Fic: Something changed
Aug. 28th, 2011 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anastasisrickIf you’d like to listen (and watch) the songs (and that is an absolute recommendation) go at the previous post at:
anastasisrick.dreamwidth.org/372.html
Title: Something Changed (taken by yet another Pulp song)
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rate: PG
Summary: Jack remembers a concert ten years ago and has a surprise moment.
Length: 2330 words
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by the BBC. Songs lyrics are owned by their creators aka Jarvis Cocker & Pulp. No copyright infringement (They’re not mine…)
Note: Un betaed so all mistakes are mine… (I even take them for walks when they complain a lot) and don’t forget; English is not my first language.
Something Changed
As the sound of the bass was heard, every other noise that was prominent until that moment seized. As if on cue, everyone’s eyes turned in front of them, hands clasped together and fingers intertwined. Jack couldn’t really understand what he was doing in a late 90s concert. The twenty something year old brunette by his side chose that second to grasp his hand hesitantly reminding him all the right reasons. She smiled up at him sweetly before returning her attention on the stage. The four letters on the huge screen monopolized everyone’s attention as the music started… slowly at first. Applauding and arms raised up the audience forgot for a while their partner, or friend
“This is our Music from A Bachelors Den, the sound of loneliness turned up to ten.
A horror soundtrack from a stagnant water-bed & it sounds just like this.
This is the sound of someone losing the plot making out that they're okay when they're not.”
The voice was mesmerising and the tall, lean figure of the band’s front man caught Jack’s eye as well as everyone else’s.
Maggie leaned close to Jack as she started moving her body. Jack could imagine the by now un-bruised pale face in the dark but didn’t turn to look at her. Jack couldn’t give her what she wanted. He didn’t plan to do it; and deep down he didn’t want to. Saving her from an abusive boyfriend and a concert in the middle of the summer was all he could offer.
“When you've got the fear & when you're no longer searching for beauty or love just some kind of life with the edges taken off. When you can't even define what it is that you are frightened of this song will be here…”
The words hit a nerve Jack didn’t believe it still existed in him. The Doctor and Rose, the years he lived waiting in a strange place, a planet he didn’t want to become his and at the same time he wanted to protect with his life… lives. This world wasn’t his but after all this time Jack was this world’s. But he was afraid the Doctor would never return and he would be stack… and alone. As always.
The spastic movements and harsh voice, that long fingered hand and the long legs accompanied Jack’s musings. The man didn’t seem to stay in one place for more than a second; almost like Jack’s life was. He tried to think the man naked and really the all dressed in black leanness wasn’t helping his wayward imagination much. Maggie nudged him and moved closer to the front leaving Jack alone.
The singer started talking with his audience, well he talked and the people listened… and cheered. Jack did love the English sarcasm more than everything else when it came to British people. No one could use irony better than them. The ones that knew the meaning of the word at least.
Another song, another cheer and another… and silence while waiting the next song to begin.
“Here in the night love takes control. Making me high making me whole. I don't know. Oh no no no….”
The hundreds of the people next to, in front of and behind Jack were moving according to the seductive tune as the singer was almost making love to his microphone and kept screwing with his audience’s minds touching his body in the way most of the girls and many of the boys wanted to. The man was sexy, Jack would give him that… without being the usually beautiful one. He wasn’t trying to be controversial, he was. Of course Jack wasn’t fooling himself… some kind of drug could help too.
“So roll the soundtrack and dim the lights 'cos I'm not going home tonight. This love scene has begun. There's nothing left for us to do but get it on. Let’s make this the greatest love scene from a play no-one's thought up yet.”
A body’s warmth at his left startled him. A man was dancing nest to him, just as lean as the singer but shorter. His arms were raised up in the air and his narrow hips –covered with a baggy shirt with the inscription This is hardcore and with a smaller font Pulp. Jack started to sway as well just to be able to feel the warmth again. Those hips were as mesmerising as a cobra’s dance. The two bodies swayed together until the other man noticed the touch was not as innocent as he probably had thought. He turned his face up, looked at Jack and stammered an apology, shame flushing his face. Seeing the man was a metaphorical bucket of frozen water thrown at him… while sunbathing, as soft, wide eyes locked with his.
The man wasn’t really a man, yet. Just a boy; no more than fifteen year old, if even that, was all hard lines and innocence, gangly and clumsy, still awkward in his own body. Unless he was dancing.
“Sorry.” He leaned close to Jack, his breathing tickling the older man’s neck in ways that were illegal even in the 51st century.
“I love the way you move. Don't let anyone tell you any different tonight. You are beauty, you are class, you showed it all but you still kept a little piece back just for me.”
The words blended one to the other, sweet, whispered, short, hard, sung or talked, it didn’t matter. Despite their importance, there was something else in the air something overly erotic and aesthetic to be overlooked. A scream, an ache in the ears and the heart; just like love, and then back to magic, back to attraction. That was the night, the songs, and the people next to him. It was a way to connect and stay isolated at the same time. Jack’s own movements became softer as the half dressed girls were second voice to the man’s first…
A girl kept moving frantically next to the kid who smiled at her and wrapped his arm around her waist dismissing Jack as fast as he had seen him. Soon, same as with Jack’s date, the girl sauntered to the front leaving the boy alone to watch as the singer’s movements were getting harder and more delicate. Jack wondered if he had ever seen any other performer succeeding in being so fragile and powerful at the same time.
Just like the kid next to him, who didn’t give a damn about Jack by his side, who had turned just once to apologize and then… then nothing. If Jack had listened to the lyrics of the song playing he might have been surprised…
“You are hardcore, you make me hard. You name the drama and I'll play the part.
It seems I saw you in some teenage wet-dream. I like your get-up if you know what I mean..”
…by the time he did the boy had once again moved closer to him, or maybe had been pushed, it didn’t really matter, as the energy of the night was making Jack feeling more intensely, more alive, more himself. He could raise his arm, let it lie on the lithe shoulder and dance with him. Just dance; nothing more.
Connection and isolation. Exactly what Jack needed; what he could give. His eyes searched down to his left, locked on startled blue ones that immediately changed to understanding and smiled. Can eyes smile? Jack wondered. Apparently they could because the kid came closer and his hip touched Jack’s again, no fear, no surprise this time. And Jack smiled and felt some peace.
And the words settled in.
“Oh this is hardcore, there is no way back for you. Oh this is hardcore, this is me on top of you and I can't believe that it took me this long …This is the eye of the storm. It's what men in stained raincoats pay for. But in here it is pure, yeah. This is the end of the line…”
Did it matter that Jack was not as pure and innocent as the kid next to him? Did it matter that the song felt as if it had been written for him? Did it matter that the Doctor and Rose had never cared for him as much as he had for them?
Hell yes! It did matter. He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t deserved to be left alone. And he still didn’t deserve it. And the kid was definitely not safe dancing next to him, but then again he couldn’t think of a safer place for the boy.
A hand was wrapped around his wrist, gripping him tightly bringing him back to the present. He stared at the long fingers that with a little more tightening could leave marks on his skin. And damn it that’s another thing he deserved; marks that could stay, to remind him of what had passed, of what he lived.
*
Jack’s tired; so tired that he couldn’t believe it. He had sent Ianto home hours ago thinking he’d be able to soon follow him there, but that wasn’t the case. A phone call from UNIT in the middle of the night had kept him at his office for three more hours and nothing could get him more tired than talking on the phone with ignorants.
Driving in the streets of Cardiff was calming but not as calming as being held in Ianto’s arms, his lover’s long body wrapped tightly around his. He was certain Ianto would be asleep by the time he’d reach his home.
Boy, was he wrong or what?
Ianto’s apartment had soundproof walls –that made Jack excitingly happy, for no reason at all- so Jack couldn’t listen to anything before opening the front door. But as he did, music penetrated his senses. He quickly closed the door behind him and bent down to pull of his heavy boots.
He walked the short distance from the hall to the living room quietly and came face to back to Ianto Jones standing, moving his body seductively to a tune that wasn’t totally unfamiliar to Jack.
He closed his eyes as a memory hit.
Ten years ago.
Maggie.
A concert in the open.
A boy listening to the band and dancing almost in Jack’s arms making Jack feel alive and whole… if only for an hour.
“Oh I want you here in my heart. Here in my head. Live all your dreams for tonight here in your bed…”
The boy who after the concert was cornered in an alley by five classmates who couldn’t accept his date’s decision to go out with him and had decided to show him what means not to be a popular kid in school.
“Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits, we'd like to go to town but we can't risk it…”
Jack would never understand this time’s society need for labels and etiquettes of who’s popular and who’s not, of who’s handsome and who’s not, of who should have a date and who shouldn’t… that night seeing the kid pushed against the wall had asked Maggie to go back to the car and wait for him.
And he proceeded at showing the teenagers his opinion about what’s right and wrong. Soon there was only him and the kid on the isolated street –and he had wondered where had the people gone?- wide blue eyes staring at him.
“Thank you.” The kid had said.
“You’re welcome. What was that all about?”
“They didn’t want me to go out with Jamie. That tall guy was her brother…” He had said as if that explained everything.
“Why not?”
“We won't use guns, we won't use bombs
We'll use the one thing we've got more of - that's our minds….”
The kid had looked strangely at him and rolled his eyes in an endearing fashion.
“Look at me.” He had said looking down at him. “I’m not like them.”
“No. You’re better.”
“Thanks. Gotta go! Need to get back at home now.”
“How are you going to do that?”
And the kid had left Jack drive him to his neighbourhood never actually giving an address.
A week late Maggie was killed in an accident and Jack had never thought of that night again.
Until now.
“Now here's an exclusive: I've wanted you for years. I only needed the balls to admit it. When the unbelievable object meets the unstoppable force there's nothing you can do about it. No. I will light your cigarette with a star that has fallen from the sky. Breathe in, breathe out…”
Ianto turned around, faded red T shirt, tattered letters still saying the same thing ‘This is Hardcore’. Ianto raised his arms in the air as his hips swayed to the rhythm and the T shirt that used to be baggy stretched on the lean muscles accentuating the toned body. Jack took off his coat and walked to him, standing only some centimetres away from him.
“I love the way you move. Don't let anyone tell you any different tonight. You are beauty, you are class.” Jack said in sync with the singer.
This time his eyes didn’t wide. They smiled, just like they had a decade ago. Ianto wrapped one arm around Jack’s neck and another around his waist while the older man mimicked the move.
“And as I'm standing across this room I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this one moment. And as I touch your shoulder tonight this room has become the centre of the entire universe…”
Jack inched closer and let his lips touch Ianto’s, feel and taste, eyes open taking in the elegance.
“You’ve grown up…” He whispered against the soft lips more because he wanted to feel them against his own and less because he wanted to say something.
“You haven’t.” Ianto said smiling before taking Jack’s mouth in a long, deep kiss pulling the older man tighter against his own body.
“And if this is a dream then I'm going to sleep for the rest of my life…”
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 07:05 pm (UTC)Incidentally, it was only last night that I was pointing out to Mr wanda1969 that Jarvis Cocker was one of the sexiest men alive...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 08:51 pm (UTC)And yes! I totally agree with you! Jarvis Cocker is as you said. And I don't know why! What did your hasband say though?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 08:53 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I believe Ianto did remember; Jack doesn't change, after all. And besides the dancing he saved Ianto from a beating. That sticks to memory... Maybe something from Ianto's point of view?
Thank you again!!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 10:08 pm (UTC)I think Ianto is more likely to have remembered Jack - he must have made quite an impression. Jack meets so many people in such different circumstances it must be hard for him to remember all of them. Also, Maggie died soon after, so maybe Jack pushed everything about that time to the back of his mind.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 04:21 pm (UTC)Trying to see things from a teenage Ianto perspective will be interesting! Thanks again! :)