Title: On My Nose and Eyelashes
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Ianto, Jack; Jack/Ianto, mentions past Ianto/John
Summary: It's another New Year and accordingly, Ianto decides to start anew. AU. Jaita-Verse.
Disclaimer: If I owned Torchwood, the boys would have had more screentime together, more sex, and Ianto would still be alive.
The title from "My Favourite Things" from "The Sound of Music".
A/N: Jaita - the name of Jack and Ianto's TARDIS. Set in the same universe as Falalalala~lalalala and In Other Words.
The door opens abruptly and two men stagger out, followed by cup that flies over their heads and smashes into the opposite wall as well as the sounds of a ever-growing brawl. Just as the door swings shut, a shot rings out from within, not the first and definitely not the last to be fired this night.
Jack hefts Ianto closer and slowly drags him away from the bar. He ignores the way Ianto's blood soaks into his own clothes and melts little scarlet holes in the snow under their feet. He doesn't care that Ianto's making pained gurgling sounds as he drowns in his own blood. Seriously, Jack couldn't care less, and the only reason he's dragging his partner's sorry corpse away from the rowdy thugs who all want his head is so that he doesn't have to spend the whole of New Year's Day Retconning the entire goddamn morgue.
A few millenia ago, if one would have told Jack Harkness that Ianto Jones instigated bar fights over something as stupid as a card game and a few credits, he would have laughed in that person's face and called them mad. Now Jack's beginning to wonder if he's the one who's mad, running after a man who actively searches for trouble and death and doesn't really give much of damn for Jack's attempt to rehabilitate him.
They round a corner and Jack lets Ianto's dead weight slide to the snowy ground. Ianto blinks hazily and Jack briefly contemplates taking out his gun and finishing his job. It would faster, cleaner and he knows Ianto would do the same. But he's at his last nerve and with all his patience stretched thin, Ianto can go ahead and suffer a little bit. Serves him right and all that.
He turns away and walks down the dark alley just as Ianto chokes and exhales a last breathy gurgle. He's gone by the time Ianto's eyes go blank.
8888888
Ianto flails to life in a dark alley, wet, cold snow weighing down his limbs. He remembers, so many years ago, Jack telling him that coming back to life is like being dragged over broken glass, but Ianto honestly doesn't feel it anymore. Unless he's trying to get off on it, like that time with John's hands around his throat and -no he doesn't want to go there, doesn't want to think of John, John with his own gun in his mouth and blood all over the walls, and with Ianto caring more than he wants to.
Not now, not today.
God, all he wants to do is forget and he can't even get that right.
Jack isn't here, and maybe that's a good thing, because there are tears running down his face and the last time Jack had seen him cry had been... oh, about a month ago, but still. They clear quickly and the tracks freeze on his face, little pinpricks of cold on his cheeks.
Snow is falling. Little flakes of frozen water tumble down from the sky to hang out on his hair and eyelashes. He blinks them away, even as he looks up into the dark sky and watches them fall, seemingly out of nothingness. He stands and watches as his internal clock ticks, ticks and ticks over and 56793 becomes 56794 and it's a new year, with new beginnings. The dim sound of fireworks far away pierce the quiet of the night.
Ianto remembers, because eidetic memory is a pain and immortality just sharpens it (both the memory and the pain), thousands of years ago in 2009 a snowy night like this.
Right now in his mind's eye, and fifty-four-thousand-seven-hundred-and-eighty-five years ago, a mortal Ianto Jones opens the door of the tourist office at the bay at five in the morning on New Year's Day and steps back in surprise at the unexpected figure of his boss/lover/whatever standing at the frame with a grin on his face. It's snowing, and white powder dusts his and the shoulders of his coat. That Ianto automatically moves to brush them off, and Jack takes hold of his hand and pulls him close, then waltzes him out onto the boardwalk.
That Ianto wriggles free and locks up the door. Then watches as Jack tilts his head up to the sky and lets the snow fall on his tongue.
When Jack returns his gaze to him, the look is almost shy. He holds out his hand and fifty-four-thousand-seven-hundred-and-eighty-five years ago Ianto Jones laces his finger's through that of his lover's and kisses him. And then they go home. While the world celebrates the New Year, Torchwood sleeps.
The Ianto then doesn't know if Jack feels like he belongs yet, but he knows that Jack is going to stay.
That is good.
That was good.
The Ianto now blinks and snow tumbles from his lashes and he thinks of little laughters as they leap off the dark curling hairs that frame his eyes and sail to the ground.
And Ianto thinks, life is all like snowflakes, really. Each being different, falling, falling, buffeted by the currents of the wind, tumbling through the sky until they reach the ground and shatter or melt.
And just him and Jack, endlessly, aimlessly falling through the dark.
The snow swiftly obliterates his footsteps as he leaves.
Jack is waiting with Jaita, who has decided to be a lamppost today. He's leaning against her, and almost like he's been pulled from the past to right here, right now, has his head tilted up to the sky, tongue out to catch the snowflakes. There is snow in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat. Ianto automatically reaches out to brush it away, and Jack takes his hand and pulls him close and they shuffle a slow waltz under Jaita's warm light.
When Ianto takes Jack's face in his hands and kisses him, his mouth is cold from the snow, like so many years ago, and tastes like mulled wine and life and Jack.
Tastes like coming home.
Fin