othercaptjack (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
othercaptjack) wrote2008-06-14 08:33 pm
othercaptjack) wrote2008-06-14 08:33 pm
Entry tags:
Post-Countrycide
Jack is thinking about torture.
The team had mostly been silent on the way back, in varying degrees of shock or exhaustion, and Jack himself still in the eerie spaced-out calm that had followed the blinding, murderous rage that had driven him almost to the edge of a place he thought he was done with. Further, he thinks grimly, eyes steady on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel just a little too tight and for once driving strictly within the traffic laws.
A long time ago, he was pretty good at torture.
He still is, today proved that. But now that's not something good, even when it helps them. Just another day in the life of Jack Harkness, monster for humanity. Funny how that turned out.
He drops off Gwen, Owen and Tosh at their respective flats, Gwen to Rhys' unknowing presence, Tosh and Owen alone, but he brings Ianto back with him to the hub almost without thinking about it. The paramedics had gone over him at the village - nothing broken, but savagely beaten, and fairly badly concussed - and who else does he have to sit up with him? It's not as if Jack will sleep tonight in any case.
They park outside the office, and Jack goes around to open the door.
"Come on," he says, offering a hand.
The team had mostly been silent on the way back, in varying degrees of shock or exhaustion, and Jack himself still in the eerie spaced-out calm that had followed the blinding, murderous rage that had driven him almost to the edge of a place he thought he was done with. Further, he thinks grimly, eyes steady on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel just a little too tight and for once driving strictly within the traffic laws.
A long time ago, he was pretty good at torture.
He still is, today proved that. But now that's not something good, even when it helps them. Just another day in the life of Jack Harkness, monster for humanity. Funny how that turned out.
He drops off Gwen, Owen and Tosh at their respective flats, Gwen to Rhys' unknowing presence, Tosh and Owen alone, but he brings Ianto back with him to the hub almost without thinking about it. The paramedics had gone over him at the village - nothing broken, but savagely beaten, and fairly badly concussed - and who else does he have to sit up with him? It's not as if Jack will sleep tonight in any case.
They park outside the office, and Jack goes around to open the door.
"Come on," he says, offering a hand.
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[ooc: Sorry about the wait--we chatted for a lot longer than I expected.]
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He steers the boy to the sofa firmly, and sits him down, eyes tracking over visible bruises with inward icy anger, but without commenting.
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"Am I not supposed to sleep or am I supposed to sleep?" he mumbles, and gropes for the nearest bit of Jack he can reach for something to ground him.
Coat. That'll work.
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"It's pretty late," he says. "So I think tiredness is normal. You can sleep soon; I just have to keep an eye on you. But it's probably best to stay awake for a little while and make sure no other symptoms turn up, okay?"
And make sure he wakes up in the morning.
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Please note: Ianto is generally not this agreeable without eyerolling.
"Talk to me?"
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Ordinarily, Jack might be pleased - a member of his team, doing what he asks without question or even a sidelong look? - but it's discomforting, after what he knows Ianto has been through.
"Sure," he says, and his voice is deliberately and falsely light to hide his anger and fear and the misery of leading people who trusted him into pain and nearly death. Again. "What would would you like to talk about, Ianto?"
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"Since you ask so nicely," he says, and looks up in thought, lights of the hub reflecting in his eyes as he considers.
"Let me see. Have you even run across any Liirthuni while you've been at Torchwood? Either of them?"
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"Never met any Liirthuni."
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"You should. Nice people. Peaceful, for the most part, due to this really weird queen of theirs. It was... perhaps a couple of hundred years ago, Earth time? Anyway, the monarch was largely a figurehead," Totally unlike England, then, "but she represented the whole planet. And one day, somehow, she passed a law through her council that banned war."
He tilts his head, eyes crinkling slightly in laughter. "And I'd say we shouldn't draw comparisons with such a hugely differing race and societal structure, but it really kind of is like our Queen Liz banning war in and by Great Britain."
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"You might be right. But most of the individual leaders of the planet didn't think so. Unlike her, they had real power, if over smaller areas, and they thought her solution was oversimplistic and idealistic."
Beat.
"Also, many of them were involved in expensive wars at the time. Funny how that worked out."
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See, he's following. Really.
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"Exactly. So. Here, our intrepid band of heroes enter the story. Would you like one named after you, or shall I keep to the absolute truth?"
His tone suggests that absolute truth is sothing dull and to be avoided if at all possible.
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Truth has no place in bedtime stories.
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"Captain... Jake, let's call him, and his dashing young associate, Ianto of the Jones regiment, had infiltrated the royal palace some weeks ago. It wasn't hard, because being the ruler of the entire planet, the Queen lived in a palace slightly larger than an average Earth city. What did confuse the issue was that the Liirthuni are usually around seven feet tall, varying shades of green, and have no concept of personal space."
Jack pauses a moment to sigh. "Good times. But really awkward for our heroes, when they were using holographic diguises."
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So he's both vague and hurting. Talk about good times.
"Not seven feet tall."
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"As you might guess, they were caught, but not before they reached the royal quarters, and were in consequence supposed to be assassins, and were brought before the Queen. Alas, brave Ianto's well-researched cover story of being palace-to-palace salespeople was not believed. Captain Jake, meanwhile, was almost executed on the spot for complimenting her Majesty's lower supportive tentacles in the belief that this was acceptable, having accidentally researched the sister planet insead of Liirthune itself."
Some things never change.
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He's still clutching Jack's coat, a little less for orientation now.
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"Things were just looking a little grim when, luckily, the door exploded."
Explosions make all stories better!
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"The Royal Guards were slow. The thing about forbidding war is, how do you define war? They hadn't quite clarified that, then, so Jake and Ianto reacted first, and had the situation under control in less that a minute."
Apart from the renaming of 'Ianto' and 'Jake,' the first actual untruth.
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During the... one minute. Yes.
[OOC: Ahahahaha, crashing and burning. Slowtime? Will pick up tomorrow, when I'm less dizzy. &hearts]
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[ooc: Good night! Feel better. *hugs*]
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Yeah, he's that easy.
"I work very hard at it," he assures Ianto. "It's something I take seriously. Mind you, in this case it was very inconvenient. Flirting or saving the world? I should never have to make that choice."
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>_>
"Fortunately Ianto was nobler than I, and got the Queen to the transport while I ah- distracted the guards. So it worked out okay."
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"Thank you," he says. "Anyway, it took a while, but eventually our heroes hacked into the planetwide broadcasting network. There were gadgets and everything. And so the Queen got to broadcast her new law to the populace, despite what a few politicians wanted. She was still technically the supreme power, you see, even if she'd never really wielded it."
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"The conflict of interests confused citizens so much that entire armies ended up going on strike. Governments were furious, but what could they do? The Queen was nice and safe with us on a heavily armoured stealth ship, and half their people were turning on them, so three ongoing wars basically collapsed, and another one fizzled out over the next couple of weeks."
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"Fast forward a few years, and the Liirthuni were taking an oath on reaching adulthood to be utterly peaceful, except in dire need of defense. And they're still that way today. Just because one young queen made it that simple."
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"You can probably doze for a little while now, if you wanted. I'll have to wake you in an hour to check up, but if you're still tired..."
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"I'll check on you soon," he says quietly, before leaning down to kiss his teaboy gently on the forehead.
Normal employer-employee relations have somewhat passed Jack by.
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He makes an affirmative-sounding hum and pulls up his legs so he can stretch out on the couch.
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Guilt he can understand in himself, and even perhaps the protectiveness is natural right now. But really, even for him, it should be a little early for fondness. But there it is.
He turns in silence, and heads off to let Ianto sleep awhile.