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The heat of a desert planet blazed upwards from the sandy ground, three suns reflecting up into the lone figure’s face as he trekked through the loose dunes. He’d heard of this place — heard of the creatures who had since abandoned the area. Fearful beings, they were supposed to be. They fed on pain and terror as food, and they were insatiable. JOHN HART had never met one personally, and he intended to continue on that path of life. He had enough to deal with, without being lunch piled on top of it.
There were more pleasurable ways to get eaten.
The ground shifted beneath his boots, and he sighed, one hand resting on his ever-present katana, as he shielded eyes the hue of the sky to look upwards at the expanse from which they’d stolen their color. It was fucking miserable here, in this blistering heat, and already his lips were chapped and cracking. Unfortunate. He’d left his lip balm in his ship. He should start carrying it around with him. But - he had things to do, things, in this case, being the looting of a once-great city that had been destroyed and ripped apart by the voracious things that had since left. They had no use for jewels or money, and so often left them behind with the mangled corpses of their slowly-deceased victims.
John, as it were, had much use for both jewels and money, so when he’d heard there was a whole city of it waiting, ripe for the scavenging, he’d hopped in his little ship and skipped right on over. His only regret was the first lap of the journey - he’d parked the ship further away for the sake of secrecy, in the case he wasn’t the first here. He should be — he was bolder than most would dare dream around creatures of this reputation.
He crested the last sand dune and laid eyes on the city, built of stone and, to his vast disappointment, a fair bit more run down than rumors had indicated. Where was the massive wall? The riches untold? All he saw was some sort of crumbling ruin, and the damage certainly didn’t look fresh. A sigh was heaved into the arid atmosphere, and he shook his head as he began his careful way down the sandy slope. He’d come this far; he might as well have a look on the off-chance that something had been left behind. It certainly wouldn’t be the bounty he’d been informed of, he grumbled within the confines of his mind.
As he approached the sun-bleached skeleton of what once, long ago, had been a great city, John found his nose wrinkling. Ah. Right, he’d forgotten about this part.
The bodies.
Whatever these alien things had been, they certainly had a reputation for raiding planets and taking their inhabitants as livestock. They’d torture them, put them through endless agony to feed upon, and then abandon whatever mess they’d made when their captives’ bodies simply gave out and died.
Which left John with a field of countless humanoid corpses, bloating and decaying in the relentless sun. The smell of it brought a wave of nausea over even his stern sensibilities, and he lifted an arm to cover his nose, coughing and retching. “Disgusting,” he murmured aloud, surveying the carnage. As a man of questionable morals and quite the appetite for sadism, even this sight unsettled him. What had been done to these poor creatures…alive? It was unthinkable. And for the length of time rumored…
He was beginning to think he should get out of there.
And he would have, if movement hadn’t caught his eye.
His head snapped up, and a hand went to his gun immediately, gaze narrowing against the glare. There. Again, by the wall, the faintest hint of movement. Were there survivors?
He stepped forward warily, the soles of his boots sinking into blood-soaked sand as he maneuvered between bodies, careful as he could be not to step on them. Not out of respect for the dead, of course (though it would just be rude ), but because he didn’t want to risk tripping on any of them and falling into this mess of blood and gore.
The closer he came to the city, the more certain he was that he hadn’t seen a thing. Just a trick of the light, a heat mirage, in all likelihood. He reached the base of the wall, looking down the line at the cadavers still bound with thick, iron chains to the wall. Poor bastards - that metal on their skin in this heat? It must have been excruciating.
He stood silently, for a moment, simply seeking any sign of life, before he shook his head. Right. Heat Mirage. What would he have done, anyway? An injured civilian, dragging him down? Near-dead weight? No thank you, that wasn’t for him.
A faint cough again grabbed his attention, and he looked down to the body at his feet. It was frail — near-emaciated, and young. Horribly so. Dark hair, sun-blistered skin, and — oh, seven goddesses, that chest was moving. He was breathing. A groan escaped his lips, and he let his head fall back for a moment. He could pretend he hadn’t noticed, skip on out of here, leave.
Or, he could, as he found himself doing really without his own consent, crouch down to press two fingers to sunburnt skin, seeking out — aha. A pulse.
“Aren’t you just the unluckiest bastard alive? Be easier if you’re dead, I imagine living’s nothing but pain at this point,” he spoke aloud to the unconscious boy, shaking his head. “Right, okay, well…supposing I can get these off you, I can haul your broken body back to my ship. It’ll be miserable, and hurt, but guess we’re about to do it. Hang tight.”
He pulled out a small laser knife from one of the many pockets hidden within his coat, and he set to work on the manacles about the boy’s wrists. They were too hot to hold when he reached for them, hissing through his teeth and yanking his hand back. The poor boy must have been absolutely baking inside of them. A quick flick of his wrist - once, twice - and they fell away, revealing the sort of mangled flesh he absolutely expected. He winced, before sighing and carefully fitting one arm underneath the boy’s back and the other his legs, standing to turn back towards his ship. Nothing of value here, anyway.
It took more effort than he’d have liked to maneuver them away from the field of corpses, the frail frame of his rescue concerningly light, but he managed it, finally retracing his own footprints in the sand back to his ship. He was nearly halfway there when the boy shifted in his arms, slowly coming to.
“Easy, there.” John’s voice was lower than he’d expected it to come out, gentler. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to take you to someone who can help. Startlingly blue eyes opened briefly, squinting against the sun up at John. He offered his trademark smirk, shifting the kid closer to his chest in an attempt to ease what pain he could. He’d had enough for a thousand lifetimes, he was certain. “Don’t worry,” he repeated, as the boy once more tumbled into the grasp of unconsciousness. “You’re safe.”
•·················•·················•
“So where am I taking you?”
It had been, for certain, a strange few weeks. John had taken the kid into his ship and placed him in the surprisingly capable medbay - this craft he’d stolen had, apparently, been equipped for a wide variety of medical emergencies, and the ship’s medical program had taken over with an efficiency to be admired. He’d likely hold onto this craft as long as he could, considering the scrapes he got himself into. His plan to take his hapless rescue to the nearest planet and remand him to the care of some bleeding heart who would look after him had been abruptly derailed when, the moment he left the desert planet, he’d been tailed by bounty hunters.
Now, that had been a bit of an annoying pickle. He was the bounty hunter, and he didn’t need more money-hungry, sadistic fucks after him while he was trying to do his own job. But it seemed whoever he’d pissed off (he thinks it was an empress. Wasn’t his fault her husband was that easily seduced, now was it? The murder — well, necessary. Sort of. Something of an accident? It turned out that fucking on parapets was, in reality, a very dangerous activity. He’d have to remember that next time he needed to kill someone and make it look like an accident.
Anyway.
The empress of wherever that had happened to be had set bounty hunters on him, and he’d been forced to lie low in the caverns of a particularly large asteroid for a couple of weeks while they searched for him. And since he’d had nothing to do and nowhere to go, he had simply worked on tending to the boy’s wounds. Gray. His name was Gray, and he’d been in that horrible situation for years. Too young for that, John thought, though it couldn’t be helped. But he’d felt a fondness for him despite his own best intentions — maybe it was the way his eyes reminded him of someone else.
Gray had only been awake for a few hours by the time John could leave, and now he was ready to ditch the kid and get the hell out of dodge. But as long as he was here, he might as well take him where he needed to be, right?
“Um - Boeshane,” Gray answered from where he sat in the co-pilot’s seat, touching nothing. “The peninsula.”
“Really?” John glanced up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Had a friend who lived there once.”
“My family lives there.” Gray’s gaze went distant, his head shaking. “My brother.”
And suddenly, this story was starting to sound familiar. John paused, his gaze narrowing as he stared at the other. There was such a slim chance of this coincidence, but…he knew his name. He was from the Boeshane Peninsula. He had a brother— “Javic?” The name was out before he could stop himself. “Javic Thane?”
Gray tensed visibly at the name, his eyes wide as he turned to face John more fully. “…you know Javic?”
“He was my partner. We were Time Agents.”
“Is he around?” The desperation now in Gray’s voice struck a chord deep within John, and he heaved a heavy sigh.
“…no, actually. He disappeared a while back, and I’ve been searching for him. Following his trail.”
Silence reigned within the cockpit, and finally, Gray ventured a question.
“John, you — you saved my life. You got me off that planet, you helped heal me. I can’t really ask, but…I haven’t seen Javic in years. Is there—”
“ Stop, stop, this is pathetic.” John waved a hand to cut him off, rolling his eyes, even as he silently chastised himself. You’re going soft, you bastard. But if you bring his brother to him… “Those kicked puppy dog eyes have to stop. Yes, fine, you can come with, but I don’t want criticism or commentary and I don’t want trouble.”
“John—” Gray’s voice became soft, and choked, and John groaned aloud.
“And no waterworks. Fine, come on, we’ll go to the last place I heard rumors of him.” He ignored the way Gray looked at him, like a savior of some sort - he was nothing like that, and he refused to acknowledge it as he set the ship in motion. “There’s alcohol in the back. Go grab it for me.”
He was going to need a lot of it to deal with this kid tagging along.
•·················•·················•
“Where the fuck have you been?”
The door slid shut behind John as he stepped into the ship, reeking of liquor and his step unsteady. Gray’s demand was met with a rude gesture, as he slipped off his jacket, fumbling a liquor bottle from one hand to the other and shaking his head. “Ran into a woman with an arcadian diamond. Couldn’t let her slip through my fingers. One thing led to another—” He gestured vaguely, shaking his head.
“What, so you’ve been gone for weeks, just leaving me here for a diamond? I thought you were dead! ” Gray stalked towards him, his gaze hard. A hand shot out to snatch the bottle, but John yanked it out of reach, a hand finding Gray’s chest and shoving him back. He’d gotten a bit taller since John had found him. Food had filled him out, training had made him strong. Nothing kept the rascal busy like training. It gave John a bit of a breather from his unwilling babysitting. He shook his head, sighing as he found a chair and sank into it, stretching long legs out in front of him, taking a long chug of the bottle and draining nearly half of it before he stopped.
“…I found him,” he murmured quietly, nearly too quietly for Gray to hear.
“What?” The response was just as harsh as before, and John rolled his head around to look at Gray, as much of him as he could see through the swimming vision the alcohol had set to swaying. It must have come through in his expression enough, because he watched Gray’s features drop into disbelief. “Javic? You found Javic?”
“I found…Javic.” He nodded, setting the bottle on the table with a thump, his gaze on the amber liquor as he searched for words in his buzzing mind. Gray hesitated, before pulling out another chair, seating himself with John, leaning elbows on his knees as he gazed at the older intently.
“What happened?”
“He doesn’t go by Javic any more. Picked a new name. Jack. Captain Jack Harkness.” There’s a clear amount of bitterness in his tone as he speaks, a sardonic smile twisting his lips as he shakes his head. Gray doesn’t take his eyes off him. John refuses to look up to meet them.
“…and?”
“And he just - he ran away. Got himself a team. Calls them Torchwood—” He hiccuped, pausing to chug more of the liquor as quickly as he could. “Stupid little — human team. Stupid little human boyfriend. Or hookup. Eye candy.” He waved a hand carelessly, shrugging whatever the technicalities of it were away. “They’re pretty, s’pose. I uh - I enlisted them to find the diamond. Wasn’t a diamond, it was a bomb, but…anyway. I’d erm — I got information while I was away, pinpointed him on earth. The devil woman sent the diamond through a rift when I murdered her for it, sneaky bitch that she was. Anyway, managed to get hold of it, make sure it ended up on earth. Two birds with one stone.”
“Did you tell him about me?” Gray’s tone was urgent, and John sighed.
“Yeah, yep. Right at the end, as I left. You know…leave him wanting more.” The rest of the bottle is downed, and he shook his head. “Did you know he can’t die? ”
“Can’t what? ” Gray demanded, and John shrugged.
“Yep. Can’t die. He erm — fell off a roof. Thought he was a goner, and nope. Back on his feet within the hour. Astonishing. Dunno how.” He still refused to look up at Gray, his gaze dark and pensive. For a long moment, he intended to simply shove himself to his feet and tumble into bed, but a question entirely unexpected from Gray stopped him in his tracks.
“…were you in love with him?”
A scoff fell from John’s lips. Was he that obvious? The pining, the pathetic way he talks about him? Ridiculous. He’s losing his edge. And perhaps it was the alcohol, or the way he and Gray had spent so much time together, or the unexpected heartbreak so recent, but he answered honestly, for once in his life.
“Not were. ” It’s nearly a whisper, too soft to be mistaken as a lie. “… are. ” John rose then, leaving the empty bottle as he turned away and headed to his bed. Gray sat behind him in silence, staring at the empty liquor bottle as the con man disappeared.
•·················•·················•
“It’s been almost two years, you know.”
“Hmm?”
John was half-asleep when Gray’s voice dragged him out of that slow descent into oblivion, and he opened his eyes into the darkness. They’d found a shitty motel room to share for this particular con, and Gray staying up late while John slept wasn’t uncommon. He figured the boy still had nightmares, and he’d been keeping himself busy learning to build weapons. He was damn good at it, had a natural touch for explosives that had helped them in a few of their cons. He’d gone beyond that, though, learning to tinker with more than a few different machines. At least it kept him busy.
“It’s been nearly two years since you found me. Something like that, in a few weeks. Took a bit to work out, with us jumping all over the place.”
John turned his head to look up at him, one arm propped up to cradle it on the pillow. “Really? Hadn’t realized.”
“Yeah.” He seemed pensive, and John frowned at him.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing, I just—” He sighed out, shaking his head. “I’m just thinking over it. When you found me, all I wanted was to find Jav- Jack. Now this is a whole different life.”
“Regrets?” He murmured, both mocking and a genuine question at once.
There was no answer for a long while, and John was nearly convinced there wouldn’t be one, his eyes closing into sleep once more, when Gray finally responded in a near-whisper. “No. I know better now.”
“Better?”
“I’m fine where I am.” Gray’s voice had taken on a sudden sharp edge. John considered pressing him on the topic, but instead he simply nodded, changing the subject. Gray would say something if he wanted to. Feelings weren’t really something they discussed often, and certainly not sober.
“What are you working on?”
“Fixing the strap on your manipulator.”
“Don’t damage that,” John warned lazily, his eyelids shutting with finality this time. “We need that.”
“Oh, I know.” Silence followed, and then Gray spoke, one more time. “Go to sleep, John. We’ve got shit to do tomorrow.”