fic: closing time
Title: Closing Time
Rating: PGish
Notes: This story is the first in The House That Jack Built, a series of short glimpses into the dynamics of the team without Jack. Set immediately post-season one, so spoilers for the first season finale.
This story brought to you by: the titular Semisonic song.
* * * * *
Closing Time
“So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits -
I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time - every new beginning
comes from some other beginning's end.”
(Semisonic, ‘Closing Time’)
***
Tosh stared at the three of them, sprawled lazily at various points in the room.
“This is how you’re going to ‘deal with it?’ ” she said incredulously. “By breaking into Jack’s alcohol stores and getting drunk together?”
“Tosh, m’lovely,” Owen said affectionately, “don’t be such a stick on the log and join us, there’s a girl.”
“That would be ‘stick in the mud,’ Owen,” murmured Ianto, sipping from a glass of amber-colored liquid that caught the low lighting. “Or ‘bump on a log,’ but really, the first one is more appropriate to the situation at hand.”
Owen snorted and negligently waved the hand that wasn’t clutching a snifter of brandy. “If you’re still sober enough to correct mixed metaphors, Ianto-my-boy, you’re not drinking nearly enough.”
“True,” admitted Ianto with a wry smile. “If you’re still sober enough to recognize a metaphor when it trips out of your mouth, I could say the same for you.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Owen, and did.
Gwen, in a swivel chair at her desk, spun in a slow circle. “Tosh has a point,” she said, swirling her own glass. “Drinking won’t make Jack come back any faster.” But she clutched the stem of the glass like a lifeline.
Making a rude noise, Owen sat forward and pointed an avuncular finger at her. “The point here is not to make him come back faster. The point is to forget him faster. So drink up, me hearties.”
“Yo ho,” added Ianto quietly, that tiny smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
Tosh wavered visibly between telling them off and grabbing her own drink. She wanted to forget just as much as they did the shock of losing Jack to three days of death, then getting him back, then losing him again to time and space. She wanted to erase the CCTV images from her brain: the tall blue box in the center of the Plass, Jack racing out of the Hub and dashing toward it with the air of a desperate man, his flying leap, then static, then nothing. Nothing at all but an empty Plass, an empty Hub, and Jack’s empty office.
She wanted, badly, to assuage the pain of knowing Jack had chosen to leave, the sting of rejection, the hole of loss gaping inside her.
“Tosh,” said Ianto softly. “It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow, we can decide what to do. We can fix it all as best we can. Tonight is for us to forget.” His eyes, when they met hers, were full of sorrow and understanding, and she suddenly thought with a jolt: Ianto has lost something infinitely more precious than any of us has. We’ve all lost a leader, but Ianto lost a lover. He was left behind, too, in more ways than one.
“All right,” she said with a sigh. She set down her purse and sat down on the corner of Gwen’s desk. Gwen helpfully held out the bottle of wine she was depleting at a steady rate. It was an excellent vintage; for all they knew, Jack had been literally saving it for over thirty years. Tosh poured herself a drink with a paper cup she scavenged from the piles on the desk. “But if Owen starts making up drinking games, I’m not getting involved.”
* * *
“Oh, Chrissakes, Ianto, y’bloody sod, ’s never Elton John you’re playing on the damn speakers.”
Owen’s complaint was mumbled into his arm where he was slumped on the floor, leaning into the side of a cabinet as though it was the only thing keeping him even vaguely upright.
Ianto carefully judged the distance from his liberated bottle of whiskey to the glass he’d been using for the last hour and a half, shrugged, and swigged straight from the bottle itself. “You made me get up and put the music on,” he told Owen, noting with amusement that he was beginning to slur his words. Good. Another two hours and he should be well and truly pissed. “ ’S only fair that I choose what we listen to.”
“Bloody Welsh bastard,” Owen muttered.
“Bite y’tongue,” Gwen said from where she was lying on her stomach at Ianto’s feet. “Bloody English bastard.”
Tosh, who’d gotten a later start on her drinking than the rest of them, was still somewhat sober. At least, more so than the rest of them. She shook her head at Owen.
“Elton John is a perfectly respectable artist,” she scolded Owen. “He’s evolved into a great musician over the years he’s been-”
“Aw, Tosh, me head’s ringing already, don’t make it worse,” Owen pleaded. He peered around his sleeve at her. “Tell me you’re not an Elton John fan.”
Tosh shrugged. “He’s a perfectly respectable artist,” she said again. “Over the years-”
“You already said that,” Gwen told her. Tosh looked surprised. Ianto thought maybe she was more drunk than he’d previously realized.
“’Sides,” Gwen added, speaking to no one in particular, “I like this song.” She began to sing along with Elton in what Ianto considered to be a fair alto voice despite her being intoxicated. “Harmony and meeee are pretty good companeeeee-”
“Oh God, make her stop. Shut her up, please.” Owen burrowed into his arm with every affectation of great agony. Gwen glared at him, Tosh giggled into her paper cup, and Ianto rolled his eyes.
Rummaging in his pockets, he pulled the remote for the CD player out and squinted at it until he found the skip button. The opening chords of the next song began to play.
“Hey,” said Tosh brightly. “I like this one.” She hummed along.
Owen moaned piteously. “ ’m surrounded. Shoot me.”
“Already did,” Ianto said thoughtfully. “Could do it again, if you want.”
Owen snorted and looked blearily up at him. “You’re a crap shot,” he sneered.
“I was aiming for your shoulder,” Ianto said, not for the first time, but he smiled a little as he spoke. “Was your fault, anyway.”
“Yeah, I made you pull the trigger.”
Lifting a shoulder, Ianto drank from the bottle again. “Manner of speaking.”
“Bullshit,” said Owen pleasantly. Ianto toasted him with the bottled and drank deeply.
“I’m still standin’, better than I ever did,” said Tosh quietly. She had a good voice, even tipsy. “Lookin’ like a true survivor, feelin’ like a little kid.”
“I’m still standin’, after all this time,” Ianto joined in, earning himself a smile from Tosh, a chuckle from Gwen, and a muttered insult from Owen. “Pickin’ up the pieces of my life without you on my mind…I’m still standing…Yeah, yeah, yeah…”
“You know,” Gwen said dreamily, leaning her chin on one hand, “this song makes me think of Jack.”
Owen made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a snort. “Th’ whole point of us getting drunk together is to not think about bloody Cap’n Jack Harkness and his super secret identity, Gwen, or did y’miss that when we broke out the liquor?”
Gwen shook her head with a slight frown. “I mean, it could be us,” she argued. “Singing this. Or, I mean, you know. The words?” She sighed. “Never mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a long look and a shrug. They knew what she was talking about. Tosh turned away first and took a long drink from the paper cup of wine. Ianto sipped from the whiskey bottle.
Let Jack go off adventuring with his beloved Doctor in that damn police box. Let him explore the intricacies of galaxies beyond human comprehension. Let him walk out of their lives for who knew how long-forever, if that was what he had planned. Tomorrow, they’d pick themselves up and move on without, as Owen said, bloody Cap’n Jack Harkness and his super secret identity. They’d rally themselves and go on looking after Cardiff because they were Torchwood, even without their captain there to reassure them that they were doing things the right way, to hold Ianto in the night when the dreams ate at his mind, to smile at him in the day and make him think of very unprofessional things.
He’d manage to survive-they all would. They’d figure out their own right way. Tomorrow, they’d stand up, and stand together, and stand strong.
But tonight was for forgetting. Ianto smiled to himself sardonically as the song changed again, and thought: Now this is perfect, isn’t it?
“Fuck yeah, here’s a respectable artist,” Owen crowed. “Y’not a total waste, Ianto, good on you. Listen and learn, Tosh-me-love.”
“I’m just a gigolo, and everywhere I go, people know the part I’m playing,” sang David Lee Roth, and Owen along with him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t half as good a singer as Tosh, and she threw a pen at him to shut him up. Gwen sat up and leaned against Ianto’s legs, laughing at the other two, and Ianto tipped up his bottle and hummed along.
“What will they say about me? When the end comes they’ll know I was just a gigolo-life goes on without me…”
Rating: PGish
Notes: This story is the first in The House That Jack Built, a series of short glimpses into the dynamics of the team without Jack. Set immediately post-season one, so spoilers for the first season finale.
This story brought to you by: the titular Semisonic song.
* * * * *
Closing Time
“So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits -
I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time - every new beginning
comes from some other beginning's end.”
(Semisonic, ‘Closing Time’)
***
Tosh stared at the three of them, sprawled lazily at various points in the room.
“This is how you’re going to ‘deal with it?’ ” she said incredulously. “By breaking into Jack’s alcohol stores and getting drunk together?”
“Tosh, m’lovely,” Owen said affectionately, “don’t be such a stick on the log and join us, there’s a girl.”
“That would be ‘stick in the mud,’ Owen,” murmured Ianto, sipping from a glass of amber-colored liquid that caught the low lighting. “Or ‘bump on a log,’ but really, the first one is more appropriate to the situation at hand.”
Owen snorted and negligently waved the hand that wasn’t clutching a snifter of brandy. “If you’re still sober enough to correct mixed metaphors, Ianto-my-boy, you’re not drinking nearly enough.”
“True,” admitted Ianto with a wry smile. “If you’re still sober enough to recognize a metaphor when it trips out of your mouth, I could say the same for you.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Owen, and did.
Gwen, in a swivel chair at her desk, spun in a slow circle. “Tosh has a point,” she said, swirling her own glass. “Drinking won’t make Jack come back any faster.” But she clutched the stem of the glass like a lifeline.
Making a rude noise, Owen sat forward and pointed an avuncular finger at her. “The point here is not to make him come back faster. The point is to forget him faster. So drink up, me hearties.”
“Yo ho,” added Ianto quietly, that tiny smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
Tosh wavered visibly between telling them off and grabbing her own drink. She wanted to forget just as much as they did the shock of losing Jack to three days of death, then getting him back, then losing him again to time and space. She wanted to erase the CCTV images from her brain: the tall blue box in the center of the Plass, Jack racing out of the Hub and dashing toward it with the air of a desperate man, his flying leap, then static, then nothing. Nothing at all but an empty Plass, an empty Hub, and Jack’s empty office.
She wanted, badly, to assuage the pain of knowing Jack had chosen to leave, the sting of rejection, the hole of loss gaping inside her.
“Tosh,” said Ianto softly. “It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow, we can decide what to do. We can fix it all as best we can. Tonight is for us to forget.” His eyes, when they met hers, were full of sorrow and understanding, and she suddenly thought with a jolt: Ianto has lost something infinitely more precious than any of us has. We’ve all lost a leader, but Ianto lost a lover. He was left behind, too, in more ways than one.
“All right,” she said with a sigh. She set down her purse and sat down on the corner of Gwen’s desk. Gwen helpfully held out the bottle of wine she was depleting at a steady rate. It was an excellent vintage; for all they knew, Jack had been literally saving it for over thirty years. Tosh poured herself a drink with a paper cup she scavenged from the piles on the desk. “But if Owen starts making up drinking games, I’m not getting involved.”
* * *
“Oh, Chrissakes, Ianto, y’bloody sod, ’s never Elton John you’re playing on the damn speakers.”
Owen’s complaint was mumbled into his arm where he was slumped on the floor, leaning into the side of a cabinet as though it was the only thing keeping him even vaguely upright.
Ianto carefully judged the distance from his liberated bottle of whiskey to the glass he’d been using for the last hour and a half, shrugged, and swigged straight from the bottle itself. “You made me get up and put the music on,” he told Owen, noting with amusement that he was beginning to slur his words. Good. Another two hours and he should be well and truly pissed. “ ’S only fair that I choose what we listen to.”
“Bloody Welsh bastard,” Owen muttered.
“Bite y’tongue,” Gwen said from where she was lying on her stomach at Ianto’s feet. “Bloody English bastard.”
Tosh, who’d gotten a later start on her drinking than the rest of them, was still somewhat sober. At least, more so than the rest of them. She shook her head at Owen.
“Elton John is a perfectly respectable artist,” she scolded Owen. “He’s evolved into a great musician over the years he’s been-”
“Aw, Tosh, me head’s ringing already, don’t make it worse,” Owen pleaded. He peered around his sleeve at her. “Tell me you’re not an Elton John fan.”
Tosh shrugged. “He’s a perfectly respectable artist,” she said again. “Over the years-”
“You already said that,” Gwen told her. Tosh looked surprised. Ianto thought maybe she was more drunk than he’d previously realized.
“’Sides,” Gwen added, speaking to no one in particular, “I like this song.” She began to sing along with Elton in what Ianto considered to be a fair alto voice despite her being intoxicated. “Harmony and meeee are pretty good companeeeee-”
“Oh God, make her stop. Shut her up, please.” Owen burrowed into his arm with every affectation of great agony. Gwen glared at him, Tosh giggled into her paper cup, and Ianto rolled his eyes.
Rummaging in his pockets, he pulled the remote for the CD player out and squinted at it until he found the skip button. The opening chords of the next song began to play.
“Hey,” said Tosh brightly. “I like this one.” She hummed along.
Owen moaned piteously. “ ’m surrounded. Shoot me.”
“Already did,” Ianto said thoughtfully. “Could do it again, if you want.”
Owen snorted and looked blearily up at him. “You’re a crap shot,” he sneered.
“I was aiming for your shoulder,” Ianto said, not for the first time, but he smiled a little as he spoke. “Was your fault, anyway.”
“Yeah, I made you pull the trigger.”
Lifting a shoulder, Ianto drank from the bottle again. “Manner of speaking.”
“Bullshit,” said Owen pleasantly. Ianto toasted him with the bottled and drank deeply.
“I’m still standin’, better than I ever did,” said Tosh quietly. She had a good voice, even tipsy. “Lookin’ like a true survivor, feelin’ like a little kid.”
“I’m still standin’, after all this time,” Ianto joined in, earning himself a smile from Tosh, a chuckle from Gwen, and a muttered insult from Owen. “Pickin’ up the pieces of my life without you on my mind…I’m still standing…Yeah, yeah, yeah…”
“You know,” Gwen said dreamily, leaning her chin on one hand, “this song makes me think of Jack.”
Owen made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a snort. “Th’ whole point of us getting drunk together is to not think about bloody Cap’n Jack Harkness and his super secret identity, Gwen, or did y’miss that when we broke out the liquor?”
Gwen shook her head with a slight frown. “I mean, it could be us,” she argued. “Singing this. Or, I mean, you know. The words?” She sighed. “Never mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a long look and a shrug. They knew what she was talking about. Tosh turned away first and took a long drink from the paper cup of wine. Ianto sipped from the whiskey bottle.
Let Jack go off adventuring with his beloved Doctor in that damn police box. Let him explore the intricacies of galaxies beyond human comprehension. Let him walk out of their lives for who knew how long-forever, if that was what he had planned. Tomorrow, they’d pick themselves up and move on without, as Owen said, bloody Cap’n Jack Harkness and his super secret identity. They’d rally themselves and go on looking after Cardiff because they were Torchwood, even without their captain there to reassure them that they were doing things the right way, to hold Ianto in the night when the dreams ate at his mind, to smile at him in the day and make him think of very unprofessional things.
He’d manage to survive-they all would. They’d figure out their own right way. Tomorrow, they’d stand up, and stand together, and stand strong.
But tonight was for forgetting. Ianto smiled to himself sardonically as the song changed again, and thought: Now this is perfect, isn’t it?
“Fuck yeah, here’s a respectable artist,” Owen crowed. “Y’not a total waste, Ianto, good on you. Listen and learn, Tosh-me-love.”
“I’m just a gigolo, and everywhere I go, people know the part I’m playing,” sang David Lee Roth, and Owen along with him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t half as good a singer as Tosh, and she threw a pen at him to shut him up. Gwen sat up and leaned against Ianto’s legs, laughing at the other two, and Ianto tipped up his bottle and hummed along.
“What will they say about me? When the end comes they’ll know I was just a gigolo-life goes on without me…”