Fic: "Yellow Shirt"
Sep. 23rd, 2008 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyusTitle: Yellow Shirt
Characters/Pairing: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness
Rating: PG-13
Category/Setting: gen/series 1, post-Countrycide and pre-End of Days
Length: 1700
Blood pools underneath the body. It gets lost in rain puddles, an extra shimmer to the surface. The night's cold, winter is coming.
"Found him!" Breathless jerk to a halt at the feet – trainers -, looking up at jeans and once-yellow shirt, dirty hair. "That brown?" Harkness points to the head. Sirens sound in the distance.
Ianto crouches. Rain runs down the inside of his jacket and leaves a trail of wetness down his back. It's trying for the waistband but loses itself in the fabric of the shirt. Plastic gloves on, he pushes the hair back, turns the head. "Brown, and dead, sir." Blood sticks to his skin when he pulls his hand away.
"Brown, and dead!" Harkness confirms over the comm. Headlights crawl up their bodies when cars begin to close in. "Ianto's taking photos."
Head, wound, gun. Ianto slips the camera back into his pocket and stands.
"You should have them now. See you at the Hub." Harkness takes off at a run. Ianto follows.
They duck behind one building, behind another. They slump against one of the containers, the sound rings out loud, echoes. Water drenches them, set loose from the roof by their momentum. Headlights reflect off metal and rain, the sirens bounce off walls, undetermined origin.
"It's him." There's the sound of car doors and voices. Ianto stares straight ahead at lit windows of families' houses.
"Yeah." Harkness nods, looks around the corner of the container and draws back.
"There'll be retcon in his blood."
Harkness turns to fix Ianto with a glare. "I'm not five, Ianto. I know. Come on." He pushes past Ianto, edges along the container to make for the street, the SUV parked around the corner.
"He's dead." Ianto grabs the coat, stops Harkness in midstep.
Harkness's eyes narrow. "Yeah." Harkness takes the hand curled into his coat and pulls Ianto along. "I'm sure you can recite the statistics, too, and no, I don't want to hear them just now."
The SUV is freezing, the wet clothes don't help. Ianto shifts out of his raincoat, folds it to stuff into the space between his feet. Two uniform cars drive right past them, sirens and lights, the full works. Harkness pulls away from the curb with screeching wheels. Arms folded across his chest, Ianto stares out through the window.
The sun's blazing whenever the clouds allow a bit of space. It plays shadows across the guy's face, glints off hair and lashes. Ianto takes him in, the hair, the trainers, the Cardiff University ID between his fingers as he's paying for a coffee. Fingers wrap around the cup. Ianto strides forward. Looking sideways, he stumbles into him. Coffee drenches him more than it does the guy. It's spilled either way.
"So sorry-" Ianto straightens, looks down himself. He pats the guy down, fingers brushing over the specks of brown on the yellow shirt. "Should've looked where I was going." Hand to the hair and a sheepish smile. He shrugs. "Let me buy you a new coffee at least?"
The guy nods, startled still, and gives token protest. "It's all right, really."
"Careless of me, really." Ianto shakes his head, waves it away with a small gesture of hand, and another smile. He pushes the 50p over the counter, receives the coffee and turns to hand it back to the guy.
"Thanks." Flustered the guy takes it, takes a sip, too.
"Sorry about the shirt, but-"
"It's all right, really."
"Have to get going." Ianto slips his hands into the pockets of his pants, a shrug to the shoulder, and another apologetic smile. "Hope the rest of your day goes better."
The murmur in response gets lost as Ianto ducks between tables of summer dresses and short pants on young people. The smile slips off his face as soon as he's turned the corner. The hands slip from his pockets, he straightens.
"Fell into the bay?" Owen swivels in his chair, sideline smirk.
"No." Ianto shrugs out of his suit jacket and pushes past him. The draft in the Hub downgrades the wet on his skin to freezing. He settles at one of the computers, typing.
"What do we have?" Harkness doesn't look wet, or particularly fazed. Arms crossed he stands at the top of the stairs like he wants to take a plunge any moment.
Owen glances up, back down at his computer screen. A shrug follows, a few undecided sounds. "We'd have more if one of you had taken a sample. But seems like the kid from a few weeks ago that Ianto took care of, yeah. At least she says it is." The eyebrow lifts towards Gwen. "Don't think you can tell much with the face blown away like that, personally."
Ianto's fingers tighten to white on 'N' and 'S', a careful inhale, a careful exhale. "It was him." The computer screen gives no reply. He finishes typing in the name and number, and the picture comes up. He turns the screen around to face Harkness.
"Nice kid." Huff of amused breath on the lips as Harkness smiles at the photo.
"He's dead."
The face falls. The jaw gives a back and forth as Harkness tears his gaze from the photo and faces the team. "Anyway. Opinions?"
Owen leans back in his chair, stares at the ceiling. "Overdose or bad reaction. His head goes woo-woo, found a gun, offed himself. Seems straightforward to me." He stretches and gets up, grabs the jacket. "Police have the body, I'm off then."
Harkness makes no move to protest, just shrugs and watches. Tosh follows Owen out with an apologetic look, Gwen with a whispered nothing and a hug to Ianto that he endures. The call-you to Harkness registers. The lights in the Hub flicker. There's the splash of the water, the pterodactyl sounds far above.
"So." Harkness props himself up on the desk, hands on his thigh.
"So, what, sir." Ianto's left to stare at his crotch and he pointedly looks up, tone edging on irritated. There's the question swimming in the eyes and on the crook of those lips. He looks at the computer screen instead. Daniel is smiling at him. He collapses the picture to nothing.
"It's not your fault." The words are tried on for size, careful puzzlement, switching gears and the car jams between 1 and Reverse.
Ianto laughs. Pterodactyl sounds cover most of it and leave only the ugly echo around the Hub, ricocheting off walls. He brings up the file, enters the necessary data with cool efficiency.
"You didn't sleep with him, did you?" Curiosity jams it between 5 and Reverse. It jars.
The keyboard hits the screen prop-up as Ianto pushes it back. The pterodactyl screeches at the sound. Fingers are clenched into fists, red from the cold one moment, white from the tension the next. The mouth opens for a reply, but the tension uncoils in a spin on the back of his heel. His suit jacket drips water to the floor as he grabs it and marches off.
"Come on, give me the numbers, Ianto." Harkness's voice rings out across the floor. "One in 100, one in 200? Freak accident, funny little antibodies that practically never occur, history of mental disorders we didn't know about. You know the risks."
The water soaked into the jacket runs down along his wrist. "What is this supposed to be, Jack? Is this your idea of comfort?"
"Oh I don't know." Harkness spreads his arms. "Does it work?" A cheeky smile that isn't joking.
The huffed laugh, frustration in every breath. He gestures with his jacket, lips thin lines. "How about 'no'? How about-" Alien, inhuman, who are you, really, Jack? "Nevermind. Just- nevermind, Jack. I'll see you tomorrow." He turns to leave, cog door rolling.
Harkness needs two strides and is there, turns him around, shoulder and neck and the thumb just along the Adam's apple. "Don't."
"Don't what. Don't care? How can you-"
"Don't make him another pet project. He's dead, Ianto, being eaten by fucking worms, so don't." The parody of a kiss, the lips so close, the eyes so wide. The sweep of a tongue would brush across white lines, open them.
"You're a bastard." The wet jacket slaps to Harkness's coat. Teeth clenched, jaw locked, Ianto gestures for another word.
Harkness obliges, stepping back far enough. The stance is easy, feet apart, arms at his side. The Hub's lights deepen the lines in his face. The eyebrow cocks in challenge.
"You're a bastard!" The voice is hoarse and raw, but the eyes are clear.
"Yeah. But he's one dead person and there are billions of live ones on this planet. Ask me who I care about more. Come on, ask."
Ianto runs his hand through his hair, jacket and all, rivulets of water dripping from hair to ears, to chin, and into the collar of the soaked shirt. "His name was Daniel."
Harkness nods. "I know. But he's gone, and it's not your fault."
50p slide easy over the counter. He grants the kid at the counter a bit of a smile. The small pills are light in his hand. The coffee steams up the finger's movements. He fumbles them, one, two- One slips in, one doesn't- or does it? The guy's standing at his shoulder so he turns around, gives him the coffee. Ianto has to squint into the sun to see his face, watches him take a sip.
Awkward thank you's and goodbye's, he is wearing a yellow shirt.
Ianto shrugs. "I'm off." He turns to go.
"The comfort, is it working?" Harkness's voice rings out along his back. It settles into the wet shirt like rain.
"Yes, sir." Ianto slides 'amused' into the tone and walks away. He shakes his head 'no' when Harkness can't see and 'amused' slips off the face as the lines settle back around his eyes.
The rain's still falling heavy. It clings to pants and shoes, shirt, and the jacket that trails an inch off the ground. The uniform cars have left. No sirens, no lights, no voices to speak of anyone. He crouches and traces his fingertips along the mud. The blood has washed away, every trace gone.
"He's dead."
Ianto turns at the voice. Harkness stands, hands in the pockets of his coat, blocking out the moon, leaving Ianto at his feet, just another shadow.
Ianto turns away and nods. "I know."
Characters/Pairing: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness
Rating: PG-13
Category/Setting: gen/series 1, post-Countrycide and pre-End of Days
Length: 1700
Blood pools underneath the body. It gets lost in rain puddles, an extra shimmer to the surface. The night's cold, winter is coming.
"Found him!" Breathless jerk to a halt at the feet – trainers -, looking up at jeans and once-yellow shirt, dirty hair. "That brown?" Harkness points to the head. Sirens sound in the distance.
Ianto crouches. Rain runs down the inside of his jacket and leaves a trail of wetness down his back. It's trying for the waistband but loses itself in the fabric of the shirt. Plastic gloves on, he pushes the hair back, turns the head. "Brown, and dead, sir." Blood sticks to his skin when he pulls his hand away.
"Brown, and dead!" Harkness confirms over the comm. Headlights crawl up their bodies when cars begin to close in. "Ianto's taking photos."
Head, wound, gun. Ianto slips the camera back into his pocket and stands.
"You should have them now. See you at the Hub." Harkness takes off at a run. Ianto follows.
They duck behind one building, behind another. They slump against one of the containers, the sound rings out loud, echoes. Water drenches them, set loose from the roof by their momentum. Headlights reflect off metal and rain, the sirens bounce off walls, undetermined origin.
"It's him." There's the sound of car doors and voices. Ianto stares straight ahead at lit windows of families' houses.
"Yeah." Harkness nods, looks around the corner of the container and draws back.
"There'll be retcon in his blood."
Harkness turns to fix Ianto with a glare. "I'm not five, Ianto. I know. Come on." He pushes past Ianto, edges along the container to make for the street, the SUV parked around the corner.
"He's dead." Ianto grabs the coat, stops Harkness in midstep.
Harkness's eyes narrow. "Yeah." Harkness takes the hand curled into his coat and pulls Ianto along. "I'm sure you can recite the statistics, too, and no, I don't want to hear them just now."
The SUV is freezing, the wet clothes don't help. Ianto shifts out of his raincoat, folds it to stuff into the space between his feet. Two uniform cars drive right past them, sirens and lights, the full works. Harkness pulls away from the curb with screeching wheels. Arms folded across his chest, Ianto stares out through the window.
The sun's blazing whenever the clouds allow a bit of space. It plays shadows across the guy's face, glints off hair and lashes. Ianto takes him in, the hair, the trainers, the Cardiff University ID between his fingers as he's paying for a coffee. Fingers wrap around the cup. Ianto strides forward. Looking sideways, he stumbles into him. Coffee drenches him more than it does the guy. It's spilled either way.
"So sorry-" Ianto straightens, looks down himself. He pats the guy down, fingers brushing over the specks of brown on the yellow shirt. "Should've looked where I was going." Hand to the hair and a sheepish smile. He shrugs. "Let me buy you a new coffee at least?"
The guy nods, startled still, and gives token protest. "It's all right, really."
"Careless of me, really." Ianto shakes his head, waves it away with a small gesture of hand, and another smile. He pushes the 50p over the counter, receives the coffee and turns to hand it back to the guy.
"Thanks." Flustered the guy takes it, takes a sip, too.
"Sorry about the shirt, but-"
"It's all right, really."
"Have to get going." Ianto slips his hands into the pockets of his pants, a shrug to the shoulder, and another apologetic smile. "Hope the rest of your day goes better."
The murmur in response gets lost as Ianto ducks between tables of summer dresses and short pants on young people. The smile slips off his face as soon as he's turned the corner. The hands slip from his pockets, he straightens.
"Fell into the bay?" Owen swivels in his chair, sideline smirk.
"No." Ianto shrugs out of his suit jacket and pushes past him. The draft in the Hub downgrades the wet on his skin to freezing. He settles at one of the computers, typing.
"What do we have?" Harkness doesn't look wet, or particularly fazed. Arms crossed he stands at the top of the stairs like he wants to take a plunge any moment.
Owen glances up, back down at his computer screen. A shrug follows, a few undecided sounds. "We'd have more if one of you had taken a sample. But seems like the kid from a few weeks ago that Ianto took care of, yeah. At least she says it is." The eyebrow lifts towards Gwen. "Don't think you can tell much with the face blown away like that, personally."
Ianto's fingers tighten to white on 'N' and 'S', a careful inhale, a careful exhale. "It was him." The computer screen gives no reply. He finishes typing in the name and number, and the picture comes up. He turns the screen around to face Harkness.
"Nice kid." Huff of amused breath on the lips as Harkness smiles at the photo.
"He's dead."
The face falls. The jaw gives a back and forth as Harkness tears his gaze from the photo and faces the team. "Anyway. Opinions?"
Owen leans back in his chair, stares at the ceiling. "Overdose or bad reaction. His head goes woo-woo, found a gun, offed himself. Seems straightforward to me." He stretches and gets up, grabs the jacket. "Police have the body, I'm off then."
Harkness makes no move to protest, just shrugs and watches. Tosh follows Owen out with an apologetic look, Gwen with a whispered nothing and a hug to Ianto that he endures. The call-you to Harkness registers. The lights in the Hub flicker. There's the splash of the water, the pterodactyl sounds far above.
"So." Harkness props himself up on the desk, hands on his thigh.
"So, what, sir." Ianto's left to stare at his crotch and he pointedly looks up, tone edging on irritated. There's the question swimming in the eyes and on the crook of those lips. He looks at the computer screen instead. Daniel is smiling at him. He collapses the picture to nothing.
"It's not your fault." The words are tried on for size, careful puzzlement, switching gears and the car jams between 1 and Reverse.
Ianto laughs. Pterodactyl sounds cover most of it and leave only the ugly echo around the Hub, ricocheting off walls. He brings up the file, enters the necessary data with cool efficiency.
"You didn't sleep with him, did you?" Curiosity jams it between 5 and Reverse. It jars.
The keyboard hits the screen prop-up as Ianto pushes it back. The pterodactyl screeches at the sound. Fingers are clenched into fists, red from the cold one moment, white from the tension the next. The mouth opens for a reply, but the tension uncoils in a spin on the back of his heel. His suit jacket drips water to the floor as he grabs it and marches off.
"Come on, give me the numbers, Ianto." Harkness's voice rings out across the floor. "One in 100, one in 200? Freak accident, funny little antibodies that practically never occur, history of mental disorders we didn't know about. You know the risks."
The water soaked into the jacket runs down along his wrist. "What is this supposed to be, Jack? Is this your idea of comfort?"
"Oh I don't know." Harkness spreads his arms. "Does it work?" A cheeky smile that isn't joking.
The huffed laugh, frustration in every breath. He gestures with his jacket, lips thin lines. "How about 'no'? How about-" Alien, inhuman, who are you, really, Jack? "Nevermind. Just- nevermind, Jack. I'll see you tomorrow." He turns to leave, cog door rolling.
Harkness needs two strides and is there, turns him around, shoulder and neck and the thumb just along the Adam's apple. "Don't."
"Don't what. Don't care? How can you-"
"Don't make him another pet project. He's dead, Ianto, being eaten by fucking worms, so don't." The parody of a kiss, the lips so close, the eyes so wide. The sweep of a tongue would brush across white lines, open them.
"You're a bastard." The wet jacket slaps to Harkness's coat. Teeth clenched, jaw locked, Ianto gestures for another word.
Harkness obliges, stepping back far enough. The stance is easy, feet apart, arms at his side. The Hub's lights deepen the lines in his face. The eyebrow cocks in challenge.
"You're a bastard!" The voice is hoarse and raw, but the eyes are clear.
"Yeah. But he's one dead person and there are billions of live ones on this planet. Ask me who I care about more. Come on, ask."
Ianto runs his hand through his hair, jacket and all, rivulets of water dripping from hair to ears, to chin, and into the collar of the soaked shirt. "His name was Daniel."
Harkness nods. "I know. But he's gone, and it's not your fault."
50p slide easy over the counter. He grants the kid at the counter a bit of a smile. The small pills are light in his hand. The coffee steams up the finger's movements. He fumbles them, one, two- One slips in, one doesn't- or does it? The guy's standing at his shoulder so he turns around, gives him the coffee. Ianto has to squint into the sun to see his face, watches him take a sip.
Awkward thank you's and goodbye's, he is wearing a yellow shirt.
Ianto shrugs. "I'm off." He turns to go.
"The comfort, is it working?" Harkness's voice rings out along his back. It settles into the wet shirt like rain.
"Yes, sir." Ianto slides 'amused' into the tone and walks away. He shakes his head 'no' when Harkness can't see and 'amused' slips off the face as the lines settle back around his eyes.
The rain's still falling heavy. It clings to pants and shoes, shirt, and the jacket that trails an inch off the ground. The uniform cars have left. No sirens, no lights, no voices to speak of anyone. He crouches and traces his fingertips along the mud. The blood has washed away, every trace gone.
"He's dead."
Ianto turns at the voice. Harkness stands, hands in the pockets of his coat, blocking out the moon, leaving Ianto at his feet, just another shadow.
Ianto turns away and nods. "I know."
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 07:54 pm (UTC)And the way you've shown their relationship their relationship is just perfect for the time the story is set!
I've saved this to memories as I *know* I will want to read this again!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:16 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment, and good to know you enjoyed it.
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Date: 2008-09-23 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:05 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed it.
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Date: 2008-09-23 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:09 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment, and thanks for reading. I appreciate it.
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Date: 2008-09-23 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:11 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it.
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Date: 2008-09-26 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-26 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-29 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 10:23 am (UTC)Given the canon it puzzles me at times how one can be caught up in the warmth of feelings since personally the on-screen J/I interaction hardly strikes me as overly warm or romantic. Granted, there are the little gestures, those small moments, but they are amidst a clusterfuck of mess-ups. It puts me into an interesting position in a way to be writing Jack and Ianto predominantly but in ways that do not really fit the Jack/Ianto fiction stereotype, if you will (even though I'm hardly on my own in that position). I enjoy the characters, but yeah, I enjoy their edges and those jarring bits where they don't fit together easily more than the ones where they just click (which other people in turn enjoy more). Or, really, it's a lot more complicated between them than clear-cut romance.
So yeah, anyway, that's me. Thanks for your comment, I do appreciate it.