Fic: Leaving on a jet plane
Title: Leaving on a jet plane (1/1)
Author: Supesfan88
Rating: this flirts with and probably enters NC-17 territory
Warning: A/U, implication of past mpreg
Characters: Jack/Ianto, mentions of an OC
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all it’s characters belong to R.T.D. I’m just playing with them.
Summary: Jack deals with the fallout
A/N: This is a sequel to Follow your daughter home. Unbeta-ed so every mistake is mine and mine alone. My first time writing such a situation (JANTO, slash) so it may not be all that good.
He comes back to life early the next morning with a quick, sharp, intake of breath to the smell of stale whiskey and dried blood and can’t help but feel at least a little bit betrayed.
He takes a moment to regain his bearings and then drags himself off the floor. His blood shot eyes and the dried blood around the collar of his once clean shirt are the only pieces physical evidence that give any inkling towards his past actions. Emotional scars, as he knew from past experiences, took a lot longer to heal. If they did at all. He can’t look in the mirror as he cleans his face because he knows that all he’ll see is Ceridwen’s smile. Jack cleans himself up without looking away from the floor, unloads the Webley, and throws the empty bottle into the recycling.
He locks away the files he’d collected on Ceridwen and Ianto. He doesn’t have the heart to burn them.
-*-
Two and a half years later
When the proximity alarm sounds Jack immediately switches his attention from the mound of paperwork to the C.C.T.V. on his desk and feels his stomach drop. It’s Ianto. He’s just about to switch it off and get back to the paperwork when the camera catches something sparkle as it slides quickly down his cheek and its then that Jack notices how pale Ianto is. Before a minute has fully passed, Jack’s across the hub and to the cog door. Concern overriding common sense.
When he’s within 100 of Ianto he stops dead and swallows hard. The obvious pain on the younger mans face has him fighting to stay upright.
“What do you wa-“
Ianto’s lip juts out as his face pales further. “Her plane went down.”
The shock forces Jack closer. He fixes the distraught man with a furious glare. “What?”
“In China.” The dam breaks as Ianto’s knees give. He stares up at Jack and falls back onto his heels. His knuckles scrap along the pavement as his arms fall nerveless at his sides. “She’s gone, Jack. She didn’t make it.”
He’s got the man’s shirt wrapped in his fists and has dragged the broken man to his feet before his mind comprehends he’s moved. “What. Do. You. Mean?”
Ianto’s face runs slick with tears and sweat. His bottom lip gets sucked in when he inhales and then he chokes when a sob catches in his throat. “She’s gone. No one made it.” He tears finally win and his head comes to rest on Jacks shoulder. He buries his head in the curve of Jacks neck and cries harder.
The full implications of Ianto’s words hit Jack all at once and his knees start to shake as the tears start to flow. He holds tight to Ianto as they both fall to the ground. Jack pulls Ianto’s body as close to his as he can and begins to rock slowly back and fourth. His tears run silently and unchecked down his cheeks as he listens to Ianto cry like his world has ended. It takes him only a minute to realize that it probably has.
It takes almost an hour, but Ianto eventually cries himself to sleep, and its then and only then that Jack allows himself a moment or two to inspect the face of the man he hadn’t seen in more than two decades. He bites down on a sob as he pushes Ianto’s slack form away just enough to look. He’s definitely older. Crows feet at the corner of his eyes, and wrinkles etched deep in the skin around his mouth tell of a happy life, the only worrisome features are the small patch of white hair along his hair line just above his left ear and sickly pallor. The shock and heartache marring an otherwise beautiful face.
He smiles a humourless smile and carefully runs his hand down the exposed side of Ianto’s face. “I’m sorry, Ianto.” The sob he’s been trying so valiantly to swallow, breaks through and he pulls the sleeping man into a bone crushing hug and lays his cheek against Ianto’s forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
-\/\/-
When Ianto wakes he feels more relaxed than he had since finding about Ceridwen. It takes his fatigued mind a couple minutes before his realizes where he is and he shoots up and off the couch. He looks out the glass window behind the couch and down into the main part of the Hub and closes his eyes as his mind begins to drift.
An all too familiar voice yanks him back to reality and he turns. Jack sits at his desk, his hands steeped in front of him, and looking almost as tired as he felt. He sits down before he falls down and just stares.
“When did you hear about her, Ianto?”
He bows his head and swallows. “Four days ago. At work. A colleague called me from home.” He looks up. “She’d just heard about it on the news. I don’t remember much of the past 3 days.” His eyes glaze as a watery smile appears. “I actually can’t remember how I got here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
He blinks twice and then fixes his attention on Jack and finds himself to be rather surprised when he sees no anger just resignation. He sighs and runs a jittery hand through his short hair. “Didn’t want to. Scared mostly.”
He watches Jack nod ever so slightly and then rises to his feet again and starts pacing. “I was a pregnant man.” He shakes his head. “Even after-even now it sound utterly fucking ridiculous.” He pauses, puts his hands on his hips and lets his memories carry him away again. “I was scared. Scared of everyone and everything. You wouldn’t believe how many times during that first year I had that phone in my hand all ready to call and accept defeat.” Tears appear again and he smiles. “The first time she smiled I started to cry so hard I nearly dropped her. It was all you. She was all you, Jack.”
“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you call me? I could have been there for you. For Ceridwen.”
Ianto ignores the increasingly desperate tone Jacks voice has taken on and continues. “A friend I had known in school who had moved to America after finishing got me a job in Washington. The National Archives.” His smile grows. “For the first time in almost two years I felt confident, it was the first time I didn’t second guess$$ myself because I knew it was something I could do. It was probably one of the most liberating decisions I’ve ever made.” He doesn’t see Jack shudder. “I took Ceri and boarded the first plane to Washington after securing the job. I left everything and everyone I’d ever had or known in Cardiff and started over.”
“You left without so much as a note, Ianto. I couldn’t find you. I thought you had died.”
Ianto suddenly drops back to reality and stares at Jack with angry eyes. “I didn’t want you to. I’m good at covering tracks. I did it enough when I worked here to know how to. I didn’t want my daughter to have you, to have this place on her psyche.”
Jack pulls away from his desk slowly. “Ianto, I-“
“Fuck off and let me speak! Do you know one of the reasons why, Jack? Do you?”
Jack shakes his head while staring at him blank faced.
“She was already too much like you for her own good. She’d never met you, never even laid eyes on you. Not once. And she was already so much like you it frightened the shit out of me sometimes. I got a phone call at work when Ceridwen was in nursery school. It was one of her teachers saying Ceridwen had jumped from one of the tallest branches of the only tree in their yard and had broken her arm. In four places. Do you know what she said when I asked her why she’d done it?”
Jack opens his mouth to speak, but Ianto beats him to the punch and slams his fist down on the glass table top of his desk. “She said it was because she wanted to fly like a pilot because that’s what they had learned about in class. She was so fucking excited as she told me about what a pilot did. When w got home from the hospital, the first thing I did was cut down every tree on my property just so she wouldn’t try it again.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack blinks and opens his mouth to speak again but Ianto cuts him off.
“The day she left for Welshpool I cried so hard I got physically sick and then the day she got her pilots license I got so shitfaced I spent a night in jail for kicking the shit out of some twenty year old kid who had gotten in my way as I stumbled home to an empty house.” The tears almost overwhelm him, but he grits his teeth and continues. “And now my daughters dead and its all your fault!” Ianto pulls back suddenly and lands a solid hit right above Jack’s right cheek bone.
The force of the blow lands the unsuspecting man on the floor and Ianto takes advantage of those few moments of confusion to jump on top of him and start throwing punch after punch, cursing and crying. His knuckles are bruised, numb and swollen and he’s dizzy and bleary eyed from overexertion when he realizes Jack hadn’t once tried to fight back and stops dead.
Jack stares up at him with haunted eyes. Ianto sobs when he looks over what he’s done. The entire right side of Jacks face, from his hair line to his jaw is a deep purple almost black colour and contrasts severely with his swollen, bleeding lips. Jack’s nose is slightly out of line as well. But its his eyes that shake him the most. The unadulterated pain and sadness in them is probably one of the most unnerving things he’d ever seen. He rolls off quickly and clambers away from his as quickly as he can. Once he feels his back impact wall he buries his head in his knees and begins to rock.
It takes him a few seconds after feeling something touch his back to realize it was Jack, but once he does, he launches himself at the man and wraps his arms around Jacks waist as tightly as he could and just holds on. Jack’s hands come around his back soon after and start rubbing slow, small circles on his back.
He falls asleep again, holding tight to the man he had tried so hard all those years ago to loose.
-\/\/-
Once Ianto had fallen asleep, jack works himself to his feet, bends and lifts him into his arms. slightly alarmed at how light the man is, he makes it a point to force some food on him once he was coherent enough. He places the younger man on the couch again and then rounds his desk and grabs his greatcoat and drapes it over him. Jack places a small kiss on Ianto’s clammy forehead and then heads for the door. He had sent everyone home a while ago because, thankfully, the Rift had been quiet over the past couple days and he didn’t find the need to make them stay longer than they had to, to check in and do some work.
He finds himself over at the coffee machine and his hand juts out to run lovingly over the spotless copper piping. It hadn’t been used since Ianto’s disappearance, and he had tried so many times to throw it away, like he’d tried to do with everything else that reminded Jack about him, but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t think he could have handle the finality. He still doesn’t think he could. He still shudders when he thinks about what a weaker man would have done in his position.
His hand is suddenly seized in a rather tight grip and he panics. He turns away from the coffee machine quickly and before he can take another breath Ianto’s lips are on his. It takes every ounce of willpower to pull back, especially when he feels Ianto’s tongue begin to press against his lips, but he does and just stares. Ianto’s are wild and slightly glazed and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that he’s probably running purely on fear and adrenaline. He talks slow and maintains eye contact. “What’s wrong, Ianto?” the words are out of his mouth before he notices how stupid they sounded.
Tears appear in Ianto’s eyes again as he begs. “Please, Jack.” He goes for Jack’s lips again and whimpers when he’s held back by a hand to the chest. “It’s been so long. Please.”
It nearly finishes him, but Jack has to shake his head and avert his eyes. “I can’t.” he answers quietly. “You’re not yourself. This isn’t you talking.”
His head impacts the brick wall behind him and for the second time in probably as many minutes he feels Ianto’s lips on his, and then, only then, does he figure out that Ianto hadn’t taken no for an answer. So, throwing every ounce of willpower and a whole lot of caution to the wind, he seizes the man’s face in both hands and forces it closer to his, until their nose smash together and his fingers tangle in Ianto’s hair. Ianto pulls back suddenly and Jack figures he’d come to his senses, but when he feels the younger mans hungry lips kiss and nip at the delicate skin along his jugular, his heart breaks even further and he swallows hard.
“Ianto, I-“
“Quiet,” he hears Ianto order.
He just nods and allows Ianto to continue. He lets him slide his suspenders off his shoulders. He lets him work his buckle loose. He even lets his pants fall to the floor. But, when Ianto’s fingers begin pulling at the elastic waist of his briefs, Jack stops him and forces Ianto’s face up with two fingers. “Are you sure, Ianto? Because I’m not going to stop you.”
A curt nod on Ianto’s part and his briefs are around his ankles.
His breath catches in his throat and his legs give when he feels Ianto’s ever so nimble fingers wrap around his suddenly aroused cock. He throws his head back and slides his ass closer to the edge of the chair and jerks violently when he feels Ianto’s mouth replace his fingers. He grabs at Ianto’s hair and yanks. “Damn it, Ianto.” His fingers pull harder as Ianto begins working faster. Heat begins building in the pit of his stomach and quickly takes over every one of his senses. He’d hate himself later on, but fuck if he didn’t love every second of right now.
He yells Ianto’s name, loud and desperate, as he releases and once the feeling of ecstasy dissipates enough to think straight he directs his attention Ianto for the first time since being forced into the chair. Ianto stares up at him with wild eyes which automatically tells Jack that it wasn’t over yet. Trying to talk to a man as on edge as Ianto would be redundant so he continues his silence and doesn’t object in any way when he was pulled to the floor and flipped around to his stomach.
“All fours.” Ianto orders and Jack obeys. “Don’t smile or I’ll kill you.”
He bites back on his obvious reply of, “wouldn’t work,” and just nods.
He stay obediently silent and moves in time with Ianto’s. He stays silent when he feels Ianto release inside of him. He stays silent as he slowly climbs to his feet and pulls his briefs back up. He stays silent as he works his pants back up. He stays silent as he walks away, not looking back, knowing Ianto’s worked himself into a corner and hearing only his gut wrenching sobs reverberate around the Hub louder than most of Myfanwy’s screeches, Jack closes the door to his office and collapses onto the couch.
As soon as Ceridwen’s smiling face enters his thoughts he shoots to his feet, takes two steps towards his desk and with one sweep of his arm, everything that’s not tied down, is on the floor. He grabs the phone, the only thing that managed to survive, thanks to its adhesive bottom, rips it off the desk and launches it at the wall behind his chair with a frustrated roar and then falls to his knees and cries.