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[BTR] [RP] The future teaches you to be alone, the present to be afraid and cold.
{{OOC: Backdated to Ianto's retrieval date.}}
Certain people's relationships can best be destroyed as "mutually assured destruction." Call him rather all-or-nothing in the pursuit of fatalism, but Jack frequently has the feeling that his relationship with Ianto, apparently in whatever universe or set of circumstances it occurs in, is one of those.
He's prowling around the periphery of his second-floor office – rather, the second-floor office which was once Gwen's – and reflecting that, of all the people in his long and storied past with Torchwood to come through, Ianto is a close second only to Suzie in terms of how awkward timing and circumstance makes this. To be honest, he'd prefer if he'd never come through. He'd prefer if he never had to look at any of the faces he betrayed again – not for a long, long time, if ever again.
Chicago emphatically does not care what he wants.
So he's here. Prowling like a caged animal, watching the door.
Waiting.
Certain people's relationships can best be destroyed as "mutually assured destruction." Call him rather all-or-nothing in the pursuit of fatalism, but Jack frequently has the feeling that his relationship with Ianto, apparently in whatever universe or set of circumstances it occurs in, is one of those.
He's prowling around the periphery of his second-floor office – rather, the second-floor office which was once Gwen's – and reflecting that, of all the people in his long and storied past with Torchwood to come through, Ianto is a close second only to Suzie in terms of how awkward timing and circumstance makes this. To be honest, he'd prefer if he'd never come through. He'd prefer if he never had to look at any of the faces he betrayed again – not for a long, long time, if ever again.
Chicago emphatically does not care what he wants.
So he's here. Prowling like a caged animal, watching the door.
Waiting.
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"But the reason I stayed with Torchwood Three was to make amends for my particularly stupid action of trying to save Lisa when she had already lost her humanity," he finished coldly, his tone practically emotionless. Ianto often weighs his feelings for Jack against his feelings for Lisa.
Jack usually wins out these days, except when he's being an enormous wanker, like now.
"I have never expected anything from you, sir," he begins, adding some extra venom to the sir. "I do what I'm told, no questions asked." He's done some particularly unsavory things under the orders of Jack Harkness, but like a good doggie, he does them without argument. It's what makes him so valuable to Torchwood.
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Well, anger is better than servility. Better than... addiction, he's tempted to label it, even though the analytical part of him knows the word already. Compliance.
He's a Time Agency compliance officer. It's really only to be expected.
"And the 'follow orders, no questions asked' work ethos works wonderfully in political atmospheres like these," Jack says. "I hear the Germans loved it."
...yes, that was Jack just Godwinning himself. In such a way as to set himself up as Hitler. The narration isn't sure how to react to that.
"You want directives? Ask questions. Before you demand your old job back, make sure you're on the right side."
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"I don't think I'd look very dashing in that uniform," he says, deadpanning the joke. He's always been quite proud of his ability to remove all inflection from his otherwise pleasant voice. "And you'd look terrible with one of those tiny mustaches."
He finally removed the perfect facade, and puts his hands on the table, leaning in. "Then what the hell do you do here, Jack? Because if you've suddenly gone Hartmen on me, I might have issues."
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"I don't know."
He's just as lost as anyone, here. He's just learned that people around him are happier when they can't tell.
"I took command of Torchwood a month ago. Before that... in my time here I've coordinated wanderer activities in an Angel protectorate, I've worked security for the local Neqa'el, I've – worked against Torchwood," and there's a hitch there, he lets there be, because something Very Not Right went down between him and Torchwood, and Ianto needs some awareness of that and of how not safe just being around him might be; "I've gone into exile, and I've been tried in the only supernatural court this place has. Tomorrow? Who the hell knows. Today I'm looking at a potential invasion coming down from Boston because one of the Barnam clan of angels got killed here. Today, I'm planning to keep the people in this building alive. And that might mean I'm selling my soul to the demons, and the jury's still out on what that makes me."
He shows a hand.
"The last time archangels came looking for a fight, we gave them a massacre. You decide if that's right."
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Even though Ianto knows everytime he commits a heinous act against someone innocent in the pursuit of freedom for the rest of the world, it kills something inside Jack. He wonders how much humanity is even left in the other man. He only looks content when he's asleep...and that's rare.
"I don't think I can judge whether or not it's right. I wasn't there," he finally says, still standing, palms planted firmly on Jack's desk. He glances down at those delicate fingers again. He hates them still. "Did you do it because you thought it was right? No matter what Torchwood did, no matter how...disturbing, we always did it because it had to be done."
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A slight flinch there, at the corners of his eyes.
"No one needs to follow what I think was right. To every devil, his defense."
He stands, abruptly, walking back around the desk to the corner of the room and leaning back against it, crossing his arms.
"And once, to one version of you, that was enough to have you slinging fuck yous and courting the next faction over." It's a misrepresentation of the facts, but Jack doesn't care. There's a point to be made, here, and he's going to make it. "Like I said, Chicago's not like Cardiff. You're not going to use my moral compass to guide you." The corner of his mouth flicks up. "I refuse to be taken on blind faith."
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Whatever remains of it. He's not even sure anymore.
"I never used your moral compass," he sits back in the chair, chest moving up and down with his barely-restrained wrath. "I used mine. It just happened to coincide with yours most of the time. Fine, you want honesty? I'm fucking pissed you left me with complete bloody strangers, then instead of picking me up yourself, you sent the female version of me."
There it is, the real person he is inside, the one he's worked years to control. His accent has thickened, and his demeanor isn't as polished. He grew up in the Estates, and as hard as he tries to hide it under expensive suits and a polished accent, he'll always be from the Estates.
"Does she perform all my duties now, or only the professional ones?" he's hitting below the belt, but he can't make himself give a damn.
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Good, echoes back a small corner of his mind. Push hard enough and maybe he'll keep his distance. Maybe he'll leave. And that's one less person for you to snap under your heel.
He gives a thin, and somewhat venomous, smile back. "Politics, Ianto. When a powerful, unknown organization is playing at charity, you don't send the leader of your own to accept it. And Mio is a perfectly capable agent." He raises his eyebrows. "Yeah. I replaced you. You fell through a Rift, and I got Torchwood handed to me with instructions to keep it running. Can't exactly staff positions with fond memories."
This is dangerous territory. All of it. From the quirk of his eyebrows to the tone of his voice, the emotion swirling inside him – he's edging close to a backslide, even if just a minor one, and who's going to be here to stop it? He can recognize, it, but stepping back...
Stepping back means disengaging. There are only so many ways to disengage.
He looks to the door.
"Your moral compass doesn't have a picture of what's going on here," he says. "Why don't you go give it one. Get a sense of the history, here. Talk to people. Ask around. Take a week." His voice is hard. "If you really think Torchwood is where you want to cast your lot after that, I'll consider you, but I won't consider it before then."
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One of these days he might admit out-loud that he is seriously fucked up and so is their relationship, but today is probably not that day.
He sits down on the desk now, blue eyes hot with anger, but his expression surprisingly blank. Then again, he's extraordinary good at maintaining a facade. He only loses control of it when he is enraged or impassioned, both of which Jack brings out in him, unfortunately.
Goddamn him.
"One week," he repeats, still perched on the edge of Jack's desk. It's almost like old times, except he is almost positive this argument will not end in a rather undignified shag against this self-same desk. He bets the desk is grateful. "And then I can return, if I still want to, no questions asked? Get back to my old duties?"
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Just go. It would be nice if Ianto developed a sudden affinity for civilian life, while he's gone. Failing that, if he worked up enough doubts to keep him from coming back. Keep him from crashing right into Jack's orbit again, like every Ianto Jack's run into has seemed to. Hard as it is to believe, Jack is aware of some patterns he falls into, and this one has never ended well for either of them.
It would be so much easier if they could intercept that pattern before it began again, here.
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"I'll go," he says, standing up from his perching position. He walks over to Jack, and leans over him, blue eyes staring down at him. He's always been good at staring down Jack. It's how he makes him do his paperwork...he supposes Mio probably does that now.
"But I will be back," he finished, taking a deep breath. He closes his eyes for a minute, reigning in his emotions. "You aren't getting rid of me this easily."
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Is that a threat? he'd like to ask. But asking is giving the conversation leave to continue, and he doesn't particularly want to do that.
So he'll just step up to meet Ianto's eyes, keeping his locked and impassive. His own emotions are neatly partitioned – as neatly as he can manage, anyway – and shoved away.
He supposes it can't hurt, putting off the impression that there's not much to return to.
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"So, what did the Rift gift you with?" he asks lazily, as he takes a few steps back towards the door. "Super-strength? Super-speed? Never-ending sex drive?" He certainly hopes it's not that latter. Jack might enjoy that too much, and Ianto doesn't enjoy his new-found empathy at all.
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"A headache," he says, keeping his voice flat. Well. It did, after a fashion – he spent a good long time with an ocular migraine courtesy of the Rift, before it decided to switch things up on him.
And you? Empathy, or...?
Or this Ianto really does have a different history to his own. And Jack doesn't appreciate that revelation.
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He's probably the most patient man alive. He can wait a week to return to work.
"Alright Jack. I can see you can't wait for my arse to leave. So I will." It occurs to him he has no where to stay. He supposes he can hole at in a homeless shelter until he has an alternative.
He didn't exactly expect a welcome-home snog, but he didn't expect to be pushed out the door either. He wonders if Jack really doesn't want him around, or if the immortal is performing another one of his stupid martyrdom attempts.
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Preferably in a way which will convince him he's needed more, elsewhere.
One can always hope.
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He joined Torchwood to expand his horizons. At one point, he thought he was helping the world. Then Lisa died.
But now he wants to make amends for his sins, and Jack isn't going to let him do that without a week. So he'll take that week.
He doesn't realize yet how disastrous that week will be, or he would have pleaded for Jack to keep him around. He would have gotten down on his knees and done anything.
But he doesn't know, so he gives Jack one last fleeting smile, full of a myriad of conflicting emotions and shoves his hands into his trouser pockets, exiting his office with. "Have a nice day, sir."