TITLE: Torchwood Breeds Insomnia
AUTHOR: Erin Giles
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood is property of the BBC.
RATING: R
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Owen, Tosh
SUMMARY: When you work for Torchwood, sleep is hard to come by, for various reasons.
AUTHORS NOTES: Another one of my fics where I decide that if I'm suffering then Team Torchwood are damn well going to suffer too. This is for all the insomnia sufferers out there. Also if you want to read the potted plant incident that Tosh mentions then buy the Torchwood Yearbook.
When you work for Torchwood, sleep is hard to come by. You grab it when and where you can. Resting your eyes during meetings, falling asleep on your desk, 40 winks in the car ride back to the office from another dead end – as long as you're not the one driving.
Owen stared out the windscreen of the SUV, trying to concentrate on driving through the torrential downpour. It had been on the news that morning that flash flooding was expected around the Bay Area and as a result he and Ianto had taken a trip out to source some sandbags for the front door of the Tourist Information Centre. Owen had suggested that he should just start bringing Wellies into work and save them the trip, which was probably why he was now the one driving back from the builders yard, empty handed and squinting as he tried to see the hazy brake lights ahead of them.
He didn't see why he had to suffer in silence though, which is why he was moaning for all he was worth about the 'bloody Welsh weather'. To be honest, he had expected some snarky comment from Ianto by now, but when he glanced across at Ianto while he braked for the traffic lights he realised the bastard was asleep. His head was practically on his own shoulder, his mouth open unattractively. Owen actually growled and made a mental note to slam on the brakes next time he had to stop – whether it was suddenly or not. He didn't see why Ianto 'bloody' Jones got to sleep when he'd been up just as late the night before chasing Weevils through the 24hr Asda out on the ring road.
Owen thought of a hot shower, of his purple duvet wrapped round him like a cape as he curled up on his couch with beer and late night TV. He sighed wistfully at the prospect and then swerved to avoid the taxi that had stopped in the bus lane, slamming on the brakes before he hit the delivery truck coming the other way.
Ianto let out a startled scream before looking round him, terrified. Owen's heart thudded in his chest as he stared out through the windscreen, knuckles white on the steering wheel, before he threw the SUV back into first gear and started off down the road again to a cacophony of angry horns.
"Are you trying to kill us?" Ianto asked, voice gruff.
"Oh, you're awake are you?" Owen asked, glancing over at Ianto innocently before turning back to look out the windscreen again at the hammering rain. Owen decided he should probably not continue his daydream until they reached the Hub, but at least someone was awake to hear his moaning now.
Sometimes you lie awake at night - waiting. Waiting for that phone call that drags you from the confines of your duvet, away from your loved ones. You stare out the window, waiting for life to crash through the gap in the blinds, thinking of all the things you've seen, all that you've done, and all that's left to do, and you can't sleep for the excitement.
"Rhys?" Gwen hissed into the darkness, still staring out through the gap in the bedroom window curtains. She waited a moment, holding her breath, hoping to discern if Rhys was actually awake or just faking so he didn't have to speak to her. She couldn't tell so she rolled over in bed, throwing the duvet about and bouncing the mattress so much Rhys almost bounced out of the bed.
"Rhys?" she asked again, louder this time as she watched his face not giving anything away.
"You awake?" she prompted, waiting a moment before she lent forward, pressing a kiss to his lips, inhaling, morning breath and all.
"I am now," Rhys mumbled into the pillow, not opening his eyes. He had to get up in less than four hours and drive all the way to Aberystwyth and then all the way back again before 3pm. Although he was looking forward to grabbing an all day breakfast in a cracker of a café called Morgan's near the sea front in Aber.
"I was just thinking," Gwen started.
"Gwen love," Rhys interrupted. "I'm not awake enough to talk about the wedding now. You'll just tell me something really important and I'll forget and then you'll yell or I'll tell you that no, I don't mind if the groomsmen wear lilac waistcoats and Banana will murder me the next time I go to the pub."
"I wasn't thinking about the wedding, Rhys," Gwen started, annoyed because Rhys' eyes still weren't open and she had actually been going to ask him something about the wedding. She floundered for a moment, trying to think of something else. She shifted in the bed again, shuffling about and rearranging her pyjama bottoms when they twisted round.
"Gwen love, the wedding's not for another two months, will you bloody calm down," Rhys grumbled. "There will be time to get everything done, Torchwood will not ruin it, nor will Banana, your dress will still fit and our mams won't kill each other."
Gwen huffed out a sigh, rolling over in the bed again so she was facing away from Rhys. She tried to push all thoughts of the wedding from her mind as she stared back out through the gap in the curtains. If the streetlight hadn't been glaring in through the bedroom window she would have been able to see the stars and she would have thought about everything beyond the world rather than whether or not she'd confirmed the date with the photographer.
Sometimes you lie awake at night, questioning. Questioning how you ended up where you are in your life, playing over the chain of events that led you to the front door into that dank, dark base that you spend more time in than the bed you currently occupy.
Tosh let out a slightly hysterical giggle and then covered her mouth immediately with both hands. It didn't matter though; there was no one there in her bedroom or even her flat to hear her. She'd just realised how absurd it had been that Ianto had been under the thrall of a potted plant for the last week.
Scary, but absurd.
She'd driven him home that evening and he'd been nothing but apologetic on the drive back to his flat. She'd told him it wasn't his fault, kissed him on the cheek and sent him of to his bed like she was his mother. She frowned. No, not his mother – his sister, maybe.
Torchwood was like a family she supposed. Jack's Torchwood was anyway. She'd heard stories from Ianto about what Torchwood London had been like. The stories had never been complete and she always felt like she was missing out on the bigger picture as well as the smaller details. But Ianto only gave away what he wanted and Toshiko wasn't hypocritical enough to ask for details. Only Jack knew the real reason why she worked for Torchwood.
She rolled over in the bed sighing. She'd had a job like Ianto's once. A boring office job where she was underused and left to fade into the background – like a potted plant she supposed. She was almost at the end of her five years of compulsory service but to be honest she couldn't see herself leaving. What was there out there for her after she'd lived in the world of Torchwood? She didn't imagine Jack would let her go without a fight anyway and even if she did leave… The things she'd seen. She couldn't go back to living in a world where everyone was oblivious, where everyone didn't appreciate her brilliance.
Okay, there were some days at Torchwood where she was over looked; but some days Jack would smile at her and call her brilliant, Ianto would bring her one of the good chocolate biscuits, Gwen would call her a little star and Owen gave her a rare and genuine smile and that somehow made it all worthwhile. While she was stood in the queue at Tesco waiting to pay for milk and bread she'd look round her and think 'you bastards are alive because of me and you don't even know it'. Then the cashier wouldn't bother even acknowledging her and she'd have a brief moment where she thought 'what the fuck is the point?'
She could always go back to Osaka, go back and live with her mother again, see her family rather than living in isolation in Cardiff. She could find a job at Honda or Dell or somewhere similar and have something akin to a normal life - one where she didn't lie awake at night thinking how absurd it was that a potted plant had attacked her colleague. But then, she supposed, if a plant fell off a shelf above your head you could obtain a nasty concussion if said plant was in a ceramic pot. She rolled her eyes at herself before she turned over in the bed for a second time, glancing at the clock on her bedside table.
No, there was certainly no leaving Torchwood, unless it was in a body bag, and even then you didn't leave. But she wondered if she'd still be at the Ministry for Defence if her mother hadn't been taken. Would she still be in UNIT's solitary confinement if Jack hadn't come for her? Would she still be alive, if she hadn't joined Torchwood?
Sometimes you don't lie awake; sometimes you're woken, remembering. Remembering what you lost, what you could have lost. Flashes of half forgotten memories jerk you back to reality with a nasty feeling of falling. Remembering all that Torchwood has taken away from you. Wishing that there's a warm body lying next to you that isn't your own shadow.
"Jack?" Ianto croaked, one hand on his front door and the other holding closed the bathrobe he'd grabbed on the way to the front door.
"It's 4am," Ianto groaned, a questioning tone to his voice.
"Can I come in?" Jack asked rather bashfully, shuffling from one foot to the other. Ianto hesitated a moment before he moved back, allowing Jack to enter his hallway. He shut out the night behind him, turning to regard the man, but Jack was already walking down the corridor towards the kitchen. Ianto sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face to try and wake himself up before he followed Jack.
"Jack," Ianto started as he entered the kitchen to find Jack filling up his kettle. "I'm tired, what do you want?" Ianto asked, sounding more frustrated than he meant to. If Jack asked for sex then he'd be thrown out on his arse before he could even finish his sentence. Jack didn't answer straight away. He finished filling the kettle, plugging it back in and turning it on before he turned round to face Ianto.
"Can I," Jack started and Ianto frowned, sweaty feet shuffling across his tiled floor towards the slumped posture of Jack. It was only now under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen did Ianto notice Jack's bloodshot and hooded eyes, his clothes wrinkled and his hair a mess.
"I was just wondering," Jack started again, not quite looking at Ianto.
"I'm going back to bed," Ianto cut in, taking pity on Jack, because he knew he'd never get the sentence out, nor would he ever admit to Ianto why he'd come over here. "If you want to join me."
Jack's eyes finally settled on Ianto's, a grateful smile adorning his features. Ianto gave him a bleary smile in return, leaving the kitchen and making his way back towards his bedroom. He discarded his bathrobe at the foot of the bed and slumped under the covers, his eyes closed before his head hit the pillow. He listened carefully to Jack's hesitant footfalls on the carpet of his bedroom and the sound of clothes being stripped away and methodically folded into a pile. Jack wasn't normally so careful and Ianto realised Jack was worried he was going to throw him out.
Ianto felt the draft of the bedcovers being lifted as Jack crawled into the bed behind him. He wasn't surprised when Jack's arms slid round his middle and he allowed himself to be manhandled so that Jack was almost using him as a teddy bear. He was too tired to care. He moved one of his hands so it was resting over Jack's, feeling Jack breathing out a relieved sigh into Ianto's shoulder blade.
Ianto didn't ask why Jack had come over. It was blatantly obvious as Jack's chest heaved, trying to reign in the sobs that were building painfully there. There was nothing Ianto could say to erase the memories that plagued Jack's nights. Jack would talk if he wanted to, and if all he wanted to do was cling onto Ianto like he was his life raft then he'd let him. It was the least he could do. Plus it was always nice to wake up with the feeling of another body asleep beside you.
Sometimes you don't want to sleep. You've had the day from hell and you've come so close to dying again that you don't want to close your eyes because it feels so much like the darkness creeping in. So you keep yourself awake. Or you find someone to help you.
Ianto gasped as Jack pushed him back onto the bed, his battered body protesting at the callous treatment it was receiving so soon after being mistreated at the hands of others. Ianto's mind didn't care though as Jack's teeth grazed over his abdomen, biting and nipping at already tender skin.
Ianto pushed back in a fight for control, flipping Jack over so they missed the bed completely and Jack's head cracked off the floor of the small bunker beneath his office. Ianto didn't even stop to ask him if he was alright. He was too busy pulling Jack's trousers and underwear down in one swift movement before taking him whole in his mouth, something more than need and want fuelling him. He wanted to forget, wanted the bruises and the cuts he received from rough, rowdy sex to blur into the ones that had been given to him by some depraved creature Ianto wished he didn't share the same genetic make-up with. Some would call this life affirming sex - Ianto called it forgetting.
Ianto's hand came up to press down on Jack's belly, to stop him getting up, to stop him fighting back. Jack didn't struggle much. He looked down the length of his body to the top of Ianto's head, a hand reaching down to lace through Ianto's dirty hair, feeling the bumps and cuts hidden beneath the brown locks. They both still smelt of sewer and death and blood and pain but the smell of sex was soon drowning it out. The smell of cum and sweat and the taste of it in their mouths overpowering everything so that when they lay side by side on the cold concrete floor afterwards it was the only thing they could think about. Limbs tangled in sleeves of shirts and legs of trousers as panting breaths were taken, the blue glow of the hub reflecting off the sheen of sweat on their faces.
Jack turned his head sideways to look at Ianto but his eyes were closed, beads of sweat sticking in the hair on his chest as he breathed heavily, wheezing slightly as he brought a hand up to the left hand side of his chest. Jack took a deep breath, pushing his exhausted limbs into moving so that he was pressed flush against Ianto, one leg pushing in between Ianto's legs as he tried to kiss the increasing frown from his features.
"Ready to go again, soldier?" Jack whispered next to Ianto's ear before biting down on his earlobe. Ianto gasped, in pleasure this time, and Jack pulled back just far enough to see that Ianto's frown had faded to a dirty smirk. Jack didn't need any more encouragement before his mouth was back on Ianto's neck, like a vampire hungry for the next kill.
"Aye, Aye Captain," Ianto whispered breathlessly in both lust and pain as Jack pinned him to the floor, replacing the bad memories with the good.
Sometimes you don't sleep for any other reason than the fact you just can't. You're tired after hours of chasing up leads, covering up bodies, filing reports and making coffee. You're so tired you can barely keep your eyes open, but somehow when your head hits that pillow at some godforsaken hour of the morning, no matter how exhausted you are you watch the sun rise from the wrong side and have to get up and do it all over again.
He felt like his eyes were scraping against the inside of his eyelids as he stared fuzzily at the computer screen in front of him. His head was resting on his left hand as he scrolled mindlessly through that mornings police reports. He was scared that if he removed his hand his head would actually fall off. A mug appeared on the desk in front of him, clattering down on the glass surface and startling him from his half asleep state.
"Jack keep you up last night?" Gwen asked as Ianto looked down at the mug of coffee she had brought him. Wasn't that his job?
"Not unless it was by the power of telepathy," Ianto replied, picking up the mug and taking a hesitant sip. It didn't taste half bad, maybe slightly over stewed, but then they weren't all perfectionists like him.
"So you two weren't going at it like rabbits last night then," Gwen prompted, pulling a seat up next to Ianto's, crossing her legs and peering at him over the top of her own mug.
Ianto cocked an eyebrow. "No," he replied bluntly before taking a large gulp of the coffee and immediately regretting it as he burnt the tip of his tongue.
"Then what were you doing last night?" Gwen asked, eyeing Ianto suspiciously.
"Why?" Ianto asked, confused as to why he was getting the third degree before he finally lifted his head from his hand – grateful to note his head didn't fall off and roll away under his desk – and leant back in his chair to regard her. He leant too far though and had to make a grab for the desk before he toppled over backwards, sloshing hot coffee all over his hand and the right leg of his trousers. He swore under his breath, putting the now half empty coffee cup down on his desk and gratefully grasping the tissues Gwen was handing him in wads from the box on her desk.
"Oh, I don't know, I just got the impression you might be a bit tired," Gwen mused as she picked up his coffee mug and wiped the desk before setting the mug back down on a couple of tissues to clean its bottom. Ianto glanced back up at Gwen, giving her the evil eye before he went back to trying to wipe the coffee from his trouser leg.
"Always the detective, Mrs. Cooper," Ianto muttered, causing Gwen to giggle, before he gave up trying to get the coffee off his trousers and threw the now sodden bunch of tissues in the bin next to his desk. It missed and he sighed in annoyance before bending down to retrieve them. When he hit his head on the underside of the desk on his way back he wanted to scream to keep from crying.
"You okay?" Gwen asked, cringing into her coffee cup as she watched him rubbing the back of his head painfully.
"No," he grumbled, before he pulled himself to his feet. Gwen looked up at him in concern as he reached out for his mug of coffee.
"I'm going to the archives to finish clearing up yesterday's mess. Hopefully some of the filing cabinets will topple over and I'll be crushed under the weight of paper," Ianto grumped before he was dragging his feet down the stairs away from Gwen. She watched him go, pushing her chair back towards the sofa so she saw him trip over the grating next to the invisible lift, almost going flying but catching himself at the last minute. She chewed on her bottom lip as she watched him disappear down the corridor towards the archives, thinking.
"What you looking at?" a voice said next to her ear, causing Gwen to jump and almost spill her own coffee. Jack was lurking over her shoulder, staring at the empty space that Ianto had occupied recently.
"Christ Jack, do you have to sneak up on people like that," Gwen enquired, turning to glare at him.
"I like to think of myself as stealthy, rather than sneaky," Jack replied, straightening up to his full height and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"What's wrong with Mr. Grumpy then?" Jack enquired, inclining his head slightly in the direction Ianto had just disappeared.
"I don't think he got any sleep last night," Gwen replied, wheeling herself back over to her desk without standing up. "Again," Gwen added as an afterthought. She put her coffee down on her desk, tapping the enter key to wake her computer monitor up.
"Maybe I should sing him a lullaby, tuck him up in bed with a milky drink," Jack mused, a teasing tone to his voice.
"You can try, I think he's desperate enough," Gwen replied, already tapping away at her keyboard as she smiled to herself. Jack shot her a look before he disappeared down to the coffee machine, deciding he'd rather take his chances with it than with a grumpy Ianto.
"Should I be worried that you're after my job," Ianto enquired as Gwen placed coffee in a polystyrene cup down in front of him before sliding into the booth opposite. Gwen smiled warmly at him, shaking her head as she took a sip of her own coffee.
"I got lost in the archives yesterday. Your job's safe," Gwen reassured him. He gave a little huff of a laugh, which promptly turned into a yawn that he tried to muffle with his hand.
"Have you been to the Doctor's?" Gwen asked conversationally as she cradled the cup in her hands, trying to warm them after they'd been stood outside too long, waiting on a man that didn't exist.
"For what?" Ianto asked, confused as he slurped at his coffee in a highly un-Ianto like way.
"Well you're not sleeping are you?" Gwen ploughed on, watching him through her eyelashes.
"They'll just throw a bunch of pills at me and tell me to get a less stressful job, drink less caffeine and try and set up a routine," Ianto groused, rubbing at his left eye with vigour to try and keep it from twitching.
Gwen made a thoughtful noise but didn't say anything else. Ianto sighed rather overdramatically as he looked at her over the top of his cup which was burning his hands.
"What?" he asked defensively. Gwen had that look on her face - like she wanted to interfere in something but knew it wasn't her place to, but she damn well would anyway.
"Nothing," Gwen answered innocently, shaking her head at him and looking back down at her cup.
"Out with it, Cooper," Ianto demanded, finally putting his cup down before he lost his fingerprints and looked at her with hooded eyes.
"Well, it's just that, when was the last time you had a decent nights sleep?" Gwen asked, and Ianto immediately knew where this was going when he realised what his answer was. He sighed, looking at the picture on the wall that depicted a sunny day on Queen Street full of shoppers in shorts and t-shirts, a far cry from today's weather.
"I'm not asking him," Ianto replied, not answering her question and not looking at Gwen. Ianto was sure she would have made a reference to Jack being like his teddy bear if the man in question hadn't walked into the café at that point, boots squelching on the linoleum and rain dripping from the end of his nose.
"What happened to 'we'll be right back, Jack'?" Jack questioned, staring down at Gwen and Ianto sat cosily in the booth. They both looked back up at him guiltily.
Sometimes you do sleep. Sometimes you've done your best and the day's not been a total disaster. You've made it out the other side, and so has everyone else, and you realise there's no point worrying, or questioning, or waiting. You have an epiphany of sorts as you lie between the sheets, exhausted beyond belief. So you just sleep, and wake up in the morning to do it all over again.