Author's note: When I watched this scene in 'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang' and saw the emotion play on John's face, I packed my suitcase and boarded the Jack/John ship.
This fic is set sometime after the events of 'Exit Wounds'. Anything in italics is taken from the episode, the rest is me. Thank you so much for reading :)
Captain John Hart sat alone on a roof and stared out at the lights of Cardiff. His legs dangled over the edge of the parapet. John looked down at pavement below. The building stretched maybe seventeen, eighteen, nineteen storeys high, by no means the tallest he'd ever been on but still tall enough to give him a thrill as he contemplated what would happen if he fell. Taunting death always gave John a thrill. Death seemed to taunt him back. He'd been badly injured many, many times, but always managed to avoid death. Or perhaps death just didn't want to take him yet. Either way, here he was--alive, and able to drink himself stupid on a rooftop.
As he leaned forward, John's gaze caught sight of a bench on the pavement below and his mind flashed back to the last time he'd been on this particular roof. His stomach knotted uncharacteristically with regret at the memory. Of course, John could push it aside with ease if he wanted, Time Agents were trained to block memories in order to get the job done, but now he decided to let it all play out in his mind. Something inside him had changed ever so slightly and he thought that he deserved to feel the guilt and regret. He'd avoided it for too long.
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John closed his eyes and pictured himself standing there with Jack on the rooftop, Jack making quips, as always. Little embarrassing that you needed help to find them. Couldn't Jack see that all this was to get his attention? All the stuff about the canisters and radiation cluster bombs was secondary. Even the real story--the Arcadian diamond--was just a bonus, something that he and Jack could reap the benefits of. Together. What I want is for you to come to your senses. Join me, Jack. But Jack had changed. In one sense, he was exactly the same old Jack, stubborn to a fault. Only now he possessed a sense of righteousness to him that hadn't been there before. For some reason this tiny planet held some strange power over him and he wasn't going to let himself be swayed.
John remembered the conflicting desires of wanting to kiss him and kill him at the same time as Jack stood there holding out the canister. Remnants of the fire that used to burn so hot between them bubbled to the surface. Their relationship had always been volatile and explosive. They stared into each other's eyes and there was one glorious moment when John thought Jack might actually give in, that they might once again travel around the universe, together and unstoppable.
Intense anger welled up from inside when Jack threw the canister off the building, not because of the canister itself, that wasn't important, but because of what the act symbolised. Jack had rejected him, laughed at him. The anger caused his body to react before his brain could process it. He'd become so conditioned to just reacting and living in the now, that for just a moment, he forgot all about Jack, forgot all the missions and the sex and the feelings and the history. In that instant, anger and humiliation took over and then Jack was falling and falling and falling. The anger disappeared.
Fuck.
John leaned over the edge and looked down in shock. He saw Jack falling. Watched him hit the bench and could hear the the familiar sound of bones snapping on impact. Oh fuck. Fuck. John employed the Time Agent trick of compartmentalising. He was afraid of letting himself feel anything. Told himself it was just another death, another person getting in the way of what he wanted. Told himself that the diamond was what was important. John pushed back from the ledge and headed for the lift, adopting a swagger that seemed befitting of someone who was about to become very rich. Anything to help sell himself the illusion.
Concentrating on things to spend his money on, he kept it together on the elevator ride to ground level. He pushed his way out of the building and swaggered over to pick up the canister. Now holding it, he looked across at Jack. His body was so... broken. John crouched next to him and put down the canister.
Rehab... didn't really work. It wan't an apology, but were Jack alive, he'd know it was as close as it got. John looked at Jack's face, somehow still looking the same as it did years and years before, and his bravado began to fade. Front door key. Thanks. As he took Jack's wrist strap, John sounded a lot less sure of himself, even to his own ears. He allowed himself a brief touch, let his fingers linger on Jack's familiar lips. Regret twisted in his gut like a knife and all the emotion he desperately tried to bury flickered across his face. His earlier words to Ianto echoed in his ears, nothing means anything, and he realised now how true it was. The Time Agent inside of him mentally shut down that train of thought and John sniffed, reining himself in. No matter how he felt, what's done was done and there was work to do. All he could hope to do was put himself in more life threatening situations and hope that death would eventually decide to take him too.