sariagray

Title: The First of All Pleasures
Author:

sariagray
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Jack/OC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3000
Spoilers: This is tricksy. Set post The Parting of the Ways (DW) but pre-Torchwood. Doesn’t reveal the plot of TW, per se, but it does reveal some of the details of Jack’s life described throughout both series. I think. Oh, bother. Just read it. 
Warnings: Some lightly implied sex. Messing with history. No one is safe! Beware! *Snicker*
Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with any of the characters herein, be they of the Doctor Who or Torchwood canons, or the real life people of history. I receive no material compensation of any kind for this work.
Author’s Note: This story is a standalone piece and is meant to fit in with canon. However, it will also play (a little) into the “An Injury to One” AU. Knowledge of that AU is not required to understand (and hopefully enjoy!) this piece. “An Injury to One” begins here: sariagray.livejournal.com/834.html. Also, Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Summary: Ianto is granted a brief (and cryptic) glimpse into Jack’s intriguing past.

The First of All Pleasures

   Ianto had arrived early at the Hub every morning since his first day at Torchwood 3. Of course, then it had been about Lisa. After her death and the passage of time, the healing, the form had morphed into something of the zealous. The practiced solid movement from one station to the other to tidy and prepare, the grinding of the coffee, the measuring of the grounds, had become a holy rite for the devoted acolyte. It gave him peace and security.
   The night before this particular morning, it had been difficult to sleep. His thoughts had not been particularly tumultuous, his body unmarred by bruise or fatigue, his soul at a general sense of contentment; he had simply been unable to force his eyes shut. He had spent the night sequestered in his room with a particularly good novel and a cup of tea. When the clock struck three in the morning, he gave up and showered.
   In the early morning darkness, the Plas seemed to glow. The air was an autumnal crisp, light and restorative. He was tired, true, but he felt the easy serenity wrap itself snugly around him like a cloak. He relaxed into it.
As he went about his tasks, he let his mind slip into an uncensored state, the stream of consciousness producing an effect on him similar to meditation. He dreamed as if asleep and only broke the reverie when he stepped before the coffee machine, a small reverent smile playing upon his lips.
   Measuring out the coffee, he hummed softly to himself. As he began to grind, he noticed a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied, a bit clumsily, with a string. A folded note had been placed on top. He paused, the sense of calm he had cultivated giving way to a feeling of excitable anticipation.
   He turned off the grinder, adjusted his tie, and looked around him. Slowly, as if trying to prolong the moment, he crept toward the parcel and lifted the note.

Ianto –
I thought you would enjoy the story behind the story.
Jack

   He allowed himself a smirk at the cryptic message as he carefully undid the bit of twine. With a worshipful grace, he unfolded the paper to reveal an old book. He put it to the side and carefully creased its wrapping neatly, placing the untied string on top. Anxious and excited though he was, he thought to extend the unexpected pleasure for as long as possible.
   Finally, he returned his attentions to the tome. Its cover looked worn, the rich chocolate leather lightened to fingerprint-sized coffee cream splotches in the appropriate places. It was elegant in its simplicity and had clearly been loved. The binding itself was a little loose, but not dangerously so. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled the heady scent of leather combined with the distinguishably musty aroma of an old book.
   Placing it back on the counter, he used the tip of his index finger to turn open the cover. He held back a laugh as he arrived at the title page, remembering an earlier conversation with Jack, and allowed the confusion to settle in. He glanced back at the note, and again to the title page.
   Slowly, realization dawned and he bit his lower lip as his eyes widened in amazed understanding. With a sense of awe, he ran his finger carefully over the title. He looked up at the clock and, deciding that he had a couple of hours until the others arrived, carried the book over to the couch to read. Just a chapter or two, he told himself as he settled down with The Picture of Dorian Gray.

   He sat in the theatre, a look of amusement on his face. He was convinced that the playwright had completely outdone himself. Again. The audience began clearing out amidst chatter of “genius” and “ridiculous” and “masterpiece.” He rose languidly and sauntered to the lobby.
   “Jack!” a voice called and he turned.
   “Oscar!” he greeted with a grin. “You are absolutely brilliant. How did you manage to keep this from me?”
   The men hugged and the playwright chuckled.
   “You were too distracted with rifts of time and space.” From the author’s lips, it sounded like an elaborate metaphor and Jack laughed heartily.
   “Ah, well. It has made me realize how much I needed a manservant. I wish you would have told me sooner,” Jack teased.
   A young man approached, a scowl on his face. “Jack,” he greeted the man with a nod.
   Jack nodded back, curtly. “Lord Douglas.”
   “Bosie,” chided Oscar. “What cloudburst is this that blocks out the sun?”
   “The people here are tiresome,” the youth whined. “I am going to retire to the club.” He leaned over and kissed Oscar on the cheek affectionately, yet with the intention of exhibiting his claim for Jack’s benefit. “I’ll see you later tonight.” He turned and left.
   Jack raised an eyebrow.
   “He is young,” Oscar sighed by way of explanation. “The Marquess was here. He wishes to ruin us,” he paused ominously and gave a slight shrug. “Come, my immortal. Let us talk over a brandy. There are more things in heaven and earth to speak of.”
   Jack let him lead the way.

   When Jack had first arrived in Wales, distraught and searching out his Doctor, Oscar had been a mere boy of fifteen. It wasn’t until Oscar had come into his own that they had crossed paths. It was a Tuesday evening, a bit damp and dreadfully cold. The fire of the club was a welcome comfort. He arrived alone and was instantly served his customary accoutrements; a pipe and a brandy. While not overly fond of the taste of either, he found they helped him assimilate.
   As he relaxed, he noticed a gathering in the back of the room. A group sat with rapt attention around a young man with shining eyes and a ready smile. He was decked in an exquisitely tailored suit of the most remarkable lilac and the glow of the fire favored his features in a warm, hallowed light. He said something to the men, a twinkle in his eye, and they laughed heartily, faces turned up toward him to bathe in the incandescence.
   Jack was so enraptured, he hadn’t realized that he had been staring until the man’s smiling eyes met his.
   “Come,” he called. “My devotees will indulge me to make room for such a blossom as yourself.” He turned to a young boy of about eighteen and gestured for him to open the circle.
   Jack could barely suppress a blush, and the fact that he (of all people!) was so near rose-tinted cheeks embarrassed him even more. Collecting his confident swagger, he walked over.
   “Now,” said the man with ostentatious formality, “we make our introductions. I am Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde.” The men around him laughed. “To whom do I owe this distinct pleasure?”
   “Jack,” he responded, smiling. “Jack Harkness.”
   “A common name for a very uncommon face. And an American!” Oscar exclaimed, as if he had discovered an exotic flower.
   Jack nodded in amusement.
   “America,” he explained to the other men as Jack took a seat, “is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”
   The men roared their laughter. “Oh, Oscar, you are being so awful to our guest!” claimed the boy who had moved for Jack.
   “Not at all,” smirked Jack, easing into the man’s presence with a rapidity that surprised him. “It is completely true. There is a brutality to the country that we tried to dress up for Oscar’s visit. We had hoped, though,” he said wryly, “that he wouldn’t notice.”
   “Ah,” laughed Oscar. “You’ve heard of me, then.”
   “Who hasn’t? You have completely wiped out the possibility of anonymity, Oscar, and don’t you dare pretend you’d have it otherwise!” chuckled a man to Jack’s right.
   Oscar bowed his head in acknowledgement and raised a smiling eye directly to Jack.

   They were devoted friends first and occasional lovers second. Jack had felt oppressed by the sexual standards of the Victorian era and, while there were renters of either gender to be had by the plenty, the sordidness of it all had become repugnant to him; their fear was almost palpable.
   Oscar was an ardent lover, giving himself up to beauty and grace. They taught each other many things, Jack leading the way in the instruction of the erotic while Oscar lectured on aesthetic romance.
   Jack felt at home in Tite Street. He absolutely adored Constance, which often lent his intermittent couplings with Oscar a tinge of guilt. She was a devoted, loving wife who accepted her husband’s gargantuan personality and complemented him well. He was pleased that Oscar had found an intelligent woman so motivated on social change. And she was persuasive; Jack found (to his feigned dismay and her gleeful delight) that he had become a frequent supporter the dress reform movement.
   Still, Jack was an infrequent visitor, most of his time spent looking for the Doctor in Cardiff. Oscar forgave his absences and never asked about his lengthy disappearances. Indeed, his relationship with the author never required a cover story.
   “We all have our secrets,” Oscar had told him one night when Jack had started to offer a concocted explanation. “We need them to keep the illusion of mystery; that we all have them simply means that we are all quite average.” His eyes twinkled.
   Jack laughed, “Ah. You think me common.”
   Oscar smiled at that and shook his head.
   “You adopt the illusion of commonness,” he replied. “It suits you well. Illusion is, after all, the first of all pleasures.”

   They were sharing a cigarette one evening a couple of years later when Oscar tentatively broached the subject, a studious curiosity playing across his face.
   “My eyes are tired,” he took a drag of the cigarette he held. “Lines deepen around them. I am going soft around the edges. Yet here you are, retaining the bloom of youth.”
   Jack sighed, resigned to the inevitable that he wished desperately could be put off just a little longer.
   “No,” Oscar raised his hand. “I will not ask your secret. It is yours alone and I –.”
   “I can’t die. I age slowly.”
   Oscar raised an eyebrow.
   Jack looked skeptically hopeful.
   The man laughed and adjusted his buttonhole. “I believe you. It is entirely too devastating to be improbable.”
   Jack looked at him curiously, awaiting further explanation. Oscar’s brown eyes stared at him in thought for a moment and then he smiled sadly.
   “Oh, Jack. He who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.”
   So Jack told him his story, for once capturing the complete fascination of Oscar rather than the other way around.

   “It is the first copy. In fact,” he chuckled, “it is the only copy.”
   Jack looked down at the book. The simplicity belied its intent; this was the particularly precious proof of the novel Oscar had been so exuberantly penning. He went to open it.
   “No!” exclaimed the author. “Wait until tonight, when I am gone. And do not speak to me until you have finished every last word.”
   He was doubtful, but nodded his assent and was rewarded a gracious smile and a small kiss on the cheek.
Later that evening, he opened the pristine volume. Inside was a folded note written in Oscar’s hand.

Dearest Jack,
   In your hands you hold the complete story of Dorian. It is the only copy ever to exist of its kind. Guard it well and see that it remains singular for all time.
   You are the story behind the story. No, better to say that the story behind the story is what might have been. I am pleased to say that you are nothing like poor Dorian. He is your curse, I believe, afflicted on dear Bosie’s body and mind and soul. How I fret over him! The boy will be the death of me.
   When I met you, I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.
   This is my own attempt at immortality; one among many, if I am honest. If you have not seen amongst the flowering fruits of my labours your own visage, you are a fool and I will be very ashamed to admit your acquaintance.

With Fondest Affection,
Oscar

   Jack read the whole work that night, fascinated. The novel was utterly enthralling and observant. He knew it exhibited complete genius and, like all real genius, it would be vulgarly misunderstood in its time.
   The following morning, he sent a note to Oscar’s address. It read, simply, “Would that I had a portrait to carry my sins and release me.”He hadn’t realized at the time how true Oscar’s musings on Lord Alfred Douglas would prove.

   When Oscar had been released from prison, he was changed. The sorrow in the man’s eyes shredded Jack’s heart and left him almost silent. He had stood by Oscar’s side throughout the trials, knowing that he could do nothing to change the outcome. Their reunion had been bittersweet and much of their talk centered on Bosie.
   “You are the shade and gloom, dear Jack, my immortal.”He laughed halfheartedly at Jack’s look of offense. “I mean only that you frighten me so. There is a beautiful, solid darkness to you. You are a good man shrouded in mystery and sadness. Bosie, dear boy that he is, is a spoiled man masked in honesty and joy and –”
   Jack cut him off with a pointed look. “Oscar, he was never good to you. He was a leach feeding off of your generosity and pleasant nature. The serpent in the garden.”
   “I know,” Oscar smiled wistfully. “In any case, I wrote to him. I told him that my only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom. He’ll know what that means. It breaks my heart so terribly, but I forgive him.”
   “What will you do now?” Jack asked, offering him a cigarette.
   “I think I’ll visit Robbie in France. He’s been a dear friend and England has become cold and cruel.”

   After Oscar left, Jack sunk into a depression. He had lost the light, the glow, of Oscar and the darkness had consumed him. He slipped into the depravation his friend had subtly warned him against, broken himself to see Oscar defeated. Then, he found Torchwood. More accurately, Torchwood found him.
   He had been in their service for less than a year when a letter arrived for him, posted from Paris. He opened it eagerly.

Jack,
   With greatest sadness, I report that Oscar has departed from our world. He died here in Paris, a jest about wallpaper on his tongue, and in relative good spirits. I post this to you cautiously, in the hope that you understand my hesitation for being discovered.
   He wished me to tell you that he has always loved you. It tore my heart to hear it, but I know it to be true. I have always been dreadfully jealous of you and ever will be. I do not expect to be your friend, but I owe you this kindness for his sake. He adored you desperately.
   He has been interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, just outside of Paris. The sun has set.

With Sincerest Condolences,
Lord Alfred Douglas

   Jack read the note twice before standing and pouring himself a snifter of brandy. He stood, looking at the picture Oscar had given him long ago. He looked roguish in the costume and pose, a hat placed upon his head and a cape rakishly swept about his shoulders.
He returned to his seat and set down his drink. Sighing, he picked up the letter again, reread it, and put it back down. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and sobbed.

   Ianto was so engrossed in the novel that he failed to hear the soft footsteps approaching him from behind. He had read it twice before and loved it dearly, but in light of Jack’s hinted suggestion, it took on great new leaps of meaning. Not only that, there were scenes that he distinctly did not remember from his previous readings. He devoured each passage with ferocious concentration and so it was with a yelp of surprise that he greeted the arms that slid down his shoulders.
   “No coffee?” Jack asked, his voice a playful pout as he kissed the top of his head. He walked around the couch and leaned against the counter, facing him.
   “You,” Ianto choked out in astonishment. “It’s you.”
   Jack laughed.
   “I…had no idea you were such a muse,” he teased. “And to Oscar Wilde, of all people. I am very jealous.”
   “It isn’t all me. It was Bosie…Lord Douglas, too. We were opposites that attracted Oscar. The dark that was light and the light that was dark. But,” he smiled, “there is no reason to be jealous. I was once Dorian, or at least partly. Now….When I look into your eyes….”
   Ianto looked at him expectantly as Jack spanned the distance between them with a quick stride.
   “When I look into your eyes,” he repeated, “I see the secret of my own soul.” He leaned down and pulled Ianto’s face into a deep kiss that jolted them both with a warm, urgent need.
   “Jack,” Ianto gasped as the Captain pulled away. “The others…what time is it?”
   His answer was a smile and a sweeter coupling of lips that took his breath away.
   “When I met you,” Jack whispered, looking directly into his eyes, “I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.”
Ianto propped himself up from his recumbent position, grabbed the man’s shirt, and kissed him fiercely. Jack let himself be absorbed.

End

Post Author’s Notes/Explanations/Credits:

I am a HUGE Oscar Wilde fan – have been for years. While looking at Jack’s timeline for something else, the dates struck me as being amusing in that he and Wilde would have been in the same relative area for quite some time. That they would have crossed paths struck me as plausible, and it amused me. I made a brief mention of it in “An Injury to One,” but it wouldn’t let me go. That’s when the idea struck.

I tried to be as accurate to history and the DW/TW timelines as possible. Some things have been tweaked a smidgen, but I think everything follows the correct sequence. However, time jumps. The first past scene with Jack/Oscar is opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest which took place in 1895. It then reverts back to 1885, three years after Wilde came back from his tour in America, and progresses chronologically from there. The Picture of Dorian Gray was published first in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (I believe). The version Oscar gives Jack is the sort of omnibus of all its incarnations (as it had appeared in the magazine, then chapters were added, then passages were deleted, etc.). This is what makes this particular copy so very special. Not that it really exists, but I can dream, right? Wilde was convicted in 1895 and was released from prison in 1897. In 1899, Jack was recruited (kidnapped?) by Torchwood and Wilde died in 1900.

For more information about Oscar Wilde, please check out: www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/

Also, the picture Jack has of Oscar can be found here: sharemyplaylists.com/wp-content/uploads/36249/oscar-wilde.jpg

In this ‘verse, Wilde is Jack’s first post-Bad Wolf loss.

Direct quotes from Oscar Wilde:

“I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray

"My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom." - De Profundis

“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

“He who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.” – The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Quotes That Have Been Reworked:

“The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.” – The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.”

Please forgive me if I missed anything, and feel free to point them out so that proper attribution can be applied. This story was really wonderful to write, and I want to see if it worked as well on the page as it did in my head! Please let me know if you enjoyed it and if it translated well for you! I feel like this is more my baby than AItO - how that happened, I will never know! :)