Ianto Jones (
torchwoodteaboy) wrote2010-11-25 01:58 pm
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[RL WITH SULU]
Ianto lay in his bed upstairs, a book laying face down on his chest. He had been trying to read for the better part of an hour, but had found himself drifting more often than not, and on the third read-through of the same page he'd given up and just put it down. And he'd been drifting since then as well, not really awake enough to be doing anything other than just lying there, not really tired enough to really go to sleep. More and more each day, while no one else was around, he found himself in this sort of a state, a sort of standby mode that was disturbing in the fact that it didn't really bother him. That nothing really bothered him anymore, because he really couldn't dredge up enough energy to be bothered about it.
He brought a hand up to his face, running it across his eyes. He...he couldn't keep lying to himself like this. At first he thought it had simply been his imagination, that things were just progressing slowly, that was all. For all that he had worried that things wouldn't get better, he had hoped that they would, Sulu continuously helping him be optimistic in that fact, and so the fact that he was going backwards, now, getting worse, it... It was crushing. And he had no idea what he was going to do about it. No idea. The even worse fact of the matter was that he was slowly convincing himself that there was nothing to do about it. That he'd never get better. That it was too late, and he couldn't do anything about it now even if he tried. Which was the mindset he kept spiraling down and dragging himself out of as it approached that time when Sulu would be making his appearance for the night.
He brought a hand up to his face, running it across his eyes. He...he couldn't keep lying to himself like this. At first he thought it had simply been his imagination, that things were just progressing slowly, that was all. For all that he had worried that things wouldn't get better, he had hoped that they would, Sulu continuously helping him be optimistic in that fact, and so the fact that he was going backwards, now, getting worse, it... It was crushing. And he had no idea what he was going to do about it. No idea. The even worse fact of the matter was that he was slowly convincing himself that there was nothing to do about it. That he'd never get better. That it was too late, and he couldn't do anything about it now even if he tried. Which was the mindset he kept spiraling down and dragging himself out of as it approached that time when Sulu would be making his appearance for the night.
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Ianto bit his lip. "I... I didn't think it would get worse," he said quietly.
Jack shook his head in disbelief. "All of those times I came in to check up on you, ask you how you were doing. You lied. You lied every single time."
Ianto wanted nothing more than to just sink back in his chair and vanish into thin air. "...I didn't want to worry you," he said. "I've been ill a lot, recently. I. In case this was the end, I. I didn't want you to be upset about what was happening to me."
"...you're feeling like you're going to pass out every time you stand up, and you didn't tell us?" Jack spat at Ianto, the fear that he had for the fact that this was bad, this was really bad, morphing into an intense rage. "What else are you keeping from us, Ianto?!" he raged.
Ianto shook his head. "I...what? I'm not..."
Jack stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Like hell I believe that, Ianto, I know you!" He shook his head, almost forgetting that Sulu was there with them at all. "You're using me, Ianto! You're using me again! And this time Lisa's not around as a convenient scapegoat for your lying, now is she?!"
Ianto took in a quick breath, the flippant mention of her name cutting deep. "You leave her out of his, Jack!" he said, sharply.
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That wasn't going to help. And what was more - Jack's exclamation, that Ianto was using him, just didn't make sense. Though he found himself wondering, what if Ianto was hiding more from them, what if there was more he wasn't telling them - he couldn't think like that. He couldn't imagine Ianto keeping anything else, not after how upset he'd been about this situation itself and how guilty he felt. Sulu was far too optimistic to think anything less of the other man.
"Jack," Sulu said instead, tone firm, "He's not lying about anything else. This is all he has to lie about. He hasn't even been outside, how could he have anything else to hide?" Sulu realized that was harsh, and maybe it would sting for Ianto, but he couldn't help it. It was the truth. He could only hope it was all true, even the part about him not hiding anything else. "I know you're pissed, believe me, but don't lash out in anger."
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"Jack, please," Ianto said. "I... No. It's not like that. I. I mean, I lied to you about this, but. Not. Only this, I... I swear."
"Give me one good reason why I should believe you, Ianto," Jack said. "Give me one good reason why you would hide something like this from us."
"I..." Ianto stuttered. "I didn't want to worry you."
"So you were going to let yourself die instead?" Jack spat. "God, Ianto. I know you're sick, but you're not stupid. Why in the hell did you even think that keeping this from us would have been a good idea? You... Don't you even care about us at all? About me? Or was that a lie, too...?"
"Jack," Ianto ground out, chewing his lip, his eyebrows furrowing as Jack's words cut deep. "You're... You're not being fair."
"I'm not being fair?!" Jack exclaimed. "You weren't even going to tell us, were you?! You were just going to let it all happen, and then if we came here to find you dead again, at least we had this one month where we were fooled into thinking that everything was going to be okay. Is that what you thought? Is it?!"
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The fact was that Ianto was sick and they needed to fix it. He had known Jack wouldn't be able to hold back from saying anything to Ianto, but he had hoped the other man would have held back from lashing out. "Pride and fear can keep you from telling people all sorts of things, even if they're people you care about, and while I am in all honesty on your side here, yelling at him isn't going to help." In fact, it might make things worse. He didn't want that, and he knew Jack didn't either.
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"Well, what do you think is going to help, then, hm?" he asked, turning to pin his narrowed eyes on Sulu. "What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? I'd give up anything to keep him alive, and he's just going to throw that away because he doesn't want me to be upset about him? How am I supposed to react? Because from the way I see it, that's something that I have a right to be angry about. And if you really do feel the same way, then don't tell me that you aren't angry too."
He turned on Ianto. "What if you'd passed out on the stairs? What if we came back and found you gone because of something involved in this? Do you really think that that would be the better option, rather than just letting us know? Do you really think that?"
Ianto stayed quiet for a moment, lowering his eyes to the mug of tea on the table in front of him that he desperately wished he could just drink and make all of this bad stuff go away. "...no," he said, after a moment, honestly. "I... I don't. I just," he said, raising his head to look at both of them, "I didn't know how to tell you..."
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Sulu looked at Ianto as he spoke, his expression softening and, all right, Ianto was the one person in the universe Sulu couldn't imagine being angry at for long. He knew he was still upset and that it'd come back as soon as he looked away from the other man, but... it was hard to want to take it out on him. He looked back at Jack and gestured slightly, as if he could point to the entire situation they'd found themselves in.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do to help Ianto, either, Jack." He realized his voice was tight, and he forced himself to take a breath before continuing, looking back to Ianto, unable to keep all of the distress he was feeling out of his expression. "And you know that - we'd both do anything for you."
Looking at Jack once again, he said, abandoning all pretense of being good for the sake of being good, "I'm asking you to not yell because I don't know what'll happen if this turns into a real fight, and I don't want to deal with it on top of all this bullshit. " For all they knew, getting yelled at could upset Ianto to the point where he died from the shock alone. Not to mention, if Sulu kept struggling to hold everything in, it could come to blows.
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Ianto shut his eyes, taking in a shaky breath. "I... I don't know, Jack. I do trust you, though. I trust both of you. More than anyone. But, I..." He shook his head. "I... I don't know."
A muscle in Jack's jaw clenched, and his breathing picked up. He wanted to yell, he wanted to scream and rage at the other man, and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, toying with him like that. But the fact of the matter was that he agreed with Sulu, at least to some extent. He didn't know what would happen if he made Ianto upset enough. So...he did the only thing he could think of.
"Fine," he said, tightly, angrily. "Fine. If... If that's how it's going to be, then fine." He took a step back from the table. "I can't do this. You can't keep doing this. Call me when you've figured it out. Then we'll talk." He turned on his heel and headed out towards the hallway.
"Jack!" Ianto called out, sounding every bit as upset with how things were going as he was.
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He put his hand on Ianto's shoulder briefly, giving it a squeeze. "I'm going to go talk to him. Don't worry." He knew that would be impossible, but he had to say it. Ianto had tea that would help, at least. Sulu... was going to deal with this the best way he knew how.
Following Jack down the hall, he jogged a bit to catch up with him, and then passed him just enough to grab the greatcoat from the chair it had been left on. All right, so maybe this wasn't his best way to deal with it, but it was all he could come up with to keep Jack from leaving. "Running away isn't going to help, Jack." His voice was tight and clipped, but his expression revealed much more of his emotionally turbulent state.
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Jack glared at Sulu, wishing that he'd thought to leave his coat on so that the other man wouldn't be able to keep him like this. "First you don't want me to be angry, and now you don't want me to leave. You know what? All of this trying to dictate how I can and cannot react is really starting to piss me off," he said, his eyes narrowed. He held out a hand. "Give me back my coat, Lieutenant," he commanded, using the best authoritative tone that he could muster, at that moment.
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"I'm not telling you not to be angry. I can't do that when you have every right to be angry. We both have every right to be angry. Hell, we both are angry! But Ianto needs us despite this." Despite lying to them, despite wanting to hold this back so everyone could be happy, despite being so dumb as to think they would prefer not knowing, Ianto was the one person the two of them felt strongly enough about to go through this for. And they would do anything for him - for Sulu, that included tolerating the lying until they could really discuss it. "He needs us, Jack, and I can't let you leave like this. I can't do this alone as it is, and if you leave right now..." He wasn't sure he'd be able to help Ianto out of whatever chasm he fell in because of it.
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Jack stepped closer to Sulu, lowering his voice, letting a little bit of his hurt rear its head above his anger for a moment. "He's done this before," Jack said, thrusting his hand in the direction of the kitchen as he spoke, his voice low but still forceful. "He's kept things, things that...that he should have let me know about. Serious issues, Sulu. And he told me that he'd change those times, too. What the hell am I supposed to do, here? How do I know that he's not lying again?"
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"There's no way to know," Sulu said, hurt tinging his voice. "I don't know, Jack, but. I know that he didn't do this out of spite. He couldn't have. Ianto doesn't do things like this out of spite or malice. You." He swallowed, moving to lean against the wall nearest them, rubbing his face with his hands before tilting his head up to look at Jack, taking a deep breath. "You're not supposed to do anything. There's no right answer here. But. If. If this is - if this is it," and now he knew he wasn't in control of what he was saying, so he closed his eyes and turned his head away, keeping his voice low, "If this is all we have left, do you really want to walk out on it now?"
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"If this is all we have left," he said softly, "then I would have liked to have known this a lot sooner. So I could've been around a lot more, rather than chasing down ghost stories in Caerphilly Castle. If... If this is all we have left, then..." He bit his lip. "Then it isn't fair. We deserve more. He deserves more than this last month that he's had. Then that's all the more reason he should have told us. So that we could've been there, we could've done something. Even...even if it was only spending more time with him, even if that's all we could have done, then at least we would've been able to do that. Because...if things really are as bad as he says they are. If...if this really is all that there is... He's got days, Sulu. If even."
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He choked on his words for a moment, struggling to get all his thoughts in line and to kick them back into the optimism he'd had just before Jack had arrived. It would be all right, it would, damn it. It had to be. "...At the very least," he finally started again, weakly, "He might be able to treat the symptoms. To make it better while..."
He shook his head again, harder, reaching up to grip his hair with both his hands before letting them drop to his sides once more, focusing on Jack again. "We fought to get him back the first time, and we can't give up now. One last roadblock, that's all this is. I. I care for him so much, Jack." He could only hope Jack knew exactly what he meant when he said that. "And I can't let him down now."
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He opened his eyes, and looked to Sulu. Really looked at him, as an equal, as a man who knew exactly what he was going through here, who knew exactly what was on the line, what they had to lose in losing this one person that was so dear to both of them. And he couldn't let Sulu down in that moment either. As much as he wanted to just run away until it all fixed itself, that was a luxury he couldn't afford.
"Fine," he said, softly. He reached out, gently taking his coat from Sulu and hanging it back over the back of the chair, hoping that the gesture spoke for itself. "...so what do we do now, then?" he asked softly, turning to look at Sulu, questioningly.
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Finally, he sighed and spoke, knowing that whatever he said would be better than staying quiet. "We forgive Ianto for this. At least for now. And then we'll drink tea to calm ourselves down, take Ianto up to bed and try hard to just enjoy what we have while we have it." Because really, that's all they could do.
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He took in another breath, letting it out in a soft sigh, before nodding at the other man. "Yeah, alright. Together. Let's just. Let's just enjoy what we've got while we've got it together, then," he said, letting it be known that he wasn't looking to kick Sulu out to spend time with Ianto, that he was perfectly capable of sharing like always. He gave the other man a look after that, though. "...what's this about having some tea to calm down?" he asked, with a look, his voice lighter than it'd been since he'd arrived in the flat.
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He had to stop thinking like that. He needed to focus on helping Ianto get better, and he needed to be at the top of his game for both Jack and Ianto. So, he smiled wider and tilted his head towards the kitchen. "I brought down some of that feel good tea I've got. I thought it might help Ianto feel a little better, and it seemed to work." He lifted a hand to rest it on Jack's shoulder. "It might work for us too. If you want some, I mean - I know how opposed you are to tea."
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"I think this time around, I might be able to make an exception. Especially if that tea works as well as I remember it working," he said, with a smile. He kept his hand there for a moment longer, before bringing it down to his side again. "Alright, then," he said, taking in a breath. "Let's...let's go back in there and face the music then, I guess," he said. He couldn't say that he was exactly ready to be facing Ianto again, not really, but it was like Sulu had emphasized. They weren't sure how much time they did have left, and so what use was it wasting it being angry at him, when they could at least be helping out in some way.
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"He'll just be glad we're not going to deal with it right now," Sulu said quietly, moving away from Jack and towards the kitchen again. "And honestly, I'll be glad that we aren't. I'm going to need a very good vacation after this whole thing is over." And it was true; Sulu felt like he was going to need some time to recuperate, to get back that level of optimism that he'd had before everything had gone to hell.
When he entered the kitchen, he noticed that Ianto was resting with his head on his arms, eyes closed. For one terrible split second, Sulu almost wondered - but no, he could see Ianto's body moving slightly with his breath. He smiled a little sadly and looked back at Jack. "Looks like he's not going to be very active tonight," he said, as though the both of them hadn't already known that. "Here, if you wake him up, I can make sure the tea's still hot enough to drink."
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"Alright," he said, agreeing to Sulu's deal about waking Ianto up while he checked on the tea. Standing over Ianto, Jack sighed for a moment, before crouching beside his chair and putting a hand on his arm, his other on his shoulder and shaking him gently. "Ianto..." he said, softly.
Ianto's blinked his eyes open blearily, blinking at Jack, momentarily confused before he realized what got him in this position, what had just happened. The fact that Jack was still there... Well. It was a relief, to say the least. He was definitely going to have to thank Sulu for whatever it was that he'd had to deal with from Jack after the pair of them stepped out of the room, that was for sure. "...you're still here," he said, softly.
Jack reached out a hand, running it through Ianto's hair and sighing at him. He was still a bit angry at the other man, but. It wasn't anything that he couldn't push aside and deal with later, he decided. "Yeah," Jack answered. "I... I guess I am."
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"I'm going to get a hold of McCoy once I know he's awake," he told Ianto, hearing his voice reflect the effects of the tea on his mood. "We're going to get this fixed." He wasn't going to bring up what had happened before; he thought it best to let that dog lie for now, and deal with it once everything else was in the right order.
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Jack and Ianto both took respective sips of their own tea, and each felt the substance taking its own version of its effects on them. Both of their moods improved, but for Jack it was more of an aid in helping him come down off of his tirade, helping him push aside emotions that weren't going to help them in the situation, while for Ianto it was more about bringing the positive emotions up and out of the pit of fear that had settled in his stomach when he'd thought for a moment that...Jack was going to walk out on him, and well. There was a chance that he might never see him again, if he did.
Ianto nodded at Sulu's words, being reassured as much as Jack was that they had a plan, as simple and straightforward as it was. "Yeah, alright," he said, quietly. "I... I hope that he'll agree to it, like you said he will. I mean. I trust that he will, since you believe in him, I just. He really doesn't have to, or anything. I'm not a crew member."
Jack shrugged. "But you are a patient. And he's a doctor. Trust me when I say that doctors really do like fixing problems and making people feel better. Even if they aren't obligated to be doing so." He turned to Sulu, looking for a response. "I trust that this Doctor McCoy is the same, right?"
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He shrugged and sipped at his tea before adding, "And it wouldn't matter anyway. Your health affects my health, and as an officer, it's important that I'm not distracted from my duties. Even if he wasn't the best doctor you could ask for, he'd still help on that fact alone." But McCoy was the best doctor Starfleet had to offer, as far as Sulu was concerned. His entire crew was the best. "I know that he'll be able to help, and willing to as well." He had to, there was no other way this would work. If McCoy didn't know what to do... who else would?
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He nodded, slowly. "Yeah, alright. I'll... We'll go to Doctor McCoy, then. As soon as he'll have me, after you talk to him. Anything... Anything I can do to make things better, I. I will. I." He swallowed, and took a fortifying sip of his tea before he said, "I haven't given up on you. Not now. Especially not now. If. If there's something for McCoy to fix, then. We'll try to have him fix it." This can't be the way things end, it can't. Not when there was so much more to do. Ianto wasn't quitting on either of them. Not by a long shot.
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