"We´ve gotta get you out of here. I can survive anything, but you can't!"
Ianto's breathing is heavy, slowing down. Jack can almost see his heart slowing down. He's dying. He's dying and Jack realizes, with a sense of hopelessness, that he cannot stop it.
"Too late," he said. "I've breathed the air."
Ianto leans in, closer to his warmth and his hands curl around the lapels of his greatcoat. Jack looks at the mop of curly hair. The House is painfully silent, serving to make Ianto's breathing louder.
"There's gotta be something. There's gotta be an antidote!" He knows he is pleading, but this is no time for bravado, not time for heroics, only fear creeping through his body.
Captain Jack Harkness's heart is breaking all over again. It's shattering into miniscule pieces and lodging into his lungs and ribs. Somewhere down the line, he's fallen in love with Ianto Jones, fallen in love with his snark and moody, soulful eyes and inability to do anything but love relentlessly, unconditionally, without the need for reciprocation. And make wonderful beverages.
The alien virus the 456 ambassador released into the air is slowly dissolving his vascular pathways, stopping his mitochondria and breaking down his muscle, turning him into a sack of dead flesh and bone. But he doesn't care. He'll come back. A fixed point in space and time is immovable.
The 456 on the other side of the glass watches, impassive, threatening, needlessly cruel. He wants to kill it, kill it for the demands it made upon Earth and for harming Ianto, but he can't move, not without moving Yan, his Yan, his dying Yan. The virus is secondary to him. All that matters is that he's losing Ianto.
"You said you would fight." The alien sounds disappointed.
Jack wonders whether it has ever lost something it'd loved.
"And I take it back, all right? I take it all back, but not him!"
Glassy eyed, weak, Ianto's grasp slips and he falls. Jack falls with him, his knees locking into place. He couldn't stand again, not that he wanted to. His body is failing him, just like his immortality is. After all, what good is being immortal if you have to watch everyone die a thousand times?
"No," he breathes, hands on his face. No, no, no, no, no. No!"
A tiny part of him cannot believe this is happening.
Ianto watches him, lips slightly parted. The rasp of his breathing is gone, replaced with a quiet inhale, pause, and exhale. He's crying.
"Ianto," and now his voice is going, unable to travel far though his throat. "No. It's all my fault.
"No," Ianto said, and now the water at the corners of his eyes was spilling over, "It's not."
"Don't speak, save your breath." Jack shushes him, his head shaking frantically. Speaking will hasten Ianto's demise, and he wants to stave it off as long as he can. But Ianto is as stubborn as ever and his eyes are fixed adoringly on him. Jack strokes his cheek. The virus is deadening his nerves. He can't feel the softness of his skin.
"I-I love you, I…"
"Don't," he replies, automatically. His mouth feels like lead. Who is he trying to stop from loving, himself, or Ianto? He can't spare either from the heartbreak now, can he?
"Ianto. Ianto. Ianto, stay with me, Ianto, stay with me, please. Stay with me, stay with me, please, please." He knows he is crying because tears make dark drops on Ianto's collar and slide down his throat. He shakes him, winds his fingers into his hair, pulls until Ianto blinks hazily at him, pupils blown wide. He regrets his "don'ts" dearly. Typical of him, hurting Ianto at every possible moment.
But Ianto, dear loving, sensitive Ianto is able to cobble together words he thinks Jack will understand.
"Hey, it-it was good, yeah?"
He hates himself for cheapening the moment.
"Yeah," he says, because it hurts too much to say anything else.
"Don't forget me."
He huffs. How could Ianto think that? "Never could."
A pause.
"A thousand years time, you won't remember me."
Ianto is so sure of his own death. His eyes are dimming.
"Yes, I will. I promise, I will."
Ianto stops breathing. Jack stares at him disbelievingly .
"Ianto. Ianto? Don't go, don't leave me, please." He pleads to the dead man in his arms, but his eyelid remain stubbornly shut. "Please, don't."
"You will die," says the 456. Is that a ripple of satisfaction running through his voice? "And tomorrow, your people will deliver the children."
Harkness could kill every single one of those people with his bare hands. He'd start with the 456 in front of him. Ianto's blood was on their palms, was on it's palms.
Jack struggles to bend down and gently press his mouth to Ianto's. He then slumps completely to the ground, still clutching onto him.
Jack Harkness will stand up tomorrow, alive and healthy. Ianto Jones will not.
He will mourn when he sees the dead man beside him. His grief will have no bounds. He will flee Earth and the memories it holds for him. But he will live and the man who never called him anything less than sir will be dead and that will make all the difference.