Torchwood: Fanfic: Learning to live

[m_findlow]

Title: Learning to live
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Rex Matheson, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,106 words
Content Notes: Spoilers for Miracle Day
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, Jack/any, just because you can, doesn't mean it's right" at fic_promptly
Summary: Rex is having to come to grips with a whole new reality.

Rex eased back on the stool at the bar. He was on his fourth drink and he barely felt tipsy yet. He knocked back the remnants of the glass, feeling the familiar burn as it went down his throat before slamming the glass back on the counter. As he did, a familiar grey coat sidled up next to him and sat down.

'Thought you'd be back on your way to Wales by now,' Rex muttered. If he never had to see Torchwood again, it'd be too soon.

Jack leaned back against the bar, taking in the room around him, quiet as it was. Now that the Miracle was over, there wasn't much to celebrate by all regards. The consequences of too much alcohol and much more risqué sexual behaviours didn't have quite the same allure when you knew you'd have to live with the repercussions. Jack turned to face Rex. 'What and leave you here all by yourself?'

'I'm just fine on my own. Thanks.'

'Had a few?' Jack asked looking at the row of glasses on the bar. 'It doesn't work as well once you're...' he let the sentence drift. 'Doesn't mean you can't destroy your liver trying though,' he said, catching the glare from Rex.

'Yeah, well looks like I can drink myself into oblivion and live to tell the tale now, doesn't it? What's a liver when you've got forever?' He hadn't even begun to start properly processing what had happened. One second he'd been looking forward to going back to his old life at the CIA, and then that bitch Charlotte had shot him. And then he'd come back. Come back like the goddamned Miracle .

'I'm sorry,' Jack said, and he genuinely sounded it.

Rex turned to face him. 'So, you wanna me what the hell happened?'

Jack shook his head. He honestly didn't know. All those years of Owen telling him there was absolutely nothing special about his blood, and then it had turned out that his blood was the key to the Miracle. But that was all gone now, and yet Rex was like him now, unable to stay dead .'You had my blood inside you,' he said.

'So?'

'Medically it shouldn't have happened. We're not even the same blood type. Your body should have rejected it.'

'Only it didn't, because we did it when nobody could die. I ain't gonna lie, it hurt like hell, all those goddamn transfusions.'

'I finally got myself inside you, after all,' Jack teased.

'Now I really do feel sick.' He really wasn't going to miss Jack's shameless innuendo and gay jokes.

Jack motioned to the bartender for two more glasses. 'This isn't like the Miracle, Rex. It's different.'

'Different how? I can't die. Seems pretty simple from where I'm standing. I die, I resurrect. End of story.'

'Just because you can, doesn't mean it's right.' Jack gave a mirth-filled chuckle and shook his head. 'It's so much more than that. Yes, you'll come back if you die.'

'Which I'm not planning on doing,' Rex interrupted. 'Not like you World War Two. I ain't throwing myself in front of a gun just for kicks. I plan on making this last as long as I can.'

'You'll still get injured and it'll still hurt, but you'll heal. You won't age. At least not for a very, very long time.'

'Well, thank God for small favours. I'll be the best goddamned operative in the agency. And the best looking.'

Jack's expression grew stony. 'This is forever Rex. I don't think you understand that.'

'I'm not stupid, Jack. I get it.'

'You really, really don't,' he said, swirling the fresh glass of alcohol and throwing it back. He really missed those days when he could get slaughtered on hypervodkas. Yet another thing that sucked about being immortal. It took an awful lot to get properly drunk and he'd usually lost interest long before he got to that point. 'Everyone you get close to is gonna die one day, Rex. But you? You'll just keep going on.'

'You don't even know that I'm exactly like you. Maybe it was a one time thing. Maybe now I've finally exorcized whatever super powers you have out of me.'

'So, maybe you don't wanna test the theory,' Jack said.

Rex took a sip from his glass and cringed at the taste. Who the hell ordered straight vermouth? This was messed up. Why couldn't Jack have kept his weirdness to himself? It was just some stupid blood. If he hadn't gotten all of his own blown up in South America, he'd have shoved it right back in and damn the consequences. 'I want your blood outta me, Jack.'

Jack drank slowly. 'It's already gone, Rex. Don't you get it? It's been weeks now. Every blood cell in your body has regenerated a dozen times over. It's your blood now.'

'So, I'm stuck like this? There's nothing else we can do?'

'That's what I'm trying to tell you. Your old life is over. Sure, you can go back to the CIA, but you think they won't treat you differently?'

'Who cares what they think? I'm better than all those clowns.'

Jack smirked. 'So, maybe they'll just send you on all the dangerous missions, then.'

'Bring it on, I say. Let Rex Matheson show them how the job gets done.' He sat there and stared into the glass. 'I goddamn wish I'd never met you. Stupid Torchwood.'

Jack didn't respond. It was bad enough he had to live with this curse, but now apparently so did Rex. He'd made the ultimate sacrifice so that everyone else on Earth could go back to leading ordinary lives. After a hundred and fifty years, Jack still hadn't gotten used to the idea of living forever. Maybe he never would. He only hoped Rex had an easier time of it than he had. Maybe he wasn't cursed like Jack. Maybe the Miracle would be kinder to him than it had been to Jack.

'This stuff's fucking awful,' Rex said, cringing at another mouthful. 'Is there any part of you that isn't stuck in the nineteen forties?'

Jack grinned salaciously. 'Come back to mine and I'll show you how we have fun in the fifty-first century.'

'Don't think that just because I'm immortal now I'm sleeping with you. I'm immortal, not desperate.'

'Forever is a long time, Rex. You and I are bound to cross paths.'

Rex tossed back the last of his drink. It was suddenly a whole lot more palatable than thinking about sleeping with Jack. 'Never gonna happen, World War Two. Try anything funny, and I really will kill you.'