Fic: This Vestal's Lot
TITLE: This Vestal's Lot
AUTHOR: Erin Giles
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood and it’s characters are property of the BBC.
RATING: PG
PAIRINGS/CHARACTERS: Jack/Ianto
CHALLENGE: horizonssing Day Five: Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope
WORDS: 513
SUMMARY: It was a Wednesday afternoon when Ianto remembered a year that never happened. But the Wednesday mattered more.
It was a Wednesday afternoon. Nothing particularly extraordinary or brilliant about this particular Wednesday afternoon for Ianto Jones. He’d got up, got dressed, gone to work and made coffee, had a quickie with the Captain in row L of the archives and now he was in row H reshuffling and reorganising.
Ianto liked the archives. He liked to think of the people that had gone before him and the meticulous detail they had put into organising things. He liked to think of the thousands of stories that were contained in the walls of the hub, many of them written down on paper, but the most trivial - the ones that he liked the best - were now lost whispers embedded in the walls, never to be spoken again. He liked to think of all the words, of all the turns of phrase committed to paper, the names and the photographs and the wonderful things he had never seen, and the more horrific ones that he hoped never to witness more than once.
As he was putting a file back together - after discovering it was in fact Owen’s Doctor scrawl and not some alien language - it happened. That horrible feeling of déjà vu, so strong you feel like you’ve missed the last step on the stairs, something jolting in his stomach as he stopped mid-motion, scared that if he continued something horrible would happen.
He had brief glimpses of mountains and black spheres and darkness before it was gone just as quickly as it came. A name lingered on the tip of his tongue though, a rhythm quivering in time to his heart.
He placed the folder fully in the draw and slid it closed, listening to the click of it resonating around the archives. He waited. He waited for something terrible to happen, scared to breathe for fear of tempting fate.
“Ianto?”
His name startled him out of his reverie as he turned on his heel to face Jack who was stood in one of the archways leading to the archives.
“You ok?” Jack took a tentative step forward, hands still in pockets in a relaxed but concerned stance.
Ianto nodded, swallowing slightly before he looked up into Jack’s eyes. Jack moved forward again and caught one of Ianto’s forearms, sliding down the length of it until he was holding Ianto’s hand.
“You sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jack coaxed.
“Just a horrible feeling of déjà vu.” Ianto admitted, feeling Jack’s thumb playing in his palm, calming and comforting him. He shook his head to clear the image of someone lying somewhere, killed by something. It was blurry on the edge of his conscious mind now, like a forgotten childhood memory. Instead of trying to hold on to it though he memorised the curve of Jack’s jaw line, the feeling of stubble rubbing against his cheek and the taste of Jack on his lips that seemed to linger for the rest of the day.
He had files full of bad memories; it was these moments that mattered though.
AUTHOR: Erin Giles
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood and it’s characters are property of the BBC.
RATING: PG
PAIRINGS/CHARACTERS: Jack/Ianto
CHALLENGE: horizonssing Day Five: Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope
WORDS: 513
SUMMARY: It was a Wednesday afternoon when Ianto remembered a year that never happened. But the Wednesday mattered more.
It was a Wednesday afternoon. Nothing particularly extraordinary or brilliant about this particular Wednesday afternoon for Ianto Jones. He’d got up, got dressed, gone to work and made coffee, had a quickie with the Captain in row L of the archives and now he was in row H reshuffling and reorganising.
Ianto liked the archives. He liked to think of the people that had gone before him and the meticulous detail they had put into organising things. He liked to think of the thousands of stories that were contained in the walls of the hub, many of them written down on paper, but the most trivial - the ones that he liked the best - were now lost whispers embedded in the walls, never to be spoken again. He liked to think of all the words, of all the turns of phrase committed to paper, the names and the photographs and the wonderful things he had never seen, and the more horrific ones that he hoped never to witness more than once.
As he was putting a file back together - after discovering it was in fact Owen’s Doctor scrawl and not some alien language - it happened. That horrible feeling of déjà vu, so strong you feel like you’ve missed the last step on the stairs, something jolting in his stomach as he stopped mid-motion, scared that if he continued something horrible would happen.
He had brief glimpses of mountains and black spheres and darkness before it was gone just as quickly as it came. A name lingered on the tip of his tongue though, a rhythm quivering in time to his heart.
He placed the folder fully in the draw and slid it closed, listening to the click of it resonating around the archives. He waited. He waited for something terrible to happen, scared to breathe for fear of tempting fate.
“Ianto?”
His name startled him out of his reverie as he turned on his heel to face Jack who was stood in one of the archways leading to the archives.
“You ok?” Jack took a tentative step forward, hands still in pockets in a relaxed but concerned stance.
Ianto nodded, swallowing slightly before he looked up into Jack’s eyes. Jack moved forward again and caught one of Ianto’s forearms, sliding down the length of it until he was holding Ianto’s hand.
“You sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jack coaxed.
“Just a horrible feeling of déjà vu.” Ianto admitted, feeling Jack’s thumb playing in his palm, calming and comforting him. He shook his head to clear the image of someone lying somewhere, killed by something. It was blurry on the edge of his conscious mind now, like a forgotten childhood memory. Instead of trying to hold on to it though he memorised the curve of Jack’s jaw line, the feeling of stubble rubbing against his cheek and the taste of Jack on his lips that seemed to linger for the rest of the day.
He had files full of bad memories; it was these moments that mattered though.