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Jack looked up at about ten minutes until midnight and realised that it was, in fact, ten minutes until midnight. He stared at the time, confused. When had that happened? It felt like just minutes ago that he had sat down to (finally) write these reports. Four hours? Somehow, that didn't feel right.
With a sigh, he set his pencil down and stacked the papers haphazardly aside. He craned his neck, this way and that, letting it pop. Then he twisted his back, doing much the same, and stood.
He nearly called out for someone—anyone, really—but then realised that everyone would be home by now. For a moment, he felt mildly irritated at that thought. They should've told him they were going. What if he had needed them? And then a memory tumbled forward, containing Gwen popping her head in the door and Jack immediately grumbling at her that, unless she had something important to say, she needed to go away. Jack closed his eyes tightly shut, willing the memory to change itself, to rewrite the past, but the thing wouldn't budge. He pinched his brow and sighed again.
Blinking his eyes back open, he shook his head to himself as he walked out into the main sector of the Hub.
The lights had dimmed to the standard dark, blueish hues of the Hub's night mode. Nothing stirred, and hardly anything made a noise. The only thing out of place was one of the monitors on Owen and Gwen's shared desk. That single screen still twirled with the usual blues and blacks, but a bright patch in the very centre stood boldly out.
Jack frowned and made his way to the desk.
"If you ever stop being a prat, you can join us for drinks.
—Owen."
Jack rolled his eyes to himself, but noted the address for their usual pub situated below Owen's signature.
His reason for getting in the SUV, he decided, was not saving face. He could be the elusive captain if he so wished. He was a multifaceted man; they knew that. Or they should, anyway. If they didn't, then all the more reason for his motive for going to not be because he didn't want to be seen as the cranky captain.
No, his reason for going was really because they could need a designated driver. Never mind that Owen couldn't drink and could technically take the role himself. What if he didn't want to take Gwen home and then drive the opposite direction back to Tosh's flat? Yes. That was why Jack was going.
Halfway there, Jack realised he should probably call to see if they were still there. While midnight was by no means ever the call for any of them to go home, Rhys may have thrown a fit about Gwen not being home yet and thrown off the team's whole night out. Jack toyed with the idea of calling for a moment, but ultimately decided not to. If they were gone, they were gone, and he would pay their tab, and then find a nice roof to stand on. If they were still there, then all the better to keep his appearance a secret. He wouldn't lie—he liked to be a surprise. A good one, anyway. Though in some cases, like a rogue Weevil, an awful surprise was necessary. But not here. Here, he would like to be unexpected, yet welcomed.
It was surprisingly warm and clear outside. Jack marvelled in the calm, summery darkness as he walked, and then instantly regretted opening the pub's doors, as a sudden draught of cool billowed outwards from the pub. Air conditioning. Jack was not overly fond of it, truth be told. Not when it was used in a climate that wasn't hot and desert-like.
His team still sat at their usual booth, as Jack spotted right away. It was hard not to notice them, what with Gwen's head thrown back in laughter and Toshiko's hands making drunken gestures as she narrated whatever tale she had to unravel.
Jack slipped through the small pools of people and to the booth. Only Owen noticed him, scowling up at him the moment he stopped at the table. Gwen was still laughing away and Tosh was making... buzzing noises, or something. Ianto had his forehead resting on the probably sticky table, not moving an inch, pints and glasses forming a crooked halo around his head.
"Look who finally bothered to show up," Owen said. "Please don't tell me you're here to get pissed. I've just remembered how shit it is to be the only one not drinking. Constant short straw, you've drawn for me."
Jack refused to rise to the bait.
"How long have you been at it?"
"Hmm," Toshiko said after taking a swallow of whatever fizzy concoction she had in front of her. "Um. Maybe about... oh, I don't know."
"The entire bloody time," Owen said.
"How'd you get them all so drunk?" Jack asked him.
"Well, your sweet and loving team are a load of wankers, and did it all to mock me and my bloody... condition," Owen said. Gwen and Tosh snickered. "This is your fault, Harkness."
Jack ignored him once more. "And what did you say to goad them on?"
The girls burst out laughing in full again, Tosh falling sideways onto Gwen.
"I resent that implication," Owen grumbled, glaring at the girls and then Jack. "I did nothing."
"I'm sure." Jack peered past Owen again. "Ianto?"
Ianto made a noise. Jack didn't know what noise, but it was a noise, alright.
"You okay, there?" Jack asked.
Ianto made another noise.
"He's just upset," Toshiko explained. "Because he's—"
Ianto's head whipped up at an alarming rate, a glower fixed on his face.
"'m not a fuckin' bee," he mumbled.
"He's a bee," Tosh finished telling Jack.
"Rhys!" Gwen exclaimed suddenly. "I have to call Rhys!"
"Get him to haul your arse home; I'm not driving you myself," Owen told her.
"Actually," Jack said, eyeing the still-glaring Ianto, "why don't you all go home? I think it's well past time you quit."
And then the table hushed as Gwen made a rather... interesting call to Rhys. It involved a lot of pauses as Gwen stopped to either laugh or collect her drunken thoughts, but eventually she got the message across to her husband. And good thing she did; Jack was ready to snatch the mobile from her hands and finish the conversation himself.
"I don't have anyone to call," Tosh said, rather dejectedly.
Owen sighed. "I'll take you home, Tosh."
The downcast look on Toshiko's face instantly reversed into a grin in an instant. "Really?"
"I have to drive that way, anyhow." Owen shoved one of (presumably Ianto's or Gwen's) pint glasses away from him and slid out of the booth. "Come on."
"What, now?" Tosh asked, back to disheartened.
"Yeah. This place is cramped and bloody depressing. I'd rather be pissed off about life at home than here."
"Oh. Okay..."
She got out of the booth as well, pulling her purse with her.
"Bye, Gwen," she said, sounding for all the world like she would never see her teammate again. "Bye, Ianto."
Gwen sounded equally as gloomy as Toshiko. "Bye, Tosh."
Instead of giving a goodbye, Ianto merely continued to frown and pout at Tosh until Owen ushered her out of the crowd and into the night.
Jack stole Owen's vacated spot, waiting with Ianto and Gwen as Rhys took his time to drive to the pub. They were largely silent the entire time, only broken up by Gwen's intermittent return to giggles, which were always instantly quelled as she took sips from the remnants of Toshiko's abandoned drink. And at one point, there was a loud thunk as Ianto's head went back down to the table again. Jack winced at that.
"You're going to have quite the headache tomorrow," Jack said to him, patting his shoulder.
Ianto turned his face, resting his cheek on the table as he squinted up at Jack. Gwen tittered away, then took another sip.
Rhys collected Gwen from the booth, bleary-eyed. Gwen was overjoyed to see him, and Rhys was as happy to see her too—or, as happy as he could be when half-awake.
"Come on," Jack said to Ianto once they'd left. "Let's get you home."
Jack scooted out of the booth. Ianto followed behind him, taking time to figure out how each of his arms and legs worked. Jack tried not to be impatient as he helped the loose-limbed Ianto to the SUV, and practically wrangled him in there.
"I can't believe you let Owen convince you to get this drunk," Jack said as Ianto poked the seat belt at the buckle multiple times before succeeding in buckling himself in.
"'s not my fault."
Jack raised his eyebrows, but he kept his comments to himself.
Ianto seemed to drift in and out as Jack drove him home. When he was out, his head tipped forward onto his chest. Then he would jolt upright again and squint out of the windscreen at the road. This repeated on a loop the entire ride. Jack tried to catch his head every time it went down, trying to ease the strain on Ianto's neck. Sometimes, this accidentally woke Ianto back up.
The last time this happened, Jack purposefully shook him back awake. Ianto blinked his eyes open.
"We're home," Jack informed him.
"Oh," Ianto said.
He then once more forgot how his legs worked, so Jack had to help him out of the vehicle. This didn't exactly go to plan—Ianto slipped right out of his grasp, sliding straight down with an unprecedented giggle.
"Ianto?" Jack asked as Ianto hung, half in Jack's arms and half on the floor. "Can you get up?"
"Hm," Ianto said. "No."
Jack heaved a sigh, and then practically manhandled Ianto back up into his arms. Once he had Ianto face-to-face again, he arched an eyebrow at the drunken man.
"You are quite an—"
"'m not a bee," Ianto said instantly.
"I was not going to suggest that," Jack said, calm and steady. "Only that you're an interesting drunk."
"Oh."
Jack shook his head, then began the awkward, stumbling, half-dragged walk into Ianto's flat. Ianto helped very little, even as Jack steered him directly towards the bathroom. Jack sat him on the floor, prepared a toothbrush, and handed it to Ianto. Ianto struggled with it for a moment, then somehow, by some miracle, remembered where a toothbrush went and how it was used. He worked on it for a while, and then Jack stole it back when Ianto's attention drifted. Ianto didn't seem to notice.
After helping Ianto to the bedroom, Jack had him sit on the bed and then started to strip him. Ianto could yell at him tomorrow evening about the littered tie, shirt, trousers, belt... right now, all he needed was Ianto stripped to his pants. Ianto was too pliable to stuff into pyjamas, so Jack wouldn't bother trying.
Ianto sort of fell backwards onto the bed when Jack started undressing himself. Jack paused for a moment, making sure Ianto didn't roll over off of the bed, but fortunately, Ianto flipped the other way to get onto his stomach. Jack shrugged, then finished discarding his trousers.
He tugged the blankets out from under Ianto with no small amount of force. Ianto was being incredibly stubborn and refused, once more, to help. Jack threw the blankets over the lower half of Ianto's body, figuring the warmth of the night would cover the top half, and then crawled in beside Ianto. Ianto immediately shuffled closer.
"Oh, now you move," Jack complained.
But he found he couldn't be truly upset, really. He stretched out on his side, head propped up on a fist as he stared down at Ianto. Ianto gazed back up at him with those piercing blue eyes of his, studying Jack's face with an intensity earlier lost on him.
"Aside from getting piss-drunk," Jack said, "how was your night?"
"Owen was a bastard, and then he was sad, and then he was a bastard again," Ianto said, voice muffled, as half of his face was buried in his pillow. "Tosh and Gwen told stories."
"Were they good ones?"
Ianto gave an ambivalent hum.
"Is that where the bee came in?"
Ianto glared at Jack, hard.
"'m not—"
"Yes, I know," Jack said, stroking his free hand down Ianto's back, figuring he'd have to ask about this again when Ianto was a little more sober. "You're not a bee."
The glare slowly eased from Ianto's face as Jack traced a finger gently up and down his spine. He loosened in waves with each new movement. Jack didn't stop, enjoying every moment of Ianto's relaxation.
After a while, Jack was sure Ianto would drift right off, but then Ianto spoke.
"Can you tell me a story?"
Jack eyed him curiously. "You want a story?"
Ianto nodded minutely.
"Alright..."
Sine Jack hadn't been expecting this, he didn't have a story on hand. He wracked his brains for a suitable one, but the only ones he could think of were particularly memorable deaths or travels in a certain blue phone box. As the former was too gory and grim for this mood, and the latter were far too removed from the situation to truly matter, Jack figured they weren't appropriate and didn't bother sparing them another thought.
His fingers traced across Ianto's back for a short while as he collected his thoughts.
Then, inspiration hit.
"Alright," he repeated, more confidently this time. "I have a story."
Ianto's eyes blinked tiredly, but expectantly, up at him.
"You know the freckles on your shoulders?" Jack asked.
"Spotty-things," Ianto amended automatically.
Jack glanced at the dots, and, with a moment's contemplation, supposed it was an accurate enough description of the dots.
"Right, well," Jack said. "Your 'spotty-things' form a shape."
Ianto frowned lightly.
"On my planet, we have a constellation called the Shell."
Jack traced over the so-called 'spotty-things,' connecting them into the arch of the Shell. Ianto shivered beneath the light touch, and Jack splayed his hand over the area, forming the ridges to the imaginary shell. Ianto stilled, relaxing again.
"It was my favourite constellation, when I was young," Jack murmured. "I used to go sit on the roof of our complex and stare up at it, when I could sneak away."
Ianto huffed the smallest laugh, a gentle smile curling on his lips.
"I know, I know," Jack said. "Some things don't change."
He stroked his fingertips lightly over Ianto's skin, refocusing on the story.
"When I was thirteen, after..." Jack thought on that track for a second, and then decided against it. "After my life had a change, I used to go out every night that the sky was clear. And I'd study each star. Some nights, I'd pick a star and just stare at that one until I was too tired to keep my eyes open."
He paused momentarily, checking to see if Ianto's eyes were open. They were. Not the keenest they had ever looked, but still open and still mostly focused.
"One day, I decided that I had a favourite star. I don't remember when... it was a long time ago, Ianto. So long..." He mentally shook himself. "But I think I'd just realised I stared at one star more than the others, so it was... it was my star."
Jack moved his hand, resting his index finger on the very top 'spotty-thing' in the constellation.
"The centre star."
Jack bent down, pressing a soft kiss to the spot.
"The most beautiful star," he whispered against Ianto's skin.
He allowed himself a moment, then repositioned himself, and started tracing the Shell again.
"I always promised myself I'd go there. I would leave that forsaken planet and make my own life, and when I got the chance, I would go to that star. And I would find out the place nearest to that star and I would live there, so that I could always have my star nearby. Always within sight. Always within reach."
"'dj go?"
Jack smiled at him. "Yeah."
"Can I?"
Jack stared at him. Could Ianto go?
"I can't take you there," he said after a beat.
"Why not?"
Jack didn't know how to respond to that. How was he to explain it to Ianto? How could he say that Ianto lived, breathed, and radiated his star? How could he have Ianto understand that he was the closest thing to that star that Jack had ever witnessed in his entire long life?
The easier thing was the littlest truth, he supposed.
"Because you already live here," Jack said.
Ianto smiled sleepily. "The sun."
Jack leant down to kiss him again, this time planting it in Ianto's soft hair.
"I can't take you to a star you already have," Jack said.
"Another one, then."
Jack laughed. "Go to sleep, Ianto."
"Mmm."
Jack laid down completely then, curling himself slightly around Ianto in the way Ianto always secretly appreciated, though he would never say. Ianto, inebriated beyond caring about what his sober counterpart would think about the moment, sighed contentedly. Jack smiled again to himself and kissed Ianto's forehead, still dragging his fingers over Ianto's constellation.
It didn't take long before Ianto's breathing evened out and he drifted off. Jack found he couldn't sleep. Not yet, at least. He was still considering Ianto's last (intelligible) sentence.
He wished he could take Ianto to another star. Anywhere in time and space. He knew of so many places that Ianto would love. The glow caves in Altair V, the glittering dust belt of Castor Prime, the violet beaches and red waves on Mizar... and much, much more.
The more Jack thought about it, the more Jack wanted it. The more Jack wanted it, the more it crushed him that he'd never get it. He had no way off planet. No way to take Ianto anywhere.
As gently as he could, he pressed his forehead to Ianto's. Ianto snuffled in his sleep slightly.
"I promise," Jack whispered, "if I ever get the chance, I'll take you to Aldebaran."
And with that to soothe his soul, he soon fell asleep, too, his hand still held over his centre star.