Torchwood: Fanfic: No escape

[m_findlow]

Title: No escape
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,522 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Remix for my own fill "Early intervention" for Juliet316's prompt "Any, any, is that a gun under your chin, or are you just happy to see me?" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack and Ianto will both have to face their demons before the night is over.

Ianto let the manila file slip quietly shut and moved it from his desk to an out tray, ready for filing in the morning. There was no rush. The rest of the team had already left hours ago, their own reports only halfway done. They'd been too mad at Jack to finish them, and would probably need a night's reflection to do their reports justice on the matter with the faeries.

His report was complete only because he hadn't been there. He had the benefit of perspective, or perhaps just a lack of emotional attachment. It didn't make what Jack had done any less abhorrent, but he hadn't been there to stop him. If the others couldn't stop Jack then what hope would he have had? Perhaps Jack just liked killing things or condemning them to an horrific existence. And guess who'd be left to clean up the mess in the aftermath? Retcon would only solve half their problems. He'd be the one responsible for faking the news reports about the madman that had burst in on the family's celebrations, abducting their little girl and killing several others. Admittedly it wasn't that far from the truth, and Ianto could easily impose Jack's face on that of the fictitious lunatic in his mind's eye.

He leant back in the chair, sighing. 'Always cleaning up your mess, aren't I Jack?'

He started at the empty desk for a minute before letting his eyes wander over to Jack's office on the far side of the hub. It had been surprisingly quiet over there for a good long while now. Ianto heaved out another breath. He was done for the day, night - whatever ungodly hour it was - not bothering to check his watch. Maybe he should call in sick tomorrow; compensation for all the late nights, not that Jack seemed to appreciate it.

He grabbed his jacket, intending on leaving without further preamble, but instead his feet took him across the hub to Jack's office. He wanted Jack to know he was still here and that he was leaving, underscoring that fact.

As he came to stand in the doorway, he saw Jack's silhouette facing away from him, slumped in his beaten leather desk chair. It was however the webley in his hand, poised in the crook of his neck that caught Ianto's attention.

'Is that a gun under your chin, or are you just happy to see me?'

Jack quickly spun in his chair and pulled the webley away from where it had been firmly nestled against his Adam's apple. There was a mixture of alarm and fear on his face, mixed with something Ianto suspected was relief at being caught out moments before committing the act. Then he watched as Jack's expression changed again, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance at the intrusion.

'You're not supposed to be here,' Jack said. Gone was the teasing way he'd last spoken those words to Ianto, now laced with irritation.

Ianto felt his own annoyance rise up inside him as he paced forward, coming to stand just feet from Jack's desk. 'So you keep telling me.'

Jack's glare was cold. 'And I'll keep telling you.'

Ianto swallowed hard against the growing anger simmering below the surface of his placid demeanor. Where did Jack get off being annoyed at him? 'Next time I'll just go home quietly and let you blow your head off, shall I?'

Jack faced him down. 'I wouldn't have done it.'

'Yeah, you would have,' he replied. 'What's death to a man who can't die?' From what he'd seen of late, Jack's existence was just one long line of deaths, some his own, but mostly those of innocent people who got caught up in his orbit.

Jack paled. 'No one's supposed to know.'

'Just Gwen, then,' Ianto replied, keeping that calm facade in place. That's right, Jack. I know all your dirty little secrets. I'm not as stupid as you like to think. I've had eight months of unfettered access to the archives. I've seen all your reports dating back to 1901. I've watched you when you didn't know you were being watched. I don't know how you do it, though I suspect it's something to do with that Doctor of yours, but you can't die. Not permanently.

Ianto watched Jack searching his face to try and understand just how much he knew. He liked that scared little look on Jack, erasing the smug, in control expression he always wore. It was nice to know Jack could be cowed. It was such a small thing, but it proved Jack was human after all.

'Put the gun down, Jack,' Ianto said, slowly closing the gap between them.

'No,' Jack said pulling it back up towards his throat. 'I deserve to die after what I did.'

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Even now, Jack had to be melodramatic. He didn't think he hated himself as much as the team hated him right at this very moment. That had made for a refreshing change, that the team hated Jack for his betrayal towards them more than they did Ianto's own betrayal not that long ago. Almost instantaneously he'd gone from being ostracised to being part of the inner circle, their anger directed at some new target.

'No one else needs to die today,' Ianto said. What he wanted to say was that the deaths today shouldn't be overshadowed by his own selfish self destruction. That was what angered him, he realised. That Jack thought his death would make up for everything.

Ianto saw the anger flash in Jack's blue eyes at this implied defiance. He hated being told what to do, least of all by the most unimportant member of his little team. Wallowing in one's own self pity was a lot harder when people refused to leave you alone to do it. Why should he get to pity himself? No one else was ever given that chance. Torchwood made you move on, regardless.

Jack sneered at him. 'I seem to remember you telling me not all that long ago that you'd look forward to watching me suffer and die,' he spat back.

'You'd like that, wouldn't you? It'd make you feel like your death was justified.'

'Right now I'd just like to not feel to anything at all.'

'Go on then, Jack. Do it.' Ianto caught his reflection in the glass wall behind Jack's desk. It had transformed from a sarcastic challenge to a cold indifference.

'I will do it,' Jack warned him, gripping the handle of the webley so tight that Ianto could see his knuckles turning white from the effort.

'We'll see.' His taunting of Jack had the desired effect, seeing Jack grow incensed. If he'd expected Ianto to be sympathetic and beg him to stop and see sense, then he was sorely disappointed. He had wanted to feel that rush of holding power over Jack just once, wanting him to know what it felt like to be utterly helpless in the face of death. The black feeling grew and grew inside him, consuming him. This was the moment when he'd watch Jack suffer for his sins. For so long he'd wanted to get back at Jack for killing Lisa, and though he thought he'd forgiven Jack and moved on, he knew now that he really wanted Jack to do it. He wanted Jack ripped apart by those bullets the way he'd done the same to the only person Ianto had ever loved.

Jack's hand shook harder as he moved the gun from under his chin to the side of his temple. He clicked the safety catch off and met Ianto's blue eyed gaze.

'Do it, Jack,' Ianto urged him. 'Think about Lisa and think about that little girl you gave up to the Mara. Think of those poor people who died so that you could have things your way. Think of them when you finally end it. You'll see them soon enough.' He paused for a moment. 'Actually, you probably won't, will you?' His eyes gleamed. 'Sinners go to hell.'

Jack's eyes bored into him with such intensity that he thought he might be able to burn holes with them. 'Maybe I'll see you there. Soon,' he replied calmly, squeezing the trigger.

The gunshot was so loud; louder than anything Ianto had ever experienced. It jolted him right down to his bones and made his heart stop, as if Jack had shot him instead.

There was a moment of silence that followed in the aftermath. It stretched on, like a deathly pall over a graveyard. Jack's body slumped sideways in the chair, his head lolling ninety degrees from where the force of the gun had thrown his body to one side. The upward facing side was almost unblemished, just a small black burn and a little red dot where the bullet had entered the soft flesh of his temple. The side facing down against his shoulder was another matter entirely. His entire right-hand side was covered in thick red explosions of blood. The side of the skull was gone, obliterated by the rudimentary munitions as they'd exploded, taking with them half his brain matter. The whites of his eyes shone brightly, juxtaposed against the red. The blue irises were gone, rolled so far back there was nothing left of them, just that zombie-like expression of death.

Ianto heaved several breaths in and out of his lungs, like he'd run a marathon or been trapped underwater. His whole body was shaky and displaced, like he was only half there and half somewhere else.

He let out a strangled little sound. Jack was dead. He'd convinced Jack to kill himself. A sickening rush of glee swirled around inside him. He'd done that; orchestrated Jack's own suicide. It wasn't long and drawn out; there was no agonisingly slow bleeding out, watching Jack try to cling to life like a drowning man, but he'd seen that tiny little flash of fear right at the end. There was a split second where Jack realised he'd made a terrible mistake, and Ianto fed on that fear like a starving waif. Right there at the very end, Jack's black soul had belonged to him.

He slowly calmed his breathing, tasting the metallic tang of blood on the air. It was all over the desk and floor as well, and spattered on every surface that had lain in its path, along with fragments of flesh, bone and hair. He took a tentative step forward, examining Jack's body, splayed over the chair like a rag doll. The captain was gone, the hero was gone, but so too was the monster gone, like it had been exorcised from his body with the bullet through his head.

He suddenly saw the man behind that fierce and unforgiving set of blue eyes. The one that had given him a job here, who teased him relentlessly with his sexually charged innuendo, knowing that Ianto loved giving back as good as he got; the one that was in raptures over his coffee, who laughed and kept up the spirits of the team even when they were at their lowest. Here was the man who had done everything in his power to protect his team, even when they railed against him doing so. With a sickening realisation, Ianto knew that Jack had done this as well. He'd seen the need for revenge buried inside Ianto. In his own despair he'd chosen to kill two birds with one stone, releasing both their burdens simultaneously.

Ianto stumbled forward, crashing into the chair opposite Jack's desk as his knees buckled. He gripped it and desk, trying to navigate around both of them to get to Jack, his muscles protesting at the movement.

'Oh, God,' he mumbled, feeling red hot tears beginning to well up and spill over his cheeks. He placed both hands on each side of Jack's head, trying to lift it back up. A strangled sob choked him as the horror of the bullet wound made itself even more apparent.

'Jack? Jack, please come back.' All his certainty about Jack's regenerative abilities fled him as he sobbed, running a hand through Jack's hair and down the barely injured side of his face, stroking it over and over again as he whispered Jack's name in a silent plea. He didn't want Jack dead. Not really. He'd tried to talk Jack out of it, but Jack had pressed his buttons and reminded him of all the reasons why Jack deserved it. He'd conned Ianto into letting him do it, just like Ianto had conned him.

He was practically sitting in Jack's lap, head buried against Jack's neck and wishing he'd taken the gun and killed himself instead. In a small gap beyond Jack's dangling elbow, Ianto could see the webley lying uselessly on the floor. He could still pick it up and end things right now. He just had to lean over and reach for it. Still five bullets left, he knew, because Jack always made sure it was fully loaded. He'd only need one.

There was a heaving gasp and arms squeezed around Ianto like a vice. He yelped in shock and struggled against them until he understood what was happening. 'Jack?'

'Ianto?' came the confused reply.

'Oh, thank God!' Ianto pulled back enough to see Jack's face. It was fully healed, whole once more, as if nothing had ever happened. He reached up and touched it, as if trying to prove to himself that it wasn't an illusion.

'I'm okay,' Jack insisted, keeping his arms tightly around the man he found siting in his lap.

'I'm sorry,' Ianto repeated again and again. 'I didn't mean it. I didn't really want you to die. I...'

Jack shushed him and placed two fingers gently on his lips to silence him. 'Dying doesn't make the pain go away,' Jack whispered. 'I wish it did but it doesn't.'

In Jack's shoes a few months ago he might have felt the same, but now he knew that he had to keep going every single day, and that only with his actions could he atone for the sins of the past. He'd tried Jack's method, filling his days off with sleeping pills and alcohol, seeking out oblivion, but none of it made the pain go away, and tomorrow he'd still have to go back to work and face it all again. He knew it was bordering on inappropriate, but he wrapped his arms around Jack and hugged him. They'd been physically close before, so he knew all of the contours of Jack's body in detail, but things had been different back then. This needed to mean something more.

Jack just sat there, unmoving as Ianto held him. 'Tough day,' he muttered when Ianto finally slipped away from him.

Ianto sniffed loudly, wiping a hand uncharacteristically across his nose and palming away the dampness on his cheeks with the heel of his hand. 'I'm going to make some coffee,' he announced. He had to get up and do something, or maybe just to get out, though it felt like there was nowhere he could run to now. Like Jack, he felt trapped in this new reality where they had to face their demons every day.

Making coffee was like being on autopilot, which Ianto sorely needed. He felt detached from the world, cut adrift in a roiling ocean that now included a new long list of despicable things he'd done. He also knew he had to go back in there and face Jack before the night was over.

Ianto returned ten minutes later with two steaming hot mugs. Jack was huddled in his chair, the gun neatly tucked back away in the drawer. Ianto noticed that the assortment of quaint collctables on Jack's desk had been wiped down, as had the desk itself. Even the floor looked like Jack had done a quick job of it whilst he'd been gone, clearing away the physical signs of what had just happened, even if he could do to nothing about the smell. Ianto appreciated it more than he could say, having paused at the doorway reluctant to witness it again.

'That coffee smells amazing,' Jack said, sitting back in his chair and watching as Ianto set the two mugs down.

'I wish coffee could fix everything,' Ianto said.

'If it did, you'd be out of a job.'

Jack tried to smile at him but Ianto could tell it felt hollow. Jack spun around in his chair and grabbed something, before turning back, sliding a crystal tumbler full of amber liquid across the desk. 'I think maybe you need something a bit stronger.'

Ianto didn't hesitate in picking it up and throwing it back, letting the scotch burn all the way down his throat. He set the glass back down, still holding it as if waiting for a top up. Instead, Jack reached out and placed his own hand over Ianto's, cupping the glass.

'How did you find out?' he asked.

Ianto could have been smug about it, but it wasn't in his nature. 'You gave me access to the archives. Unless there's four generations of Jack Harknesses, the reports are all about you.'

Jack cringed, as if realising that he hadn't done nearly enough to cover his tracks.

'I didn't tell anyone else, and I wouldn't,' Ianto added.

'I know.'

'I know that you've... done this before,' Ianto said, chancing a look up at Jack as he slowly sipped from his blue and white striped mug.

'More times than I can count,' Jack confessed. 'I don't know why I keep thinking the next time will be any better than the last. Sometimes life just feels like one long string of bad decisions.'

'I think a lot of people feel like that,' Ianto replied, slowly sipping at his own mug, letting the coffee wash away the burn of the alcohol. He'd needed both to ease the shaking in his hands.

'And you?' Jack asked, staring over the rim of the mug.

Ianto stared down at his lap. He didn't like talking about himself. He nodded anyway, unable to say it out loud.

Jack ran a hand down his face. He looked tired all of a sudden, as if more than just today weighed on his conscience. 'A fine pair we make, huh?'

Ianto kept his eyes trained on the desk in front of him. 'Strength in numbers, I suppose.'

Jack set him mug down and looked at Ianto in earnest, forcing him to look up and meet Jack's gaze. 'Promise me one thing, Ianto?'

'What's that?'

'Don't ever let me do that again. Whatever hateful, hurtful things I say to you, know that I don't mean them. I have done terrible things, but I have to face up to them. There's no easy out for any of us. Me least of all.'

Ianto saw the honesty in his gaze, wondering how he'd ever confused that look with one of pure wickedness. 'I promise that should it ever come to that, I'll have you suitably disarmed and restrained for your own good.'

'Restrained?' Jack gave him a lewd look, leaning back in his chair. 'I like the sound of that. You know you're not supposed to make it sound so enticing.'

He couldn't explain how Jack did that; transition from serious into cheery naughtiness, but he was glad for it. They'd brought out the worst in each other, but they were also capable of bringing out the best. 'If I'd threatened to smack you with a rolled up newspaper you'd probably enjoy that too,' Ianto quipped, slipping easily back into their familiar banter.

Jack laughed. 'What can I say? I'm a sucker for punishment.'

'I've noticed.' Ianto cast a slow look around the room. 'It's going to need a proper cleaning, you know.'

Jack reached out and gripped his hand again. Ianto couldn't deny that he liked the feeling of those strong fingers wrapped around his own. 'Leave it to me. My mess, my job.'

Ianto narrowed his eyes at Jack. 'I said a proper clean.'

Jack sighed. 'Fine. You point, I'll clean. How's that sound?'

Ianto gave him a sigh in return. 'Sounds like we're going to be here a while.'

'I could do with the company, if you don't mind.' Jack paused, mulling over something before speaking again. 'Perhaps we could do this more often.'

Ianto raised an eyebrow. 'Talk you down from committing suicide?'

'No, I mean, catchup over coffee at the end of the day. Just chat. Remind ourselves that it's okay to not be infallible.'

'Do I get overtime pay?'

Jack gave him a curious look, as if he was trying to figure out if Ianto was being serious again, or if he was being made fun of. 'I was kinda thinking it would be less of an employment arrangement and more of a friendship. I could really use a friend. I think you could, too. What do you say? Friends?'

Ianto gave a weak smile. 'I think I can live with that.'