Fools and Drunkards by cgb (PG-13)
Title: Fools and Drunkards
Author: cgb (mandysbitch)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All of Torchwood and Doctor Who, “Last of the Time Lords,” (3.13) inclusive.
Category: Jack/ Ianto, team.
Word Count: 3058.
When Jack gets back, he finds the hub empty. He admits it’s not the happy reunion he was hoping for.
“Honeys,” he calls out. “I’m home!” No one answers. Jack listens for sounds of laughter, muted conversation, or the faint click-click-click of fingers on keyboards, but there’s nothing, not even the sound of wings flapping overhead, echoing down the walls as Myfanwy circles the tower.
It’s weird. Jack checks his office, his quarters, the lab and the kitchen and finds all rooms deserted. There are signs of life - a half full coffee mug on Owen’s desk, a program running on Tosh’s computer - but there are no lives around.
The Torchwood London office said the team had returned safely from the Himalayas and were back to cleaning up after the opening of the rift. Jack would have come back sooner but he had a little cleaning up of his own to do: first there was the mess left on the Valiant and then there was the Jones family, and the question of what to do with Mrs Saxon had kept them occupied for days.
Jack thought about contacting them, letting them know he was all right and that he was coming back as soon as he’d said his goodbyes, but he’d spent the last year dying repeatedly, and when he wasn’t dying he was chained and watching those around him die. It was a profound experience, and in the Torchwood team’s reality, it never happened. Jack needed time to adjust.
Of course, his prolonged absence doesn’t account for the whereabouts of his team on a fine June evening in Cardiff. Jack’s about to call Owen’s number when he hears singing: male voices, “Men of Harlech” if Jack’s not mistaken.
“Oh, my ears,” a female voice says and then they’re all laughing, giggling like schoolchildren.
The security door opens and Owen and Ianto come through, arms around each other’s shoulders and still singing, despite neither of them appearing to know the words or, for that matter, the tune. Tosh staggers in behind them, barely able to keep herself upright. She steadies herself with her hand against the wall, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, until she reaches the couch, sinking down on it like a dead weight.
None of them appear to notice Jack. Jack is indignant; he hates being ignored. “Where the hell have you been?” he says.
Owen lets go of Ianto and they stop singing. “Oh, hi, Jack,” Owen says. “Just got back have you?” He plants himself on the couch next to Tosh, leaning his head and rubbing his forehead. “Sorry, we’re -”
”- Stinking drunk,” Tosh says, and she and Owen burst our laughing. Ianto stifles a giggle with his hand across his mouth.
“Good to see you, Sir,” Ianto says, still trying not to laugh. “Coffee?” He turns around, aiming for the kitchen, and promptly walks into the door frame. He puts his hand to his head, and staggers backwards, falling into Jack’s arms. Tosh and Owen double over with laughter.
“I’ve been gone for a yea - two months and you choose to spend the time getting tanked,” Jack says, steadying Ianto. “What the hell happened here?”
“We caught a minotaur,” Owen says.
“A big one,” Tosh says. “It’s in the cells.”
“A minotaur?” Jack looks confused. The rift opens space and time but it doesn’t conjure mythical beasts. “Oh,” he says, as the realization hits him. “You mean a pleelegh. You’re right, they look like minotaurs.” They’re also vicious. He’s impressed the team caught one without him. “Why is it so quiet?” Jack says.
”It’s sedated,” Owen says.
“We’re celebrating,” Tosh says. “One wild beast in the cells and no injuries. All in a days work.”
”Four days, actually,” Ianto says.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Tosh says.
“So what are you doing here?” Jack says. “Didn’t I tell you no getting drunk on the job unless you’re undercover, under duress and you absolutely promise not to sing?”
“Oh, we’re not on the job,” Owen says. “We came back for…”
”Pizza!” Gwen sings out. She comes through the security door carrying Jubillee Pizza boxes and smelling like cheese and garlic. Jack can’t believe how much he missed the smell of pizza. There were days aboard the Valiant when he dreamed of pizza, when he saw layers of cheese and anchovies and pepperoni so real he could reach out and touch them. He’s sampled culinary delicacies from one end of the universe to the other, but there’s something about pizza that is so visceral, almost sexual. And it’s been a long time since he’s had anything sexual.
Gwen doesn’t even blink when she sees him. “Welcome back, Jack,” she says. “Pizza?” She holds out the box toward him.
Jack gratefully takes a slice of pizza from the box, biting down enthusiastically and savouring the taste. The satisfaction is tempered somewhat by the team's obliviousness to his return. True, he’s been gone only two months in their reality; still, he expected a warmer welcome.
“I think I’ll see about that coffee now,” Ianto says. He staggers toward the kitchen, managing to miss the door frame this time.
Jack foregoes another slice of pizza to go after him. “Don’t you even want to know where I’ve been?” he asks Ianto’s back.
“We got your note, Sir.”
”My note?”
“Shh,” Ianto says, holding up his hand. He concentrates on spooning coffee from the bag into the filter, moving so slowly and purposely, Jack spends an idle moment wondering if there’s a time rift in the kitchen. He dispels the thought when Ianto drops the spoon, spilling coffee over his hands and on the floor.
Jack rolls his eyes. “Give it to me,” he says, taking the bag away from Ianto. He fills the coffee filter, adds water and flips the switch. “You shouldn’t drink,” he says to Ianto. “You’re not a graceful drunk.”
”No, Sir,” Ianto says.
Jack missed Ianto. When he wasn’t dreaming about pizza he was thinking about Ianto, about the way he flushed red all over the first time Jack undressed him. It surprised him. Jack thought his desire lay elsewhere - and it did, only it lay here too.
“Come on, Ianto,” Jack says hopefully. “You didn’t miss me at all?”
“Like I said, Sir,” Ianto says. “We got your note. It told us - well, not everything but enough to know you never intended on staying. We assumed you finally found your ride out of here.”
”Oh,” Jack says, putting his palm to his forehead. “That note.” In a fit of misguided sentimentality Jack had seen fit to write a note to the Torchwood team and programmed the computers to release it if he went missing. He should be pleased to know the system was so reliable. In the event of alien invasion and takeover by psychotic Time Lord, Torchwood computers would still deliver.
“I should probably explain…” Jack says.
”Please, don’t,” Ianto says.
“Oh, come on, Ianto,” Jack says, throwing up his hands. “Don’t play the jilted lover with me. You called me ‘Lisa’ the first two times we had sex. Not that I’m complaining - I’m as kinky as the next immortal time-traveler - but you can’t claim exclusivity on me now.”
Ianto sways a little. “Sir - what I mean to say is - “ Ianto’s skin tinges green. “I believe I’m going to be sick, Sir.” He rushes from the kitchen, heading for the bathroom.
Jack watches him go, shaking his head. He’s just saved the world (again), been knocked back by the Doctor (again) and died more times than he can count in the last year and two months (again and again and some more), and he’s come back to Torchwood to find his team drunk, his lover indifferent, and everything ticking along just fine without him.
He looks up at the ceiling and wonders if there’s any chance of the rift opening up unexpectedly. He could use an end of the world style emergency right now.
Jack finishes making the coffee and takes three mugs out to Tosh, Owen and Gwen. On the couch, Tosh and Owen have fallen asleep, Tosh with her head on Owen’s shoulder and Owen in much the same position he was in when Jack left them.
Gwen is still eating pizza. She stares into space and looks thoughtful. “You know, Jack,” Gwen says, looking earnest. “I think they really do use two kinds of cheeses.”
“Gwen,” Jack says exasperatedly. “I thought you of all people would understand. You’re always saying we need to be more human. I did something very human - I chased a Time Lord to the end of the universe.”
Gwen looks at Jack and blinks. ”Eh?” she says.
Jack sighs. “Well put.” He looks at Tosh and Owen and resists the urge to smooth the hair from their faces. They look so sweet, so innocent curled up together on the couch and he’s missed them so much. He puts his hands in his pockets instead, holding himself back. “I should call them a cab,” he says.
“I’ll do it,” Gwen says. “I need to call one for myself anyway.” She sighs. “Kids today,” she says, nodding at Tosh and Owen. “No stamina. If it’s any consolation, Captain Jack, it wasn’t as much fun without you.” She takes out her cell, dials and holds it up to her ear.
“Thanks,” Jack says. He’s grateful for the concession, however small.
“That doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“Of course not,” Jack says. “Is there anything I can -“
Gwen holds up her hand. “Yes, please I’d like a taxi,” she says into her cell.
Jack leaves her and goes looking for Ianto. He finds him in the men’s bathroom, kneeling against the toilet bowl, resting his forehead on the seat.
“Need some help?” Jack asks.
“No, Sir, I can throw up well enough on my own.”
Jack crouches down beside him and strokes the back of Ianto’s neck. “Are you sure?” Jack says. “Because you look like you’re going to dive into the bowl, and I can’t let you ruin Torchwood’s plumbing. What kind of leader would I be?”
“The kind of leader who leaves when something - someone better comes along?”
Jack looks at the ceiling. He walked right into that. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left and didn’t say goodbye and I’m sorry it looked like I didn’t want to be here in the first place.”
“Looked like, Sir?”
“Ianto,” Jacks says. “Haven’t you met someone who inspired you? Made you feel like there was a reason you were alive?”
Ianto lifts his head off the seat. “You’re not the only one with history,” he says. “I think you forget that sometimes.” He retches, leaning over the bowl again and throwing up.
Jack puts his hand on Ianto’s black, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “That’s it,” he says. “Better out than in.” Jack’s come home and Ianto is throwing up in the bathroom; the situation is oddly poetic, which is a shame, because Jack never warmed to poetry. He’s a dinner and movies guy mostly, although he once met Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes in a London bar. He remembers Sylvia told him a dirty joke.
Ianto leans his head against the side of the bowl and closes his eyes.
“Ianto?” Jack says. He snaps his fingers in front of Ianto’s eyes and pats Ianto’s cheek. Ianto doesn’t wake up. Jack frowns. Ianto doesn’t look comfortable. It’s hard to believe he can sleep in that position.
Jack gets to his feet and half-carries, half-drags Ianto back to the hub centre, pausing at Owen's station to retrieve a bucket. Jack’s first preference would be to put Ianto to bed in Jack’s quarters, but it hardly seems politic at the moment and god knows how he’d get Ianto down the manhole in his current state. As it turns out, Tosh, Gwen and Owen are gone and the couch is free. Jack finds a blanket and cushion and puts Ianto to bed on the couch, placing the bucket on the floor by Ianto’s head, just in case.
The hub is empty again, quiet except for the sound of Ianto’s jagged breathing. Jack looks around his domain and sighs. This is not what he expected.
*
”So I met a guy,” Jack is saying. “A really great guy. The kind of guy that makes you want to be someone different, someone better than you are. Sure, he had baggage. He had a girl - or two - and then he became a nine hundred year old midget.” Jack pauses reflectively. “It didn’t look good on him. Fortunately, I’m not shallow - “ He frowns. “- All of the time. The point is, he was special.”
Jack contemplates the plexi-glass in front of him. He’s sitting on one of the chairs they keep in the cells for interrogation purposes, resting his feet on another chair opposite. Inside the cell the pleelegh grunts in its sleep.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jack says. “Heard it all before, right? Boy meets boy, boy falls in love with boy, boy leaves other boy stranded 200 000 years in the future. It’s the same old story. But hold on now, because this one has a twist: turns out, one of these boys can’t die. You see - being immortal gives one a whole new perspective on life, if only because there’s so much of it. Sometimes you want to run, to leap across the vastness of time and take it all in, every instant, and at other times you want to stand still, very still, and hold on to the little things…”
Jack remembers: Gwen holding his hand as she lead him back to the hub the day she gave him back his life, the way Tosh blushed when Jack called her ‘hot stuff,’ Owen's cheeky grin every time he was quicker on the draw than Jack, and Ianto's face when Jack touched him that first time outside the boardroom, the surprise mixed with indignation mixed with pleasure.
“Sir?” Jack turns around and there’s Ianto, standing at the entrance to the cells, disheveled, shoeless and tie-less. “Are you talking to the pleelegh?”
“There’s no one else here,” Jack says ruefully.
Ianto looks at the pleelegh. “He’s asleep, Sir.”
”He’s still the best conversation I’ve had since I got back.”
Ianto nods at the chair Jack is resting his feet on. “May I?” he says.
Jack takes his feet off the chair and Ianto sits, pulling the chair closer to Jack.
“I thought you were asleep,” Jack says.
“The couch isn’t very comfortable,” Ianto says. “And I think we woke Myfanwy.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. “It seems like I can’t do anything right by you, Ianto.”
Ianto looks down as his hands clasped in his lap. “No, Sir.”
They stay like that for a moment, sitting awkwardly together in silence. Jack can’t remember the last time he was lost of words. “Tell me something, Ianto,” Jack says suddenly, turning his chair to face Ianto. “Would you have left me if Lisa came back?”
”In a heartbeat.”
“Then you understand,” Jack says.
”Maybe,” Ianto says. ”Except…”
“Except?”
“If you’d asked me before you left, my answer might have been different.”
”Oh,” Jack says, throwing up his hands. “Oh, that’s perfect. I’m the bad guy because I’ve got bad timing?”
”Sir, if it’s true what you say - that you can’t die - then everything comes down to timing.”
Jack blinks. And then he mentally kicks himself. Time has never been his friend. He’s spent the last one hundred years fighting time, railing against its creeping pace, and now he’s out of time once more, out of whack with the universe, and out of step with the people he cares about.
He smile and shakes his head. And then he laughs, and it feels so good to laugh, he keeps laughing until his sides hurt.
Ianto looks at him with raised eyebrows, clearly nonplussed. “Something funny, Sir?”
Jack pulls his chair closer to Ianto's and takes Ianto’s hand in his. "God, how I missed you, Ianto,” he says. He puts his hand at the back of Ianto's neck and draws him closer. “I know I’ve not done right by you, and I can’t promise I won’t leave you again,” he says. “But can I kiss you?”
Ianto looks at Jack through half-lowered lids, his eyes still hazy with sleep. He moves closer to Jack, his eyes on Jack’s mouth. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” he says.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Jack says. He puts his hands either side of Ianto’s face and kisses him, really kisses him. He kisses Ianto like he’s hungry and desperate and dying all at once. It’s the kind of kiss that stops time and turns worlds upside down.
Jack was once told his kiss is nuclear. It’s widely rumoured that Jack's kiss brought down the Argoban Empire although official sources blamed the twelve year drought and widespread poverty. Whatever the cause, everyone agreed Jack’s version of events was sexier.
Ianto, however, seems unaffected. He breaks the kiss and looks at Jack, his brow furrowed. “Sir - I hope you won’t take this personally -."
"Ianto?”
"I would be happy to give your kiss the attention it deserves tomorrow. Unfortunately, at the moment, I'm…" He closes his eyes and his head lolls forward, and then he’s leaning against Jack’s shoulder, snoring lightly.
Jack smiles and strokes the back of Ianto’s head. This isn’t the reunion he planned but even as Ianto drools against Jack’s shirt, he thinks it’s not so bad. It’s even kind of nice.
Of course, he can’t put Ianto back on the couch, and he’s still not going to be able to get Ianto down the manhole, which means they’re probably stuck outside the pleelegh’s cell until morning.
Jack looks at the pleelegh. The pleelegh yawns and rolls over in its sleep. Ianto’s hand falls loosely into Jack’s crotch and Jack rolls his eyes. It’s going to be a very long night.
Fortunately, he’s got all the time in the universe.
End.
Author: cgb (mandysbitch)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All of Torchwood and Doctor Who, “Last of the Time Lords,” (3.13) inclusive.
Category: Jack/ Ianto, team.
Word Count: 3058.
When Jack gets back, he finds the hub empty. He admits it’s not the happy reunion he was hoping for.
“Honeys,” he calls out. “I’m home!” No one answers. Jack listens for sounds of laughter, muted conversation, or the faint click-click-click of fingers on keyboards, but there’s nothing, not even the sound of wings flapping overhead, echoing down the walls as Myfanwy circles the tower.
It’s weird. Jack checks his office, his quarters, the lab and the kitchen and finds all rooms deserted. There are signs of life - a half full coffee mug on Owen’s desk, a program running on Tosh’s computer - but there are no lives around.
The Torchwood London office said the team had returned safely from the Himalayas and were back to cleaning up after the opening of the rift. Jack would have come back sooner but he had a little cleaning up of his own to do: first there was the mess left on the Valiant and then there was the Jones family, and the question of what to do with Mrs Saxon had kept them occupied for days.
Jack thought about contacting them, letting them know he was all right and that he was coming back as soon as he’d said his goodbyes, but he’d spent the last year dying repeatedly, and when he wasn’t dying he was chained and watching those around him die. It was a profound experience, and in the Torchwood team’s reality, it never happened. Jack needed time to adjust.
Of course, his prolonged absence doesn’t account for the whereabouts of his team on a fine June evening in Cardiff. Jack’s about to call Owen’s number when he hears singing: male voices, “Men of Harlech” if Jack’s not mistaken.
“Oh, my ears,” a female voice says and then they’re all laughing, giggling like schoolchildren.
The security door opens and Owen and Ianto come through, arms around each other’s shoulders and still singing, despite neither of them appearing to know the words or, for that matter, the tune. Tosh staggers in behind them, barely able to keep herself upright. She steadies herself with her hand against the wall, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, until she reaches the couch, sinking down on it like a dead weight.
None of them appear to notice Jack. Jack is indignant; he hates being ignored. “Where the hell have you been?” he says.
Owen lets go of Ianto and they stop singing. “Oh, hi, Jack,” Owen says. “Just got back have you?” He plants himself on the couch next to Tosh, leaning his head and rubbing his forehead. “Sorry, we’re -”
”- Stinking drunk,” Tosh says, and she and Owen burst our laughing. Ianto stifles a giggle with his hand across his mouth.
“Good to see you, Sir,” Ianto says, still trying not to laugh. “Coffee?” He turns around, aiming for the kitchen, and promptly walks into the door frame. He puts his hand to his head, and staggers backwards, falling into Jack’s arms. Tosh and Owen double over with laughter.
“I’ve been gone for a yea - two months and you choose to spend the time getting tanked,” Jack says, steadying Ianto. “What the hell happened here?”
“We caught a minotaur,” Owen says.
“A big one,” Tosh says. “It’s in the cells.”
“A minotaur?” Jack looks confused. The rift opens space and time but it doesn’t conjure mythical beasts. “Oh,” he says, as the realization hits him. “You mean a pleelegh. You’re right, they look like minotaurs.” They’re also vicious. He’s impressed the team caught one without him. “Why is it so quiet?” Jack says.
”It’s sedated,” Owen says.
“We’re celebrating,” Tosh says. “One wild beast in the cells and no injuries. All in a days work.”
”Four days, actually,” Ianto says.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Tosh says.
“So what are you doing here?” Jack says. “Didn’t I tell you no getting drunk on the job unless you’re undercover, under duress and you absolutely promise not to sing?”
“Oh, we’re not on the job,” Owen says. “We came back for…”
”Pizza!” Gwen sings out. She comes through the security door carrying Jubillee Pizza boxes and smelling like cheese and garlic. Jack can’t believe how much he missed the smell of pizza. There were days aboard the Valiant when he dreamed of pizza, when he saw layers of cheese and anchovies and pepperoni so real he could reach out and touch them. He’s sampled culinary delicacies from one end of the universe to the other, but there’s something about pizza that is so visceral, almost sexual. And it’s been a long time since he’s had anything sexual.
Gwen doesn’t even blink when she sees him. “Welcome back, Jack,” she says. “Pizza?” She holds out the box toward him.
Jack gratefully takes a slice of pizza from the box, biting down enthusiastically and savouring the taste. The satisfaction is tempered somewhat by the team's obliviousness to his return. True, he’s been gone only two months in their reality; still, he expected a warmer welcome.
“I think I’ll see about that coffee now,” Ianto says. He staggers toward the kitchen, managing to miss the door frame this time.
Jack foregoes another slice of pizza to go after him. “Don’t you even want to know where I’ve been?” he asks Ianto’s back.
“We got your note, Sir.”
”My note?”
“Shh,” Ianto says, holding up his hand. He concentrates on spooning coffee from the bag into the filter, moving so slowly and purposely, Jack spends an idle moment wondering if there’s a time rift in the kitchen. He dispels the thought when Ianto drops the spoon, spilling coffee over his hands and on the floor.
Jack rolls his eyes. “Give it to me,” he says, taking the bag away from Ianto. He fills the coffee filter, adds water and flips the switch. “You shouldn’t drink,” he says to Ianto. “You’re not a graceful drunk.”
”No, Sir,” Ianto says.
Jack missed Ianto. When he wasn’t dreaming about pizza he was thinking about Ianto, about the way he flushed red all over the first time Jack undressed him. It surprised him. Jack thought his desire lay elsewhere - and it did, only it lay here too.
“Come on, Ianto,” Jack says hopefully. “You didn’t miss me at all?”
“Like I said, Sir,” Ianto says. “We got your note. It told us - well, not everything but enough to know you never intended on staying. We assumed you finally found your ride out of here.”
”Oh,” Jack says, putting his palm to his forehead. “That note.” In a fit of misguided sentimentality Jack had seen fit to write a note to the Torchwood team and programmed the computers to release it if he went missing. He should be pleased to know the system was so reliable. In the event of alien invasion and takeover by psychotic Time Lord, Torchwood computers would still deliver.
“I should probably explain…” Jack says.
”Please, don’t,” Ianto says.
“Oh, come on, Ianto,” Jack says, throwing up his hands. “Don’t play the jilted lover with me. You called me ‘Lisa’ the first two times we had sex. Not that I’m complaining - I’m as kinky as the next immortal time-traveler - but you can’t claim exclusivity on me now.”
Ianto sways a little. “Sir - what I mean to say is - “ Ianto’s skin tinges green. “I believe I’m going to be sick, Sir.” He rushes from the kitchen, heading for the bathroom.
Jack watches him go, shaking his head. He’s just saved the world (again), been knocked back by the Doctor (again) and died more times than he can count in the last year and two months (again and again and some more), and he’s come back to Torchwood to find his team drunk, his lover indifferent, and everything ticking along just fine without him.
He looks up at the ceiling and wonders if there’s any chance of the rift opening up unexpectedly. He could use an end of the world style emergency right now.
Jack finishes making the coffee and takes three mugs out to Tosh, Owen and Gwen. On the couch, Tosh and Owen have fallen asleep, Tosh with her head on Owen’s shoulder and Owen in much the same position he was in when Jack left them.
Gwen is still eating pizza. She stares into space and looks thoughtful. “You know, Jack,” Gwen says, looking earnest. “I think they really do use two kinds of cheeses.”
“Gwen,” Jack says exasperatedly. “I thought you of all people would understand. You’re always saying we need to be more human. I did something very human - I chased a Time Lord to the end of the universe.”
Gwen looks at Jack and blinks. ”Eh?” she says.
Jack sighs. “Well put.” He looks at Tosh and Owen and resists the urge to smooth the hair from their faces. They look so sweet, so innocent curled up together on the couch and he’s missed them so much. He puts his hands in his pockets instead, holding himself back. “I should call them a cab,” he says.
“I’ll do it,” Gwen says. “I need to call one for myself anyway.” She sighs. “Kids today,” she says, nodding at Tosh and Owen. “No stamina. If it’s any consolation, Captain Jack, it wasn’t as much fun without you.” She takes out her cell, dials and holds it up to her ear.
“Thanks,” Jack says. He’s grateful for the concession, however small.
“That doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“Of course not,” Jack says. “Is there anything I can -“
Gwen holds up her hand. “Yes, please I’d like a taxi,” she says into her cell.
Jack leaves her and goes looking for Ianto. He finds him in the men’s bathroom, kneeling against the toilet bowl, resting his forehead on the seat.
“Need some help?” Jack asks.
“No, Sir, I can throw up well enough on my own.”
Jack crouches down beside him and strokes the back of Ianto’s neck. “Are you sure?” Jack says. “Because you look like you’re going to dive into the bowl, and I can’t let you ruin Torchwood’s plumbing. What kind of leader would I be?”
“The kind of leader who leaves when something - someone better comes along?”
Jack looks at the ceiling. He walked right into that. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left and didn’t say goodbye and I’m sorry it looked like I didn’t want to be here in the first place.”
“Looked like, Sir?”
“Ianto,” Jacks says. “Haven’t you met someone who inspired you? Made you feel like there was a reason you were alive?”
Ianto lifts his head off the seat. “You’re not the only one with history,” he says. “I think you forget that sometimes.” He retches, leaning over the bowl again and throwing up.
Jack puts his hand on Ianto’s black, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “That’s it,” he says. “Better out than in.” Jack’s come home and Ianto is throwing up in the bathroom; the situation is oddly poetic, which is a shame, because Jack never warmed to poetry. He’s a dinner and movies guy mostly, although he once met Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes in a London bar. He remembers Sylvia told him a dirty joke.
Ianto leans his head against the side of the bowl and closes his eyes.
“Ianto?” Jack says. He snaps his fingers in front of Ianto’s eyes and pats Ianto’s cheek. Ianto doesn’t wake up. Jack frowns. Ianto doesn’t look comfortable. It’s hard to believe he can sleep in that position.
Jack gets to his feet and half-carries, half-drags Ianto back to the hub centre, pausing at Owen's station to retrieve a bucket. Jack’s first preference would be to put Ianto to bed in Jack’s quarters, but it hardly seems politic at the moment and god knows how he’d get Ianto down the manhole in his current state. As it turns out, Tosh, Gwen and Owen are gone and the couch is free. Jack finds a blanket and cushion and puts Ianto to bed on the couch, placing the bucket on the floor by Ianto’s head, just in case.
The hub is empty again, quiet except for the sound of Ianto’s jagged breathing. Jack looks around his domain and sighs. This is not what he expected.
*
”So I met a guy,” Jack is saying. “A really great guy. The kind of guy that makes you want to be someone different, someone better than you are. Sure, he had baggage. He had a girl - or two - and then he became a nine hundred year old midget.” Jack pauses reflectively. “It didn’t look good on him. Fortunately, I’m not shallow - “ He frowns. “- All of the time. The point is, he was special.”
Jack contemplates the plexi-glass in front of him. He’s sitting on one of the chairs they keep in the cells for interrogation purposes, resting his feet on another chair opposite. Inside the cell the pleelegh grunts in its sleep.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jack says. “Heard it all before, right? Boy meets boy, boy falls in love with boy, boy leaves other boy stranded 200 000 years in the future. It’s the same old story. But hold on now, because this one has a twist: turns out, one of these boys can’t die. You see - being immortal gives one a whole new perspective on life, if only because there’s so much of it. Sometimes you want to run, to leap across the vastness of time and take it all in, every instant, and at other times you want to stand still, very still, and hold on to the little things…”
Jack remembers: Gwen holding his hand as she lead him back to the hub the day she gave him back his life, the way Tosh blushed when Jack called her ‘hot stuff,’ Owen's cheeky grin every time he was quicker on the draw than Jack, and Ianto's face when Jack touched him that first time outside the boardroom, the surprise mixed with indignation mixed with pleasure.
“Sir?” Jack turns around and there’s Ianto, standing at the entrance to the cells, disheveled, shoeless and tie-less. “Are you talking to the pleelegh?”
“There’s no one else here,” Jack says ruefully.
Ianto looks at the pleelegh. “He’s asleep, Sir.”
”He’s still the best conversation I’ve had since I got back.”
Ianto nods at the chair Jack is resting his feet on. “May I?” he says.
Jack takes his feet off the chair and Ianto sits, pulling the chair closer to Jack.
“I thought you were asleep,” Jack says.
“The couch isn’t very comfortable,” Ianto says. “And I think we woke Myfanwy.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. “It seems like I can’t do anything right by you, Ianto.”
Ianto looks down as his hands clasped in his lap. “No, Sir.”
They stay like that for a moment, sitting awkwardly together in silence. Jack can’t remember the last time he was lost of words. “Tell me something, Ianto,” Jack says suddenly, turning his chair to face Ianto. “Would you have left me if Lisa came back?”
”In a heartbeat.”
“Then you understand,” Jack says.
”Maybe,” Ianto says. ”Except…”
“Except?”
“If you’d asked me before you left, my answer might have been different.”
”Oh,” Jack says, throwing up his hands. “Oh, that’s perfect. I’m the bad guy because I’ve got bad timing?”
”Sir, if it’s true what you say - that you can’t die - then everything comes down to timing.”
Jack blinks. And then he mentally kicks himself. Time has never been his friend. He’s spent the last one hundred years fighting time, railing against its creeping pace, and now he’s out of time once more, out of whack with the universe, and out of step with the people he cares about.
He smile and shakes his head. And then he laughs, and it feels so good to laugh, he keeps laughing until his sides hurt.
Ianto looks at him with raised eyebrows, clearly nonplussed. “Something funny, Sir?”
Jack pulls his chair closer to Ianto's and takes Ianto’s hand in his. "God, how I missed you, Ianto,” he says. He puts his hand at the back of Ianto's neck and draws him closer. “I know I’ve not done right by you, and I can’t promise I won’t leave you again,” he says. “But can I kiss you?”
Ianto looks at Jack through half-lowered lids, his eyes still hazy with sleep. He moves closer to Jack, his eyes on Jack’s mouth. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” he says.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Jack says. He puts his hands either side of Ianto’s face and kisses him, really kisses him. He kisses Ianto like he’s hungry and desperate and dying all at once. It’s the kind of kiss that stops time and turns worlds upside down.
Jack was once told his kiss is nuclear. It’s widely rumoured that Jack's kiss brought down the Argoban Empire although official sources blamed the twelve year drought and widespread poverty. Whatever the cause, everyone agreed Jack’s version of events was sexier.
Ianto, however, seems unaffected. He breaks the kiss and looks at Jack, his brow furrowed. “Sir - I hope you won’t take this personally -."
"Ianto?”
"I would be happy to give your kiss the attention it deserves tomorrow. Unfortunately, at the moment, I'm…" He closes his eyes and his head lolls forward, and then he’s leaning against Jack’s shoulder, snoring lightly.
Jack smiles and strokes the back of Ianto’s head. This isn’t the reunion he planned but even as Ianto drools against Jack’s shirt, he thinks it’s not so bad. It’s even kind of nice.
Of course, he can’t put Ianto back on the couch, and he’s still not going to be able to get Ianto down the manhole, which means they’re probably stuck outside the pleelegh’s cell until morning.
Jack looks at the pleelegh. The pleelegh yawns and rolls over in its sleep. Ianto’s hand falls loosely into Jack’s crotch and Jack rolls his eyes. It’s going to be a very long night.
Fortunately, he’s got all the time in the universe.
End.