#029 Spurious - Torchwood - Just This Once
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vocab_drabblesTitle: Just This Once
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Words: 342
Summary: Are happy endings possible, or just a fantasy?
Warning: Deals with grieving
Those old sayings about time healing and how it gets better are particularly vicious pieces of spurious advice. A lie intended to make the utterer feel better about being helpless to do anything useful: those on the other side knew only too well.
Contrary to popular rumor that claimed Jack a playboy who regularly bedded men, women, and aliens and didn’t do domestic, he’d settled down – more than once. It always ended in heartbreak or death, usually both. He’d lived long enough, too long.
It was the sound of silence when you walk into the house you’d shared and realized the laughter was gone forever. Making too much food, then staring at the empty place at the table while you choked down your meal. Seeing something they would love and turning to comment on it only to find no one next to you. Watching a favorite show on television and pretending they were sitting on the couch with you, holding an imaginary conversation over plot points.
The worst were the nights. The bed was too big, too cold. There was no comforting presence in the darkness to soothe the nightmares. Just because you learned to live with emptiness didn’t mean you healed from it.
No one gets a happy ending, Ianto had once told him. Those who are mortal end up dead sooner or later, gone as if they’d never lived. While Jack was condemned to live and remember forever. All anyone could do is make the time between as meaningful as possible.
Sometimes though, every once in a while, something amazing happens. Everyone deserves it, but almost no one gets it—the happy ending.
“You’re thinking too loudly over there,” Ianto murmured into the darkness, sliding closer to Jack in the bed and wrapping his arms around him. “Bad dreams?”
They’d both had their share of nightmares in the past 500 years but never had to suffer them alone. That made all the difference.
Jack shook his head, pressing his lips to Ianto’s neck. “Just thinking about how lucky I am.”
The end
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Words: 342
Summary: Are happy endings possible, or just a fantasy?
Warning: Deals with grieving
Those old sayings about time healing and how it gets better are particularly vicious pieces of spurious advice. A lie intended to make the utterer feel better about being helpless to do anything useful: those on the other side knew only too well.
Contrary to popular rumor that claimed Jack a playboy who regularly bedded men, women, and aliens and didn’t do domestic, he’d settled down – more than once. It always ended in heartbreak or death, usually both. He’d lived long enough, too long.
It was the sound of silence when you walk into the house you’d shared and realized the laughter was gone forever. Making too much food, then staring at the empty place at the table while you choked down your meal. Seeing something they would love and turning to comment on it only to find no one next to you. Watching a favorite show on television and pretending they were sitting on the couch with you, holding an imaginary conversation over plot points.
The worst were the nights. The bed was too big, too cold. There was no comforting presence in the darkness to soothe the nightmares. Just because you learned to live with emptiness didn’t mean you healed from it.
No one gets a happy ending, Ianto had once told him. Those who are mortal end up dead sooner or later, gone as if they’d never lived. While Jack was condemned to live and remember forever. All anyone could do is make the time between as meaningful as possible.
Sometimes though, every once in a while, something amazing happens. Everyone deserves it, but almost no one gets it—the happy ending.
“You’re thinking too loudly over there,” Ianto murmured into the darkness, sliding closer to Jack in the bed and wrapping his arms around him. “Bad dreams?”
They’d both had their share of nightmares in the past 500 years but never had to suffer them alone. That made all the difference.
Jack shook his head, pressing his lips to Ianto’s neck. “Just thinking about how lucky I am.”
The end
no subject
Date: 2022-10-05 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-06 02:43 am (UTC)It's hard to imagine, but I think having a companion that you weren't going to outlive would help a lot.