![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Fandomweekly Challenge 199 - An offering to the dead
Title: An offering to the dead
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 199 - at Altar![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Ianto has special plans for the trip to Boeshane.
Ianto woke in the early hours of the morning as the Boeshane pre-dawn sky overhead was still littered with stars. He pushed himself up and gathered his pack, preparing to leave, but not before stoking their campfire, which had burned low, producing a fresh wave of warmth in the still chill night air.
Jack didn’t rouse at the motion, wrapped in his own thin blanket, pack tucked under his head for a pillow. He was unlikely to panic at Ianto’s absence from their camp, given away by the tell-tale trail of Ianto's own footsteps in the sand, snaking away on a path that led straight back to him.
He ploughed through the soft dunes, trekking back to a spot he’d seen yesterday where a lone sand pine stood resolute on an otherwise almost treeless sandscape. They came here often to reconnect with Jack’s past and to acknowledge the place he’d been born, but on this occasion, Ianto wanted it to be more than just a reminiscing around the campfire.
Unlike Ianto, Jack didn't have anywhere to mourn and remember his family. All of Ianto's family were buried in the same place, where he could visit at any time. Not least because he paid for it to be that way. Every time some developers came along wanting to claim the land, assured that after three hundred years there would be no living family to get in the way of the remains being removed, or simply concreted over, they were met with disappointment that relatives of the deceased had ensured its ongoing perpetuity. He could almost hear their cursing from ten thousand parsecs away.
Even Jack's estranged brother Gray was buried there amongst friends and loved ones. Despite the anguish and grief his brief interlude had caused, Ianto considered him as much flesh and blood relative as any. He was Jack's brother, no matter what he'd done and suffered. He deserved a place where he could be remembered.
Ianto took his time, setting up the objects from his pack, double checking he had everything where it should be, then sat under the tree and watched the sun slowly rise. As the first heat of the day began to make itself known, a shape emerged from over the dunes, and Jack’s outline came to meet him.
‘I’ve heard of early morning walks, but–’ Jack’s words stopped abruptly as he saw the altar that had been set up under the tree.
Ianto moved to stand beside him. ‘I know that it's still a few thousand years until they'll technically be here, but it felt like there should be a place to remember them no matter what age we live in.’
Ianto also knew for a fact that in that future there was no graveyard here. The people of Jack's city had always cremated the bones of their dead and scattered them to the winds and the sand, and then at some point they had all abandoned the city, and left its hollow remains to be slowly eroded by the infamous Boeshane sirocco, of which Jack had spoken about often.
There was a round clay pot with curled-in edges carrying three pomelo. Beside it was a small fire on which was burning a tied bunch of herbs, filling the air with a heady, fragrant smoke. Ianto had some of the herbs already in this pack. Others that could only be found here he'd had to scavenge in the first light of dawn, already tinder dry from the hot sun. Swirled patterns were drawn in the sand with fingers and twigs, emulating the designs left by scurrying sand scorpions and desert beetles. One pattern he hadn't drawn, but had in fact been left by one of those aforesaid insects, and he took it as a sign that Jack's gods had chosen to bless the makeshift altar.
‘I know it’s not perfect,’ he began.
Jack was momentarily lost for words. ‘How did you even know what to do?’
He shrugged. ‘It wasn't easy. Books on the anthropological study of civilisations that don't yet exist are hard to find. I did find one in a book stall at a market a few years back, but I was hardly going to put my faith in a single archaeologist's opinions until I had something that substantiated it. It wasn't like I could ask you.’ Jack had been a closed book on that front. Ianto knew all kinds of stories from Jack's childhood and his family, but he was close lipped on many things from that time. Ianto supposed that Jack was merely trying to preserve those things in their purest form, which was to keep them locked away in his memories where they couldn't become tainted by outside influences.
Ianto knelt beside the altar and picked up the bunch of herbs, waving the smoking leaves above his head before putting them back. Jack knelt beside him and did the same, completing that part of the ritual. At least he’d gotten that right.
‘Apparently there's also chanting, but please stop me if I'm ruining it.’ He’d been memorising the words and intonation of them for weeks, wanting desperately not to mangle them and ruin the whole ceremony. He'd only hummed a few notes before Jack’s voice joined his, blending in where his own uncertainty might have spoiled the effect.
They chanted for hours, falling into a hypnotic state despite the searing desert heat that should have had them soaked in sweat, and their throats parched from the smoke-filled heat.
‘Thank you,’ Jack finally said once they’d released themselves from their prayers, reaching across and kissing him in a way Ianto was sure he'd never been kissed before. It was all Jack could do to express his feelings of gratitude at finally having a place where he could be at peace with those he’d lost.
‘Your family is my family. Their memory is our memory,’ he replied, biting into the pomelo as Jack devoured his, leaving the last one for the dead.
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 199 - at Altar
fandomweeklySummary: Ianto has special plans for the trip to Boeshane.
Ianto woke in the early hours of the morning as the Boeshane pre-dawn sky overhead was still littered with stars. He pushed himself up and gathered his pack, preparing to leave, but not before stoking their campfire, which had burned low, producing a fresh wave of warmth in the still chill night air.
Jack didn’t rouse at the motion, wrapped in his own thin blanket, pack tucked under his head for a pillow. He was unlikely to panic at Ianto’s absence from their camp, given away by the tell-tale trail of Ianto's own footsteps in the sand, snaking away on a path that led straight back to him.
He ploughed through the soft dunes, trekking back to a spot he’d seen yesterday where a lone sand pine stood resolute on an otherwise almost treeless sandscape. They came here often to reconnect with Jack’s past and to acknowledge the place he’d been born, but on this occasion, Ianto wanted it to be more than just a reminiscing around the campfire.
Unlike Ianto, Jack didn't have anywhere to mourn and remember his family. All of Ianto's family were buried in the same place, where he could visit at any time. Not least because he paid for it to be that way. Every time some developers came along wanting to claim the land, assured that after three hundred years there would be no living family to get in the way of the remains being removed, or simply concreted over, they were met with disappointment that relatives of the deceased had ensured its ongoing perpetuity. He could almost hear their cursing from ten thousand parsecs away.
Even Jack's estranged brother Gray was buried there amongst friends and loved ones. Despite the anguish and grief his brief interlude had caused, Ianto considered him as much flesh and blood relative as any. He was Jack's brother, no matter what he'd done and suffered. He deserved a place where he could be remembered.
Ianto took his time, setting up the objects from his pack, double checking he had everything where it should be, then sat under the tree and watched the sun slowly rise. As the first heat of the day began to make itself known, a shape emerged from over the dunes, and Jack’s outline came to meet him.
‘I’ve heard of early morning walks, but–’ Jack’s words stopped abruptly as he saw the altar that had been set up under the tree.
Ianto moved to stand beside him. ‘I know that it's still a few thousand years until they'll technically be here, but it felt like there should be a place to remember them no matter what age we live in.’
Ianto also knew for a fact that in that future there was no graveyard here. The people of Jack's city had always cremated the bones of their dead and scattered them to the winds and the sand, and then at some point they had all abandoned the city, and left its hollow remains to be slowly eroded by the infamous Boeshane sirocco, of which Jack had spoken about often.
There was a round clay pot with curled-in edges carrying three pomelo. Beside it was a small fire on which was burning a tied bunch of herbs, filling the air with a heady, fragrant smoke. Ianto had some of the herbs already in this pack. Others that could only be found here he'd had to scavenge in the first light of dawn, already tinder dry from the hot sun. Swirled patterns were drawn in the sand with fingers and twigs, emulating the designs left by scurrying sand scorpions and desert beetles. One pattern he hadn't drawn, but had in fact been left by one of those aforesaid insects, and he took it as a sign that Jack's gods had chosen to bless the makeshift altar.
‘I know it’s not perfect,’ he began.
Jack was momentarily lost for words. ‘How did you even know what to do?’
He shrugged. ‘It wasn't easy. Books on the anthropological study of civilisations that don't yet exist are hard to find. I did find one in a book stall at a market a few years back, but I was hardly going to put my faith in a single archaeologist's opinions until I had something that substantiated it. It wasn't like I could ask you.’ Jack had been a closed book on that front. Ianto knew all kinds of stories from Jack's childhood and his family, but he was close lipped on many things from that time. Ianto supposed that Jack was merely trying to preserve those things in their purest form, which was to keep them locked away in his memories where they couldn't become tainted by outside influences.
Ianto knelt beside the altar and picked up the bunch of herbs, waving the smoking leaves above his head before putting them back. Jack knelt beside him and did the same, completing that part of the ritual. At least he’d gotten that right.
‘Apparently there's also chanting, but please stop me if I'm ruining it.’ He’d been memorising the words and intonation of them for weeks, wanting desperately not to mangle them and ruin the whole ceremony. He'd only hummed a few notes before Jack’s voice joined his, blending in where his own uncertainty might have spoiled the effect.
They chanted for hours, falling into a hypnotic state despite the searing desert heat that should have had them soaked in sweat, and their throats parched from the smoke-filled heat.
‘Thank you,’ Jack finally said once they’d released themselves from their prayers, reaching across and kissing him in a way Ianto was sure he'd never been kissed before. It was all Jack could do to express his feelings of gratitude at finally having a place where he could be at peace with those he’d lost.
‘Your family is my family. Their memory is our memory,’ he replied, biting into the pomelo as Jack devoured his, leaving the last one for the dead.