Fic: House of Glass and Fog - Prologue (1/?)
Title: House of Glass and Fog - Prologue
Word Count: Overall ~30,500 words, chapter ~2,500
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Torchwood Team
Rating: NC-17 overall, this chapter PG13
Warning: Slasharama
Summary: First you lose your memories then you lose their trust then goes the job and the love is always last. Just because it’s retcon doesn’t mean you can forget forever. A take on how Ianto deals with Jack’s wondering heart.
Spoilers: Season one through Something Borrowed
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Jack, Ianto and all related Torchwood material but I don’t. Someday I will… Someday!
A/N: I owe thanks to two very special ladies on this one. First to spitefulmage who asked for a fic on Something Borrowed and who always reassured me with “well it could be worse…” as I bitched on the phone. She also gave me some major encouragement and without it I doubt this would have been posted. Secondly to my lovely beta who I won’t name for now as I don’t have her screen name. You know who you are and I appreciate all of the help! Hopefully I can giver her the credit she deserves soon.
A/N2: This story is completed but due to LJ’s post limits it will be divided into an unknown number of parts and will be posted over the next few weeks. I’m still trying to find the natural breaks.
“Bloody wedding fairy my ass,” Ianto muttered to himself as he dumped the last of Gwen’s retconed guests into their hotel room. After 3 hours of doing this by himself, Ianto wanted to leave the hotel and the festivities behind and go home to drink away his broken heart. Maybe even erase the whole disastrous evening.
Ianto had hoped the day and evening would have turned out differently than had what actually happened. When Ianto heard Gwen was engaged to Rhys he was ecstatic and not for any of the right reasons. He had stupidly believed that if and when Jack came back, Gwen would finally get over her hero worship leaving Ianto with a Jack that he could pretend loved him. A Jack that could love him as more than a close friend or a good shag. But in the end all the young Welshman found was a Jack that craved to be with Gwen but wouldn’t because he was unable to give her a normal life.
Ianto was very much prepared to ignore that painful fact until he saw the pair dancing. The look Jack gave Gwen was one of pure adoration with a strange undertone of nostalgia. Gwen’s eyes held the same type of emotion but were much more innocent and full of wonder. When Ianto saw this he felt as though his chest dropped to his stomach and had to clench his jaw so tightly, to keep himself from crying, that his neck muscles began to spasm.
To compound matters, in place of slinking off Ianto decided he had to dance with Jack, even though any fool knew it was tradition for all of the men at the wedding to cut in and dance with the bride. Not the man she secretly loved. All he really cared about was for Jack to look at him like he looked at Gwen, like he was the centre of the immortal man’s universe. However, the young man knew he held no special place in Jack’s heart and never would. Ianto could tell Jack cared about him but not in the way he wanted. There were only three people Jack cared about like that: the Doctor, Gwen, and Estelle.
In the end their brief dance turned into a last show of defiance that meant nothing. Jack barely wanted to dance with him and wouldn’t even look him in the face. Instead he just peered at Gwen over the younger man’s shoulder as she danced with her new husband. They danced stiffly, at a distance and after the song ended Jack’s grip slid off his shoulders lazily, in a manner that seemed indifferent and cold. In that moment Ianto felt like nothing more than a warm body. Ianto didn’t even bother to try and make Jack explain and cringed as the captain’s slumped shoulders disappeared through the hall’s doors. The only outward sign of emotion Ianto allowed was a soft bit to his lip before going back to neatly dropping amnesia pills into the guest’s champagne.
“A farce, this whole thing was a bloody fucking farce,” Ianto growled, realizing he had been standing outside a random cousin’s room for far longer than was normal. Ianto gave the door a parting kick, knowing with a level 6 recton pills no one on this floor would hear him, and started his hunt for Owen so he could get back into the city.
Ianto was grateful he only had to round one person before heading out as Tosh had headed back to Cardiff and Jack had said he could find his own way home. Most likely meaning he was going to pick-up a bridesmaid or groomsman. Although the former was far more likely because Rhys’ half of the wedding party was either ugly, old, or deceased. After searching for Owen for over 20 minutes, Ianto gave up and decided the undead doctor could find his own way home.
The archivist pulled the SUV keys out of his waistcoat and headed out towards the back of the building. They had tried to park in a secluded area to discourage noisy wedding guests but the area was still easily accessible. Anyone going out for a smoke was sure to notice a huge black SUV with the name Torchwood scrolled along the sides. For a hypothetically secret organization, he sometimes felt they were far too flashy and half of Cardiff knew they existed.
Ianto stopped dead - the spot where the SUV was supposed to be parked was empty. “That inconsiderate bastard,” Ianto raved to no one. He could not believe Owen had the nerve to run off back to the city and leave him stranded. If Owen had wanted to leave that badly the Welshman would have willingly gone. When he got back he was going to confiscate all of the spare SUV keys.
‘That’s it, I’m done,’ Ianto thought. ‘Screw getting drunk and thinking about retconing myself, I’ll just do it here and hope everyone thought I had too much to drink. Might as well try and act like some semblance of a man and not cry over Jack sodding Harkness.’
Though all he wanted to do was surrender his self-respect and cry. Cry over a cliché and pathetic, unrequited love. Cry until he was a complete mess and then forget all the reasons that he had to blubber like some child in the first place.
Ianto trudged back to the hotel again and then began to dig through his wallet looking for the spare retcon pill he always kept with him, just in case. Once again, Ianto was denied what he really wanted and found only a small sticky in welsh:
Please refer to archives before retcon, especially over J.H.
The small note went on to give him a call number to the archives in an area that even he rarely went. It astounded him to no ends that he had already retconed himself over Jack at least once.
“What a pathetic mess you are Ianto Jones,” the young man sighed into the night. He was never a man for taking the easy way out but it hurt so much to have the look Jack and Gwen shared ingrained into his memory forever. If he wanted to function and be useful to his team he had to forget, he had to be able to see Jack with untainted eyes. He had to have hope that someday Jack might love him with the same intensity.
‘Now how the hell am I going to get into the city?’ Ianto wondered. The drive back to Hub was around 45 minutes and he knew there was no way a cab would come out to the middle of no where to get him at 2 am. Weighing his options Ianto decided to take the dead groom’s car as he was going to have to pick it up in the morning and dump it somewhere. ‘At least I can save a trip,’ Ianto thought gloomily.
When the young man finally found himself back at hub it was past three and if Jack had beaten him back there was no way he could get past the proximity alarms and sneak down to the archives. Ianto didn’t spend many full nights with Jack, they mostly had sex during the day, but he knew the captain infrequently slept for more than a few hours a night.
On the off chance that Ianto did run into Jack he would just tell his boss that he wanted a head start on the last bits of clean-up from Gwen’s wedding. It was completely plausible and he was certain Jack would want everything sorted no later than 9 the next day.
Ianto parked the ‘borrowed’ car in the back and entered Hub through the tourist office, noting he needed more leaflets for Cardiff Castle. Not like he would remember in another 30 minutes.
When Ianto was sure that Jack was not in the Hub he took some time to set-up an overlay video so if anyone on the team was determined to dig there would be nothing to find but video of Ianto cleaning the Hub. He also made an entry in the central log confirming he had completed all clean-up procedures except those for the car and the body. Confident in his security measures, Ianto then grabbed a bottle of bourbon Jack kept in the conference room and headed down to the archives.
Ianto cracked open the bottle, threw the stopper on top of the small desk he kept in the archives and took a long drag. Three more long and loud pulls were taken before he pulled out the blue sticky with the archival code and began looking. The code took him into the back recesses on the first floor where harmless alien literature was stored. This kind of trash did not come through the rift often, causing the section to be under used. Ianto noted it defiantly could use some TLC and that he would need to leave himself a reminder to scrub the area down and do some resorting.
While searching, Ianto came across a few of his favourite items in the archive and could not fathom why he did not come here more often. Long fingers softly brushed down the spine of a children’s storybook from Lydon that resonated with the archivist strongly. When Tosh had translated the text almost 7 months ago, Ianto had fallen in love with the story of a greedy little gnatt, the earth equivalent of a caterpillar, which could find nothing to satisfy his hunger.
It reminded Ianto of himself in his teens, just after his father died. He was always trying to fill the empty void his father left with reckless and stupid things like drinking and shoplifting. He was constantly hungry for something he couldn’t have, akin to the need the gnatt felt. It was the identical feeling with Jack and Ianto knew he would never have the love that he craved. He slid the book back into its place and found what he was looking for a few shelves down.
Unlike most of the literature items on the shelf, Ianto’s target was a 24” by 12” inch metal container with a keypad on the front. “Great,” the Welshman snorted to himself. “I don’t know the pass code and I haven’t even left myself a hint.”
Ianto tried a few patterns he used for some of the lower security items in the archives. When none of these worked, he growled. The Welshman pulled out his scrap again and began look for any hints. When none appeared, he was not sure how to proceed. Knowing himself, Ianto had probably set the lock to boot him out after 5 tries. This was Ianto’s last chance and there was nothing more he wanted than to get inside that box.
Ianto sighed, and looked around the shelves desperately for a clue that would most likely be meticulous and hard to spot by nature. It wasn’t until he began to scan book spines did the Welshman notice anything out of the ordinary. Odd, the last five call numbers of a book of Nowian fairy tales were in the wrong font.
Ianto guess this must be code because he never made mistakes like that. He muscle’s tightened at the realization, it was clear he had gone to great lengths to plan and conceal a simple retcon.
“Sorted,” he smiled sadly. The latched hiss softly, allowing Ianto to pull a diary and 6 different levels of retcon pills. “What have I been doing to myself?” Ianto ran a shaky hand through his hair. He opened the diary carefully, finding his own neat script on the inside cover.
If you’re reading this I guess you have decided to retcon yourself against all better judgement. If this is about forgetting a poorly executed mission, record nothing and take the dosage you need. If you are here because Jack has hurt you intentionally or unintentionally, I recommend reading the whole journal before making your choice.
After the first time I decided to do this, I knew I had to record it in case it happened again. Despite what you may read, Jack is a good man just completely scared shitless when it comes to opening himself up to others. He won’t let anyone in because he knows they will eventually leave it him. The reason I have done this is because I cannot give up the man I love but I also cannot not live with knowing there is no hope for him to love me.
If you retcon yourself, log what has happened in this journal because eventually you may do the smart thing by leaving Jack and Torchwood behind you.
Best of luck, Ianto Jones, March 15, 2007
“Fuck,” Ianto swore softly. He quickly flipped through the journal counting 5 previous entries. “God I’m and idiot and I’m just going to do it again no matter what he does.”
Ianto read over the entries again and again, taking intermittent pulls of bourbon, before he finally let their words sink in. Two of the entries seemed tame compared to what he had been through tonight, the other three grated on his heart further.
From one of the entries it seemed that Jack’s heart had been split further for his own namesake. Only Jack sodding Harkness could bugger off for less than 24 hours and fall in love with the man he had stolen his name from and it hurt! By that point he and Jack had been sleeping together for months and Ianto was already in love with the time agent. Jack returned none of Ianto’s sentiments and instead fell for a man he could never be with; it was a safe love.
Another entry confirmed Ianto’s suspicions that Jack had screwed Martha Jones, despite what she had told Gwen, and it pissed him off to no ends. No wonder Jack had offered to take Ianto on a date when he returned. Jack had felt guilty. The date was meaningless in the end, as they had never even made it out of Ianto’s flat for dinner.
When Ianto began to feel his eyes mist over he wrote his entry with drunken, trembling hands. Once Ianto was done he tucked the diary back and nicked a short-term retcon pill that would erase he memories starting half way through the reception. The box was shoved roughly into its slot and the small white pill was swallowed. Ianto washed away his fears, doubts, and anger with more bourbon. It would all be gone soon. He was going to have the worst hangover tomorrow and wouldn’t even remember why.
It was tricky for Ianto to get back up into the main Hub up without falling on his ass. The combination of the sedative and booze were already doing exactly what Ianto wanted and as he sunk into the couch behind Tosh’s station. He hoped tomorrow wouldn’t hurt as much.
“Bottoms up,” Ianto slurred, finishing the bottle. Within in minutes his fingers went numb and the glass rolled out of his grip. He vaguely heard the decanter shatter on the floor as darkness consumed him.
Chapter 1
Word Count: Overall ~30,500 words, chapter ~2,500
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Ianto, Torchwood Team
Rating: NC-17 overall, this chapter PG13
Warning: Slasharama
Summary: First you lose your memories then you lose their trust then goes the job and the love is always last. Just because it’s retcon doesn’t mean you can forget forever. A take on how Ianto deals with Jack’s wondering heart.
Spoilers: Season one through Something Borrowed
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Jack, Ianto and all related Torchwood material but I don’t. Someday I will… Someday!
A/N: I owe thanks to two very special ladies on this one. First to spitefulmage who asked for a fic on Something Borrowed and who always reassured me with “well it could be worse…” as I bitched on the phone. She also gave me some major encouragement and without it I doubt this would have been posted. Secondly to my lovely beta who I won’t name for now as I don’t have her screen name. You know who you are and I appreciate all of the help! Hopefully I can giver her the credit she deserves soon.
A/N2: This story is completed but due to LJ’s post limits it will be divided into an unknown number of parts and will be posted over the next few weeks. I’m still trying to find the natural breaks.
“Bloody wedding fairy my ass,” Ianto muttered to himself as he dumped the last of Gwen’s retconed guests into their hotel room. After 3 hours of doing this by himself, Ianto wanted to leave the hotel and the festivities behind and go home to drink away his broken heart. Maybe even erase the whole disastrous evening.
Ianto had hoped the day and evening would have turned out differently than had what actually happened. When Ianto heard Gwen was engaged to Rhys he was ecstatic and not for any of the right reasons. He had stupidly believed that if and when Jack came back, Gwen would finally get over her hero worship leaving Ianto with a Jack that he could pretend loved him. A Jack that could love him as more than a close friend or a good shag. But in the end all the young Welshman found was a Jack that craved to be with Gwen but wouldn’t because he was unable to give her a normal life.
Ianto was very much prepared to ignore that painful fact until he saw the pair dancing. The look Jack gave Gwen was one of pure adoration with a strange undertone of nostalgia. Gwen’s eyes held the same type of emotion but were much more innocent and full of wonder. When Ianto saw this he felt as though his chest dropped to his stomach and had to clench his jaw so tightly, to keep himself from crying, that his neck muscles began to spasm.
To compound matters, in place of slinking off Ianto decided he had to dance with Jack, even though any fool knew it was tradition for all of the men at the wedding to cut in and dance with the bride. Not the man she secretly loved. All he really cared about was for Jack to look at him like he looked at Gwen, like he was the centre of the immortal man’s universe. However, the young man knew he held no special place in Jack’s heart and never would. Ianto could tell Jack cared about him but not in the way he wanted. There were only three people Jack cared about like that: the Doctor, Gwen, and Estelle.
In the end their brief dance turned into a last show of defiance that meant nothing. Jack barely wanted to dance with him and wouldn’t even look him in the face. Instead he just peered at Gwen over the younger man’s shoulder as she danced with her new husband. They danced stiffly, at a distance and after the song ended Jack’s grip slid off his shoulders lazily, in a manner that seemed indifferent and cold. In that moment Ianto felt like nothing more than a warm body. Ianto didn’t even bother to try and make Jack explain and cringed as the captain’s slumped shoulders disappeared through the hall’s doors. The only outward sign of emotion Ianto allowed was a soft bit to his lip before going back to neatly dropping amnesia pills into the guest’s champagne.
“A farce, this whole thing was a bloody fucking farce,” Ianto growled, realizing he had been standing outside a random cousin’s room for far longer than was normal. Ianto gave the door a parting kick, knowing with a level 6 recton pills no one on this floor would hear him, and started his hunt for Owen so he could get back into the city.
Ianto was grateful he only had to round one person before heading out as Tosh had headed back to Cardiff and Jack had said he could find his own way home. Most likely meaning he was going to pick-up a bridesmaid or groomsman. Although the former was far more likely because Rhys’ half of the wedding party was either ugly, old, or deceased. After searching for Owen for over 20 minutes, Ianto gave up and decided the undead doctor could find his own way home.
The archivist pulled the SUV keys out of his waistcoat and headed out towards the back of the building. They had tried to park in a secluded area to discourage noisy wedding guests but the area was still easily accessible. Anyone going out for a smoke was sure to notice a huge black SUV with the name Torchwood scrolled along the sides. For a hypothetically secret organization, he sometimes felt they were far too flashy and half of Cardiff knew they existed.
Ianto stopped dead - the spot where the SUV was supposed to be parked was empty. “That inconsiderate bastard,” Ianto raved to no one. He could not believe Owen had the nerve to run off back to the city and leave him stranded. If Owen had wanted to leave that badly the Welshman would have willingly gone. When he got back he was going to confiscate all of the spare SUV keys.
‘That’s it, I’m done,’ Ianto thought. ‘Screw getting drunk and thinking about retconing myself, I’ll just do it here and hope everyone thought I had too much to drink. Might as well try and act like some semblance of a man and not cry over Jack sodding Harkness.’
Though all he wanted to do was surrender his self-respect and cry. Cry over a cliché and pathetic, unrequited love. Cry until he was a complete mess and then forget all the reasons that he had to blubber like some child in the first place.
Ianto trudged back to the hotel again and then began to dig through his wallet looking for the spare retcon pill he always kept with him, just in case. Once again, Ianto was denied what he really wanted and found only a small sticky in welsh:
Please refer to archives before retcon, especially over J.H.
The small note went on to give him a call number to the archives in an area that even he rarely went. It astounded him to no ends that he had already retconed himself over Jack at least once.
“What a pathetic mess you are Ianto Jones,” the young man sighed into the night. He was never a man for taking the easy way out but it hurt so much to have the look Jack and Gwen shared ingrained into his memory forever. If he wanted to function and be useful to his team he had to forget, he had to be able to see Jack with untainted eyes. He had to have hope that someday Jack might love him with the same intensity.
‘Now how the hell am I going to get into the city?’ Ianto wondered. The drive back to Hub was around 45 minutes and he knew there was no way a cab would come out to the middle of no where to get him at 2 am. Weighing his options Ianto decided to take the dead groom’s car as he was going to have to pick it up in the morning and dump it somewhere. ‘At least I can save a trip,’ Ianto thought gloomily.
When the young man finally found himself back at hub it was past three and if Jack had beaten him back there was no way he could get past the proximity alarms and sneak down to the archives. Ianto didn’t spend many full nights with Jack, they mostly had sex during the day, but he knew the captain infrequently slept for more than a few hours a night.
On the off chance that Ianto did run into Jack he would just tell his boss that he wanted a head start on the last bits of clean-up from Gwen’s wedding. It was completely plausible and he was certain Jack would want everything sorted no later than 9 the next day.
Ianto parked the ‘borrowed’ car in the back and entered Hub through the tourist office, noting he needed more leaflets for Cardiff Castle. Not like he would remember in another 30 minutes.
When Ianto was sure that Jack was not in the Hub he took some time to set-up an overlay video so if anyone on the team was determined to dig there would be nothing to find but video of Ianto cleaning the Hub. He also made an entry in the central log confirming he had completed all clean-up procedures except those for the car and the body. Confident in his security measures, Ianto then grabbed a bottle of bourbon Jack kept in the conference room and headed down to the archives.
Ianto cracked open the bottle, threw the stopper on top of the small desk he kept in the archives and took a long drag. Three more long and loud pulls were taken before he pulled out the blue sticky with the archival code and began looking. The code took him into the back recesses on the first floor where harmless alien literature was stored. This kind of trash did not come through the rift often, causing the section to be under used. Ianto noted it defiantly could use some TLC and that he would need to leave himself a reminder to scrub the area down and do some resorting.
While searching, Ianto came across a few of his favourite items in the archive and could not fathom why he did not come here more often. Long fingers softly brushed down the spine of a children’s storybook from Lydon that resonated with the archivist strongly. When Tosh had translated the text almost 7 months ago, Ianto had fallen in love with the story of a greedy little gnatt, the earth equivalent of a caterpillar, which could find nothing to satisfy his hunger.
It reminded Ianto of himself in his teens, just after his father died. He was always trying to fill the empty void his father left with reckless and stupid things like drinking and shoplifting. He was constantly hungry for something he couldn’t have, akin to the need the gnatt felt. It was the identical feeling with Jack and Ianto knew he would never have the love that he craved. He slid the book back into its place and found what he was looking for a few shelves down.
Unlike most of the literature items on the shelf, Ianto’s target was a 24” by 12” inch metal container with a keypad on the front. “Great,” the Welshman snorted to himself. “I don’t know the pass code and I haven’t even left myself a hint.”
Ianto tried a few patterns he used for some of the lower security items in the archives. When none of these worked, he growled. The Welshman pulled out his scrap again and began look for any hints. When none appeared, he was not sure how to proceed. Knowing himself, Ianto had probably set the lock to boot him out after 5 tries. This was Ianto’s last chance and there was nothing more he wanted than to get inside that box.
Ianto sighed, and looked around the shelves desperately for a clue that would most likely be meticulous and hard to spot by nature. It wasn’t until he began to scan book spines did the Welshman notice anything out of the ordinary. Odd, the last five call numbers of a book of Nowian fairy tales were in the wrong font.
Ianto guess this must be code because he never made mistakes like that. He muscle’s tightened at the realization, it was clear he had gone to great lengths to plan and conceal a simple retcon.
“Sorted,” he smiled sadly. The latched hiss softly, allowing Ianto to pull a diary and 6 different levels of retcon pills. “What have I been doing to myself?” Ianto ran a shaky hand through his hair. He opened the diary carefully, finding his own neat script on the inside cover.
If you’re reading this I guess you have decided to retcon yourself against all better judgement. If this is about forgetting a poorly executed mission, record nothing and take the dosage you need. If you are here because Jack has hurt you intentionally or unintentionally, I recommend reading the whole journal before making your choice.
After the first time I decided to do this, I knew I had to record it in case it happened again. Despite what you may read, Jack is a good man just completely scared shitless when it comes to opening himself up to others. He won’t let anyone in because he knows they will eventually leave it him. The reason I have done this is because I cannot give up the man I love but I also cannot not live with knowing there is no hope for him to love me.
If you retcon yourself, log what has happened in this journal because eventually you may do the smart thing by leaving Jack and Torchwood behind you.
Best of luck, Ianto Jones, March 15, 2007
“Fuck,” Ianto swore softly. He quickly flipped through the journal counting 5 previous entries. “God I’m and idiot and I’m just going to do it again no matter what he does.”
Ianto read over the entries again and again, taking intermittent pulls of bourbon, before he finally let their words sink in. Two of the entries seemed tame compared to what he had been through tonight, the other three grated on his heart further.
From one of the entries it seemed that Jack’s heart had been split further for his own namesake. Only Jack sodding Harkness could bugger off for less than 24 hours and fall in love with the man he had stolen his name from and it hurt! By that point he and Jack had been sleeping together for months and Ianto was already in love with the time agent. Jack returned none of Ianto’s sentiments and instead fell for a man he could never be with; it was a safe love.
Another entry confirmed Ianto’s suspicions that Jack had screwed Martha Jones, despite what she had told Gwen, and it pissed him off to no ends. No wonder Jack had offered to take Ianto on a date when he returned. Jack had felt guilty. The date was meaningless in the end, as they had never even made it out of Ianto’s flat for dinner.
When Ianto began to feel his eyes mist over he wrote his entry with drunken, trembling hands. Once Ianto was done he tucked the diary back and nicked a short-term retcon pill that would erase he memories starting half way through the reception. The box was shoved roughly into its slot and the small white pill was swallowed. Ianto washed away his fears, doubts, and anger with more bourbon. It would all be gone soon. He was going to have the worst hangover tomorrow and wouldn’t even remember why.
It was tricky for Ianto to get back up into the main Hub up without falling on his ass. The combination of the sedative and booze were already doing exactly what Ianto wanted and as he sunk into the couch behind Tosh’s station. He hoped tomorrow wouldn’t hurt as much.
“Bottoms up,” Ianto slurred, finishing the bottle. Within in minutes his fingers went numb and the glass rolled out of his grip. He vaguely heard the decanter shatter on the floor as darkness consumed him.
Chapter 1