(no subject)
Jan. 15th, 2007 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wordslingingTitle: Need
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairing: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Rating: PG-13, probably, for non-explicit adult content
Summary: I have recently watched Torchwood. I have been eaten alive by shippiness. That's about it, really. Spoilers for the series in general, but specifically "Cyberwoman", "Countrycide", and "Out of Time".
It’s never meant to be love.
It starts as an outlet, an escape, a release of pent-up emotion, and neither of them expects it to be any more than that.
Jack is hiding from whatever it is he hides from, and struggling with whatever it is he struggles with, and he doesn’t need Ianto and Lisa added to his list of long-term problems. And Captain Jack Harkness has three main ways of keeping a problem from becoming long-term, so when an attempt to talk about it one night escalates into a shouting match–at least there are no guns involved, this time–he grabs Ianto and kisses him, hard, because he can’t run from this and kissing seems like a better idea than punching.
As for Ianto, he won’t say so out loud, but Jack is nothing like Lisa and that’s exactly what he needs right now. And when they’re moving together and he’s gasping Jack’s name, he’s not thinking about her, and there are other ways he could temporarily lose the pain, but this one seems less self-destructive than most of them. He’ll take it.
(And Jack can certainly make you forget anything that’s not him, even if only for a while. Ianto’s had few lovers before Lisa and none after her, until now. And now he’s learning firsthand that Jack can back up every innuendo, every flirtatious remark, every offhand reference to past experience. “Incredible” doesn’t cover it. There’s no word in Ianto’s vocabulary that does.)
But it’s not meant to be love, or even a proper relationship. They don’t meet anywhere but in the Hub (and Ianto knows exactly which and how many regulations they’re breaking, but it’s so easy, when they’re the two who stay when everyone else goes home). They don’t tell the others (Jack flirts as he always has, and if Ianto’s rebuffs don’t have the smooth professionalism they once did, the others attribute it to Lisa). They have conversations, but never about themselves (Ianto was right when he accused Jack of never asking about his life, but the thing is, Jack never asks about any of their lives. Given how little he’ll reveal about his own, it seems only fair). They work together much as they always have, and the only change is what they do after hours, when they’ve got the Hub to themselves.
But no one who works for Torchwood should be surprised when things happen that weren’t meant to. And as Ianto gets used to life without Lisa and Jack gets used to life with Ianto, things happen that neither of them planned on.
(They get back from the village, and Jack sends everyone home as soon as they’re cleaned up and isn’t surprised when Ianto stays, pale but collected and determined to do the necessary paperwork tonight and put this behind him. His composure lasts until the first time he tries to type the word “cannibalism”, and then he stumbles away from the computer retching and shaking, and Jack finds him a short while later and helps him clean up and holds him in silence for the rest of the night. Jack brings Ianto’s car back Christmas day with a dead body in the trunk, and tells him what happened in a flat, empty voice. Ianto takes care of the body and the procedures and then goes to find Jack with a cup of coffee, made exactly the way Jack likes it, and that’s what cracks the shell, and Jack reaches out and pulls Ianto toward him, coffee forgotten on the desk.)
The thing is, you can’t stay in a job like this without needing something to make it bearable. Ianto never planned on needing anyone again, after Lisa, but that was a mistake, and of course he doesn’t realize how much he’s starting to need Jack until it’s much too late to do anything but hope that Jack needs him anywhere near as much.
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairing: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Rating: PG-13, probably, for non-explicit adult content
Summary: I have recently watched Torchwood. I have been eaten alive by shippiness. That's about it, really. Spoilers for the series in general, but specifically "Cyberwoman", "Countrycide", and "Out of Time".
It’s never meant to be love.
It starts as an outlet, an escape, a release of pent-up emotion, and neither of them expects it to be any more than that.
Jack is hiding from whatever it is he hides from, and struggling with whatever it is he struggles with, and he doesn’t need Ianto and Lisa added to his list of long-term problems. And Captain Jack Harkness has three main ways of keeping a problem from becoming long-term, so when an attempt to talk about it one night escalates into a shouting match–at least there are no guns involved, this time–he grabs Ianto and kisses him, hard, because he can’t run from this and kissing seems like a better idea than punching.
As for Ianto, he won’t say so out loud, but Jack is nothing like Lisa and that’s exactly what he needs right now. And when they’re moving together and he’s gasping Jack’s name, he’s not thinking about her, and there are other ways he could temporarily lose the pain, but this one seems less self-destructive than most of them. He’ll take it.
(And Jack can certainly make you forget anything that’s not him, even if only for a while. Ianto’s had few lovers before Lisa and none after her, until now. And now he’s learning firsthand that Jack can back up every innuendo, every flirtatious remark, every offhand reference to past experience. “Incredible” doesn’t cover it. There’s no word in Ianto’s vocabulary that does.)
But it’s not meant to be love, or even a proper relationship. They don’t meet anywhere but in the Hub (and Ianto knows exactly which and how many regulations they’re breaking, but it’s so easy, when they’re the two who stay when everyone else goes home). They don’t tell the others (Jack flirts as he always has, and if Ianto’s rebuffs don’t have the smooth professionalism they once did, the others attribute it to Lisa). They have conversations, but never about themselves (Ianto was right when he accused Jack of never asking about his life, but the thing is, Jack never asks about any of their lives. Given how little he’ll reveal about his own, it seems only fair). They work together much as they always have, and the only change is what they do after hours, when they’ve got the Hub to themselves.
But no one who works for Torchwood should be surprised when things happen that weren’t meant to. And as Ianto gets used to life without Lisa and Jack gets used to life with Ianto, things happen that neither of them planned on.
(They get back from the village, and Jack sends everyone home as soon as they’re cleaned up and isn’t surprised when Ianto stays, pale but collected and determined to do the necessary paperwork tonight and put this behind him. His composure lasts until the first time he tries to type the word “cannibalism”, and then he stumbles away from the computer retching and shaking, and Jack finds him a short while later and helps him clean up and holds him in silence for the rest of the night. Jack brings Ianto’s car back Christmas day with a dead body in the trunk, and tells him what happened in a flat, empty voice. Ianto takes care of the body and the procedures and then goes to find Jack with a cup of coffee, made exactly the way Jack likes it, and that’s what cracks the shell, and Jack reaches out and pulls Ianto toward him, coffee forgotten on the desk.)
The thing is, you can’t stay in a job like this without needing something to make it bearable. Ianto never planned on needing anyone again, after Lisa, but that was a mistake, and of course he doesn’t realize how much he’s starting to need Jack until it’s much too late to do anything but hope that Jack needs him anywhere near as much.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 08:34 am (UTC)