It'll End in Tears #21: "Nothing Beside Remains"
Title: "Nothing Beside Remains"
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: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the NC-17 range for language, smut, and kink (porn, masturbation, imagined D/s).
Notes/Summary: Part #21 of the " It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #19 on the un_love_you prompt table. Thanks to sanginmychains for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu, and to resourceress for looking at some early draftwork. (Note: I did additional work on the introduction before posting, so any errors in the installment are my own, and not the fault of my crack team of awesome betas.)
Thursday
The lights in Andy’s flat go out. A moment later, Jack steps out onto the pavement, fully dressed and carrying their bag, as well as a half-filled black bin liner. The satin lining of Jack’s greatcoat slides against its outer woolen shell as Ianto sits up to get a closer look.
Jack isn’t carrying a body.
An hour and a half isn’t a long time, but it’s long enough for Ianto to exhaust himself working out details and what-ifs. His head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, and his eyes sting from crying. He knows from the visor mirror that he looks a mess, but he's had a chance to collect himself a little and remember that Andy isn't a threat in the same way Lisa was, or Suzie. He isn't even like Mary. Andy is basically unremarkable in everything except for possibly his terribly shitty luck.
He’s a Rhys, and Jack wouldn’t shoot Rhys.
Jack circles the SUV and opens the hatch to toss the bags in, and then slams it shut. He’s talking already when he opens the driver’s side door and slides into his seat. “…handle a few logistical details, but overall -“
Ianto cuts in. “How is he?” His voice is rough and he swallows reflexively.
Jack looks at Ianto. His expression is serious, but not angry. He looks tired. “He’s asleep in the front room. I’ll need to move him in a few hours just to change the scene. It’s sorted, though. He’ll make it through the night.”
Ianto relaxes a little more. Alive and asleep probably means Retcon. Changing the scene means keeping Andy out among the general populace. “Can I see him?”
“No,” Jack says. He hesitates, as if to say something, and then sticks his keys in the ignition.
They’re almost to Ianto’s flat by the time he realizes that Jack smells faintly of toothpaste.
Friday
“Andrew? Mr. Davidson? Can you hear me?”
Andy blinks, confused. The room is too bright and unfamiliar, and when he sits up his whole head goes topsy-turvy.
“Be careful, Mr. Davidson. You’ve had a rough couple of days, looks like.”
“Was I in an accident?” he asks, eyes finally focusing on the woman in front of him. She’s small, very slightly Asian with caramel skin. She looks like a doctor of some sort. “Am I in hospital?”
She nods grimly. “I’m afraid so. You’ve been unconscious for nearly sixteen hours now.”
“Unconscious?” He blinks at her and shakes his head to clear it, but it makes him nauseous and he has to lie back down.
The doctor (whose nametag he can’t quite make out) picks up his chart. “How much do you remember about last night?”
Andy shakes his head. “Not a lot. Normal night, I think. Home from work, made a spag bol, watched some telly, maybe?”
“Did you go out with anyone? Do any drinking? Take any pills?”
Andy shakes his head again. He feels woozy. “Not that I remember. Why?”
“Well, Mr. Davidson,” she says as she turns a page on his chart. “According to your tests, you arrived with several different sedatives in your system, including GHB. That was enough of a red flag that we did a closer examination. We found…well, we found evidence of sexual contact.”
Andy flinches. He feels sick, suddenly, and wants to disappear. Sexual contact? What the fuck does that mean? He looks around the room, everywhere but at his doctor. “The calendar’s wrong,” he says weakly.
“Sorry?”
“The calendar,” he repeats. “Someone’s put it ahead four months.”
“Mr. Davidson” the doctor says softly. “I’m sorry, but what day do you think it is?”
Saturday
Andy fidgets on his sofa. The telly is off. The lights. Everything that doesn’t need to always be on is off.
Amnesia.
He’s missing over thirteen weeks of his life. Three months, lost because of drugs he doesn’t remember taking and an unlucky quirk of his brain chemistry.
Temple has been merciful, under the circumstances: two weeks of leave, so they can be sure his brain was working right and he could get his bearings.
The doctors seem uncomfortable with his unwillingness to file a police report. He can understand why they want him to, but to go on record about being found face down in the grass and slightly roughed up with a lubed-up arse and traces of semen in his mouth? Sorry, but his job is already difficult and dangerous. He doesn’t want to think about how hard it’s going to be once that gets out.
Provided it isn’t public knowledge already. Andy groans. It probably is, considering. At least the bit about being found drugged to the gills in the park.
He should file a police report. He should help find whoever did this. But he can’t. He just wants to forget about it. Unfortunately, forgetting is part of the problem.
Monday
Andy goes running late Monday morning. He does a long circuit on roads and sidewalks, dipping toward the City Centre. By the time he comes home his lungs and legs are burning, but he feels a little bit better about life. He’s a do-er. Even on leave, he has to be active.
Afterward, he putters around his flat, trying to find hints about the last three odd months of his life. There are missing things (his notebook, his planner, his personal phone/address book) and new things (two safety candles in glass jars on his bedside table with wax on the rims, a hole in his wall like he’s thrown something at it, a surprising cache of condoms and personal lubricant, and some books and magazines he can’t imagine ever buying himself).
It’s a mystery. He’s a cop. It isn’t something he can resist.
His mobile history is blanked. His e-mail seems mostly intact, though. Notes from his mam, dirty jokes and pictures from Trav, spam, a couple of digests he’s subscribed to. It isn’t a bad paper trail, and it certainly helps him piece together a fair bit of his social history. He’s relieved (and a little disappointed) that he apparently hasn’t dated since Rebecca, though he’s surprisingly well-stocked for being single. Wishful thinking, maybe?
He goes out for a Chinese sometime around six with no clear answers. Instead of his usual he orders ginger chicken without thinking, and spends his whole dinner wondering why.
Tuesday
There’s an unfamiliar shirt in his laundry.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that he’d bought a shirt sometime in the last three months, but it doesn’t feel like it’s his somehow.
So he sniffs it.
It’s an unfamiliar smell. Worse, it’s an unfamiliar masculine smell.
Andy tries not to think about the books and magazines under his bed. He especially does not think about the words evidence of sexual contact.
He spends the rest of the day avoiding his bedroom, and his laundry, and eventually falls asleep on his sofa. When he wakes up later, hungry and with a crick in his back, the shirt is still there. He hides it with the books and magazines.
Wednesday
Trav calls him Wednesday afternoon.
“Bunch of weird rumors going around the station, Andy,” he says, and Andy knows from the tone of his voice that the news has spread. Probably with details. “You alright, mate?”
“Fine,” he lies. He’s bought a fresh notebook and it’s already half full of details and crackpot theories. “Though, uh, you don’t remember anything weird about the last few weeks, do you?”
There’s a snort from the other side of the line. “Andy, you’re always dead weird. But, uh, between you and me? You seemed pretty happy last week.”
Andy closes his eyes. “Shame I missed it, then.”
“You going to file a report?” Trav asks, and Andy can hear the business in his voice. Not a social call, then.
Andy shakes his head and stares angrily at his calendar. He still hasn’t changed it. “No. What would I say? Amnesiac, remember?”
“Yeah, guess so. Anyway, sorry.”
“Thanks.”
Thursday
He runs again on Thursday afternoon. He’s been running every day on leave, actually, but Thursday he runs like he’s trying for an Olympic trial, or like he’s in that Stephen King story where if you stop moving you get shot. He comes home winded and sore, and spends about thirty minutes laying shirtless on his back on the cool kitchen tile before dragging himself into the shower to scrape off the sweat and grit. The hot water feels fantastic pounding into his skin, and for the first time in a week he feels relaxed.
He towels himself dry and checks himself out in the mirror. The last three months have been kind to him, at least. With a satisfied nod, he wraps a towel around his waist and meanders to his bedroom to look for clean clothes.
Instead, he pulls the box out from under his bed. The Mystery Shirt is still there, and so are the magazines.
You seemed pretty happy last week.
He glances at his bedside drawer.
With nervous hands, he reaches down to pick up the shirt. It’s one of those designer tees, in a color he doesn’t usually wear, but the cotton is incredibly soft in his fingers. He nuzzles it experimentally, breathes it in, and trembles.
Oh god, what am I doing?
The towel around his waist falls open a bit, and he slips his hand inside. He’s already half-hard. He hasn’t even thought about touching himself since he got out of the hospital, and his body feels eager to get on with it.
On impulse, he slides off the bed and kneels facing the wall. He’s left the towel behind, and while it feels a bit odd to be on his knees starkers while he strokes himself hard, he likes the sense that he’s doing something sort of naughty. Like he’s in a prison movie, maybe, or a porno. He reaches over for one of the magazines and flips through, curious.
This is so wrong.
His eyes settle on a photo of a pale-eyed man holding a belt. He’s shirtless, wearing dress trousers, and his face is strangely placid in spite of the way he’s gripping a naked man by the hair and twisting him around as if to get him into position for whipping.
Andy gasps, imagining the bite of leather across his flesh. He can picture the weals, and how they’d sting in hot, red lines across the backs of his thighs and his arse.
His hand moves faster. He turns the page.
Dark hair this time, fucking another man’s mouth. His jeans are around his knees, and his shirt is pulled up a little to reveal the dark hair on his stomach. With a whimper, Andy sticks two fingers in his mouth. The sensation on his tongue goes straight to his cock and he moans deep in his chest and sucks as he pumps them in and out in a desperate rhythm.
This shouldn’t turn me on. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t need - oh god…
He wants to come, but he imagines a soft and terrible voice above him telling him to wait. That he isn’t allowed yet. That he has to wait, but that he’s not allowed to still his hands. He keens around his fingers, head thrown back and eyes shut tight.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t…
You can, the voice tells him, and he believes it in spite of the tightness in his balls and the sweat beading on his skin. You will. This is about my pleasure. This isn’t about you at all.
“Yes sir,” he says, muffled, almost choking on his own fingers, drooling spit down his chin.
I’ll wait. I’ll wait. Oh god, I’ll wait until you say it’s okay…
He’s shaking all over, losing cohesion, bucking hard into his own fist. His eyes feel wet, his knees ache, and his muscles burn. The hand in his mouth flies out to prop him up against the wall, to stop him falling over.
Please. Please. Please, oh fuck, please let me -
He comes all over his hand and the floor and the wall with a wailing sob that feels like it’s being ripped out of him. His hand slips from the wall and he crumples fully to the floor, trembling and weeping uncontrollably. He curls into a tight ball and wraps his arms around himself.
Good boy. Good boy. Good boy…
---
Prev (Pt #20) (Warnings: language, cruelty to Andy-kind.)
-
Next (Pt #22) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [masturbation, imagined D/s])
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: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the NC-17 range for language, smut, and kink (porn, masturbation, imagined D/s).
Notes/Summary: Part #21 of the " It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #19 on the un_love_you prompt table. Thanks to sanginmychains for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu, and to resourceress for looking at some early draftwork. (Note: I did additional work on the introduction before posting, so any errors in the installment are my own, and not the fault of my crack team of awesome betas.)
Thursday
The lights in Andy’s flat go out. A moment later, Jack steps out onto the pavement, fully dressed and carrying their bag, as well as a half-filled black bin liner. The satin lining of Jack’s greatcoat slides against its outer woolen shell as Ianto sits up to get a closer look.
Jack isn’t carrying a body.
An hour and a half isn’t a long time, but it’s long enough for Ianto to exhaust himself working out details and what-ifs. His head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, and his eyes sting from crying. He knows from the visor mirror that he looks a mess, but he's had a chance to collect himself a little and remember that Andy isn't a threat in the same way Lisa was, or Suzie. He isn't even like Mary. Andy is basically unremarkable in everything except for possibly his terribly shitty luck.
He’s a Rhys, and Jack wouldn’t shoot Rhys.
Jack circles the SUV and opens the hatch to toss the bags in, and then slams it shut. He’s talking already when he opens the driver’s side door and slides into his seat. “…handle a few logistical details, but overall -“
Ianto cuts in. “How is he?” His voice is rough and he swallows reflexively.
Jack looks at Ianto. His expression is serious, but not angry. He looks tired. “He’s asleep in the front room. I’ll need to move him in a few hours just to change the scene. It’s sorted, though. He’ll make it through the night.”
Ianto relaxes a little more. Alive and asleep probably means Retcon. Changing the scene means keeping Andy out among the general populace. “Can I see him?”
“No,” Jack says. He hesitates, as if to say something, and then sticks his keys in the ignition.
They’re almost to Ianto’s flat by the time he realizes that Jack smells faintly of toothpaste.
Friday
“Andrew? Mr. Davidson? Can you hear me?”
Andy blinks, confused. The room is too bright and unfamiliar, and when he sits up his whole head goes topsy-turvy.
“Be careful, Mr. Davidson. You’ve had a rough couple of days, looks like.”
“Was I in an accident?” he asks, eyes finally focusing on the woman in front of him. She’s small, very slightly Asian with caramel skin. She looks like a doctor of some sort. “Am I in hospital?”
She nods grimly. “I’m afraid so. You’ve been unconscious for nearly sixteen hours now.”
“Unconscious?” He blinks at her and shakes his head to clear it, but it makes him nauseous and he has to lie back down.
The doctor (whose nametag he can’t quite make out) picks up his chart. “How much do you remember about last night?”
Andy shakes his head. “Not a lot. Normal night, I think. Home from work, made a spag bol, watched some telly, maybe?”
“Did you go out with anyone? Do any drinking? Take any pills?”
Andy shakes his head again. He feels woozy. “Not that I remember. Why?”
“Well, Mr. Davidson,” she says as she turns a page on his chart. “According to your tests, you arrived with several different sedatives in your system, including GHB. That was enough of a red flag that we did a closer examination. We found…well, we found evidence of sexual contact.”
Andy flinches. He feels sick, suddenly, and wants to disappear. Sexual contact? What the fuck does that mean? He looks around the room, everywhere but at his doctor. “The calendar’s wrong,” he says weakly.
“Sorry?”
“The calendar,” he repeats. “Someone’s put it ahead four months.”
“Mr. Davidson” the doctor says softly. “I’m sorry, but what day do you think it is?”
Saturday
Andy fidgets on his sofa. The telly is off. The lights. Everything that doesn’t need to always be on is off.
Amnesia.
He’s missing over thirteen weeks of his life. Three months, lost because of drugs he doesn’t remember taking and an unlucky quirk of his brain chemistry.
Temple has been merciful, under the circumstances: two weeks of leave, so they can be sure his brain was working right and he could get his bearings.
The doctors seem uncomfortable with his unwillingness to file a police report. He can understand why they want him to, but to go on record about being found face down in the grass and slightly roughed up with a lubed-up arse and traces of semen in his mouth? Sorry, but his job is already difficult and dangerous. He doesn’t want to think about how hard it’s going to be once that gets out.
Provided it isn’t public knowledge already. Andy groans. It probably is, considering. At least the bit about being found drugged to the gills in the park.
He should file a police report. He should help find whoever did this. But he can’t. He just wants to forget about it. Unfortunately, forgetting is part of the problem.
Monday
Andy goes running late Monday morning. He does a long circuit on roads and sidewalks, dipping toward the City Centre. By the time he comes home his lungs and legs are burning, but he feels a little bit better about life. He’s a do-er. Even on leave, he has to be active.
Afterward, he putters around his flat, trying to find hints about the last three odd months of his life. There are missing things (his notebook, his planner, his personal phone/address book) and new things (two safety candles in glass jars on his bedside table with wax on the rims, a hole in his wall like he’s thrown something at it, a surprising cache of condoms and personal lubricant, and some books and magazines he can’t imagine ever buying himself).
It’s a mystery. He’s a cop. It isn’t something he can resist.
His mobile history is blanked. His e-mail seems mostly intact, though. Notes from his mam, dirty jokes and pictures from Trav, spam, a couple of digests he’s subscribed to. It isn’t a bad paper trail, and it certainly helps him piece together a fair bit of his social history. He’s relieved (and a little disappointed) that he apparently hasn’t dated since Rebecca, though he’s surprisingly well-stocked for being single. Wishful thinking, maybe?
He goes out for a Chinese sometime around six with no clear answers. Instead of his usual he orders ginger chicken without thinking, and spends his whole dinner wondering why.
Tuesday
There’s an unfamiliar shirt in his laundry.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that he’d bought a shirt sometime in the last three months, but it doesn’t feel like it’s his somehow.
So he sniffs it.
It’s an unfamiliar smell. Worse, it’s an unfamiliar masculine smell.
Andy tries not to think about the books and magazines under his bed. He especially does not think about the words evidence of sexual contact.
He spends the rest of the day avoiding his bedroom, and his laundry, and eventually falls asleep on his sofa. When he wakes up later, hungry and with a crick in his back, the shirt is still there. He hides it with the books and magazines.
Wednesday
Trav calls him Wednesday afternoon.
“Bunch of weird rumors going around the station, Andy,” he says, and Andy knows from the tone of his voice that the news has spread. Probably with details. “You alright, mate?”
“Fine,” he lies. He’s bought a fresh notebook and it’s already half full of details and crackpot theories. “Though, uh, you don’t remember anything weird about the last few weeks, do you?”
There’s a snort from the other side of the line. “Andy, you’re always dead weird. But, uh, between you and me? You seemed pretty happy last week.”
Andy closes his eyes. “Shame I missed it, then.”
“You going to file a report?” Trav asks, and Andy can hear the business in his voice. Not a social call, then.
Andy shakes his head and stares angrily at his calendar. He still hasn’t changed it. “No. What would I say? Amnesiac, remember?”
“Yeah, guess so. Anyway, sorry.”
“Thanks.”
Thursday
He runs again on Thursday afternoon. He’s been running every day on leave, actually, but Thursday he runs like he’s trying for an Olympic trial, or like he’s in that Stephen King story where if you stop moving you get shot. He comes home winded and sore, and spends about thirty minutes laying shirtless on his back on the cool kitchen tile before dragging himself into the shower to scrape off the sweat and grit. The hot water feels fantastic pounding into his skin, and for the first time in a week he feels relaxed.
He towels himself dry and checks himself out in the mirror. The last three months have been kind to him, at least. With a satisfied nod, he wraps a towel around his waist and meanders to his bedroom to look for clean clothes.
Instead, he pulls the box out from under his bed. The Mystery Shirt is still there, and so are the magazines.
You seemed pretty happy last week.
He glances at his bedside drawer.
With nervous hands, he reaches down to pick up the shirt. It’s one of those designer tees, in a color he doesn’t usually wear, but the cotton is incredibly soft in his fingers. He nuzzles it experimentally, breathes it in, and trembles.
Oh god, what am I doing?
The towel around his waist falls open a bit, and he slips his hand inside. He’s already half-hard. He hasn’t even thought about touching himself since he got out of the hospital, and his body feels eager to get on with it.
On impulse, he slides off the bed and kneels facing the wall. He’s left the towel behind, and while it feels a bit odd to be on his knees starkers while he strokes himself hard, he likes the sense that he’s doing something sort of naughty. Like he’s in a prison movie, maybe, or a porno. He reaches over for one of the magazines and flips through, curious.
This is so wrong.
His eyes settle on a photo of a pale-eyed man holding a belt. He’s shirtless, wearing dress trousers, and his face is strangely placid in spite of the way he’s gripping a naked man by the hair and twisting him around as if to get him into position for whipping.
Andy gasps, imagining the bite of leather across his flesh. He can picture the weals, and how they’d sting in hot, red lines across the backs of his thighs and his arse.
His hand moves faster. He turns the page.
Dark hair this time, fucking another man’s mouth. His jeans are around his knees, and his shirt is pulled up a little to reveal the dark hair on his stomach. With a whimper, Andy sticks two fingers in his mouth. The sensation on his tongue goes straight to his cock and he moans deep in his chest and sucks as he pumps them in and out in a desperate rhythm.
This shouldn’t turn me on. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t need - oh god…
He wants to come, but he imagines a soft and terrible voice above him telling him to wait. That he isn’t allowed yet. That he has to wait, but that he’s not allowed to still his hands. He keens around his fingers, head thrown back and eyes shut tight.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t…
You can, the voice tells him, and he believes it in spite of the tightness in his balls and the sweat beading on his skin. You will. This is about my pleasure. This isn’t about you at all.
“Yes sir,” he says, muffled, almost choking on his own fingers, drooling spit down his chin.
I’ll wait. I’ll wait. Oh god, I’ll wait until you say it’s okay…
He’s shaking all over, losing cohesion, bucking hard into his own fist. His eyes feel wet, his knees ache, and his muscles burn. The hand in his mouth flies out to prop him up against the wall, to stop him falling over.
Please. Please. Please, oh fuck, please let me -
He comes all over his hand and the floor and the wall with a wailing sob that feels like it’s being ripped out of him. His hand slips from the wall and he crumples fully to the floor, trembling and weeping uncontrollably. He curls into a tight ball and wraps his arms around himself.
Good boy. Good boy. Good boy…
---
Prev (Pt #20) (Warnings: language, cruelty to Andy-kind.)
-
Next (Pt #22) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [masturbation, imagined D/s])