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It’s an acrid kind of smell, potent and invasive, like petrol with none of the sweetness. Ianto’s given up trying to wash it out from his car. It’s settled in the fibres of the seat, wormed its way into all of the crevices — the pockets in the doors, the slits between the gearstick.
John’s body had been in the back when Jack brought it in, steered it into the garage with that grim-faced determination Ianto had come to associate with death, with Jack’s own special brand of grief.
He’d pulled up, turned off the engine and sat there in the driver’s seat with a white-knuckled grip around the wheel.
Ianto didn’t ask. Jack didn’t tell.
He just stood, listlessly, amongst the lingering scent of carbon monoxide when Ianto opened the door for him, jaw clenched and fists balled.
An hour later and John’s body had been stashed in the morgue ready for Owen the morning after and Jack had long since barred himself away in his office, a steadily depleting bottle of scotch by his arm.
And still, Ianto hasn’t gone home — isn’t sure he can quite work up the courage to get into the car. Not while it still smells like that — fumes and death and that heavy sort of desolation.
But there’s nothing else for him to do around the hub and Christmas Eve or not there’s not anything for him to rush back to; Rhiannon wasn’t expecting him until Boxing Day at the earliest, and his own flat was nothing but a glorified hotel room most of the time. He can’t even remember the last time he stocked his fridge.
So he opens the doors to his car — all of them, the boot, too, for good measure — and airs it all out, a bucket and cloth by his feet full of warm soapy water that’s long since turned cold.
Christ, he’d liked this car. It was one of the only things he could bear to keep with him from London. It’d seen nights out and early mornings and coffee runs and Lisa, sat up front with their friends in the back, buzzing with that restless energy on a Friday night — back when happiness had been synonymous with freedom. Back before the Battle of Canary Wharf, back before the Daleks and the Cybermen, back when his life had been filing and research and Torchwood, still, but a different, quieter breed.
It’s fitting, he supposes, that Jack’s the one to tarnish it. Poetic in a way that makes him smile, despite it all.
“I’ll replace it.”
Jack’s voice sounds from behind him, tired and slurred around the vowels. Ianto refuses to jump.
“That’s not necessary, sir.”
He can tell without turning that Jack’s not looking at him. Then again he hasn’t properly looked back either. They both just stand, staring wide-eyed and silent through the windshield.
“Go home, Ianto,” Jack says finally, dragging a hand across his brow. His fingers tremble against his hairline.
“Later.”
“It wasn’t a request. It’s Christmas Eve. Just— go home. Sleep, if nothing else. Everything else can wait.”
“Christmas Day,” Ianto corrects and Jack blinks at him, heavy and confused. “It’s past midnight,” he clarifies. Then, “Merry Christmas, sir.”
Jack smiles, wry. “And here I thought they couldn’t get worse.”
“It’s not all bad.”
“Oh, yeah? You seeing something I’m not?”
Ianto glances at the car again, sees the image of John’s body in the back seat, superimposed grotesquely over memories of him and Lisa, an abstract art of mismatched bodies.
“Probably,” Ianto admits. “But that’s not what I meant.”
Jack’s steps forward until they’re in line, arms pressed from shoulder to wrist. Ianto leans into it slightly, enough for Jack to know the contact’s permitted, not enough to impose. A moment later and Jack’s fingers curl around his wrist, hold firm and tight and warm.
Ianto tucks his pinky finger into Jack’s trouser pocket, tethers them together. “You helped a man find peace, sir.” I just wish it hadn’t been in my bloody car.
“I helped him kill himself, Ianto,” Jack says slowly. His hand trembles at Ianto’s wrist.
“Yes, but he would have done it either way. You made sure he didn’t have to do it alone.”
And then because Ianto can tell from the tension in his shoulders that Jack’s not going to do it himself, Ianto turns for him — tilts his head down slightly to press his brow to Jack’s chest, just beneath his chin. Waits, patiently, for Jack to respond; arms raising hesitantly and then all at once, wrapping tight and strong around Ianto’s waist.
“I could’ve found him like that, or been a minute too late to make a difference,” Jack says and when Ianto inhales it’s to that same sickly scent of gas, this time undercut with Jack, heady and familiar.
“You could’ve. But you smell the same as the car.”
Jack’s arms tighten. “I did drive it back.”
It’s almost laughable, Jack’s blind ignorance. Or it would be if the circumstances were different — if they weren’t standing in the middle of the garage in the small hours of Christmas morning, surrounded by the stench of gas and death and loss.
Because Ianto knows. How couldn’t he? Jack’s discretion is flimsy at best when he thinks nobody is paying attention, and Gwen can’t keep a secret for the life of her; not in that flitting, nervous demeanour she gets sometimes — the stalled speech whenever anybody gets too close to the topic of Jack and death.
That and Torchwood One had more records on Jack than they did just about anybody else, including dozens and dozens and dozens of death certificates. It had been a morbid fascination of Ianto’s in those first few months. Unrolling and reading over each slip of paper, timestamped and dated with meticulous care, the cause of death printed first in a neat script and then later in unassuming Times New Roman. Now the thought of it all leaves bile burning at the back of his throat.
“Yes, well, in life or death situations you do tend to have a knack for showing up at the right time. Shame it doesn’t transfer to other areas of the job, really.”
“This about that paperwork again? It’s Christmas, I can take a few days off.”
“It’s UNIT; they don’t do Christmas. Or days off.”
Jack’s nose brushes against his head in answer, nestled in his hair and Ianto hopes that he doesn’t smell as strongly as the garage does, as the air permeating from the car’s interior still. Jack doesn’t comment if he does — just presses closer and breathes steadily.
“Either way,” Ianto says when Jack’s stopped trembling, when he stands still and sure around Ianto, swaying slightly on his feet, fatigue and grief intermingled, “I think that you should shower — wash out the worst of it. I’ll even put a pot of coffee on, if you’re good.”
“Or you could join me.”
A refusal is on the tip of his tongue — a stern command that withers when he next inhales, catches that same pinching scent that makes his head spin with it all. It’s already seeped into his clothes and beneath them to his skin, settled into every crease.
He’ll have to shower either way. Christ, he reckons he'll have to soak for at least twenty minutes to get it all out, wash with Owen’s industrial-strength soap they keep for chemical emergencies. And in truth he’s not sure how much longer he can tolerate the smell. Already nausea squirms slickly in his stomach, turning from the smell that gathers thickly in his throat; spills into his eyes and mouth and ears until he feels he’s drowning in it.
“To shower — nothing else,” Ianto says instead, stern, and Jack smiles against his cheek, hands already trailing up and under Ianto’s waistcoat. They stroke gently over his ribs, featherlight through the fabric of his shirt, tender in a way they haven’t been before; desperate, too, in how they cling to him, hold him close and firm. Ianto feels his resolve collapse in on itself, pulls away only to kiss Jack once, chaste and fleeting. “And only because it’s Christmas.”