Disambiguation: In These Stones (Part 2/7)
Title: Disambiguation: In These Stones (Part 2/7)
Rating: Series ranges from PG to light NC-17. This entry's in the PG range.
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto with mention of Ianto/Ianto and bouts of Ianto/Owen. Occasional mention and hints of other pairings.
Notes/Summary: Disambiguation is an AU that follows the exploits of a parallel Torchwood where the events of "End of Days" didn't go as smoothly as they do in canon. Features Andy Davidson as a member of the team. Picks up where the original Disambiguation one-off story leaves off, so you'll probably want to give it a look. Betaed by riftugee, whose advice I took much more often than not, and without whom this piece wouldn't be nearly as shiny as it is now.
Part Two, in which there is a vigil, and the matter of keys is discussed.
The rough scrape of a key in the deadbolt jolted Ianto awake. He’d dozed off leaning against the wall, watching the bed from a spot on the floor near his closet. He grabbed the Glock 20 from his bag and scrambled to his feet. The front door swung open and a single pair of footsteps entered. He heard the door shut and the bolt click home.
“Ianto? It’s Owen. I just want to talk.”
“Not interested.” Ianto rested his head against the door frame and listened to the creak of floorboards as Owen wandered into his flat. He’d known this was a possibility - expected it, really, since Owen had a key - but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable.
“Nice trick last night with the lockdown. You had us stuck until this morning sorting it out. Andy wants your head on a pike for knocking him out, by the way.”
Ianto winced. He liked Andy. The man was still a bit of a rookie, and Owen routinely took the piss out of him, but he did good work and his heart was in the right place. Taking advantage of Andy’s inexperience had been a massive violation of the man’s trust. Whatever ill will he harbored toward Ianto this morning was probably well deserved.
Ianto glanced at Jack’s body.
“So why the house call, Owen? One mutiny in your lifetime just isn’t enough? You’ve got to go all the way twice?”
“Depends,” Owen snapped back, his voice getting closer. “How’s that inability to let go working out for you?”
Ianto pulled the slide on the Glock and dropped the safety. He made no effort to muffle what he was doing. Actually, he rather hoped the sound would carry. “What was it you said to me last night, Owen? Oh yes. That’s right. ‘Get the fuck out of my flat.’ Good advice.”
He heard Owen give a sigh of resignation and stop in the hallway. Owen was bad at playing the penitent, but Lord help him, he was trying. “Listen. I’m sorry about last night. I panicked, okay? It was a lot to take in, nevermind the timing.”
Ianto peeked into the hall. Owen stood waiting, careful to keep his hands in plain view.
“Can I see him?”
“Why should I trust you?” Ianto scowled. There was a fair chance Owen was here to stop him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.
“Because in spite of your Mission Impossible bollocks last night, I want to help.”
Ianto paused, and then engaged the safety. “Alright. Five minutes.”
Owen stepped carefully up the hallway, still keeping his hands visible. Ianto kept the gun trained on him as he stood next to the bed and began examining Jack Harkness’ body.
“Pupils are dilated and unresponsive. No vital signs. Body is cold. Joints are supple.” Owen pulled a face. “You have him laid out like this all night?”
Ianto nodded.
“I’ll say this. He’s in good shape for a dead bloke who’s been in the freezer for a while.”
“Thank you, Owen, for that well-considered, in-depth opinion,” Ianto snapped. He refused to lose control of this situation.
“No, Ianto. I mean it. There’s been no additional deterioration. It’s phenomenal.” Owen shook his head in disbelief. “It’s like he’s dead, but his body is slowly renewing itself. Like it’s recharging.”
Ianto glanced at the clock. “Your five minutes are up.”
“Yan -“
Ianto disengaged the safety and gave Owen a meaningful look. “Give me your keys.”
Owen pulled out his key fob and tossed it to Ianto.
“Good,” Ianto said, dropping them into his trouser pocket. “Now get out.”
“Oi! You’ve got my keys!”
“Yep. Sorry.” Ianto indicated the doorway with a twitch of his pistol. “Out.”
Owen gave a little cough of disbelief. “Or what, you’ll shoot me? After last night? Over Jack?”
“In a fucking heartbeat, Owen. Now move before I start aiming at something more vital than your other shoulder.”
Owen flinched, and then did as he was told.
Ianto followed Owen down the hall and into the lounge. He shoved the doctor out into the entryway and then locked the door, ignoring the other man’s protests. He engaged the safety on the pistol once more and set the gun down on the side table before taking Owen’s keys back out of his pocket. He removed the key to his flat from the ring and dropped it back into his pocket, then strode over to the window. Below him, Owen was bellowing into his mobile phone.
Ianto opened the window and jingled the keys. “Owen! Catch!” he shouted, then took them in his fist and hurled them as hard as he could across the street.
# # #
“Officially speaking,” Ianto said, kneeling next to the bed, “you never died. You’re still on the books and everything. You’ve got a whole set of access codes. We never even packed up your office. We just locked it. Every now and again we go in to use the vault. I go in and dust once a week. But we never replaced you. We just couldn’t.”
He ran his fingers through the dead man’s hair and waited.
# # #
There were words again, muffled and far away. Words and warmth and light. He’d dreamt these things and more, of course. The Dark played tricks, and it was enormous. The things it had shown him were forever and without number.
Jack ignored them as best he could and let himself drift.
When he began to rise, it was like floating slowly to the surface of an ocean of glass. Flickers of brilliance and heat, whispers and cries. He mistook it for the music of his own madness and rebelled against it. An unavoidable dream it might be, but he didn’t have to accept it. So he fought.
# # #
Ianto came into the bedroom with two mugs of coffee. This had been his ritual for the last six mornings. Wake up on the bedroom floor, check Jack’s (lack of) vital signs, go to the toilet, and then make coffee for two. Some mornings, he talked. Others, he simply watched the empty shell of Jack Harkness lie pale and motionless on his bed. When the second coffee went cold, Ianto took it away and poured it out.
“What if I’m wrong, Jack? What if you’re dead and you’re never coming back? What then?”
He looked down into his coffee. Jesus, he was tired.
“I never told you properly, you know. Never quite said. There was never a moment where it seemed right to tell you. And then, when I realized it was time to say, I lost my chance.” He set his mug next to Jack’s and crawled up on the edge of the bed. He put one hand on the man’s cool cheek.
“I loved you, Jack. I love you and I’m sorry.”
Ianto leaned down, uncertain of the boundaries involved in what he was about to do. His aversion to dead bodies was not, on the whole, irrational. Bodies were things, not people. Unclean, he thought. Aflan. He felt queasy, and a little bit light-headed as he pressed his lips tentatively against Jack’s in a slow, chaste kiss.
Jack’s lips were soft, and his mouth was pliant but cool and unresponsive. No breath issued forth. When Ianto stepped back, his lover was still lifeless.
It was too much. Shaking, Ianto grabbed his bedside lamp and hurled it against the far wall with a guttural cry. He slammed his fists into the wall then slid into a near foetal ball on the floor. It wasn’t fair. First Lisa, then Jack. Countless friends at Canary Wharf. His parents. Even Gwen had left a gap in his soul. Why did he always have to lose?
Ianto did not hear Jack’s first thin, shuddering breath, but even as a gasping whisper the voice was unmistakable. “Cold.”
“Jack?” Ianto froze and held his breath. His eyes and ears registered sound and movement, but his brain and heart were having trouble getting traction.
“S-so cold,” the man hissed through chattering teeth. He was shivering uncontrollably.
Ianto grabbed the blanket and wrapped it frantically around Jack, who tried and failed to sit up. He seemed impossibly small and frail, and the usually blazing light behind his eyes was a mere ember.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.” He bundled Jack up in his arms and held him tight. Jack was breathing. Fuck, he was moving. It was sharp and unreal and miraculous. Ianto worried that his own heart might burst.
Jack’s eyes met his. They were pale, glossy and unfocused and seemed to look straight through him. “You’re not real. This is a trick. Another trick. A dream in the Dark. Always dreaming. Always cold.” His eyes closed again. “Can’t wake up.”
# # #
Jack was still wrapped in the dream-blanket. The dream-Ianto had helped him to sit up, before trying to feed him from a mug of dream-coffee. This was not unusual save for the fact that this particular trick of the Dark was unusually solid. It was vivid and felt so sharp and fragile that it made him angry. He didn’t like being manipulated like this. Dreaming.
He was still so cold. His bones and muscles and skin all hurt. It was like waking up stiff from being shot or stabbed or strangled, except that the killing blow was the entire universe hammering down on him. Breathing was agony. The only point of comfort was the blazingly hot mug in his hands, which he held close to his chest. He’d forgotten what warmth was like.
Dream-Ianto was trying to explain something. He was all wrong, of course. His Ianto had never looked so thin and tired, never wore so much stubble, never let his hair go so unkempt. His Ianto didn’t fidget and cry the way this one did. The Dark had made some sort of mistake. That gave him something to hold onto.
Jack took another cautious sip of the coffee.
“…I mean, after Owen and all. I think they’ve all been waiting for me to lose it. Like we’ve got some sort of rota for who goes mad next.”
“I know what you’re doing,” Jack whispered. “I’ve had this dream before. The one where I wake up. This is the best one so far. I’ve never seen Ianto’s bedroom, but I’ll bet it’s just like this.” He let himself crack a weak smile. “Next time, you know, maybe we could do this at St. David’s.”
“We could go there when you’re better, if you like,” dream-Ianto said, a little uncertainly.
“No, I’ll just wait for the next one, thanks.”
Dream-Ianto nodded and excused himself. Jack listened to bare feet on carpet, and the sound of a door (the bathroom, perhaps?) closing. He waited for other sounds. When none came, he placed the mug carefully on the bedside table and tried to get out of bed.
He came down with a groan into a soft, blankety pile. Gravity. He’d forgotten about that, too. He wriggled free of the covers, and then made his way on hands and knees to the nearest wall. He used it to pull himself upright again while his legs and feet remembered their cues. He made his way slowly into the hall and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
He opened the door and found Ianto curled in the empty tub, sobbing quietly. He lurched and faltered his way across the tiled floor. It was difficult, but somehow he managed to crawl over the rim of the tub and cradle the younger man in his arms. Ianto was so warm his skin nearly burned, and he was heartbreakingly real.
“Please don’t cry,” Jack whispered into his lover’s messy hair. If this was another dream, another trick of the Dark, that was fine. He would accept a chance to feel Ianto’s ribs though his t-shirt, his hips through his denim. Flesh and blood and skin, solid for the first time in an eternity. Jack kissed the younger man’s shoulder and held him close. He breathed in life and banished death, immersing himself in the warmth and smells of his lover.
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Rating: Series ranges from PG to light NC-17. This entry's in the PG range.
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto with mention of Ianto/Ianto and bouts of Ianto/Owen. Occasional mention and hints of other pairings.
Notes/Summary: Disambiguation is an AU that follows the exploits of a parallel Torchwood where the events of "End of Days" didn't go as smoothly as they do in canon. Features Andy Davidson as a member of the team. Picks up where the original Disambiguation one-off story leaves off, so you'll probably want to give it a look. Betaed by riftugee, whose advice I took much more often than not, and without whom this piece wouldn't be nearly as shiny as it is now.
Part Two, in which there is a vigil, and the matter of keys is discussed.
The rough scrape of a key in the deadbolt jolted Ianto awake. He’d dozed off leaning against the wall, watching the bed from a spot on the floor near his closet. He grabbed the Glock 20 from his bag and scrambled to his feet. The front door swung open and a single pair of footsteps entered. He heard the door shut and the bolt click home.
“Ianto? It’s Owen. I just want to talk.”
“Not interested.” Ianto rested his head against the door frame and listened to the creak of floorboards as Owen wandered into his flat. He’d known this was a possibility - expected it, really, since Owen had a key - but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable.
“Nice trick last night with the lockdown. You had us stuck until this morning sorting it out. Andy wants your head on a pike for knocking him out, by the way.”
Ianto winced. He liked Andy. The man was still a bit of a rookie, and Owen routinely took the piss out of him, but he did good work and his heart was in the right place. Taking advantage of Andy’s inexperience had been a massive violation of the man’s trust. Whatever ill will he harbored toward Ianto this morning was probably well deserved.
Ianto glanced at Jack’s body.
“So why the house call, Owen? One mutiny in your lifetime just isn’t enough? You’ve got to go all the way twice?”
“Depends,” Owen snapped back, his voice getting closer. “How’s that inability to let go working out for you?”
Ianto pulled the slide on the Glock and dropped the safety. He made no effort to muffle what he was doing. Actually, he rather hoped the sound would carry. “What was it you said to me last night, Owen? Oh yes. That’s right. ‘Get the fuck out of my flat.’ Good advice.”
He heard Owen give a sigh of resignation and stop in the hallway. Owen was bad at playing the penitent, but Lord help him, he was trying. “Listen. I’m sorry about last night. I panicked, okay? It was a lot to take in, nevermind the timing.”
Ianto peeked into the hall. Owen stood waiting, careful to keep his hands in plain view.
“Can I see him?”
“Why should I trust you?” Ianto scowled. There was a fair chance Owen was here to stop him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.
“Because in spite of your Mission Impossible bollocks last night, I want to help.”
Ianto paused, and then engaged the safety. “Alright. Five minutes.”
Owen stepped carefully up the hallway, still keeping his hands visible. Ianto kept the gun trained on him as he stood next to the bed and began examining Jack Harkness’ body.
“Pupils are dilated and unresponsive. No vital signs. Body is cold. Joints are supple.” Owen pulled a face. “You have him laid out like this all night?”
Ianto nodded.
“I’ll say this. He’s in good shape for a dead bloke who’s been in the freezer for a while.”
“Thank you, Owen, for that well-considered, in-depth opinion,” Ianto snapped. He refused to lose control of this situation.
“No, Ianto. I mean it. There’s been no additional deterioration. It’s phenomenal.” Owen shook his head in disbelief. “It’s like he’s dead, but his body is slowly renewing itself. Like it’s recharging.”
Ianto glanced at the clock. “Your five minutes are up.”
“Yan -“
Ianto disengaged the safety and gave Owen a meaningful look. “Give me your keys.”
Owen pulled out his key fob and tossed it to Ianto.
“Good,” Ianto said, dropping them into his trouser pocket. “Now get out.”
“Oi! You’ve got my keys!”
“Yep. Sorry.” Ianto indicated the doorway with a twitch of his pistol. “Out.”
Owen gave a little cough of disbelief. “Or what, you’ll shoot me? After last night? Over Jack?”
“In a fucking heartbeat, Owen. Now move before I start aiming at something more vital than your other shoulder.”
Owen flinched, and then did as he was told.
Ianto followed Owen down the hall and into the lounge. He shoved the doctor out into the entryway and then locked the door, ignoring the other man’s protests. He engaged the safety on the pistol once more and set the gun down on the side table before taking Owen’s keys back out of his pocket. He removed the key to his flat from the ring and dropped it back into his pocket, then strode over to the window. Below him, Owen was bellowing into his mobile phone.
Ianto opened the window and jingled the keys. “Owen! Catch!” he shouted, then took them in his fist and hurled them as hard as he could across the street.
# # #
“Officially speaking,” Ianto said, kneeling next to the bed, “you never died. You’re still on the books and everything. You’ve got a whole set of access codes. We never even packed up your office. We just locked it. Every now and again we go in to use the vault. I go in and dust once a week. But we never replaced you. We just couldn’t.”
He ran his fingers through the dead man’s hair and waited.
# # #
There were words again, muffled and far away. Words and warmth and light. He’d dreamt these things and more, of course. The Dark played tricks, and it was enormous. The things it had shown him were forever and without number.
Jack ignored them as best he could and let himself drift.
When he began to rise, it was like floating slowly to the surface of an ocean of glass. Flickers of brilliance and heat, whispers and cries. He mistook it for the music of his own madness and rebelled against it. An unavoidable dream it might be, but he didn’t have to accept it. So he fought.
# # #
Ianto came into the bedroom with two mugs of coffee. This had been his ritual for the last six mornings. Wake up on the bedroom floor, check Jack’s (lack of) vital signs, go to the toilet, and then make coffee for two. Some mornings, he talked. Others, he simply watched the empty shell of Jack Harkness lie pale and motionless on his bed. When the second coffee went cold, Ianto took it away and poured it out.
“What if I’m wrong, Jack? What if you’re dead and you’re never coming back? What then?”
He looked down into his coffee. Jesus, he was tired.
“I never told you properly, you know. Never quite said. There was never a moment where it seemed right to tell you. And then, when I realized it was time to say, I lost my chance.” He set his mug next to Jack’s and crawled up on the edge of the bed. He put one hand on the man’s cool cheek.
“I loved you, Jack. I love you and I’m sorry.”
Ianto leaned down, uncertain of the boundaries involved in what he was about to do. His aversion to dead bodies was not, on the whole, irrational. Bodies were things, not people. Unclean, he thought. Aflan. He felt queasy, and a little bit light-headed as he pressed his lips tentatively against Jack’s in a slow, chaste kiss.
Jack’s lips were soft, and his mouth was pliant but cool and unresponsive. No breath issued forth. When Ianto stepped back, his lover was still lifeless.
It was too much. Shaking, Ianto grabbed his bedside lamp and hurled it against the far wall with a guttural cry. He slammed his fists into the wall then slid into a near foetal ball on the floor. It wasn’t fair. First Lisa, then Jack. Countless friends at Canary Wharf. His parents. Even Gwen had left a gap in his soul. Why did he always have to lose?
Ianto did not hear Jack’s first thin, shuddering breath, but even as a gasping whisper the voice was unmistakable. “Cold.”
“Jack?” Ianto froze and held his breath. His eyes and ears registered sound and movement, but his brain and heart were having trouble getting traction.
“S-so cold,” the man hissed through chattering teeth. He was shivering uncontrollably.
Ianto grabbed the blanket and wrapped it frantically around Jack, who tried and failed to sit up. He seemed impossibly small and frail, and the usually blazing light behind his eyes was a mere ember.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.” He bundled Jack up in his arms and held him tight. Jack was breathing. Fuck, he was moving. It was sharp and unreal and miraculous. Ianto worried that his own heart might burst.
Jack’s eyes met his. They were pale, glossy and unfocused and seemed to look straight through him. “You’re not real. This is a trick. Another trick. A dream in the Dark. Always dreaming. Always cold.” His eyes closed again. “Can’t wake up.”
# # #
Jack was still wrapped in the dream-blanket. The dream-Ianto had helped him to sit up, before trying to feed him from a mug of dream-coffee. This was not unusual save for the fact that this particular trick of the Dark was unusually solid. It was vivid and felt so sharp and fragile that it made him angry. He didn’t like being manipulated like this. Dreaming.
He was still so cold. His bones and muscles and skin all hurt. It was like waking up stiff from being shot or stabbed or strangled, except that the killing blow was the entire universe hammering down on him. Breathing was agony. The only point of comfort was the blazingly hot mug in his hands, which he held close to his chest. He’d forgotten what warmth was like.
Dream-Ianto was trying to explain something. He was all wrong, of course. His Ianto had never looked so thin and tired, never wore so much stubble, never let his hair go so unkempt. His Ianto didn’t fidget and cry the way this one did. The Dark had made some sort of mistake. That gave him something to hold onto.
Jack took another cautious sip of the coffee.
“…I mean, after Owen and all. I think they’ve all been waiting for me to lose it. Like we’ve got some sort of rota for who goes mad next.”
“I know what you’re doing,” Jack whispered. “I’ve had this dream before. The one where I wake up. This is the best one so far. I’ve never seen Ianto’s bedroom, but I’ll bet it’s just like this.” He let himself crack a weak smile. “Next time, you know, maybe we could do this at St. David’s.”
“We could go there when you’re better, if you like,” dream-Ianto said, a little uncertainly.
“No, I’ll just wait for the next one, thanks.”
Dream-Ianto nodded and excused himself. Jack listened to bare feet on carpet, and the sound of a door (the bathroom, perhaps?) closing. He waited for other sounds. When none came, he placed the mug carefully on the bedside table and tried to get out of bed.
He came down with a groan into a soft, blankety pile. Gravity. He’d forgotten about that, too. He wriggled free of the covers, and then made his way on hands and knees to the nearest wall. He used it to pull himself upright again while his legs and feet remembered their cues. He made his way slowly into the hall and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
He opened the door and found Ianto curled in the empty tub, sobbing quietly. He lurched and faltered his way across the tiled floor. It was difficult, but somehow he managed to crawl over the rim of the tub and cradle the younger man in his arms. Ianto was so warm his skin nearly burned, and he was heartbreakingly real.
“Please don’t cry,” Jack whispered into his lover’s messy hair. If this was another dream, another trick of the Dark, that was fine. He would accept a chance to feel Ianto’s ribs though his t-shirt, his hips through his denim. Flesh and blood and skin, solid for the first time in an eternity. Jack kissed the younger man’s shoulder and held him close. He breathed in life and banished death, immersing himself in the warmth and smells of his lover.
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