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Title: Here Didst Thou Fall
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the R range for profanity, and because it isn't very nice.
Notes/Summary: Part #20 of the "It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #18 on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
un_love_you prompt table. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sanginmychains and resourceress for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu, and to jbs_teeth for letting me work on this a bit from her sofa.
“NOW, Ianto.”
He hates barking orders at a time like this, but everything has basically gone to hell, and this situation isn’t something he can handle while he’s got the two of them feeding off of one another.
Andy’s panic – and under the circumstances a sudden revelation that your lover isn’t who he claims to be is something Jack can sympathize with as panic-inducing – has completely blown Ianto’s composure. Considering what happened the last time Jack intervened in one of Ianto’s relationships, he can kind of understand why. Still, would it kill these two to give him a little bit of credit here?
As soon as the door closes, Jack tries to shush Andy. “Okay, okay. It’s okay. Just relax.”
“Just let me go. I promise, I won’t tell anyone. Swear to God, Jack. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t kill me. Please…”
“I’m not going to kill you, Andy. I promise. Just relax,” he says, stringing words of comfort together over and over like a mantra. “It’s okay. Really, it’s okay.” Andy stinks of fear, and he’s shaking and weeping, but Jack refuses to let him go.
What a goddamn waste.
Jack isn’t sure whether it’s his encouragement or Andy’s exhaustion that finally quiets him, but after about half an hour he finally stills. Jack releases his grip a little, just to see, and when Andy doesn’t try to squirm away, Jack scoops him up, limp and sniffling, and helps him over to the sofa.
“Can you sit here for a minute without running away?” Jack asks him.
Andy nods and swallows, then makes a face. “Water?”
“Sure.”
Jack’s clothes are in a heap next to the spot where, not forty-five minutes before, the two of them had been party to one of the nicest threesomes Jack has been a part of this decade.
Not the nicest, mind, but pretty good. Definitely in the top five.
He chucks his unspent condom in the bin and then pulls his trousers up over his bare hips. He does up the buttons and the buckle before stepping over to the wall to retrieve a couple of bottles of water. He tosses one to Andy, who catches it and twists the top off first thing.
“Anything else you need? Clothes? Blanket?”
“Yeah,” Andy replies hoarsely after a big swallow of water and then tries to clear his throat. “Jeans are in the lav on top of the laundry basket.”
Jack goes and gets them, all the while listening for the sound of Andy making a break for it. It’s a relief when he returns to the front room and finds Andy still sitting on the couch, peeling away the label from his water instead. His hands are shaking.
“Thanks,” Andy says. He stands up to tug on his jeans, and then wraps the sheet around his shoulders again. When he sits back down, he looks both lost and terribly sad, as if he’s just had his heart broken.
He probably has.
Jack sits on the opposite side of the sofa, close enough to stop him if he tries to bolt, but far enough away that he hopes Andy can relax. This will be so much easier if he cooperates.
“It was in the coffee,” Andy says. His voice is tentative, like he’s unsure of the topic. “Whatever you gave me to make me forget, it was in the coffee. What was it, by the way? Rohypnol?”
Jack shakes his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Figures.” Andy pulls his knees up close to his chest and keeps fidgeting with his bottle. “So now I’ve remembered, what happens now?”
“Well,” Jack begins, and shifts in his seat a bit to make it easier to pull the bottle of pills out of his pocket. “To start, I need to make you forget again. You know way too much about who we are, what we do, and where we’re based. That could get you hurt. Or us.”
Andy closes his eyes and nods. He pulls his knees up tighter.
“For the record, Andy, I really am sorry about this. If it could be another way –“
“Spare me, Harkness,” Andy snaps. “Just get on with it.”
Jack shakes a couple of pills out of the bottle and passes them to Andy, who looks them over and swallows them down.
“He’s right when he says it’s not my fault,” Andy says and rests his head against the wall behind him. “I was biking the Taff Trail that weekend. On my way back, actually. I’d hoped to be home by six or seven, but I was running later than I’d planned because of a flat tire, so it was dark. And then, out of nowhere, I get knocked off my bike by this shockwave. Just this big blast of light and heat. And then I saw the fire.”
“A smart person would have run away.” Jack points out.
“Maybe,” Andy admits. “But not a good person.”
“True enough.”
Andy finishes peeling away the label from his water and folds it in half. “I sank a good six hundred quid into that bike, too. Woke up the next day in my own bed, couldn’t remember getting home. Figured someone stole it. Nevermind how, but there you go.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
They sit in silence for a moment. Andy mostly watches his own hands and his water bottle. Jack mostly watches him.
“The worst part,” Andy continues, “was standing there, staring at this giant accident that didn’t make sense, and knowing there wasn’t shit I could do. I was just trying to find survivors, or stop bystanders getting hurt, wondering where the hell emergency services had fucked off to. I didn’t have time to think about what I was seeing, and how wrong it was. And then you lot showed up.” He sets his jaw and looks at the bottle. “Just the two pills, then?”
Jack turns the bottle over in his fingers. That's the question, isn't it? Two pills or fifteen? “That kind of depends on you.”
Andy cocks his head to the side. “Sorry?”
“Two pills is a couple of days, give or take. You’ll forget tonight, probably most of yesterday. You’ll wake up a little hung over, maybe. And the funny thing is, it won’t be that big a deal because your brain will just gloss over it, like your lost bike.”
Andy looks at him, uncertain.
“Right now, you’ll lose tonight and yesterday, but you’ll remember everything that led to your trigger, too. How long have you and Ianto been seeing each other, Andy? About three months, give or take? Maybe a little more?”
Jack sees the muscles in Andy’s shoulders tense. “Oh no. No way. You can’t do that.”
“I can and I will. Rules and regulations,” Jack says firmly and holds the bottle up. “We can do this now, just us, face to face like men. Get it over with. You wake up to your normal life none the wiser. No more nightmares. No more confusion.”
Andy’s eyes are bright and angry. “Or what?”
Jack shrugs. “Or we do it the hard way. You wake up tomorrow with no idea what happened tonight, and I catch up with you when you’re not expecting it. Maybe Ianto does it for me with a quick, concentrated dose in your coffee.”
“Fuck off,” Andy hisses. “He wouldn’t.”
“He would if I told him to. It’s actually sort of poetic, considering he’s the one who drugged you the first time around. Ianto Jones, the man who takes it all away.” It’s a low blow, but judging by the look on Andy’s face it hits home. That cinches it. Jack shakes another two pills out. “Want to try for a week? Nine days?”
Andy takes the pills and dry swallows them with a grimace. “You’re a monster.”
Jack doesn’t argue. After all, he’s hardly acting in ways that would dissuade Andy of that notion. Instead, he looks down and starts counting out pills, two at a time. Thirteen weeks is a lot of tablets at this formulation. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about the implications there. He can handle it of course, but Ianto would definitely not approve. “How do you want to do this?”
“Dunno. I’m fucked as it is, aren’t I? Might as well get it all over with all at once.” Andy’s expression is dull and angry, and the hopelessness in his voice makes Jack ache.
“Okay.” Jack double-checks his fistful of pills, does the math again, and then hands them to Andy, who looks at them with a sort of woozy realization before smiling and laughing a little.
“You’re not going to kill me. I’m killing myself. You’re just helping.”
Jack looks away and doesn’t speak as Andy works his way through the tablets. The sedatives are starting to kick in, and he’s giggling. It’s not a good sound. When Andy finishes the pills, he finishes his bottle of water and lets it fall to the floor.
“I can’t feel my lips,” Andy slurs in a panic as he slides off the sofa onto the carpet. His eyes are unfocused and full of tears. “Tell him I pity you.”
Jack rolls him onto his side and strokes his hair as Andy tries to squirm and speak. He keeps a pair of fingers on Andy’s wrist to track his pulse. By the time Andy’s eyes slide shut, his breaths are almost too shallow to notice. By the time Jack rolls him onto his back, Andy’s lips are already turning blue, and he’s cool to the touch.
Looking at Andy, he’s seized by a moment of doubt. What if he can’t do this? What if it doesn’t work anymore? His whole plan up until now has hinged on it, but now that he’s in the moment it’s painfully obvious that he’s gambled someone else’s life on a parlor trick in the name of taking the path of least resistance.
Andy’s body jerks with a sudden spasm as his stomach tries to purge itself, and he coughs up a mouthful of milky vomit.
Shit.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jack hisses as he clears Andy’s airway, closes his eyes, and presses his lips to Andy’s mouth.
Come back, Andy. You’re not done yet.
Andy feels worryingly cold and empty in his arms. It can’t be too late. His pulse is thready and slow, but he’s not dead. He’s got to be in there somewhere. Jack opens Andy’s mouth to share his breath.
Not yet, goddamn it. Not like this. I promised you I’d let you live.
Still nothing. He’s virtually breathing for Andy now, forcing air into the other man’s lungs. Jack clutches the back of Andy’s head and wraps his arm around his torso, willing a connection, begging anything that will listen to get the man in his arms to respond.
Come on, you bastard. Get up and live. Ianto would want you to live.
Jack feels a spark in the twilight and grabs hold. It’s just a flicker, but it’s enough for him, and he hauls it away from the darkness before it can drop away. He breathes his own life into it until the flicker bursts into a blaze.
When he pulls back, Andy is pale, but his pulse is strong and his breathing is regular. Jack pants above him on his hands and knees and watches him. When he’s sure Andy will make it through the night, he allows himself a breath of his own. His mouth tastes like acid and medicine.
“Okay, Andy,” Jack says, and pats him on the shoulder before he stands to look around. “Let’s dispose of the evidence, shall we?”
---
Prev (Pt #19) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [D/s, sensation play, light bondage])
-
Next (Pt #21) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [porn, masturbation, imagined D/s])
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Overall: Ianto/Andy, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Ianto/Andy, with occasional guest cameos.
Rating: Series ranges from relatively safe to hard NC-17. This installment is in the R range for profanity, and because it isn't very nice.
Notes/Summary: Part #20 of the "It'll End In Tears" cluster, and #18 on the
un_love_you prompt table. Thanks to sanginmychains and resourceress for giving this the sweet, sweet beta-fu, and to jbs_teeth for letting me work on this a bit from her sofa.“NOW, Ianto.”
He hates barking orders at a time like this, but everything has basically gone to hell, and this situation isn’t something he can handle while he’s got the two of them feeding off of one another.
Andy’s panic – and under the circumstances a sudden revelation that your lover isn’t who he claims to be is something Jack can sympathize with as panic-inducing – has completely blown Ianto’s composure. Considering what happened the last time Jack intervened in one of Ianto’s relationships, he can kind of understand why. Still, would it kill these two to give him a little bit of credit here?
As soon as the door closes, Jack tries to shush Andy. “Okay, okay. It’s okay. Just relax.”
“Just let me go. I promise, I won’t tell anyone. Swear to God, Jack. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t kill me. Please…”
“I’m not going to kill you, Andy. I promise. Just relax,” he says, stringing words of comfort together over and over like a mantra. “It’s okay. Really, it’s okay.” Andy stinks of fear, and he’s shaking and weeping, but Jack refuses to let him go.
What a goddamn waste.
Jack isn’t sure whether it’s his encouragement or Andy’s exhaustion that finally quiets him, but after about half an hour he finally stills. Jack releases his grip a little, just to see, and when Andy doesn’t try to squirm away, Jack scoops him up, limp and sniffling, and helps him over to the sofa.
“Can you sit here for a minute without running away?” Jack asks him.
Andy nods and swallows, then makes a face. “Water?”
“Sure.”
Jack’s clothes are in a heap next to the spot where, not forty-five minutes before, the two of them had been party to one of the nicest threesomes Jack has been a part of this decade.
Not the nicest, mind, but pretty good. Definitely in the top five.
He chucks his unspent condom in the bin and then pulls his trousers up over his bare hips. He does up the buttons and the buckle before stepping over to the wall to retrieve a couple of bottles of water. He tosses one to Andy, who catches it and twists the top off first thing.
“Anything else you need? Clothes? Blanket?”
“Yeah,” Andy replies hoarsely after a big swallow of water and then tries to clear his throat. “Jeans are in the lav on top of the laundry basket.”
Jack goes and gets them, all the while listening for the sound of Andy making a break for it. It’s a relief when he returns to the front room and finds Andy still sitting on the couch, peeling away the label from his water instead. His hands are shaking.
“Thanks,” Andy says. He stands up to tug on his jeans, and then wraps the sheet around his shoulders again. When he sits back down, he looks both lost and terribly sad, as if he’s just had his heart broken.
He probably has.
Jack sits on the opposite side of the sofa, close enough to stop him if he tries to bolt, but far enough away that he hopes Andy can relax. This will be so much easier if he cooperates.
“It was in the coffee,” Andy says. His voice is tentative, like he’s unsure of the topic. “Whatever you gave me to make me forget, it was in the coffee. What was it, by the way? Rohypnol?”
Jack shakes his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Figures.” Andy pulls his knees up close to his chest and keeps fidgeting with his bottle. “So now I’ve remembered, what happens now?”
“Well,” Jack begins, and shifts in his seat a bit to make it easier to pull the bottle of pills out of his pocket. “To start, I need to make you forget again. You know way too much about who we are, what we do, and where we’re based. That could get you hurt. Or us.”
Andy closes his eyes and nods. He pulls his knees up tighter.
“For the record, Andy, I really am sorry about this. If it could be another way –“
“Spare me, Harkness,” Andy snaps. “Just get on with it.”
Jack shakes a couple of pills out of the bottle and passes them to Andy, who looks them over and swallows them down.
“He’s right when he says it’s not my fault,” Andy says and rests his head against the wall behind him. “I was biking the Taff Trail that weekend. On my way back, actually. I’d hoped to be home by six or seven, but I was running later than I’d planned because of a flat tire, so it was dark. And then, out of nowhere, I get knocked off my bike by this shockwave. Just this big blast of light and heat. And then I saw the fire.”
“A smart person would have run away.” Jack points out.
“Maybe,” Andy admits. “But not a good person.”
“True enough.”
Andy finishes peeling away the label from his water and folds it in half. “I sank a good six hundred quid into that bike, too. Woke up the next day in my own bed, couldn’t remember getting home. Figured someone stole it. Nevermind how, but there you go.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
They sit in silence for a moment. Andy mostly watches his own hands and his water bottle. Jack mostly watches him.
“The worst part,” Andy continues, “was standing there, staring at this giant accident that didn’t make sense, and knowing there wasn’t shit I could do. I was just trying to find survivors, or stop bystanders getting hurt, wondering where the hell emergency services had fucked off to. I didn’t have time to think about what I was seeing, and how wrong it was. And then you lot showed up.” He sets his jaw and looks at the bottle. “Just the two pills, then?”
Jack turns the bottle over in his fingers. That's the question, isn't it? Two pills or fifteen? “That kind of depends on you.”
Andy cocks his head to the side. “Sorry?”
“Two pills is a couple of days, give or take. You’ll forget tonight, probably most of yesterday. You’ll wake up a little hung over, maybe. And the funny thing is, it won’t be that big a deal because your brain will just gloss over it, like your lost bike.”
Andy looks at him, uncertain.
“Right now, you’ll lose tonight and yesterday, but you’ll remember everything that led to your trigger, too. How long have you and Ianto been seeing each other, Andy? About three months, give or take? Maybe a little more?”
Jack sees the muscles in Andy’s shoulders tense. “Oh no. No way. You can’t do that.”
“I can and I will. Rules and regulations,” Jack says firmly and holds the bottle up. “We can do this now, just us, face to face like men. Get it over with. You wake up to your normal life none the wiser. No more nightmares. No more confusion.”
Andy’s eyes are bright and angry. “Or what?”
Jack shrugs. “Or we do it the hard way. You wake up tomorrow with no idea what happened tonight, and I catch up with you when you’re not expecting it. Maybe Ianto does it for me with a quick, concentrated dose in your coffee.”
“Fuck off,” Andy hisses. “He wouldn’t.”
“He would if I told him to. It’s actually sort of poetic, considering he’s the one who drugged you the first time around. Ianto Jones, the man who takes it all away.” It’s a low blow, but judging by the look on Andy’s face it hits home. That cinches it. Jack shakes another two pills out. “Want to try for a week? Nine days?”
Andy takes the pills and dry swallows them with a grimace. “You’re a monster.”
Jack doesn’t argue. After all, he’s hardly acting in ways that would dissuade Andy of that notion. Instead, he looks down and starts counting out pills, two at a time. Thirteen weeks is a lot of tablets at this formulation. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about the implications there. He can handle it of course, but Ianto would definitely not approve. “How do you want to do this?”
“Dunno. I’m fucked as it is, aren’t I? Might as well get it all over with all at once.” Andy’s expression is dull and angry, and the hopelessness in his voice makes Jack ache.
“Okay.” Jack double-checks his fistful of pills, does the math again, and then hands them to Andy, who looks at them with a sort of woozy realization before smiling and laughing a little.
“You’re not going to kill me. I’m killing myself. You’re just helping.”
Jack looks away and doesn’t speak as Andy works his way through the tablets. The sedatives are starting to kick in, and he’s giggling. It’s not a good sound. When Andy finishes the pills, he finishes his bottle of water and lets it fall to the floor.
“I can’t feel my lips,” Andy slurs in a panic as he slides off the sofa onto the carpet. His eyes are unfocused and full of tears. “Tell him I pity you.”
Jack rolls him onto his side and strokes his hair as Andy tries to squirm and speak. He keeps a pair of fingers on Andy’s wrist to track his pulse. By the time Andy’s eyes slide shut, his breaths are almost too shallow to notice. By the time Jack rolls him onto his back, Andy’s lips are already turning blue, and he’s cool to the touch.
Looking at Andy, he’s seized by a moment of doubt. What if he can’t do this? What if it doesn’t work anymore? His whole plan up until now has hinged on it, but now that he’s in the moment it’s painfully obvious that he’s gambled someone else’s life on a parlor trick in the name of taking the path of least resistance.
Andy’s body jerks with a sudden spasm as his stomach tries to purge itself, and he coughs up a mouthful of milky vomit.
Shit.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jack hisses as he clears Andy’s airway, closes his eyes, and presses his lips to Andy’s mouth.
Come back, Andy. You’re not done yet.
Andy feels worryingly cold and empty in his arms. It can’t be too late. His pulse is thready and slow, but he’s not dead. He’s got to be in there somewhere. Jack opens Andy’s mouth to share his breath.
Not yet, goddamn it. Not like this. I promised you I’d let you live.
Still nothing. He’s virtually breathing for Andy now, forcing air into the other man’s lungs. Jack clutches the back of Andy’s head and wraps his arm around his torso, willing a connection, begging anything that will listen to get the man in his arms to respond.
Come on, you bastard. Get up and live. Ianto would want you to live.
Jack feels a spark in the twilight and grabs hold. It’s just a flicker, but it’s enough for him, and he hauls it away from the darkness before it can drop away. He breathes his own life into it until the flicker bursts into a blaze.
When he pulls back, Andy is pale, but his pulse is strong and his breathing is regular. Jack pants above him on his hands and knees and watches him. When he’s sure Andy will make it through the night, he allows himself a breath of his own. His mouth tastes like acid and medicine.
“Okay, Andy,” Jack says, and pats him on the shoulder before he stands to look around. “Let’s dispose of the evidence, shall we?”
---
Prev (Pt #19) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [D/s, sensation play, light bondage])
-
Next (Pt #21) (Warnings: language, smut, and kink [porn, masturbation, imagined D/s])