m_findlow

Title: Double crossed
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: John Hart, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 820 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, John Hart, the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese" at fic_promptly
Summary: John's not above sinking to the lowest possible level

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. That was how John liked to think of life. Well, maybe not a mouse. A rat was more accurate. Too many years with the time agency was bound to corrupt your soul eventually. He couldn't think of a single agent who hadn't taken it upon themselves to take advantage of the ability to flit about the universe through time and space, making a quick profit on the side.

Sure, there were strict rules about that sort of thing, and no agent was stupid enough to break some of them. Rules about not meeting yourself were the most important, and it was a foolish agent who didn't heed the warnings of his predecessors. Agents who had broken those rules often ended up in very nasty situations indeed, and few ever lived to tell of it. One week you'd be having a drink with them at some run down interplanetary layover satellite, and a few weeks later, you'd be sharing stories with other agents about how the poor sod had gone and buggered up things royally for himself.

That rule was sacrosanct, but it had its edges that you could play around. For example, you might leave yourself a little something to help along the way, or plant something somewhere off in the far flung future, just in case of life's little emergencies.

Profiteering was frowned upon but rife all the same. If you didn't get caught by the ShadowProclamation, you were okay. And there was a limited code between agents that it was considered poor form to sell your comrades down the river. Unless of course you thought you could make a killing from it.

That's how it had started. A little bet here, a little side deal there. Then you extended yourself into racketeering, smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, and processed all the way up to torture and murder.

At least that's what he'd done. After all, it was expensive being him. All the booze and the women and the men and the other life forms, the luxurious hotels and cruise vessels, drugs and other vices. It all had a price tag. And for a time agent, the pay was just marginally above charity work, in his view.

No, if you wanted to make it in the universe, you had to take care of number one.

There was only the slightest twinge of guilt about what he was about to do. He liked Jack, he really did. After five years together they'd spent the next five apart, quite ready to kill each other as much as they were about to fall into bed with one another yet again. That was how they rolled. Callous and conceited only worked well if you didn't have to spend long periods of time together.

Despite that, the last five years he had thought about Jack and he had missed him, in between bouts of outrageously amazing four way sex in the Vegas galaxies. That was why when he'd run into him again, their interlude was fiery and passionate. It was only a week, but neither of them had hardly left the bed during that entire time.

And in between sessions, that's when he'd gotten the message. A little something slipped under the door when Jack wasn't looking. A message from another version of himself, letting him know about a shipment of Ponellien emeralds passing by tomorrow night.

He began to formulate a plan for emancipating them from their current owners. And naturally, since Jack was there, he liked to cut him in on the deal. It would be easier to pull it off with the two of them working together. And they always made such a great team.

The plan was simple enough. A small cargo ship to intercept the unguarded ferry that would be carting the emeralds. John, as the better pilot, would force the intercept, whilst Jack boarded and stole the jewels.

Only Jack didn't know that the ferry actually was guarded. Just two guards, but enough to cause Jack trouble. It didn't matter though. John's future self would be there on board to relieve Jack of his treasures and hyper jump just seconds before he would be apprehended by the two guards. A week later, the current version of John would find a very handy payment made into one of his many bank accounts.

As he rolled over in bed to find his part time lover dozing, he regretted that they wouldn't be sending more time together. Jack would find himself charged with larceny and placed in a labour camp for six months to serve out his sentence, while John lived it up on the proceeds. Jack would be a very attractive prospect for the inmates indeed, and he was almost jealous of them until he remembered what he'd learned long ago.

The second mouse gets always gets the cheese.