"Inside We Never See"
Title: "Inside We Never See"
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG? PG-13? Swearsy because I've got a dirty, dirty mouth.
Notes/Summary: Just because you've both lived through something doesn't mean you see it the same way. (Yep, it's my "Two Points of View" story for WiaD 1.08!) SPOILERS LIEK WHOA FOR 2x01 - "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"
Shameless Plug: We're down to our final eight at writerinadrawer. Stories are up, and voting typically runs until 4 PM Central Time (-6 GMT) on Sunday. Please read and vote! This week's prompt is "Lockdown!" with the added feature of an animal. Well, other than Jack...
But Happiness will come our way.
And magic comes just not today.
When ships are sailing across the sea,
The lights are on, inside we never see.
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, "Happiness"
They were almost out of washing-up liquid. He'd have to get more. Still, that would keep until tomorrow. Right now he was too busy looking at the coffee mugs in the dish drainer to feel like bothering with a trip to ASDA.
Five. He thought. Not four.
Finally.
Ianto had spent more time than he would ever admit to anyone - not just Jack but especially Jack - thinking about what this moment would look like. Well, not this exact moment in particular. The washing-up wasn't exactly a thrilling emotional experience worth weeks of worry and anger and confusion.
No, he'd been waiting for their first moment alone - really alone - except now he had no idea what to do with it.
Hart had beaten him to his overwhelming twin urges to snog and/or beat the daylights out of Jack, and as much as Jack had tried to hide it, there'd been an easy familiarity between the two men that set Ianto's teeth on edge. Could he help it that every word that spilled out of Hart's mouth seemed tailor made to remind him just how little claim he actually had on Jack Harkness?
In every way and then some.
Fucking bastard.
There had been that thing in the office building with Jack stammering on about photocopiers and proper dinner-and-movie dates, but that didn't really count either. They'd been working, after all. Honestly, Ianto was willing to put the whole thing down to hysteria. Not that he didn't want it dearly, mind, but it was just too damn much for him to expect after everything they'd been through.
Just the tea boy. Eye candy. The office boy, promoted beyond his measure.
Just how pathetic do you have to be for strange blowfish to start pointing it out, anyway?
Part-time shag.
Well, what did he think Jack had kept him around for? It certainly wasn't because he was a dead shot. That much was obvious.
Ianto dried his hands and leaned up against the counter. He could hear Jack's footsteps ringing on steel grating, moving up stairs and along catwalks before stopping abruptly just outside the kitchenette.
What a cosmic joke, his inner voice chided, twisting Hart's words into his side for the thousandth time. An accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes? The sex? Just cover the fact that nothing means anything.
Ianto shoved the dish rack onto the floor.
# # #
Be here now.
That was the trick with time travel. Being here, right now, in the moment. Human beings were terrible at it. Human beings thought in straight lines, craved security, and needed companionship. Time travel, meanwhile, demanded detachment. It was by its nature anathema to all of those things. Travel in time for very long, and the fundamentals of normal life cease to be meaningful. Most people learned that the hard way. Home wasn't just a somewhere but a somewhen, and once lost, you can never go back.
In retrospect, it was hardly surprising he'd been such a successful con artist. The Time Agency knew about detachment. They drilled it into recruits day in and day out, turning out finely honed sociopaths ready and willing to kill their own sacred cows for the right amount of scrip. John was good, but Jack had been even better. Jack had been the best.
Had been. Past tense.
Of course there'd been a part of him that exploded with sheer animal joy at seeing John again. A snog and a brawl, just like old times. It awakened that old urge to fuck not anything but everything that moved. Pure, blood-spattered ecstasy, gleaming and in his grasp after a year of Hell? It was perfect.
He didn't want it.
Jack was an old hand at breaking the golden rule of time travel these days. He'd spent decades longing for the Doctor. He'd fallen in love more times than could possibly be healthy. He'd fought on more battlefields than anyone else this century. And while there'd been a fair amount of pragmatism in the amount of attention he paid to the moment on the Valiant, he'd spent more than a few hours over the past year wishing he was in this moment instead.
He'd had an epiphany on the roof of the British Gas building. He and John were squared off, trying to bitch one another into submission, and suddenly everything clicked into place.
John hadn't come for the canisters. Well, maybe he had initially, but by the time they'd got to the point where he was pushing Jack off a twelve story building, it was only half about the money. No, John was hanging on to a moment in time that wasn't his anymore, and begging Jack to come help him fix it.
It was that insight that stopped him from dragging John over the edge. John was deranged, but he was all too human. Blowfish aside, the Doctor would have been proud.
He heard Ianto clanking around in the kitchenette. It astonished him how, after everything he'd been through, some pretty boy in a nice suit could make his heart beat a little faster. His palms had actually been sweating in that office building. It felt good.
Jack practically jumped out of his chair and bounced out into the Hub. They really had done a good job without him. They had an arboretum for goodness sake. Why hadn't he ever thought to add an arboretum?
Jack heard the tap go silent as he ascended the steps up onto the walkway that led to the kitchenette. Maybe he could drag Ianto off to some awful late night something-or-other out on Chippy Lane, or walk in a park, or…
Well, anything. Anything Ianto wanted, Jack was up for it tonight.
He rounded the corner to find the other man leaning against the counter, eyes closed. He looked exhausted.
Alright, maybe not Chippy Lane.
Jack started to speak, but was silenced by the crash and shatter of the dish drainer smashing to the floor.
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG? PG-13? Swearsy because I've got a dirty, dirty mouth.
Notes/Summary: Just because you've both lived through something doesn't mean you see it the same way. (Yep, it's my "Two Points of View" story for WiaD 1.08!) SPOILERS LIEK WHOA FOR 2x01 - "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"
Shameless Plug: We're down to our final eight at writerinadrawer. Stories are up, and voting typically runs until 4 PM Central Time (-6 GMT) on Sunday. Please read and vote! This week's prompt is "Lockdown!" with the added feature of an animal. Well, other than Jack...
But Happiness will come our way.
And magic comes just not today.
When ships are sailing across the sea,
The lights are on, inside we never see.
- Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, "Happiness"
They were almost out of washing-up liquid. He'd have to get more. Still, that would keep until tomorrow. Right now he was too busy looking at the coffee mugs in the dish drainer to feel like bothering with a trip to ASDA.
Five. He thought. Not four.
Finally.
Ianto had spent more time than he would ever admit to anyone - not just Jack but especially Jack - thinking about what this moment would look like. Well, not this exact moment in particular. The washing-up wasn't exactly a thrilling emotional experience worth weeks of worry and anger and confusion.
No, he'd been waiting for their first moment alone - really alone - except now he had no idea what to do with it.
Hart had beaten him to his overwhelming twin urges to snog and/or beat the daylights out of Jack, and as much as Jack had tried to hide it, there'd been an easy familiarity between the two men that set Ianto's teeth on edge. Could he help it that every word that spilled out of Hart's mouth seemed tailor made to remind him just how little claim he actually had on Jack Harkness?
In every way and then some.
Fucking bastard.
There had been that thing in the office building with Jack stammering on about photocopiers and proper dinner-and-movie dates, but that didn't really count either. They'd been working, after all. Honestly, Ianto was willing to put the whole thing down to hysteria. Not that he didn't want it dearly, mind, but it was just too damn much for him to expect after everything they'd been through.
Just the tea boy. Eye candy. The office boy, promoted beyond his measure.
Just how pathetic do you have to be for strange blowfish to start pointing it out, anyway?
Part-time shag.
Well, what did he think Jack had kept him around for? It certainly wasn't because he was a dead shot. That much was obvious.
Ianto dried his hands and leaned up against the counter. He could hear Jack's footsteps ringing on steel grating, moving up stairs and along catwalks before stopping abruptly just outside the kitchenette.
What a cosmic joke, his inner voice chided, twisting Hart's words into his side for the thousandth time. An accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes? The sex? Just cover the fact that nothing means anything.
Ianto shoved the dish rack onto the floor.
# # #
Be here now.
That was the trick with time travel. Being here, right now, in the moment. Human beings were terrible at it. Human beings thought in straight lines, craved security, and needed companionship. Time travel, meanwhile, demanded detachment. It was by its nature anathema to all of those things. Travel in time for very long, and the fundamentals of normal life cease to be meaningful. Most people learned that the hard way. Home wasn't just a somewhere but a somewhen, and once lost, you can never go back.
In retrospect, it was hardly surprising he'd been such a successful con artist. The Time Agency knew about detachment. They drilled it into recruits day in and day out, turning out finely honed sociopaths ready and willing to kill their own sacred cows for the right amount of scrip. John was good, but Jack had been even better. Jack had been the best.
Had been. Past tense.
Of course there'd been a part of him that exploded with sheer animal joy at seeing John again. A snog and a brawl, just like old times. It awakened that old urge to fuck not anything but everything that moved. Pure, blood-spattered ecstasy, gleaming and in his grasp after a year of Hell? It was perfect.
He didn't want it.
Jack was an old hand at breaking the golden rule of time travel these days. He'd spent decades longing for the Doctor. He'd fallen in love more times than could possibly be healthy. He'd fought on more battlefields than anyone else this century. And while there'd been a fair amount of pragmatism in the amount of attention he paid to the moment on the Valiant, he'd spent more than a few hours over the past year wishing he was in this moment instead.
He'd had an epiphany on the roof of the British Gas building. He and John were squared off, trying to bitch one another into submission, and suddenly everything clicked into place.
John hadn't come for the canisters. Well, maybe he had initially, but by the time they'd got to the point where he was pushing Jack off a twelve story building, it was only half about the money. No, John was hanging on to a moment in time that wasn't his anymore, and begging Jack to come help him fix it.
It was that insight that stopped him from dragging John over the edge. John was deranged, but he was all too human. Blowfish aside, the Doctor would have been proud.
He heard Ianto clanking around in the kitchenette. It astonished him how, after everything he'd been through, some pretty boy in a nice suit could make his heart beat a little faster. His palms had actually been sweating in that office building. It felt good.
Jack practically jumped out of his chair and bounced out into the Hub. They really had done a good job without him. They had an arboretum for goodness sake. Why hadn't he ever thought to add an arboretum?
Jack heard the tap go silent as he ascended the steps up onto the walkway that led to the kitchenette. Maybe he could drag Ianto off to some awful late night something-or-other out on Chippy Lane, or walk in a park, or…
Well, anything. Anything Ianto wanted, Jack was up for it tonight.
He rounded the corner to find the other man leaning against the counter, eyes closed. He looked exhausted.
Alright, maybe not Chippy Lane.
Jack started to speak, but was silenced by the crash and shatter of the dish drainer smashing to the floor.