The Art of Far and Near (Part 6)
Rating: T
Word count: ~ 2,700
Warnings: Angst, magic, canon-type(ish) violence.
Summary: Twelve steps to immortality: this is the pinnacle of alchemy, of all alchemists. Ianto has reached final goal, and all he feels is empty.
A/N: I can't decide whether I want to do Random Shoes and Combat, because, while I love them, those episodes don't really have any focus on Ianto, who’s the focus of this story. So…that's up in the air at the moment. But for now, have an entirely(ish) original chapter! I tried to keep the episode feel, but probably failed. Hopefully it’s still possible to follow this style without knowing the episode.
The Art of Far and Near
Chapter Six
The room is dark and cold, well beneath ground level, and reminds Ianto horrifyingly of the cellar in Brynblaidd. There are no lights, only scattered, broken boxes and scraps of metal. What little illumination there is comes from a barred vent, high up in the wall, and it’s hardly enough to see a hand in front of his face.
It’s more than enough to see the Jack's corpse, lying sprawled six paces from where Ianto landed when they threw him in here.
“No,” he whispers, because what light there is falls directly on Jack, and Ianto can see the bloody, awful, shattered mess that is his torso, ripped open and half-crushed and still slowly oozing blood. He gags, covers his mouth tightly, but can't tear his eyes away from that deathly still form.
“No.”
But it’s more plea than denial, and Ianto knows that. Knows that Jack is dead and isn’t an alchemist, that he’ll never be able to open his eyes and smile at Ianto again. No, he thinks once more, and there's a tide of fire rising beneath his skin, overwhelming, stealing his breath. It’s hot, so hot, pain and fury and wild, agonizing grief, because Ianto has lost his whole world again, and that's enough to shatter every last thread of control he might have ever had.
“No,” he whispers once more, and then it isn’t dark, because there are circles, dozens of them, gouging into the concrete beneath his feet, all around the room, digging in and settling. Some of them are blazing silver; some of them are burning gold. Others glow sullenly, like overheated metal, or glitter like starlight on ice, and the room is suddenly brilliantly illuminated, even the smallest shadows driven back.
“Termino,” he whispers, even though this is one time he doesn't need a focus, doesn't need anything to channel his power; if he wanted, if he was an ounce more out of control, he wouldn't even need the circles.
“Termino,” he whispers again, and there are footsteps pounding in the hallway, returning even though they just tossed Ianto through the door moments ago. The thud of hooves, the hiss of scales on concrete, the patter of too many legs-they all feel what Ianto is doing, all feel the magic even if they didn't before. Even if they thought he was a normal human who had stumbled over an operation of human-hunters from the Everafter.
Wrong, Ianto thinks, and it’s vicious, feral, everything inside of him that he’s ever tried to hide, everything humans don't allow themselves to be anymore, the heart of a predator that has survived and dominated since the very dawn of time. You have no idea how wrong you are.
Nine, eleven, fifteen circles, twenty of them, twelve runes repeated over and over, and Jack's body lying mangled and untouched between them, thrown into stark, bloody relief in the sudden wash of light.
Ianto turns his face away, and whispers, “Incipere.”
*.~.*.~.*
(Stop. Just stop. This isn’t the beginning.)
*.~.*.~.*
The day Ianto starts work in the Torchwood One Archives, he meets a man with blond hair and green eyes, who carries himself like someone far older than the thirty-something he seems. He is standing at the front desk when the woman from Human Resources leads Ianto in, and he watches surreptitiously as the woman goes in to speak with the Chief Archivist, leaving Ianto standing somewhat uneasily by the doorway.
It takes a moment, but Ianto feels the eyes on him and looks up, meets that sharp green gaze, and knows.
The man looks back at him, careful, assessing, and then nods, turns, and strides into the Chief’s office with barely a pause to knock.
Ianto tucks his hands into his pockets, because anything he touches right now will doubtless change, and he doesn't need to start his tenure at Torchwood by turning the secretary’s desk into a maple tree. There are voices coming from the office, but he pointedly doesn't listen in; eavesdropping, while tempting, is also likely not a good way to start his career.
Then the blond man strides back out, walks straight up to Ianto, and says, “I'm Marcus Maddox. I’ll be showing you around.” When Ianto hesitates-he’s still nervous, not completely in control, and doesn't even want to consider the fact that he knows he could turn this man into ash and water vapor-he smiles. “No, don't worry, I'm better than that. You can't hurt me, Ianto Jones.”
Ianto looks down at the proffered hand, and his breath catches in his throat. There's a black circle inked into the skin, two concentric rings with twelve runes between the bands. In the center is an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, exquisitely drawn.
Maddox catches his look, and smiles. He urges Ianto towards another door and follows him through, closing it behind them. “Yes,” he says when Ianto turns to face him again. “I'm like you. An alchemist.”
“And the circle?” Ianto asks. He leaves his hands in his pockets.
Maddox rubs the tattoo with his thumb, smile turning a little wistful. “Twelve main runes in alchemy,” he says. “Twelve levels of power you can use, if you're balanced. Twelve steps from base human to true alchemist. Twelve steps to immortality. Not every alchemist makes it.”
But you did, Ianto thinks. He’s young, so young, and all his life he’s been an outsider, been different. This is the first time in his entire life that he’s met someone who can say I'm like you, and be even slightly truthful.
He looks at that tattoo, at the ouroboros engraved into the man’s skin, and thinks, But you did, and so will I.
*.~.*.~.*
(Too far back. The past has passed.)
*.~.*.~.*
“Did you all join Torchwood because you have magic?”
“It’s not quite that simple, Gwen. All humans have a spark inside them, a bit of potential that they never use. It’s always been that way. But sometimes, a human with an especially strong spark will encounter a bit of the Everafter, a person or a thing or even a breeze, coming from a place where that potential is more than just a possibility, and it brings it out.”
“That happened to all of them?”
“Tosh found an artifact made of magic and technology. Owen…Owen met a demon. And Ianto…he’s a bit different. Alchemists are born with their potential fully realized. It comes out at the end of puberty, when the body’s strong enough to support the power. He didn't have to touch the Everafter; he was already a part of it.”
“And you, Jack?”
“Me? I'm from a time when all humans have magic. The rest was…a bit of bad luck.”
*.~.*.~.*
(Too far forward. Skip back.)
*.~.*.~.*
“That's the third body this week,” Owen says, dropping the files on the table. “Stripped clean of everything. Something even cracked the bones and sucked the marrow out.”
Jack spreads the files out on the conference table, even though they all know the gruesome scenes by heart already. He frowns over them for a minute. “More cannibals? This is close to what we saw in Brynblaidd.”
Owen’s already shaking his head. “Not unless they've gotten major dental work done somewhere. See those tooth marks, Harkness? You're not pretty enough to be just a pretty face.”
Ianto snorts as Jack glares, but covers it by setting coffee mugs in front of each person. “I've matched several of the marks to old cases that were never solved,” he offers, as Owen picks those reports out of the pile. “A lamia, a troll, at least two ghouls, a kelpie, a hydra-the list goes on. But there's only one link between them that I'm finding.”
“All carnivorous,” Jack says, drumming his fingers on the table. “All usually solitary, and all with a taste for human flesh. Tosh-”
Her eyes electric-white, she waves him to silence. “I’ll check the records, see which immigrants have missed their check-ins lately, and send you the list.”
“And I’ll check the bodies for any identifying factors more specific than tooth size.” Owen pushes himself to his feet. “Tea boy, you're with me. I'm not playing runner in the Archives whenever I find something.”
*.~.*.~.*
(There's a beginning, even if it’s one of many.)
*.~.*.~.*
“The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.”
~ Carl Jung, Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 14 para. 513
*.~.*.~.*
(Exposition. Skip back.)
*.~.*.~.*
The number had appeared on Ianto’s phone two days after Canary Wharf, though he hadn’t given it much thought at the time, too concerned with Lisa to think of anything else.
He looks at it now, finger hovering over the call button, and then takes a deep breath.
Maddox picks up on the second ring, before Ianto can lose his courage and hang up.
“Ianto,” he greets easily, because for all he devoted himself to his research into the intricacies of alchemy, Ianto had never seen him refuse to help when it was asked of him. “What can I do for you?”
Another breath to bolster his courage, and Ianto says softly, “The twelfth rune…it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Silence from the other end of the line, and then a long, slow sigh. “Yes,” Maddox agrees, and there's a smile in his voice. “It is.”
“Is there…?”
“Yes, but don't worry. I’ll notify the correct people, and see about getting you fully initiated into the Order. You know you’ll have to get the tattoo, like the rest of us?”
Ianto nods, an automatic reaction even if Maddox can't see him. “I assumed, yes. Is…?”
“It’s wonderful.” There's a note of pride there, too, something that makes Ianto feel warm, because Maddox is the one who taught him control, who showed him how to look at a thing and see it as its component parts, right down to its atoms. “I always knew you had promise, Ianto. But…nine years to become immortal. I haven’t heard of anything like that in a long time.”
Immortal. The word repeats in Ianto’s head, bell-clear and somehow sharp. He hasn't said it loud yet, never managed to steel himself enough against the thought of forever. But this…
This is all right.
“Thank you,” he manages, and Maddox doesn't have to ask why.
*.~.*.~.*
(Turn it back.)
*.~.*.~.*
“Why the Latin?”
“Sir?”
“When you're casting your circles, you always use Latin, but almost never the same words, even for the same changes.”
“It’s a focus, like Tosh's computer. She uses it to channel her powers to a certain aim, like a set of guidelines ensuring it will act correctly. The words are the same for me. They don't have to mean anything, really; it’s all about the intent behind them. They…help, and keep me from accidentally changing things I touch. A trigger, I suppose. That's all.”
*.~.*.~.*
(Flip to the end; that's where this story starts.)
*.~.*.~.*
Jack gasps back to life not in the underground bunker where a troll had killed him, but in bright sunshine, with sand beneath his back. He jerks upright, head spinning, and barely registers the fact that he’s lying in the center of a huge crater, littered with ash and knee-deep with sand.
Fifteen meters away, a ghoul, twisted and macabre, drops to all fours, shifts into a hyena, and lunges forward, tearing out Ianto’s throat too quickly for him to defend himself.
The cry of fury and terror rips itself out of Jack's throat before he can stop it, and in an instant, he’s on his feet, Webley yanked from the ruin of his bloody, mangled clothes. The bullets are carved with runes to dissipate evil, and a single shot to the head has the ghoul falling, crumpling into a heap of malformed, rotting limbs.
Nothing moves.
And then Ianto takes a gurgling breath, coughs, and sits up, hands flying up to his throat. He wipes the blood and gore away, smears it until Jack can see there's simply no damage left, and then looks up. His eyes meet Jack's, and Jack isn’t sure which of them is more stunned.
“But…you were dead,” Ianto whispers, and his voice isn’t even hoarse.
“So were you,” Jack says weakly, and manages to stagger closer before his legs give out and bear him to the ground. He’s only inches from Ianto, but can't bring himself to reach across the space, because the he’ll know this is all a fantasy, a dream, and Ianto will be dead on the ground.
Ianto doesn't seem to have the same problem, given how he throws himself at Jack and nearly knocks them both back into the sand.
…Which is not supposed to be here, on the edge of the city, in what used to be a bomb shelter.
Jack blinks at it, the fine grey grains beneath them, at the scattered spots of ash and dark patches of water, and then looks at Ianto, who flushes a little.
“I thought you were dead,” he defends. “Control was not exactly foremost on my mind.”
The torn collar of his shirt shifts as he sits back, falling open, and Jack sees something that he hasn't before, etched into the skin over Ianto’s heart.
A snake, eating its own tail within an alchemical circle, twelve runes between the concentric rings.
He reaches out, traces his fingers over it, and looks up at Ianto, who’s watching him solemnly.
“All twelve of the greatest alchemical symbols,” Ianto says softly, and Jack remembers those words, spoken over the ashes of what had once been Lisa. “The final stage of alchemy, and the ouroboros for immortality.”
And really, Jack thinks, leaning forward to drop his head onto Ianto’s shoulder, that's all the answer he needs.
*.~.*.~.*
(Pause here; fade to black.)