Ultra-short Fiction: One Step Forward Torchwood
Running around a lot, and doing things a lot, but I jotted this down after watching Doctor Who and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
I was trying to figure out what was in Jack's head.
One Step Forward
Ianto is smiling more, lately. The sardonic curve of his lip would be a giddy grin on any other face, and Jack should be proud. He’s done that, made Ianto happy. Instead, seeing Ianto smiling makes him nervous and vaguely angry.
The smiling curve is too soft. Jack wants to kiss the contentment away and leave Ianto wrapped in the shell in which he found him. He was safer.
There were over one hundred years in which Jack thought he’d never leave the Doctor once he’d found him again. Even now he will leap to his feet, his heart dancing, when he hears the name or the sound of the TARDIS, even on a recording or from the lips of a villain. Jack used to dance amongst the stars, and the whole of space and time was a playground when he was with the Doctor.
Even before that, the universe had been a fertile oyster from which he could pluck pearls as he saw fit. Not as joyous, but exhilarating nonetheless. Now he is legless, time bound, stranded. There are times when his limited ability to travel terrifies him, makes him unbearably claustrophobic.
One year bound at the Master’s pleasure, and he’d thought he would no longer feel trapped on the Earth. Jack spent days in watery dreams of redemption, Gwen’s approval, Ianto’s kisses, a life spent in protection of all those precious people who were always vulnerable to madness from beyond their spacetime. He’d been so guilty and hurt and angry, and he couldn’t even dream of the one thing he’d wanted above all other things.
The Doctor did finally save him, forgive him, ask for him. But not until Jack had watched him hold in his arms the person who had tortured Jack to death a hundred times. And not until Jack had had time to realize that the Doctor might want him, because he’d seen desire there for certain, but that it would be a thousand years before he’d see him as anything close to a peer.
But here is Ianto Jones, smooth and subtle and lovely, learning to laugh out loud. Jack knows that his staff think of themselves as broken people, sometimes, but such a few people of any time are ever very safe or very whole. These are stronger and more pampered than most.
They are perhaps a little battered. They’ve never really lived at war, or without semi-advanced society‘s cushions. Ianto excepted, of course.
Ianto spent quite a lot of months at war with Jack, and Jack never knew. He walked through his days in fear, quivering and viciously angry, but all he shared with Jack was a false smile and decorum. Not like now, with his wit and happiness lighting his face until Jack wants to hide Ianto away where nobody will harm him.
There are many things Jack imagines saying to Ianto. He might say, for instance, “I love you much more than you are ever likely to know, or even guess.” Or, “I see you as a child, and my love is in some ways stronger for that but can never be complete.”
One day, he will smile into the Doctor’s eyes with sufficient understanding to be necessary to him. It will be centuries before the waiting stops hurting so much, because he is still young enough to resent being left behind. But he’s older than many, and Jack knows even now that he might be tempted beyond bearing if he let himself bond too tightly to Ianto. If he were a Timelord, Jack might cross dimensions to keep his sweetest friend.
He will never tell Ianto that the greatest gift Jack takes from their time together is a deepened understanding of the man he loves.
~
Now to clean my filthy, filthy hair. Mmm, shower. And breakfast!
Also: WTF, Pete Wentz?!
I've really missed saying that.
I was trying to figure out what was in Jack's head.
One Step Forward
Ianto is smiling more, lately. The sardonic curve of his lip would be a giddy grin on any other face, and Jack should be proud. He’s done that, made Ianto happy. Instead, seeing Ianto smiling makes him nervous and vaguely angry.
The smiling curve is too soft. Jack wants to kiss the contentment away and leave Ianto wrapped in the shell in which he found him. He was safer.
There were over one hundred years in which Jack thought he’d never leave the Doctor once he’d found him again. Even now he will leap to his feet, his heart dancing, when he hears the name or the sound of the TARDIS, even on a recording or from the lips of a villain. Jack used to dance amongst the stars, and the whole of space and time was a playground when he was with the Doctor.
Even before that, the universe had been a fertile oyster from which he could pluck pearls as he saw fit. Not as joyous, but exhilarating nonetheless. Now he is legless, time bound, stranded. There are times when his limited ability to travel terrifies him, makes him unbearably claustrophobic.
One year bound at the Master’s pleasure, and he’d thought he would no longer feel trapped on the Earth. Jack spent days in watery dreams of redemption, Gwen’s approval, Ianto’s kisses, a life spent in protection of all those precious people who were always vulnerable to madness from beyond their spacetime. He’d been so guilty and hurt and angry, and he couldn’t even dream of the one thing he’d wanted above all other things.
The Doctor did finally save him, forgive him, ask for him. But not until Jack had watched him hold in his arms the person who had tortured Jack to death a hundred times. And not until Jack had had time to realize that the Doctor might want him, because he’d seen desire there for certain, but that it would be a thousand years before he’d see him as anything close to a peer.
But here is Ianto Jones, smooth and subtle and lovely, learning to laugh out loud. Jack knows that his staff think of themselves as broken people, sometimes, but such a few people of any time are ever very safe or very whole. These are stronger and more pampered than most.
They are perhaps a little battered. They’ve never really lived at war, or without semi-advanced society‘s cushions. Ianto excepted, of course.
Ianto spent quite a lot of months at war with Jack, and Jack never knew. He walked through his days in fear, quivering and viciously angry, but all he shared with Jack was a false smile and decorum. Not like now, with his wit and happiness lighting his face until Jack wants to hide Ianto away where nobody will harm him.
There are many things Jack imagines saying to Ianto. He might say, for instance, “I love you much more than you are ever likely to know, or even guess.” Or, “I see you as a child, and my love is in some ways stronger for that but can never be complete.”
One day, he will smile into the Doctor’s eyes with sufficient understanding to be necessary to him. It will be centuries before the waiting stops hurting so much, because he is still young enough to resent being left behind. But he’s older than many, and Jack knows even now that he might be tempted beyond bearing if he let himself bond too tightly to Ianto. If he were a Timelord, Jack might cross dimensions to keep his sweetest friend.
He will never tell Ianto that the greatest gift Jack takes from their time together is a deepened understanding of the man he loves.
~
Now to clean my filthy, filthy hair. Mmm, shower. And breakfast!
Also: WTF, Pete Wentz?!
I've really missed saying that.