The Games We Play
Ianto stumbled away from the SUV, bruised, battered and broken. The trifecta. He needed to stop thinking about what had just happened or he would hyperventilate again, and hyperventilation is bad for broken ribs. Thinking like that only looped him around again to how the ribs were broken in the first place, which inevitably led him around to why. That was the part that always made his stomach churn. Well, might as well come up this time. He stumbled further, just a few feet into the forest, leaned against a tree to help keep him close to upright, and heaved up what little remained in his stomach. It was mostly acid that burned, making his nose run and his eyes water. This was so undignified.
And it had been witnessed, because Ianto suddenly felt the slight pressure of a hand resting on his lower back. No! No nononono. He let out a startled yell, whirled and began backing away blindly. Instinct had him reaching for his gun, but it was still back in that house somewhere, and Ianto wasn’t about to go back to look for it. Catching his heel on an exposed root sent him to the ground, landing heavily on his left wrist. It finally registered in his brain who it was that had approached him as he sat in the dirt with his heart racing, breathing fast and shallow, eyes wide with fright. It was only Jack. The older man stood a few feet away, hands up as if to show that he was no threat and a look on his face that Ianto deciphered as so pitying that he had to look away.
Jack kept his hands in plain sight, crouched down and began speaking in soft tones as if Ianto was a frightened child. “Hey Yan, I’m sorry. I should have announced myself. I was just coming to check on you. I saw you come over here and I wanted to make sure you were alright.” Ianto couldn’t help an incredulous look at that. At least Jack had the decency to look sheepish. “Well, relatively speaking at any rate.”
“I’m still breathing,” it hurt like hell, but he was. “That’s something.” Ianto had to fight off the sudden urge to cry, for all those people who had been butchered, for Toshiko, for his own pain, for the let down of fading adrenaline. He swallowed thickly and hoped that Jack would at least pretend that his brimming eyes were a product of stomach acid. Jack noticed. Shit. His expression softened again, but he was kind enough not to mention it. Instead he stood, and offered a hand to help Ianto up. Ianto accepted it and stood, a bit unsteadily. Jack took advantage of the momentary wobble, and pulled gently, bringing the younger man into his embrace.
Ianto fought against it for a moment -Jack just held him gently but firmly- before giving in and clinging to the folds of Jack’s coat with bruised fingers. “Yes, Ianto, you are still breathing, and so is Tosh thanks to you.” Ianto cringed against his shoulder, pushing his face further into Jack’s neck. He doubted that Toshiko had mentioned the part where he shouted at her then. It took a moment to realize that Jack was still talking, “… and she got out. That was because of you. You were either very brave or very stupid. Sometimes it’s the same thing.” Ianto imagined he heard a hint of pride in Jack’s tone. Huh. “You’ve always been a bit protective of her. Should I be jealous?” Now that tone Ianto recognized. It was the “come play with me” voice, even if it was strained and forced.
“Time and place, Sir.” His own words were muffled against Jack’s neck, and Ianto allowed himself one more moment before again attempting to pull away. Jack seemed reluctant to release him, but acquiesced. He had been trying to lighten the mood, Ianto understood that. He often deflected difficult situations with a bit of humor himself, though his tended to be of a darker nature. But this -he wasn’t ready to laugh about yet. He needed to process the things he’d seen, what these people had done. The image of the pure glee on their faces made his stomach rebel again, and he spun abruptly to keep from being sick all over Jack’s shoes. His head swam for a moment and it all blurred: the trees in front of him with filthy plastic sheets, the sounds of the police several meters away with the cannibals laughing out their enjoyment, the meat cleaver, baseball bat, and meat hooks. He clung to the nearest tree for a moment and trembled.
A moment of hesitation, and then Ianto felt a large, cool hand on the back of his neck, and, oh, it was heavenly. Jack rubbed gentle circles while Ianto waited to see of his insides were planning on staying there or were going to make another bid for freedom. “Owen said that might happen. We’ll get you a scan just as soon as we get back to the hub.” Jack was back to being gentle with him, and Ianto honestly had no idea what to do with that. But Jack, apparently felt the need to fill the silence, so he spoke, he apologized. “It’s not always like this, you know. It’s not all bad.” Jack backed away, pacing in a small circle as he tried to find the right words. Ianto allowed himself to sink down to the ground, leaning gingerly against a tree and tried to focus on keeping his breathing shallow and not watching Jack as he paced, as it made him dizzy.
“You keep seeing the worst the universe has to offer, but it’s not always like this,” Jack again insisted. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. It was supposed to be easy, fun. It was supposed to make us a team again.” He paused for a moment to reflect on just how far astray that delightful good intention had veered. “You did very well with what you had, though. You got your teammate out -forgot the part where you’re supposed to get out too; that bit’s important- but you survived. You survived and helped others to survive as well. This isn’t what I would have picked for your first field mission had I known… But, well…” when did Torchwood ever go as planned? Jack paused, ran a hand through his somehow still perfect hair, and sighed loudly. “I guess this is your welcome to field ops, Ianto Jones.”
“Eloquent,” Ianto nodded. “Though, if it’s all the same to you, if this is what a sense of belonging feels like, Sir, you can have it back.”
Jack sighed again and sat down beside Ianto, shoulders gently brushing. “No, this is what a bad day feels like. The sense of belonging will come later. Maybe once Tosh finds you, because she’s liable to squeeze the stuffing out of you when she does.”
“I’d be concerned for my stuffing, but I’ve already had it beaten out of me, thanks.” Jack winced, and Ianto belatedly thought that that hadn’t been the kindest response. They were both silent for a long moment. This time Ianto had the urge to break the silence, “Growing up, I had an uncle who liked to sport hunt. Said he liked the challenge, to track and corner his prey. Shot competitively too -for accuracy. Though, he liked it best when he was just competing against himself, trying to best his old score. It didn’t make any sense to me, so he would say, ‘it’s not always the winning that matters, it’s the taking part that counts.’ The whole time I was in there,” he gestured vaguely toward the house, “I just kept thinking what a load of bollocks that was.” He’d also been thinking that he hadn’t signed up for this. He hadn’t agreed to be the prey in this hunt. He hadn’t agreed to be a part of this game. But Ianto couldn’t bring himself to admit that bit.
“But here, today, nobody won. We stopped the monsters that were just human after all. You stopped them -thank you, by the way - but none of us won. We… we all lost something here, but at least nobody else will have to.”
Ianto didn’t realize he was trembling until Jack wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. This was probably the shock settling in. Numb was good. Numb was so much better than the screaming terrors that had been threatening to grip him before. He allowed himself to lean into Jack, who shifted to envelope Ianto in the warmth of his coat. He shifted closer, twining the fingers of one bruised hand around one of Jack’s braces. He could just sit here for a while and be numb, and Jack would keep him safe. “It was all a game, Jack,” he whispered the horrifying secret. “They did it for fun. Who wakes up and decides that eating people is fun? That hunting them is sport?” Jack didn’t have any answers for him. Ianto hadn’t expected him to. There were no answers to be found.