And So It Begins... Again: Part 2 (7/10)
Title: Part 2 - As The Sun Rises
Rating: 15
Characters/Pairings: Team; Jack/Ianto
Spoilers: S1, 2x01
Warnings: Mild violence; M/M relations; Angst
Summary: Jack remembers why he stopped sleeping in the first place...
[ The 'And So It Begins... Again' Saga ]
Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to Russel T. Davies ftw - I'm just having a play
Author's Note: Had a pretty good day.. discovered Prison Break and I love it! But yeah, I forgot how long this chapter was! I hope you like it =] I'm rather proud of it!
---
Chapter 7
Jack managed to sleep again that night, drifting off at some ungodly hour of the morning, Ianto curled up in his arms, both worn out from the night’s previous activities…
He found himself standing in the hub, looking down at the basin, the steady ‘drip drip drip’ noise echoing up to him. He felt something pull him down from his office, a strange curiosity that he couldn’t fight. He eventually found himself staring down at the pool of water.
It was the wrong colour, a little darker than usual.
The dripping continued.
He bent down to look at the water more closely and noted the different tone
It wasn’t colourless or muddy anymore, it looked more red, like it had blood in it. The next drip fell and Jack watched the vibrant red colour disperse out into the increasingly dark area in the middle of the pool.
Before the next drop could fall, Jack looked up sharply.
Ianto was bound and gagged, suspended from the ceiling by roughly hewn ropes. He was dressed, as ever, in an immaculate three piece suit, but there were horrifying differences. The white sleeve cuffs were crimson with the blood covering his hands, and his entire figure was limp.
He was completely still, his head slumped forwards on his chest, blood dripping steadily from his angular chin. Dripping…
Jack felt the pain and fear bubble up inside him, desperation making him cast around for a way to retrieve his lover’s body. The fear increased, making him stop all movements, as he saw a new figure standing where he’d been a minute or so ago. Up by his office, next to the door and leaning on the railing in front of him, was the Doctor.
His Doctor.
He was looking down at Jack, his light brown hair as dishevelled as it ever was, as it had been the last time they’d seen each other. The black rimmed glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stop Jack seeing the grief that was contorting his features.
The brown coat hung to the floor and the red converse covered feet were crossed uncomfortably. Jack looked from one man to the other, not knowing what to do, what to say.
“Jack.” The Doctor spoke and attracted all attention to himself. “Jack, I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.”
“What? Do what? What happened?!” Jack felt the anger rise up in him, mixing with the fear gripping his heart. The Doctor just looked at something behind Jack and the American whirled around, staring at the wall behind him. There were two words written on the wall, written in blood. Ianto’s blood.
VOTE SAXON
*
He jerked awake, breathing heavily and trying to focus on something, anything, in the darkened room around him. He felt another jolt of fear as he realised he couldn’t see anything, and swung his arms out as he sat up. His arm connected with something next to him and he heard a grumbled reply.
“Ow.” Jack felt his vision adjusting and looked down. Ianto was lying on his side, facing away from him and rubbing his shoulder, muttering darkly to himself, still half asleep. “What the hell, Jack?”
Jack didn’t say anything, just looked away and rubbed his eyes. He climbed out of bed and made his way into the living area, uncovering yesterday’s boxers and pulling them on before digging out his t-shirt and donning that as well. There was no way he’d be able to sleep again after that. He began to remember just why he’d stopped sleeping to begin with.
Memories of the Game Station had flooded his dreams for months before he eventually managed to stop himself falling asleep, opting instead for a trance that substituted it, but brought none of the phantoms he usually saw. He looked up and saw Ianto standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the duvet draped around his shoulders. He looked at him sleepily, a slightly worried expression on his face. Jack stood and looked at him with a grimace on his face.
“Ianto… go back to bed. You can get a couple more hours of sleep before we have to go back to work. You should make the most of it.” He tried to smile, but he knew it wasn’t going to convince Ianto. He wasn’t surprised when he saw the young man shuffle over to him and envelope him in the duvet, holding him tight and leaning his chin on his shoulder. Jack sighed and wrapped his arms around him, enjoying the warm comfort of Ianto’s body against his. “Go back to bed, Ianto.”
Ianto pulled away a little and looked up at him, frowning. “Jack, you seriously think that I’m going to let you wake up, punch me in the shoulder - which actually kind of hurt - and tell me to go back to bed? Knowing full well that you’re going to sit out here on your own, thinking about whatever the hell it was that made you do it?”
Jack looked at him, tried to find a way to object, but gave in, allowing Ianto to pull him back into the bedroom.
They lay down together and Jack covered them both up, sighing a little as Ianto curled around him and stroked his hair gently. He looked down at the young man and smiled to see his eyes were closed already. He wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t exactly conscious either. He rolled onto his side to that their bodies were flush against each other and wrapped his arms around Ianto, stroking the small of his back in reply to Ianto caressing his hair.
He found it extremely soothing and soon realised that he’d drifted back off to sleep, though this time, he wasn’t plagued with anything.
*
The morning’s rituals had passed without event. Ianto had woken him up gently with a kiss on the lips and then managed to get him into the shower and make him presentable for work the next day. He’d only succeeded by allowing Jack to pull him under the hot jet of water alongside him.
Ianto had maintained his focus and with the minimum of distractions and they were washed, dressed and ready to go to work, slightly to Jack’s annoyance. He couldn’t stay annoyed for long though, as he soon realised how amusing it was that after such a short amount of time, they were acting like the last week or so had been several years.
On the way to the hub, Jack had insisted on getting blueberry pancakes from the same café as before and when they finally did get into work, the two of them sat together in the board room and enjoyed their breakfast.
The others had turned up an hour or so later, asking for coffee. Ianto had complied, as always, and left Jack to his work. The rest of the morning had been filled with paperwork, avoiding the local police and sending a Tourist spacecraft out of the orbit after giving them a brief history of the planet. Jack had been amazed at how quickly Tosh covered the billions of years of the Earth’s existence. About twenty minutes after the alert, the ship was heading off to it’s next destination.
Late that afternoon, the team had been alerted to a Weevil going topside and Jack, Gwen and Owen had left to pick it up, Tosh directing them from the hub. They’d returned an hour or so later with the Weevil in tow.
Jack was in an extremely bad mood.
He’d stormed in with the Weevil and thrown it down into the cell next to Janet. He’d had just about enough of Weevils. All they ever did was go topside, sit in a cell for a week and then get released back into the sewers. Apart from Janet, but that was a different story.
When he’d emerged from the vaults, he’d tried to shut himself in his office, but was redirected by Owen and dragged down into the autopsy bay.
“You may be immortal and heal at twice the rate of a normal human being, but you need that stitched and cleaned to avoid scarring.” Owen poked the gashes in Jack’s back to reinforce his point and Jack cringed away from the pain.
“Ow! Christ, Owen, where’s the tact?” Jack snapped at the doctor, trying to lean away form him. Owen just raised an eyebrow and pulled the ripped shirt and undershirt off him. He moved round behind Jack and looked at the damage the Weevil had done.
Jack was sitting hunched over, glowering at the wall in front of him and trying to ignoring the throbbing pains in his back. Of course, he was quite entitled to be annoyed at the pain, as there were three parallel gases across the middle of his back, all about seven or eight inches long.
They were still bleeding a little and Jack’s back was covered in half congealed blood. All the flesh around the gashes had turned a dark purple colour and Owen had to be careful not to apply too much pressure.
Owen set about cleaning him up, washing the wounds and applying antiseptic cream to them, ignoring the angry yelps and hisses issuing from the injured man. He grimaced at the decolouration of Jack’s skin. It had spread round his sides a little and further up and down his spine. He shook his head in sympathy and carried on, being as gentle as he could.
Jack inwardly noted that Owen could, when he wanted to, be sensitive enough to reduce the amount of pain caused by his actions to a minimum. He may need to use it next time Owen made a snipe at Tosh about her love of technology.
Eventually, Owen had taped up the wounds and dressed them, wrapping the bandage tightly around Jack’s torso. He knew that Jack wouldn’t need normal stitches on his back, as during the process of cleaning up the wounds, they’d already started to knit back together.
Owen seriously doubted if Jack would pay any attention at all to the damage that evening, as they both knew the skin and muscles would be healed by the morning, nothing more than a bit of tenderness left to remind them of what had happened the day before. He let the grumpy American make his way out of the room, the ripped garments in his hand trailing along the floor behind him.
Jack moved sluggishly up to his office and Ianto looked up at him as he passed. Jack looked extremely tired underneath the simmering annoyance in his features. He decided to make everyone a cup of coffee and go up to find out what was wrong.
He quickly made the usual orders and passed them around to the others before taking Jack’s up to his office, knocking on the door gently. He heard a grunt from inside and gingerly pushed the door open a little further and looked in. Jack had decided against putting a new shirt on and was sitting in his chair, arms folded on the desk and his head buried in them.
Ianto felt his heart jump into his throat as he noticed the dark bruises spilling out from under the bandages and felt a small stab of sympathy as he realised just how much the man’s back must be hurting.
He shuffled in, closed the door again and placed the coffee and two aspirins on the desk in front of him, retreating back to the door as Jack looked up a little, eyes fixed on the mug before him. He eased his back straight and took a mouthful of the coffee, groaning a little as his back twinged.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about…” He closed his eyes and sighed before feeling for the pills, throwing them in his mouth and swallowing them down with another mouthful of coffee.
He was about to lean back, but remembered just in time that his back was in no state to me leant on, an annoyed growl following. He rubbed his eyes and looked up at Ianto, gesturing for him to come over.
Ianto nodded and moved closer, not sure what Jack wanted.
“You don’t have to look so scared of me, you know.” He smiled a little and reached out to pull Ianto closer to him. When Ianto was standing next to his chair, he gingerly pushed himself out up and faced Ianto, stroking his cheek gently and looking at him with an odd expression in his eyes.
A flicker of memory rose in Ianto’s mind as he recognised the look. The last time he’d seen it had been in the Tourist Office after John had been sent back through the rift. It was the exact same mixture of pain and longing that he’d been so startled by before.
He wrapped his arms gently around Jack, one above the wounds, one below, and held him close, relieved to feel Jack’s arms meeting around his waist. He felt the weight of Jack’s head on his shoulder and leant his head gently on it. He felt Jack’s breathing become a little ragged, his shoulders heaving a little bit as he cried in Ianto’s arms.
The young man closed his eyes and whispered soothingly to his lover, trying to ease the pain he was obviously feeling. They stood there for several minutes before Jack’s breathing evened out and his arms tightened around Ianto’s waist again. The young man moved one of his hands to stroke Jack’s hair comfortingly again, knowing that it had helped him get to sleep earlier that day and hoping it would have the same sort of effect now.
He looked over at the clock on Jack’s desk and saw that it was almost 8:30 pm. The others would be wanting to go home soon. He gently moved his arms from around Jack’s body and kissed him on the forehead as he watched the older man staring at the ground, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Ianto left the office and went round to the workstations, heading for Owen’s first. Jack leaned on the railing outside his office door and watched the two men muttering to each other, then moving off to get both the women away from the work and ready to leave. Jack sighed heavily and turned his back on the scene, venturing into his office to retrieve clean upper body clothes from the storage locker tucked away in a corner of the room.
He gingerly pulled the white undershirt over his head, wincing as the tender muscles in his back screamed at him to give them a rest. He stood and gave himself a chance to recover before pulling the light blue shirt on and buttoning it up.
He shuffled back out into the hub as he stuffed the shirt into his trousers and slipped his suspenders back over his shoulders. He almost immediately regretted it as he yelped as the elasticised accessory slapped into place down the middle of his back. Ianto was standing alone now, turning off the computers and looked up at Jack, concern on his face.
Seeing the slightly pathetic expression in Jack’s eyes, he made his way up to him and took his face in his hands and captured his mouth gently. When he pulled away, Jack had straightened a little and some of his usual boyish manner was back. Ianto made his way into the office and turned off all the appliances that required it before unhooking Jack’s coat and helping the older man shrug it on.
They made their way out of the hub and back to Ianto’s car. It was starting to be normal for the two of them to return to Ianto’s cosy flat. Jack smiled wistfully to himself.
There was something comforting about knowing he was wanted somewhere else than the hub.
---
TBC - hope you like it =]
Chapter 8
Rating: 15
Characters/Pairings: Team; Jack/Ianto
Spoilers: S1, 2x01
Warnings: Mild violence; M/M relations; Angst
Summary: Jack remembers why he stopped sleeping in the first place...
[ The 'And So It Begins... Again' Saga ]
Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to Russel T. Davies ftw - I'm just having a play
Author's Note: Had a pretty good day.. discovered Prison Break and I love it! But yeah, I forgot how long this chapter was! I hope you like it =] I'm rather proud of it!
---
Chapter 7
Jack managed to sleep again that night, drifting off at some ungodly hour of the morning, Ianto curled up in his arms, both worn out from the night’s previous activities…
He found himself standing in the hub, looking down at the basin, the steady ‘drip drip drip’ noise echoing up to him. He felt something pull him down from his office, a strange curiosity that he couldn’t fight. He eventually found himself staring down at the pool of water.
It was the wrong colour, a little darker than usual.
The dripping continued.
He bent down to look at the water more closely and noted the different tone
It wasn’t colourless or muddy anymore, it looked more red, like it had blood in it. The next drip fell and Jack watched the vibrant red colour disperse out into the increasingly dark area in the middle of the pool.
Before the next drop could fall, Jack looked up sharply.
Ianto was bound and gagged, suspended from the ceiling by roughly hewn ropes. He was dressed, as ever, in an immaculate three piece suit, but there were horrifying differences. The white sleeve cuffs were crimson with the blood covering his hands, and his entire figure was limp.
He was completely still, his head slumped forwards on his chest, blood dripping steadily from his angular chin. Dripping…
Jack felt the pain and fear bubble up inside him, desperation making him cast around for a way to retrieve his lover’s body. The fear increased, making him stop all movements, as he saw a new figure standing where he’d been a minute or so ago. Up by his office, next to the door and leaning on the railing in front of him, was the Doctor.
His Doctor.
He was looking down at Jack, his light brown hair as dishevelled as it ever was, as it had been the last time they’d seen each other. The black rimmed glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stop Jack seeing the grief that was contorting his features.
The brown coat hung to the floor and the red converse covered feet were crossed uncomfortably. Jack looked from one man to the other, not knowing what to do, what to say.
“Jack.” The Doctor spoke and attracted all attention to himself. “Jack, I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.”
“What? Do what? What happened?!” Jack felt the anger rise up in him, mixing with the fear gripping his heart. The Doctor just looked at something behind Jack and the American whirled around, staring at the wall behind him. There were two words written on the wall, written in blood. Ianto’s blood.
VOTE SAXON
*
He jerked awake, breathing heavily and trying to focus on something, anything, in the darkened room around him. He felt another jolt of fear as he realised he couldn’t see anything, and swung his arms out as he sat up. His arm connected with something next to him and he heard a grumbled reply.
“Ow.” Jack felt his vision adjusting and looked down. Ianto was lying on his side, facing away from him and rubbing his shoulder, muttering darkly to himself, still half asleep. “What the hell, Jack?”
Jack didn’t say anything, just looked away and rubbed his eyes. He climbed out of bed and made his way into the living area, uncovering yesterday’s boxers and pulling them on before digging out his t-shirt and donning that as well. There was no way he’d be able to sleep again after that. He began to remember just why he’d stopped sleeping to begin with.
Memories of the Game Station had flooded his dreams for months before he eventually managed to stop himself falling asleep, opting instead for a trance that substituted it, but brought none of the phantoms he usually saw. He looked up and saw Ianto standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the duvet draped around his shoulders. He looked at him sleepily, a slightly worried expression on his face. Jack stood and looked at him with a grimace on his face.
“Ianto… go back to bed. You can get a couple more hours of sleep before we have to go back to work. You should make the most of it.” He tried to smile, but he knew it wasn’t going to convince Ianto. He wasn’t surprised when he saw the young man shuffle over to him and envelope him in the duvet, holding him tight and leaning his chin on his shoulder. Jack sighed and wrapped his arms around him, enjoying the warm comfort of Ianto’s body against his. “Go back to bed, Ianto.”
Ianto pulled away a little and looked up at him, frowning. “Jack, you seriously think that I’m going to let you wake up, punch me in the shoulder - which actually kind of hurt - and tell me to go back to bed? Knowing full well that you’re going to sit out here on your own, thinking about whatever the hell it was that made you do it?”
Jack looked at him, tried to find a way to object, but gave in, allowing Ianto to pull him back into the bedroom.
They lay down together and Jack covered them both up, sighing a little as Ianto curled around him and stroked his hair gently. He looked down at the young man and smiled to see his eyes were closed already. He wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t exactly conscious either. He rolled onto his side to that their bodies were flush against each other and wrapped his arms around Ianto, stroking the small of his back in reply to Ianto caressing his hair.
He found it extremely soothing and soon realised that he’d drifted back off to sleep, though this time, he wasn’t plagued with anything.
*
The morning’s rituals had passed without event. Ianto had woken him up gently with a kiss on the lips and then managed to get him into the shower and make him presentable for work the next day. He’d only succeeded by allowing Jack to pull him under the hot jet of water alongside him.
Ianto had maintained his focus and with the minimum of distractions and they were washed, dressed and ready to go to work, slightly to Jack’s annoyance. He couldn’t stay annoyed for long though, as he soon realised how amusing it was that after such a short amount of time, they were acting like the last week or so had been several years.
On the way to the hub, Jack had insisted on getting blueberry pancakes from the same café as before and when they finally did get into work, the two of them sat together in the board room and enjoyed their breakfast.
The others had turned up an hour or so later, asking for coffee. Ianto had complied, as always, and left Jack to his work. The rest of the morning had been filled with paperwork, avoiding the local police and sending a Tourist spacecraft out of the orbit after giving them a brief history of the planet. Jack had been amazed at how quickly Tosh covered the billions of years of the Earth’s existence. About twenty minutes after the alert, the ship was heading off to it’s next destination.
Late that afternoon, the team had been alerted to a Weevil going topside and Jack, Gwen and Owen had left to pick it up, Tosh directing them from the hub. They’d returned an hour or so later with the Weevil in tow.
Jack was in an extremely bad mood.
He’d stormed in with the Weevil and thrown it down into the cell next to Janet. He’d had just about enough of Weevils. All they ever did was go topside, sit in a cell for a week and then get released back into the sewers. Apart from Janet, but that was a different story.
When he’d emerged from the vaults, he’d tried to shut himself in his office, but was redirected by Owen and dragged down into the autopsy bay.
“You may be immortal and heal at twice the rate of a normal human being, but you need that stitched and cleaned to avoid scarring.” Owen poked the gashes in Jack’s back to reinforce his point and Jack cringed away from the pain.
“Ow! Christ, Owen, where’s the tact?” Jack snapped at the doctor, trying to lean away form him. Owen just raised an eyebrow and pulled the ripped shirt and undershirt off him. He moved round behind Jack and looked at the damage the Weevil had done.
Jack was sitting hunched over, glowering at the wall in front of him and trying to ignoring the throbbing pains in his back. Of course, he was quite entitled to be annoyed at the pain, as there were three parallel gases across the middle of his back, all about seven or eight inches long.
They were still bleeding a little and Jack’s back was covered in half congealed blood. All the flesh around the gashes had turned a dark purple colour and Owen had to be careful not to apply too much pressure.
Owen set about cleaning him up, washing the wounds and applying antiseptic cream to them, ignoring the angry yelps and hisses issuing from the injured man. He grimaced at the decolouration of Jack’s skin. It had spread round his sides a little and further up and down his spine. He shook his head in sympathy and carried on, being as gentle as he could.
Jack inwardly noted that Owen could, when he wanted to, be sensitive enough to reduce the amount of pain caused by his actions to a minimum. He may need to use it next time Owen made a snipe at Tosh about her love of technology.
Eventually, Owen had taped up the wounds and dressed them, wrapping the bandage tightly around Jack’s torso. He knew that Jack wouldn’t need normal stitches on his back, as during the process of cleaning up the wounds, they’d already started to knit back together.
Owen seriously doubted if Jack would pay any attention at all to the damage that evening, as they both knew the skin and muscles would be healed by the morning, nothing more than a bit of tenderness left to remind them of what had happened the day before. He let the grumpy American make his way out of the room, the ripped garments in his hand trailing along the floor behind him.
Jack moved sluggishly up to his office and Ianto looked up at him as he passed. Jack looked extremely tired underneath the simmering annoyance in his features. He decided to make everyone a cup of coffee and go up to find out what was wrong.
He quickly made the usual orders and passed them around to the others before taking Jack’s up to his office, knocking on the door gently. He heard a grunt from inside and gingerly pushed the door open a little further and looked in. Jack had decided against putting a new shirt on and was sitting in his chair, arms folded on the desk and his head buried in them.
Ianto felt his heart jump into his throat as he noticed the dark bruises spilling out from under the bandages and felt a small stab of sympathy as he realised just how much the man’s back must be hurting.
He shuffled in, closed the door again and placed the coffee and two aspirins on the desk in front of him, retreating back to the door as Jack looked up a little, eyes fixed on the mug before him. He eased his back straight and took a mouthful of the coffee, groaning a little as his back twinged.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about…” He closed his eyes and sighed before feeling for the pills, throwing them in his mouth and swallowing them down with another mouthful of coffee.
He was about to lean back, but remembered just in time that his back was in no state to me leant on, an annoyed growl following. He rubbed his eyes and looked up at Ianto, gesturing for him to come over.
Ianto nodded and moved closer, not sure what Jack wanted.
“You don’t have to look so scared of me, you know.” He smiled a little and reached out to pull Ianto closer to him. When Ianto was standing next to his chair, he gingerly pushed himself out up and faced Ianto, stroking his cheek gently and looking at him with an odd expression in his eyes.
A flicker of memory rose in Ianto’s mind as he recognised the look. The last time he’d seen it had been in the Tourist Office after John had been sent back through the rift. It was the exact same mixture of pain and longing that he’d been so startled by before.
He wrapped his arms gently around Jack, one above the wounds, one below, and held him close, relieved to feel Jack’s arms meeting around his waist. He felt the weight of Jack’s head on his shoulder and leant his head gently on it. He felt Jack’s breathing become a little ragged, his shoulders heaving a little bit as he cried in Ianto’s arms.
The young man closed his eyes and whispered soothingly to his lover, trying to ease the pain he was obviously feeling. They stood there for several minutes before Jack’s breathing evened out and his arms tightened around Ianto’s waist again. The young man moved one of his hands to stroke Jack’s hair comfortingly again, knowing that it had helped him get to sleep earlier that day and hoping it would have the same sort of effect now.
He looked over at the clock on Jack’s desk and saw that it was almost 8:30 pm. The others would be wanting to go home soon. He gently moved his arms from around Jack’s body and kissed him on the forehead as he watched the older man staring at the ground, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Ianto left the office and went round to the workstations, heading for Owen’s first. Jack leaned on the railing outside his office door and watched the two men muttering to each other, then moving off to get both the women away from the work and ready to leave. Jack sighed heavily and turned his back on the scene, venturing into his office to retrieve clean upper body clothes from the storage locker tucked away in a corner of the room.
He gingerly pulled the white undershirt over his head, wincing as the tender muscles in his back screamed at him to give them a rest. He stood and gave himself a chance to recover before pulling the light blue shirt on and buttoning it up.
He shuffled back out into the hub as he stuffed the shirt into his trousers and slipped his suspenders back over his shoulders. He almost immediately regretted it as he yelped as the elasticised accessory slapped into place down the middle of his back. Ianto was standing alone now, turning off the computers and looked up at Jack, concern on his face.
Seeing the slightly pathetic expression in Jack’s eyes, he made his way up to him and took his face in his hands and captured his mouth gently. When he pulled away, Jack had straightened a little and some of his usual boyish manner was back. Ianto made his way into the office and turned off all the appliances that required it before unhooking Jack’s coat and helping the older man shrug it on.
They made their way out of the hub and back to Ianto’s car. It was starting to be normal for the two of them to return to Ianto’s cosy flat. Jack smiled wistfully to himself.
There was something comforting about knowing he was wanted somewhere else than the hub.
---
TBC - hope you like it =]
Chapter 8