Title: Stardust
Characters: Ianto, Gwen (+ a tiny bit of Jack)
Warnings/Spoilers: some drug use, spoilers through Exit Wounds
Rating: PG-13
Genre: some angst, but mostly character study
Word Count: ~2,700
Beta: Sariagray
Prompt: #13 - Ianto and Gwen smoke alien weed sometime after Exit Wounds to lighten the mood while Jack's off brooding.
Summary: Ianto and Gwen discover a new way to come to terms with their losses.
Notes: Written for the Torchwood Gen Fic Frolic over on the tw_unpaired LJ community. As you are probably aware, I don't write much gen fic, so I really owe a lot to Sariagray for her help with this! And perhaps I should include a disclaimer here where I say that this is not, in fact, crack!fic, though it easily could have gone that way. ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. :)
"Oh my god," Gwen whispers to Ianto from behind her hand.
She's not sure why she's whispering though—after all, Jack had buggered off going on twelve hours or so now and, if past experience was anything to judge by, they had a while to go before expecting him back.
She'd had no problem, either, with the bottle of wine that they'd finished off between the two of them earlier—it'd felt almost appropriate, really, that if Jack could go off and have his fun, they should be able to do the same, but… This feels different. She feels guiltier.
Technically they're still on-duty, and well, she's not exactly a twenty-something student anymore. She's supposed to be more professional than this. She's supposed to be former-PC Cooper. And now she was helping Ianto steal confiscated alien drugs from the archives? She sighs.
"What are we doing?" Gwen continues, widening her eyes at Ianto. "We really shouldn't…"
"Trust me on this, Gwen," Ianto says calmly. "It's perfectly safe."
Gwen lowers her eyes suspiciously, and then glances at the fairly innocuous looking plastic bag lying on conference room table between them. The stuff inside looks almost like it could be herbal tea, or something. Almost.
"I know everything about this place," Ianto continues, "and I know that this stuff is perfectly safe. Jack's smoked it before. Said it's pretty much just like your regular run-of-the-mill herb, only, you know, with sparkles."
Gwen rolls her eyes, and lets out a loud laugh. "He was lying, Ianto, Jesus. That doesn't even make sense. Sparkles?"
Ianto sighs, and then smiles at Gwen, comfortingly, a bit like he would at a child.
"Okay, let me explain. The Douhadin have lived in near complete darkness for thousands of years. They smoke this herb as part of their celebration to welcome the harvest—"
"How can they harvest anything if there's no light, Ianto?"
Ianto pauses, waits until Gwen raises her hand in surrender, before he continues. "They welcome their harvest of radioactive terbinias, which are something like squid, and live underwater, by smoking this herb. It brings light to the darkness. So the story goes."
"With sparkles?"
"Yes. It's supposed to be very… nice."
"Jack told you this?"
"Yes."
"I hate that bastard."
They share a knowing smile, before Ianto raises his eyebrows, and nods to the table.
"He knows his drugs, Gwen, you have to give him that."
Gwen just glares at him.
He was a bastard too, getting her into this. She'd called off her date night with Rhys, for god's sake. She'd only agreed to stay because Ianto had used his sad face on her, the one that made her feel like he just needed a hug, or maybe two or three, and really…How could she turn him down when he was looking at her like that? She had mothering instincts, after all.
Could use the company my arse, she thinks.
"Owen and Tosh would have been on board…" Ianto says, all innocent charm, rolling the small plastic bag between his fingers, clearly tempting her.
"That's low, Ianto, even for you," she says, but she has to admit, he's winning her over. It's not like she couldn't use an excuse to let her hair down a bit. It's been a bloody awful few weeks, after all. "I've got half a mind to go back home to Rhys right now and leave you alone with that stuff."
Ianto shakes his head. "I can't do this alone, Gwen, you know that," he says seriously, voice pitched low.
Gwen sighs. Stupid sad face. Stupid Ianto.
Honestly though, with everything they'd been through lately, was a little alien drug really so bad? She could turn off the former-PC Cooper side of her brain for one night, right?
"Okay, fine, but how are we-"
"Got the rolling papers right here," Ianto says cheerfully, already opening the bag.
He licks the edge of the paper—quite expertly, Gwen notices—and starts packing the herb in, until he has… Well, until he's got a nice fat joint laid out in front of him.
He procures an expensive-looking lighter from his pocket, and lights the end, handing it to Gwen, smiling.
"Want the first hit?"
"Jack is going to kill us if he finds out…" Gwen says, for about the fiftieth time in ten minutes, her eyes widening into giant black orbs that seem to swallow up half her face.
Ianto stretches his legs out in front of him, and leans back against the couch.
"So what? There are worse ways to go."
He knows he's being a bit of a jerk, but really, there are only so many responses to that statement, and his many variations of "No, he really won't" and "I don't care" haven't worked yet, so…
"Maybe for you," Gwen says, gloomily.
Ianto pulls a face, and then laughs, way too loudly.
"This stuff isn't bad," he remarks, impressed.
His brain feels… cottony, fluffy. Like a nice, cushiony pile of marshmallows, maybe. He sighs. Clearly, it's been a while since he's done this.
"I don't see any sparkles though…" Gwen says a moment later. She sounds deeply disappointed.
Ianto brings the joint to his lips, inhaling deeply. He holds the smoke in his lungs as long as he can, feeling it fill him up inside, feeling it spread throughout his body, numbing the edges of his senses and then moving inward, slowly filling in the gaps… And well, hopefully not killing too many brain cells in the process.
He lets the smoke out through his lips in a measured stream, before he hands the joint back to Gwen.
"Maybe it affects different…" He pauses, trying to find the word. "…species," he finishes. "Maybe it affects species differently."
"Or maybe this is regular old Cardiff-grown pot and Jack was just fucking with you," Gwen says, letting out a puff of smoke, and giggling.
"Nah," Ianto says. "Why would he bother?"
And then he starts giggling.
"Don't answer that," he says when he can catch his breath, taking the joint back from Gwen's fingers.
He stares at the ceiling and inhales deeply; his lungs seem to expand more and more with each hit.
Everything tingles.
He thinks he might be starting to see those sparkles after all.
The hub is filled with the most brilliant, sparkling golden light Gwen has ever seen. It's brighter than sunlight on the brightest summer day, but not blinding, white-gold, like… Almost like the glow from those brilliant yellow flowers that used to grow back behind her gran's house. It's so beautiful she wants to cry.
"See," she hears Ianto say, a million miles away, next to her, her hand in his, "Jack never lies. Not really…"
And his voice fades away into the light, into the sparkling, sparkling light. It's like diamonds now, dancing in front of her.
"This is amazing, Ianto," she whispers. "It's like… stardust…" she marvels, and Ianto just hums in approval, in agreement.
"Tosh would have loved this," he says a moment, an eternity, later.
And she should be sad, she should feel that pang of loss, that little pinprick of pain in her chest like she always does when she thinks of them, after what happened, but she doesn't, she just…agrees.
"Owen, too," she says. "He'd have made fun of all the sparkle talk, but this… He would have loved this."
The pinprick of pain for Owen isn't there either, just the warmth, like she used to feel once upon a time, when the whole team was together, that feeling that would bubble up inside of her, that feeling of belonging…
And it was just them now, Tosh and Owen were gone, but… She squeezes Ianto's hand, and realizes that he's sniffling. She pulls his head against her shoulder, trying to give him that hug she always thinks he needs so much. As much as she can in this position, anyway.
He's warm and comfortable and smells good, like soap, and expensive aftershave, and she pulls him as close as she can, her arms wrapping around his shoulder. She smoothes down his hair, and he lets out a tiny hum of contentment.
"I'm not…" Ianto says against her shoulder, his voice muffled. He sounds confused. "I'm not sad…"
"I know, love," Gwen says.
"I just… I remember."
"They were great," Gwen says, somehow knowing what Ianto's thinking.
"So great," Ianto says, sniffling again. "It makes me happy, remembering them…"
Yes, Gwen thinks yes… Because it makes her happy, too, and she's not sure if she thought that would ever be possible again in this lifetime.
She closes her eyes, squeezes Ianto's hand, and smiles wider than she thinks she has in months.
Ianto wants more than anything for this to last.
He'd actually suspected that Jack might have been lying about the sparkles—he couldn't really tell, after all, with some of Jack's stories—but… He lifts his eyes as much as he can with Gwen's arm wrapped around his neck, and watches Myfanwy as she swoops in and out of the brilliant, almost fluorescent wave of luminescence that has now grown to fill the entire empty space of the cavernous hub in front of them.
It obscures the entrance to the lift, the windows to Jack's office, all of it. He reaches a hand out, flexing his fingers experimentally.
Several strands of glittering light dance in front of him – like tiny fairy wings fluttering around his fingers, weaving in and out, around his knuckles, settling in his palm, and then fading, floating away in a puff of sparkling ash.
He wants it to last, to hold onto it, to these flickers of light in front of his eyes. Even if he knows it's not real.
He tentatively reaches out to memories of Tosh, of late nights spent bent over her work station as she tried as well as she could to explain the inner workings of her latest program to him. He was no specialist, not even close, but he'd been interested, and Tosh had been patient. She was a good teacher. A natural.
He had a hard time logging into the mainframe now without a wave of nausea washing over him, just like it had when he'd seen her blood on the stairs of the medical bay, bleeding out like… like Lisa, like Owen, once, like so many others.
But now… Now he just remembers her laugh, her smile. The way she twisted her pen between her fingers when she was concentrating. He remembers that she'd been beautiful, every single day, so put-together, so professional, and that he'd always wanted to tell her that, but hadn't found the right time, the right words.
And Owen… Owen had changed, after what had happened to him. And it should sound crazy, but this was Torchwood after all, and... Owen had died, and then they'd brought him back, and it had been hard to watch, to accept, and it had changed him.
And Ianto had liked him a little more because of it, because for once he could tell what Owen was thinking; he could tell that Owen had never wanted this, hadn't really wanted to come back, and Ianto could also tell how much he needed to belong again. He'd even envied him a little, maybe even admired him, for not just sticking around, but for making a place for himself all over again.
When he thinks of him, now, he doesn't remember their differences, only how much they had in common.
And he wants to remember more, wants this to last but he knows that it won't, it's not.
He can feel it fading already. The cloud (cumulonimbus, now) of sparkles around the lift is starting to break apart, and Ianto can see the stark features of the hub - the bricks, the piping, the emptiness - start to come back into focus.
He closes his eyes, leaning back against Gwen, wondering if she can feel it fading too, but then notices the steadiness of her breathing, the measured rise and fall of her chest.
He extracts himself as carefully as he can to avoid waking her and stands up, stretching a little.
He stands there for a long moment, letting his eyes adjust.
The light lingers a little at the corners of his vision, just hanging there, glowing at the edges of his memories, too.
Tentatively, he thinks of Owen again, just disappearing, no body to bring back this time, and Lisa, and his father, Tosh… He tries to hang onto that last happy memory of each of them.
He wonders why Jack never mentioned this particular side effect of the herb, but of course, that was ridiculous. What was any drug other than a mask, a band-aid, something to dull the effects of whatever was painful, whatever it was that you didn't want to look back at.
This wasn't anything different, alien or not.
It's prettier though, he thinks, closing his eyes, so much prettier…
He ends up in Jack's office, eventually, after covering Gwen with the soft, woven blanket that he'd found in one of the drawers down in Jack's quarters once, ages ago, when Jack had been gone on his extended vacation. He's slept underneath more nights than he cares to admit. Gwen had curled up under it, smiling in her sleep, and he'd been a little envious.
Ianto straightens up Jack's desk as best he can. So much paper, and he hasn't even been gone a day.
He divides the top layer into piles according to importance. First he discards the junk, the stuff that isn't worth even his time, into the waste basket. He's about to start his expert forging of Jack's signature on the less-important pile, when he starts at a noise from outside the office.
When he looks up, there's a familiar figure watching him from the doorway.
"Hey," Jack says, but doesn't move from the doorway, as if he's not in a particular hurry to reclaim his office. He looks pensive, but when he speaks, his voice is light. "I always suspected that you had designs on my job."
"Wasn't expecting you back for a while," Ianto says in greeting, and Jack frowns a little. "And don't worry, you can keep your job, believe me," he says, getting up from the desk, giving it a once over, then nodding to himself in acceptance before he crosses the room.
He exchanges a look with Jack as they pass in the doorway. Jack seems calmer now, less on edge than he'd been before he left. Ianto knew this would be the case, but he's relieved anyway.
He's halfway to the stairs before he turns back to Jack.
"Gwen's asleep on the couch," he says. "Just FYI."
"Got it," Jack says. Then he smiles knowingly, and pulls a suspiciously familiar looking plastic bag out of his pocket, giving it a quick wave, waggling his eyebrows. "Told you it was good stuff, right?"
Ianto bites his lip to conceal his smirk. "I have no idea what you're talking about, sir," he says, turning on his heel, trying to ignore the stray line of sparkles that dance across his line of vision for a moment, just barely visible.
Stardust, he thinks, and for a moment he can't figure out where the thought has come from, and then he remembers – Gwen - and turns back to Jack, who hasn't moved from the doorway yet.
"So hypothetically speaking," he says, as Jack watches him with curiosity. "Is there some kind of secret ingredient in that stuff?"
Jack studies him, and then looks down at the bag in his hands, a knowing smirk already in place on his lips.
"Honestly?" Jack says, and Ianto holds his breath for a second. "I have no idea. Sorry."
Jack chuckles a little, before he smiles again, a little more warmly this time.
"Stardust is everyone's first guess though."
END