The Dog When The Bell Rings 1/2
Title:The Dog When The Bell Rings
Rating: NC-17
Notes, credits: Much thanks to invisible_lift for his magical beta-fu, and to antelope_writes who read a lot of scenes in progress and treated me like me absurdly slow rate of production counted for something, and who gave me the prompt for this story in the first place. Thanks also to metastability who said "I love titles! I'll help!" and helped me come up with one. (Complaints about the title must be made only if you consider that my original title was "Sex Pollen Sunday")
Summary: When an alien party bomb goes off, desires war with personal codes. Inside Torchwood, connections are tenuous, understanding is incomplete, and drugs really don’t ever make that better, even if they come in a hail of glitter.
Wordcount: 12,400
****
An alarm blares; Gwen races to the nearest station and clicks on the bouncing icon that indicates a Rift occurrence. She hears Jack race over to Owen’s station. Former station. The station by the stairs.
"A spike, small but local. Very local. It's -- oh dear." Gwen turns around and frantically searches the space above the Rift pool.
"What?" Jack comes over to look at Gwen's screen. "Oh."
There is a glow, then a shimmer, and then a faint pop as a silver sphere comes into existence at eye level not too far from where they stand. It emits a few seconds of what might be music - it’s tuneful in a way - or might be a warning message in an indistinguishable language, before it sprays a hail of iridescence that covers them both entirely.
"Oh -- no. Damn." Jack sounds deeply dismayed, but whether that stems from being disappointed, at being suddenly sparkly, or at their imminent death by neurotoxin, she can’t tell. Jack scrapes the glitter off his face and shakes it out of his hair. He doesn’t run for the med bay.
Barely suppressing the urge to panic, Gwen shakes herself all over to get the stuff off. She thinks she must look like a wet dog. She doesn’t manage to do more than raise a cloud around herself. "What?"
"Whoa!" Martha stops dead on her way down from the hothouse, flicking her hands back and forth through the glitter to clear it out of her way.
Jack whirls to face her. "Martha! Get back!"
Martha immediately backs up without turning around.
"Do we lock down?" Gwen tries desperately to clear the stuff off, slapping sparkles off her shoulders like they’re fire ants. "What is this?!"
Jack sighs. "The Rift just threw us a surprise party. We're not locking down." He raises his eyebrows in a playful gesture that doesn’t fill his entire face, and that makes Gwen feel much worse. "Although handcuffs might have to come into play. And not in the fun way, more's the pity."
"What the hell is this, Jack? Martha hasn’t moved, but she’s tensed as if ready to sprint any moment.
"It's a party favour." He considers his glittering hands then looks up at Gwen. "It's a drug."
Martha, scooting sideways around the blast zone, jogs down to the medical bay. She returns with a scanner. "How long do I have to stay away from you?"
"It goes inert in about two minutes."
"What does it do? What should I look for?"
Jack sits down on the nearest chair, and Gwen starts to relax until she considers that Jack doing nothing could easily mean there was no hope.
"Quick explanation: it's a lot like Ecstasy. It's a stimulant, very popular for parties. It will make us high, excitable. Sensitive to touch. Uninhibited. It's also a mild hallucinogen." He looks at Gwen with an expression that looks like apology. "And a powerful aphrodisiac."
Oh, not good. Not good at all.
"Well, that'd make a party a success, assuming no one jumps off a building or ODs." Gwen leans against her desk, trying her best to affect nonchalance although she’s feeling a little flushed already. The power of suggestion is a powerful thing, she supposes.
"We'll be feeling the effects almost immediately, so let me get this out while I remember the details. This drug is used by the Anahetsch. Physiologically they're similar enough to us. But they weigh on average about 30% more, so dosage..."
"Oh dammit.” Martha rips her jacket off and lays it roughly over the railing. “Overdose of E takes the form of stroke, overheating, cardiac arrest. This was not how I wanted to spend this afternoon." She waved her scanner at them somewhat threateningly. “Can I come in now? I'd like to make sure no one is going to drop dead."
“Give it another minute. No sense in you getting more than you already did.”
“Already what?” Martha makes a good angry face. It’s the eyebrows. Gwen always feels self-conscious when she’s angry; she thinks she just looks like a cocker spaniel with a blood disorder when she’s mad. She never makes mad look dignified.
It’s bloody hot in here. When did that --? Oh. Right.
“You were close enough. You’re probably not clean.” Jack looks apologetic at Martha, too. It isn’t the same apology.
“Two weeks, nothing complicated, no danger. I’m pretty sure you promised me that.”
“Sorry.”
Martha’s eyebrows go to neutral as she marches toward him with a scanner.
“Your heart rate is elevated.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Temperature is going up.”
“No kidding.”
“Get into the med bay and sit on the damned table. Gwen, stay close, you’re next.”
“I didn’t order an alien sex party,” Jack says sulkily. He starts down the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes.
“I didn’t tell you to take anything off.”
Jack’s echoes up from the med bay. “It’s hot!”
Gwen’s eyes are drawn to something red, then something green. Pretty lights on that scanner. How has she never noticed that before?
*****
She’s just here to take care of a bit of the backlog. Autopsy the ten or so corpses in the freezer, read through a few hundred pages of medical reports on persons of interest in case there was something that the rest of the team had missed, and in the downtime - ha! - collaborate with Ianto on the protocol manual for cover scenarios. “Plausible-sounding medical jargon usually gets the job done the fastest,” Jack had said after asking her to come.
The free-wheeling, multi-discipline collaboration: she likes that quite a bit. Ianto lacks formal training of any kind, as far as she can tell, but his ability to synthesize information and make practical use of it is impressive. UNIT will undoubtedly find the manual to be useful once it’s done.
Jack hasn’t managed to hire Owen’s replacement yet, and she understands that. They need a very specific set of skills here - someone to handle tasks ranging from field medicine to research biology not to mention handle general field work if possible - it isn’t just anyone with a little medical training who will do.
Just at the moment, though, it seems like someone else would have been a better choice for the fill-in, so that she doesn’t have to be here.
Gwen is watching from the railing. It’s not like Martha didn’t know, it’s not like anyone didn’t know, but she doesn’t usually have to watch this level of what her grandmother would probably call ‘indiscretion’. Jack is bare from the waist up - it turns out he actually did need to have his shirt off - and Martha is attaching sensors to him. Gwen is staring, and she can’t seem to manage to close her mouth.
Jack isn’t doing much better. He’s being a touch more dignified is all: his mouth is closed. But he’s staring back. That, Martha didn’t know.
“What’s going on?” Ianto sounds equal parts alarmed and bored - and if that isn’t a sufficient warning off working here, nothing is. He doesn’t even glance at Gwen as he walks down the stairs.
“Ianto!” Jack holds his arms out in welcome, grinning madly. Silly sod. Silly, hepped-up sod. “You are exactly what I need! Come down here.”
“Martha is wiring you up, why?”
She likes working with Ianto. Any friend of Jack’s and all, sure, but she quite likes him on his own merits too. His decorum, she appreciates that. There is something to be said for saying only what is necessary. For not sharing too much.
UNIT has its share of old fossils, and young fossils too. It’s nice to work with someone young who still acts lively when it’s called for.
She harbors fantasies of getting him drunk sometime.
Jack reaches out to grab him as soon as he gets close and pulls him in to stand between his knees. “Bit of a ruffle in the afternoon plans. No work. Alien drug trip instead.”
Ianto peels Jack’s hands off his arse and holds them aloft by the wrists. He fixes Jack with a glare then turns to Martha. His voice is demanding. “Effects? Side effects? Estimated time of duration?”
Martha reaches between them to attach one last sensor to Jack’s chest, and if she touches that firm, hot skin for a few moments more than are necessary, well who is to blame her? As the takes her hands away, she brushes the edge of Ianto’s jacket, and why did she never notice now touchable a nice wool was before?
“Effects: Captain Future here says it’s like E, only the dosage might be a bit much for humans. There seems to be a stimulant effect of some sort. I’m monitoring for cardiac events and potential seizure. Jack and Gwen got the big dose, and I’m not unaffected.” She pauses to take off her gloves and, incidentally, undo the bottom two buttons on her shirt. It is hot. Or, well. She is.
Jack wrenches his wrists free with some difficulty and is running his thumbs over Ianto’s jawline. The day is wearing on, and Ianto’s face is lightly stubbled. Martha is seized with the unexpected urge to touch for herself. Her hands are already moving when she notices and stops herself.
But it could be too much, this loose structure, this level of the unknown. This was why she had left The Doctor. This was why she smiles politely but says nothing every time Jack asks her to join his team. She’s said no already; no sense in repeating herself. She doesn’t really want “free-wheeling” except as an occasional vacation.
Martha lifts her gaze from Ianto’s jaw to his eyes. He looks worried, and also not a little distracted by what Jack’s doing. It’s not much, just a thumb on a face, but she can’t lose the image of him doing that while wearing much, much less.
“I’m assuming, lack of inhibition, hyper focus on sensations, and, at a guess, arousal?”
Martha follows Ianto’s eyes as they look down briefly at Jack’s crotch. Hard to miss that.
“That’s what he said.”
Jack looks down too, then smiles, unconcerned and cheerful, at Ianto. “I could use a hand. Go warm up the shower, won’t you?” His hands have migrated again, one to the back of Ianto’s head where he’s stroking the base of his skull, and the other to the inside of his jacket where it rests on his waist. “I can’t think of anything I want more than for you to use that talented tongue to - “
“Right!” Ianto interrupts loudly, turning to Martha. “Anything you need me to do?”
“What, what I need you to do doesn’t count?” Jack lifts his head so that he can address Martha. “The Welsh, I tell you - difficult language. Hard to wrap your mouth around. But those who speak it, the things they can do with those mouths.” Jack grins the filthiest grin she’s ever seen on him, and given that she’s listened to him share his fantasies about The Doctor, that’s saying something.
Ianto’s face, though -- even out of the corner of her eye she can see that he’s agitated.
“Anything legitimate I can do to help?” He takes Jack’s hands off his body again and holds them firmly. Jack play-struggles against the grip, pouting.
Martha imagines Ianto tying Jack down with soft ropes, that same business-like expression on his face.
“Huh? Oh right, sorry. Um - yes. Keep everyone hydrated. Bring water every 20 minutes or so. But don’t let them - us - drink too much. Dilutional hyponatremia is no one’s friend.”
“What?”
“Drunk on water! It’ll kill you,” Jack contributes cheerfully.
Gwen’s laughter rings out, loud and long, from just beyond the entrance to the autopsy bay.
“Right. Um. Water. I’ll get on that.”
Martha shoos Jack off the table.
He sighs. “Not the kind of playing doctor I was hoping for. I’m disappointed in you, Doctor Jones.”
“Heard that before. Go. Gwen!”
Gwen appears at the top of the stairs. She’s rubbing both hands back and forth along the railing.
Sensory obsession. It’s on the list.
She barely restrains herself from walking up the stairs to touch the railing herself to see whether it’s cooler than the air, whether it’s smooth or rough. Must try to keep up the appearance of normal. She undoes another button.
Someone has got to turn the temperature down.
She harbors no fantasies of seeing Ianto naked. But at this moment, it’s all she can think about. Not Jack; that idea had come and left of its own accord a trillion years in the future. And Gwen, lovely as she is, Martha had never gone for girls and even a powerful alien aphrodisiac, one that was tricking her brain into thinking that clothes were an unnecessary impediment, and that rubbing off against the nearest body was a very reasonable and workable idea, isn’t going to change that. But Ianto…
And how sad is that? Right gender, no previous baggage, let’s have a go? How pathetic is it to be reduced to lusting over someone chosen by process of elimination from a narrow field? And drugs. It’s pure conditioning. Nothing real.
Mostly.
Bloody Torchwood. She doesn’t want to be here.
****
While Martha is checking Gwen over, Jack goes off and hides somewhere. Ianto too - those two, never around when you wanted them. Not that she wanted - well. But that wasn’t a crime, was it, wanting?
“Remember when you were in school and class was really boring, and all you could think about was having sex with all the cute boys?” Martha puts some gadgety things away in a drawer, slams it too hard, then looks down in surprise at the loud noise.
Gwen laughs. Okay, giggles, and she was going to let herself off the hook for that one because alien drugs - that should excuse a fair bit of behavior. Then she sighs theatrically. “Sadly, the cute boys are shagging each other.”
Martha spins back to face her then puts her hands back against the table behind her, holding up her weight. “Yeah, Jack won’t talk about that except to drop the odd bit of innuendo about costuming, and Ianto just smiles like the cat that ate the canary. Are they…boyfriends? Do they go out? Is it just sex?”
“I haven’t asked, they haven’t said.” Gwen notices a bit of lint on her sleeve and picks it off. “I walked in on them one time, though.” More lint - oh. So many little pills.
“No! Here?”
Gwen looks up; Martha’s face is expectant. “Greenhouse.”
“Greenhouse? Where were they…how?”
Gwen lowers her voice to the confidential tone of girls in the schoolyard too old to play but too young to not want to. “Jack was wearing nothing but his trousers around his ankles, and Ianto - very fit under those suits, by the way - had him ‘in hand.’ Well in hand, I’d say. If I’d walked in a minute later, I don’t think they would have been able to stop. Took them a moment or two, as it was.”
“Really?” Martha looks dazed. Well, more dazed. They’re all a bit glassy-eyed, she’s not so far gone she can’t see that. “That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing.”
The women stare into the middle distance for a moment.
“Right!” Gwen stands up straight. “Must stop thinking about shagging my coworkers. Not half helpful.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
“Shagging everyone else. I can think of that.”
They walk up the stairs and head towards the boardroom. No sense staying downstairs, but it seems to take so long to get to where they’re going. Why are they moving so slowly?
“I wish I’d shagged the bloke who used to sit across the aisle from me in this one uni lecture, always with his legs splayed and his hands in that ‘here is my cock, isn’t it lovely’ pose. I always suspected that it indeed was, but I never got the chance to see it first-hand.” Gwen gives Martha, who has stopped walking, a push.
Martha walks forward again. “My Organic Chemistry professor. He was delicious. Red hair that you just wanted to sink your fingers into and hang on for dear life.”
“Justin Timberlake.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Jack!” They’re finally there, and Gwen waves at Jack who is sitting in the chair at the head of the table, leaning forward, concentrating on his fingers splayed out on the tabletop. He’s taken his tee shirt off and Gwen wants desperately to bury her hands and face in his chest, but he’s too far away for that. And she’s not supposed to.
“I will never look at you with respect again.” Martha pockets the portable scanner she’s carrying as they walk into the boardroom. “Um…Daniel Craig.”
“Ah, handsome men who do violence. Aren’t we back to talking about my co-workers?” She turns to Jack and winks. Gwen stands, staring at all the chairs. So many chairs. The choice seems impossible.
After taking a further moment to examine his fingertips, Jack looks up as if just noticing them, and smiles. “Ladies! How are you girls doing? Have you gotten to the pillow fighting yet? Comparing boobs in the mirror?”
He’s clearly been reading teen romance novels again. All that time alive, and none of it sleeping - he must run out of good things to read. Must introduce him to Internet chat forums.
“We’re talking about hot men.”
Jack grins, like she knew he would - so predictable he is, sometimes. That’s just great. Jack is just great.
Martha raises an indicating finger in point of order. “Men we want to shag but have not shagged.”
“Ah regrets. I have those,” Jack says, grinning. She loves that grin.
Gwen can’t seem to make her legs move, but she remembers what she was trying to remember. “Ooh!” They turn to look at her. “Saxon."
"What?" Martha stutters.
She puts her hand on the chair back in front of her to help her turn to face Martha so she can explain. "Harold Saxon. Oh I know, bit of a nutter, it was all very…but before that. You have to admit, there was something about that man."
This chair will be fine. Or maybe the one next to it? Dammit, just sit.
Martha looks wide-eyed at Jack, like he said something. Did he say something? Her ears are ringing a bit. "Gwen, stop."
"Don't you think so? Those eyes, it was like you could see what he was imagining he'd do to you."
“Oh god, oh god,” Martha mutters as she turns away. She picks up a pencil and puts it down again. She stands up and puts her fingertips onto the bridge of her nose.
It’s not like Martha to be so judgmental. She didn’t mean she’d actually do it. Have done it.
“Oh come on. Jack? Didn’t you ever think that Harold Saxon would be excellent? You know. Before he died. Like he just can’t wait to do things to you? That’s what I think.” She nods firmly. “Like he knows just the right buttons to press.”
If he were alive. But of course he’s not. That was weird, all of that. He seemed normal when he campaigning. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything after all, come to think of it.
Jack doesn’t keep grinning. He looks like he’s been slapped instead. He leaves without saying anything.
Jack doesn’t make any sense. Never has.
“Please, please, please, stop. Gwen, stop. Stop.” Martha’s voice sounds faraway.
Gwen turns back to Martha, who has gotten out of her chair. She’s pacing back and forth, in a tight line, with her eyes closed. She’s breathing like a schoolgirl who’s run to the loo because she’s trying not to cry in front of the popular girls.
Gwen hears the sound of vomiting not too far down the hall.
After a minute, Ianto appears in the door. He doesn’t grin. He doesn’t hang off the door jamb, angling to join in the fun.
“Gwen.” He raises his eyebrows in a gesture of fun, but the look doesn’t cover his whole face. “There’s the screen saver that you must come look at. It’s got starbursts. They just…explode. But they don’t hurt anybody. Isn’t that interesting?” Ianto’s voice goes up and down, in time with his eyebrows.
“Ooh.” That does sound interesting. She follows him.
*****
Gwen is just settling down into her chair to watch the screensaver that Ianto put up for her, when Jack comes out of the loo, a wet but presumably now clean waste bin in his hands. He looks wretched, which is to be expected. He sets the bin down in its spot and walks into his office, moving as if he is trying not to be noticed. Ianto recognizes the body language, he once perfected it in himself, but he’s never seen it on Jack. Ianto directs Gwen’s attention to the bottle of water he’s left for her and follows Jack.
He finds him sitting in his chair, his head propped in one hand, the other hand running back and forth, almost frantically, through his hair.
Ianto follows Jack’s fingers with his own, then traces the path again with his other hand. He alternates hands and is pleased to see Jack begin to unclench. He uses a light touch, one that he likes when he’s on the verge of a panic attack, one that feels like water running softly down, again and again. Jack relaxes further, his shoulders softening. He breathes more easily. He doesn’t look up.
“Thank you,” Jack breathes.
Ianto switches to a firmer touch, down the back of Jack’s neck and along his shoulders now. Jack uncurls, tipping his head up and leaning back in his chair. His eyes are closed and his brow is tense. It will be for some time. When the memories grip him, they don’t let go easily. Not usually for hours.
Eyes still closed, Jack smiles a little. “You’re very good with the drug-addled. Am I learning something about your misspent youth here?”
“There may have been some parties, and a girlfriend or two who was into the rave scene. I used to know a lot of places to buy candy after 2am. Do you want candy?”
Jack reaches a hand up to touch Ianto’s. “I want you.”
“You want to get off,” Ianto corrects him affectionately.
Jack groans and lounges aggressively in his chair. “I want to get off. My teeth itch.” He opens his eyes and looks up at Ianto. “I swear my shirt is coming on to me. I want to gnaw your pants off and have you right here on the floor.”
“Poor Jack.” Ianto steps forward and cups Jack’s face with his hands, using his thumbs to stroke Jack’s cheeks. Jack leans into the touch, first to one thumb and then to the other, frowning slightly as if he can’t decide where to stay. Ianto kisses him, and his heart cracks when he hears Jack make a tiny noise like a sob or a choked-back whine in his throat.
The memories won’t let go for hours, unless something distracts him. This is the very definition of neither the time nor the place, but Torchwood has never been about convenience or regularity, or about schedules of any kind.
The desk chair is hardly comfortable for this, but Ianto straddles Jack’s legs anyway so he can come closer, so Jack can touch and be touched. It’s the one thing that will bring him back. Well - not all the way back. And not quickly. But maybe back a little, maybe farther away from the demon he’s remembering. That’s something. If he’s not really here, if he’s not really responding to Ianto himself so much as to what he’s doing, well that’s still worth it.
The second Ianto is settled into a stable position, Jack’s hands are on him, reaching desperately around his back and along his legs, searching for an entrance into his clothes, seeking skin. When he finds it, when he slips a too-warm hand - no wonder Jack didn’t put his overshirt back on, he’s burning - onto Ianto’s chest, he sighs as if relieved, as if grateful. He runs his fingers up and down, up and down, playing with the hair he finds there as he likes to on lazy days when they actually make it to a bed.
If he’s not really here, he’s close enough. And Ianto doesn’t ever have to be on drugs to respond to Jack. It used to be a source of embarrassment to him, this vivid, instant response to a man who always made direct eye contact but never seemed to be entirely there when you looked back.
Jack breaks their kiss and looks up at him without stilling his hands, and there it is, that look that takes, that look that begs. Like a secret service agent standing on the far side of a long bridge, waiting for the sight of his held countryman before he’ll undo the cuffs on the hostage he holds.
It used to be like that. Ianto didn’t understand why at the time. He wondered whether he was deficient somehow, whether he lacked passion, skill, loyalty. Now he knows. He has those things, but compared to the weight of decades and the press of experiences - Jack’s experiences - he can’t offer much. He can’t fix that deficiency, though, so he doesn’t try. Jack doesn’t seem to really mind, after all.
Jack’s hand drifts down to Ianto’s crotch and rubs over his cock, trapped and uncomfortable, and for a second Ianto forgets that they’re precariously balanced and in a semi-public place. For a second, it seems a good idea to stand up, lean on the desk, and just use that mouth, half-open right now and offering a few moments of mindless pleasure.
“Please?” Jack breathes, asks for it like he’s a starving dog, kicked so often he won’t take even unguarded food when he sees it.
Ianto checks his watch. They have some time. Not much, but then it’s never much. “Downstairs.”
****
Downstairs, Jack kicks off his boots and tears off his tee shirt, then attacks his trousers with clumsy fingers. One of the buttons that holds his braces to his trousers catches his attention for a moment, and he runs his fingertips around and around the edge of it. He hears Ianto moving behind him and remembers why he came down here - to touch Ianto, not plastic, to touch warmth, to take something that is freely given. To stop remembering when everything was taken, except the one thing he wanted to give up more than anything. To stop this pulsing and scratching behind his eyes. He pulls back the scratchy wool blanket then flops back onto the bed and throws a grin Ianto’s way, lifts his eyebrows playfully. “Grab the oil from the drawer, will you? I want to slide all over you.” The grin doesn’t fit on his face, he can feel it.
Ianto smiles back anyway, but he shakes his head. “I don’t have time for a shower after this. I’m supposed to be watching everyone.”
Jack frowns a little as he tries to remember why that’s important. “Then just come here.” He holds out his arm.
Ianto tosses his tie over the top of the dresser and comes over but dodges the outstretched arm. Instead, he crawls up from the end of the bed. For a moment, Jack is immobilized by the hot pleasure of Ianto’s mouth on his thighs, then his shaft, then -
“Oh fucking yes.” It’s the best feeling he’s had in days, in weeks, and it’s the very opposite of pain, it’s almost almost enough to drive away the memories.
They keep coming in flashes, though, in jagged fragments. The bite of the shackles, then the slip-and-bite of them as time wore on and his skin became raw, wet. The manic grin when he arrived, anticipatory, the desultory half-smirk when he left, even this activity not enough to satisfy.
This wasn’t enough.
“Ianto.” Jack reaches down to touch his head and is distracted by his hair, so many hairs and each one separate, each one tickling his fingertips or are his fingertips tickling them?
Ianto looks up, mouth pink and open in an expression of inquiry, ready to pull away if asked, ready to continue if allowed. The gift of that brings Jack one more degree away from the undertow.
“Come up here.”
Ianto hauls himself over to Jack’s side and up so that their faces are level, and Jack hunts for warm (intact) skin to touch. He lifts Ianto’s shirt up and away, and for moments his focus narrows down to include only the soft hair there and the texture of skin underneath. Then Ianto breathes onto Jack’s forehead, and he follows that breath back to its source, that mouth that offers. He tastes inside, and he tastes only a man: no blood, no exhaust fumes, no rot.
One of the guards, he’d been sick. Beaten some days ago and his liver damaged, no doctors on the ship who could help. When he’d pushed his unwelcome, fat tongue into Jack’s mouth before undoing the wrist cuffs and shoving him to his knees, Jack had spared half a thought for pitying the man and his imminent death.
Ianto laughs at him when he pushes Ianto’s trousers and pants down and out of the way, leaving them around knee level, and wraps his fingers around Ianto’s cock. “I probably do have time to actually take them off.”
“Screw that.”
Ianto’s chuckle is throatier this time as Jack sets to work. He’s not sure which one of them is enjoying the experience more. He’d forgotten what this stuff did to the nerve endings. It’s like his hands can feel everything: every bit of softness, hardness, every hair, every smooth spot, and the warmth, it’s so incredibly warm. He looks up to find Ianto’s mouth again, and he pushes two fingers from his other hand into that mouth. It’s hot, like it’s burning, and it’s everything good that he’s capable of feeling, right in there, wet and teeth, rough and flexible. He pushes his fingers in, around, he pulls out to touch those lips, to make them shine again.
The eyes shine too, and Jack remembers to look up, to look at Ianto (alive) and see what he wants and what he feels. Ianto takes a breath before sucking hard on Jack’s fingers. Jack’s other hand tightens up reflexively, and Ianto opens his mouth to moan then goes back to sucking, and running his tongue back and forth on the underside of Jack’s knuckles.
He pities Ianto’s death, too.
He uses the feeling of Ianto’s hands, clever hands, slick with lube Jack hadn’t noticed him getting, to pull himself back to the here and now. He concentrates on the rhythm of their breathing to drown out the memory of engine noise and the psychic leakage that made him hear those motherfucking drums. These breaths are free, and the rhythm isn’t controlled by anything except the cellular need for oxygen.
Suddenly his left hand is as wet as the hand that has been fucking Ianto’s mouth. He looks down, surprised to see spunk on his fingers and on his stomach. Ianto for his part seems not to have noticed the lapse in attention; he’s flushed and his eyes are glazed, and he looks as contented as Jack would have wanted him to be, if he’d been thinking about it.
He runs his hands up and down his own belly. Wet on smooth, wet on soft. Warm, then cooling. Glistening. Things that are good.
Ianto’s hand begins to move again.
*****
Jack suddenly looks up at him, eyes wide and shining. Sometimes, just sometimes, Jack is right there, and it nearly always takes his breath away.
Jack goes still then and holds his breath, eyes fluttering half-closed, and Ianto holds his too because he loves this moment. He loves that small grunt and huff of relief just before Jack’s hips snap and his body shakes. He loves knowing that he did that, and at times like this, he likes knowing that Jack is forgetting everything else for precious, precious seconds.
Jack begins to shake, but he doesn’t stop - and he doesn’t come.
An effect of the drugs?
Ianto looks to Jack’s face and sees that his eyes are unfocused and slightly rolled back, and his neck is arched. It looks like he’s straining, so Ianto continues to work him, fast and hard, a stroke designed to brook no disagreement. He uses his other hand to press at Jack’s balls the way he likes, and bites at his arching neck.
For five more seconds, Jack continues to strain but that’s it, and then it hits him.
Ianto leaps up. “Shit! Shit shit! Jack?!”
Jack doesn’t answer, and why would he? He’s having a bloody seizure.
For a whole second, and for an embarrassing second one that he’ll never admit to, he doesn’t know what to do except to stand up, yank his own trousers up, and gape at the scene. Clearly he should race up the ladder without delay and get Martha, but then she’d come in and find Jack naked, erect, and with Ianto’s come spread on his belly.
Can I get pants on him at least?
“Shit.” No. Not without his cooperation, not quickly enough.
He leaps at Jack’s bunched-up tee shirt and quickly swipes at the wetness on his middle. He tugs at the blanket that’s mostly under Jack and pulls a section of it to cover his cock, still bobbing in an obscene send-up of arousal.
Doesn’t that usually go down when the body is in distress?!
Shirtless, shoeless, but at least with trousers on, he climbs the ladder 3 rungs at a time.
****
“Martha!”
She would have come running at the panicked tone, but as it is she is already on her way down the hall to try and find Jack because those readings are not normal.
Ianto is leaning out of the door of Jack’s office, gesturing her inside frantically. “He just started seizing. He’s down here.”
Martha climbs down the ladder and turns to find Jack on the bed, eyes unfocused, neck arched backwards, his whole body jerking rhythmically. Classic seizure. And, incidentally, stark naked. Ianto climbs down and walks past her. He gestures vaguely at the bed. “We, um…”
“You really don’t have to explain,” she says breezily. She takes a step towards the head of the bed. “Okay, I need you to hold him. Not hard. Just keep him from falling off the bed or hurting himself.”
Ianto drops the shirt that he had picked up and puts his hands on Jack’s shoulders, gently restraining him. He looks at her for approval and she nods distractedly.
She’s a doctor, she’s trained to use her nose, to notice things that can help in a diagnosis. She doesn’t mean to intrude, it’s just the training, it’s automatic. But it smells like sex in here, and it’s making it so that she can’t think straight.
The image hits her like a brick wall. Her, kneeling on the bed, with Ianto fucking her from behind while Jack just watches, adoring them both. Ianto’s arms holding her up, his hipbones crashing into her backside.
“Martha?”
She focuses on the present and checks Jack’s pulse. Not that she’s going to learn anything that her instruments aren’t already telling her, but despite the fact that the machines are giving her the numbers she needs, there’s something about the physicalities of medicine, touch and smell, pressure and sound.
Also it gives her something to do with her hands besides wrap them around the elephant in the room, by which she means Jack’s prick. Not that she’s never seen one, even in this context. She’s treated more than a few men with the neverending Viagra erection, and remained professional throughout the exam. And not that she’s ever really fancied Jack. She’s never been in this situation with a mega dose of aphrodisiacs before, though, and a part of her brain is trying to figure out if there’s any way, practically or ethically, for her to just hop on.
Nevertheless, her mouth works on auto-pilot. “He’s seizing. Probably dehydrated, too. I’ll need to get an IV line in. I need to go get them. Keep holding him, okay? And if he starts to vomit, turn his head to the side - gently, don’t wrench it.”
She wonders whether there’s something wrong with her, that she can be calmly explaining what to do in case of vomiting while she’s picturing the three of them locked in a three-way that would require some adjustment to normal gravity and a lot of lube.
She forces herself to look at Ianto’s face and notat Jack’s penis. He looks tired, uncertain, slightly panicked still, like a first-year resident. “Ianto?” He looks up, worry on his face. “You’re doing fine. He’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.”
She rushes up, over, down, and gets what she needs. When she climbs back down the ladder, Ianto is muttering quietly into Jack’s ear, hand resting on his shoulder. She can’t hear what he says. From the tone, it could be worried and loving, it could be furious. It’s impossible to tell, and she doesn’t know him well enough to guess. Doesn’t know them at all.
“Right.” She holds up a bag of saline solution attached to an IV tube. “We need to get this into him. Hold this.”
Ianto stands up and takes it, cradling it like it’s breakable.
She gets the cap off the IV line with her teeth and takes hold of Jack’s wrist. “This arm is shaking too much. I need you to hold it still. Take the upper arm, hold it still, okay?”
Ianto looks panicked for a second, then transfers the IV bag to his teeth and holds Jack’s shoulder down with one hand, arm down with the other.
Martha finds a vein, slides it in. Attaches the tube, the bag. It’s rote. “Hold the bag up higher.”
Ianto holds it higher and looks around. He places the bag on the dresser and looks to Martha for approval. He’s breathing quickly, and it’s that little sound that takes her away again, not like this fairly routine stuff is occupying much of her mind anyway. It takes her back to the itching, warm crawling feelings of her skin, that urge to touch and gnaw, nuzzle and lick. She wants to feel stubble under her tongue. She wants to taste salt.
She grabs a second syringe from the box she brought and pulls a dose of Lorazepam from a bottle. Into the IV line and--
“Give it a minute and the seizure should stop. The, er, rest of him will probably relax too. I gave him a sedative.”
Her mouth, it’s actually watering at the thought. Ianto is standing there so tall, straight, and she wants to drop to her knees and tease his cock through his trousers until he grabs her hair and begs her to get on with it. It smells like sex in here, and it clearly wasn’t Jack who got off, so she’s smelling Ianto right now and she fills her nostrils with it. She wants to shove her nose right into the crook of his neck and shoulders, bite and worry at the skin there, run her hands over his chest.
*******
On occasion, he wonders whether it’s the Torchwood effect or just him. Because sometimes it seems like the chaos centers around him, specifically. It isn’t just the semi-sentient alien vegetation, the cannibals, the vicious machines, the Cybermen. It’s the copier breaking when he has a deadline. It’s the queue at the Tesco going slowest when he joins it. It’s all his pens disappearing at once. It’s Jack: of all the people available, why would Jack center on him?
His heart and breathing are beginning to slow down, but he still wants to go somewhere, go home. Home, that would be brilliant. Have a coffee and just do nothing. With the telly on.
Just half an hour of telly and he’s sure he could pull himself together and be able to handle the chaos again. Gwen’s inability to have a thought without saying it out loud, the Rift monitor that peeps over some tidbit of barely-useful information some 60 times a day, his never-ending email. And it’s probably time to hand out water again, and when was the last time Myfanwy was -
Suddenly Martha is pressed into him, her hands are on him, fingertips attempting a dance on his chest.
“Jesus, Martha!” Reflexively, he swats her hands away and steps back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Martha looks confused for a second, her hands drifting back down to her sides, then she looks properly horrified.
“Oh. Oh! That wasn’t-I shouldn’t-“
“No.” Ianto frowns and grabs his shirt from the floor. It’s not like him to leave it off in the first place, but there’s only so much a person can get done while restraining a seizure victim and holding an IV bag. He huffs angrily but doesn’t say anything else. It doesn’t make any sense to get angry at her, she can’t help it anymore than Gwen could help the babbling that got them here in the first place. He wishes he could get mad at someone, but there’s no one that deserves it.
Awkward, though. He does up his shirt buttons, looking at them even though he can do it blind, just to avoid looking at Martha. He’s taking a breath to say something to break the tension when Jack stirs and opens his eyes. He mumbles a vague interrogation.
“Welcome back!” Martha says with professional brightness, turning all her attention on Jack.
Jack blinks and rubs his face. He looks down at his left arm. “What are you putting in me?”
“Fluids, and a sedative. You should be okay soon. Might be a bit groggy.”
“Where’s-“ He catches sight of Ianto before he finishes. He smiles a quiet smile, and Ianto comes to him, brushes the hair off his forehead, and forgets to be annoyed at Torchwood and all the bullshit that comes with it.
*****
Martha heads upstairs while Jack’s IV is still attached, saying “You two don’t need me here. I’ll be back down in five to take it out.” She’s up the ladder before he can say thanks.
“Is she mad about something?”
“Just awkward, I expect.” Ianto nods to Jack’s sheet-covered hips. “It’s all going a bit strange around here.”
“What happened exactly?” Jack sits up, wincing a bit from the ache in his muscles. He feels like he’s been thrown into a wall.
“Seizure.” Ianto sits on the edge of the bed. He’s holding himself tense. Not avoiding touching him, exactly, but tense.
“Hey.” Jack reaches out to touch his hand. He can’t think of what to say next, but Ianto accepts the touch and relaxes a bit.
“Do you feel alright?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going up, then. I should check on Gwen. If you seized…”
“Right. Sure.” Jack lets go.
The crawling in his skin is gone, but the crawling in his brain is unabated. When Martha comes down and unhooks him, he lays there for a few minutes, tracing the cracks in the paint on his ceiling. The ceiling is dark green - not his doing. Under that layer is a layer of black. The green is an improvement, all in all. The cracks twist around each other, endlessly entangled.
He dresses, and his clothes make more indecent proposals to him.
Damn.
Part 2 is here
Rating: NC-17
Notes, credits: Much thanks to invisible_lift for his magical beta-fu, and to antelope_writes who read a lot of scenes in progress and treated me like me absurdly slow rate of production counted for something, and who gave me the prompt for this story in the first place. Thanks also to metastability who said "I love titles! I'll help!" and helped me come up with one. (Complaints about the title must be made only if you consider that my original title was "Sex Pollen Sunday")
Summary: When an alien party bomb goes off, desires war with personal codes. Inside Torchwood, connections are tenuous, understanding is incomplete, and drugs really don’t ever make that better, even if they come in a hail of glitter.
Wordcount: 12,400
****
An alarm blares; Gwen races to the nearest station and clicks on the bouncing icon that indicates a Rift occurrence. She hears Jack race over to Owen’s station. Former station. The station by the stairs.
"A spike, small but local. Very local. It's -- oh dear." Gwen turns around and frantically searches the space above the Rift pool.
"What?" Jack comes over to look at Gwen's screen. "Oh."
There is a glow, then a shimmer, and then a faint pop as a silver sphere comes into existence at eye level not too far from where they stand. It emits a few seconds of what might be music - it’s tuneful in a way - or might be a warning message in an indistinguishable language, before it sprays a hail of iridescence that covers them both entirely.
"Oh -- no. Damn." Jack sounds deeply dismayed, but whether that stems from being disappointed, at being suddenly sparkly, or at their imminent death by neurotoxin, she can’t tell. Jack scrapes the glitter off his face and shakes it out of his hair. He doesn’t run for the med bay.
Barely suppressing the urge to panic, Gwen shakes herself all over to get the stuff off. She thinks she must look like a wet dog. She doesn’t manage to do more than raise a cloud around herself. "What?"
"Whoa!" Martha stops dead on her way down from the hothouse, flicking her hands back and forth through the glitter to clear it out of her way.
Jack whirls to face her. "Martha! Get back!"
Martha immediately backs up without turning around.
"Do we lock down?" Gwen tries desperately to clear the stuff off, slapping sparkles off her shoulders like they’re fire ants. "What is this?!"
Jack sighs. "The Rift just threw us a surprise party. We're not locking down." He raises his eyebrows in a playful gesture that doesn’t fill his entire face, and that makes Gwen feel much worse. "Although handcuffs might have to come into play. And not in the fun way, more's the pity."
"What the hell is this, Jack? Martha hasn’t moved, but she’s tensed as if ready to sprint any moment.
"It's a party favour." He considers his glittering hands then looks up at Gwen. "It's a drug."
Martha, scooting sideways around the blast zone, jogs down to the medical bay. She returns with a scanner. "How long do I have to stay away from you?"
"It goes inert in about two minutes."
"What does it do? What should I look for?"
Jack sits down on the nearest chair, and Gwen starts to relax until she considers that Jack doing nothing could easily mean there was no hope.
"Quick explanation: it's a lot like Ecstasy. It's a stimulant, very popular for parties. It will make us high, excitable. Sensitive to touch. Uninhibited. It's also a mild hallucinogen." He looks at Gwen with an expression that looks like apology. "And a powerful aphrodisiac."
Oh, not good. Not good at all.
"Well, that'd make a party a success, assuming no one jumps off a building or ODs." Gwen leans against her desk, trying her best to affect nonchalance although she’s feeling a little flushed already. The power of suggestion is a powerful thing, she supposes.
"We'll be feeling the effects almost immediately, so let me get this out while I remember the details. This drug is used by the Anahetsch. Physiologically they're similar enough to us. But they weigh on average about 30% more, so dosage..."
"Oh dammit.” Martha rips her jacket off and lays it roughly over the railing. “Overdose of E takes the form of stroke, overheating, cardiac arrest. This was not how I wanted to spend this afternoon." She waved her scanner at them somewhat threateningly. “Can I come in now? I'd like to make sure no one is going to drop dead."
“Give it another minute. No sense in you getting more than you already did.”
“Already what?” Martha makes a good angry face. It’s the eyebrows. Gwen always feels self-conscious when she’s angry; she thinks she just looks like a cocker spaniel with a blood disorder when she’s mad. She never makes mad look dignified.
It’s bloody hot in here. When did that --? Oh. Right.
“You were close enough. You’re probably not clean.” Jack looks apologetic at Martha, too. It isn’t the same apology.
“Two weeks, nothing complicated, no danger. I’m pretty sure you promised me that.”
“Sorry.”
Martha’s eyebrows go to neutral as she marches toward him with a scanner.
“Your heart rate is elevated.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Temperature is going up.”
“No kidding.”
“Get into the med bay and sit on the damned table. Gwen, stay close, you’re next.”
“I didn’t order an alien sex party,” Jack says sulkily. He starts down the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes.
“I didn’t tell you to take anything off.”
Jack’s echoes up from the med bay. “It’s hot!”
Gwen’s eyes are drawn to something red, then something green. Pretty lights on that scanner. How has she never noticed that before?
*****
She’s just here to take care of a bit of the backlog. Autopsy the ten or so corpses in the freezer, read through a few hundred pages of medical reports on persons of interest in case there was something that the rest of the team had missed, and in the downtime - ha! - collaborate with Ianto on the protocol manual for cover scenarios. “Plausible-sounding medical jargon usually gets the job done the fastest,” Jack had said after asking her to come.
The free-wheeling, multi-discipline collaboration: she likes that quite a bit. Ianto lacks formal training of any kind, as far as she can tell, but his ability to synthesize information and make practical use of it is impressive. UNIT will undoubtedly find the manual to be useful once it’s done.
Jack hasn’t managed to hire Owen’s replacement yet, and she understands that. They need a very specific set of skills here - someone to handle tasks ranging from field medicine to research biology not to mention handle general field work if possible - it isn’t just anyone with a little medical training who will do.
Just at the moment, though, it seems like someone else would have been a better choice for the fill-in, so that she doesn’t have to be here.
Gwen is watching from the railing. It’s not like Martha didn’t know, it’s not like anyone didn’t know, but she doesn’t usually have to watch this level of what her grandmother would probably call ‘indiscretion’. Jack is bare from the waist up - it turns out he actually did need to have his shirt off - and Martha is attaching sensors to him. Gwen is staring, and she can’t seem to manage to close her mouth.
Jack isn’t doing much better. He’s being a touch more dignified is all: his mouth is closed. But he’s staring back. That, Martha didn’t know.
“What’s going on?” Ianto sounds equal parts alarmed and bored - and if that isn’t a sufficient warning off working here, nothing is. He doesn’t even glance at Gwen as he walks down the stairs.
“Ianto!” Jack holds his arms out in welcome, grinning madly. Silly sod. Silly, hepped-up sod. “You are exactly what I need! Come down here.”
“Martha is wiring you up, why?”
She likes working with Ianto. Any friend of Jack’s and all, sure, but she quite likes him on his own merits too. His decorum, she appreciates that. There is something to be said for saying only what is necessary. For not sharing too much.
UNIT has its share of old fossils, and young fossils too. It’s nice to work with someone young who still acts lively when it’s called for.
She harbors fantasies of getting him drunk sometime.
Jack reaches out to grab him as soon as he gets close and pulls him in to stand between his knees. “Bit of a ruffle in the afternoon plans. No work. Alien drug trip instead.”
Ianto peels Jack’s hands off his arse and holds them aloft by the wrists. He fixes Jack with a glare then turns to Martha. His voice is demanding. “Effects? Side effects? Estimated time of duration?”
Martha reaches between them to attach one last sensor to Jack’s chest, and if she touches that firm, hot skin for a few moments more than are necessary, well who is to blame her? As the takes her hands away, she brushes the edge of Ianto’s jacket, and why did she never notice now touchable a nice wool was before?
“Effects: Captain Future here says it’s like E, only the dosage might be a bit much for humans. There seems to be a stimulant effect of some sort. I’m monitoring for cardiac events and potential seizure. Jack and Gwen got the big dose, and I’m not unaffected.” She pauses to take off her gloves and, incidentally, undo the bottom two buttons on her shirt. It is hot. Or, well. She is.
Jack wrenches his wrists free with some difficulty and is running his thumbs over Ianto’s jawline. The day is wearing on, and Ianto’s face is lightly stubbled. Martha is seized with the unexpected urge to touch for herself. Her hands are already moving when she notices and stops herself.
But it could be too much, this loose structure, this level of the unknown. This was why she had left The Doctor. This was why she smiles politely but says nothing every time Jack asks her to join his team. She’s said no already; no sense in repeating herself. She doesn’t really want “free-wheeling” except as an occasional vacation.
Martha lifts her gaze from Ianto’s jaw to his eyes. He looks worried, and also not a little distracted by what Jack’s doing. It’s not much, just a thumb on a face, but she can’t lose the image of him doing that while wearing much, much less.
“I’m assuming, lack of inhibition, hyper focus on sensations, and, at a guess, arousal?”
Martha follows Ianto’s eyes as they look down briefly at Jack’s crotch. Hard to miss that.
“That’s what he said.”
Jack looks down too, then smiles, unconcerned and cheerful, at Ianto. “I could use a hand. Go warm up the shower, won’t you?” His hands have migrated again, one to the back of Ianto’s head where he’s stroking the base of his skull, and the other to the inside of his jacket where it rests on his waist. “I can’t think of anything I want more than for you to use that talented tongue to - “
“Right!” Ianto interrupts loudly, turning to Martha. “Anything you need me to do?”
“What, what I need you to do doesn’t count?” Jack lifts his head so that he can address Martha. “The Welsh, I tell you - difficult language. Hard to wrap your mouth around. But those who speak it, the things they can do with those mouths.” Jack grins the filthiest grin she’s ever seen on him, and given that she’s listened to him share his fantasies about The Doctor, that’s saying something.
Ianto’s face, though -- even out of the corner of her eye she can see that he’s agitated.
“Anything legitimate I can do to help?” He takes Jack’s hands off his body again and holds them firmly. Jack play-struggles against the grip, pouting.
Martha imagines Ianto tying Jack down with soft ropes, that same business-like expression on his face.
“Huh? Oh right, sorry. Um - yes. Keep everyone hydrated. Bring water every 20 minutes or so. But don’t let them - us - drink too much. Dilutional hyponatremia is no one’s friend.”
“What?”
“Drunk on water! It’ll kill you,” Jack contributes cheerfully.
Gwen’s laughter rings out, loud and long, from just beyond the entrance to the autopsy bay.
“Right. Um. Water. I’ll get on that.”
Martha shoos Jack off the table.
He sighs. “Not the kind of playing doctor I was hoping for. I’m disappointed in you, Doctor Jones.”
“Heard that before. Go. Gwen!”
Gwen appears at the top of the stairs. She’s rubbing both hands back and forth along the railing.
Sensory obsession. It’s on the list.
She barely restrains herself from walking up the stairs to touch the railing herself to see whether it’s cooler than the air, whether it’s smooth or rough. Must try to keep up the appearance of normal. She undoes another button.
Someone has got to turn the temperature down.
She harbors no fantasies of seeing Ianto naked. But at this moment, it’s all she can think about. Not Jack; that idea had come and left of its own accord a trillion years in the future. And Gwen, lovely as she is, Martha had never gone for girls and even a powerful alien aphrodisiac, one that was tricking her brain into thinking that clothes were an unnecessary impediment, and that rubbing off against the nearest body was a very reasonable and workable idea, isn’t going to change that. But Ianto…
And how sad is that? Right gender, no previous baggage, let’s have a go? How pathetic is it to be reduced to lusting over someone chosen by process of elimination from a narrow field? And drugs. It’s pure conditioning. Nothing real.
Mostly.
Bloody Torchwood. She doesn’t want to be here.
****
While Martha is checking Gwen over, Jack goes off and hides somewhere. Ianto too - those two, never around when you wanted them. Not that she wanted - well. But that wasn’t a crime, was it, wanting?
“Remember when you were in school and class was really boring, and all you could think about was having sex with all the cute boys?” Martha puts some gadgety things away in a drawer, slams it too hard, then looks down in surprise at the loud noise.
Gwen laughs. Okay, giggles, and she was going to let herself off the hook for that one because alien drugs - that should excuse a fair bit of behavior. Then she sighs theatrically. “Sadly, the cute boys are shagging each other.”
Martha spins back to face her then puts her hands back against the table behind her, holding up her weight. “Yeah, Jack won’t talk about that except to drop the odd bit of innuendo about costuming, and Ianto just smiles like the cat that ate the canary. Are they…boyfriends? Do they go out? Is it just sex?”
“I haven’t asked, they haven’t said.” Gwen notices a bit of lint on her sleeve and picks it off. “I walked in on them one time, though.” More lint - oh. So many little pills.
“No! Here?”
Gwen looks up; Martha’s face is expectant. “Greenhouse.”
“Greenhouse? Where were they…how?”
Gwen lowers her voice to the confidential tone of girls in the schoolyard too old to play but too young to not want to. “Jack was wearing nothing but his trousers around his ankles, and Ianto - very fit under those suits, by the way - had him ‘in hand.’ Well in hand, I’d say. If I’d walked in a minute later, I don’t think they would have been able to stop. Took them a moment or two, as it was.”
“Really?” Martha looks dazed. Well, more dazed. They’re all a bit glassy-eyed, she’s not so far gone she can’t see that. “That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing.”
The women stare into the middle distance for a moment.
“Right!” Gwen stands up straight. “Must stop thinking about shagging my coworkers. Not half helpful.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
“Shagging everyone else. I can think of that.”
They walk up the stairs and head towards the boardroom. No sense staying downstairs, but it seems to take so long to get to where they’re going. Why are they moving so slowly?
“I wish I’d shagged the bloke who used to sit across the aisle from me in this one uni lecture, always with his legs splayed and his hands in that ‘here is my cock, isn’t it lovely’ pose. I always suspected that it indeed was, but I never got the chance to see it first-hand.” Gwen gives Martha, who has stopped walking, a push.
Martha walks forward again. “My Organic Chemistry professor. He was delicious. Red hair that you just wanted to sink your fingers into and hang on for dear life.”
“Justin Timberlake.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Jack!” They’re finally there, and Gwen waves at Jack who is sitting in the chair at the head of the table, leaning forward, concentrating on his fingers splayed out on the tabletop. He’s taken his tee shirt off and Gwen wants desperately to bury her hands and face in his chest, but he’s too far away for that. And she’s not supposed to.
“I will never look at you with respect again.” Martha pockets the portable scanner she’s carrying as they walk into the boardroom. “Um…Daniel Craig.”
“Ah, handsome men who do violence. Aren’t we back to talking about my co-workers?” She turns to Jack and winks. Gwen stands, staring at all the chairs. So many chairs. The choice seems impossible.
After taking a further moment to examine his fingertips, Jack looks up as if just noticing them, and smiles. “Ladies! How are you girls doing? Have you gotten to the pillow fighting yet? Comparing boobs in the mirror?”
He’s clearly been reading teen romance novels again. All that time alive, and none of it sleeping - he must run out of good things to read. Must introduce him to Internet chat forums.
“We’re talking about hot men.”
Jack grins, like she knew he would - so predictable he is, sometimes. That’s just great. Jack is just great.
Martha raises an indicating finger in point of order. “Men we want to shag but have not shagged.”
“Ah regrets. I have those,” Jack says, grinning. She loves that grin.
Gwen can’t seem to make her legs move, but she remembers what she was trying to remember. “Ooh!” They turn to look at her. “Saxon."
"What?" Martha stutters.
She puts her hand on the chair back in front of her to help her turn to face Martha so she can explain. "Harold Saxon. Oh I know, bit of a nutter, it was all very…but before that. You have to admit, there was something about that man."
This chair will be fine. Or maybe the one next to it? Dammit, just sit.
Martha looks wide-eyed at Jack, like he said something. Did he say something? Her ears are ringing a bit. "Gwen, stop."
"Don't you think so? Those eyes, it was like you could see what he was imagining he'd do to you."
“Oh god, oh god,” Martha mutters as she turns away. She picks up a pencil and puts it down again. She stands up and puts her fingertips onto the bridge of her nose.
It’s not like Martha to be so judgmental. She didn’t mean she’d actually do it. Have done it.
“Oh come on. Jack? Didn’t you ever think that Harold Saxon would be excellent? You know. Before he died. Like he just can’t wait to do things to you? That’s what I think.” She nods firmly. “Like he knows just the right buttons to press.”
If he were alive. But of course he’s not. That was weird, all of that. He seemed normal when he campaigning. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything after all, come to think of it.
Jack doesn’t keep grinning. He looks like he’s been slapped instead. He leaves without saying anything.
Jack doesn’t make any sense. Never has.
“Please, please, please, stop. Gwen, stop. Stop.” Martha’s voice sounds faraway.
Gwen turns back to Martha, who has gotten out of her chair. She’s pacing back and forth, in a tight line, with her eyes closed. She’s breathing like a schoolgirl who’s run to the loo because she’s trying not to cry in front of the popular girls.
Gwen hears the sound of vomiting not too far down the hall.
After a minute, Ianto appears in the door. He doesn’t grin. He doesn’t hang off the door jamb, angling to join in the fun.
“Gwen.” He raises his eyebrows in a gesture of fun, but the look doesn’t cover his whole face. “There’s the screen saver that you must come look at. It’s got starbursts. They just…explode. But they don’t hurt anybody. Isn’t that interesting?” Ianto’s voice goes up and down, in time with his eyebrows.
“Ooh.” That does sound interesting. She follows him.
*****
Gwen is just settling down into her chair to watch the screensaver that Ianto put up for her, when Jack comes out of the loo, a wet but presumably now clean waste bin in his hands. He looks wretched, which is to be expected. He sets the bin down in its spot and walks into his office, moving as if he is trying not to be noticed. Ianto recognizes the body language, he once perfected it in himself, but he’s never seen it on Jack. Ianto directs Gwen’s attention to the bottle of water he’s left for her and follows Jack.
He finds him sitting in his chair, his head propped in one hand, the other hand running back and forth, almost frantically, through his hair.
Ianto follows Jack’s fingers with his own, then traces the path again with his other hand. He alternates hands and is pleased to see Jack begin to unclench. He uses a light touch, one that he likes when he’s on the verge of a panic attack, one that feels like water running softly down, again and again. Jack relaxes further, his shoulders softening. He breathes more easily. He doesn’t look up.
“Thank you,” Jack breathes.
Ianto switches to a firmer touch, down the back of Jack’s neck and along his shoulders now. Jack uncurls, tipping his head up and leaning back in his chair. His eyes are closed and his brow is tense. It will be for some time. When the memories grip him, they don’t let go easily. Not usually for hours.
Eyes still closed, Jack smiles a little. “You’re very good with the drug-addled. Am I learning something about your misspent youth here?”
“There may have been some parties, and a girlfriend or two who was into the rave scene. I used to know a lot of places to buy candy after 2am. Do you want candy?”
Jack reaches a hand up to touch Ianto’s. “I want you.”
“You want to get off,” Ianto corrects him affectionately.
Jack groans and lounges aggressively in his chair. “I want to get off. My teeth itch.” He opens his eyes and looks up at Ianto. “I swear my shirt is coming on to me. I want to gnaw your pants off and have you right here on the floor.”
“Poor Jack.” Ianto steps forward and cups Jack’s face with his hands, using his thumbs to stroke Jack’s cheeks. Jack leans into the touch, first to one thumb and then to the other, frowning slightly as if he can’t decide where to stay. Ianto kisses him, and his heart cracks when he hears Jack make a tiny noise like a sob or a choked-back whine in his throat.
The memories won’t let go for hours, unless something distracts him. This is the very definition of neither the time nor the place, but Torchwood has never been about convenience or regularity, or about schedules of any kind.
The desk chair is hardly comfortable for this, but Ianto straddles Jack’s legs anyway so he can come closer, so Jack can touch and be touched. It’s the one thing that will bring him back. Well - not all the way back. And not quickly. But maybe back a little, maybe farther away from the demon he’s remembering. That’s something. If he’s not really here, if he’s not really responding to Ianto himself so much as to what he’s doing, well that’s still worth it.
The second Ianto is settled into a stable position, Jack’s hands are on him, reaching desperately around his back and along his legs, searching for an entrance into his clothes, seeking skin. When he finds it, when he slips a too-warm hand - no wonder Jack didn’t put his overshirt back on, he’s burning - onto Ianto’s chest, he sighs as if relieved, as if grateful. He runs his fingers up and down, up and down, playing with the hair he finds there as he likes to on lazy days when they actually make it to a bed.
If he’s not really here, he’s close enough. And Ianto doesn’t ever have to be on drugs to respond to Jack. It used to be a source of embarrassment to him, this vivid, instant response to a man who always made direct eye contact but never seemed to be entirely there when you looked back.
Jack breaks their kiss and looks up at him without stilling his hands, and there it is, that look that takes, that look that begs. Like a secret service agent standing on the far side of a long bridge, waiting for the sight of his held countryman before he’ll undo the cuffs on the hostage he holds.
It used to be like that. Ianto didn’t understand why at the time. He wondered whether he was deficient somehow, whether he lacked passion, skill, loyalty. Now he knows. He has those things, but compared to the weight of decades and the press of experiences - Jack’s experiences - he can’t offer much. He can’t fix that deficiency, though, so he doesn’t try. Jack doesn’t seem to really mind, after all.
Jack’s hand drifts down to Ianto’s crotch and rubs over his cock, trapped and uncomfortable, and for a second Ianto forgets that they’re precariously balanced and in a semi-public place. For a second, it seems a good idea to stand up, lean on the desk, and just use that mouth, half-open right now and offering a few moments of mindless pleasure.
“Please?” Jack breathes, asks for it like he’s a starving dog, kicked so often he won’t take even unguarded food when he sees it.
Ianto checks his watch. They have some time. Not much, but then it’s never much. “Downstairs.”
****
Downstairs, Jack kicks off his boots and tears off his tee shirt, then attacks his trousers with clumsy fingers. One of the buttons that holds his braces to his trousers catches his attention for a moment, and he runs his fingertips around and around the edge of it. He hears Ianto moving behind him and remembers why he came down here - to touch Ianto, not plastic, to touch warmth, to take something that is freely given. To stop remembering when everything was taken, except the one thing he wanted to give up more than anything. To stop this pulsing and scratching behind his eyes. He pulls back the scratchy wool blanket then flops back onto the bed and throws a grin Ianto’s way, lifts his eyebrows playfully. “Grab the oil from the drawer, will you? I want to slide all over you.” The grin doesn’t fit on his face, he can feel it.
Ianto smiles back anyway, but he shakes his head. “I don’t have time for a shower after this. I’m supposed to be watching everyone.”
Jack frowns a little as he tries to remember why that’s important. “Then just come here.” He holds out his arm.
Ianto tosses his tie over the top of the dresser and comes over but dodges the outstretched arm. Instead, he crawls up from the end of the bed. For a moment, Jack is immobilized by the hot pleasure of Ianto’s mouth on his thighs, then his shaft, then -
“Oh fucking yes.” It’s the best feeling he’s had in days, in weeks, and it’s the very opposite of pain, it’s almost almost enough to drive away the memories.
They keep coming in flashes, though, in jagged fragments. The bite of the shackles, then the slip-and-bite of them as time wore on and his skin became raw, wet. The manic grin when he arrived, anticipatory, the desultory half-smirk when he left, even this activity not enough to satisfy.
This wasn’t enough.
“Ianto.” Jack reaches down to touch his head and is distracted by his hair, so many hairs and each one separate, each one tickling his fingertips or are his fingertips tickling them?
Ianto looks up, mouth pink and open in an expression of inquiry, ready to pull away if asked, ready to continue if allowed. The gift of that brings Jack one more degree away from the undertow.
“Come up here.”
Ianto hauls himself over to Jack’s side and up so that their faces are level, and Jack hunts for warm (intact) skin to touch. He lifts Ianto’s shirt up and away, and for moments his focus narrows down to include only the soft hair there and the texture of skin underneath. Then Ianto breathes onto Jack’s forehead, and he follows that breath back to its source, that mouth that offers. He tastes inside, and he tastes only a man: no blood, no exhaust fumes, no rot.
One of the guards, he’d been sick. Beaten some days ago and his liver damaged, no doctors on the ship who could help. When he’d pushed his unwelcome, fat tongue into Jack’s mouth before undoing the wrist cuffs and shoving him to his knees, Jack had spared half a thought for pitying the man and his imminent death.
Ianto laughs at him when he pushes Ianto’s trousers and pants down and out of the way, leaving them around knee level, and wraps his fingers around Ianto’s cock. “I probably do have time to actually take them off.”
“Screw that.”
Ianto’s chuckle is throatier this time as Jack sets to work. He’s not sure which one of them is enjoying the experience more. He’d forgotten what this stuff did to the nerve endings. It’s like his hands can feel everything: every bit of softness, hardness, every hair, every smooth spot, and the warmth, it’s so incredibly warm. He looks up to find Ianto’s mouth again, and he pushes two fingers from his other hand into that mouth. It’s hot, like it’s burning, and it’s everything good that he’s capable of feeling, right in there, wet and teeth, rough and flexible. He pushes his fingers in, around, he pulls out to touch those lips, to make them shine again.
The eyes shine too, and Jack remembers to look up, to look at Ianto (alive) and see what he wants and what he feels. Ianto takes a breath before sucking hard on Jack’s fingers. Jack’s other hand tightens up reflexively, and Ianto opens his mouth to moan then goes back to sucking, and running his tongue back and forth on the underside of Jack’s knuckles.
He pities Ianto’s death, too.
He uses the feeling of Ianto’s hands, clever hands, slick with lube Jack hadn’t noticed him getting, to pull himself back to the here and now. He concentrates on the rhythm of their breathing to drown out the memory of engine noise and the psychic leakage that made him hear those motherfucking drums. These breaths are free, and the rhythm isn’t controlled by anything except the cellular need for oxygen.
Suddenly his left hand is as wet as the hand that has been fucking Ianto’s mouth. He looks down, surprised to see spunk on his fingers and on his stomach. Ianto for his part seems not to have noticed the lapse in attention; he’s flushed and his eyes are glazed, and he looks as contented as Jack would have wanted him to be, if he’d been thinking about it.
He runs his hands up and down his own belly. Wet on smooth, wet on soft. Warm, then cooling. Glistening. Things that are good.
Ianto’s hand begins to move again.
*****
Jack suddenly looks up at him, eyes wide and shining. Sometimes, just sometimes, Jack is right there, and it nearly always takes his breath away.
Jack goes still then and holds his breath, eyes fluttering half-closed, and Ianto holds his too because he loves this moment. He loves that small grunt and huff of relief just before Jack’s hips snap and his body shakes. He loves knowing that he did that, and at times like this, he likes knowing that Jack is forgetting everything else for precious, precious seconds.
Jack begins to shake, but he doesn’t stop - and he doesn’t come.
An effect of the drugs?
Ianto looks to Jack’s face and sees that his eyes are unfocused and slightly rolled back, and his neck is arched. It looks like he’s straining, so Ianto continues to work him, fast and hard, a stroke designed to brook no disagreement. He uses his other hand to press at Jack’s balls the way he likes, and bites at his arching neck.
For five more seconds, Jack continues to strain but that’s it, and then it hits him.
Ianto leaps up. “Shit! Shit shit! Jack?!”
Jack doesn’t answer, and why would he? He’s having a bloody seizure.
For a whole second, and for an embarrassing second one that he’ll never admit to, he doesn’t know what to do except to stand up, yank his own trousers up, and gape at the scene. Clearly he should race up the ladder without delay and get Martha, but then she’d come in and find Jack naked, erect, and with Ianto’s come spread on his belly.
Can I get pants on him at least?
“Shit.” No. Not without his cooperation, not quickly enough.
He leaps at Jack’s bunched-up tee shirt and quickly swipes at the wetness on his middle. He tugs at the blanket that’s mostly under Jack and pulls a section of it to cover his cock, still bobbing in an obscene send-up of arousal.
Doesn’t that usually go down when the body is in distress?!
Shirtless, shoeless, but at least with trousers on, he climbs the ladder 3 rungs at a time.
****
“Martha!”
She would have come running at the panicked tone, but as it is she is already on her way down the hall to try and find Jack because those readings are not normal.
Ianto is leaning out of the door of Jack’s office, gesturing her inside frantically. “He just started seizing. He’s down here.”
Martha climbs down the ladder and turns to find Jack on the bed, eyes unfocused, neck arched backwards, his whole body jerking rhythmically. Classic seizure. And, incidentally, stark naked. Ianto climbs down and walks past her. He gestures vaguely at the bed. “We, um…”
“You really don’t have to explain,” she says breezily. She takes a step towards the head of the bed. “Okay, I need you to hold him. Not hard. Just keep him from falling off the bed or hurting himself.”
Ianto drops the shirt that he had picked up and puts his hands on Jack’s shoulders, gently restraining him. He looks at her for approval and she nods distractedly.
She’s a doctor, she’s trained to use her nose, to notice things that can help in a diagnosis. She doesn’t mean to intrude, it’s just the training, it’s automatic. But it smells like sex in here, and it’s making it so that she can’t think straight.
The image hits her like a brick wall. Her, kneeling on the bed, with Ianto fucking her from behind while Jack just watches, adoring them both. Ianto’s arms holding her up, his hipbones crashing into her backside.
“Martha?”
She focuses on the present and checks Jack’s pulse. Not that she’s going to learn anything that her instruments aren’t already telling her, but despite the fact that the machines are giving her the numbers she needs, there’s something about the physicalities of medicine, touch and smell, pressure and sound.
Also it gives her something to do with her hands besides wrap them around the elephant in the room, by which she means Jack’s prick. Not that she’s never seen one, even in this context. She’s treated more than a few men with the neverending Viagra erection, and remained professional throughout the exam. And not that she’s ever really fancied Jack. She’s never been in this situation with a mega dose of aphrodisiacs before, though, and a part of her brain is trying to figure out if there’s any way, practically or ethically, for her to just hop on.
Nevertheless, her mouth works on auto-pilot. “He’s seizing. Probably dehydrated, too. I’ll need to get an IV line in. I need to go get them. Keep holding him, okay? And if he starts to vomit, turn his head to the side - gently, don’t wrench it.”
She wonders whether there’s something wrong with her, that she can be calmly explaining what to do in case of vomiting while she’s picturing the three of them locked in a three-way that would require some adjustment to normal gravity and a lot of lube.
She forces herself to look at Ianto’s face and notat Jack’s penis. He looks tired, uncertain, slightly panicked still, like a first-year resident. “Ianto?” He looks up, worry on his face. “You’re doing fine. He’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.”
She rushes up, over, down, and gets what she needs. When she climbs back down the ladder, Ianto is muttering quietly into Jack’s ear, hand resting on his shoulder. She can’t hear what he says. From the tone, it could be worried and loving, it could be furious. It’s impossible to tell, and she doesn’t know him well enough to guess. Doesn’t know them at all.
“Right.” She holds up a bag of saline solution attached to an IV tube. “We need to get this into him. Hold this.”
Ianto stands up and takes it, cradling it like it’s breakable.
She gets the cap off the IV line with her teeth and takes hold of Jack’s wrist. “This arm is shaking too much. I need you to hold it still. Take the upper arm, hold it still, okay?”
Ianto looks panicked for a second, then transfers the IV bag to his teeth and holds Jack’s shoulder down with one hand, arm down with the other.
Martha finds a vein, slides it in. Attaches the tube, the bag. It’s rote. “Hold the bag up higher.”
Ianto holds it higher and looks around. He places the bag on the dresser and looks to Martha for approval. He’s breathing quickly, and it’s that little sound that takes her away again, not like this fairly routine stuff is occupying much of her mind anyway. It takes her back to the itching, warm crawling feelings of her skin, that urge to touch and gnaw, nuzzle and lick. She wants to feel stubble under her tongue. She wants to taste salt.
She grabs a second syringe from the box she brought and pulls a dose of Lorazepam from a bottle. Into the IV line and--
“Give it a minute and the seizure should stop. The, er, rest of him will probably relax too. I gave him a sedative.”
Her mouth, it’s actually watering at the thought. Ianto is standing there so tall, straight, and she wants to drop to her knees and tease his cock through his trousers until he grabs her hair and begs her to get on with it. It smells like sex in here, and it clearly wasn’t Jack who got off, so she’s smelling Ianto right now and she fills her nostrils with it. She wants to shove her nose right into the crook of his neck and shoulders, bite and worry at the skin there, run her hands over his chest.
*******
On occasion, he wonders whether it’s the Torchwood effect or just him. Because sometimes it seems like the chaos centers around him, specifically. It isn’t just the semi-sentient alien vegetation, the cannibals, the vicious machines, the Cybermen. It’s the copier breaking when he has a deadline. It’s the queue at the Tesco going slowest when he joins it. It’s all his pens disappearing at once. It’s Jack: of all the people available, why would Jack center on him?
His heart and breathing are beginning to slow down, but he still wants to go somewhere, go home. Home, that would be brilliant. Have a coffee and just do nothing. With the telly on.
Just half an hour of telly and he’s sure he could pull himself together and be able to handle the chaos again. Gwen’s inability to have a thought without saying it out loud, the Rift monitor that peeps over some tidbit of barely-useful information some 60 times a day, his never-ending email. And it’s probably time to hand out water again, and when was the last time Myfanwy was -
Suddenly Martha is pressed into him, her hands are on him, fingertips attempting a dance on his chest.
“Jesus, Martha!” Reflexively, he swats her hands away and steps back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Martha looks confused for a second, her hands drifting back down to her sides, then she looks properly horrified.
“Oh. Oh! That wasn’t-I shouldn’t-“
“No.” Ianto frowns and grabs his shirt from the floor. It’s not like him to leave it off in the first place, but there’s only so much a person can get done while restraining a seizure victim and holding an IV bag. He huffs angrily but doesn’t say anything else. It doesn’t make any sense to get angry at her, she can’t help it anymore than Gwen could help the babbling that got them here in the first place. He wishes he could get mad at someone, but there’s no one that deserves it.
Awkward, though. He does up his shirt buttons, looking at them even though he can do it blind, just to avoid looking at Martha. He’s taking a breath to say something to break the tension when Jack stirs and opens his eyes. He mumbles a vague interrogation.
“Welcome back!” Martha says with professional brightness, turning all her attention on Jack.
Jack blinks and rubs his face. He looks down at his left arm. “What are you putting in me?”
“Fluids, and a sedative. You should be okay soon. Might be a bit groggy.”
“Where’s-“ He catches sight of Ianto before he finishes. He smiles a quiet smile, and Ianto comes to him, brushes the hair off his forehead, and forgets to be annoyed at Torchwood and all the bullshit that comes with it.
*****
Martha heads upstairs while Jack’s IV is still attached, saying “You two don’t need me here. I’ll be back down in five to take it out.” She’s up the ladder before he can say thanks.
“Is she mad about something?”
“Just awkward, I expect.” Ianto nods to Jack’s sheet-covered hips. “It’s all going a bit strange around here.”
“What happened exactly?” Jack sits up, wincing a bit from the ache in his muscles. He feels like he’s been thrown into a wall.
“Seizure.” Ianto sits on the edge of the bed. He’s holding himself tense. Not avoiding touching him, exactly, but tense.
“Hey.” Jack reaches out to touch his hand. He can’t think of what to say next, but Ianto accepts the touch and relaxes a bit.
“Do you feel alright?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going up, then. I should check on Gwen. If you seized…”
“Right. Sure.” Jack lets go.
The crawling in his skin is gone, but the crawling in his brain is unabated. When Martha comes down and unhooks him, he lays there for a few minutes, tracing the cracks in the paint on his ceiling. The ceiling is dark green - not his doing. Under that layer is a layer of black. The green is an improvement, all in all. The cracks twist around each other, endlessly entangled.
He dresses, and his clothes make more indecent proposals to him.
Damn.
Part 2 is here