Mistletoe Is Poisonous
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Rating: NC-16
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC and RTD
Spoilers: General, for series 1, but especially 'Out of Time'.
Summary: Jack has to face the consequence of his actions when he next sees Ianto.
Jack came to with a start and for a moment was completely disorientated to find himself lying on his bed at Torchwood. He levered himself up on to his elbows and looked around in confusion. His last memory had been of losing consciousness beside John; sweet oblivion surging up to take him in its arms again, Had it been some weird kind of dream? He still had them, even if sleep was now a shallow imitation of what he used to experience, which was why he tried to avoid it if at all possible.
He swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to figure out what had happened. He was sure he had been in the car. The memory was just too sharp. But if he had been in the car, how the hell was he back here at the Hub? Looking around, he saw his greatcoat hung up on a hanger and he realised his shoes, socks and waistcoat had been removed, all them neatly put to one side. He immediately relaxed, the mystery solved. Ianto.
Ianto?
Jack's heart abruptly skyrocketed up to lodge somewhere in his throat and he lunged to his feet, making for the ladder up into the Hub proper. He shot through his office and started a fast circuit through the Hub, only to nearly fall over Ianto as the younger man came through the main door, a file in his hand. He gave Jack an impassive look before offering a tight little smile.
"Feeling better are we, Captain?"
Oh, shit, Jack thought. "Ianto-"
"Asphyxiation is said to be one of the gentler ways of committing suicide," Ianto continued in the same calm, even voice. "And so much neater than some others I can think of. It was very considerate of you both not to make a mess of my car."
"Ianto, it's not what you think," Jack started to say, then paused as he realised that he hadn't the faintest idea how to finish the sentence.
"No? I suppose there was some other reason why you were both sitting with the exhaust blocked and the windows sealed while the engine was running? Bit cold, was it? Thought it would make the car more cosy, did you?"
Jack pulled in a shaky breath. "Where's John?"
"John is in a local mortuary, awaiting burial," Ianto told him, the tiniest edge creeping into his voice. He paused and pulled in a breath before regaining the flat tone of before. "Of course there will have to be an autopsy, but since I managed to track you down, remove you and my car and substitute another one, Torchwood won't get involved, so that's all right, isn't it?" He moved to stalk past Jack, who reached out to grab an arm without thinking. He wrenched free and turned on Jack, his eyes blazing. "Don't!"
"Ianto-"
The Welshman raised a hand that was shaking a little. "Just... don't. Spare me the speeches because I'm really fed up to the teeth with them." He started to walk away, paused and then swung around again. Jack backed up a step at the rage he saw in the other man's eyes. "Did it even occur to you to phone? Or even send a bloody text? 'Sorry, Ianto: bit busy at the moment offing myself, see you soon?' You go tearing out of here after some loose cannon from the past and do I get any kind of contact to let me know what's happening? Do I buggery! I'm just supposed to sit here, am I, and imagine God knows what happening to you?"
"Look, I know I-"
"So after trying to phone and being ignored-"
"I switched my phone off," Jack admitted.
"Which is contrary to the regulations you're always telling us about, sir," Ianto snarled. "So after trying to phone and not getting through because you've switched your bloody phone off, I get worried and think that maybe John might have got hold of one of our guns while he was in the thieving mood and put a bullet in you. Not that that would matter, but a person gets into the habit of worrying about such things. So I get a taxi, get to the SUV and manage to track you down. And what do I find? A cosy little mutual suicide pact. In my bloody car! Merry Christmas, Ianto. Merry bloody Christmas."
The last was whispered and he lifted his hands to rub at his eyes. "It's all a big nothing to you, isn't it," he said softly. "None of us are real. None of us mean anything to you. We're just useful little toys for you to play with until you get bored. This whole thing-" he waved his hand to indicate the Hub and the greater outside, "-is just a game you play to pass the time."
"No, Ianto, that's not true," Jack protested. "Look, I'm sorry-"
"You're always sorry," Ianto reminded him. "Every single bloody time you're sorry. But you're not, don't you see? If you were sorry, you wouldn't do it. If you cared, you'd stop and think what it would be like for someone to find you. Someone who's stupid enough to care." He drew in another shaky breath and bent down to pick up the folder he'd dropped. "According to the records, John was High Anglican, so I've made arrangements for a suitable funeral - unless the two of you had a little chat to the contrary while you were waiting for the carbon monoxide to take effect?" he finished sarcastically.
"Stop it," Jack said, feeling a spark of anger flicker into life inside him. "You have no right to judge me."
"No, you're right. Lesser mortals should never have the right to tell superior forms of life that they are being complete and utter dickheads," Ianto agreed.
"You don't know what it's like-"
"No, I don't, and do you know why? Because you sit in this bloody dungeon of yours and never tell me! Everything I know about you, I've had to find out for myself. Oh, you're a great one with the outrageous anecdote but nothing that tells me anything about you. You give nothing of yourself and then you have the gall to tell me that I don't understand you! You cling to your secrecy and lies because they're safe and you ignore anyone who tries to reach out to you because they might die and that would be bad. Well I've got news for you, Captain Harkness, people have been living with that risk for thousands of years and somehow or other we manage to cope."
"Like you did?" Even as he said the words, Jack knew they were unforgiveable.
"No, not like I did!" Ianto flashed back. "Because I'm the idiot exception that proves the bloody rule. My first choice was a woman who got turned into an inhuman monster and then I fall for her executioner who has delusions of being bloody Osiris!"
"I didn't mean-" Jack skidded to a mental and verbal halt. Fall for? "Ianto, you said you just wanted a physical relationship," he said carefully. "You said-"
"I said what you wanted to hear," Ianto said, looking embarrassed. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter?" Jack said in disbelief.
"No, it doesn't." Ianto lifted his head to give Jack a look that blended pain with anger. "Because you don't care enough for there not to be a next time. You'll do it all over again and I'll pick up the pieces all over again. Gods don't have to play by the rules."
Jack was abruptly terrified, because things had suddenly become much more complicated. "I'm not a god," he eventually managed.
Ianto snorted, still focusing on the file like it held all the answers to the universe. "Oh, I don't know. You rise from the dead, you never age and you screw up people's lives as a hobby. Pretty good definition of a god. Although Osiris would be a poor choice, since he had a rather important part of his anatomy go missing," he finished in an absent voice.
Jack couldn't help himself and started laughing. Ianto turned with a flash of anger on his face and Jack threw his arms around the Welshman, still laughing. And the laughter wouldn't stop but came tearing up from inside him because, really, the world was the most ridiculous place and why shouldn't he laugh?
"Sir? Captain?"
Ianto sounded worried, maybe even a little frightened, and that was funny too. No, it wasn't funny. Jack frowned even as the laughter continued to twist him inside. It wasn't a good thing for Ianto to be frightened, especially if Jack was the one doing the frightening. But that was just typical of him, wasn't it? Something good suddenly appeared in his life and he kicked it out of his way like a piece of rubbish. And suddenly the laughter had changed into tears and Jack was crying. Crying for John and all his lost dreams. Crying for all his own lost hopes and dreams, for all the maybes he'd never had. Crying for the people who had left him behind on a dead station orbiting a convulsing world and who had never come back and really, if they had cared they would have come back, wouldn't they?
"Jack? Jack..."
He was being held and slightly rocked and Ianto was crooning something in Welsh over and over again that Jack couldn't understand but which was strangely soothing. He clung to Ianto as if he was the only real and solid thing in his universe, which wasn't far wrong at the moment. The grief was tearing him open and he still couldn't stop crying, although he had run out of tears and it was getting difficult to breathe and all that was coming out of him was a sound that wasn't remotely human.
Exhaustion eventually stopped him and he found himself collapsed onto the floor of the Hub. He had dragged Ianto down with him and the Welshman was half-sitting, half-supporting Jack's limp weight, in what was probably an uncomfortable position. He hadn't said anything about that, which was typical, and he was still stroking Jack's back and crooning softly, which wasn't.
"I can't remember what it's like to be human," Jack said tiredly. "I can't even remember what it used to be like to be me."
Ianto stilled and after a moment Jack felt and heard him sigh. "I'm no great expert, sir, but I think there's a great deal of nonsense spoken about that. I don't think there’s some template that everyone can measure themselves against."
"No? Everyone talks about being human."
Ianto gave a snort. "In a nice woolly kind of way that is shit all help. We like to pretend we're unique because really, deep down inside, we have one of the biggest inferiority complexes in the universe. We talk about caring and compassion like we have a corner on the market, and no-one can do gutsy and daring like us, oh no. When it comes down to it, we're no better and no worse than a thousand, maybe a hundred thousand other races scattered across time and space, and suspecting that might be true really annoys us."
Jack gave him a tired smile. "Not helping, Ianto."
Ianto didn't even try and smile back. Jack found himself trying to remember when he had last heard Ianto really laugh and mean it. "Don't bother trying to be human, sir. Try settling for wanting to be alive first and then we'll move on to the more complicated stuff."
"John-"
Ianto made an impatient sound deep in his throat. "John wanted to be in control of his life, the way he always had been, and life showed him that she can't be controlled. He couldn't accept that so he turned his back on her." He shifted so he could grab Jack's face with his hands and make him look up at him. "Jack, people lose control of life every day. A person goes about his life and then gets a phone call to say that his entire family have lost their lives in a terrorist attack. Another has his entire world come crashing down on him because some natural disaster takes away his family, friends, even his home. Or maybe they get told that they have a disease that will kill them in a matter of weeks or months. Or maybe they find out that the woman they love died months ago and there's been a monster in her place using him to attack everything else he holds dear."
Jack blinked and half-opened his mouth to say something.
"The thing is, life never really does abandon us. She may pick us up by the scruff of our neck and shake us until we feel like every bone in our body is broken, but when she drops us again, she's still there, still willing to play. You just have to be willing to play by her rules. You've got used to not playing by the rules, Jack, and taken yourself off the game-board. That means you've also taken yourself out of the game. Deal yourself back in."
"How do I do that?"
Ianto hesitated. "Let yourself feel again. You're afraid to do that, I know, but you can do it. You felt when Lisa ran amok. You hated me then, and wanted to kill me so badly you could taste it, even though you didn't in the end-"
"I-"
"Don't lie, Jack," Ianto said with a small shrug. "I was there, remember? It doesn't matter. At the time I deserved it, and the important thing is that you didn't kill me. But you felt the emotions, didn't you? Reach for that again, but this time on the positive side. The team are there for you; all you need to do is reach out for them and they'll respond. They need it almost as much as you do."
"What about you?"
The sardonic eyebrow raised. "What about me?"
"You love me?" That came out as more of a question than Jack had wanted, but Ianto just shrugged again.
"And you don't love me. Don't deny it, Jack," he said tiredly when Jack opened his mouth to object. "It's not like I didn't know that from the very beginning. I don't ask it of you. I never did. I never will. But there are limits to what I can do, and finding you've killed yourself just because you can't think of anything more interesting to do with your evening is one of them!"
"I didn't want him to go into the dark on his own," Jack said miserably. "He was so like me in so many ways." He realised he had said the wrong thing when Ianto withdrew, both emotionally and physically, pushing himself out of Jack's loose embrace and getting up.
"I'll finalise the arrangements for the funeral, sir. I'm assuming that you'll want to attend?"
Jack looked up at him miserably. "Don't leave."
Ianto looked down at him and for a moment there was all the grief and bitterness in the world in his eyes. "I'm not the one who leaves, Jack." He gave a tight little smile. "Let me know when you feel in the mood for some sex, sir. In the meantime, I have to put Myfanwy to bed."
He walked off, leaving Jack to the semi-darkness of the Hub and the memory of a man who couldn't accept that life was one long series of new beginnings and tired endings. And here he was, with another beginning that wasn't anything of the kind but the continuation of the same tired old story that had happened on the Games Station so many thousands of years in the future.
"Doctor, I need you," he whispered. "Come and fix me before I break him as well."
Rating: NC-16
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC and RTD
Spoilers: General, for series 1, but especially 'Out of Time'.
Summary: Jack has to face the consequence of his actions when he next sees Ianto.
Jack came to with a start and for a moment was completely disorientated to find himself lying on his bed at Torchwood. He levered himself up on to his elbows and looked around in confusion. His last memory had been of losing consciousness beside John; sweet oblivion surging up to take him in its arms again, Had it been some weird kind of dream? He still had them, even if sleep was now a shallow imitation of what he used to experience, which was why he tried to avoid it if at all possible.
He swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to figure out what had happened. He was sure he had been in the car. The memory was just too sharp. But if he had been in the car, how the hell was he back here at the Hub? Looking around, he saw his greatcoat hung up on a hanger and he realised his shoes, socks and waistcoat had been removed, all them neatly put to one side. He immediately relaxed, the mystery solved. Ianto.
Ianto?
Jack's heart abruptly skyrocketed up to lodge somewhere in his throat and he lunged to his feet, making for the ladder up into the Hub proper. He shot through his office and started a fast circuit through the Hub, only to nearly fall over Ianto as the younger man came through the main door, a file in his hand. He gave Jack an impassive look before offering a tight little smile.
"Feeling better are we, Captain?"
Oh, shit, Jack thought. "Ianto-"
"Asphyxiation is said to be one of the gentler ways of committing suicide," Ianto continued in the same calm, even voice. "And so much neater than some others I can think of. It was very considerate of you both not to make a mess of my car."
"Ianto, it's not what you think," Jack started to say, then paused as he realised that he hadn't the faintest idea how to finish the sentence.
"No? I suppose there was some other reason why you were both sitting with the exhaust blocked and the windows sealed while the engine was running? Bit cold, was it? Thought it would make the car more cosy, did you?"
Jack pulled in a shaky breath. "Where's John?"
"John is in a local mortuary, awaiting burial," Ianto told him, the tiniest edge creeping into his voice. He paused and pulled in a breath before regaining the flat tone of before. "Of course there will have to be an autopsy, but since I managed to track you down, remove you and my car and substitute another one, Torchwood won't get involved, so that's all right, isn't it?" He moved to stalk past Jack, who reached out to grab an arm without thinking. He wrenched free and turned on Jack, his eyes blazing. "Don't!"
"Ianto-"
The Welshman raised a hand that was shaking a little. "Just... don't. Spare me the speeches because I'm really fed up to the teeth with them." He started to walk away, paused and then swung around again. Jack backed up a step at the rage he saw in the other man's eyes. "Did it even occur to you to phone? Or even send a bloody text? 'Sorry, Ianto: bit busy at the moment offing myself, see you soon?' You go tearing out of here after some loose cannon from the past and do I get any kind of contact to let me know what's happening? Do I buggery! I'm just supposed to sit here, am I, and imagine God knows what happening to you?"
"Look, I know I-"
"So after trying to phone and being ignored-"
"I switched my phone off," Jack admitted.
"Which is contrary to the regulations you're always telling us about, sir," Ianto snarled. "So after trying to phone and not getting through because you've switched your bloody phone off, I get worried and think that maybe John might have got hold of one of our guns while he was in the thieving mood and put a bullet in you. Not that that would matter, but a person gets into the habit of worrying about such things. So I get a taxi, get to the SUV and manage to track you down. And what do I find? A cosy little mutual suicide pact. In my bloody car! Merry Christmas, Ianto. Merry bloody Christmas."
The last was whispered and he lifted his hands to rub at his eyes. "It's all a big nothing to you, isn't it," he said softly. "None of us are real. None of us mean anything to you. We're just useful little toys for you to play with until you get bored. This whole thing-" he waved his hand to indicate the Hub and the greater outside, "-is just a game you play to pass the time."
"No, Ianto, that's not true," Jack protested. "Look, I'm sorry-"
"You're always sorry," Ianto reminded him. "Every single bloody time you're sorry. But you're not, don't you see? If you were sorry, you wouldn't do it. If you cared, you'd stop and think what it would be like for someone to find you. Someone who's stupid enough to care." He drew in another shaky breath and bent down to pick up the folder he'd dropped. "According to the records, John was High Anglican, so I've made arrangements for a suitable funeral - unless the two of you had a little chat to the contrary while you were waiting for the carbon monoxide to take effect?" he finished sarcastically.
"Stop it," Jack said, feeling a spark of anger flicker into life inside him. "You have no right to judge me."
"No, you're right. Lesser mortals should never have the right to tell superior forms of life that they are being complete and utter dickheads," Ianto agreed.
"You don't know what it's like-"
"No, I don't, and do you know why? Because you sit in this bloody dungeon of yours and never tell me! Everything I know about you, I've had to find out for myself. Oh, you're a great one with the outrageous anecdote but nothing that tells me anything about you. You give nothing of yourself and then you have the gall to tell me that I don't understand you! You cling to your secrecy and lies because they're safe and you ignore anyone who tries to reach out to you because they might die and that would be bad. Well I've got news for you, Captain Harkness, people have been living with that risk for thousands of years and somehow or other we manage to cope."
"Like you did?" Even as he said the words, Jack knew they were unforgiveable.
"No, not like I did!" Ianto flashed back. "Because I'm the idiot exception that proves the bloody rule. My first choice was a woman who got turned into an inhuman monster and then I fall for her executioner who has delusions of being bloody Osiris!"
"I didn't mean-" Jack skidded to a mental and verbal halt. Fall for? "Ianto, you said you just wanted a physical relationship," he said carefully. "You said-"
"I said what you wanted to hear," Ianto said, looking embarrassed. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter?" Jack said in disbelief.
"No, it doesn't." Ianto lifted his head to give Jack a look that blended pain with anger. "Because you don't care enough for there not to be a next time. You'll do it all over again and I'll pick up the pieces all over again. Gods don't have to play by the rules."
Jack was abruptly terrified, because things had suddenly become much more complicated. "I'm not a god," he eventually managed.
Ianto snorted, still focusing on the file like it held all the answers to the universe. "Oh, I don't know. You rise from the dead, you never age and you screw up people's lives as a hobby. Pretty good definition of a god. Although Osiris would be a poor choice, since he had a rather important part of his anatomy go missing," he finished in an absent voice.
Jack couldn't help himself and started laughing. Ianto turned with a flash of anger on his face and Jack threw his arms around the Welshman, still laughing. And the laughter wouldn't stop but came tearing up from inside him because, really, the world was the most ridiculous place and why shouldn't he laugh?
"Sir? Captain?"
Ianto sounded worried, maybe even a little frightened, and that was funny too. No, it wasn't funny. Jack frowned even as the laughter continued to twist him inside. It wasn't a good thing for Ianto to be frightened, especially if Jack was the one doing the frightening. But that was just typical of him, wasn't it? Something good suddenly appeared in his life and he kicked it out of his way like a piece of rubbish. And suddenly the laughter had changed into tears and Jack was crying. Crying for John and all his lost dreams. Crying for all his own lost hopes and dreams, for all the maybes he'd never had. Crying for the people who had left him behind on a dead station orbiting a convulsing world and who had never come back and really, if they had cared they would have come back, wouldn't they?
"Jack? Jack..."
He was being held and slightly rocked and Ianto was crooning something in Welsh over and over again that Jack couldn't understand but which was strangely soothing. He clung to Ianto as if he was the only real and solid thing in his universe, which wasn't far wrong at the moment. The grief was tearing him open and he still couldn't stop crying, although he had run out of tears and it was getting difficult to breathe and all that was coming out of him was a sound that wasn't remotely human.
Exhaustion eventually stopped him and he found himself collapsed onto the floor of the Hub. He had dragged Ianto down with him and the Welshman was half-sitting, half-supporting Jack's limp weight, in what was probably an uncomfortable position. He hadn't said anything about that, which was typical, and he was still stroking Jack's back and crooning softly, which wasn't.
"I can't remember what it's like to be human," Jack said tiredly. "I can't even remember what it used to be like to be me."
Ianto stilled and after a moment Jack felt and heard him sigh. "I'm no great expert, sir, but I think there's a great deal of nonsense spoken about that. I don't think there’s some template that everyone can measure themselves against."
"No? Everyone talks about being human."
Ianto gave a snort. "In a nice woolly kind of way that is shit all help. We like to pretend we're unique because really, deep down inside, we have one of the biggest inferiority complexes in the universe. We talk about caring and compassion like we have a corner on the market, and no-one can do gutsy and daring like us, oh no. When it comes down to it, we're no better and no worse than a thousand, maybe a hundred thousand other races scattered across time and space, and suspecting that might be true really annoys us."
Jack gave him a tired smile. "Not helping, Ianto."
Ianto didn't even try and smile back. Jack found himself trying to remember when he had last heard Ianto really laugh and mean it. "Don't bother trying to be human, sir. Try settling for wanting to be alive first and then we'll move on to the more complicated stuff."
"John-"
Ianto made an impatient sound deep in his throat. "John wanted to be in control of his life, the way he always had been, and life showed him that she can't be controlled. He couldn't accept that so he turned his back on her." He shifted so he could grab Jack's face with his hands and make him look up at him. "Jack, people lose control of life every day. A person goes about his life and then gets a phone call to say that his entire family have lost their lives in a terrorist attack. Another has his entire world come crashing down on him because some natural disaster takes away his family, friends, even his home. Or maybe they get told that they have a disease that will kill them in a matter of weeks or months. Or maybe they find out that the woman they love died months ago and there's been a monster in her place using him to attack everything else he holds dear."
Jack blinked and half-opened his mouth to say something.
"The thing is, life never really does abandon us. She may pick us up by the scruff of our neck and shake us until we feel like every bone in our body is broken, but when she drops us again, she's still there, still willing to play. You just have to be willing to play by her rules. You've got used to not playing by the rules, Jack, and taken yourself off the game-board. That means you've also taken yourself out of the game. Deal yourself back in."
"How do I do that?"
Ianto hesitated. "Let yourself feel again. You're afraid to do that, I know, but you can do it. You felt when Lisa ran amok. You hated me then, and wanted to kill me so badly you could taste it, even though you didn't in the end-"
"I-"
"Don't lie, Jack," Ianto said with a small shrug. "I was there, remember? It doesn't matter. At the time I deserved it, and the important thing is that you didn't kill me. But you felt the emotions, didn't you? Reach for that again, but this time on the positive side. The team are there for you; all you need to do is reach out for them and they'll respond. They need it almost as much as you do."
"What about you?"
The sardonic eyebrow raised. "What about me?"
"You love me?" That came out as more of a question than Jack had wanted, but Ianto just shrugged again.
"And you don't love me. Don't deny it, Jack," he said tiredly when Jack opened his mouth to object. "It's not like I didn't know that from the very beginning. I don't ask it of you. I never did. I never will. But there are limits to what I can do, and finding you've killed yourself just because you can't think of anything more interesting to do with your evening is one of them!"
"I didn't want him to go into the dark on his own," Jack said miserably. "He was so like me in so many ways." He realised he had said the wrong thing when Ianto withdrew, both emotionally and physically, pushing himself out of Jack's loose embrace and getting up.
"I'll finalise the arrangements for the funeral, sir. I'm assuming that you'll want to attend?"
Jack looked up at him miserably. "Don't leave."
Ianto looked down at him and for a moment there was all the grief and bitterness in the world in his eyes. "I'm not the one who leaves, Jack." He gave a tight little smile. "Let me know when you feel in the mood for some sex, sir. In the meantime, I have to put Myfanwy to bed."
He walked off, leaving Jack to the semi-darkness of the Hub and the memory of a man who couldn't accept that life was one long series of new beginnings and tired endings. And here he was, with another beginning that wasn't anything of the kind but the continuation of the same tired old story that had happened on the Games Station so many thousands of years in the future.
"Doctor, I need you," he whispered. "Come and fix me before I break him as well."