Fic: Devil may care (10/30)
Title: Devil may care
Author: sagestreet
Pairing: Jack/real!Captain Jack Harkness (mentions of past Jack/Ianto; some Ianto/OC)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: World War II imagery (mentions of atrocities), language
Summary: Jack returns to 1941 to rescue the real Captain Jack Harkness. But while the two of them are circling each other, uncertain as to what they want, they fail to notice the dark clouds gathering on the horizon …
Previous Chapters: The story starts here.
________________________________________________________________________________________
10. Chapter: More questions
The Captain spent the remainder of the afternoon working on his fake CV with Toshiko.
It proved to be more difficult than he would have thought, what with him having no idea about this war in Afghanistan, let alone modern fighter aircraft. He was glad she was doing the actual work for him, typing, looking things up, asking him questions every once in a while and correcting a couple of the paragraphs she had written the previous night at home. 'Good thing she doesn't seem in any particular hurry to get home for the weekend,' he thought. 'Or maybe … maybe it isn't a good thing at all. Maybe she's just staying late because of Jack,' a nagging voice inside of him whispered.
Owen, for his part, seemed to have a slightly different idea of what a perfect weekend should entail and quickly made to leave, hollering, "Get a life, Tosh! Saturdays are for fun … Well, if you absolutely want to spend your time off entertaining Casablanca boy, I won't stop you … Everyone, don't expect me back before Monday morning … er … make that noon."
When the cog door had closed behind the medic, the Captain asked Toshiko whether his newest nickname had anything to do with the fictional character she had mentioned earlier.
"James Bond? Oh, no, no, no … Owen was referring to another film," she replied.
At that moment, Gwen re-emerged from the kitchen, coffee cup in hand and eyes wide with confusion. "Why don't you know 'Casablanca'? You're from World War II, aren't you?"
"Released in 1942," Toshiko muttered curtly, responding for the Captain.
"How do you know so much about it?" the Welshwoman asked.
"Late night TV," came Toshiko's short reply.
"Anyway," Gwen turned to the Captain again, "you should really watch it sometime. It's so romantic."
Both girls managed to sigh in perfect unison, and the Captain felt his lips curl up into an involuntary smile. "Probably not my kinda thing," he said doubtfully. But faced with their assertion that he simply had to watch it, he finally conceded, "Okay, let's do it sometime. To me, it'll feel like watchin' one of next season's pictures in advance."
Through the glass walls of the office, he could see Jack climb out of the hatch and head for his phone now. The man was wearing a different shirt from the one he had worn earlier, but his face still looked ashen, as far as the Captain could tell. Eyes cast down to the floor, he was walking back and forth in the glassed-in room, talking quietly into his phone, his free hand alternating between rubbing the back of his neck and pinching the bridge of his nose.
The Captain looked back at Toshiko. He really wanted to ask her if there was anything going on between her and Jack but decided against it. It was one thing to ask a man that question and quite another to pose it to a lady. That just had to be wrong. Inappropriate, at the very least - or so he told himself, trying to suppress the feeling of doubt that was gnawing at his insides now that the fingers of his trembling soul had no wounds to touch, no nail prints to feel in the palms of eternity. No wounds, no wounds, no wounds - something about that made his senses tingle. There was something there, right in front of his eyes, in that blurry darkness. A glaring sign. Something obvious, something dangerous about his dark doppelganger, whose mere doubting twin he remained … But for some reason, the Captain's otherwise keen mind and sharp eyes were blind to whatever it was. And he wondered if the faithless would be blessed as well.
Later that evening, they had dinner together in the conference room. (Well, technically, it was just the Captain and the girls, as Ianto came in only once or twice: to bring Toshiko and the Captain coffee and to refill Gwen's cup. Jack, for his part, didn't turn up at all, and the Captain honestly hoped that the man had laid down for the rest of the day. Somehow, he doubted it, however.)
When the food Ianto had ordered for them arrived, the Captain felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. "Well, aren't you adventurous!" he muttered. He was pretty sure he had never had Chinese food before.
The two women gave him a doubtful look. Apparently, the last thing their eating habits here at Torchwood could be called was 'adventurous'.
Toshiko mumbled something cryptic about 'globalization' and proceeded to show him how to eat with the funny little sticks that had arrived together with the food, which, despite all his dexterity, ended with rice flying all over the conference table and a stammered apology on his part. Gwen just patted his bicep comfortingly (and maybe a tad too elaborately) and started telling him about Jack's phone call with royalty. As it turned out, the current monarch was, indeed, a queen. Somehow, the conversation jumped from there to the topic of Weevils, and the Captain listened in amazement as Toshiko told him what they looked like. That, in its turn, prompted Gwen to show him how Weevils moved, hissed and attacked using their fangs, which led to another explosion of rice all over the table - this time, caused by the laughing, coughing Welshwoman.
It was late, very late, when he finally left the conference room and headed for Jack's office.
Toshiko had seemed a bit reluctant to go home, whereas Gwen had been surprised to discover how late it had become. "Oh, look at the time; Rhys will be worried."
The Captain, for his part, was strangely anxious to get back to Jack, having spent most of the day with people who, just a day before, had been total strangers to him.
He stretched his aching back and jogged up the stairs to the man's office, noticing that the blinds behind the glass walls were drawn. Stopping on the top step, he hesitated for a second, not sure what to do, then extended his hand and rapped softly on the door. To his surprise, there was an immediate response. "Come."
All the lights in Jack's office were off, and the entire room was shrouded in a cavernous semi-darkness. The Captain could barely make out Jack's shadowy silhouette, feet up on the desk, head thrown back, eyes clamped shut.
He cleared his throat uncertainly and was about to ask the man whether he was alright when Jack suddenly raised his hand and silently gestured toward the hatch, never once opening his eyes.
ΨΨΨ
The Captain was lying in Jack's comfortable bed, unable to concentrate on his task of reading the CV Toshiko had written for him and memorizing the strange names of all the Afghan cities he had allegedly served in. Surely, this was all because of his tiredness. Surely, it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Jack's warm scent on the pillow or the fact that, in the deathlike silence down here, the Captain was acutely aware of every little sound that was coming from upstairs. It was like being trapped inside a grand piano, just above the sound board, even the faintest creak or rustle being amplified threefold and making his body thrum like a taut string in the stillness of the small, grave-like space. Every little breath Jack was taking upstairs. The somehow overly loud rustle of the man's shirt whenever he took a breath, soft fabric sliding against his chest and … 'Shit!' The Captain bit down on his bottom lip. 'Who am I trying to fool here?!'
As he turned off the light, he realized that he still wasn't sure if he was expected to say anything by way of good night. Maybe he should have offered the bed to Jack today, he pondered. He was feeling fine, after all. Jack wasn't.
The office upstairs was still plunged in darkness, but there had been the odd creak from above, indicating that Jack was moving uneasily in his chair.
The Captain lay there quietly, willing himself to relax, but sleep wasn't coming tonight.
Had he really overheard Jack say that he had lived through the entire war? 'But wouldn't that mean that he's been to the forties more often than he's letting on?'
The Captain groaned and turned on his side.
'Toshiko didn't seem too perturbed by Jack's scream today. But maybe she just didn't want to display her emotions in front of me. Maybe she and Jack …'
The bedsprings creaked as he turned again.
Upstairs, there was a light knock on the door. "Jack?"
It was Ianto's soft voice.
"Yes?" Jack responded hoarsely.
"Better?"
"I will be. Give it another hour or so," Jack said in a pained whisper. "I'm always like this … afterwards …"
Immediately, the Captain felt a surge of compassion and concern well up in his chest again. As though he were responsible for Jack. As though he were still the commanding officer here. As though Jack were one of his men and …
"I know," he heard Ianto reply simply.
"Gwen gone?" Jack inquired.
"Yes, Jack."
"Good." There was definitely a half-affectionate, half-pained smile in Jack's voice. "I really love her, but that voice of hers is just grating. Makes me want to vomit when I'm like this."
There was a low chuckle coming from Ianto. "What did she say, anyway?" the young man asked, stressing the word 'she' in a way that made it clear that he wasn't talking about Gwen anymore.
"That we can hire as many new field agents as we like. As long as they're …" Jack seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he continued in a strained, strangely high-pitched voice and with a crisp British inflection that made it obvious that he was, in fact, doing an impression of some third party. "As long as they are as courteous, charming and … ahem, ahem … sightly as Mr. Jones, I shall pay for whomever you choose, Captain Harkness."
"Well, that's settled then," Ianto chuckled quietly.
"Actually, she might have also said something about forwarding a copy of his contract to UNIT," Jack admitted sheepishly.
"God save the Queen," Ianto sighed happily. "Even she keeps reminding you to do the paperwork you seem so wont to neglect."
"Those were her words exactly. How did you know? That's uncanny."
But the young man ignored the question and stated, "We'll send them the contract together with the report you've completed … Because you have completed it, haven't you?"
"I've got a headache … I'll do it tomorrow," Jack grumbled glumly, sounding much like a petulant child. "And anyway, paperwork is evil."
"Well, it won't kill you to do it."
"Very funny."
"You could be a bit nicer, you know," Ianto pointed out suddenly.
"Hm?"
"To him," the Welshman clarified.
The Captain felt his eyes go wide where he was lying in the dark. 'Oh.'
"You practically snapped at him earlier when you were looking at the photos. Could you at least try to be nice for once in your life?"
"I don't feel like being nice. I feel like ripping someone's head off," Jack growled.
Ianto just laughed in reply. "Oh, I'm not scared of you, you know. I stopped being scared of you a long time ago … sir."
"Yeah, I wonder when that happened," Jack muttered under his breath. "So, what do you expect me to do? Make him pancakes? Tuck him into bed at night?" he scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous."
The Captain turned in his bed again, quietly but resolutely putting the pillow over his head to drown out the voices from above. He felt uncomfortable eavesdropping on what they obviously thought was a private conversation. If they wanted to talk about him, fine. They had every right to do so. But it was none of his business, and common courtesy dictated that he not listen in on it. This was how things were done under any officer's unwritten code of honor, and he could not and would not violate it, he thought, feeling, all of a sudden, more and more like an intruder in Jack's quarters.
'But imposing on Jack's hospitality isn't the worst thing you've done to him,' a voice whispered in the back of his mind. 'You've done something a lot worse'n that.'
The pillow covering his face felt warm and suffocating. 'You've forced yourself on him. Made him dance with you … You even made him-'
No! He wasn't going to think about that.
It had been a foolish moment of insanity. Nothing more. Just a bit of fun. Monkey business. He had had too much to drink. And surely, Jack had forgiven him for this stupid joke already. (If he even remembered it.) People danced and drank and played pranks on each other when there was a war on. That was normal, right? Anything to forget reality for a few short hours.
The Captain started tossing and turning again. 'But you wanted it. You came to him. You made him …' his guilty conscience whispered. 'And, good man that he is, he pitied you because you were about to die … And now that you've realized that he is with Toshiko, you're- No!' he stopped the thought before it could even fully form in his mind. 'Toshiko is a nice girl. Why shouldn't Jack want to be with her?!' he reprimanded himself.
Squirming under the thick pillow, with Jack's scent suffocating him and robbing him of his senses, the Captain didn't notice when he finally slipped into a restless sleep.
A German had captured him, holding him restrained with a firm grip on his arms. The sun was blocking out the man's face, and all the Captain had caught was a quick glimpse of a death's-head badge flashing on his cap and reflecting the harsh sunlight. The guy was snarling something in German that the Captain didn't understand, violently yanking him back by his arms, fingers digging into his biceps until it hurt. - This was bad. This was very, very bad. The Captain was certain of that. And somehow, he knew that the Germans wanted to get something out of him. Information, intelligence, something … They were after somebody … He couldn't remember who it was … But for some reason, they needed his information to hunt this person down. It was someone … someone he knew. Someone important. Someone …
"Where is he?" the man exclaimed, switching from German to English. His voice seemed eerily familiar, and the complete lack of a German accent was both odd and alarming. Whose voice was that? Why was it so familiar? - "We need to know where he is. Now, will you cooperate or not?" the dark figure shouted again, almost dislocating the Captain's shoulders when yanking on his arms. - Who was the man talking about? What kind of manhunt was this? What was going on here? - "Well, if you don't want to cooperate, we can do this the hard way … Let's see, what will it be? D'you want me to chop off your fingers?" the German growled into his ear. "One by one." He forced the Captain down to his knees. "Or do you want me to burn you alive, your skin peeling away as you scream in the fires of Hell? Or how about I throw you into that abyss over there. I mean, forget flying. Have you ever considered plummeting as a career choice?" he spat. - Why was that voice so familiar? Who was this German? Why was his English so good? And who was it that he was after?
"Now, tell us where he is!" The Captain writhed in the man's grip, but it was in vain. - How could he tell the man these Germans were pursuing that he was in immediate danger, how could he warn him if he couldn't even remember who it was? Just who was this interrogation about? … And then suddenly, something deep inside the Captain's soul started to whisper that that was a dark and deadly secret. And that, even worse, there was a secret inside the secret. But the more he racked his brain for a plausible answer, the more he felt as though it were slipping through his fingers. - "Well, if you don't want to tell me where he is, I'll have to make you," the German said in his strangely flawless English. "So, what will it be? Fire, gravity or an axe to your fingers, hm?" he whispered almost sweetly. - "Don't …" the Captain grit out through his teeth, straining against the man's grip. "Not my hands." - His captor just laughed darkly. Why was that chilling laugh so familiar? Why didn't the man sound German? - "Nice try. We'll start with your fingers, then." Suddenly, the German had an axe in his hand; it was glistening in the painfully white sunlight, a stark contrast to the man's pitch-black uniform. "Let's start with your thumb … And then maybe, you'll be more cooperative," he snarled in his sickeningly sweet voice. "Let's get started … chop, chop!"
The axe blade was descending with a loud swoosh. And at that moment, at the very climax of this rampantly violent scene, the Captain saw it: in a flash of blinding light and glistening metal … The reflection of his captor's face in the polished axe blade. It was Jack's face. His torturer was Jack!
"No!" the Captain cried out in anguish and something akin to strangely misplaced desire, unsure himself whether he was screaming because of the axe that was about to sever his thumb from his hand or because of what he had just seen.
Someone was gripping his shoulder. Hard. "No, let go of me. No!" the Captain cried out again, feeling someone shake him. The axe blade began to dissolve in front of his eyes before it had even reached his thumb. And with it, the other man's face, the all-too-familiar reflection of those steely blue eyes and that chiseled jawline and cleft chin dissipated like a ghost.
"Jack! Wake up!"
"No, no! Let go off me!" the Captain cried out again.
"Jack, it's a dream. Wake up! … Come on, Jack, wake up."
He knew this voice. It was … 'Oh, God!'
The Captain opened his eyes, looking up in embarrassment, and was met with a concerned cobalt blue gaze boring down on him from the shadows.
"James?" the Captain heard himself whisper for some reason.
"You … okay?" Jack's voice asked quietly and a bit hesitantly.
The Captain's heart was still hammering away in his chest. As if the incubus that was sitting on it were refusing to loosen its hold on him just yet. As if it were pressing down on the Captain's torso, making his ribs clench and his lungs hurt with each ragged breath he was drawing, holding him prisoner to his own demonic nightmare, to his own dark and yet strangely passionate dream, this hidden reality filled with terror and some twisted sense of lust, the cloudy eroticism of which the Captain didn't even want to think about, hating his own treacherous, trembling brain for producing those thoughts in the first place.
He sat up in bed abruptly, feeling his entire six-foot frame thrum minutely like a Spitfire about to take off.
Continued here
Author: sagestreet
Pairing: Jack/real!Captain Jack Harkness (mentions of past Jack/Ianto; some Ianto/OC)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: World War II imagery (mentions of atrocities), language
Summary: Jack returns to 1941 to rescue the real Captain Jack Harkness. But while the two of them are circling each other, uncertain as to what they want, they fail to notice the dark clouds gathering on the horizon …
Previous Chapters: The story starts here.
________________________________________________________________________________________
10. Chapter: More questions
The Captain spent the remainder of the afternoon working on his fake CV with Toshiko.
It proved to be more difficult than he would have thought, what with him having no idea about this war in Afghanistan, let alone modern fighter aircraft. He was glad she was doing the actual work for him, typing, looking things up, asking him questions every once in a while and correcting a couple of the paragraphs she had written the previous night at home. 'Good thing she doesn't seem in any particular hurry to get home for the weekend,' he thought. 'Or maybe … maybe it isn't a good thing at all. Maybe she's just staying late because of Jack,' a nagging voice inside of him whispered.
Owen, for his part, seemed to have a slightly different idea of what a perfect weekend should entail and quickly made to leave, hollering, "Get a life, Tosh! Saturdays are for fun … Well, if you absolutely want to spend your time off entertaining Casablanca boy, I won't stop you … Everyone, don't expect me back before Monday morning … er … make that noon."
When the cog door had closed behind the medic, the Captain asked Toshiko whether his newest nickname had anything to do with the fictional character she had mentioned earlier.
"James Bond? Oh, no, no, no … Owen was referring to another film," she replied.
At that moment, Gwen re-emerged from the kitchen, coffee cup in hand and eyes wide with confusion. "Why don't you know 'Casablanca'? You're from World War II, aren't you?"
"Released in 1942," Toshiko muttered curtly, responding for the Captain.
"How do you know so much about it?" the Welshwoman asked.
"Late night TV," came Toshiko's short reply.
"Anyway," Gwen turned to the Captain again, "you should really watch it sometime. It's so romantic."
Both girls managed to sigh in perfect unison, and the Captain felt his lips curl up into an involuntary smile. "Probably not my kinda thing," he said doubtfully. But faced with their assertion that he simply had to watch it, he finally conceded, "Okay, let's do it sometime. To me, it'll feel like watchin' one of next season's pictures in advance."
Through the glass walls of the office, he could see Jack climb out of the hatch and head for his phone now. The man was wearing a different shirt from the one he had worn earlier, but his face still looked ashen, as far as the Captain could tell. Eyes cast down to the floor, he was walking back and forth in the glassed-in room, talking quietly into his phone, his free hand alternating between rubbing the back of his neck and pinching the bridge of his nose.
The Captain looked back at Toshiko. He really wanted to ask her if there was anything going on between her and Jack but decided against it. It was one thing to ask a man that question and quite another to pose it to a lady. That just had to be wrong. Inappropriate, at the very least - or so he told himself, trying to suppress the feeling of doubt that was gnawing at his insides now that the fingers of his trembling soul had no wounds to touch, no nail prints to feel in the palms of eternity. No wounds, no wounds, no wounds - something about that made his senses tingle. There was something there, right in front of his eyes, in that blurry darkness. A glaring sign. Something obvious, something dangerous about his dark doppelganger, whose mere doubting twin he remained … But for some reason, the Captain's otherwise keen mind and sharp eyes were blind to whatever it was. And he wondered if the faithless would be blessed as well.
Later that evening, they had dinner together in the conference room. (Well, technically, it was just the Captain and the girls, as Ianto came in only once or twice: to bring Toshiko and the Captain coffee and to refill Gwen's cup. Jack, for his part, didn't turn up at all, and the Captain honestly hoped that the man had laid down for the rest of the day. Somehow, he doubted it, however.)
When the food Ianto had ordered for them arrived, the Captain felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. "Well, aren't you adventurous!" he muttered. He was pretty sure he had never had Chinese food before.
The two women gave him a doubtful look. Apparently, the last thing their eating habits here at Torchwood could be called was 'adventurous'.
Toshiko mumbled something cryptic about 'globalization' and proceeded to show him how to eat with the funny little sticks that had arrived together with the food, which, despite all his dexterity, ended with rice flying all over the conference table and a stammered apology on his part. Gwen just patted his bicep comfortingly (and maybe a tad too elaborately) and started telling him about Jack's phone call with royalty. As it turned out, the current monarch was, indeed, a queen. Somehow, the conversation jumped from there to the topic of Weevils, and the Captain listened in amazement as Toshiko told him what they looked like. That, in its turn, prompted Gwen to show him how Weevils moved, hissed and attacked using their fangs, which led to another explosion of rice all over the table - this time, caused by the laughing, coughing Welshwoman.
It was late, very late, when he finally left the conference room and headed for Jack's office.
Toshiko had seemed a bit reluctant to go home, whereas Gwen had been surprised to discover how late it had become. "Oh, look at the time; Rhys will be worried."
The Captain, for his part, was strangely anxious to get back to Jack, having spent most of the day with people who, just a day before, had been total strangers to him.
He stretched his aching back and jogged up the stairs to the man's office, noticing that the blinds behind the glass walls were drawn. Stopping on the top step, he hesitated for a second, not sure what to do, then extended his hand and rapped softly on the door. To his surprise, there was an immediate response. "Come."
All the lights in Jack's office were off, and the entire room was shrouded in a cavernous semi-darkness. The Captain could barely make out Jack's shadowy silhouette, feet up on the desk, head thrown back, eyes clamped shut.
He cleared his throat uncertainly and was about to ask the man whether he was alright when Jack suddenly raised his hand and silently gestured toward the hatch, never once opening his eyes.
ΨΨΨ
The Captain was lying in Jack's comfortable bed, unable to concentrate on his task of reading the CV Toshiko had written for him and memorizing the strange names of all the Afghan cities he had allegedly served in. Surely, this was all because of his tiredness. Surely, it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Jack's warm scent on the pillow or the fact that, in the deathlike silence down here, the Captain was acutely aware of every little sound that was coming from upstairs. It was like being trapped inside a grand piano, just above the sound board, even the faintest creak or rustle being amplified threefold and making his body thrum like a taut string in the stillness of the small, grave-like space. Every little breath Jack was taking upstairs. The somehow overly loud rustle of the man's shirt whenever he took a breath, soft fabric sliding against his chest and … 'Shit!' The Captain bit down on his bottom lip. 'Who am I trying to fool here?!'
As he turned off the light, he realized that he still wasn't sure if he was expected to say anything by way of good night. Maybe he should have offered the bed to Jack today, he pondered. He was feeling fine, after all. Jack wasn't.
The office upstairs was still plunged in darkness, but there had been the odd creak from above, indicating that Jack was moving uneasily in his chair.
The Captain lay there quietly, willing himself to relax, but sleep wasn't coming tonight.
Had he really overheard Jack say that he had lived through the entire war? 'But wouldn't that mean that he's been to the forties more often than he's letting on?'
The Captain groaned and turned on his side.
'Toshiko didn't seem too perturbed by Jack's scream today. But maybe she just didn't want to display her emotions in front of me. Maybe she and Jack …'
The bedsprings creaked as he turned again.
Upstairs, there was a light knock on the door. "Jack?"
It was Ianto's soft voice.
"Yes?" Jack responded hoarsely.
"Better?"
"I will be. Give it another hour or so," Jack said in a pained whisper. "I'm always like this … afterwards …"
Immediately, the Captain felt a surge of compassion and concern well up in his chest again. As though he were responsible for Jack. As though he were still the commanding officer here. As though Jack were one of his men and …
"I know," he heard Ianto reply simply.
"Gwen gone?" Jack inquired.
"Yes, Jack."
"Good." There was definitely a half-affectionate, half-pained smile in Jack's voice. "I really love her, but that voice of hers is just grating. Makes me want to vomit when I'm like this."
There was a low chuckle coming from Ianto. "What did she say, anyway?" the young man asked, stressing the word 'she' in a way that made it clear that he wasn't talking about Gwen anymore.
"That we can hire as many new field agents as we like. As long as they're …" Jack seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he continued in a strained, strangely high-pitched voice and with a crisp British inflection that made it obvious that he was, in fact, doing an impression of some third party. "As long as they are as courteous, charming and … ahem, ahem … sightly as Mr. Jones, I shall pay for whomever you choose, Captain Harkness."
"Well, that's settled then," Ianto chuckled quietly.
"Actually, she might have also said something about forwarding a copy of his contract to UNIT," Jack admitted sheepishly.
"God save the Queen," Ianto sighed happily. "Even she keeps reminding you to do the paperwork you seem so wont to neglect."
"Those were her words exactly. How did you know? That's uncanny."
But the young man ignored the question and stated, "We'll send them the contract together with the report you've completed … Because you have completed it, haven't you?"
"I've got a headache … I'll do it tomorrow," Jack grumbled glumly, sounding much like a petulant child. "And anyway, paperwork is evil."
"Well, it won't kill you to do it."
"Very funny."
"You could be a bit nicer, you know," Ianto pointed out suddenly.
"Hm?"
"To him," the Welshman clarified.
The Captain felt his eyes go wide where he was lying in the dark. 'Oh.'
"You practically snapped at him earlier when you were looking at the photos. Could you at least try to be nice for once in your life?"
"I don't feel like being nice. I feel like ripping someone's head off," Jack growled.
Ianto just laughed in reply. "Oh, I'm not scared of you, you know. I stopped being scared of you a long time ago … sir."
"Yeah, I wonder when that happened," Jack muttered under his breath. "So, what do you expect me to do? Make him pancakes? Tuck him into bed at night?" he scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous."
The Captain turned in his bed again, quietly but resolutely putting the pillow over his head to drown out the voices from above. He felt uncomfortable eavesdropping on what they obviously thought was a private conversation. If they wanted to talk about him, fine. They had every right to do so. But it was none of his business, and common courtesy dictated that he not listen in on it. This was how things were done under any officer's unwritten code of honor, and he could not and would not violate it, he thought, feeling, all of a sudden, more and more like an intruder in Jack's quarters.
'But imposing on Jack's hospitality isn't the worst thing you've done to him,' a voice whispered in the back of his mind. 'You've done something a lot worse'n that.'
The pillow covering his face felt warm and suffocating. 'You've forced yourself on him. Made him dance with you … You even made him-'
No! He wasn't going to think about that.
It had been a foolish moment of insanity. Nothing more. Just a bit of fun. Monkey business. He had had too much to drink. And surely, Jack had forgiven him for this stupid joke already. (If he even remembered it.) People danced and drank and played pranks on each other when there was a war on. That was normal, right? Anything to forget reality for a few short hours.
The Captain started tossing and turning again. 'But you wanted it. You came to him. You made him …' his guilty conscience whispered. 'And, good man that he is, he pitied you because you were about to die … And now that you've realized that he is with Toshiko, you're- No!' he stopped the thought before it could even fully form in his mind. 'Toshiko is a nice girl. Why shouldn't Jack want to be with her?!' he reprimanded himself.
Squirming under the thick pillow, with Jack's scent suffocating him and robbing him of his senses, the Captain didn't notice when he finally slipped into a restless sleep.
A German had captured him, holding him restrained with a firm grip on his arms. The sun was blocking out the man's face, and all the Captain had caught was a quick glimpse of a death's-head badge flashing on his cap and reflecting the harsh sunlight. The guy was snarling something in German that the Captain didn't understand, violently yanking him back by his arms, fingers digging into his biceps until it hurt. - This was bad. This was very, very bad. The Captain was certain of that. And somehow, he knew that the Germans wanted to get something out of him. Information, intelligence, something … They were after somebody … He couldn't remember who it was … But for some reason, they needed his information to hunt this person down. It was someone … someone he knew. Someone important. Someone …
"Where is he?" the man exclaimed, switching from German to English. His voice seemed eerily familiar, and the complete lack of a German accent was both odd and alarming. Whose voice was that? Why was it so familiar? - "We need to know where he is. Now, will you cooperate or not?" the dark figure shouted again, almost dislocating the Captain's shoulders when yanking on his arms. - Who was the man talking about? What kind of manhunt was this? What was going on here? - "Well, if you don't want to cooperate, we can do this the hard way … Let's see, what will it be? D'you want me to chop off your fingers?" the German growled into his ear. "One by one." He forced the Captain down to his knees. "Or do you want me to burn you alive, your skin peeling away as you scream in the fires of Hell? Or how about I throw you into that abyss over there. I mean, forget flying. Have you ever considered plummeting as a career choice?" he spat. - Why was that voice so familiar? Who was this German? Why was his English so good? And who was it that he was after?
"Now, tell us where he is!" The Captain writhed in the man's grip, but it was in vain. - How could he tell the man these Germans were pursuing that he was in immediate danger, how could he warn him if he couldn't even remember who it was? Just who was this interrogation about? … And then suddenly, something deep inside the Captain's soul started to whisper that that was a dark and deadly secret. And that, even worse, there was a secret inside the secret. But the more he racked his brain for a plausible answer, the more he felt as though it were slipping through his fingers. - "Well, if you don't want to tell me where he is, I'll have to make you," the German said in his strangely flawless English. "So, what will it be? Fire, gravity or an axe to your fingers, hm?" he whispered almost sweetly. - "Don't …" the Captain grit out through his teeth, straining against the man's grip. "Not my hands." - His captor just laughed darkly. Why was that chilling laugh so familiar? Why didn't the man sound German? - "Nice try. We'll start with your fingers, then." Suddenly, the German had an axe in his hand; it was glistening in the painfully white sunlight, a stark contrast to the man's pitch-black uniform. "Let's start with your thumb … And then maybe, you'll be more cooperative," he snarled in his sickeningly sweet voice. "Let's get started … chop, chop!"
The axe blade was descending with a loud swoosh. And at that moment, at the very climax of this rampantly violent scene, the Captain saw it: in a flash of blinding light and glistening metal … The reflection of his captor's face in the polished axe blade. It was Jack's face. His torturer was Jack!
"No!" the Captain cried out in anguish and something akin to strangely misplaced desire, unsure himself whether he was screaming because of the axe that was about to sever his thumb from his hand or because of what he had just seen.
Someone was gripping his shoulder. Hard. "No, let go of me. No!" the Captain cried out again, feeling someone shake him. The axe blade began to dissolve in front of his eyes before it had even reached his thumb. And with it, the other man's face, the all-too-familiar reflection of those steely blue eyes and that chiseled jawline and cleft chin dissipated like a ghost.
"Jack! Wake up!"
"No, no! Let go off me!" the Captain cried out again.
"Jack, it's a dream. Wake up! … Come on, Jack, wake up."
He knew this voice. It was … 'Oh, God!'
The Captain opened his eyes, looking up in embarrassment, and was met with a concerned cobalt blue gaze boring down on him from the shadows.
"James?" the Captain heard himself whisper for some reason.
"You … okay?" Jack's voice asked quietly and a bit hesitantly.
The Captain's heart was still hammering away in his chest. As if the incubus that was sitting on it were refusing to loosen its hold on him just yet. As if it were pressing down on the Captain's torso, making his ribs clench and his lungs hurt with each ragged breath he was drawing, holding him prisoner to his own demonic nightmare, to his own dark and yet strangely passionate dream, this hidden reality filled with terror and some twisted sense of lust, the cloudy eroticism of which the Captain didn't even want to think about, hating his own treacherous, trembling brain for producing those thoughts in the first place.
He sat up in bed abruptly, feeling his entire six-foot frame thrum minutely like a Spitfire about to take off.
Continued here