kollo_rpg | Summer 10 - newcomer mingle

Yeah, the knowledge that they had to make it work back then definitely helped raise the level of honesty and sharing between them, and perhaps it's inevitable that since they escaped Jack's motivation to maintain that has dropped somewhat.

On the other hand, after all this time, he really does value Spike as a friend (as well as all the hot sex, obviously!) and he'd like to get back to feeling comfortable with him again.

Which is why he grins a bit in response to Spike's comment and easily follows his urging towards the gentle twilight of the garden and heads for one of the tables on the patio, taking a seat and holding out his hand for some alcohol.

"All settled into your new cabin, then?"

As cool and urban as he likes to make himself out as, he has to admit that this island has it's charms. It's nice here, quiet, fragrant, serene, all words that would've made his skin crawl some years before but these days he can appreciate it all the more. Maybe he's getting old, finally. Maybe he's just found something that doesn't make him want to chase the next big kick.

"Just about." He responds casually, handing Jack a bottle from the bag. Whiskey, of course, some local brand that's drinkable if not great. "Not much settling to do, if I'm honest. I travel light."

"Thanks," he smiles, uncapping the bottle and clinking it against Spike's before taking a decent swig, sighing happily as it goes down.

"I think we all travel pretty light these days," he remarks, thinking about it. "Seems like the longer I live, the less I carry with me. Perhaps you can only bear to lose things so many times before you stop picking them up in the first place."

"Maybe." He shrugs, drinks, settles in for whatever deep, philosophical discussion this will turn out to be. While he does have a hidden agenda he's in no great rush to get to it. There's all the time in the world on this island.

"How much did you start with?"

Jack laughs. "When I left home for the first time, for the Time Agency? Oh, god, so much stuff. Little gifts from everyone, and reminders of home, things Gray had made me, the scarf my nan knitted me when I was four... And then they sent me on my first mission and I realised I couldn't take any of that with me. Heading out to another time and place, and you couldn't take anything that might give you away, except your wriststrap. So I gradually learned to store everything important on that, virtually - holopics and holovids of everything that was dear to me, locked away of course, away from prying eyes in case someone should gain access to the outer functions of the thing, but still with me."

He shakes his head, bringing his gaze back to the present and giving Spike a rueful smile. "It wasn't until I got stranded in Cardiff and had to settle in for the long haul that I started accumulating stuff again."

A part of him wishes he could relate. No one said good bye to him when he left home, chances are no one even missed him. There were no gifts, no keepsakes, nothing remaining but the clothes on his body and whatever cash he had on hand which, to be honest, wasn't all that much. Middle class without the dosh to show for it. Material possessions just weren't important anymore after that, or at least easily discarded - much like human life. They went through so much stuff, him and Dru. They ruined so many lives.

He's quiet while Jack talks, masking this contemplative mood in the bottle of whiskey. There's a mission here, or at least the beginning of one and so he follows up with another question.

"And now?"

They haven't kept in touch for awhile. He has no idea what Jack is up to these days.

Very different circumstances for each of them, yet with very similar results. They're both used to moving around, never settling anywhere for long - okay, over a century in Cardiff, but it was decades before he even really started to settle and he was always ready to leave at the drop of a hat at the sound of the TARDIS materialising. Ironically ready to settle, then, when he returned after the year on the Valiant, but fate had other ideas, literally blowing up all of his accumulated possessions and then taking both Ianto and Stephen from him in swift succession.

Then came Marina and Ianto, and then Spike, and then Saavi and Taiana and he was just starting to settle in and let himself feel like he had a home again (even if that home was a ship) before it was all brutally stripped away from him once more.

He shrugs, taking another swig of whiskey to mask the emotion that threatens to come through. "Right now, I have hardly anything. Lost everything again a short while back and it's feeling kind of hard to accumulate anything more."

And that's all he's giving on that. "What about you? No pressure from Ianto to settle down in one place, start accumulating stuff?"

Spike notices, because of course he does. He's looking for it, for anything that could betray what Jack's keeping so close to his chest and as little as this tells him, it at least confirms that there's something to tell. For the time being he lets it be, idly passing his own bottle between his hands as a way to stay busy.

"Not yet. Think he's taken quite well to the nomadic lifestyle, if I'm honest." Better than expected, but if you have nothing to go back to perhaps it's easier to never settle down again. They've spent some time in places, weeks, months of exploring a city or hole themselves up in some forgotten home, but it was all so temporary.

"Good thing, too. He's not going to have much of a choice soon enough."

He's sure Spike has noticed, because that's what Spike does. He's also sure Spike will push him when he thinks he needs to, but keep quiet until then, which actually makes this all a lot easier.

At least until Spike brings up the other big issue that they're not (quite) talking about yet. He can't help a bit of a wince, even though he tries to cover it with the drinking of more whiskey. And then, being Jack, he comes at it from a different angle anyway.

"Is there a particular reason you don't want to settle down somewhere?" he asks curiously. "Or is wanderlust just an automatic vampire thing?"

In the past he's been all for the immediate and precise push, but the more time he's spent with Jack the more he's realised that slow and steady wins the race. You gotta let these things take a bit of time and if there's one thing they got plenty of here it's time.

The vampire thing is bound to come up more than once and if he's honest, he needs to talk this through with someone else. He was the youngest of the Whirlwind, he never really had to worry about the transition for someone else and with Harmony, he never cared enough about her to give it a second thought. Now? With how planned out this is? There's little else on his mind.

"It's practical, Jack." He starts, settling in for this whole big thing. "We're dead. Can't exactly make an honest living, or sign a rent contract - can't do much of anything without cheating and stealing. Sure, we could find a nice abandoned place and settle down but sooner or later, someone's going to come sniffing about. Maybe we can stick around for a few months, maybe even a year if we're lucky, but eventually... we need to move on before the pitchforks come out."

Nothing but time here, and in a way that's different to the outside world. There, he and Spike have all the time in the universe, but Ianto doesn't, which is of course what the whole thing is all about. So yes, it does feel good to have the chance to literally take time out and reassess and really work out how feels about all this.

In the meantime, he's actually thinking properly for the first time about what it means to be a vampire living (or undying) in a human world. However, as an immortal who did actually start investing money early enough for it to have accumulated to something rather impressive by now (the interest alone is plenty for him to live on, and that's without even touching the capital), he doesn't quite have the same view about the cheating and stealing part. Not that he has a problem with it, just that he doesn't need it.

"How about if someone close to you were to buy you some property so you could live there legally?" he asks casually. "I mean, obviously you'd have the not-aging problem to deal with eventually, but in my experience you can usually get away with a good ten to twenty years before people really start to ask questions!"

"You offering to set us up with an allowance?"

The tone of his voice and the look on his face should spell out pretty clearly how he feels about that, but he's trying pretty hard to not dismiss the idea outright. This isn't just about him anymore, or him and Dru. He can't just take what he wants and leave the place burning. He needs to do it right this time.

"There's still the blood problem." Need a steady supply and even if they go butcher blood or even find a hookup at a medical center, that usually draws unwanted attention. "Besides, I'll need to talk to him about it first. Maybe he prefers the vagabond lifestyle."

His lips quirk upwards into an amused smile, because of course that's exactly the reaction he anticipated - although he's intrigued by the lack of outright refusal.

"Sure, if you'd accept it," he shrugs. "I know I may not be around all the time and we're not exactly married, but we're still in a relationship and in most cultures it's considered normal to share resources within a relationship. I've got all this money that I don't have to work for anymore; why not share it with you two?"

He takes a swig of whiskey. "And yeah, there are always going to be issues like blood and whatnot, but actually, money can make a lot of those problems go away. Private, secret suppliers and so on." He shrugs. "I'm not saying you have to settle down somewhere, just that the option is there if you want it. I can help make it work. Something to think about!"

It's not the most terrible of ideas Jack's ever had, though he's still pretty skeptical about the whole thing. For one, if he wanted to, he could've set up something similar over the past century. It wouldn't have been too difficult back in the times before computers and ID cards, but it's not really part of the un-lifestyle. The freedom, not being tied down by roots, never settling down — that's part of what a vampire is and he has to start thinking of their lives as vampiric ones. The past few years, he's been indulging in the comforts of humanity, for Ianto's sake. Soon, that may not be a thing anymore.

"You say that as if I don't know." He rolls his eyes - he was in prison for tax fraud, you know. He knows his way around money. "Why don't you use it? Get a nice cottage in the countryside, herd some chickens or bees or whatever pensioners do."

If he's thought about it at all, Jack's always assumed Spike just never thought of investing money until it was too late, but now that he is thinking about it he's realising there might be a bit more to it than that. Spike's nothing if not a rebel, and he can totally imagine that living the way he does is at least in part because he's chosen to rather than from necessity.

And then he laughs, because actually, maybe they're not so different after all.

"Oi, less of the pensioner, if you don't mind! I'm not that much older than you are!" He grins. "And obviously I'm not the settling down type either. Over a century in Cardiff was enough to last me a lifetime!"

Perhaps if Jack knew exactly what kind of middle class upbringing dear old William had, he'd see exactly how much of a choice this lifestyle is. Everything was on deadly purpose, back then.

"Keep your money, then. Put it to use where it might make a difference."

Which is perhaps a weird thing for a reformed vampire to say, but... you know. There's a lot of pain in the world and if you want to save it, there are many ways to do that. He makes a soft noise, like a vocal shrug, swallowing it down with a mouthful of whiskey.

Yeah, he still doesn't have that much idea of Spike's pre-vampire life. Something about him turning his mum, and being a poet, and that's pretty much it. Mostly, Spike doesn't volunteer and he doesn't push. He knows all about wanting a past life to be left in the past.

He gives Spike a rather fond smile at the suggestion. "All right." It's kind of what he's been using it for anyway, given that it's been funding his escapades with Saavi and Taiana, and on his own since the accident. It's also been very definitely used to eek out Torchwood's meagre funding in the past.

"But if you ever need cash - you know. Either of you. You only need to ask."

"Please, Jack. You really think I can't get my hands on just about anything, if I need it?"

He's hurt! Deeply and lethally so, as is evident by the way he theatrically clutches at his chest with feigned shock.

He chuckles. "Of course. Sorry for implying that you couldn't!"

It feels good, this, sitting and drinking and laughing together. It's not something he's really done since... you know.

He takes another swig of whiskey and looks at Spike with a lopsided little smile. "I think I'd rather hoped you'd both settle down somewhere, especially because I won't - give me somewhere to come back to, you know? A home, of sorts. But I guess it's not in your nature any more than it is in mine."

"Maybe you should come visit a bit more often, in that case."

He raises a brow and although this is to a large degree just friendly ribbing, there's an undercurrent of truth to it. In or out, buddy. Spike may understand the itch to move on and have his own life, but if Jack expects to come back and share theirs he needs to actually put in the work for it. This ain't your momma's basement, it won't always stay open for you.

"Still need to talk to Ianto. Maybe he feels differently."

He lifts a brow back at Spike, mostly to cover the fact that he feels like he's being told off. And that he probably deserves it. He knows he's no good at relationships, but at least Spike will call him out on it and, more importantly, make it clear what he needs to do. If he lacks the right instincts himself, at least he has someone to guide him in the right direction.

"Yeah, maybe I should," he admits, with a slightly self-conscious smile. "I just get swept along in things, lose track of how long it's been when I don't have my guy with a stopwatch along to remind me!"

Maybe he is being told off a little bit. Spike's not stupid, he knows that no matter how good he and Ianto are on their own, Jack was part of all that and even more so, part of Ianto's life long before Spike came along. He knows how much Ianto misses him when he's not around.

"Maybe you should bring him along sometime. Have an lit'le adventure the two of you."

It's a casual suggestion, but he does have something... well. There's something to it. Something he should get into at some point but maybe not tonight, maybe not ever if he can play it right.

Yeah, and now that he's been gone a while and begun to realise what he's missed, he's starting to be a little more aware of that. Things might change for the better.

"Hey, I would love to. I've always wanted to take him out into the stars, show him other worlds; he just seems to want to stay on Earth with you!"

He cocks his head, thinking about it, how it might work. "And what would you be doing while I was off showing him the universe?"

"Have you asked?" He responds with a cocked brow and a pointed glance. Jack doesn't always have the best grasp of the romantic, as was evident by how Ianto was so deprived of being swept off his feet when they first started fraternising. Chances are there's a lot of assumptions happening here and we all know what that does.

That line of conversation comes to a limping halt however as Jack gets to the heart of the matter, as he so often does. There's a pause, because of course it is, and a gulp of whiskey as if to brush off that there was a pause at all.

"I'm sure I can find something to occupy myself."

"Of course I have!" he says immediately, before going back to really think about it. He frowns. "I'm sure I have, just... perhaps not strongly enough. Perhaps I haven't really made it clear how much I'd like him to come with me."

And perhaps, even though he's imagined it quite a bit, he's also tended to imagine that Ianto would rather be on Earth with Spike. Perhaps there have been assumptions happening and doing their thing.

Which, really, was where his question about what Spike would do with himself if left on his own came from, because he really has found it hard to imagine the two of them wanting to be apart. But that response sounds simultaneously like it's coming from somewhere deep and that Spike is trying very hard to make it sound casual.

So he quirks an eyebrow, and asks - directly, so that he'll hopefully have no chance of misinterpreting the answer: "Do you want to talk about it? Or shall we pretend I never asked?" With an ironic twitch of his lips.

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