Story: Faithful
Author: The still-grateful-for-her-fen-and-beta![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
loveslashangst
Beta: the doggedly persistentophymirage
Characters: Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Captain John Hart, Rhys Williams, Janet the Weevil, Bradwyn Kapo, & a cast of (literally) thousands.
Rated: Adult for slash, canon bisexuality, non-gratuitous drug use, language, violence, and lots and lots of sex (various pairings and kinds.)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did, Torchwood 3 would be a much more crack-tastic place.
Spoilers: If you haven't seen the first two series of Torchwood, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon, especially when it pisses me off. (This is NOT CoE COMPLIANT. Nor will it ever be.)
Summary: AU. OT3 ZOMG! Jack/John Hart/Ianto. Captain Hart is back in town. The Weevils are acting weird. It might be the end of the world. Let the crack-tastic smut ensue.
Okay, so here's the dealio...
Plans continue. Packing continues. Job hunt continues. Preparations for 2000-mile driving trip back to MN continue. Final days in CA dwindle. Hope springs eternal. I'm glad y'all liked my CoE fix and Avremo Sempre Venezia (aka "We'll always have Venice") but I know why my fen are actually here, and am more than a little embarrassed that it's been almost 2 full months since the last instalment. (Thank you for understanding WHY.)
Before we get back to the good stuff, a warm, fuzzy , happy welcome to all the new fen, a HUGE hug to all my returning veterans, and -- as always -- sincere thanks for the recs. The best gift you give me as fans (other than comments and squoobles) is to love my work enough to want to share it with others. Also, O gets co-writing credit for much of this. She can channel Jack better than I can.
On with the show...
"A certain man in this old town
Keeps draggin’ my poor heart around
All I see for me
Is misery
"I got a right to sing the blues
I got a right to moan and sigh
I got a right to sit and cry
Down around the river
I know the deep blue sea
Will soon be callin’ me
"It must be love
Say what you choose
I got a right to sing the blues "
(Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler, as recorded by Rosemary Clooney)
(In which Ianto wakes up, Jack walks out, and John comes to his senses.)
Something roars over the headset, like fire. Gwen screams in his ear.
The headset goes silent.
Ianto's knocked to the floor as the ship lurches madly, propelled out of control by a whiplash of rogue spacetime.
*************
Pain. Confusion. Ianto's head hurts. His body hurts. His left arm aches. He draws a slow breath. Sharp agony through his left side. Damn shoulder's out again. (He only just got out of the sling a week ago. Was it a week ago? How long has he been...?)
Not thinking clearly. Probable concussion. Breathing hurts, a white-hot stabbing in his side. Maybe cracked rib or ribs? Partial dislocation of his left shoulder. (Ow FUCK that hurts!) He rolls to his right side. Hisses at the pain. Red. He's seeing red. Maybe he hit his head harder...?
He levers himself up to sitting. His left arm's nigh-useless -- have to wait for Jack or John to help him reset it. And all around him, displays flash in a panic of emergency data. Alarms. Klaxons. So loud! Too much. His hearing's gone wonky. Concussion. Yup. This isn't good.
Blood... Blood pools beneath him. Shit. Where's he bleeding? He's not bleeding. (Dammit FOCUS.) No cuts. No compound fractures or jagged breaks. Not even a nose bleed. Where's this stuff coming from?
An arm dangles before him. Blood runs in irregular spurts. Down the fingers. Pools on the floor. Trickles in shifting rivulets across the floor. No, not the floor, the decking. The spaceship. They're on a spaceship that's tilting wrongly. And everywhere are flashing lights and klaxons. Like the Hub gone mad.
But there is no more Hub. The aliens blew it up. (Oh god, Gwen. Please let her and Rhys be...) Shoulder hurts. Blood runs on the decking. Alarms thunder in his ears. Is the ship spinning, or is that just his head?
Concussion. Yeah. Focus. John's bleeding. Hanging from the console, the cabling ripped out of his right wrist. (Bleeding and limp like a marionette with cut strings.) Blood flows from his neck. Cabling half-torn there too. Bad. Very bad. Probably injured in the... (So much blood. How much can a body lose before he dies again? How much is he laying in?)
Nano-- fuck. What are they called? Think. Think clearly. One-handed, Ianto claws his way up the tilted decking. Every inch forward makes his head spin. His stomach lurches queasily. Flips end over end. (The ship is spinning?) Something's wrong with the ship. G-forces or some techno-babble he only pretended to understand when Tosh, who is dead now how long's it been?
Concussion. Think clearly. Remember the sequence. There's a sequence. John hangs half out of the pilot's chair, tethered by the cabling in his wrist and half the cables in the back of his neck. God, that's gross. Don't look too closely. Think clearly. Focus. Don't slip in the blood. Blood flows from the corners of John's eyes. Ears. Nose. Don't look. Don't look. Don't slip. Sequence. Remember the sequence to release the... the things. Need to access...
Hold the wrist. Stanch the spurts of blood. Too much blood. Turn the wrist over. Don't throw up. Don't faint. Don't look too closely. Three five seven? The bumps... they blur together in a smear of blood.
As he presses the last subdermal, blades slide to the surface of John's skin. Slip toward his limp hands. Clatter to the decking. With a cry, Ianto dodges. The blades skitter to the wall. Appear to slice into it.
Wrong sequence. Try again. Evens this time. A faint sweet smell. Like the lip-gloss John used on Gwen? Some kind of poison? Dammit.
Try again. A mix of evens and odds.
Not sure what the beep and rhythmic pulsing mean, but he has the sneaking suspicion he's unwittingly armed John. Some kind of explosive, probably. (Dear God, the man's going to kill them all, even when unconscious.)
His mobile chirps an incoming text. In space. He can't be getting any kind of reception out here. What the fuck?
Hands bloody, vision blurring, he clicks to the message.
Human!Ianto. Chemical signatures indicate fear/pain response. Sequences incorrect for healing of host. Stop pressing random subdermals.
The alarming pulsing stops.
John's symbiont just texted him. And disarmed the self-destruct bomb thing. Not sure if that's comforting, funny as hell, or just damn disturbing.
And he doesn't want to know how it got his mobile number.
Another chirp. Correct sequence follows. Input in proper order to enact healing cycle. A series of numbers follows.
He shakes his head to clear it, which only makes the vertigo worse. He manages to keep the contents of his stomach in his stomach (barely). Presses the indicated subdermals.
He's never been so glad to see the golden cloud. But it comes for him instead. He tries to swat it away. Slips in the cooling blood. Slides a good three feet before he can claw a hold into the decking grating with the arm that still works.
"Fix him," he croaks. "Not me."
The nanogenes split into two clouds. One obediently sails toward John. The bleeding stops visibly. The other cloud stays with him.
The shoulder re-setting is sickening. He can not only hear but FEEL the crunch of bone-on-bone. Pain stops quickly, though. His head clears. His ribs ease. Easier to breathe now. Have to admit that the damn things really do a bang-up job.
The cockpit's still a mess. He's still a mess -- reeks of blood. And where is Jack? Panic sour in his throat, he looks around.
Jack sprawls against the wall, neck crooked at an obscene angle. Unconscious or dead. Probably thrown or rolled there when this plane (not plane -- space ship) tilted. Who knows how much they were thrown?
Ianto tests his left arm. Working again. (Little buggers did a fantastic job, actually.) He skitter-slides down the decking to Jack. Lays him on his back. Grips gently under the jaw and at the back of his head. Takes a deep breath. Twists sharply. Snaps Jack's head into position. Hopefully that'll speed up the process of him...
Jack gasps, deeply and painfully. Cricks his neck back into place. Smiles at Ianto. "Thanks." Then his eyes cloud. He scrambles up and away from Ianto. "You stay there."
He's not sure where to begin. "I..."
"The floor is tilted," Jack says. "What the fuck did you two do?"
"John opened the Rift." It sounds so stupid when he says it aloud. Embarrassing to own. "To disguise our escape."
"To disguise our escape," Jack repeats, scathing. "Perfect. Just fucking perfect."
When Ianto moves to help, Jack draws the Webley. Points it at the center of Ianto's forehead.
"Sir?"
Jack cocks the gun. "Don't you DARE play the "sir" card. I've been the victim of your mutiny for the last fucking time."
"Jack?"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STAY AGAINST THE WALL."
Shaking, Ianto turns away. Puts his hands behind his head for good measure.
The sound of something wet and vaguely metallic jerking free. John cries out. Groans, sounding semi-conscious.
And he turns to look in spite of himself. Jack lets go of one of the cables from the console. It retracts into John's wrist, an unnatural slither that makes the room threaten to spin before Ianto's eyes. John moans. Shivers like a man fighting his way to wakefulness.
"Jack?"
Jack points the gun without looking. "Stay. Against. The wall."
He swallows hard. When Jack's like this, people get shot. And though Jack might feel guilty about it later, Ianto will be no less dead. He presses his back and palms against the wall. "Sir, please. He's... he's b-bleeding."
"Good," says Jack. "Shut up." Swearing a blue streak, Jack presses a whole bunch of touch-panels. Moves faster than Ianto's seen in a long time. The sickening sense of spinning stops. Jack is still cursing under his breath when the klaxons finally silence. The decking rights a bit. Still tipping queasily, but no longer slanting alarmingly like the Titanic.
"Engine's out," says Jack. "Wreaking havoc with the gimbals. Have to compensate."
"Can I--"
"No." Again with the gun. If he weren't concerned Jack might actually shoot him, he'd be annoyed. As it is, he presses back against the wall. Tries not to think too hard of John, still dangling painfully from his half-torn cabling. Tries to be patient as the ship gibbers at Jack in an alien language.
And he's reminded again how little he knows about this man when Jack replies in fluid syllables.
Mercifully, the deck abruptly shifts to normal orientation. (He's never been so glad to be knocked on his freshly-healed arse.)
Jack turns back to John. Strokes the one remaining port on the chair almost... suggestively. John moans. Jack yanks the cable upward. John cries out, in pain. Jack strokes the port again. Jerks the cable out another foot. John sobs. Flails weakly.
"You're hurting him." He keeps forgetting about this side of Jack. Have to stop him before he does permanent damage to John.
The gunshot is loud even in the space of the cockpit. A bullet whizzes past his ear. Yelping, he hits the decking.
Jack's eyes are blue ice. "You rendered me helpless so you could murder Gwen and Rhys. I should kill you both."
And he finds himself looking down the muzzle of the Webley again. A faint trail of gunsmoke curls upwards.
Ianto, hands out where Jack can see them, gets carefully to his feet. Retreats against the wall.
The Webley is shaking, ever so slightly. "I trusted you. Again."
"I'm sorry," is all he can think to say.
"I told you I loved you."
Not since Lisa has he seen that mix of tears and fury in Jack's eyes. Ianto fumbles for words. "I... Sir, I meant what I said."
"You really are naïve, aren't you?" says Jack. "You ignore things I've spent LIFETIMES putting into place. You kill me. Kill Gwen. Kill Rhys. And ‘I'm sorry’ is supposed to fix things?"
"Sir." His throat closes down on the single syllable.
Jack gestures with the gun. "I'm going to pull him loose. I need both hands to port and pull. You are going to catch him when the cable releases."
"Yes, sir."
He approaches, slowly and carefully. Jack doesn't holster the Webley until Ianto's in front of him. John's shoulders feel slender and frail beneath his hands. He holds the man. (His lover?)
Jack strokes once more, and jerks the cabling free viciously. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to either of you that I have REASONS for doing things the way I do?"
His stomach flip-flops as the cabling slithers back into John's neck. John fights him weakly. He's still covered in blood, but looking less pale by the minute and the wounds are closing. (Oh yuck, he'd not noticed the larger port in John's lower back until his fingers brush it and feel it pulsing closed under his fingertips.) He drags/slides John across the decking to rest against the wall.
"I thought--"
"No, you didn't fucking think," says Jack. "You followed -- followed him and not me. If you'd stopped thinking with your dick for ONE second, maybe you'd have realized there was a REASON I didn't want you to give Gwen the codes."
"But..." And he has nothing. (The last thing he heard...)
"But..." Jack mocks, then the blue gaze bores into him. "But you always know better than me. Don't you? You know when I want my coffee. When I want my dick sucked. When you can hide a cyberwoman in my goddamn basement. And when to tell Gwen things I have SPECIFICALLY forbidden."
He staggers at the mention of Lisa. They'd had a gentleman's agreement after that month's suspension: neither of them would mention it and life would go on.
Jack crosses the cockpit in five angry paces. Stands nose to nose with him. "And now, because you know so much better than me, another two people I cared about are dead. That's on your head, Ianto Jones. Yours. John's. And no one else's. And just so that you understand. So you're crystal fucking CLEAR about what you've done: you gave Gwen the codes that triggered the firebombs rigged to the Hub's superstructure. She started a chemical fire intended to fry the Archives. ALL the Archives. The Mainframe. My office -- yes, where you told her to hide. After that fire comes the plastique, on a five-second delay. Designed to trap anything left inside."
The room spins again. "Oh my God."
"Oh your fucking god is right," Jack spits. "Firestorm. You had her unleash a firestorm."
"Jack--"
"I can come back from a firestorm," says Jack coldly. "How do you think Gwen did?"
He's going to throw up. "I didn't know. I'm sorry... Jack, I'm so--"
"Shut up." Jack turns back to the console. Braces against it. His voice is rough with unshed tears. "Just shut up and do EXACTLY as I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you, while I try to fix the shitstorm you and your psychotic boyfriend have mired us in."
Numb and shaking, he obeys. Stumbles when the ship jerks again under Jack's hands, then rights itself. Buttons. Touch-screens. It all goes by so quickly and he honestly doesn't understand half of it. "Where are we?"
"That's only half the problem," says Jack fiercely. "Because that idiot over there opened the Rift, it's not only WHERE are we, but WHEN are we? God, Ianto, how could you have been so stupid?"
"I thought--" His throat is so tight the words are barely a whisper.
"No," says Jack. "You fell for him. He made you come. He buttered you up and you forgot that all that man does is lie and betray people."
And that's when the anger kicks in and he finds his voice. "That sounds familiar."
Jack stares.
He glares back. "If Gwen's dead," he says. "It's your fault. Sir."
He grabs Jack's wrist when the Webley rises again. Pivots. Wrenches the gun out of Jack's hand. Shoulders him off-balance. Knocks him to the floor.
"Going to shoot me again?" says Jack, sarcastic.
"If I did, it’d be self-defence," he says fiercely. He unloads the weapon with shaking, blood-smeared hands. The remaining bullets ping to the decking. "If Gwen and Rhys are dead, it's because you never tell me anything."
"Oh, gee. I wonder why I don't trust you," Jack counters, scathing. "Look at the mess you made with the knowledge you do have."
"If I'd KNOWN what the sequence did beyond 'to be used in case of last resort', do you really think I'd have...?" He can't even make himself say it. Anger is a hot tonic in his veins. "What about Estelle, Jack? What about the family I'm not supposed to know you have? What about the wife whose picture is in your desk? And what about your goddamn Doctor?"
"That's personal."
He tosses the empty Webley aside. "Yes, it certainly fucking is," he says. "And I'm not, am I?"
Jack snarls. "This isn't about you."
"If it'd been Gwen," he says. "And not me. You wouldn't have waved a gun in her face. You never threaten her."
"Dammit, Ianto, pick a fucking topic."
His voice is stronger than he feels. "I give you everything, Jack. You make me beg for scraps. Scraps of love. Scraps of approval. Scraps of you. And you insist I sit quietly like a good boy every time you find someone else to pant over."
Jack's rage melts into incredulity. "You're jealous of Gwen? For Christ's sake, who's in my bed every night?"
"Whores get fucked too," he says coldly. "Means they're doing their job."
Jack actually falters for a moment, then the rage is hotter than ever in his eyes. "You know how I feel."
That stops him. The laugh is bitter and endless, pouring out of him.
A high flush of anger stains Jack's perfect cheeks. "Stop it."
"Jack," he says. "YOU don't know how you feel. One minute, I'm your right-hand man, your guy Friday, the everything you came back for. The next I'm just another cog in the machine. The bloke who clears away your shit, takes your dick up his arse--"
"You served yourself up on a silver fucking platter," Jack snarls.
"--and doesn't ask too many questions." Rage blinds and focuses him. "You want me to run your life, but you won't even tell me who you are? Everything I learn, I have to ferret out in SPITE of you? Then you have the fucking balls to threaten my life for not knowing what you won't tell me? Well, FUCK YOU TOO!"
"This is bullshit." Jack turns back to the console.
"Bullshit, Jack?" His voice rises in outrage. His nails dig into his palms as he curls his fists tighter. "Your entire modus operandi is bullshit. Worse than Yvonne."
Though Jack stubbornly doesn't turn, his whole body tenses defensively.
And Ianto's past caring. "You find people in need. Desperate people with nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to. You play on their need to know the truth and their fear of being alone. You make them your servants."
"And yet, you stay."
"I stay because I have nowhere else to go. You OWN me, Jack. Just like you owned Gwen and Tosh and Owen and Suzie."
"So help me, Ianto..." Goddamn Jack. He’s just pretending to work so he doesn't have to look Ianto in the eye. Coward.
"But you only want us as long as we're good and obedient and useful," he says. "You pat us on the head when we guess. You smirk when we fumble. And you get off on being the smug fucking tease who holds all the cards."
"Ianto." But Jack's not the overconfident bastard he was a minute ago.
"And THEN," Ianto snarls. "This is the best part -- then when we've outlived our usefulness, you end us. Get out your pretty little gun and cut short another life. Death by Torchwood. Put us in your bloody morgue. Or you wipe our memories so you can forget we ever existed at all."
Jack slams his hands on the console. Turns on him. "It is not fucking like that and you know it."
"Know it?" He backs away from this man he thought he loved. "I'm fucking PART of it. I aid and abet you, SIR. I shift things. I lie for you. I remake reality to something more palatable and convenient. And I don't even have the comfort of a way out, because I'm immune to RetCon."
"We're done here." Jack turns on his heel. Storms off.
"Where the fuck are you going?" he calls after him.
"To check the goddamn Weevils," Jack shouts back.
The idiot. The fucking idiot. Without John’s pheromones, they'll tear him to shreds. And part of him hopes they will. Maybe tear him and tear him until…
Son of a bitch. Sodding shit, why is he crying? He wipes his eyes roughly on his sleeve, but his face comes away wetter than when he started.
Blood. John's blood soaks his sleeve. His hands. His whole body. What a fitting fucking metaphor for this monster he's become. He folds his arms around himself and succumbs to tears.
"Let me guess," says John's hoarse voice behind him. "You've been talking to Jack."
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jackxianto, torchwoodslash, guns_n_poodles
Author: The still-grateful-for-her-fen-and-beta
loveslashangstBeta: the doggedly persistent
ophymirageCharacters: Ianto Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Captain John Hart, Rhys Williams, Janet the Weevil, Bradwyn Kapo, & a cast of (literally) thousands.
Rated: Adult for slash, canon bisexuality, non-gratuitous drug use, language, violence, and lots and lots of sex (various pairings and kinds.)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did, Torchwood 3 would be a much more crack-tastic place.
Spoilers: If you haven't seen the first two series of Torchwood, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon, especially when it pisses me off. (This is NOT CoE COMPLIANT. Nor will it ever be.)
Summary: AU. OT3 ZOMG! Jack/John Hart/Ianto. Captain Hart is back in town. The Weevils are acting weird. It might be the end of the world. Let the crack-tastic smut ensue.
Okay, so here's the dealio...
Plans continue. Packing continues. Job hunt continues. Preparations for 2000-mile driving trip back to MN continue. Final days in CA dwindle. Hope springs eternal. I'm glad y'all liked my CoE fix and Avremo Sempre Venezia (aka "We'll always have Venice") but I know why my fen are actually here, and am more than a little embarrassed that it's been almost 2 full months since the last instalment. (Thank you for understanding WHY.)
Before we get back to the good stuff, a warm, fuzzy , happy welcome to all the new fen, a HUGE hug to all my returning veterans, and -- as always -- sincere thanks for the recs. The best gift you give me as fans (other than comments and squoobles) is to love my work enough to want to share it with others. Also, O gets co-writing credit for much of this. She can channel Jack better than I can.
On with the show...
"A certain man in this old town
Keeps draggin’ my poor heart around
All I see for me
Is misery
"I got a right to sing the blues
I got a right to moan and sigh
I got a right to sit and cry
Down around the river
I know the deep blue sea
Will soon be callin’ me
"It must be love
Say what you choose
I got a right to sing the blues "
(Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler, as recorded by Rosemary Clooney)
(In which Ianto wakes up, Jack walks out, and John comes to his senses.)
Something roars over the headset, like fire. Gwen screams in his ear.
The headset goes silent.
Ianto's knocked to the floor as the ship lurches madly, propelled out of control by a whiplash of rogue spacetime.
*************
Pain. Confusion. Ianto's head hurts. His body hurts. His left arm aches. He draws a slow breath. Sharp agony through his left side. Damn shoulder's out again. (He only just got out of the sling a week ago. Was it a week ago? How long has he been...?)
Not thinking clearly. Probable concussion. Breathing hurts, a white-hot stabbing in his side. Maybe cracked rib or ribs? Partial dislocation of his left shoulder. (Ow FUCK that hurts!) He rolls to his right side. Hisses at the pain. Red. He's seeing red. Maybe he hit his head harder...?
He levers himself up to sitting. His left arm's nigh-useless -- have to wait for Jack or John to help him reset it. And all around him, displays flash in a panic of emergency data. Alarms. Klaxons. So loud! Too much. His hearing's gone wonky. Concussion. Yup. This isn't good.
Blood... Blood pools beneath him. Shit. Where's he bleeding? He's not bleeding. (Dammit FOCUS.) No cuts. No compound fractures or jagged breaks. Not even a nose bleed. Where's this stuff coming from?
An arm dangles before him. Blood runs in irregular spurts. Down the fingers. Pools on the floor. Trickles in shifting rivulets across the floor. No, not the floor, the decking. The spaceship. They're on a spaceship that's tilting wrongly. And everywhere are flashing lights and klaxons. Like the Hub gone mad.
But there is no more Hub. The aliens blew it up. (Oh god, Gwen. Please let her and Rhys be...) Shoulder hurts. Blood runs on the decking. Alarms thunder in his ears. Is the ship spinning, or is that just his head?
Concussion. Yeah. Focus. John's bleeding. Hanging from the console, the cabling ripped out of his right wrist. (Bleeding and limp like a marionette with cut strings.) Blood flows from his neck. Cabling half-torn there too. Bad. Very bad. Probably injured in the... (So much blood. How much can a body lose before he dies again? How much is he laying in?)
Nano-- fuck. What are they called? Think. Think clearly. One-handed, Ianto claws his way up the tilted decking. Every inch forward makes his head spin. His stomach lurches queasily. Flips end over end. (The ship is spinning?) Something's wrong with the ship. G-forces or some techno-babble he only pretended to understand when Tosh, who is dead now how long's it been?
Concussion. Think clearly. Remember the sequence. There's a sequence. John hangs half out of the pilot's chair, tethered by the cabling in his wrist and half the cables in the back of his neck. God, that's gross. Don't look too closely. Think clearly. Focus. Don't slip in the blood. Blood flows from the corners of John's eyes. Ears. Nose. Don't look. Don't look. Don't slip. Sequence. Remember the sequence to release the... the things. Need to access...
Hold the wrist. Stanch the spurts of blood. Too much blood. Turn the wrist over. Don't throw up. Don't faint. Don't look too closely. Three five seven? The bumps... they blur together in a smear of blood.
As he presses the last subdermal, blades slide to the surface of John's skin. Slip toward his limp hands. Clatter to the decking. With a cry, Ianto dodges. The blades skitter to the wall. Appear to slice into it.
Wrong sequence. Try again. Evens this time. A faint sweet smell. Like the lip-gloss John used on Gwen? Some kind of poison? Dammit.
Try again. A mix of evens and odds.
Not sure what the beep and rhythmic pulsing mean, but he has the sneaking suspicion he's unwittingly armed John. Some kind of explosive, probably. (Dear God, the man's going to kill them all, even when unconscious.)
His mobile chirps an incoming text. In space. He can't be getting any kind of reception out here. What the fuck?
Hands bloody, vision blurring, he clicks to the message.
Human!Ianto. Chemical signatures indicate fear/pain response. Sequences incorrect for healing of host. Stop pressing random subdermals.
The alarming pulsing stops.
John's symbiont just texted him. And disarmed the self-destruct bomb thing. Not sure if that's comforting, funny as hell, or just damn disturbing.
And he doesn't want to know how it got his mobile number.
Another chirp. Correct sequence follows. Input in proper order to enact healing cycle. A series of numbers follows.
He shakes his head to clear it, which only makes the vertigo worse. He manages to keep the contents of his stomach in his stomach (barely). Presses the indicated subdermals.
He's never been so glad to see the golden cloud. But it comes for him instead. He tries to swat it away. Slips in the cooling blood. Slides a good three feet before he can claw a hold into the decking grating with the arm that still works.
"Fix him," he croaks. "Not me."
The nanogenes split into two clouds. One obediently sails toward John. The bleeding stops visibly. The other cloud stays with him.
The shoulder re-setting is sickening. He can not only hear but FEEL the crunch of bone-on-bone. Pain stops quickly, though. His head clears. His ribs ease. Easier to breathe now. Have to admit that the damn things really do a bang-up job.
The cockpit's still a mess. He's still a mess -- reeks of blood. And where is Jack? Panic sour in his throat, he looks around.
Jack sprawls against the wall, neck crooked at an obscene angle. Unconscious or dead. Probably thrown or rolled there when this plane (not plane -- space ship) tilted. Who knows how much they were thrown?
Ianto tests his left arm. Working again. (Little buggers did a fantastic job, actually.) He skitter-slides down the decking to Jack. Lays him on his back. Grips gently under the jaw and at the back of his head. Takes a deep breath. Twists sharply. Snaps Jack's head into position. Hopefully that'll speed up the process of him...
Jack gasps, deeply and painfully. Cricks his neck back into place. Smiles at Ianto. "Thanks." Then his eyes cloud. He scrambles up and away from Ianto. "You stay there."
He's not sure where to begin. "I..."
"The floor is tilted," Jack says. "What the fuck did you two do?"
"John opened the Rift." It sounds so stupid when he says it aloud. Embarrassing to own. "To disguise our escape."
"To disguise our escape," Jack repeats, scathing. "Perfect. Just fucking perfect."
When Ianto moves to help, Jack draws the Webley. Points it at the center of Ianto's forehead.
"Sir?"
Jack cocks the gun. "Don't you DARE play the "sir" card. I've been the victim of your mutiny for the last fucking time."
"Jack?"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STAY AGAINST THE WALL."
Shaking, Ianto turns away. Puts his hands behind his head for good measure.
The sound of something wet and vaguely metallic jerking free. John cries out. Groans, sounding semi-conscious.
And he turns to look in spite of himself. Jack lets go of one of the cables from the console. It retracts into John's wrist, an unnatural slither that makes the room threaten to spin before Ianto's eyes. John moans. Shivers like a man fighting his way to wakefulness.
"Jack?"
Jack points the gun without looking. "Stay. Against. The wall."
He swallows hard. When Jack's like this, people get shot. And though Jack might feel guilty about it later, Ianto will be no less dead. He presses his back and palms against the wall. "Sir, please. He's... he's b-bleeding."
"Good," says Jack. "Shut up." Swearing a blue streak, Jack presses a whole bunch of touch-panels. Moves faster than Ianto's seen in a long time. The sickening sense of spinning stops. Jack is still cursing under his breath when the klaxons finally silence. The decking rights a bit. Still tipping queasily, but no longer slanting alarmingly like the Titanic.
"Engine's out," says Jack. "Wreaking havoc with the gimbals. Have to compensate."
"Can I--"
"No." Again with the gun. If he weren't concerned Jack might actually shoot him, he'd be annoyed. As it is, he presses back against the wall. Tries not to think too hard of John, still dangling painfully from his half-torn cabling. Tries to be patient as the ship gibbers at Jack in an alien language.
And he's reminded again how little he knows about this man when Jack replies in fluid syllables.
Mercifully, the deck abruptly shifts to normal orientation. (He's never been so glad to be knocked on his freshly-healed arse.)
Jack turns back to John. Strokes the one remaining port on the chair almost... suggestively. John moans. Jack yanks the cable upward. John cries out, in pain. Jack strokes the port again. Jerks the cable out another foot. John sobs. Flails weakly.
"You're hurting him." He keeps forgetting about this side of Jack. Have to stop him before he does permanent damage to John.
The gunshot is loud even in the space of the cockpit. A bullet whizzes past his ear. Yelping, he hits the decking.
Jack's eyes are blue ice. "You rendered me helpless so you could murder Gwen and Rhys. I should kill you both."
And he finds himself looking down the muzzle of the Webley again. A faint trail of gunsmoke curls upwards.
Ianto, hands out where Jack can see them, gets carefully to his feet. Retreats against the wall.
The Webley is shaking, ever so slightly. "I trusted you. Again."
"I'm sorry," is all he can think to say.
"I told you I loved you."
Not since Lisa has he seen that mix of tears and fury in Jack's eyes. Ianto fumbles for words. "I... Sir, I meant what I said."
"You really are naïve, aren't you?" says Jack. "You ignore things I've spent LIFETIMES putting into place. You kill me. Kill Gwen. Kill Rhys. And ‘I'm sorry’ is supposed to fix things?"
"Sir." His throat closes down on the single syllable.
Jack gestures with the gun. "I'm going to pull him loose. I need both hands to port and pull. You are going to catch him when the cable releases."
"Yes, sir."
He approaches, slowly and carefully. Jack doesn't holster the Webley until Ianto's in front of him. John's shoulders feel slender and frail beneath his hands. He holds the man. (His lover?)
Jack strokes once more, and jerks the cabling free viciously. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to either of you that I have REASONS for doing things the way I do?"
His stomach flip-flops as the cabling slithers back into John's neck. John fights him weakly. He's still covered in blood, but looking less pale by the minute and the wounds are closing. (Oh yuck, he'd not noticed the larger port in John's lower back until his fingers brush it and feel it pulsing closed under his fingertips.) He drags/slides John across the decking to rest against the wall.
"I thought--"
"No, you didn't fucking think," says Jack. "You followed -- followed him and not me. If you'd stopped thinking with your dick for ONE second, maybe you'd have realized there was a REASON I didn't want you to give Gwen the codes."
"But..." And he has nothing. (The last thing he heard...)
"But..." Jack mocks, then the blue gaze bores into him. "But you always know better than me. Don't you? You know when I want my coffee. When I want my dick sucked. When you can hide a cyberwoman in my goddamn basement. And when to tell Gwen things I have SPECIFICALLY forbidden."
He staggers at the mention of Lisa. They'd had a gentleman's agreement after that month's suspension: neither of them would mention it and life would go on.
Jack crosses the cockpit in five angry paces. Stands nose to nose with him. "And now, because you know so much better than me, another two people I cared about are dead. That's on your head, Ianto Jones. Yours. John's. And no one else's. And just so that you understand. So you're crystal fucking CLEAR about what you've done: you gave Gwen the codes that triggered the firebombs rigged to the Hub's superstructure. She started a chemical fire intended to fry the Archives. ALL the Archives. The Mainframe. My office -- yes, where you told her to hide. After that fire comes the plastique, on a five-second delay. Designed to trap anything left inside."
The room spins again. "Oh my God."
"Oh your fucking god is right," Jack spits. "Firestorm. You had her unleash a firestorm."
"Jack--"
"I can come back from a firestorm," says Jack coldly. "How do you think Gwen did?"
He's going to throw up. "I didn't know. I'm sorry... Jack, I'm so--"
"Shut up." Jack turns back to the console. Braces against it. His voice is rough with unshed tears. "Just shut up and do EXACTLY as I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you, while I try to fix the shitstorm you and your psychotic boyfriend have mired us in."
Numb and shaking, he obeys. Stumbles when the ship jerks again under Jack's hands, then rights itself. Buttons. Touch-screens. It all goes by so quickly and he honestly doesn't understand half of it. "Where are we?"
"That's only half the problem," says Jack fiercely. "Because that idiot over there opened the Rift, it's not only WHERE are we, but WHEN are we? God, Ianto, how could you have been so stupid?"
"I thought--" His throat is so tight the words are barely a whisper.
"No," says Jack. "You fell for him. He made you come. He buttered you up and you forgot that all that man does is lie and betray people."
And that's when the anger kicks in and he finds his voice. "That sounds familiar."
Jack stares.
He glares back. "If Gwen's dead," he says. "It's your fault. Sir."
He grabs Jack's wrist when the Webley rises again. Pivots. Wrenches the gun out of Jack's hand. Shoulders him off-balance. Knocks him to the floor.
"Going to shoot me again?" says Jack, sarcastic.
"If I did, it’d be self-defence," he says fiercely. He unloads the weapon with shaking, blood-smeared hands. The remaining bullets ping to the decking. "If Gwen and Rhys are dead, it's because you never tell me anything."
"Oh, gee. I wonder why I don't trust you," Jack counters, scathing. "Look at the mess you made with the knowledge you do have."
"If I'd KNOWN what the sequence did beyond 'to be used in case of last resort', do you really think I'd have...?" He can't even make himself say it. Anger is a hot tonic in his veins. "What about Estelle, Jack? What about the family I'm not supposed to know you have? What about the wife whose picture is in your desk? And what about your goddamn Doctor?"
"That's personal."
He tosses the empty Webley aside. "Yes, it certainly fucking is," he says. "And I'm not, am I?"
Jack snarls. "This isn't about you."
"If it'd been Gwen," he says. "And not me. You wouldn't have waved a gun in her face. You never threaten her."
"Dammit, Ianto, pick a fucking topic."
His voice is stronger than he feels. "I give you everything, Jack. You make me beg for scraps. Scraps of love. Scraps of approval. Scraps of you. And you insist I sit quietly like a good boy every time you find someone else to pant over."
Jack's rage melts into incredulity. "You're jealous of Gwen? For Christ's sake, who's in my bed every night?"
"Whores get fucked too," he says coldly. "Means they're doing their job."
Jack actually falters for a moment, then the rage is hotter than ever in his eyes. "You know how I feel."
That stops him. The laugh is bitter and endless, pouring out of him.
A high flush of anger stains Jack's perfect cheeks. "Stop it."
"Jack," he says. "YOU don't know how you feel. One minute, I'm your right-hand man, your guy Friday, the everything you came back for. The next I'm just another cog in the machine. The bloke who clears away your shit, takes your dick up his arse--"
"You served yourself up on a silver fucking platter," Jack snarls.
"--and doesn't ask too many questions." Rage blinds and focuses him. "You want me to run your life, but you won't even tell me who you are? Everything I learn, I have to ferret out in SPITE of you? Then you have the fucking balls to threaten my life for not knowing what you won't tell me? Well, FUCK YOU TOO!"
"This is bullshit." Jack turns back to the console.
"Bullshit, Jack?" His voice rises in outrage. His nails dig into his palms as he curls his fists tighter. "Your entire modus operandi is bullshit. Worse than Yvonne."
Though Jack stubbornly doesn't turn, his whole body tenses defensively.
And Ianto's past caring. "You find people in need. Desperate people with nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to. You play on their need to know the truth and their fear of being alone. You make them your servants."
"And yet, you stay."
"I stay because I have nowhere else to go. You OWN me, Jack. Just like you owned Gwen and Tosh and Owen and Suzie."
"So help me, Ianto..." Goddamn Jack. He’s just pretending to work so he doesn't have to look Ianto in the eye. Coward.
"But you only want us as long as we're good and obedient and useful," he says. "You pat us on the head when we guess. You smirk when we fumble. And you get off on being the smug fucking tease who holds all the cards."
"Ianto." But Jack's not the overconfident bastard he was a minute ago.
"And THEN," Ianto snarls. "This is the best part -- then when we've outlived our usefulness, you end us. Get out your pretty little gun and cut short another life. Death by Torchwood. Put us in your bloody morgue. Or you wipe our memories so you can forget we ever existed at all."
Jack slams his hands on the console. Turns on him. "It is not fucking like that and you know it."
"Know it?" He backs away from this man he thought he loved. "I'm fucking PART of it. I aid and abet you, SIR. I shift things. I lie for you. I remake reality to something more palatable and convenient. And I don't even have the comfort of a way out, because I'm immune to RetCon."
"We're done here." Jack turns on his heel. Storms off.
"Where the fuck are you going?" he calls after him.
"To check the goddamn Weevils," Jack shouts back.
The idiot. The fucking idiot. Without John’s pheromones, they'll tear him to shreds. And part of him hopes they will. Maybe tear him and tear him until…
Son of a bitch. Sodding shit, why is he crying? He wipes his eyes roughly on his sleeve, but his face comes away wetter than when he started.
Blood. John's blood soaks his sleeve. His hands. His whole body. What a fitting fucking metaphor for this monster he's become. He folds his arms around himself and succumbs to tears.
"Let me guess," says John's hoarse voice behind him. "You've been talking to Jack."
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Crossposted to
jackxianto, torchwoodslash, guns_n_poodles