Out of Place Chapter 25

[galadriel1010]

It’s been a while since we got a proper comfy bed like this one, so even I am persuaded to just lie there for a while after I wake up. Motels are all well and good, but this is better. Eventually I sit up and stretch, running my fingers through my hair in a redundant attempt to detangle it a bit and swing out of the bed to the window. It’s pretty dark outside, but not fully middle of the night dark. “No clocks.” I mutter, looking around as I search for my jeans, “Definitely a Liberty Towers place, time is relative.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jacob mutters sleepily from the bed, watching me with one eye open and a hand covering the other, “And don’t give me the ‘Liberty Towers hunt aliens’ shit, I get that bit. Where do you fit in, what is this place, why are we here?”

“Okay.” I lean against the window and look at him, “Jasmine, that girl I was talking about last night, helped to found the organisation back in the 1930s with her husband and his lover and another couple. They were all retired or dead by the time I got involved with Lady in the 1970s, but she’s immortal, more immortal than us because whatever kills her she always comes back. So she was still there and sorta… borrowed me occasionally.” I close my eyes and grin, “Fun times, not what you’re thinking I suspect. I could get accepted places she couldn’t, so I tracked down drug dealers, run-aways from justice, that kinda thing. Alien bars are the second best place to go after vampire bars for guys like us, but there aren’t that many of them. When we got picked up by the Crime Lab, Liberty Towers was pretty much our only hope of getting out of there unautopsied.” I open my eyes again and find him watching me with both eyes now, intelligent interest gazing back at me, “And they bit and rescued us like the gallant knights they are.”

“Your friend sent them?”

I turn away and look out of the window again, “Sounds like she’s not around anymore. Besides, she was based out of New York, although she would have been the first to spring me back when we ran together.”

“Did you sleep with her? You said that you used to date girls.”

“Nah.” I laugh, “Her son though. Youngest son, eldest two died in World War 1. He was way older than me, but a bit nutty and used to alien weirdness, so sleeping with a corpse didn’t really bother him.” I shift gears rapidly and pull on my jeans, “I need coffee, you coming down?”

“Yeah, yeah, pass me my jeans would you?” I oblige and watch as he gets dressed, off in a world of his own apparently. That doesn’t bother me much though; I have a feeling that no matter how long we know each other, watching him is never going to get old. He doesn’t call me on it though, just drifts to the door, so I stop him by holding it closed so that he finally looks at me, “What?”

“Right back at ya. You’re miles away.” I tap something as I think but stop when I realise that it’s his arm, “Are you okay with this?”

He looks shocked, “Do you care?”

I think about this, “I guess not, but I’d like to know.”

Jacob is looking at me very oddly, “Yeah, I’m fine with it, just processing. A few months ago I didn’t believe in vampires or aliens. Now I am one and staying with people who hunt the other, it’s a kinda big leap.”

“Hah, no kidding.” I release the door and clap him on the shoulder, “Let’s go get breakfast, we can deal with the weirdness later.”

Breakfast is a simple affair in the city that never sleeps; we both manage to find ourselves clean, healthy breakfasts within half an hour, which kinda sucks because now we have nothing to do. Some instinct tells me to head back to the house and figure things out from there, and I approve of the idea of, for a change, not having to think or plan or do. We walk in a comfortable silence, my mind on not a lot, Jacob’s probably on far too much. I’m surprised to see both cars still in front of the house; surely one or both of the guys should be at work by now?

But when we get in, Nick is sprawled out on the couch with a forensic science magazine and there are the sounds of a second person coming through from the kitchen, shortly followed by a mountain of toast in the company of Greg. He already has a piece shoved in his mouth as he spots us, so he fumbles in embarrassment for a moment whilst Nick rescues the toast from him and gestures for us to sit down.

“Sleep well?” Greg asks us now he can

“Like the dead.” I intone

Greg shivers ever so slightly and I grin internally. He gestures to the table, “Toast?”

“Thank, but we already ate.” Jacob joins in and even Nick smirks at Greg’s reaction. He blinks at us twice, then seriously considers the toast in his hand, it’s fucking brilliant.

“Okay, don’t think I want to know.” We all laugh, “Just so you know, we’re expecting…” The doorbell rings and he stands up, “That’ll be them I guess.”

“A couple of friends of ours, over here on their honeymoon, they said they’d drop by today. That’s why we’ve got the day off.” Nick explains. One unfamiliar accent and one surprisingly familiar one join Greg’s in the hall and he eventually returns with two men behind him.

I’m on my feet in an instant. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

Jack Harkness grins that annoying, oh so gorgeous megawatt grin and looks down at himself, “Am I not? Oh.” Then the grin drops and he glares at me, “You shot me!”

“You’re looking very well for it, considering that I shot you twenty years ago and you don’t look to have aged a day since then.” I point out, unconsciously baring my fangs, “I didn’t turn you.”

“I’m immortal, when you shot me I bled out, but then I came back.” His partner hasn’t even attempted to get involved I notice, just shrugged and turned away to chat to Greg and Nick; Jack ignores them, “And if you’d stuck around, I would have told you.”

“What?” That got pretty boy’s attention

“He’s a vampire.” Jack explains, glaring at me still, “Shot me when I found out about it to cover his tracks.”

“And because you were smug.” I add

“Fair enough.” The younger man (aren’t they all?) smiles at me and extends his hand, “We’ve not been introduced, Ianto Jones.”

“Jack Saturday, this is Jacob Glass.” I squeeze his hand firmly, and he grins at me.

“Jack,” he turns back to his partner, “we’re going to need a way to differentiate between you.”

“He could be Smug Jack.” I suggest, slightly childishly

He stares at me (downgraded from a glare by now), then that grin bursts out form behind the clouds again and he wraps me in an extremely unexpected bear hug, “Jack Saturday, it’s been too long.”

“Captain Jack Harkness; let go of me, or I’ll shoot you again.” I mutter, but hug him back anyway. When we release each other I turn to Jacob and drag him forwards, “Jacob, this is Captain Jack Harkness, drank me under the table six times in the 1980s until he realised that I was undead and I thought we probably ought to… go our separate ways. The cheesiest, corniest, most arrogant and most handsome man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”

“Ianto.” He turns to his partner and slips an arm around his waist, “This is Jack Saturday: vampire, loose canon and expert on obscure American bands of the 1960s and 70s. Jack, this is my partner Ianto, he works with me and we’re on our honeymoon.”

“So I heard, congratulations. This is Jacob Glass, my travelling companion and best friend.” Okay, that description felt weird, and he’ll probably ask me about it later, but I didn’t want to just call him a fuck buddy or take it further. Ah semantics, “Drink?”

“God yes.” Ianto grins, “I think we’re going to need one.”

The six of us get settled again, the breathers reaching for toast as Greg grabs a couple of bottles of wine and beer from the kitchen and dumps them on the table, “So you two know each other?”

Jack and I are fighting between laughing at each other and thumping each other, just like old times really. I lean back and settle for a predatory grin, “Yeah, we met in the 1980s in San Fransisco. I cannot remember what I was doing there.”

“Sex, drugs and rock and roll I think.” Jack smirks, “A couple of decades late, but timing was never your best talent.”

“Fuck you Harkness.” I scowl and crack two beers open, passing one over to Jacob, “So how do you know Greg and Nick?”

“We came over here with work a couple of months back.”

“With Jazz as well.” Nick adds, “And her boyfriend.”

“What?” I almost spray beer everywhere, “Hang on, you’re telling me that Jasmine Donovan and Jack Harkness have both settled down and adopted labels? Does not compute.”

Jack wraps an arm around Ianto and pulls him closer, “Got a problem with that?”

“Yes.” I answer with a completely straight face, “The world must be coming to an end.”

Ianto roars with laughter and knocks back his beer, “So you know Jasmine as well?”

“Yeah, since the 1970s. We were close, until I started screwing her son.”

“Oooh.” Jack grins at me, “Which one?”

“Albert. The youngest.”

“Still, what, twenty years older than you?” He asks with a sly grin, “I should have tried harder.”

“Yeah, cos he’s still younger than you gramps.” I smirk, “Anyway, how do you know Lady?”

“She’s my ex.” Jack answers

Ianto has something to add, “She’s his boss.” Jack glares at him and he chuckles, “Means he actually has to do the paperwork.”

“That’ll be the day.”

“Yeah, so, how do you four know each other?” He looks to me and Jacob, Greg and Nick.

“Nick rescued us from the morgue.” Jacob explains before I can get in, “Because someone,” he smirks at me pointedly, trying and failing to glare, “got us picked up as dead bodies.”

I decide not to answer that one, “How did you know to rescue us then Nick?”

He’d been watching the reunion with interest and amusement (and nowhere near as much discomfort as Greg was showing, although the younger man appeared to have settled by now), “Jacob has a file on the Liberty Towers system, something about his ‘suicide’ that didn’t gel. So they flagged him up for people to watch out for, just in case he was in trouble. One of the lab techs, Archie, picked up on it and sent me down.”

“Someone was looking for me?” Jacob looks worried and surprised, “I thought I’d been removed from the system.”

“You had, but not this system.” Nick leans forwards to explain, “I don’t know all the details, but apparently there’s some means of indicating a faked suicide, so that certain groups like us can pick up on it and know that you’re ours to look out for now.”

“Sounds very organised. And slightly creepy.”

Greg laughs, “You’re dead dude, how can you consider anything creepy?”

“I’m an expert on creep.” Jacob intones with a deadpan expression, if you’ll pardon the pun. “I’m with him.”

“And when you say ‘with him’…” The other Jack asks, “Do you mean…”

“Don’t ask.” We answer at the same time, looking at each other slightly uncomfortably, “One of those questions.”

“Ah, they sort themselves out in the end.” Ianto commented with a smile, “Everything does generally.”

“Wise words.” Nick concurs, “Sorry we couldn’t make it over by the way, how did your special day go?”

Ianto and Jack exchange warm smiles and lean back into the sofa and each other. Jack starts with a grin, “Now there’s a story.”