Play Me Dear part 2

The second thing he was aware of when he woke up was that Jack had sedated him. He’d been so stunned by Jack’s words that he hadn’t even reacted when Jack raised some kind of gun and shot him – he had just gone blank, and then the world swam into blackness.

It was still blackness, actually. He opened his eyes, and that helped a little but the room was still mostly filled with darkness with a small sliver of light showing under the door. It was just enough for him to realise he wasn’t at the Hub or anywhere else he knew; everything was cold cement unless it was cold steel (okay so that did indicate the Hub but he knew every inch of that place, every inch, and there was nowhere there like this), and it gleamed.

Cement shouldn’t gleam, not unless it’s been repeatedly cleaned within an inch of its life, and he finally pinpointed the reason why he was so uneasy. After the warehouse, what he’d heard, what Jack had confessed to – well, the knowledge that he had a secret bunker that was so thoroughly cleaned raised issues he’d rather not think about, especially when he was the one trapped in it.

Strictly speaking he wasn’t tied down in any way. Now that he had established where exactly he was (or wasn’t), he tested his limbs and found he could move freely. The smell of new fabric reached his nostrils as the material creased around his knees and elbows, bending around his limbs as he levered himself upright. His hair was damp on the back of his neck, his wrists and head no longer hurt. He practically screamed ‘clean’ as much as the disturbingly gleaming room did. And he hadn’t been awake for any of it.

He wondered, briefly, if he would be feeling quite this calm if it had been anyone other than Jack who took him, who washed the blood off him and apparently replaced his blood-stained suit with a new one – all while he was asleep. Or sedated, or stunned, or whatever the term was for that particular weapon. Perhaps when he saw Jack again he’d ask what it was, where he’d gotten it – and of course, why they were here.

The scuff of a footstep outside the door had his head whipping around to see a shadow outside. Speak of the devil he thought irreverently, and braced himself for what would doubtless be an onslaught of light. Eyes shut tight against the glare, he waited for the light. So focussed on one sense, he almost missed the sound of the door opening in the darkness.

“It’s alright,” Jack’s voice said from the doorway, soothing in its familiar cadence. “You can open your eyes. Light will slowly return at a pace your eyes can automatically adjust to without pain. Sorry about the accommodations – I don’t have a lot of room here, and no beds. How are your wrists?”

Ianto opened his eyes mostly out of surprise, and found that the light under the door was in fact quite dim and low to the ground. In its pale reflections from cement and steel, he could just make out Jack’s shape – sans coat – leaning against the doorframe.

“The sort of place you only go to work, sir?” he asked, still unnerved by the gleaming cleanness of it.

Jack chuckled, and the low familiar tone set him at ease. “Exactly. Here, let’s get you standing.”

Jack’s silhouette strode over to him and extended its arms, and he automatically took the offered assistance. Jack easily pulled him to his feet, flush against his body so he could feel the muscles trembling with a tenseness that belied his Captain’s easy tone.

“Sir?” he asked, concern filling his tone. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s just...good to see you, Ianto,” Jack rumbled hesitantly, the sound carrying more through his chest to Ianto’s ears than from his lips. “It’s good to know you’re alive.”

“Yes sir, you retrieved me from those people,” Ianto reassured him, frowning when the muscles twitched again indicating he was thinking about something else. “Sir?”

He looked up into eyes filled with more pain than Jack had ever shown, more broken than Jack had ever seemed. He couldn’t stand seeing those emotions in the only man he would ever love, and reached up to kiss them away. Jack’s hands instantly tightened around his arms, roughly trying to pull him closer than they already were even as his lips melted around Ianto’s, soft movements drinking in everything Ianto had to give. The contrast of demand and submission showed him more than any expression or word could just how worried Jack had been. It was so quintessentially Jack – experienced lover, inexperienced at relationships.

“Let me love you,” Jack whispered against his lips, pleading – but he didn’t need to beg, Ianto would always give Jack this. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t tease him first.

“But there isn’t a bed,” Ianto pointed out, flashing Jack a cheeky smile in the light he hadn’t even noticed brightening.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Jack grinned in return, but it looked more like the macabre smile of a skull and Ianto lost the will to continue to tease.

“Love me, Jack,” Ianto whispered, and surrendered.

Burden of Innocence

It was always the same: the pain followed by death (rinse and repeat as many times as necessary), and then she would come to clean him up and put him back together - sometimes literally. He never asked and she never told him whether it was on His orders or her own will, and he was infinitely grateful for every visit, cherishing each one as if it were the last. While she worked they would talk - or she would talk if he couldn't - and it was always about small things, the things in life they had taken for granted and now recalled with a clarity that could have been painful if it wasn't shared.

"Do you remember October mornings?"

"I remember... On really cold ones, the air sparkled when the sun rose, because of frost overnight. Just for a minute, the world was made of rainbows. Then the sun evaporated it all."

"Oh God yes. Do you remember October 29th 1997? The coldest October day on record in London!"

"It was even worse on October 17th 1993 in Scotland. And don't even get me started on before records."

She laughed, he grinned; meanwhile her hands were busy with a sponge and a bucket of water, wiping the charred skin from his new flesh.

"At least the apples were good that year."

She laughed again, because if she didn't she might think about what she was doing and cry.

They never spoke about Him, or what happened to him, or what was happening to the Earth. That was their reality, and if it became their everything they just might break. The others had their own ways of coping - Francine depended on her anger and outrage at being tricked, becoming increasingly bitter and withdrawn; Clive reverted to childish optimism and idolisation of his family, refusing to see Francine as anything but his wife and Tish as anything but his innocent daughter - but Tish had been young and idealistic and when her illusions of the world were shattered Jack had been the only one to tell her it was okay to feel hurt and that it would pass.

He was right, but only because she had him. Where her family became insular and set themselves against the world, Jack showed her how to look over life and see the bad and the good - and there was so much good she'd missed before she met him. She was halfway to acceptance when He found out about their little talks and decided to punish them both.

She had to watch, this time. And every time she made a sound, every time she so much as flinched, more pain was added to his agony. It was unbearable. It shattered her acceptance and taught her to hate with a fire that never died.

But she still came afterwards, hosed down his cell and held onto him as he screamed his body back together. For once, as she sponged away the blood from the new flesh and he caught his breath, she didn't speak and she didn't smile.

"I'm sorry," he croaked after she carefully slid water down his throat, and she looked at him sharply, surprise breaking through her encompassing rage.

"What?"

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, a little smoother this time as his throat regenerated. "I'm sorry you had to watch His cruelty. He likes an audience."

"But it was my fault, because of me! All the things He did to you, because I-"

"No, it wasn't. None of this is your fault, and it is more than you should be asked to bear. I'm sorry that this is your burden, and I'm sorry that this is so unfair - but I'm not sorry for you."

She looked at him incredulously, ready to disbelieve him - but he never lied. Not once in all their talks had he lied. As his words sank in, she examined them with all the intelligence that had led to her success, turning them over without emotional bias. And, as she peeled away the shock and the rage and the guilt, she realised they were true.

She should not have had to see that - it was His fault, He made her watch, He did everything, and He did not need an excuse. She was...just an innocent bystander.

Now she couldn't look away from him, from blue eyes that had seen to the heart of her and regretted only the circumstance. Shock filled her and held her immobile, body and mind, until he spoke again.

"Come here."

Mechanically, she followed his direction, stepping up until she looked up into his eyes from only inches away. His head tilted forward and for a panicked moment she thought he was going to break all the bonds of trust she'd laid and kiss her but - no, he did, but it was on the forehead and full of all the affection of the closest friend, all the love without the merest smudge of desire, and it broke something within her. Her guilt, the whetstone of her own self-destruction, shattered inside her as she broke through her shock. She clung to him, pressed against his chest as she cried for her own innocence and the ruin of her former life through no fault of her own, and he stood and soothed and pressed kisses to her head and let her mourn for should-have-been. He was her rock, her steadfast anchor against everything that tried to destroy her; he was her constant, and she would never let him go.