being on a Date - of having made a conscious effort to spend time together, as opposed to just being in the same place at the same time - changes the mood entirely. Physical contact is scarce and, when it occurs, understated, uncertain, and everything Jack absolutely isn't. Truth be told, he enjoys the novelty of it immensely. Besides, Ianto wears a blush very well indeed.
After the film - a poorly executed thriller which, for the most part, they scoffed their way through - Jack takes Ianto for coffee, the biggest cliché of them all, and he's halfway through a latte macchiato when he realises: this is what normal is, now. Jack’s been around a long time and a lot of years, and 'normal' is one of those things, like fashions and political enemies, that seems forever to be changing - for someone like him (and that’s a silly, inappropriate phrase, of course, because there is no one quite like Jack), it’s a surprising, unusual thing to find oneself suddenly a part of it all.
He thinks that it's probably a good thing. Probably.
And he has the good sense not to bring up Lisa, although Ianto presumably hasn’t dated anyone since her, and Ianto has the good sense not to bring up Captain John, or the Doctor, or any of the myriad other things Jack’s carefully not mentioned - but at the same time, Jack knows that sooner or later Ianto will ask him the kind of thing he must be going insane with curiosity over. Like: So, how long have you been immortal for, Jack?
But the idea suddenly doesn’t fill him with dread. And he’s beginning to think that, this time, he might even answer truthfully - that maybe he’d like to start telling Ianto the truth. Just...not tonight.
***
The first day after Jack left them was ringed with a certainty that, soon, he would be back. They spent an hour telling each other that he was probably just up on a rooftop somewhere, you know what he’s like, and another saying he’d popped out for something and would probably be back soon. By the time Gwen and Tosh were leaving for home, everyone was very carefully mentioning nothing. No one said, now, that they were certain he’d be back tomorrow. No one said anything.
"He’s fucked off, then, hasn’t he," said Owen, almost to himself, once he and Ianto were the only ones left. "I mean. Properly."
Ianto blinked. It was strange and horrible to hear someone give voice to the things he was thinking in such blunt, unequivocal terms - and now that it was just the two of them, somehow, he had no choice but to answer. He wanted to disagree, to dissent, to say, This is what Jack is doing and where he has gone and what he is thinking. ‘He needs me’ - that’s what he’d said. Ianto had honestly, actually said that. And yes, maybe Jack did need him, but he certainly had a funny way of showing it. Ianto felt warm with the embarrassment of admitting not only that Jack had indeed left, but also that he himself had no more clue as to his whereabouts than anyone else; he knew, of course he knew, that taking it personally was beyond stupid. But that didn’t make it feel like anything less than a betrayal.
"I’m sorry I shot you, Owen," Ianto said.
Owen looked taken aback; Ianto imagined his own expression to be equally surprised, because honestly, he hadn’t really been expecting those words to come out of his mouth - it just seemed a better prospect at the time than saying 'yes'. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Owen to regain his composure.
"No you’re not," he said.
There was a half-second of awkward silence before, impossibly, they both laughed: a strained, over-tired kind of laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, and Ianto reflected somewhat hysterically that it was probably the friendliest conversation they’d ever had.
A little bit later, before he left for home, Owen said, "Gwen takes over tomorrow, I guess. If he’s not back."
And that had been the most that anyone really said about it.
***
Then one night, this happens:
"What did you want to be when you were a Little Ianto?" Jack says, quite suddenly. He has his legs propped up on the table, peering intenly over his own boots, two foot of polished table and four separate stacks of innocuous grey files.
Ianto looks up with that half-exasperated, half-fond expression he seems to favour so much these days, fingers paused over the laptop keypad. Without the rhythmic incessant tapping, the room feels suddenly smaller. Quieter. Ianto says, "I wanted to work for a secret organisation that couldn’t do its own paperwork. I’d say I’m doing quite well."
Jack barks a laugh, and when he stands up it’s like the giant readying himself to shimmy down the beanstalk, one boot, two boots, stomp stomp. He heads towards the door, but stops behind Ianto’s chair before he reaches it, and places a hand on his shoulder. There are still no tapping sounds from the keyboard. The room is still quiet. Still small. Ianto doesn’t move a single muscle as Jack pushes the other hand into his hair, and leans forward just a little. He exhales.
Outside, it is night-time. Outside, normality is happening. In half an hour, the sun will come up and most people will still be asleep - even the people they work with - which makes Jack wonder if Ianto has somewhere he would rather be. And if there’s anywhere he himself would rather be. And how long it will be before they seriously consider saying things to each other that are true or important. Jack presses a single kiss into the back of Ianto’s neck.
And he says, "I’ll get you a coffee."
.