[fic] don't tell me i should give up now; i couldn't if i knew how
Author's note: I keep saying to people that there's a log more going on behind the scenes with Ianto and Jack than I can really let on, because I play both of them. To which they responded, "why don't you write fic about it, then?" So... I did. This takes place between this log in which Sulu takes Ianto to see McCoy, and when he actually recovers from this illness from the 456. Title is from "I Won't Give Up" by Will Young, which is a song I stumbled on while trying to come up with a title for this. XD;; It just seemed to fit.
Also, feedback is my friend. ;3; So, if you read this, please tell me what you think? Encouragement is what'll get me to write more 'fill in the blanks' fics, after all.
It was late. Or at least Ianto thought it was late; he really had no idea what time it was on the ship at that moment. The lights were dimmed, which was what was leading him to think that it was late, but then come to think of it McCoy had taken to leaving them dimmed, while he still had to stay in the medical bay, since he spent most of his time sleeping. He really could have slept with them on, if he needed to (he probably could've slept through an attack to the ship, if one rolled around while he was out), but it was kind of the doctor to switch them at least partially off for him.
Spending time on the ship wasn't bad. The med bay bed wasn't as comfortable as his bed at home, but he felt safer being there. Being watched, and monitored. McCoy was treating his lightheadedness, so at least he could get up and go to the bathroom without needing to call someone in to help him, which made him feel more proud than it really should have. But he wasn't better, really. He still slept what felt like every minute of the day, sometimes his waking hours feeling more like a dream than anything else. He wasn't dreaming while he slept, not that he remembered, anyway, so it was like his mind was taking the addled moments in between sleeping and making them into dreams, when they should've been much more real to him. He hadn't shared that with the doctor, though. He didn't see the point. McCoy already knew that he was tired and asleep all the time, he didn't see why a little added confusion on the matter would be relevant at all.
He was so used to thinking about his moments of wakefulness being like a dream, though, that when he awoke to the doors of the med bay opening up and Jack walking through them, it took him a moment to register what it was that was actually going on. He blinked, hazily, shifting on the bed. "...Jack?" he asked, softly, his voice rough from sleep.
Jack moved to stand next to him, looking down at him lying in the bed. His expression was a far cry from its usual grin, his eyes looking sad and haunted, and without even needing to think about it, Ianto reached out a hand from underneath the blankets piled on top of him and reached for Jack's own hand. He knew that look, and he wanted to do everything he could to make it better, but he knew that it wasn't possible. Not yet. Not at all, really. Jack was going to lose him one day. He already had, so he knew what was coming when it happened. But he would lose him again, be it tomorrow, ten, fifty, eighty years from now. He'd die, and Jack would be standing there, looking down at him like he was right now, and there wasn't anything either of them could do to stop that.
It was Jack who finally broke the silence, his hand finally moving to clench around Ianto's own, rough and warm compared to Ianto's, soft and cold, still too cold, even for him, despite all of the chemicals that McCoy kept pumping through him, trying to find something to work, something to fix things. "They said that I could visit," he said, softly. "McCoy didn't know if you'd be awake, but. They said I could come sit."
Ianto's eyes softened, saddened. He wanted nothing more to just scoot over and make room in the bed for Jack to lie there too, so Jack could wrap him in his arms and they both could feel better about the situation than they did right then, but he couldn't. Not with this bed, not with the thing monitoring his vitals and lord knows what else it did, he wasn't really sure. He'd made up with Jack, after their argument--he hadn't been able to leave without things being at least somewhat okay between the two of them. But he knew he hadn't fixed it, knew especially now that Jack was standing over him, looking down at him with that expression on his face. He hadn't fixed things at all.
Ianto nodded to a chair across the room, a chair that both McCoy and Sulu had pulled up to the bed beside him before in the time that he'd been there. "Then sit," he said, softly.
Jack squeezed Ianto's hand, before letting go to go and grab the chair, pulling it up to the side of the bed and settling himself down in it, draping his greatcoat over the back of it and leaning forward to take Ianto's hand in his own again. He reached out and smoothed the blanket over Ianto's chest, slightly, purposely brushing his hand against Ianto's cheek before settling it down on the edge of the bed. "This is nice," he said, filling the silence. "Better than a lot of med bays I've seen."
Ianto shrugged. "It's not bad. Too different from a hospital to really bother me," he said. Jack knew he didn't like hospitals, so he nodded, making a little sound that he supposed meant that he thought that that was good, that Ianto wasn't bothered by being there. He wished he could say the same, that he wasn't bothered by Ianto being there, but he was. No, he wasn't bothered specifically by the fact that Ianto had gone to see McCoy, that he'd gone off-world to look for help, but. More in the fact that there was a need to be looking for help at all. Jack had stopped raging at Ianto, stopped being angry at him for holding out information like he had, but. He still hadn't really come to terms with the fact that Ianto wasn't better yet. Because underneath all of that anger, all of that yelling he had done, Jack was terrified. And Ianto could see that, now.
He sighed, shifting his head to the side to look at Jack, at how tired he looked, at how he could actually see his age in them, for once, and that that age almost swallowed him up. He couldn't even begin to imagine. And he was sorry, because he knew that he'd been at least partially responsible for bringing that look to Jack's eyes. He'd been at least partially responsible for reminding him that sometimes, bad things just got worse, not better. "I'm sorry..." he said quietly.
"Don't," said Jack, and it sounded entirely too similar to the last time Ianto had heard that word, when he was lying in Jack's arms, looking up at him as he felt himself slipping away. A lump came to his throat, because even if it wasn't exactly the same, this moment almost mirrored that one, with him looking up at Jack, him slowly slipping away, not having anything that either himself or Jack could do personally to stop it, and it was a little too much for him to think that way. So he said the next thing that came to his mind.
"Jack," he said. "I meant what I said. That day... About...y'know. How I--"
"Ianto, don't," Jack said, softly, but firmly, cutting him off.
"No," Ianto said, "you let me talk, Jack Harkness. I might not have had enough life left in me then to argue with you--" Jack winced at his words, "but I do now, and I'm not going to let you dismiss what I have to say like that, I'm not."
A moment of silence passed between them, awkward and too heavy, but Jack didn't speak up to argue, so Ianto started talking again.
"I mean it, Jack. I meant it then, and I mean it now, and... I mean it all those other times when I don't say it like I should. I'm sorry that things like that are hard for me. I'm sorry...that I'm an idiot. I'm sorry that I seem to have the most shit luck, sometimes. I'm..." He shifted, bringing his other hand up to cup the side of Jack's face. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. That I keep hurting you. I...you have to know that I never mean to do it. Not ever."
Jack just sat there, looking down at him, and it said something about how old and broken he was that his expression didn't change at all, that his voice didn't crack or his eyes didn't waver when he answered Ianto, "I know."
Ianto's heart broke a little at that, and he bit his lip, looking up at Jack sadly and stroking his cheek, so tired of crying, having done so way too much in the recent month, but his eyes watering for the other man in front of him regardless of that fact. "Let me make it up to you," he said, almost desperately. "As soon as I'm out of here, as soon as Doctor McCoy has found a cure, just name it. I'll...I'd do anything for you, Jack. You know that. Anything you want, just name it."
Jack looked down at him for a moment, his expression unchanging, just old and sad and tired, before a single word fell out of his mouth. "Leave."
Ianto blinked, his eyebrows furrowing. "No," he said, firmly.
"Leave," Jack said. "Leave Torchwood, leave Cardiff, leave...leave the whole goddamn planet if you have to. Stay...stay with Sulu. Go spend some time on someone else's world. Just... Go. I'm no good for you."
Ianto hoped that his heart monitor or whatever the bed was looking at wouldn't alert anyone that he was less than calm in that moment. He took his hand off of Jack's face, his other hand out of Jack's hand, before struggling to sit up. "No," he said firmly, "that's a load of bullshit and you know it, Jack, don't...don't you dare..."
"Ianto..." Jack said, cautiously, his eyes flicking to the readings on the monitor above the bed, which were obviously going up or changing in some way that he couldn't really decipher but probably wasn't any good, regardless. "Lie down. Calm down. You--"
"No," Ianto said. He managed to get himself sitting upright, before shifting to hang his feet off the side of the bed. Jack had heard about him passing out when he stood up, and that had been more than a day ago, Jack didn't know what sort of effect standing up would have on him now. "Ianto," he said, his voice slightly more panicked than before. "Ianto--" The monitors started beeping shrilly, not registering Ianto's vitals now that he wasn't in contact with enough of the bed, "Ianto, for god's sake-!!"
Ianto leaned forward and grabbed Jack by the lapels, pulling him up and out of his seat and close to him, his eyes fierce, his grip surprisingly firm for someone confined to a sickbay, sleeping most of the day away. "Don't," he growled. "Don't you dare tell me to leave, Jack Harkness, don't you dare tell me that you're not good for me. I was nothing without you, for a while there, nothing. Don't you dare insult me by saying things like that."
"You died, Ianto," Jack spat out, the words tumbling from his mouth before he had a chance to even think of filtering them. "You came with me into that room with the 456 and you died and I couldn't save you and it was my goddamn fault, all of--"
Ianto did the only thing he could think of that would get Jack to listen, and so he pulled Jack closer to him, crashing Jack's lips against his own and kissing him fiercely, disregarding the beeping of the monitors in the background and the fact that their sounding off might be bringing in Doctor McCoy any second now, to check what in the hell was going on. He didn't care about any of that, instead putting everything he had into this kiss, putting everything he had out there to say 'I love you', 'you mean the world to me', and most importantly 'like hell I'm going to just up and leave you, either of you, without one hell of a fight'.
He managed to pull back before he started to feel light-headed, his grip on Jack's shirt coming in handy as the room started to spin a little around him. He barely registered Jack forcing him down on the bed again, propping his legs up so that his feet were flat on the bed in front of him, his knees up so that all the blood would flow back to his head. He just lay there for a few moments, the ceiling swimming in and out of focus before he finally got a grip on reality again, registering Jack's hand on his throat, over his pulse, his head flat on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Slowly, Ianto brought a hand up, to run through Jack's hair, and Jack let out a little sigh of relief, as the monitors started to settle down and register Ianto's vitals properly again.
They stayed like that for a moment, Ianto not quite sure what else to say, and Jack still a little too charged from having to think that quickly on his feet when everything in him had been screaming that this was it, he was going to lose him right then, right in his arms, just like he did last time. But then Ianto's hands were in his hair, and his breathing and heart rate were stabilizing, and he was just so glad in that moment to not be losing him that he fell back on old habits, and said, "...that's the first time that's happened to anyone when they kissed me."
Ianto shut his eyes, breathing deeply, willing his heart rate down to a more normal speed again. "I'm just full of surprises," he said, breathlessly.
Jack chuckled despite himself. It was probably on account of the adrenaline rushing through his system, he figured. "You're an idiot," he said, after a moment. Ianto shrugged, threading his hand through Jack's hair some more.
As Jack stood there, hunched over the other man, his head laying on his chest, his heart slowly making its way down his throat to where it belonged, he knew that he'd never be able to handle it if Ianto just up and left, like he'd told him to. That he would have been responsible yet again for getting rid of one of the single most important things in his life at that moment, if not the most important. "...I guess I am too," he said, quietly. Ianto shrugged again.
"It's best to just be able to admit to that fact and leave it at that, I think," he said, softly, before the door to the med bay slid open and McCoy hurried in, Jack straightening up as the other man shot a look at them, a look at Ianto's vitals, and then launched into a tirade about what the hell they even thought they were doing, there. He was angry enough to order Jack away for the time being, but not enough to courteously turn his back on the two of them as he readied another dose of what he'd found to work the best so far for Ianto, and allow Jack to say his goodbyes before he was out the door and Ianto was being forced back under the blankets, stuck unceremoniously with yet another hypospray, and slowly drifting off from the effects of it.
He smiled as he drifted, though. He'd found a purpose again, after all. Jack had reminded him that he needed to keep up his hope, not just for himself but for Sulu and Jack as well. That he needed to get better to be there and keep the pair of them in line, to go to San Francisco in the future, to coerce former Time Agents into settling down a little more, but most of all reassuring them that he wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Not if he had any say in the matter.
Jack would be back. And Sulu'd show up even sooner than that. And he'd reassure Sulu too, when he got there, in his own way. Ianto Jones was not one to sit back and let the bad guys win, not without a fight, and if a fight was what it took to make sure he stayed put, stayed there to spend as much time as he could with the two men who so obviously needed him, then he would give it everything he had. Because what he had now, with them, what they could have in the future, together, it was worth so much more than he could even fathom. And if he was going to have to fight them to stay put, then he would. He wasn't letting this go. Not without giving it his all, first.
Also, feedback is my friend. ;3; So, if you read this, please tell me what you think? Encouragement is what'll get me to write more 'fill in the blanks' fics, after all.
It was late. Or at least Ianto thought it was late; he really had no idea what time it was on the ship at that moment. The lights were dimmed, which was what was leading him to think that it was late, but then come to think of it McCoy had taken to leaving them dimmed, while he still had to stay in the medical bay, since he spent most of his time sleeping. He really could have slept with them on, if he needed to (he probably could've slept through an attack to the ship, if one rolled around while he was out), but it was kind of the doctor to switch them at least partially off for him.
Spending time on the ship wasn't bad. The med bay bed wasn't as comfortable as his bed at home, but he felt safer being there. Being watched, and monitored. McCoy was treating his lightheadedness, so at least he could get up and go to the bathroom without needing to call someone in to help him, which made him feel more proud than it really should have. But he wasn't better, really. He still slept what felt like every minute of the day, sometimes his waking hours feeling more like a dream than anything else. He wasn't dreaming while he slept, not that he remembered, anyway, so it was like his mind was taking the addled moments in between sleeping and making them into dreams, when they should've been much more real to him. He hadn't shared that with the doctor, though. He didn't see the point. McCoy already knew that he was tired and asleep all the time, he didn't see why a little added confusion on the matter would be relevant at all.
He was so used to thinking about his moments of wakefulness being like a dream, though, that when he awoke to the doors of the med bay opening up and Jack walking through them, it took him a moment to register what it was that was actually going on. He blinked, hazily, shifting on the bed. "...Jack?" he asked, softly, his voice rough from sleep.
Jack moved to stand next to him, looking down at him lying in the bed. His expression was a far cry from its usual grin, his eyes looking sad and haunted, and without even needing to think about it, Ianto reached out a hand from underneath the blankets piled on top of him and reached for Jack's own hand. He knew that look, and he wanted to do everything he could to make it better, but he knew that it wasn't possible. Not yet. Not at all, really. Jack was going to lose him one day. He already had, so he knew what was coming when it happened. But he would lose him again, be it tomorrow, ten, fifty, eighty years from now. He'd die, and Jack would be standing there, looking down at him like he was right now, and there wasn't anything either of them could do to stop that.
It was Jack who finally broke the silence, his hand finally moving to clench around Ianto's own, rough and warm compared to Ianto's, soft and cold, still too cold, even for him, despite all of the chemicals that McCoy kept pumping through him, trying to find something to work, something to fix things. "They said that I could visit," he said, softly. "McCoy didn't know if you'd be awake, but. They said I could come sit."
Ianto's eyes softened, saddened. He wanted nothing more to just scoot over and make room in the bed for Jack to lie there too, so Jack could wrap him in his arms and they both could feel better about the situation than they did right then, but he couldn't. Not with this bed, not with the thing monitoring his vitals and lord knows what else it did, he wasn't really sure. He'd made up with Jack, after their argument--he hadn't been able to leave without things being at least somewhat okay between the two of them. But he knew he hadn't fixed it, knew especially now that Jack was standing over him, looking down at him with that expression on his face. He hadn't fixed things at all.
Ianto nodded to a chair across the room, a chair that both McCoy and Sulu had pulled up to the bed beside him before in the time that he'd been there. "Then sit," he said, softly.
Jack squeezed Ianto's hand, before letting go to go and grab the chair, pulling it up to the side of the bed and settling himself down in it, draping his greatcoat over the back of it and leaning forward to take Ianto's hand in his own again. He reached out and smoothed the blanket over Ianto's chest, slightly, purposely brushing his hand against Ianto's cheek before settling it down on the edge of the bed. "This is nice," he said, filling the silence. "Better than a lot of med bays I've seen."
Ianto shrugged. "It's not bad. Too different from a hospital to really bother me," he said. Jack knew he didn't like hospitals, so he nodded, making a little sound that he supposed meant that he thought that that was good, that Ianto wasn't bothered by being there. He wished he could say the same, that he wasn't bothered by Ianto being there, but he was. No, he wasn't bothered specifically by the fact that Ianto had gone to see McCoy, that he'd gone off-world to look for help, but. More in the fact that there was a need to be looking for help at all. Jack had stopped raging at Ianto, stopped being angry at him for holding out information like he had, but. He still hadn't really come to terms with the fact that Ianto wasn't better yet. Because underneath all of that anger, all of that yelling he had done, Jack was terrified. And Ianto could see that, now.
He sighed, shifting his head to the side to look at Jack, at how tired he looked, at how he could actually see his age in them, for once, and that that age almost swallowed him up. He couldn't even begin to imagine. And he was sorry, because he knew that he'd been at least partially responsible for bringing that look to Jack's eyes. He'd been at least partially responsible for reminding him that sometimes, bad things just got worse, not better. "I'm sorry..." he said quietly.
"Don't," said Jack, and it sounded entirely too similar to the last time Ianto had heard that word, when he was lying in Jack's arms, looking up at him as he felt himself slipping away. A lump came to his throat, because even if it wasn't exactly the same, this moment almost mirrored that one, with him looking up at Jack, him slowly slipping away, not having anything that either himself or Jack could do personally to stop it, and it was a little too much for him to think that way. So he said the next thing that came to his mind.
"Jack," he said. "I meant what I said. That day... About...y'know. How I--"
"Ianto, don't," Jack said, softly, but firmly, cutting him off.
"No," Ianto said, "you let me talk, Jack Harkness. I might not have had enough life left in me then to argue with you--" Jack winced at his words, "but I do now, and I'm not going to let you dismiss what I have to say like that, I'm not."
A moment of silence passed between them, awkward and too heavy, but Jack didn't speak up to argue, so Ianto started talking again.
"I mean it, Jack. I meant it then, and I mean it now, and... I mean it all those other times when I don't say it like I should. I'm sorry that things like that are hard for me. I'm sorry...that I'm an idiot. I'm sorry that I seem to have the most shit luck, sometimes. I'm..." He shifted, bringing his other hand up to cup the side of Jack's face. "I'm sorry that I hurt you. That I keep hurting you. I...you have to know that I never mean to do it. Not ever."
Jack just sat there, looking down at him, and it said something about how old and broken he was that his expression didn't change at all, that his voice didn't crack or his eyes didn't waver when he answered Ianto, "I know."
Ianto's heart broke a little at that, and he bit his lip, looking up at Jack sadly and stroking his cheek, so tired of crying, having done so way too much in the recent month, but his eyes watering for the other man in front of him regardless of that fact. "Let me make it up to you," he said, almost desperately. "As soon as I'm out of here, as soon as Doctor McCoy has found a cure, just name it. I'll...I'd do anything for you, Jack. You know that. Anything you want, just name it."
Jack looked down at him for a moment, his expression unchanging, just old and sad and tired, before a single word fell out of his mouth. "Leave."
Ianto blinked, his eyebrows furrowing. "No," he said, firmly.
"Leave," Jack said. "Leave Torchwood, leave Cardiff, leave...leave the whole goddamn planet if you have to. Stay...stay with Sulu. Go spend some time on someone else's world. Just... Go. I'm no good for you."
Ianto hoped that his heart monitor or whatever the bed was looking at wouldn't alert anyone that he was less than calm in that moment. He took his hand off of Jack's face, his other hand out of Jack's hand, before struggling to sit up. "No," he said firmly, "that's a load of bullshit and you know it, Jack, don't...don't you dare..."
"Ianto..." Jack said, cautiously, his eyes flicking to the readings on the monitor above the bed, which were obviously going up or changing in some way that he couldn't really decipher but probably wasn't any good, regardless. "Lie down. Calm down. You--"
"No," Ianto said. He managed to get himself sitting upright, before shifting to hang his feet off the side of the bed. Jack had heard about him passing out when he stood up, and that had been more than a day ago, Jack didn't know what sort of effect standing up would have on him now. "Ianto," he said, his voice slightly more panicked than before. "Ianto--" The monitors started beeping shrilly, not registering Ianto's vitals now that he wasn't in contact with enough of the bed, "Ianto, for god's sake-!!"
Ianto leaned forward and grabbed Jack by the lapels, pulling him up and out of his seat and close to him, his eyes fierce, his grip surprisingly firm for someone confined to a sickbay, sleeping most of the day away. "Don't," he growled. "Don't you dare tell me to leave, Jack Harkness, don't you dare tell me that you're not good for me. I was nothing without you, for a while there, nothing. Don't you dare insult me by saying things like that."
"You died, Ianto," Jack spat out, the words tumbling from his mouth before he had a chance to even think of filtering them. "You came with me into that room with the 456 and you died and I couldn't save you and it was my goddamn fault, all of--"
Ianto did the only thing he could think of that would get Jack to listen, and so he pulled Jack closer to him, crashing Jack's lips against his own and kissing him fiercely, disregarding the beeping of the monitors in the background and the fact that their sounding off might be bringing in Doctor McCoy any second now, to check what in the hell was going on. He didn't care about any of that, instead putting everything he had into this kiss, putting everything he had out there to say 'I love you', 'you mean the world to me', and most importantly 'like hell I'm going to just up and leave you, either of you, without one hell of a fight'.
He managed to pull back before he started to feel light-headed, his grip on Jack's shirt coming in handy as the room started to spin a little around him. He barely registered Jack forcing him down on the bed again, propping his legs up so that his feet were flat on the bed in front of him, his knees up so that all the blood would flow back to his head. He just lay there for a few moments, the ceiling swimming in and out of focus before he finally got a grip on reality again, registering Jack's hand on his throat, over his pulse, his head flat on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Slowly, Ianto brought a hand up, to run through Jack's hair, and Jack let out a little sigh of relief, as the monitors started to settle down and register Ianto's vitals properly again.
They stayed like that for a moment, Ianto not quite sure what else to say, and Jack still a little too charged from having to think that quickly on his feet when everything in him had been screaming that this was it, he was going to lose him right then, right in his arms, just like he did last time. But then Ianto's hands were in his hair, and his breathing and heart rate were stabilizing, and he was just so glad in that moment to not be losing him that he fell back on old habits, and said, "...that's the first time that's happened to anyone when they kissed me."
Ianto shut his eyes, breathing deeply, willing his heart rate down to a more normal speed again. "I'm just full of surprises," he said, breathlessly.
Jack chuckled despite himself. It was probably on account of the adrenaline rushing through his system, he figured. "You're an idiot," he said, after a moment. Ianto shrugged, threading his hand through Jack's hair some more.
As Jack stood there, hunched over the other man, his head laying on his chest, his heart slowly making its way down his throat to where it belonged, he knew that he'd never be able to handle it if Ianto just up and left, like he'd told him to. That he would have been responsible yet again for getting rid of one of the single most important things in his life at that moment, if not the most important. "...I guess I am too," he said, quietly. Ianto shrugged again.
"It's best to just be able to admit to that fact and leave it at that, I think," he said, softly, before the door to the med bay slid open and McCoy hurried in, Jack straightening up as the other man shot a look at them, a look at Ianto's vitals, and then launched into a tirade about what the hell they even thought they were doing, there. He was angry enough to order Jack away for the time being, but not enough to courteously turn his back on the two of them as he readied another dose of what he'd found to work the best so far for Ianto, and allow Jack to say his goodbyes before he was out the door and Ianto was being forced back under the blankets, stuck unceremoniously with yet another hypospray, and slowly drifting off from the effects of it.
He smiled as he drifted, though. He'd found a purpose again, after all. Jack had reminded him that he needed to keep up his hope, not just for himself but for Sulu and Jack as well. That he needed to get better to be there and keep the pair of them in line, to go to San Francisco in the future, to coerce former Time Agents into settling down a little more, but most of all reassuring them that he wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Not if he had any say in the matter.
Jack would be back. And Sulu'd show up even sooner than that. And he'd reassure Sulu too, when he got there, in his own way. Ianto Jones was not one to sit back and let the bad guys win, not without a fight, and if a fight was what it took to make sure he stayed put, stayed there to spend as much time as he could with the two men who so obviously needed him, then he would give it everything he had. Because what he had now, with them, what they could have in the future, together, it was worth so much more than he could even fathom. And if he was going to have to fight them to stay put, then he would. He wasn't letting this go. Not without giving it his all, first.