Fic: Blow Out the Candles, Ianto - 1/?
Title: Blow Out the Candles, Ianto - 1/?
Author: shiksafeminista
Pairing: mentions of Ianto/Lisa
Warning: Angst
Rating: PG-13ish for language (I suppose)
Disclaimer: Does anyone actually claim to own any of these characters? I certainly don’t.
Summary: What happens when Ianto is suspended after the events of “Cyberwoman.”
Notes: Thanks to
jessionthemoon and
ataraxic for holding me together. Ever see a manic person write? It is not for the faint of heart.
Feedback: Feedback makes me post the next part faster.
Blow Out the Candles, Ianto
AMY: Blow out the candles, Robert, and make a wish. *Want* something! Want *something!*
Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” 1970
Part One
Ianto closed the curtains after watching the SUV burn rubber away from his flat. He chuckled to himself - it was as if they couldn’t wait to get away from him, as if he sweats treachery. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but not entirely unexpected.
Toshiko was the only person who would take him. Sweet Toshiko, who never had the right words, but didn’t need to - the one who came closest to looking him in the eye. Ianto leaned his head on the window curtain, feeling the cold of the glass seep through the thin drape. There was a throbbing behind his eyes, the back of his neck, the base of his spine. Medicine, the voice said, the ever-dwelling voice in his head that took care of him and everything else. Take medicine and it will go away.
Ianto closed the blinds and curtains on all the windows in his flat before shuffling to the kitchen. Instead of the drawer of pills, he went for the cabinet of bottles - ordinarily, the drink made him giggly. And laughter was the best medicine, after all, wasn’t it?
His body felt like it was made of electricity. Not just his body, but everything he was, was crackling with tension, a second away from either burning or breaking. He felt it coming out of his pores, under his fingernails, in the corners of his eyes. He had to make the feeling go away. Take medicine and it will go away.
Ianto chose a bottle - the good whiskey given to him by his mother two Christmases past - and smoothed the paper label over with the pad of his thumb; it felt like sandpaper.
Suspended. The word echoed through his mind to his toes and back, like a shout in a canyon. There was no reason to get up early in the morning anymore, so why shouldn’t he get pissed out of his brain? Like you pissed away your career.
“Fuck,” he muttered, loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes, sending them skittering across the vinyl tiles. He knew it was bad if the voice kicked him in the gut rather than focusing on cleaning. He could organize the hell out of anything he knew, but he didn’t know where to file this. Ianto reached up to the cabinet for a glass, choosing his favourite. Glass double old-fashioned, the width of his palm, with a heavy, thick glass base. It felt cool in his hand. He poured two thumbs of the dark liquor into the glass, and downed it, relishing the burn. It matched the burn of his outside, felt right.
Ianto stood there for a moment, or it could have been a half-hour, at the kitchen counter. Eyes closed, tie loose, glass in hand, shoeless, just inhaling and exhaling.
This would be a lot more comfortable on the sofa - the sofa which, at times, felt more comfortable than the bed.
Suspended. He brought the bottle and glass with him as he flopped gracelessly on the sofa, accidentally sitting on the remote to the stereo. He tossed it aside, hearing the crack as it hit the floor. After trying to fix her. Typical, that he would try to fix something only to monumentally bollocks it up. All I wanted to do was give her what she gave me.
Ianto felt his face crumple and a dry sob escaped. Lisa was the one thing that - she was his reason. If he figured out how to save her, things would be all right. They would be happy again. He didn’t remember what normality felt like at this point, but he remembered it was good. Lisa was the thread tying him to…well, everything. And now he’d lost her, and probably his job too.
Another half-glass and he downed it, coughing as he swallowed too much air.
The pounding pain at the ends of his nerves wouldn’t stop. Ianto let his eyes slide shut as he leaned his head back on the sofa, sprawling himself half-lying, half-upright. Coasters. Dammit, he couldn’t even relax without worrying about something. He sighed, angry at himself as he put the bottle and glass (refilled) on a magazine, instead of the finished wood of the end table.
Bringing it toward him, Ianto examined the glass closely. It was solid and uncarved, yet he could still make out a few bubbles in the glass if he looked closely enough. But with his vision starting to swim, he shrugged off the thought and, in two gulps, polished the drink off and lay on the sofa. A bit too quickly.
“Whoa,” he mumbled as his vision lagged like a bad connection. Maybe it was too much too fast. It didn’t matter, he reasoned, as he gently let go of his firm grip on consciousness.
--
Things were never quiet in the Hub, even at night. There were points when computers were shut down and people were silent, but somewhere there was always water running or clocks ticking. Now it was the sound of boots hitting the metal grate walkway as Jack paced back and forth. Had he been too hard on Ianto? His temper had gotten away with him somewhat, but he’d stayed more or less in control. Still, the way they left things at the end of the day still didn’t seem…right. Fuck it, Jack thought as he grabbed his coat and drove to Ianto’s flat.
He’ll be asleep, Jack thought to himself as he got past the electronic building lock with his wrist-cuff. Maybe. Hopefully he’ll have been able to get to sleep. It was a long day for him, right? So he must have fallen asleep. He hesitated, debating whether or not it would be good to wake Ianto. Then he decided he didn’t care.
--
It was dark when he woke, snagged from sleep by a slamming car door. The curtains and blinds were closed, so it could be any time of day. Ianto didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He examined his wristwatch, but couldn’t read it. The numbers seemed small and furry.
A moment of silence passed before a horrendously loud pounding on his door rattled his teeth. He pushed himself off the couch with a bit too much force and stumbled into the door instead of up to it. “What do you want?” he grumbled at the peephole.
“Ianto, open the door,” Jack replied.
Ianto fumbled with the deadbolt and door lock, swinging the door open only to jerk forcefully at the length of the door chain he’d left connected. The fluorescent light from the hallway temporarily blinded him, and he squinted as he rested his head against the doorframe. “What do you want, Jack,” he sighed, knowing it wasn’t a question.
Jack smelled stale whiskey and sweat the moment Ianto spoke. The younger man was still dressed in the suit he wore when he left, minus the shoes and jacket. His tie was loosed and he hadn’t shaved, his eyes were bleary and red. He looked like hell warmed over.
“I…” Jack couldn’t find the words. He tried to find a polite way of saying I’m sorry for threatening to shoot you and your girlfriend.
“I was just coming to check on you,” Jack said finally. “Can I come in?”
“Ie sure hold on,” Ianto slurred, closing the door. Jack was relatively sure that the first word had been Welsh, but it sounded enough like “yeah.” He could hear fumbling, more than it would usually take to unlock the door chain. A second later and the door swung open, bouncing against the opposite wall as Jack cautiously followed the retreating Ianto into the darkened flat.
“What time’s it?” Ianto asked, flopping onto the sofa, manners for his guest abandoned. He figured that was his right, as Jack was intruding at god-knows-what-hour. Ianto tried to look at his watch again, but it was no easier to read now than it was before.
“It’s a little after two,” Jack replied, a little rattled by the scene he’d entered. “I’d ask you if you were all right, but I think we’ve gone past that,” he said carefully, taking a seat next to Ianto on the sofa.
Ianto suppressed a burp as he poured another glass of whiskey for himself. “And what makes you suddenly care now?” he asked. “I seem to remember a gun pointed at me for not a short amount of time. That was you at the other end of it, am I right?” As far as Ianto was concerned, Jack was still the enemy. “I mean, I could be wrong,” he continued, lifting the glass to his lips and taking a slow swig. “I am pretty drunk.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Jack replied quickly, almost finding the situation laughable if it weren’t so seeped in tragedy.
“So what is it then?” Ianto asked, rising from the sofa and shuffling to the kitchen, glass in hand. “You can kill me twice over, but your misplaced sense of guilt wants to make sure I don’t drown in a pool of my own vomit? You sicken me, Harkness.”
That statement threw Jack momentarily. Ianto had never called him that - Captain, Sir, and rarely Jack, but Harkness was what Owen spat at his angriest. By the time his brain could answer again, Jack had forgotten the question. But Ianto - quiet, simple, polite Ianto - was still talking.
“It’s funny if you think about it. You’re miserable, so you want to make everyone else around you miserable and then try to make them happy so you can make yourself feel better for making them happy.” Ianto was proud of himself for not tripping over that sentence as he leaned on the kitchen counter, having forgotten why he got up in the first place. The floor tilted slightly, and he caught himself. “Christ.”
“But here’s the truth,” Ianto continued, slurring and bleary-eyed. “The truth is you don’t do intimacy. I’ve seen you in action, everyone has - you eyefuck everyone you introduce yourself to. You flirt with everyone, even me. But that’s not intimacy, you just…well, the best I can figure is that you crave sex. Well, who doesn’t? I mean…it’s been…that’s not the point.” Ianto made his way back to the sofa, as well as he could with the floor tilting as it was.
Jack rose from the sofa, shucking his coat and standing to steady Ianto by the shoulders. “You’re drunk.”
“Thanks Captain Obvious. The point is that…what was I saying?” Ianto dug through his mind but it was slushy. “Something about…oh yeah.” He sighed, wobbling slightly. “No, wait, it went away again.” He looked up at Jack, eyes wide and unfocused. “Why are you here?”
“I…think you should sit down,” Jack reasoned, guiding Ianto back to the sofa. Instead of sitting, Ianto turned around suddenly, swinging a fist aimed at Jack’s face. He missed, and Jack caught the fist easily, using Ianto’s momentum to throw him onto the sofa with a loud thud.
“You fucking bastard!” Ianto shouted, jumping back up and grabbing Jack by the shirtfront. “Why do you have to destroy everything that means…that means at all?” Ianto’s face crumpled again and this time he did sob, dropping his grip on Jack’s shirt and plunking back down on the couch. He didn’t cover his face in his hands. He wanted Jack to see what he’d done to him.
“Where’s the bravado now, Jack? Can’t bear to ride in at the climax of the film like the fucking American cavalry? You just can’t bear it because you don’t have meaning in your life. You want to take it away from the rest of us. Not meaning like ‘Torchwood, save the universe, blah blah.’ I mean what gets you up in the morning. Purpose.” Jack stared down at Ianto as the younger man fell to pieces, unsure of what to say. Ianto looked around for his glass and, not seeing it, drank straight from the bottle. “Please just go.” Jack shifted his weight and crossed his arms across his chest.
“What makes you think I will?”
“Because it’ll kill you to see one of your people drink himself into oblivion because of something you did. Just go now.” Ianto threw a glare up at Jack but, eyes losing focus, decided to glare at Jack’s general vicinity. There were now two and a half Jacks. “Cachu bant ti cachu mes,” Ianto muttered as he took another swig from the bottle, lost motor function enough to keep his grip, and it smashed to the floor shortly before he passed out.
--
End part one.
More to come.
Faster, if you give me feedback.
Welsh translations
Ie - yes
Cachu bant ti cachu mes - fuck off, you sheep-shagger.
Author: shiksafeminista
Pairing: mentions of Ianto/Lisa
Warning: Angst
Rating: PG-13ish for language (I suppose)
Disclaimer: Does anyone actually claim to own any of these characters? I certainly don’t.
Summary: What happens when Ianto is suspended after the events of “Cyberwoman.”
Notes: Thanks to
jessionthemoon and
ataraxic for holding me together. Ever see a manic person write? It is not for the faint of heart.
Feedback: Feedback makes me post the next part faster.
Blow Out the Candles, Ianto
AMY: Blow out the candles, Robert, and make a wish. *Want* something! Want *something!*
Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” 1970
Part One
Ianto closed the curtains after watching the SUV burn rubber away from his flat. He chuckled to himself - it was as if they couldn’t wait to get away from him, as if he sweats treachery. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but not entirely unexpected.
Toshiko was the only person who would take him. Sweet Toshiko, who never had the right words, but didn’t need to - the one who came closest to looking him in the eye. Ianto leaned his head on the window curtain, feeling the cold of the glass seep through the thin drape. There was a throbbing behind his eyes, the back of his neck, the base of his spine. Medicine, the voice said, the ever-dwelling voice in his head that took care of him and everything else. Take medicine and it will go away.
Ianto closed the blinds and curtains on all the windows in his flat before shuffling to the kitchen. Instead of the drawer of pills, he went for the cabinet of bottles - ordinarily, the drink made him giggly. And laughter was the best medicine, after all, wasn’t it?
His body felt like it was made of electricity. Not just his body, but everything he was, was crackling with tension, a second away from either burning or breaking. He felt it coming out of his pores, under his fingernails, in the corners of his eyes. He had to make the feeling go away. Take medicine and it will go away.
Ianto chose a bottle - the good whiskey given to him by his mother two Christmases past - and smoothed the paper label over with the pad of his thumb; it felt like sandpaper.
Suspended. The word echoed through his mind to his toes and back, like a shout in a canyon. There was no reason to get up early in the morning anymore, so why shouldn’t he get pissed out of his brain? Like you pissed away your career.
“Fuck,” he muttered, loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes, sending them skittering across the vinyl tiles. He knew it was bad if the voice kicked him in the gut rather than focusing on cleaning. He could organize the hell out of anything he knew, but he didn’t know where to file this. Ianto reached up to the cabinet for a glass, choosing his favourite. Glass double old-fashioned, the width of his palm, with a heavy, thick glass base. It felt cool in his hand. He poured two thumbs of the dark liquor into the glass, and downed it, relishing the burn. It matched the burn of his outside, felt right.
Ianto stood there for a moment, or it could have been a half-hour, at the kitchen counter. Eyes closed, tie loose, glass in hand, shoeless, just inhaling and exhaling.
This would be a lot more comfortable on the sofa - the sofa which, at times, felt more comfortable than the bed.
Suspended. He brought the bottle and glass with him as he flopped gracelessly on the sofa, accidentally sitting on the remote to the stereo. He tossed it aside, hearing the crack as it hit the floor. After trying to fix her. Typical, that he would try to fix something only to monumentally bollocks it up. All I wanted to do was give her what she gave me.
Ianto felt his face crumple and a dry sob escaped. Lisa was the one thing that - she was his reason. If he figured out how to save her, things would be all right. They would be happy again. He didn’t remember what normality felt like at this point, but he remembered it was good. Lisa was the thread tying him to…well, everything. And now he’d lost her, and probably his job too.
Another half-glass and he downed it, coughing as he swallowed too much air.
The pounding pain at the ends of his nerves wouldn’t stop. Ianto let his eyes slide shut as he leaned his head back on the sofa, sprawling himself half-lying, half-upright. Coasters. Dammit, he couldn’t even relax without worrying about something. He sighed, angry at himself as he put the bottle and glass (refilled) on a magazine, instead of the finished wood of the end table.
Bringing it toward him, Ianto examined the glass closely. It was solid and uncarved, yet he could still make out a few bubbles in the glass if he looked closely enough. But with his vision starting to swim, he shrugged off the thought and, in two gulps, polished the drink off and lay on the sofa. A bit too quickly.
“Whoa,” he mumbled as his vision lagged like a bad connection. Maybe it was too much too fast. It didn’t matter, he reasoned, as he gently let go of his firm grip on consciousness.
--
Things were never quiet in the Hub, even at night. There were points when computers were shut down and people were silent, but somewhere there was always water running or clocks ticking. Now it was the sound of boots hitting the metal grate walkway as Jack paced back and forth. Had he been too hard on Ianto? His temper had gotten away with him somewhat, but he’d stayed more or less in control. Still, the way they left things at the end of the day still didn’t seem…right. Fuck it, Jack thought as he grabbed his coat and drove to Ianto’s flat.
He’ll be asleep, Jack thought to himself as he got past the electronic building lock with his wrist-cuff. Maybe. Hopefully he’ll have been able to get to sleep. It was a long day for him, right? So he must have fallen asleep. He hesitated, debating whether or not it would be good to wake Ianto. Then he decided he didn’t care.
--
It was dark when he woke, snagged from sleep by a slamming car door. The curtains and blinds were closed, so it could be any time of day. Ianto didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He examined his wristwatch, but couldn’t read it. The numbers seemed small and furry.
A moment of silence passed before a horrendously loud pounding on his door rattled his teeth. He pushed himself off the couch with a bit too much force and stumbled into the door instead of up to it. “What do you want?” he grumbled at the peephole.
“Ianto, open the door,” Jack replied.
Ianto fumbled with the deadbolt and door lock, swinging the door open only to jerk forcefully at the length of the door chain he’d left connected. The fluorescent light from the hallway temporarily blinded him, and he squinted as he rested his head against the doorframe. “What do you want, Jack,” he sighed, knowing it wasn’t a question.
Jack smelled stale whiskey and sweat the moment Ianto spoke. The younger man was still dressed in the suit he wore when he left, minus the shoes and jacket. His tie was loosed and he hadn’t shaved, his eyes were bleary and red. He looked like hell warmed over.
“I…” Jack couldn’t find the words. He tried to find a polite way of saying I’m sorry for threatening to shoot you and your girlfriend.
“I was just coming to check on you,” Jack said finally. “Can I come in?”
“Ie sure hold on,” Ianto slurred, closing the door. Jack was relatively sure that the first word had been Welsh, but it sounded enough like “yeah.” He could hear fumbling, more than it would usually take to unlock the door chain. A second later and the door swung open, bouncing against the opposite wall as Jack cautiously followed the retreating Ianto into the darkened flat.
“What time’s it?” Ianto asked, flopping onto the sofa, manners for his guest abandoned. He figured that was his right, as Jack was intruding at god-knows-what-hour. Ianto tried to look at his watch again, but it was no easier to read now than it was before.
“It’s a little after two,” Jack replied, a little rattled by the scene he’d entered. “I’d ask you if you were all right, but I think we’ve gone past that,” he said carefully, taking a seat next to Ianto on the sofa.
Ianto suppressed a burp as he poured another glass of whiskey for himself. “And what makes you suddenly care now?” he asked. “I seem to remember a gun pointed at me for not a short amount of time. That was you at the other end of it, am I right?” As far as Ianto was concerned, Jack was still the enemy. “I mean, I could be wrong,” he continued, lifting the glass to his lips and taking a slow swig. “I am pretty drunk.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Jack replied quickly, almost finding the situation laughable if it weren’t so seeped in tragedy.
“So what is it then?” Ianto asked, rising from the sofa and shuffling to the kitchen, glass in hand. “You can kill me twice over, but your misplaced sense of guilt wants to make sure I don’t drown in a pool of my own vomit? You sicken me, Harkness.”
That statement threw Jack momentarily. Ianto had never called him that - Captain, Sir, and rarely Jack, but Harkness was what Owen spat at his angriest. By the time his brain could answer again, Jack had forgotten the question. But Ianto - quiet, simple, polite Ianto - was still talking.
“It’s funny if you think about it. You’re miserable, so you want to make everyone else around you miserable and then try to make them happy so you can make yourself feel better for making them happy.” Ianto was proud of himself for not tripping over that sentence as he leaned on the kitchen counter, having forgotten why he got up in the first place. The floor tilted slightly, and he caught himself. “Christ.”
“But here’s the truth,” Ianto continued, slurring and bleary-eyed. “The truth is you don’t do intimacy. I’ve seen you in action, everyone has - you eyefuck everyone you introduce yourself to. You flirt with everyone, even me. But that’s not intimacy, you just…well, the best I can figure is that you crave sex. Well, who doesn’t? I mean…it’s been…that’s not the point.” Ianto made his way back to the sofa, as well as he could with the floor tilting as it was.
Jack rose from the sofa, shucking his coat and standing to steady Ianto by the shoulders. “You’re drunk.”
“Thanks Captain Obvious. The point is that…what was I saying?” Ianto dug through his mind but it was slushy. “Something about…oh yeah.” He sighed, wobbling slightly. “No, wait, it went away again.” He looked up at Jack, eyes wide and unfocused. “Why are you here?”
“I…think you should sit down,” Jack reasoned, guiding Ianto back to the sofa. Instead of sitting, Ianto turned around suddenly, swinging a fist aimed at Jack’s face. He missed, and Jack caught the fist easily, using Ianto’s momentum to throw him onto the sofa with a loud thud.
“You fucking bastard!” Ianto shouted, jumping back up and grabbing Jack by the shirtfront. “Why do you have to destroy everything that means…that means at all?” Ianto’s face crumpled again and this time he did sob, dropping his grip on Jack’s shirt and plunking back down on the couch. He didn’t cover his face in his hands. He wanted Jack to see what he’d done to him.
“Where’s the bravado now, Jack? Can’t bear to ride in at the climax of the film like the fucking American cavalry? You just can’t bear it because you don’t have meaning in your life. You want to take it away from the rest of us. Not meaning like ‘Torchwood, save the universe, blah blah.’ I mean what gets you up in the morning. Purpose.” Jack stared down at Ianto as the younger man fell to pieces, unsure of what to say. Ianto looked around for his glass and, not seeing it, drank straight from the bottle. “Please just go.” Jack shifted his weight and crossed his arms across his chest.
“What makes you think I will?”
“Because it’ll kill you to see one of your people drink himself into oblivion because of something you did. Just go now.” Ianto threw a glare up at Jack but, eyes losing focus, decided to glare at Jack’s general vicinity. There were now two and a half Jacks. “Cachu bant ti cachu mes,” Ianto muttered as he took another swig from the bottle, lost motor function enough to keep his grip, and it smashed to the floor shortly before he passed out.
--
End part one.
More to come.
Faster, if you give me feedback.
Welsh translations
Ie - yes
Cachu bant ti cachu mes - fuck off, you sheep-shagger.