Fandomweekly Challenge 90 - Getting away
Jun. 26th, 2022 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_findlowTitle: Getting away
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for CoE.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 90 - Road trip at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Jack desperately needs for his plan to work in order to bring his lover back from the brink.
Jack held back the sigh trying to escape his lips. Miles of Welsh coastal plains sailed by the car windows and as beautiful as it was, Jack couldn't take in any of it. His mind was too full of worrying thoughts. They sat like a leaden weight in his stomach.
He hadn't packed much into the inconspicuous white sedan, just a couple of suitcases full of clothes and toiletries. They didn't need much where they were going, and nobody would know them, so nobody would care if they were wearing a cyclical selection of jeans and hooded jumpers that needed laundering every two weeks before they ran out of clothes altogether.
Taking off cross country had seemed like a good idea at the time. After everything that had happened back in Cardiff and London, Torchwood was in tatters, both its physical presence and its people. It should have been a relief to have made it out the other side of what was surely going to be the end of the world, all three of them - Gwen, Ianto and Jack - alive by some confluence of miracles. Instead there was a tension in the air, always the fear that someone somewhere was going to come after them and finish the job they'd so incompetently begun, assassinating them. But a few weeks had passed and so had the imminent danger of that threat coming to fruition. Everyone was lying low for now, too embarrassed or perhaps too busy trying to protect their own reputations. Provided they too lay low, Torchwood no longer appeared a threat.
Instead of relief however, some dark cloud had descended over them in the aftermath. Ianto, who had been holed up at his sister's house rather than risking living alone in his own flat, had been happy to have Jack join them - all six of them now crammed under a roof built for four. But a happy coupling it had not been. The events, including his brush with death, had affected him badly. It was invisible at first, but despondency slowly grew inside him until it consumed him whole.
They just needed some time away, Jack insisted, booking a two storey house in Aberystwyth overlooking the sea. Cardiff hung heavy with bad memories that needed time to be swept out by the breeze off the bay.
As the final bag had been hefted into the boot of the car, Ianto's sister Rhiannon had wrapped her brother in a hug, before helping him into the car. Jack watched the limp, robotic way he let his sister manipulate him, even clipping the seatbelt for him. Before any of this had happened he would have fought her off for all her fussing. It troubled Jack to see Ianto so defeated and broken.
She returned and hugged Jack, adopted into their family like they'd known him years and not mere weeks. 'Promise me you'll take care of him.'
'Always,' Jack promised. 'He just needs some time and space to heal. We could all do with a break.'
Jack had avoided the motorways, choosing instead to take a long circuitous route along the south west coast before heading back north again. The scenery was meant to perk them both back up, forcing them to take two days to make a trip that might otherwise have only taken two hours. He wanted to stop along the way, treating them to quaint cafes and twee gift shops. He chatted casually about nothing for the first hour but then had to resort to the radio for any reciprocal sound.
As a small service station appeared out of nowhere, he told Ianto that they needed fuel. He still had half a tank, but he was desperate for any excuse to get out of the car. The silence inside was killing him.
Jack leaned back against the sedan as he listened to the sound of the fuel pump whirring. 'Are we there yet?' he muttered to himself. A drive had never felt so long, being trapped in a car with someone who acted as if they were barely alive. Perhaps he should have taken the direct route after all. They'd have been there by now and at least one of them would no longer be suffering.
He cast a look back over his shoulder through the tinted passenger window. Ianto was still asleep, or pretending to be asleep. Jack assumed it was the former. Ianto wasn't much for covering up how he felt. He wore his heart on his sleeve and, for the last few weeks, all of his sudden unexplained sadness as well.
He was doing the right thing, Jack kept telling himself. A few weeks by the sea would fix things in no time, and he'd get his old Ianto back. That was all he really wanted.
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for CoE.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 90 - Road trip at
fandomweekly Summary: Jack desperately needs for his plan to work in order to bring his lover back from the brink.
Jack held back the sigh trying to escape his lips. Miles of Welsh coastal plains sailed by the car windows and as beautiful as it was, Jack couldn't take in any of it. His mind was too full of worrying thoughts. They sat like a leaden weight in his stomach.
He hadn't packed much into the inconspicuous white sedan, just a couple of suitcases full of clothes and toiletries. They didn't need much where they were going, and nobody would know them, so nobody would care if they were wearing a cyclical selection of jeans and hooded jumpers that needed laundering every two weeks before they ran out of clothes altogether.
Taking off cross country had seemed like a good idea at the time. After everything that had happened back in Cardiff and London, Torchwood was in tatters, both its physical presence and its people. It should have been a relief to have made it out the other side of what was surely going to be the end of the world, all three of them - Gwen, Ianto and Jack - alive by some confluence of miracles. Instead there was a tension in the air, always the fear that someone somewhere was going to come after them and finish the job they'd so incompetently begun, assassinating them. But a few weeks had passed and so had the imminent danger of that threat coming to fruition. Everyone was lying low for now, too embarrassed or perhaps too busy trying to protect their own reputations. Provided they too lay low, Torchwood no longer appeared a threat.
Instead of relief however, some dark cloud had descended over them in the aftermath. Ianto, who had been holed up at his sister's house rather than risking living alone in his own flat, had been happy to have Jack join them - all six of them now crammed under a roof built for four. But a happy coupling it had not been. The events, including his brush with death, had affected him badly. It was invisible at first, but despondency slowly grew inside him until it consumed him whole.
They just needed some time away, Jack insisted, booking a two storey house in Aberystwyth overlooking the sea. Cardiff hung heavy with bad memories that needed time to be swept out by the breeze off the bay.
As the final bag had been hefted into the boot of the car, Ianto's sister Rhiannon had wrapped her brother in a hug, before helping him into the car. Jack watched the limp, robotic way he let his sister manipulate him, even clipping the seatbelt for him. Before any of this had happened he would have fought her off for all her fussing. It troubled Jack to see Ianto so defeated and broken.
She returned and hugged Jack, adopted into their family like they'd known him years and not mere weeks. 'Promise me you'll take care of him.'
'Always,' Jack promised. 'He just needs some time and space to heal. We could all do with a break.'
Jack had avoided the motorways, choosing instead to take a long circuitous route along the south west coast before heading back north again. The scenery was meant to perk them both back up, forcing them to take two days to make a trip that might otherwise have only taken two hours. He wanted to stop along the way, treating them to quaint cafes and twee gift shops. He chatted casually about nothing for the first hour but then had to resort to the radio for any reciprocal sound.
As a small service station appeared out of nowhere, he told Ianto that they needed fuel. He still had half a tank, but he was desperate for any excuse to get out of the car. The silence inside was killing him.
Jack leaned back against the sedan as he listened to the sound of the fuel pump whirring. 'Are we there yet?' he muttered to himself. A drive had never felt so long, being trapped in a car with someone who acted as if they were barely alive. Perhaps he should have taken the direct route after all. They'd have been there by now and at least one of them would no longer be suffering.
He cast a look back over his shoulder through the tinted passenger window. Ianto was still asleep, or pretending to be asleep. Jack assumed it was the former. Ianto wasn't much for covering up how he felt. He wore his heart on his sleeve and, for the last few weeks, all of his sudden unexplained sadness as well.
He was doing the right thing, Jack kept telling himself. A few weeks by the sea would fix things in no time, and he'd get his old Ianto back. That was all he really wanted.
