Title: We All Fall Down
Author: misplacedmarble
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Toshiko/Owen
Word Count: 980
Rating: R
Summary: It’s the end of the world, and this time there’s nothing to fight.
Author's Notes: Dark. Angsty. Apocalyptic and Italic-Abusive. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

It was funny before it started happening to them – before, that elusive time when it seemed as if there was nothing more sinister to deal with than the flu with added blue and green polka dots. Before.

Before it got out of control.

Before people started dying.

But that’s the way it always is; laugh at a hideous alien when it’s in its cage (to use the most apt analogy) but as soon as it escapes and starts goring people in front of your eyes…

Strange how quickly the humour drains out of the situation.

Except this wasn’t an alien, not one isolated being that could be controlled and contained and even killed (but only when they have to – had to). This wasn’t even an army of aliens, come to take over the world (like it doesn’t happen on a regular basis), this is worse.

Because this is an enemy they’re not equipped to fight. Because no one has ever taught them how to shoot a virus, how to hack off the head of a disease or how stop a sickness from slowly killing all their loved ones.

Ianto can pinpoint the moment when he knew the world was ending – Owen had locked himself in the training room with Gwen (Gwen’s body, Jesus, her body), and he was screaming at them, screaming at Jack (don’t come in, don’t break down that door, Jack, don’t you fucking dare), and he knew.

It wasn’t going to end. Owen was sitting in a room with an infected body and slowly soaking in the germ-laden air (they never knew it would be this quick), with any attempt to help him bound to result in yet another victim.

No earthly virus has ever been that infectious; they could never have predicted the practically instantaneous spread from person to person.

This is what they tell themselves while sitting (waiting) in the darkness.

Who knows? It’s probably true.

It took him longer than it should have to realise that Toshiko loved Owen. He didn’t grasp it when he watched her silent tears, nor when she redoubled her efforts to find a cure, working with a feverish intensity that he never would have imagined of her previously, not even when she wouldn’t stop to eat or drink or sleep for more than snatches at a time.

Only when she gave up the search. Only when they woke one morning and heard the low tones of her voice coming out from behind That Door.

Jack, of course, shouted. He ranted and raved and yelled for at least an hour, then more at sporadic intervals, telling Tosh that she couldn’t give up, that she was their only hope and does she even know how bad he is with computers? He knew all the while that in the end it would amount to nothing, because her stepping out of that door would be the death of them all, but the motivational speaking was always Jack’s part to play, he was the charming and flirtatious string that held their little group together and he needed to try.

He needed to let her know that she meant something. To all of them.

Ianto doesn’t think they meant to give up. But with their entire world unravelling all around them, with the knowledge that despite all the precautions they take, without a cure…

They’re fucked. Pure and simple, there is nothing that can be done to halt the slow creeping passage of death towards their door (or out of it, if he wants to be perfectly literal).

Maybe this utter desperation, coupled with the terrifying silence from the room in which their colleagues were locked, is why Jack wakes him up in the middle of the night to fuck hard and fast against the wall of the Hub.

Ianto moans and gasps and spurts his come onto the unforgiving steel structure, and it’s all he’s ever wanted since he first set eyes on Captain Jack Harkness (this fantasy in particular was always one of his favourites), but it’s bitter and it’s tragic and he hates every second of ecstasy.

He’s not even sure that this is Jack who slams into him, who kisses him as he thrusts his back to the wall, who looks at him with terrible eyes and imprints more than a lifetime’s worth of pain on his skin with every insistent finger because Jack, his Jack, would never do these things. He would be (it’s ok) sweet and (are you sure you want this?) gentle and (I guess all the harassment was worth it in the end) playful and he would be just how he always is, but better, because it would be all for Ianto and no one else.

He has the agonising thought that maybe this Jack inside him now is the real one, rough and cruel and uncaring, and every teasing comment was just part of a mask that dropped away as soon as the world fell apart. That he fell in love with nothing more than a very intricate lie, and all that is left is sex and death.

But Ianto only believes this until he glances in the mirror and sees a little, raised blue bump in the small of his back.

You knew.

Did this make Jack’s desperation more, or less, selfish? Ianto fights the urge to begin laughing hysterically.

I’m sorry.

His eyes are empty picture frames, but is this better or worse than seeing them brimming over with too much knowledge of how things will end? He never pictured it being this way.

You’re going to die, too.

Does he really believe this?

Don’t.

It’s not an answer, and in this way it is.

So they sit together in the darkness, waiting for the world to end, telling themselves there was nothing they could have done.

It doesn’t matter anymore if it’s true.