fajrdrako | FIC: [Torchwood] - John Ellis (1/1) PG

Title: John Ellis
Author:

fajrdrako
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: John Ellis, Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Words: 1,406
Spoilers: for Torchwood 1x10, Out of Time
Synopsis:: John Ellis explores Torchwood.

John Ellis

"Have you seen the banshee?" Diane Holmes asked, handing John Ellis a cup of hot coffee made by Ianto Jones, who seemed to take the rather anomalous role of butler at Torchwood. One thing about Torchwood: they had good coffee.

"Banshee?"

"They have a captive pterodactyl. Up near the ceiling somewhere. At night, it flies free, and screams."

John looked up nervously. "Does it - ?"

"Eat people?" Diane laughed. "Probably!"

"I was going to ask," said John, with as much dignity as he could muster, "Does it drop its droppings on everyone?"

"Probably," she said again, carelessly, as if it didn't matter. She looked at him more closely. "You look as if you haven't been sleeping. How are you coping with this brave new world?"

She shouldn't talk; he was almost sure she'd been skipping sleep for the sake of the doctor's sexual skills. He shrugged. "It isn't the shining future we imagined, is it?"

"Isn't it? Emma is enchanted with the DVDs."

"This is no environment for an eighteen-year-old girl."

"Neither was ours," she snapped. "The degree of freedom here - God! Feminism as a way of life." She lit a cigarette. "Financial. Sexual. Professional freedom - except for those damn licenses. Emma will learn to cope. Young girls always have to learn to cope."

John did not answer because he couldn't think of anything to say. He wanted to protect Emma, but he didn't know how. Diane, clearly, was beyond protection - and anyway, that would be Doctor Harper's job now, even though she'd only known him two days. John didn't understand her. He never had.

"Decided what you're going to do yet?" she asked him.

"No. You?"

"Fly." She blew smoke at the ceiling, and stared upwards as if looking for the dinosaur. "It's what I always do. Fly."

"How nice to be so sure," he said, with a trace of bitterness. She flashed him a smile, then focussed on someone coming up behind him. "Ah! Here's my driver."

Owen passed John with a vague "Hi," and put an arm around Diane, brushing his lips over hers. "Hello, gorgeous."

As she murmured a reply, John looked away, his cheeks hot. Back in 1953 he'd wondered if Diane were a lesbian. The way she acted, the way she dressed... Well. Apparently not.

He left Owen and Diane to their conversation. They didn't call him back. He wandered around the Hub, exploring. A severed hand: how disgusting. Many things he could not identify. Metal, stone, mysterious goo in glass dishes. A morgue, kept locked. Computers everywhere, but he couldn't see many books. How could they trust the computers? How could they give the machines such power over them? They didn't seem to notice, or care. There was too much glass - was it safe? How did they keep the place warm and lit? It must be a colossal use of power, of expenditure, of waste.

He was worrying too much, but he couldn't let go.

Tosh was working at her desk. She smiled at him shyly. "Are you curious about what I'm doing? This graph -" she pointed towards her computer screen which, as far as John could see, showed only meaningless moving lines and lights. "This graph shows the possible morpheme formations in the Weevil vocalizations, comparing them with known alien languages in the database. See, this is Sycorax here - negligible correspondence."

"Oh," said John. He knew she was trying to make it comprehensible to him, but she might as well have been speaking an alien language herself.

He wandered on. He wanted to escape, but how can you escape a time? You can only escape a place. Everywhere he went, he was still caught in this inexplicable future.

He'd never thought it would be like this.

He found a chair, and sat in it, staring dumbly at a junction of hallways... tunnels. Doorways. Rooms. Who'd have guessed that in fifty-five years, people would work underground in rabbit-warrens? In his imagination he had pictured skyscapers and flying cars.

He realized that Jack was sitting in one of the rooms across from him, with a device... a computer... no, what was the word, a laptop open before him. He was reading from its screen.

Jack was another misplaced vagabond of time. Some men, though mischance, are homeless. He and Jack were timeless. How had Jack learned to live in this era with such apparent ease? Perhaps it was easier to adapt when you came from the future instead of the past. Perhaps Jack had known beforehand the history of this century, this decade, and knew what to expect. Perhaps he had been prepared for all the commercialism and sexual images, the smells, the computerization and discordant noise.

But still: Jack had become his friend, a still point in the turning world. The only person he could talk to. He hesitated to go in and bother Jack while he was working, but he wanted to talk to someone who might understand - someone else who was lost in time - someone who might understand his confusion.

Jack was concentrating, and did not look up.

John might have interrupted him anyway, but before he did, Ianto Jones walked into the room where Jack was sitting. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, and put it down on the desk beside Jack's hand. Jack did not react. Ianto put a hand gently on Jack's shoulder, and spoke.

John could not hear the words, but he saw the mischievous, almost flirtatious smile on Ianto's lips. He saw Jack rise from his chair in one fluid motion, and put his arm around Ianto's waist with possessive force. He saw Jack touch Ianto's face with great tenderness. He saw them kiss.

It was not an ambiguous kiss, nor a chaste one. It was a kiss of great passion and sensuality. Ianto did not break away from Jack's embrace, or object - he returned it in kind, touch for touch, eagerly.

If this were a man and a woman, it would be a disturbing invasion of privacy to see such a kiss.

As it was, two shameless men, John could not look away, overcome with a sense of horror.

It might have been an eon later that the kiss ended. Jack was smiling. He sat again, taking a sip of his coffee. Ianto said something else, and left the room, looking merely pleased with himself.

John looked down at his feet. Perverts. He was among perverts.

Jack had been the only friend he had here. It felt like a betrayal. Doubly so for the ease and naturalness of this bizarre sexual display. In 2007... could such things be possible?

Time passed. John's feet were getting cold. He didn't know where to go, so he stayed where he was.

He did not look up when Jack came to stand beside him. "John? Are you okay?"

He forced himself to stand, to look directly at Jack. "No. I saw you kiss Ianto."

"Oh," said Jack. Then after a moment's pause, "I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"I'm not sorry I kissed Ianto. Ianto is very kissable. I'm sorry it disturbed you."

John shook his head. "Everywhere I look I see... corruption and lust." Jack's expression did not change. He looked gravely concerned, but some intuition told John that Jack was fighting an impulse to laugh out loud at him. He felt angry and humiliated. "You, too. How could you? Making that man, your employee, your catamite."

"Listen," said Jack. "Do you think people were all saints and heroes in your time? They had the same feelings, safely hidden where you could ignore them. Sex and greed - it's all a battle against loneliness, a fight against the fear of death. All the same sins, only some of them didn't need to be sins after all. People have learned that. They're learning still, learning always. Do you want me to tell you what it will be like five hundred years from now? Five thousand?" He shook his head. "Open your mind, John. It's the only way to survive."

"I can't," said John, and to his shame, his voice shook.

Jack raised a hand as if to reassure John with a touch - then dropped his hand without touching him and said, "It's a new century. Go find what's good in it."

John thought. "The coffee?" he suggested, and that raised one of Jack's genuine, generous smiles.

He felt no better, but Jack was right: this was his problem to wrestle, not theirs.

- end -

crossposted to torch_wood, jackxianto and torchwood_fic.