Give Me Pain if That's What's Real part 1
Title: Give Me Pain if That's What's Real
Part: 1/2
Pairing: Jack/Ianto primarily, mention of Jack/OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post Season 3 Spoilers
Beta'd: By the glorious pintsizeninja
Summary: I know I should be working on Revelations. However, first I had to exorcise the demon of CoE, and man, what a bitch of a demon it was. Ambiguous-fix!it fic. Title and some inspiration taken from Next to Normal. Remember Head!Six from Battlestar Galactica? Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Excerpt:
"You're overlooking something there," Ianto says.
"And what would that be?" Jack asks.
Ianto remains silent. He simply gives Jack a bored stare while lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers exaggeratedly. Jack's eyebrows rise to meet his hairline.
"I'll ignore that you just did jazz hands in my face," Jack says, "if only to point out that you seem to be overlooking the fact that you're not real."
"I can touch you, can't I?"
"Well, that only makes sense. I'm the one who's gone crazy, after all."
"Obviously."
When you're immortal and thousands of years old, nothing tends to surprise you anymore. So naturally, Jack jerks hard enough to smack his head against the low ceiling when he sees the man sitting on his bunk, a space which two seconds ago had been filled with nothing but re-circulated air above the tightly tucked blanket.
The pain from the impact of his skull goes completely unnoticed when the figure sitting there turns confused, terrified, and worse yet, completely empty eyes to look at Jack. Jack's mouth drops open in shock. He blinks several times, but the vision remains.
The hallucination flexes its fingers on trouser clad knees and breathes deeply against a pin-stripe gray waistcoat before closing his eyes briefly. A shudder runs through the man's frame that Jack's body unconsciously echoes.
After a moment, the vision's eyes open again. The blood is rushing in Jack's ears behind the hysterical chant of not real, not real, gonegonegone, as his gaze charts over fuzzily-remembered features. A rush of grief-riddled guilt washes through Jack as he realizes he's all but forgotten how beautiful this man is. Was.
He can't make a move for fear that the vision will fade before he's reminded himself. He knows that some synapses must be firing out of turn, some half-buried impression jumping to the front of his too old, too human brain.
The man sitting on his bunk breaks their staring contest to look around. Something besides that terrible doll-like emptiness enters his features as he seems to take stock of his surroundings. When he turns back to look at Jack, his lips open and close a couple times as if in practice before they expel a single devastating syllable.
"Jack."
Jack's eyes snap shut involuntarily at the sound of that voice, the tone and timbre a detail he thought was lost long ago. He fights against the tears burning hot behind his eyes as the vision's name is wrenched from somewhere between his heart and his stomach.
"Ianto."
He opens his eyes, expecting to be alone in his quarters, alone in his head again. He finds that Ianto (not-Ianto) is still there, looking at Jack with softened eyes, moisture making the light glint sharply off the blue of his irises.
"You did remember," Ianto says, voice a choked rumble.
"Of course I do," Jack answers without thinking.
Ianto smiles, and it's like a punch straight to Jack's solar plexus.
The next time Jack blinks, the vision disappears.
------------------
After Jack's done having a quiet yet fairly potent breakdown with his back to the wall, legs scrunched underneath where they'd given out, he tries to figure out what the fuck brought that on.
It's three days later when he realizes the date he'd broken down had been one thousand Earth years exactly since...
Don't forget me. In a thousand years' time? You won't remember me.
Jack chalks it up to a quirk of survivor's guilt (and doesn't he have that in ship loads?) and catches the next freighter out of the Alpha quadrant after marking it mentally as an off-limits zone.
Jack wonders if eternity will be long enough, if the universe is small enough, that he'll exhaust all of the possible places to run away to.
------------------
When Jack gasps back to life a couple weeks later, he's forced to accept that his momentary lapse might not have been so momentary after all.
"Now that was unnecessary," Ianto says, sarcasm obscuring an obviously concerned glance as Jack warily picks himself up, groaning at the popping of newly realigned joints.
"What, getting jumped from behind or losing the fight?" Jack asks automatically, too tired from the regeneration to do anything but play along with his own twisted psychosis.
"The part where you picked the fight in the first place," Ianto says with a raised eyebrow. "I think my favorite part was when you called him a... well, whatever you called him, it sounded gratuitously filthy."
"Manchbik. Think giant mutant slug-horse with sharp teeth and ten vaginas."
"Indeed."
Ianto's giving Jack that look. The one that is (was) reserved for times that Jack's said something particularly ridiculous, but Ianto can't bring himself to be anything more than fondly exasperated. Jack finds he can't quite look at Ianto directly. The memory-made-flesh is too vivid, too detailed; looking at Ianto hurts.
"Are you supposed to be my conscience or something?" Jack asks.
Ianto snorts.
"I highly doubt it. I gave up attempting to appeal to your better side a long time ago," he says. "Besides, your complete lack of tact is part of your rather unaccountable charm."
Jack really attempts not to be amused or riled. He also tries not to think about the fact that he's basically holding a conversation with himself.
"Then what are you? Some kind of delayed grief?"
"It's been over a thousand years, Jack. You've gotten over me by now."
"Accepted, moved on, sure," Jack says. "But there are some things you don't ever really get over."
Ianto looks gutted.
Jack turns around and starts walking until he's sure he's alone again.
------------------
"No tumors, no viruses, no implants," Zilnak says in his whispering, multi-faceted voice. He cycles through the images of scans flashing out of the globe-like projector in the center of the room. "As far as we can tell, you are functioning at 100% capability."
The translucent alien doctor reaches out a tentacle to turn off the projector and Jack frowns.
"There's got to be something," Jack says. "No weird energy signatures, wave patterns, nano-bots?"
Zilnak's bio-luminescence dims in concern.
"No. Do you have reason to believe you are under attack?" he asks.
Jack grins.
"I rarely have reason to believe I'm not under attack," Jack says.
"Any idea of who it is that might wish you harm?"
"Not... specifically. I don't think I've pissed anyone off for the past couple hundred years who'd be capable of something like this."
The alien's body undulates in what Jack has come to recognize as a shrug.
"All of our best equipment is showing no indication of outside influence," Zilnak says. "We have run every possible scan several times at your insistence, Captain. Your vagueness in describing the problem has not helped much in the search for whatever it is that could be causing it. Are you going to explain to us what the particular trouble happens to be?"
"I told you, I've been seeing things."
"Things?"
"Things that shouldn't be there."
"Ah. Well, as we said, Captain, if you cannot be more forthcoming on the issue, we are afraid we cannot be more helpful than to tell you that physically, there is nothing wrong with you. Psychologically, perhaps-"
"Thanks, Zilnak, that'll be all."
Zilnak gives out a "Hmph"-equivalent before wrapping long, boneless fingers around Jack's wrist.
"We can assume this means that we will not be seeing you again for another dozen cycles?"
Jack winces before twining their hands together in apology. He gives a short squeeze before stepping away.
"I'm never in one place for long. You know that."
"We do. Long-term attachments do not seem to become you. It does not stop us from wondering why, however."
This must have been eating away at you. Why didn't you tell me?
Jack gives a dazzling smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"See you, Zilnak."
Everywhere he turns, Jack is being painfully reminded of the why.
------------------
Jack starts to see Ianto on a regular basis. Occasionally it's just a flash, a face in a crowd, Ianto smiling at him from across the room.
The disturbing thing is that most of the time it's not just a flash. Jack gets used to the low, melodic tones of Ianto's voice to the point that he stops jumping like a startled cat every time Ianto addresses him suddenly. The few times Jack acts surprised to see Ianto, the vision gives him a smug, affectionate smirk. If he didn't know Ianto wasn't real, Jack would almost think he enjoyed scaring the hell out of Jack with his abrupt appearances.
Jack decides he probably shouldn't encourage himself and resolutely refuses to respond to the many comments and queries he gets from Ianto over the first week of increased activity. If he ignores his own insanity, maybe it will go away. It certainly wouldn't do to begin talking to himself in public; there's already far too much attention drawn toward Jack on a regular basis as it is.
After a while it seems to work, and Ianto stops trying to talk to him.
Jack tries not to feel guilty at the looks of quiet resignation he gets from the vision. He tries not to be comforted by Ianto's silent presence at his side, tries not to smile when he notices an extra shadow following him around.
Jack considers seeing someone about it, but he highly doubts there's any psychiatrist capable of dealing with the problems of a mind that should have stopped holding an electric charge thousands of years ago. In a sense, Jack finds it to be a strange type of relief to know that even he is capable of going senile in his old age. Even if he is a fixed point in time, some part of him is deteriorating, changing.
He counts it like he counts every gray hair he finds as a sign that maybe, just maybe, the Doctor was wrong this once. Maybe even Jack has an end. Maybe the next time Jack dies, it'll stick.
Jack thinks that for anyone else, finding hope in the idea would be a little morbid.
------------------
"Don't tell me you're just going to leave them there," Ianto says.
It's the first time the vision has bothered speaking in weeks.
Jack keeps running down the twisting corridor and remains silent. The entire planet is going to go up in an hour if the rogue Judoon have their way, which is looking increasingly more likely. Jack needs to get to an escape vessel if he doesn't want to spend the next few thousand years (or more) floating through the vacuum of space.
"You are leaving, aren't you?"
Jack starts running faster.
"As utterly fantastic as it's been to have the only person who seems to be able to see me acting like I don't exist, I really wish you would stop bloody ignoring me!"
Jack's back slams against a line of metal rivets. He has a split second to be annoyed at the architect who thought metal rivets poking out of the wall were in any way a practical or aesthetically pleasing feature of a research facility before he realizes that there are hands gripping the front of his shirt, hands that he can feel, and that those hands belong to an absolutely livid Ianto Jones.
Jack conquers the vertigo of the conflicting urges to throw up and pull Ianto in all the way until he can really feel him by gripping the other man's shoulders and holding him out at arm's length. Jack's shaking, minute tremors down the lines of tautly held muscles.
Some corner of Jack's mind that isn't completely freaking the fuck out calmly waves goodbye to the last shred of his sanity. It's not surprising to find that he's finally lost it, really, but he'd thought that up to this point he'd been holding it together fairly well, all things considered.
When he stops hyperventilating and his vision stops blacking out around the edges, Jack takes a good look at Ianto and realizes the other man is staring wide-eyed back at him, mouth dropped into a perfect O of surprise. Jack attempts to fight back the hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of his throat at the relief he feels that at least Ianto's just as shocked as he is. He fails.
"I think I'm almost more horrified than myself," Jack attempts to explain between hiccuping laughs when Ianto shoots him a questioning look.
Ianto steps back, the sudden lack of contact shivering through Jack's body. Jack's laughs trail off into silence.
"Well, that's interesting," Ianto says shakily.
"...Huh?" Jack asks, still trying to assimilate. He pushes himself away from the wall, his back giving a slight twinge of pain.
"I didn't realize I could... well... touch you," Ianto says. "I mean, I just assumed I... it never occurred to me to try before now, I suppose."
Jack blinks.
"I'm not quite sure how to feel about it," Ianto continues diplomatically, his ever-so-professional and impassive mask now firmly in place.
"You're not sure how to feel about it?" Jack asks, bile rising in his throat. "I can't... Fuck. What kind of hallucination- what are you?"
"I've been wondering that myself,actually. As I've had the past few weeks to do nothing but think about it," Ianto says, an accusingly hurt tone creeping in around the edges, "I've come up with a few theories. I mean, I could be a hallucination. But honestly, I don't really feel like one."
Jack's eyes widen before he abruptly turns and starts walking briskly towards the escape crafts.
"Oh, not this again," Ianto says, following him. "Look, we can figure out the rest later, but I think it's pretty obvious that you can't just keep ignoring me now."
"Watch me," Jack says.
"Jack."
Ianto places a hand on Jack's elbow as they walk. Jack tenses but doesn't pull away. Ianto's touch feels as real as the floor under his feet, as real as his coat-tails swishing softly behind him. Ianto can't be here. He can't.
It seems for the time being, though, that Jack can't keep acting as if he's not being directly affected by Ianto's non-existence.
"What do you want?" Jack asks, breaking into a run again.
Ianto shoots him a sideways glance and matches Jack when he picks up the pace. Jack ignores the sudden pang of nostalgia as their pounding steps synchronize.
"I want you to try," Ianto says after a pause. "It's not too late to save them."
Jack lets out a bitter laugh.
"You sure you're not my conscience?" he asks.
Ianto rolls his eyes.
"Since it seems you've somehow misplaced yours, I suppose I'll have to oblige."
"I don't have time," Jack says. "Fifty minutes, tops, before this whole planet is space dust. Me along with it. I really don't want to find out what it's like to feel my atoms slowly drift back together to revive me only so that I can explosively asphyxiate over and over for millennia. Besides, what are they to me? Fellow passengers, drifters, criminals. I can't save everyone."
"I know that," Ianto says. Jack's guts twist. "But you're not there yet. We can think of something. The Jack I know would try to save them."
"The Jack you know died along with you and Stephen," Jack bites out as they reach the docking bay.
Ianto remains silent as Jack uses his vortex manipulator to hijack the control system of the closest escape vessel. The loading ramp hisses open before thudding down at their feet.
"...That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?" Ianto asks, not unkindly, as he follows Jack toward the bridge.
Jack can't help the smirk.
"When you get as old as I am, a little melodrama is expected," Jack says. He drops into the control chair, his fingers deftly flipping switches and turning knobs as he begins the take-off sequence. "I'd tell you to buckle up for safety, but since you're a figment of my imagination, I doubt a little jostling would hurt you."
Ianto sighs as he takes a seat at the station next to Jack.
"C'mon, Jack. There's got to be something."
"Forty five minutes. I'll be lucky to make it past the blast radius. No way I'm going back for them."
"What about the drill; if you can disable it that would offset the explosion."
"The only way to disable a Linaquian mark three core drill is to send a straight blast to its internal sensor panel, and sorry," Jack says, sarcastic tilt to his voice, "but these old escape vessels are technically supposed to be manned by four; I've got my hands full driving as it is."
"You're overlooking something there," Ianto says.
"And what would that be?" Jack asks.
Ianto remains silent. He simply gives Jack a bored stare while lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers exaggeratedly. Jack's eyebrows rise to meet his hairline.
"I'll ignore that you just did jazz hands in my face," Jack says, "if only to point out that you seem to be overlooking the fact that you're not real."
"I can touch you, can't I?"
"Well, that only makes sense. I'm the one who's gone crazy, after all."
"Obviously."
"The point is," Jack says as the shuttle begins cycling into take-off, "you can touch me because you're in my head. There's no way you could possibly-"
Jack gets cut off when Ianto pointedly grabs the oxygen mask dangling from a broken panel in the ceiling and lobs it at Jack's head.
"Okaaaaay," Jack says, rubbing the sore spot on his scalp. "More hallucinations. Brilliant."
"Yes, seeing as it couldn't possibly be real, despite all evidence to the contrary," Ianto says. "Maybe you're developing psychokinetic powers to go hand in hand with the dementia."
"Alright, that is so not something I need to be worrying about on top of everything else," Jack says.
"Damn it, Jack! We can at least give it a go on the way past. Just tell me where the weapons controls are."
Jack pauses as the core drill looms closer through the view-finder. The craft picks up speed, and Jack knows any completely irrational window of opportunity is closing rapidly.
Oh, what the hell.
"Blue keyboard on the left, the characters are set in numerical order. The frequency you need to type in for it to lock onto the internal sensor panel of that drill should be an algorithm multiplied from the first three rotating numbers on the display above, factored in with the speed and external sensor readings showing above the controls I'm using," Jack explains as he readies the vessel to break the atmosphere. "It's similar to the Filbian power conduits that are in stun guns."
"Seems a little simple doesn't it?" Ianto asks while his fingers fly across the keyboard.
"These old thirty-fifth century models are pretty user-friendly," Jack says. "Besides, you don't really need to go for accuracy with this, just power."
"Right. Trigger?"
"That would be the big red button."
"Of course it would be."
"Hey, cliché can be a good thing."
"I'll have to take your word for it. Firing now."
Jack manages to hold it together when he feels the lurch of the escape vessel as its laser canon emits a pulse. He holds it together when they make it past what should be the blast radius and no world-destroying explosion occurs. He holds it together when multiple scans show the planet to be intact. He holds it together long enough to pilot the ship around to get visual confirmation that there's still a big mass of matter orbiting around twin suns, their light casting one side of the planet into darkness and glaring against the clear plastic of the space shield.
He even holds it together when Ianto smiles at him.
"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Ianto asks.
Jack takes in a deep, shuddering breath. When he lets it out, he's still entirely unsure as to whether or not everything is one giant day dream, still unsure as to what's real and what's not.
"Jack?" Ianto asks worriedly when Jack remains silent.
"Please, just... stop," Jack finally manages, his voice a broken plea. "I've got no idea- no fucking clue... None of this can be happening."
Out of the corner of his eye, he registers Ianto's hand coming up to hover over his arm. Like Ianto's torn between whether he should try to comfort Jack or not. Like Ianto's there to offer comfort in the first place.
"It's too much," Jack says. "I can't, Ianto. I just can't."
"Okay," Ianto says quietly. "I...I guess we both have things to think about-"
"Don't," Jack cuts him off.
Jack clenches his eyes shut when Ianto walks away from the bridge, his footsteps slowly echoing into nothingness.
It's another minute or so before Jack presses a palm over his mouth and lets out a single choked sob.
------------------
Over the course of the next few weeks, Jack tries to come to terms with it all. He checks and double-checks the data he'd collected during the escape. Several different holo-feeds run reports that the planet was found unharmed at the arrival of the Shadow Proclamation and subsequently brought under intergalactic protection. Asking around tells him the same story, and Jack becomes about as certain as he can be that the planet was actually saved. He spends three days attempting to drink himself to death in a seedy hotel room.
He doesn't see Ianto during the three days, and he convinces himself he was really too drunk on the second day to remember the cool hands brushing over his face and guiding him to bed from where he'd been passed out on the bathroom floor.
Though a nice distraction, the drinking doesn't really seem to help. Jack finds that over analyzing everything doesn't really do much good, either. He knows that no one else can see Ianto or has indicated that they can see Ianto. Ianto can manipulate matter around him as if he's actually there. However, Ianto only appears tangible to Jack. Obviously, Jack was the only person (discounting Ianto) in the craft. Though it seems as if Ianto can have a causal effect upon reality, there was no one else there to verify that the laser canon fired itself. It could be that Jack somehow managed to pilot the ship and fire the laser himself; it's just that his mind is telling him Ianto was there to help him out.
Of course, even if Ianto were to ever pick up an object with someone else present to witness it, a prospective third party reaction doesn't automatically mean Ianto's actually there. If Jack's mind can manage to create a very real, very tangible version of a dead lover, it stands to reason that it could also create any sort of scenario that seems real. But then that line of thought leads Jack to question whether he can trust his senses to tell him anything. Maybe Jack is being deceived through frighteningly advanced alien mind control or he's actually a brain in a vat being experimented on somewhere. Every practical thing Jack can do about the situation has no way of addressing such gross paranoid fears, so they pretty much become useless speculation.
Ianto stays mostly out of sight as per Jack's request, but that doesn't fool Jack into thinking Ianto's gone. The few glances he gets of Ianto over the next couple of weeks confirm his suspicions that, yup, still crazy. Ianto always gives him an apologetic smile when their eyes meet before making a hasty exit. This of course, leads Jack to question the motives of the vision, if indeed Ianto is not something of Jack's own twisted making. Since Ianto doesn't seem to be doing anything to harm Jack or convince Jack to harm anyone else, Jack has to assume that the hallucinations are not the result of a Bilis Manger-like being trying to manipulate Jack to some nefarious purpose. Hell, under the circumstances, Jack would say Ianto's bending over backwards to be as reasonable as possible
Theories involving the rift, ghosts, Huon particles, thought-form aliens, and nanogenes are all dismissed as being too far-fetched, too ridiculous, or too pathetically hopeful to hold any measure of truth.
After a lot of thought, Jack doesn't really see why he shouldn't indulge his own insanity every once in a while as long as he's cautious. Ignoring the hallucinations doesn't work. Stressing out over whether or not he's actually seeing something real isn't the most fun, either. If he caves a little bit and allows himself to interact with a memory, what's the real harm?
------------------
The next time he sees Ianto, Jack decides he should set up some ground rules. Ianto beats his normal retreat when they make eye contact across the crowded cantina. Jack follows him out to find Ianto leaning up against a wall behind the building away from the busy street. Ianto looks surprised to find that Jack has followed him. It's a little unnerving to learn that Ianto doesn't seem to disappear whenever he leaves Jack's sight.
"So," Jack says, leaning up against the wall next to Ianto, far enough away that their shoulders aren't in danger of brushing, "seems like we've got a bit of a situation to deal with."
"You've come to a decision, then?" Ianto asks.
Jack looks at him, but Ianto stares resolutely ahead. His arms are crossed over his chest, and Jack can see the wrinkles in the fabric where Ianto's fingers are clutching white-knuckled at the insides of his elbows.
"You implying I've actually got some sort of choice, here?" Jack asks.
Ianto shrugs.
"I don't know why or how I'm here anymore than you do, Jack," Ianto says. "Since both of us seem clueless, tie-breaker on deciding how to handle it goes to the one who isn't mostly invisible. My existence seems to be contingent upon you, in any case."
"That's pretty rational of you," Jack says.
Ianto sighs.
"I had hoped you might have some answers, but I can't even convince you that I'm not a figment of your imagination," Ianto says. "Sometimes...sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm not, myself. If I know you at all, I'm sure you've done everything you can to figure out what the hell is going on, and I certainly don't have any new suggestions to add."
"Your existence is pretty non-quantifiable. You seem to be taking it rather well."
"I know I shouldn't be here," Ianto says quietly. "Intellectually, I mean. I was...am... dead. But somehow I'm not. Once in a while, it's like I'm sleeping, but then I get this weird tug and I'm wherever you are. I try to worry about the how. I can come up with all of these explanations, none of which seem even remotely possible. The most frightening thing is that the why and the how only seem to interest me on a distant level. If this is really happening, I know I should be terrified out of my mind, but I'm not. I can't manage to muster up the terror. It's like I feel instinctively that I'm just... supposed to be here."
"That would make sense if you're all in my head," Jack says. He fights back the almost overwhelming urge to consider Ianto's statements as anything but the product of his own imaginings. "In any case, at this point the why and the how aren't as important as the what. Specifically, what happens now."
"And what is that?"
"You don't seem to be going away, no matter how much I try to ignore you," Jack says. Ianto flinches. "I can't deny that your existence, imagined or not, has an effect on me. I've decided to deal with it like I deal with most things; play it by ear. If you're tagging along for the ride, I guess we just see what happens and worry about the rest when we can do something about it or a more permanent solution presents itself."
"How utilitarian. This means I'm allowed to talk to you, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Thank God. Strange sense of calm or not, I'm sure I would've gone barmy if I had to spend eternity floating around like a ghost."
"Is it even possible for my crazy to go crazy?" Jack asks with a smirk.
Ianto quirks an eyebrow.
"I'm sure if anyone's crazy could find a way to go crazy, yours would," Ianto says.
Jack tenses when Ianto puts a hand on Jack's shoulder and squeezes affectionately.
"Best if there's not much of that," Jack says before pulling away. Ianto freezes up and looks at Jack questioningly. "It's too real," Jack explains.
"Ah," Ianto says after a long moment. "I suppose you're right."
Jack pushes off the wall and makes his way back into the building, the prickling sensation on the back of his neck letting him know Ianto's right behind him. Jack tells himself that he can handle it. As long as he locks away any sort of vain hope that Ianto's actually found a way to come back to him, Jack can cope.
Hope is dangerous. Jack's learned that the hard way.
------------------
The next few months are easier now that Jack has stopped fighting himself. He acclimates to the weirdness rather well, but then, Jack has always been an adaptable kind of guy. It's not much different than it was when Ianto would ghost around the Hub at all hours, seemingly content to remain mostly silent and watchful as long as he can insert a pithy comment every now and again. Jack tries to ignore how the pangs of loneliness he's become used to are getting a little fewer and farther between and instead focuses on how, for going crazy, it's really not so bad.
"I always feel like I'm eavesdropping," Ianto says when Jack's new acquaintance leaves the room for a moment. "I imagine I'd feel worse about it if I could understand more than every tenth word."
Jack raises an eyebrow.
"You'd think that if I could speak it, you would too," Jack says.
"If I had the ability to access all the information in your head, sir, I'd have to spend the next few years pouring bleach into my ears."
"Or fighting back an invisible erection."
Ianto scoffs.
"Are you alluding to the fact that no one else can see me or are you questioning my manhood?"
Jack's answer is cut off when the ship dealer re-enters the room carrying two glasses of... blue.
"A drink to celebrate a mutually beneficial arrangement!" he explains, handing one of the glasses to Jack. "I believe it is an old Earth custom, and since we get so few human customers, I thought it might be nice to try it."
The alien tosses the drink back in one large gulp, then lets out a huge simultaneous belch from every orifice.
"Oh... God," Ianto says from behind Jack, tone disgusted and horrified. "I never thought I'd be glad I was murdered before I lived to see the death of every inch of propriety left in the universe. I think that plant on the table just wilted."
Jack snorts into his drink.
Part 2
Part: 1/2
Pairing: Jack/Ianto primarily, mention of Jack/OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post Season 3 Spoilers
Beta'd: By the glorious pintsizeninja
Summary: I know I should be working on Revelations. However, first I had to exorcise the demon of CoE, and man, what a bitch of a demon it was. Ambiguous-fix!it fic. Title and some inspiration taken from Next to Normal. Remember Head!Six from Battlestar Galactica? Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Excerpt:
"You're overlooking something there," Ianto says.
"And what would that be?" Jack asks.
Ianto remains silent. He simply gives Jack a bored stare while lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers exaggeratedly. Jack's eyebrows rise to meet his hairline.
"I'll ignore that you just did jazz hands in my face," Jack says, "if only to point out that you seem to be overlooking the fact that you're not real."
"I can touch you, can't I?"
"Well, that only makes sense. I'm the one who's gone crazy, after all."
"Obviously."
When you're immortal and thousands of years old, nothing tends to surprise you anymore. So naturally, Jack jerks hard enough to smack his head against the low ceiling when he sees the man sitting on his bunk, a space which two seconds ago had been filled with nothing but re-circulated air above the tightly tucked blanket.
The pain from the impact of his skull goes completely unnoticed when the figure sitting there turns confused, terrified, and worse yet, completely empty eyes to look at Jack. Jack's mouth drops open in shock. He blinks several times, but the vision remains.
The hallucination flexes its fingers on trouser clad knees and breathes deeply against a pin-stripe gray waistcoat before closing his eyes briefly. A shudder runs through the man's frame that Jack's body unconsciously echoes.
After a moment, the vision's eyes open again. The blood is rushing in Jack's ears behind the hysterical chant of not real, not real, gonegonegone, as his gaze charts over fuzzily-remembered features. A rush of grief-riddled guilt washes through Jack as he realizes he's all but forgotten how beautiful this man is. Was.
He can't make a move for fear that the vision will fade before he's reminded himself. He knows that some synapses must be firing out of turn, some half-buried impression jumping to the front of his too old, too human brain.
The man sitting on his bunk breaks their staring contest to look around. Something besides that terrible doll-like emptiness enters his features as he seems to take stock of his surroundings. When he turns back to look at Jack, his lips open and close a couple times as if in practice before they expel a single devastating syllable.
"Jack."
Jack's eyes snap shut involuntarily at the sound of that voice, the tone and timbre a detail he thought was lost long ago. He fights against the tears burning hot behind his eyes as the vision's name is wrenched from somewhere between his heart and his stomach.
"Ianto."
He opens his eyes, expecting to be alone in his quarters, alone in his head again. He finds that Ianto (not-Ianto) is still there, looking at Jack with softened eyes, moisture making the light glint sharply off the blue of his irises.
"You did remember," Ianto says, voice a choked rumble.
"Of course I do," Jack answers without thinking.
Ianto smiles, and it's like a punch straight to Jack's solar plexus.
The next time Jack blinks, the vision disappears.
------------------
After Jack's done having a quiet yet fairly potent breakdown with his back to the wall, legs scrunched underneath where they'd given out, he tries to figure out what the fuck brought that on.
It's three days later when he realizes the date he'd broken down had been one thousand Earth years exactly since...
Don't forget me. In a thousand years' time? You won't remember me.
Jack chalks it up to a quirk of survivor's guilt (and doesn't he have that in ship loads?) and catches the next freighter out of the Alpha quadrant after marking it mentally as an off-limits zone.
Jack wonders if eternity will be long enough, if the universe is small enough, that he'll exhaust all of the possible places to run away to.
------------------
When Jack gasps back to life a couple weeks later, he's forced to accept that his momentary lapse might not have been so momentary after all.
"Now that was unnecessary," Ianto says, sarcasm obscuring an obviously concerned glance as Jack warily picks himself up, groaning at the popping of newly realigned joints.
"What, getting jumped from behind or losing the fight?" Jack asks automatically, too tired from the regeneration to do anything but play along with his own twisted psychosis.
"The part where you picked the fight in the first place," Ianto says with a raised eyebrow. "I think my favorite part was when you called him a... well, whatever you called him, it sounded gratuitously filthy."
"Manchbik. Think giant mutant slug-horse with sharp teeth and ten vaginas."
"Indeed."
Ianto's giving Jack that look. The one that is (was) reserved for times that Jack's said something particularly ridiculous, but Ianto can't bring himself to be anything more than fondly exasperated. Jack finds he can't quite look at Ianto directly. The memory-made-flesh is too vivid, too detailed; looking at Ianto hurts.
"Are you supposed to be my conscience or something?" Jack asks.
Ianto snorts.
"I highly doubt it. I gave up attempting to appeal to your better side a long time ago," he says. "Besides, your complete lack of tact is part of your rather unaccountable charm."
Jack really attempts not to be amused or riled. He also tries not to think about the fact that he's basically holding a conversation with himself.
"Then what are you? Some kind of delayed grief?"
"It's been over a thousand years, Jack. You've gotten over me by now."
"Accepted, moved on, sure," Jack says. "But there are some things you don't ever really get over."
Ianto looks gutted.
Jack turns around and starts walking until he's sure he's alone again.
------------------
"No tumors, no viruses, no implants," Zilnak says in his whispering, multi-faceted voice. He cycles through the images of scans flashing out of the globe-like projector in the center of the room. "As far as we can tell, you are functioning at 100% capability."
The translucent alien doctor reaches out a tentacle to turn off the projector and Jack frowns.
"There's got to be something," Jack says. "No weird energy signatures, wave patterns, nano-bots?"
Zilnak's bio-luminescence dims in concern.
"No. Do you have reason to believe you are under attack?" he asks.
Jack grins.
"I rarely have reason to believe I'm not under attack," Jack says.
"Any idea of who it is that might wish you harm?"
"Not... specifically. I don't think I've pissed anyone off for the past couple hundred years who'd be capable of something like this."
The alien's body undulates in what Jack has come to recognize as a shrug.
"All of our best equipment is showing no indication of outside influence," Zilnak says. "We have run every possible scan several times at your insistence, Captain. Your vagueness in describing the problem has not helped much in the search for whatever it is that could be causing it. Are you going to explain to us what the particular trouble happens to be?"
"I told you, I've been seeing things."
"Things?"
"Things that shouldn't be there."
"Ah. Well, as we said, Captain, if you cannot be more forthcoming on the issue, we are afraid we cannot be more helpful than to tell you that physically, there is nothing wrong with you. Psychologically, perhaps-"
"Thanks, Zilnak, that'll be all."
Zilnak gives out a "Hmph"-equivalent before wrapping long, boneless fingers around Jack's wrist.
"We can assume this means that we will not be seeing you again for another dozen cycles?"
Jack winces before twining their hands together in apology. He gives a short squeeze before stepping away.
"I'm never in one place for long. You know that."
"We do. Long-term attachments do not seem to become you. It does not stop us from wondering why, however."
This must have been eating away at you. Why didn't you tell me?
Jack gives a dazzling smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"See you, Zilnak."
Everywhere he turns, Jack is being painfully reminded of the why.
------------------
Jack starts to see Ianto on a regular basis. Occasionally it's just a flash, a face in a crowd, Ianto smiling at him from across the room.
The disturbing thing is that most of the time it's not just a flash. Jack gets used to the low, melodic tones of Ianto's voice to the point that he stops jumping like a startled cat every time Ianto addresses him suddenly. The few times Jack acts surprised to see Ianto, the vision gives him a smug, affectionate smirk. If he didn't know Ianto wasn't real, Jack would almost think he enjoyed scaring the hell out of Jack with his abrupt appearances.
Jack decides he probably shouldn't encourage himself and resolutely refuses to respond to the many comments and queries he gets from Ianto over the first week of increased activity. If he ignores his own insanity, maybe it will go away. It certainly wouldn't do to begin talking to himself in public; there's already far too much attention drawn toward Jack on a regular basis as it is.
After a while it seems to work, and Ianto stops trying to talk to him.
Jack tries not to feel guilty at the looks of quiet resignation he gets from the vision. He tries not to be comforted by Ianto's silent presence at his side, tries not to smile when he notices an extra shadow following him around.
Jack considers seeing someone about it, but he highly doubts there's any psychiatrist capable of dealing with the problems of a mind that should have stopped holding an electric charge thousands of years ago. In a sense, Jack finds it to be a strange type of relief to know that even he is capable of going senile in his old age. Even if he is a fixed point in time, some part of him is deteriorating, changing.
He counts it like he counts every gray hair he finds as a sign that maybe, just maybe, the Doctor was wrong this once. Maybe even Jack has an end. Maybe the next time Jack dies, it'll stick.
Jack thinks that for anyone else, finding hope in the idea would be a little morbid.
------------------
"Don't tell me you're just going to leave them there," Ianto says.
It's the first time the vision has bothered speaking in weeks.
Jack keeps running down the twisting corridor and remains silent. The entire planet is going to go up in an hour if the rogue Judoon have their way, which is looking increasingly more likely. Jack needs to get to an escape vessel if he doesn't want to spend the next few thousand years (or more) floating through the vacuum of space.
"You are leaving, aren't you?"
Jack starts running faster.
"As utterly fantastic as it's been to have the only person who seems to be able to see me acting like I don't exist, I really wish you would stop bloody ignoring me!"
Jack's back slams against a line of metal rivets. He has a split second to be annoyed at the architect who thought metal rivets poking out of the wall were in any way a practical or aesthetically pleasing feature of a research facility before he realizes that there are hands gripping the front of his shirt, hands that he can feel, and that those hands belong to an absolutely livid Ianto Jones.
Jack conquers the vertigo of the conflicting urges to throw up and pull Ianto in all the way until he can really feel him by gripping the other man's shoulders and holding him out at arm's length. Jack's shaking, minute tremors down the lines of tautly held muscles.
Some corner of Jack's mind that isn't completely freaking the fuck out calmly waves goodbye to the last shred of his sanity. It's not surprising to find that he's finally lost it, really, but he'd thought that up to this point he'd been holding it together fairly well, all things considered.
When he stops hyperventilating and his vision stops blacking out around the edges, Jack takes a good look at Ianto and realizes the other man is staring wide-eyed back at him, mouth dropped into a perfect O of surprise. Jack attempts to fight back the hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of his throat at the relief he feels that at least Ianto's just as shocked as he is. He fails.
"I think I'm almost more horrified than myself," Jack attempts to explain between hiccuping laughs when Ianto shoots him a questioning look.
Ianto steps back, the sudden lack of contact shivering through Jack's body. Jack's laughs trail off into silence.
"Well, that's interesting," Ianto says shakily.
"...Huh?" Jack asks, still trying to assimilate. He pushes himself away from the wall, his back giving a slight twinge of pain.
"I didn't realize I could... well... touch you," Ianto says. "I mean, I just assumed I... it never occurred to me to try before now, I suppose."
Jack blinks.
"I'm not quite sure how to feel about it," Ianto continues diplomatically, his ever-so-professional and impassive mask now firmly in place.
"You're not sure how to feel about it?" Jack asks, bile rising in his throat. "I can't... Fuck. What kind of hallucination- what are you?"
"I've been wondering that myself,actually. As I've had the past few weeks to do nothing but think about it," Ianto says, an accusingly hurt tone creeping in around the edges, "I've come up with a few theories. I mean, I could be a hallucination. But honestly, I don't really feel like one."
Jack's eyes widen before he abruptly turns and starts walking briskly towards the escape crafts.
"Oh, not this again," Ianto says, following him. "Look, we can figure out the rest later, but I think it's pretty obvious that you can't just keep ignoring me now."
"Watch me," Jack says.
"Jack."
Ianto places a hand on Jack's elbow as they walk. Jack tenses but doesn't pull away. Ianto's touch feels as real as the floor under his feet, as real as his coat-tails swishing softly behind him. Ianto can't be here. He can't.
It seems for the time being, though, that Jack can't keep acting as if he's not being directly affected by Ianto's non-existence.
"What do you want?" Jack asks, breaking into a run again.
Ianto shoots him a sideways glance and matches Jack when he picks up the pace. Jack ignores the sudden pang of nostalgia as their pounding steps synchronize.
"I want you to try," Ianto says after a pause. "It's not too late to save them."
Jack lets out a bitter laugh.
"You sure you're not my conscience?" he asks.
Ianto rolls his eyes.
"Since it seems you've somehow misplaced yours, I suppose I'll have to oblige."
"I don't have time," Jack says. "Fifty minutes, tops, before this whole planet is space dust. Me along with it. I really don't want to find out what it's like to feel my atoms slowly drift back together to revive me only so that I can explosively asphyxiate over and over for millennia. Besides, what are they to me? Fellow passengers, drifters, criminals. I can't save everyone."
"I know that," Ianto says. Jack's guts twist. "But you're not there yet. We can think of something. The Jack I know would try to save them."
"The Jack you know died along with you and Stephen," Jack bites out as they reach the docking bay.
Ianto remains silent as Jack uses his vortex manipulator to hijack the control system of the closest escape vessel. The loading ramp hisses open before thudding down at their feet.
"...That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?" Ianto asks, not unkindly, as he follows Jack toward the bridge.
Jack can't help the smirk.
"When you get as old as I am, a little melodrama is expected," Jack says. He drops into the control chair, his fingers deftly flipping switches and turning knobs as he begins the take-off sequence. "I'd tell you to buckle up for safety, but since you're a figment of my imagination, I doubt a little jostling would hurt you."
Ianto sighs as he takes a seat at the station next to Jack.
"C'mon, Jack. There's got to be something."
"Forty five minutes. I'll be lucky to make it past the blast radius. No way I'm going back for them."
"What about the drill; if you can disable it that would offset the explosion."
"The only way to disable a Linaquian mark three core drill is to send a straight blast to its internal sensor panel, and sorry," Jack says, sarcastic tilt to his voice, "but these old escape vessels are technically supposed to be manned by four; I've got my hands full driving as it is."
"You're overlooking something there," Ianto says.
"And what would that be?" Jack asks.
Ianto remains silent. He simply gives Jack a bored stare while lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers exaggeratedly. Jack's eyebrows rise to meet his hairline.
"I'll ignore that you just did jazz hands in my face," Jack says, "if only to point out that you seem to be overlooking the fact that you're not real."
"I can touch you, can't I?"
"Well, that only makes sense. I'm the one who's gone crazy, after all."
"Obviously."
"The point is," Jack says as the shuttle begins cycling into take-off, "you can touch me because you're in my head. There's no way you could possibly-"
Jack gets cut off when Ianto pointedly grabs the oxygen mask dangling from a broken panel in the ceiling and lobs it at Jack's head.
"Okaaaaay," Jack says, rubbing the sore spot on his scalp. "More hallucinations. Brilliant."
"Yes, seeing as it couldn't possibly be real, despite all evidence to the contrary," Ianto says. "Maybe you're developing psychokinetic powers to go hand in hand with the dementia."
"Alright, that is so not something I need to be worrying about on top of everything else," Jack says.
"Damn it, Jack! We can at least give it a go on the way past. Just tell me where the weapons controls are."
Jack pauses as the core drill looms closer through the view-finder. The craft picks up speed, and Jack knows any completely irrational window of opportunity is closing rapidly.
Oh, what the hell.
"Blue keyboard on the left, the characters are set in numerical order. The frequency you need to type in for it to lock onto the internal sensor panel of that drill should be an algorithm multiplied from the first three rotating numbers on the display above, factored in with the speed and external sensor readings showing above the controls I'm using," Jack explains as he readies the vessel to break the atmosphere. "It's similar to the Filbian power conduits that are in stun guns."
"Seems a little simple doesn't it?" Ianto asks while his fingers fly across the keyboard.
"These old thirty-fifth century models are pretty user-friendly," Jack says. "Besides, you don't really need to go for accuracy with this, just power."
"Right. Trigger?"
"That would be the big red button."
"Of course it would be."
"Hey, cliché can be a good thing."
"I'll have to take your word for it. Firing now."
Jack manages to hold it together when he feels the lurch of the escape vessel as its laser canon emits a pulse. He holds it together when they make it past what should be the blast radius and no world-destroying explosion occurs. He holds it together when multiple scans show the planet to be intact. He holds it together long enough to pilot the ship around to get visual confirmation that there's still a big mass of matter orbiting around twin suns, their light casting one side of the planet into darkness and glaring against the clear plastic of the space shield.
He even holds it together when Ianto smiles at him.
"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Ianto asks.
Jack takes in a deep, shuddering breath. When he lets it out, he's still entirely unsure as to whether or not everything is one giant day dream, still unsure as to what's real and what's not.
"Jack?" Ianto asks worriedly when Jack remains silent.
"Please, just... stop," Jack finally manages, his voice a broken plea. "I've got no idea- no fucking clue... None of this can be happening."
Out of the corner of his eye, he registers Ianto's hand coming up to hover over his arm. Like Ianto's torn between whether he should try to comfort Jack or not. Like Ianto's there to offer comfort in the first place.
"It's too much," Jack says. "I can't, Ianto. I just can't."
"Okay," Ianto says quietly. "I...I guess we both have things to think about-"
"Don't," Jack cuts him off.
Jack clenches his eyes shut when Ianto walks away from the bridge, his footsteps slowly echoing into nothingness.
It's another minute or so before Jack presses a palm over his mouth and lets out a single choked sob.
------------------
Over the course of the next few weeks, Jack tries to come to terms with it all. He checks and double-checks the data he'd collected during the escape. Several different holo-feeds run reports that the planet was found unharmed at the arrival of the Shadow Proclamation and subsequently brought under intergalactic protection. Asking around tells him the same story, and Jack becomes about as certain as he can be that the planet was actually saved. He spends three days attempting to drink himself to death in a seedy hotel room.
He doesn't see Ianto during the three days, and he convinces himself he was really too drunk on the second day to remember the cool hands brushing over his face and guiding him to bed from where he'd been passed out on the bathroom floor.
Though a nice distraction, the drinking doesn't really seem to help. Jack finds that over analyzing everything doesn't really do much good, either. He knows that no one else can see Ianto or has indicated that they can see Ianto. Ianto can manipulate matter around him as if he's actually there. However, Ianto only appears tangible to Jack. Obviously, Jack was the only person (discounting Ianto) in the craft. Though it seems as if Ianto can have a causal effect upon reality, there was no one else there to verify that the laser canon fired itself. It could be that Jack somehow managed to pilot the ship and fire the laser himself; it's just that his mind is telling him Ianto was there to help him out.
Of course, even if Ianto were to ever pick up an object with someone else present to witness it, a prospective third party reaction doesn't automatically mean Ianto's actually there. If Jack's mind can manage to create a very real, very tangible version of a dead lover, it stands to reason that it could also create any sort of scenario that seems real. But then that line of thought leads Jack to question whether he can trust his senses to tell him anything. Maybe Jack is being deceived through frighteningly advanced alien mind control or he's actually a brain in a vat being experimented on somewhere. Every practical thing Jack can do about the situation has no way of addressing such gross paranoid fears, so they pretty much become useless speculation.
Ianto stays mostly out of sight as per Jack's request, but that doesn't fool Jack into thinking Ianto's gone. The few glances he gets of Ianto over the next couple of weeks confirm his suspicions that, yup, still crazy. Ianto always gives him an apologetic smile when their eyes meet before making a hasty exit. This of course, leads Jack to question the motives of the vision, if indeed Ianto is not something of Jack's own twisted making. Since Ianto doesn't seem to be doing anything to harm Jack or convince Jack to harm anyone else, Jack has to assume that the hallucinations are not the result of a Bilis Manger-like being trying to manipulate Jack to some nefarious purpose. Hell, under the circumstances, Jack would say Ianto's bending over backwards to be as reasonable as possible
Theories involving the rift, ghosts, Huon particles, thought-form aliens, and nanogenes are all dismissed as being too far-fetched, too ridiculous, or too pathetically hopeful to hold any measure of truth.
After a lot of thought, Jack doesn't really see why he shouldn't indulge his own insanity every once in a while as long as he's cautious. Ignoring the hallucinations doesn't work. Stressing out over whether or not he's actually seeing something real isn't the most fun, either. If he caves a little bit and allows himself to interact with a memory, what's the real harm?
------------------
The next time he sees Ianto, Jack decides he should set up some ground rules. Ianto beats his normal retreat when they make eye contact across the crowded cantina. Jack follows him out to find Ianto leaning up against a wall behind the building away from the busy street. Ianto looks surprised to find that Jack has followed him. It's a little unnerving to learn that Ianto doesn't seem to disappear whenever he leaves Jack's sight.
"So," Jack says, leaning up against the wall next to Ianto, far enough away that their shoulders aren't in danger of brushing, "seems like we've got a bit of a situation to deal with."
"You've come to a decision, then?" Ianto asks.
Jack looks at him, but Ianto stares resolutely ahead. His arms are crossed over his chest, and Jack can see the wrinkles in the fabric where Ianto's fingers are clutching white-knuckled at the insides of his elbows.
"You implying I've actually got some sort of choice, here?" Jack asks.
Ianto shrugs.
"I don't know why or how I'm here anymore than you do, Jack," Ianto says. "Since both of us seem clueless, tie-breaker on deciding how to handle it goes to the one who isn't mostly invisible. My existence seems to be contingent upon you, in any case."
"That's pretty rational of you," Jack says.
Ianto sighs.
"I had hoped you might have some answers, but I can't even convince you that I'm not a figment of your imagination," Ianto says. "Sometimes...sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm not, myself. If I know you at all, I'm sure you've done everything you can to figure out what the hell is going on, and I certainly don't have any new suggestions to add."
"Your existence is pretty non-quantifiable. You seem to be taking it rather well."
"I know I shouldn't be here," Ianto says quietly. "Intellectually, I mean. I was...am... dead. But somehow I'm not. Once in a while, it's like I'm sleeping, but then I get this weird tug and I'm wherever you are. I try to worry about the how. I can come up with all of these explanations, none of which seem even remotely possible. The most frightening thing is that the why and the how only seem to interest me on a distant level. If this is really happening, I know I should be terrified out of my mind, but I'm not. I can't manage to muster up the terror. It's like I feel instinctively that I'm just... supposed to be here."
"That would make sense if you're all in my head," Jack says. He fights back the almost overwhelming urge to consider Ianto's statements as anything but the product of his own imaginings. "In any case, at this point the why and the how aren't as important as the what. Specifically, what happens now."
"And what is that?"
"You don't seem to be going away, no matter how much I try to ignore you," Jack says. Ianto flinches. "I can't deny that your existence, imagined or not, has an effect on me. I've decided to deal with it like I deal with most things; play it by ear. If you're tagging along for the ride, I guess we just see what happens and worry about the rest when we can do something about it or a more permanent solution presents itself."
"How utilitarian. This means I'm allowed to talk to you, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Thank God. Strange sense of calm or not, I'm sure I would've gone barmy if I had to spend eternity floating around like a ghost."
"Is it even possible for my crazy to go crazy?" Jack asks with a smirk.
Ianto quirks an eyebrow.
"I'm sure if anyone's crazy could find a way to go crazy, yours would," Ianto says.
Jack tenses when Ianto puts a hand on Jack's shoulder and squeezes affectionately.
"Best if there's not much of that," Jack says before pulling away. Ianto freezes up and looks at Jack questioningly. "It's too real," Jack explains.
"Ah," Ianto says after a long moment. "I suppose you're right."
Jack pushes off the wall and makes his way back into the building, the prickling sensation on the back of his neck letting him know Ianto's right behind him. Jack tells himself that he can handle it. As long as he locks away any sort of vain hope that Ianto's actually found a way to come back to him, Jack can cope.
Hope is dangerous. Jack's learned that the hard way.
------------------
The next few months are easier now that Jack has stopped fighting himself. He acclimates to the weirdness rather well, but then, Jack has always been an adaptable kind of guy. It's not much different than it was when Ianto would ghost around the Hub at all hours, seemingly content to remain mostly silent and watchful as long as he can insert a pithy comment every now and again. Jack tries to ignore how the pangs of loneliness he's become used to are getting a little fewer and farther between and instead focuses on how, for going crazy, it's really not so bad.
"I always feel like I'm eavesdropping," Ianto says when Jack's new acquaintance leaves the room for a moment. "I imagine I'd feel worse about it if I could understand more than every tenth word."
Jack raises an eyebrow.
"You'd think that if I could speak it, you would too," Jack says.
"If I had the ability to access all the information in your head, sir, I'd have to spend the next few years pouring bleach into my ears."
"Or fighting back an invisible erection."
Ianto scoffs.
"Are you alluding to the fact that no one else can see me or are you questioning my manhood?"
Jack's answer is cut off when the ship dealer re-enters the room carrying two glasses of... blue.
"A drink to celebrate a mutually beneficial arrangement!" he explains, handing one of the glasses to Jack. "I believe it is an old Earth custom, and since we get so few human customers, I thought it might be nice to try it."
The alien tosses the drink back in one large gulp, then lets out a huge simultaneous belch from every orifice.
"Oh... God," Ianto says from behind Jack, tone disgusted and horrified. "I never thought I'd be glad I was murdered before I lived to see the death of every inch of propriety left in the universe. I think that plant on the table just wilted."
Jack snorts into his drink.
Part 2