Sometimes broken is broken.
Harkness ducks into the doghouse room he was staying in earlier that week, searching for the stuff he'd left behind.
* Some slips in before the door shuts.
* Harkness is Mr. Oblivious in a frantic search for his vortex manipulator amongst the sheets.
"Jack."
"No." He pretends he's not startled and fights down a very irrational surge of fear, absolute dread, at hearing Some's voice.
* Some is very quiet. "... I'm sorry, Jack."
"I'm ... tired of people apologizing," he admits, just a quietly, and settles onto the bed with the retrieve wristband.
* Some stays by the door, picking at his sleeve. You know how couples take on one another's habits? That's Jon's. "This was all my fault."
"What happened between us wasn't anyone's fault. It couldn't be helped. Things like that happen every day." No one complained that loudly about all the sex pollen at Christmas, did they? "What happened because of it? Was totally disproportionate to the act itself."
"I told Jon."
"Well, Jon's fucking psychotic, okay?" This isn't even an insult according to Jack. It's just a /fact/. A well-known fact. "I told Ianto and he didn't find and torture you non-stop for a whole day, did he? I don't think so. And we're /married/. I made a goddamn commitment to him and he didn't ... " You know, flip out and spend a whole day driving Some out of his mind.
* Some flinches. "I know he's crazy, and I know exactly... I've been there too, Jack, and I would have warned you."
* Harkness lets out a quiet, bitter little laugh, though it's almost more of a sigh. "I wouldn't have listened. I wanted it. I wanted him to hurt me. I deserved it. Every single minute of it."
Some has way too much understanding in his face. "He said he just wanted to make things even."
"Is that even?" he wonders. "I didn't know fucking you hurt that much."
* Some shakes his head, looking down. "He's crazy, Jack. I knew that going in. He doesn't see how this affected anyone but himself."
* Harkness looks down, focusing his attention on adjusting the vortex manipulator on his left wrist. "I don't get you. At all. I think I do sometimes, but I don't."
* Some leans against the wall, hands behind his back. "I'm alone here, Jack. Jon needs me, badly. I need that."
"You need to be needed?" he asks, a curious little inclination of his tone suggesting he understands /too well/. "So many people can need you, Some. So many people can want you. /Love you/." Why him? is the unspoken question. The one Jack won't let himself ask.
* Some studies his feet, his voice trembling. "Nyoka loves me, and needs me, but when I die, she'll be fine. She'll go out and kill something and eat it, she'll sacrifice something to Hermes in my name, and she'll be fine. She loves me, but she doesn't need me. Jon lets his life revolve around me. It feels like... being myself again."
* Harkness gets to his feet and grabs his coat. "As long as you have what you need, then," he concludes, heading for the door.
* Some looks up, still right by the door, naked regret in his face. "I'm sorry for everything I caused for you, and for the pain I caused your husband."
* Harkness sighs. "I'm not sorry. I keep apologizing and I'm not sorry, not the way I should be. I had fun, while it lasted, and I don't believe in regretting things, even mistakes. The only pain Ianto suffered was my fault. You're ... free and clear, actually."
Some knows what he means. He just doesn't agree. "I never lied that night. And if we were both free men, it would have been one of the most amazing nights of my life."
* Harkness grins, just a little. "I didn't lie, either. And I'm married, not enslaved. I think I'm free enough to admit that it's a memory I'll always cherish."
"I don't want this to end our friendship?"
* Harkness shakes his head. "The last thing I want is to lose your friendship, but I think I got the message loud and clear from your boyfriend. Stay the fuck away, if I didn't mishear."
* Some winces again, and drops his gaze.
* Harkness gives a tiny, apologetic smile and pointedly doesn't reach out and touch Some like he wants. Oh, no, he definitely got the message. "In fact, I'd better go."
"Please?"
"I can't go through that again, Some. Not that much, not for that long, not for such a stupid reason." Because, yeah, jealousy over sex /is/ a stupid reason in Jack's book and he's fucking tired of the twenty-first century thinking otherwise.
* Some wants, so badly, to promise that it'll never happen again. "There's a vaccine..."
"There's a vaccine that won't keep him from doing it to me again. There's a vaccine that'll make sure I won't go crazy, but that doesn't stop /him/, Some. Nothing stops him. No one stops him. Everyone looks the other way. How is that fair? How is that /right/? How can you even ask me to put up with something, someone, like that?"
"-I- stop him. Nine times out of ten, I talk him down, turn him away from the Nexus, distract him."
Harkness shakes his head again. "According to Njoki, he experiments on people. Non-humans, so no one gives a shit. Do you stop that? Is nine times out of ten good enough for that one person? Does it even matter if that one person is your friend?"
"I eat people, Jack." Put this in perspective.
That gets a laugh from him and it's kind of bitter. "Great. Let's justify his psychosis, huh? His experiments, his torture, that's a mechanism for survival. He needs to do it to live, so we need to let him get on with it."
* Some can't even look at him anymore. "If I knew a way to stop him without destroying him, don't you think I would?"
"No," he answers immediately and without hesitation. "No, you wouldn't. You're getting what you need from him." And he's definitely going now, because he honestly /doesn't/ want to be caught within fifty feet of Some again.
* Some lashes a hand out to grab his sleeve as he passes. "-I didn't want any of this-," he hisses, suddenly vehement, but strangely not angry. This is what Jon accused him of, too. "I'm not in love with -Scarecrow.- I'm in love with -Jon-, who you've never even met."
* Harkness jerks his arm away. "There's no difference, Some. You can't be two different people, I've tried. It doesn't /work/. You're in love with a really sick person who needs more help than anyone's apparently willing to give. People are getting hurt and no one seems to care. As far as I'm concerned, everyone's responsible."
* Some lets his hand fall, and seems about to say something else, but words won't come. There's nothing he can say to defend Jon when Jack's right, and nothing he can say to agree without betraying the man he loves even further.
* Harkness stands, half towards the door, for a long moment before sucking in a ragged breath and turning back to Some. He strides forward, half a step, and lifts a hand to lightly cup Some's cheek. "And I'm afraid for /you/," he concludes fiercely, almost pleading for Some to understand.
Some turns his head instinctively, both into Jack's touch and away from his gaze. "This is the worst thing he's ever done to me."
"You shouldn't have a /list/." Because, as it sounds to Jack, there's been bad before, but this is the worst.
* Some shakes his head. "There's just this, and the night he gassed Nyo." Some's never counted the times he's been gassed himself. Every single time was with full consent. "But they worked that out themselves."
"I'm not working out anything." He's unapologetic about it, too, because he's pretty much the Doctor's man and that gives him an awfully strong moral compass (as morally ambiguous as Torchwood sometimes needs to be). "This is wrong. And I can't just turn a blind eye to it."
* Some nods. "No, I know. They were already beginning to be friends before it happened, he just walked in..." Slightly flaily handwave. "I didn't mean that they were the same."
* Harkness shakes his head and finally drops his hand. There's nothing else he can think to say, in all honesty.
* Some has big black shades, so nyah, Jack can't see that his eyes are wet, or how often he's blinking.
* Harkness ducks down close and presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, lingering close to murmur, "The only thing I'm sorry for anymore is this -- " And by 'this,' he means opening the door and walking out.
* Some stays where he is until the door's shut again, and then only moves to slide down the wall until his forehead's on his knees, and cry silently.