neverwouldiever | Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and other Sounds

"Ianto Jones, well dressed and love sick," John remarked with a cocky smile on his face, recalling Ianto with a level of fondness because he had enjoyed meeting him, even if he didn't like John even slightly and clearly was killing any chance that he'd ever get Jack back. Not that he ever had Jack in the first place, not really. He'd tried, he'd failed. Oh well. At least he got laid a lot.

"You think they kill too much? Oh please, they try to save everyone. Like you, actually. Obsessed with doing the right thing. Tedious, that is, you can't save everyone," Though hopefully he could be saved. And not in a metaphorical 'became good' way but in a not dying kind of style. "It wasn't exciting, I just did it cause I had to. Didn't have much choice."

John was silently for a moment because the way his arm was over his eyes provided a lovely kind of dark and in that foolish second, he very nearly let himself embrace the nice darkness and sink into sleep. Luckily, John caught himself before he did, blinking his eyes several times before removing his arm. "Are you done yet?"

What the hell kind of virus is that!?

Well, it's a new one. Not very pretty. There's a lot of bleeding and vomiting up organs, although so far John just bled from the nose.

Please tell me you can fix this. I really don't want him to die.

I don't know yet, Jack. I'm doing all I can.

"What? You want me to keep doing it forever? Or like a set amount of time?" John knew what Jack meant but he couldn't resist teasing. John didn't make promises like that, he knew he couldn't keep them. When things got hard, tricky or just awkward, all he wanted to do was lash out and hurt as much as he could. And it wasn't for a lack of trying, he was just very much set in his ways. It was easier t be a hedonist, it was easier to kill people for money and hell, it was easier to lash out. Surely Jack understood that better than anyone.

"I can try. How's that? If I try to be my absolute best, will that make you happy?" Of course his absolute best had leeway but he wasn't going to bring that up. Nah, he was just going to keep on enjoying the way Jack was touching him. Yep, definitely felt nice. Worthy of any lies and sweet words he had to give. "How about I just reel in the murders a little and cut back on the weapons?"

"No. It's not that easy. I'm not going to bore you with the science of it." The Doctor sighed and studied another sample through the microscope for several seconds before pulling away and rubbing the back of his head. "Tell me, how many people are looking for you in your own century? I mean, I can use the TARDIS to just break in and out of a hospital... I should probably do that anyway, I really don't want to risk this thing spreading."

As he thought out loud he walked closer to John, noticing how sleepy he appeared. Damn it, this was not good, not good at all. "Er. What keeps you awake? We can't risk caffeine... I don't know, sexual fantasies? Anything, come on."

"I can't ask you to take them out entirely, but dialing it back would be a nice place to start. Less murder, more self-defence." He knew that he was asking a lot of John. After all, how much impact could he have when John had been in and out of rehab so many times for these problems already? "But yes, it would make me happy." He let himself smile a little. "I'd like to know that I maybe had some positive impact on you."

He shifted his focus a little, scrubbing a little at John's face before letting him go. "You should finish up and dry off. I'll go ask how much longer the decontamination of the TARDIS is going to be. Maybe we can still have some time together before he takes me back." He ran a hand through his damp hair and started toward the door of the chamber.

"How many? Er, lost count. A lot? I mean a lot too, not just a few. I'm sort of wanted in most galaxies for robberies, assassinations, murders, I like to make it different every time. The bounty on my head is pretty impressive, actually," What? Why not brag? He felt proud that he was worth something at least. Even if it was money to kill him off. It was the first time in life he actually felt valued, when he saw the money his head could get someone.

"Very few drugs have alerting properties, caffeine never worked on me and sex just makes me think of lying on a bed... not a good train of thought," Closing his eyes again he stretched out and exhaled slowly. What could he do to keep awake and not hurt his eyes with the light? "Got a shot of anything that can work? Keep my brain awake?"

"Good for you. Breaking into a hospital it is, if necessary. But that would mean leaving you alone." The Doctor groaned in frustration, but then his eyes lit up. "Can't really risk any drugs with you right now, John, but..." He closed the distance between them and knelt down next to him, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and using it on the man's vortex manipulator. "Ta-da!" Definitely a ta-da moment. He pulled away and watched him in anticipation. "I've wired it to watch your vitals. It should give you an electric shock every time you're about to pass out."

"It's not like most the bastards I kill don't have it coming. I'm walking karma, I am. You've seen the people I get paid to take out, I rarely feel all that bad for them," John did often get contracts to assassinate the worst of the worst so no, he wouldn't stop that. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't doing anything wrong there. But okay, yeah, the randomly killing anyone in his way could be scaled back. If it had to be at least. "Hey, you had a lot of positive impact. I just forgot a lot of it and time want by, it's hard to keep on top."

When Jack wasn't here constantly, it was a little hard to keep his life lessons at heart. Wiping the water from his face, John grabbed a nearby towel and started to dry his hair up. He wasn't standing around in a shower for ages while Jack buggered off so safe or not, he was getting out. "Tell the Doc I'm not nuclear any more, would you?"

"What? I'm sorry, how is that helpful at all?" John asked with a pout because honestly, he didn't really fancy the idea of being shocked every time he got tired. Huffing in annoyance, he looked down at his strap where his vitals were displayed then gave the Doctor a small confused look because the Doctor was meant to be working on saving him and his vitals looked like shit. These were the vitals of a dead man. "Shit... I'm really bad, aren't I?"

"Well, it's going to be painful, but it will keep you awake." The way John looked at him tugged on his hearts in the worst way and he swallowed, although he met his gaze steadily. "Yeah. Yeah, you are. But it's gonna be alright. I only need maybe another..." He looked back to the machine, walking toward it again and taking yet another look through the microscope. Damn. "It won't be much longer. Promise." He had no idea.

"Don't make promises if you can't keep them. That's why I never make a promise to Jack," John pointed out becuse he wasn't entirely sure the Doctor was going to save him. Sure the nose bleed had stopped but he could still taste copper, the light still hurt and clearly he was not doing too good. "Go, work, don't stand here talking to me. It's fine, I can't fall asleep, can I?" No, he just had to sit here and keep himself awake and not dead.

Jack raised an eyebrow as John spoke about the people he killed. He wasn't supposed to be proud of it. After all, how else could he help convince him to change? Still, the compliment made his face soften, and he even smiled. "You always did have a hard time getting on top." He winked and left the chamber to turn off the spray and find a towel of his own to dry off with.

Jack had to step away from John. He knew that the TARDIS wasn't really in much danger of being irradiated. After all, it was able to handle everything that outer space and the time vortex had to throw at it and make it out just fine. He just needed some space before he fell back in love with John, which was remarkably easy to do, especially when he was being sweet and honest like that. It wasn't fair. Jack was supposed to be better than this; over it and John entirely. Still, he wrapped himself in his towel and went to seek out the Doctor. Maybe he could provide some insight.

The Doctor was halfway under the console, tinkering with something or other, mostly to distract himself and gather his thoughts. This was all a lot more than he had expected today and part of him regretted picking Jack up. Maybe he could have thought of another solution, perhaps even a better one, but this had seemed like such an obvious pick all until he'd seen him entangled with John. Now this mess.

Only his lower half peeked out, the sound of the sonic audible, as well as some banging. The usual.

He was initially a little cold, but found as he dried off that he was warming up quite nicely. Of course, maybe some of that had to do with nearing the warm TARDIS control room. He spots the Doctor's long legs sticking out from underneath the console and circled round until he was in front of him on the lower level, leaning on the railing to smile at him.

"She doesn't sound broken," he teased. "What're you doing under there?"

"Breaking her, probably," the Doctor admitted, moving out from under the console and then sitting up just enough to lean back against it and look at Jack. Forget about the whole fixed point in time issue, the really vexing thing about the man was that he knew enough about mechanics to be very hard to bullshit by pretending to have to do something or other with the console.

"Nice outfit. Bit breezy, isn't it?"

"A bit. I've dealt with worse." Jack smiled at him. "More comfortable than dealing with John at the moment, so I'll manage." He tilted his head, trying to imagine what it was he was doing under the console.

"I'm pretty sure you just break her so you have something to fix... and an excuse to go somewhere." It sounded plausible enough for the Doctor to do, certainly. It can get very boring, after all. "He apologised... sort of. I'm not sure whether to fully believe him but... I don't think he meant to hurt you... so I thought I'd come and apologise to you on his behalf."

"Well, he'd be really terrible at hurting me if he actually intended to do it with an unloaded gun." The Doctor looked at Jack, absently tapping his screwdriver against the side of his head. "You shouldn't feel responsible. I picked both of you up. It's not your fault that he is who he is. I think we all have enough to do just feeling responsible for what we do. Definitely shouldn't start going around feeling responsible for things outside our control."

The most hypothetical advice, but what else was new? "Do you still want me to drop him off at a prison?"

"There's plenty you can do with an unloaded gun if you're creative." Sadly, John was a very creative man. Still, the Doctor had a point, he supposed. It wasn't much use trying to change John if he didn't want to change... but then so many people had gotten hurt because of him, so of course Jack felt somewhat responsible.

"I suppose not... but I'd still want to change it if I could. John's done... a lot of bad things. but he's also done a lot of good, believe it or not." Jack sighed and folded his arms on the railing, resting his chin on them. "I just... feel like a babysitter sometimes."

Jack sincerely didn't know whether he wanted John to go back to prison just yet. He was certain he'd end up there eventually, but they were having fun still... right? "What would you do?"

"I can believe that. Most people have done good and bad. And very often the ones with the greatest capacity for bad can also do a lot of good." The Doctor looked past Jack, absently turning a lever of the console. "And the other way round." He ran a hand through his hair and ended up first tugging at it and then rubbing his earlobe between two fingers as he looked at Jack. What a question. Who was he to make such decisions? It was so tempting to make these decisions. But make them properly. Go back in time and keep John from ever becoming the man who'd end up disappointing Jack again and again.

"...I don't know, Jack." What would he do? What would he have done with the Master? What would he do if the Master came back, as he was starting to believe? "I don't know what I'd do."

He let out a slow breath and shrugged. "You have your team to think of. Ianto."

"He's not good for my team. I don't want him to go to jail, I think, but I don't trust him free, either." He sighed again and closed his eyes. "He can't be trusted on his own, and I can't watch him all the time. He sucks me in and I can't get away. He means too much to me." Yes, he was admitting that maybe he still felt something there. "I hate it. It just means that I can't disconnect like I can with other people... really inconvenient in times like this."

He laughed a little and opened his eyes to look at the Doctor, a fond look on his face. "I don't know how to be moderate like you. I'm either too harsh or too kind... How do you do it?"

"Because, Jack, whenever I try to really do all I'm capable of, the outcome is..." The Doctor trailed off, rubbing his eye before slowly lowering his hand. "I've made too many mistakes already. Tried to stop things that shouldn't be stopped and caused things that wouldn't have happened if I'd just..." Trailing off again he shook his head.

"The man you think I am, Jack, I don't believe he exists. And if he does, you're closer to being him than I am. I'm just an idiot who can't stop meddling."

"Your meddling helps people, though. It helped me." He nodded in the direction he'd come from earlier. "When you met me, I was closer to being John and anything... and you helped me. You probably saved me." Jack smiled at him and ran a hand through his damp hair.

"We all make mistakes, I guess is what I'm trying to say... And if you tell me that I shouldn't let mine bother me, then you shouldn't let yours, either. Sound like a fair trade"

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and other Sounds

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