Ficlet: If I Should Die
May. 29th, 2026 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: If I Should Die
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 549
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto knows he will probably die young, but he wouldn’t change the life he’s living.
Written For:
doreyg’s prompt ‘any, any, What if I only had / One more night to live’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
It’s been another manic Torchwood day, full of unexpected dangers, near disasters, close brushes with death, madness and mayhem, and because the team has had a lot of practice dealing with the imminent end of the world, or at least their small corner of it, ultimate victory.
Really, there’d been no question that the Torchwood Three team would triumph over impossible odds, defeat the latest invasion force, and save the day, along with the city. It’s what they do, and they’ve done it often enough to be pretty good at it. The only question was the usual one of how many of them would still be alive when it was all over.
Torchwood agents die young; that’s how it’s always been, and likely always will be. Every member of the team accepts the dangers, even if some are more dismissive of them than others. It’s all part of being Torchwood, and like with any job, there are bound to be downsides, less appealing aspects to a typical workday that have to be put up with. No job is perfect, but if you’re lucky, the good points outweigh the bad.
It's that way with Torchwood, at least from Ianto’s point of view. For better or worse, Torchwood is in his blood, but he’s under no illusions of living long enough to draw a pension. Not that Torchwood even HAS a pension plan, because such a thing has never been needed. Chances are, he won’t make it to his thirtieth birthday; less than a quarter of Torchwood Three’s field agents do, and the few that are lucky enough to make it that far seldom reach thirty-five. While that’s a depressing thought when Ianto allows himself to dwell on it, he’s more or less made his peace with the inevitability of it, because…
This job is as much about who he is as about what he does for a living, and he honestly can’t imagine being or doing anything else. Every other job would pale in comparison to all the drama and excitement, the addictive thrill of the adrenaline rush, not to mention all the amazing things he gets to see and do. The truth is, Torchwood, and Jack, are Ianto’s life, and without either one of them, he’d be diminished, so much less than he is when he’s chasing Weevils and loving Jack, learning things about himself that he never could have imagined before.
He knows full well that his life could end next week, or tomorrow, or even tonight. When it happens, he doubts there’ll be any kind of prior warning, or any time to re-think his choices. But part of him thinks that would be okay, just as long as he can be with Jack one last time before the end, because in Jack’s arms he feels more alive than he would ever have believed possible, and really, what more could he possibly wish for?
Well, perhaps he could wish for forever, or at least a few more years to enjoy as much of life as he can, but he doesn’t want to come across as greedy, so he’ll just make the most of the time he has, and when it’s over, hope he can bow out doing something that matters. That way, he won’t have any real regrets.
The End
Really, there’d been no question that the Torchwood Three team would triumph over impossible odds, defeat the latest invasion force, and save the day, along with the city. It’s what they do, and they’ve done it often enough to be pretty good at it. The only question was the usual one of how many of them would still be alive when it was all over.
Torchwood agents die young; that’s how it’s always been, and likely always will be. Every member of the team accepts the dangers, even if some are more dismissive of them than others. It’s all part of being Torchwood, and like with any job, there are bound to be downsides, less appealing aspects to a typical workday that have to be put up with. No job is perfect, but if you’re lucky, the good points outweigh the bad.
It's that way with Torchwood, at least from Ianto’s point of view. For better or worse, Torchwood is in his blood, but he’s under no illusions of living long enough to draw a pension. Not that Torchwood even HAS a pension plan, because such a thing has never been needed. Chances are, he won’t make it to his thirtieth birthday; less than a quarter of Torchwood Three’s field agents do, and the few that are lucky enough to make it that far seldom reach thirty-five. While that’s a depressing thought when Ianto allows himself to dwell on it, he’s more or less made his peace with the inevitability of it, because…
This job is as much about who he is as about what he does for a living, and he honestly can’t imagine being or doing anything else. Every other job would pale in comparison to all the drama and excitement, the addictive thrill of the adrenaline rush, not to mention all the amazing things he gets to see and do. The truth is, Torchwood, and Jack, are Ianto’s life, and without either one of them, he’d be diminished, so much less than he is when he’s chasing Weevils and loving Jack, learning things about himself that he never could have imagined before.
He knows full well that his life could end next week, or tomorrow, or even tonight. When it happens, he doubts there’ll be any kind of prior warning, or any time to re-think his choices. But part of him thinks that would be okay, just as long as he can be with Jack one last time before the end, because in Jack’s arms he feels more alive than he would ever have believed possible, and really, what more could he possibly wish for?
Well, perhaps he could wish for forever, or at least a few more years to enjoy as much of life as he can, but he doesn’t want to come across as greedy, so he’ll just make the most of the time he has, and when it’s over, hope he can bow out doing something that matters. That way, he won’t have any real regrets.
The End
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Date: 2026-05-29 10:55 pm (UTC)