(no subject)
This is what I do when I can't sleep. I write about what Jack does when -he- can't. And I probably make about as much sense as he does. ... There's early Jack/Ianto, but only in theory, not in practice. Sorry if that disappoints (Raq, I am looking at you).
Ianto had asked him when the last time he'd gone for a walk had been. He'd really had to think about that one, and the first instance that came to mind was 1945. No, really. Just because, he'd said. And Jack's mind had gotten caught up on technicalities.
There were, after all, all sorts of things that could drive a man to wander aimlessly, either around the streets of Cardiff or around the Hub, usually in the middle of the night. Most of the time, it was simply that too many things were bouncing about in his mind for him to settle down. Some artifact that had arrived, that they'd yet to puzzle out. The way that one waitress at the pub down the road carried her tray on one hip, like she was carrying someone's kid, instead of their food - maternal, protective, and oddly sensual. One night, he'd spent an hour leaning over a railing, staring into the bay, trying to suss out if she did that because she had kids, or if it was just easy weight distribution. Jack had stopped trying to rationalize his mind ages ago. It seemed like once he stopped keeping track of the deaths, things started to go just the tiniest bit wonky between his ears.
That was a whole other kettle of fish, the deaths. He could spend a month's worth of nights just going over them, lying in bed, hands folded at the nape of his neck, staring at the ceiling. No matter how many times he did it, though, the first was always the worst. The searing blue light, the sound of screaming, the pain. At least he didn't wake up screaming, anymore, when he dreamt about it. Instead, he got up and moved, would do something, anything, to dislodge the memories from his mind. One night he randomly decided to make pancakes. He wasn't hungry. He'd just wanted to make them. And once they were done, he'd crawled back into bed. Ianto, bless him, hadn't said a word when he'd come in that morning and found the counter in the kitchenette covered in plates of pancakes.
Most of the time, when he couldn't sleep, Jack didn't wander far. He'd just shrug into his old Army coat, hike the stairs up to the roof, and look out over Cardiff. Sometimes he'd bring a Discman, or an iPod, some way to pipe music into his mind while he stood, trying to see the stars through the city haze. Sometimes he'd just listen to the traffic, the sirens, the night sounds. Some nights, he talked to the Doctor.
"I know it's ridiculous. You not even being here. You probably don't even know where I am. You might not even care. But I'm gonna talk to you anyway. Because you'd get it, if I could. The crazy stuff I've had to put up with. How long I've been doing it. Why I do it..."
He's thankful, most nights, that there's no CCTV on the roof. If Tosh ever scanned through and found him talking to air and time, well. Even the team had their limits on crazy, most likely.
Some nights, he takes a journal up to the roof, or down to the vaults, or any old corner he feels like holing up in, and writes. It isn't always about the day - in fact, it hardly ever is. Slowly, over the years, he's filled notebook after notebook with tiny snatches of thought, bits of his past. Anecdotes, descriptions, small scratchy doodles of trees and stick figures of people. He's discovered, over time, that he's got a somewhat tolerable hand for scenery, but he can't even draw a stick figure, some days. It's the souls, he decides. You can't put someone's soul on a piece of paper like that. At least, they won't stay put long enough for him. One notebook has three pages of thoughts about his desk lamp.
He really, really doesn't think about where his mind goes, when he can't sleep.
For some reason, when he's in the grip of insomnia, Jack rarely thinks of sex. It just doesn't occur to him. Not when everything is generally so still, so silent. When it feels like he's the only soul left breathing, the only one there to see. Some nights, he'll realize he's not, go find some club or bar that's open, and stay until they throw him out, just looking for the human element, the contact, the experience. For the life in it. Most nights, though, he keeps to himself, when he can't sleep.
So he's shocked, really, one night, when he's sitting in the vault with his notebook, and the door rolls open, the sound of it echoing down the Hub's lower corridors.
He barely even lifts pen from paper, the mellow horns of Artie Shaw and his orchestra drifting tinnily from the record player in the corner. But he blinks.
"Time is it?"
"I don't even want to know," Ianto says, blearily, squinting at him. "But I couldn't sleep, so ... I thought I'd come alphabetize something."
Good old Ianto Jones, Jack thinks, though he can't help be a little confused. When he left Ianto upstairs, he'd been sleeping like a rock - though, unfortunately, through no fault of Jack's own. "Dreams?" He guesses.
"I suppose. It was ..." He looks off to the side, hesitantly, as though he's not sure he wants to let Jack in on his subconscious. They haven't really been together all that long, and neither of them is even sure if "together" is a good way to describe it, yet. "It was one of those dreams that shifted around so much that ... by the time I woke up, I couldn't remember a thing of it. So I sat up and tried to remember it ... and by the time I gave up, I was too awake."
"Been there." Jack lifts his pen from his journal and puts the end of it between his teeth, to free his hands. After he blows on the page he'd been scribbling on, to keep the ink from smudging, he closes the notebook, easing the elastic into place around the cover gently. Then he speaks, a little awkwardly, around the pen. "So you came right down here?"
"Well." Ianto shifts a little on his feet. Jack notices his socks match the shirt he'd been wearing, earlier, and is somehow unfazed, but amused. "I looked for you a bit, first, since you weren't there."
"You weren't really gonna alphabetize anything, were you. You just found me on the CCTV."
"Busted." He shrugs, slightly. "Come on, Jack. We should at least try to sleep. After all, it's ... well, early, by now."
Jack takes a handkerchief from the bench beside him and cleans off the pen, then caps the jar of ink he'd been using. His eyes prick a little at the corners, and he can feel a slow, dull ache spreading between his shoulder-blades. "I might be able to sleep, now," he concedes, gathering up his things.
"Come on, then." Ianto nods toward the door, and Jack's not sure if he's worried, or just plain worn. "Maybe we both can?"
"Hope so." Jack moves for the record player, lifts the needle from the vinyl carefully, and switches it off. He'll come back down and return the record to its sleeve later - right now, though, he can feel his eyelids start to droop. He's so out of it, suddenly, that he barely registers Ianto offering his arm. All he knows is that somehow, they're back up in his room, and he falls onto the mattress with a sigh of quiet relief.
In the morning, he knows, it will all seem entirely surreal, and he'll end up wondering how much of it really happened. Instead of pancakes, his reminder will be the record sitting down in the vault, and the half-finished thought in his journal.
The last time I went out walking, it wasn't just to walk. I was sure I'd heard it. But I can't tell you that. Because I know, when I find it again, I'm going to have to leave. ... And that's the last thing you want to hear, and the last thing I want to tell you. Because
As his head hits the pillow, he feels Ianto settle beside him. Not even close enough to touch. Just there.
Just because.
Ianto had asked him when the last time he'd gone for a walk had been. He'd really had to think about that one, and the first instance that came to mind was 1945. No, really. Just because, he'd said. And Jack's mind had gotten caught up on technicalities.
There were, after all, all sorts of things that could drive a man to wander aimlessly, either around the streets of Cardiff or around the Hub, usually in the middle of the night. Most of the time, it was simply that too many things were bouncing about in his mind for him to settle down. Some artifact that had arrived, that they'd yet to puzzle out. The way that one waitress at the pub down the road carried her tray on one hip, like she was carrying someone's kid, instead of their food - maternal, protective, and oddly sensual. One night, he'd spent an hour leaning over a railing, staring into the bay, trying to suss out if she did that because she had kids, or if it was just easy weight distribution. Jack had stopped trying to rationalize his mind ages ago. It seemed like once he stopped keeping track of the deaths, things started to go just the tiniest bit wonky between his ears.
That was a whole other kettle of fish, the deaths. He could spend a month's worth of nights just going over them, lying in bed, hands folded at the nape of his neck, staring at the ceiling. No matter how many times he did it, though, the first was always the worst. The searing blue light, the sound of screaming, the pain. At least he didn't wake up screaming, anymore, when he dreamt about it. Instead, he got up and moved, would do something, anything, to dislodge the memories from his mind. One night he randomly decided to make pancakes. He wasn't hungry. He'd just wanted to make them. And once they were done, he'd crawled back into bed. Ianto, bless him, hadn't said a word when he'd come in that morning and found the counter in the kitchenette covered in plates of pancakes.
Most of the time, when he couldn't sleep, Jack didn't wander far. He'd just shrug into his old Army coat, hike the stairs up to the roof, and look out over Cardiff. Sometimes he'd bring a Discman, or an iPod, some way to pipe music into his mind while he stood, trying to see the stars through the city haze. Sometimes he'd just listen to the traffic, the sirens, the night sounds. Some nights, he talked to the Doctor.
"I know it's ridiculous. You not even being here. You probably don't even know where I am. You might not even care. But I'm gonna talk to you anyway. Because you'd get it, if I could. The crazy stuff I've had to put up with. How long I've been doing it. Why I do it..."
He's thankful, most nights, that there's no CCTV on the roof. If Tosh ever scanned through and found him talking to air and time, well. Even the team had their limits on crazy, most likely.
Some nights, he takes a journal up to the roof, or down to the vaults, or any old corner he feels like holing up in, and writes. It isn't always about the day - in fact, it hardly ever is. Slowly, over the years, he's filled notebook after notebook with tiny snatches of thought, bits of his past. Anecdotes, descriptions, small scratchy doodles of trees and stick figures of people. He's discovered, over time, that he's got a somewhat tolerable hand for scenery, but he can't even draw a stick figure, some days. It's the souls, he decides. You can't put someone's soul on a piece of paper like that. At least, they won't stay put long enough for him. One notebook has three pages of thoughts about his desk lamp.
He really, really doesn't think about where his mind goes, when he can't sleep.
For some reason, when he's in the grip of insomnia, Jack rarely thinks of sex. It just doesn't occur to him. Not when everything is generally so still, so silent. When it feels like he's the only soul left breathing, the only one there to see. Some nights, he'll realize he's not, go find some club or bar that's open, and stay until they throw him out, just looking for the human element, the contact, the experience. For the life in it. Most nights, though, he keeps to himself, when he can't sleep.
So he's shocked, really, one night, when he's sitting in the vault with his notebook, and the door rolls open, the sound of it echoing down the Hub's lower corridors.
He barely even lifts pen from paper, the mellow horns of Artie Shaw and his orchestra drifting tinnily from the record player in the corner. But he blinks.
"Time is it?"
"I don't even want to know," Ianto says, blearily, squinting at him. "But I couldn't sleep, so ... I thought I'd come alphabetize something."
Good old Ianto Jones, Jack thinks, though he can't help be a little confused. When he left Ianto upstairs, he'd been sleeping like a rock - though, unfortunately, through no fault of Jack's own. "Dreams?" He guesses.
"I suppose. It was ..." He looks off to the side, hesitantly, as though he's not sure he wants to let Jack in on his subconscious. They haven't really been together all that long, and neither of them is even sure if "together" is a good way to describe it, yet. "It was one of those dreams that shifted around so much that ... by the time I woke up, I couldn't remember a thing of it. So I sat up and tried to remember it ... and by the time I gave up, I was too awake."
"Been there." Jack lifts his pen from his journal and puts the end of it between his teeth, to free his hands. After he blows on the page he'd been scribbling on, to keep the ink from smudging, he closes the notebook, easing the elastic into place around the cover gently. Then he speaks, a little awkwardly, around the pen. "So you came right down here?"
"Well." Ianto shifts a little on his feet. Jack notices his socks match the shirt he'd been wearing, earlier, and is somehow unfazed, but amused. "I looked for you a bit, first, since you weren't there."
"You weren't really gonna alphabetize anything, were you. You just found me on the CCTV."
"Busted." He shrugs, slightly. "Come on, Jack. We should at least try to sleep. After all, it's ... well, early, by now."
Jack takes a handkerchief from the bench beside him and cleans off the pen, then caps the jar of ink he'd been using. His eyes prick a little at the corners, and he can feel a slow, dull ache spreading between his shoulder-blades. "I might be able to sleep, now," he concedes, gathering up his things.
"Come on, then." Ianto nods toward the door, and Jack's not sure if he's worried, or just plain worn. "Maybe we both can?"
"Hope so." Jack moves for the record player, lifts the needle from the vinyl carefully, and switches it off. He'll come back down and return the record to its sleeve later - right now, though, he can feel his eyelids start to droop. He's so out of it, suddenly, that he barely registers Ianto offering his arm. All he knows is that somehow, they're back up in his room, and he falls onto the mattress with a sigh of quiet relief.
In the morning, he knows, it will all seem entirely surreal, and he'll end up wondering how much of it really happened. Instead of pancakes, his reminder will be the record sitting down in the vault, and the half-finished thought in his journal.
The last time I went out walking, it wasn't just to walk. I was sure I'd heard it. But I can't tell you that. Because I know, when I find it again, I'm going to have to leave. ... And that's the last thing you want to hear, and the last thing I want to tell you. Because
As his head hits the pillow, he feels Ianto settle beside him. Not even close enough to touch. Just there.
Just because.