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fictionalTitle: Dear Captain, Last Night I Slept in Mutiny...
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, character study by way of much conversation, some porn and a little nice, friendly d/s
Summary: After death, a date: dinner, discussion, and driving – for Jack and Ianto, the death bit might actually be the easy part.
Author's Notes: Direct sequel to A Strange Fashion of Forsaking; takes place after that story somewhere in between 2x05: Adam and 2x06: Reset. You don't have to read that first (although we think it is probably not as squicky as its warnings suggest), but it will make more sense if you do. Title adapted from a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido. 2nd installment of I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling.
Wordcount: ~11,300
The shower was helping a lot, Ianto reflected, and he was relieved (if slightly shocked) that Jack had left him to it alone. He didn't usually; Jack, being Jack, always wanted more, but he must have understood at least vaguely that Ianto needed some space to shift gears between... well, that and a date.
Ianto laughed and shook his head. How fucking ridiculous. Although, he supposed the rest of the team would theoretically get a good chuckle out of it. Of course he had, had to kill Jack to get him to go on a proper date the way normal people did. But no one, absolutely no one was going to ever know that.
Because Ianto was still ashamed and frightened and tingling all over and just a little bit puzzled. For one thing, what the hell were he and Jack going to talk about over dinner under these or perhaps any circumstances?
He shook his head under the spray of the shower, hoping the heated water would either clear his mind or, at the very least, make him stop thinking. There really was no way to prepare; Jack was like a force of nature, who would refuse to stay within whatever parameters Ianto thought out regardless. Still, he found himself feverishly trying to calculate the vectors of various possible conversational gambits and arcs until he finally banged his head lightly on the tile and turned off the shower. If answers existed, he wasn't finding them here.
As he dried off, he caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror, but ducked down before he could really meet his own eyes.
From where he'd laid it on the side of the sink, he heard his comm beep. Jack must really be getting impatient, he thought.
Jack was sitting at his desk, waiting. What was Ianto doing in there for so long? He wondered, not for the first time, if he'd been right to let him shower alone. What if he was...upset in there, or something? He walked over to the windows, and pulled up the blinds. There it was: the live, beating heart of Torchwood - sleeping now, but still pulsing with the thrum of Toshiko's ongoing experiments with the Rift, littered with post-it notes and experiments and boxes of biscuits, littered with life. And there was where Ianto had stood, picking up the trash after...Jack cut off that train of thought with surgical precision.
It wasn't a home, Torchwood, and that was why Jack liked it. It didn't pretend to be what it wasn't; it was something different, something new. Something he'd made to fit all his broken bits and lies and promises. It was fucked up, no question. But it was beautiful, and Jack smiled to himself. It would be here, when he got back. Always. Assuming Ianto ever got his ass out of the shower, and they actually managed to make it out the door.
"Hi, sorry," Ianto said, slightly breathless as he walked into Jack's office, shrugging on the jacket for the extra suit he kept down in the lockers and still doing up his tie.
"Nope," Jack murmured affectionately, taking the tie from Ianto. "It's late. We're off duty. No tie," he said, smiling, glad to have the excuse to touch the other man again. "Leave the jacket too. It's warm out."
Ianto gave a nervous laugh, wondering if Jack even noticed how easily and ridiculously he was taking control again. Actually, now that he thought about it, Jack was probably doing it intentionally with the assumption that Ianto was still scattered and unnerved.
Of course, it was true, and while Ianto appreciated the thought, it also made him want to pull himself together. After all, if having just done the most obscene thing of his, or indeed anyone's life, didn't give him the personal authority to be something more than just the office boy, nothing ever would.
"So where are we going?"
"La Lupa," Jack said, managing to make the vowels obscene. "Walk or SUV?"
"My car," Ianto said. Jack had made him a promise, and they certainly weren't walking to Ianto's flat from the restaurant or for that matter, into work in the morning. "The SUV is not conducive to being off-duty, sir."
Jack smirked. "Neither is you calling me sir."
"I think that probably depends."
"You're wearing clothes. Doesn't count."
Jack took a step towards where his greatcoat was flung. Ianto cast his eyes up to the heavens and then moved quickly enough so he could get there first.
"What happened to it being warm enough, sir?" Ianto said, deadpan, as he settled the coat round Jack's shoulders.
"Okay, I lied. I just like looking at your chest. Problem?"
"Not at all," Ianto said. "Shall we go?"
"Definitely. Would you like me to drive?"
"It is my car," Ianto pointed out firmly.
"So?" Jack said, before grabbing the keys out of Ianto's discarded jacket pocket. Ianto looked at him askance, and Jack actually stood still, before going on. "Let me be a gentleman, Ianto. Who knows, you might even enjoy it."
"Or expire from shock," Ianto muttered.
"Hey, hey, none of that," Jack said. "I have some manners, earlier discussions aside."
Ianto felt the corner of his mouth quirk, but he kept quiet, not wanting to encourage the banter. It felt false and like they were both hiding behind it, but it was, by and large, easier to keep it up than to stop. Which said a great deal about what they'd been doing for months now.
Jack looked at him for one long, steady moment before nodding and then heading for the door. He held it open for Ianto, no more or less flamboyantly than usual. "After you," he said.
In the car, they were silent. Jack drove the car like he drove all cars – as if they'd been purpose-built for him, and it was a short ride through Cardiff's streets.
Ianto settled into the silence, which surprisingly, didn't feel awkward. He hadn't known that Jack knew how to do this, hadn't known that Jack could exist in a silence, which wasn't necessarily hostile, but was wrapping around them like cotton wool, without trying to cut through it with sheer force of personality.
After parking, Jack came round and opened Ianto's car door for him; Ianto thought this time he'd managed to keep the eye roll wholly to himself (although with Jack, you never knew). How someone from the future could be so caught up in the past, was one of those things that Ianto was sure he would never be able to really puzzle out.
The restaurant was all dark wood and curtains, warmly lit; as they entered, Ianto could smell the sharp, good garlic smell, the mellow ripeness of tomato sauce, olive oil and basil, and he felt something inside him begin to unknot.
"So," Jack said after they had been seated, and without looking up from the wine list he was examining as carefully as if it were some alien code, "what kind of evening is this?"
"Hmm?"
"I thought about not saying anything, but maybe it's better to just be straightforward. Is this the kind of date where we do light conversation, with a spot of work-gossip; I tell you charming mostly true stories, and you listen appreciatively, and comment dryly when appropriate? Because I can certainly do that, if you like," Jack said, and then without missing a beat, turned to the waiter, who had just appeared at his elbow, and proceeded to order a bottle of very expensive tocai friulano.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at the wine, suitably impressed enough to have to laugh at himself. He smiled then, focusing on Jack's question and it suddenly felt desperately, desperately sad. Because it shouldn't be that type of evening at all. But dear god it would be easier if it were. But they were so long past it, which meant it would never really happen now. Unless they were to fake it, awkwardly, as Jack was offering to do, kindly, but with that edge in his voice.
As usual, Jack wanted something else, and Ianto, somehow, was supposed to guess. Why anyone thought his coffee and filing skills extended to that, he would never know. He decided to go for honesty without actually answering Jack's question. It might stall for time if nothing else.
"I would have liked that," he said softly and wondered with dismay if it read like a woman being coy when she thinks she's being sure. "Seems a bit late though for that sort of thing. I mean. Considering. Everything. What are my other choices?"
Jack laughed. "Time rolls back around sometimes, you know. You'll think the moment for something has passed, and then somehow...you're there again."
"How metaphorical," Ianto said. "If this isn't that moment, what moment is it?"
"Well, right now, it's the moment for deciding what you want to eat. Unless you'd like to have me order for you. After that? I don't know. Maybe something real. A real conversation, to go with this real date. If you ask me, Italian is the only way to go for a date. Some people say French, but I always think it's too forced."
"It's messy though, which I suppose suits us if nothing else," Ianto blurted, and then only barely managed to laugh at himself instead of being mortified. "And as much as I do have a morbid curiosity as to what you would order for me? No," he added, sincerely amused as he finally opened the menu.
Jack, he noted to himself, had just more or less dodged the very question he asked in the first place. Ianto did have something to say about that, but first he hoped they could get the matter of food and the ritual of the wine out of the way. It was a ritual he had always liked, but somehow he expected to feel ridiculous as he was forced to sit there watching Jack do it.
Astoundingly, when the waiter brought the bottle and presented it to Jack before opening it, Jack refrained from being a ham and even managed to keep from saying anything untoward. In fact, aside from being smooth and graceful, he didn't draw attention to the process at all, focused on it only as much as he had to be and otherwise just watching Ianto.
It was unnerving. But also incredibly satisfying. The full attention of Captain Jack Harkness, and he wasn't even tied up. Or dead. Oh God. Ianto cogitated briefly on how much he hated his brain.
"We should have a toast. How about this?" Jack said, raising his glass and clinking it to Ianto's. "If wishing damns us, you and I/ Are damned to our heart's content;/ Come then, at least we may enjoy/Some pleasure for our punishment."
"That's...cheerful," Ianto said, before taking a sip of wine, hoping to moisten his suddenly dry mouth.
"How do you like it?" Jack asked. "Hope it's okay."
"It's good," Ianto said. "I never see you drinking much. Only water, when we go out to the pub or whatever."
"No, it doesn't really do too much for me anymore. I still like the feel of it though. And, sometimes, it's not an occasion without it. Would you have done better?"
"Hmmm?"
"With the toast," Jack said.
Ianto shook his head. "Surely not. More cautious. Less dark. Maybe next time."
"Aaa-ha," Jack said grinning as he set his wine glass down. "There's going to be a next time?"
"Considering all the other things I know there's going to be a next time of, I had rather hoped."
"Wishing damns us," Jack teased.
"Doing damns us," Ianto corrected. His tone was playful, but Jack still frowned.
"You still feeling tangled up about earlier?"
"A bit, yeah." He paused. "When you die, I mean, do you, really?"
"You've seen a bullet go through my skull, Ianto."
"Yes, but you don't, your body doesn't.... I mean, the medical stuff is Owen's department. But it's not exactly corpse-like. So, I mean, when you're dead, do you know you're dead?"
Jack started to answer and then stopped. "That's awfully philosophical."
"You wanted serious discussion and made a toast about damnation. Which I think means you have to answer the question."
"Fair enough," Jack said. "Fair enough."
But instead of going on, his eyes slid away as if he was staring off into some private, unimaginable distance, and Ianto shivered.
"Right," Jack said, finally. "Yes. I know when I'm dying. It lasts forever. That last part, right before the end. It could be pain, or peace, or whatever - but it's the whole world, the whole universe shrunk down to that one, infinitely long moment. When I'm actually dead - I don't know anything at all. And when I come back to life, I know that too. That's the horror, Ianto. Can you imagine it? Remembering that...nothingness? You can't."
Ianto stared at him.
"You want to know if it's real. Am I just asleep? Is it like hibernation?" Jack asked evenly. "It's not. It might seem that way because I'm just very good at it. I've had a lot of practice. Come back to life with shit and piss-stained pants often enough, and you learn to be careful about when you eat...if you think you might be dying later. Does that answer your question?"
Well, trust Jack to say things.
Ianto looked down at the table half ashamed and half afraid. He wanted to berate himself for being a coward, but really, he thought, this was just natural human instinct in action.
Oh. Right. It was his turn to speak. "Reckon I just got lucky then."
There was a pause and then Jack roared with laughter.
Ianto gave a wry smile, mainly because he didn't know what else to do.
Jack sobered. "Do you start to see why I don't tell people things?" he asked. "That it's not personal? That you can be the most serious, capable person in the world and it will still never be appropriate mealtime conversation, that it will still never, ever be something you want to know."
"I wanted to know," Ianto said stubbornly. "Don't tell me I didn't, Jack."
Jack shook his head, but didn't say anything.
The waiter returned, and Jack ordered saltimbocca, while Ianto looked down again at the menu, trying to decide between the penne with smoked salmon and prawns, or the linguine with scampi. It was difficult because (perhaps unsurprisingly) his appetite seemed to have done a runner, and finally he ended in choosing one at random, so that the waiter would stop looking at him impatiently, and more importantly, go away.
He cleared his throat. “So not worried about dying tonight, then?” he tried, in an effort to show how very not bothered he was by what had rapidly become a very disturbing conversation.
“Not really,” Jack said. “I've upset you. I'm sorry.”
Ianto didn't know what to say. Should he reassure Jack? Could he reassure Jack? What did Jack want from him? Ianto shook his head to clear it, although it also implied a negation he now had to address.
"I did ask. I just wish you'd stop forgetting my story. Believe me, I know it's easier, considering. But the whole thing with Lisa -- look, I'm used to life being ugly and brutal and messy. Really fucking messy. And I get why the universe is apparently revolted by our sad little planet and wants to encase it in metal and take our feelings away or whatever. I just don't happen to need to throw it in your face every two seconds. You could do the same for me. Because, really, Jack do you think I'm upset that you came back to life or upset because I don't actually know what I would have done if I didn't know that you could?"
"I don't know what you want me to say to that."
Ianto took a sip of his wine to buy time. He shrugged as he set the glass down. "I don't know. Tell me who you are when you're not busy being Torchwood."
"Can't I just reassure you you're not a monster again, instead?"
Ianto shook his head. "Not right now."
"Enjoying it?" Jack asked, with a hint of flirtation – restrained for him – back in his voice.
Ianto made a face. "Maybe. A small amount."
"Anyway," Jack said, "I could never forget your story, try as I might. That's what really kills people, or changes them. Forgetting. I wouldn't do that to you."
"Never is a long time, Jack, especially for you. And you don't get out of answering so easily. I know your slippery ways."
"You certainly do," Jack said, lasciviously.
Childishly, Ianto thought about throwing a breadstick at him, but decided that it would be too hard to keep what little portion of dignity that remained to him while doing so. He sighed.
"My point is, you remember what I did to you." He took a deep breath before adding, "And to Torchwood. And to us, I guess. But you don't seem to remember or be able to imagine what it was like for me to try to take care of her for months, locking her up in dark, stinking places and then coming home and being torn between missing her and wanting her and just wanting to forget she had ever existed. So you dying and coming back? Yeah, it's weird as fuck all. And maybe I'm daft for asking questions with answers that revolt me. But I've made a choice to be here and keep being here. It's not that it's the least I can do; it's that in the scheme of things it's not that bad. You're not that bad. Me? Well, we all have our issues."
Jack leaned his chin in his palm, just watching Ianto talk. It was a lot of words all at once for him and Jack wondered if this was just how he was when he was comfortable (he was, wasn't he?) with someone or if earlier events had shaken a lot and possibly too much loose.
"That's fair. About Lisa. If you want to tell me --"
"I don't, particularly. They're more her secrets than mine. But if you need to ask, I'll answer. Only seems right."
"Actually, I think I already know what I need to about that. See, here's the thing, Ianto...,"
There was no response, except that Ianto's breath quickened.
"You think I don't remember or can't understand. I think you're wrong. You like to take care of people. You get off on it. Always waiting, with the proper tool right to hand, the right comment at the perfect moment. The cup of coffee ready to our hands, the correct gesture as you put on my coat, getting the right file before we even know we need it. The thing about the basement - it wasn't that you played me, oh so beautifully...and don't think I don't tip my hat to you. It wasn't that which made it terrible."
Ianto said nothing.
"Let's be honest for a minute. She was broken, and you hated that. And you were lying to us, getting one over on Torchwood, and maybe you hated that too. I know you loved her - hell, you still love her. But that's not why you couldn't let her go. That's not why you couldn't tell us. Really, truthfully, you liked having her there, didn't you? You wanted her to need you - only you. And you didn't want it any other way."
Jack paused a moment to see if Ianto would interject, and then continued. "And that still doesn't make you a monster. Or if it does, who am I to cast stones? I'm a monster too. But there isn't the dungeon or basement built that could hold me. Even in Torchwood. And don't think I don't regret it. Because you're not the only one who's made a choice to be here, and I already know the answers to all the questions."
Ianto was stunned.
For one thing Jack's ego was huge and powerful and maybe not even misplaced or misshapen and that was just fundamentally frightening. That was the thing about immortality. You can't be human and immortal, Ianto decided. If you become immortal, you become something else. And it was so fucking alien.
But that wasn't why he could barely speak, even though he was trying anyway.
"I don't... I didn't... God, Jack, do I seem like I could control anyone? It wasn't like that with Lisa."
"Yeah, you do," Jack said, almost, but not entirely forgoing the tone that made it clear that matters sexual were amongst those on the table. "Look, I'm not saying it was like that between you and her before Canary Wharf, but something awful happened and it was damned convenient for the workings of that twisty little mind of yours."
Jack shrugged. "This is how the world works and before you tell me I don't understand the blood and the gore and the sitting there fucking helpless, remember how many wars I've fought in. I've watched a hell of a lot of lovers die, slow and grisly and asking me to fix what I couldn't. So yeah, I know all about how fucking easy it is to love someone when they're fucking dying, Ianto."
Whoa. Ianto not only had no idea how they had got here, he had no idea what to say or how to get them back out, because the quiet in the car had been really nice and he wanted it back, and this? This was probably necessary. But it was horrible. And he had no idea what to say.
"I don't know how many wars you've been in, sir," Ianto said quietly, meek and breathless and sad.
“Too many,” Jack said. “Or maybe...not enough. I had a lot of time to do some thinking recently. It seems to me if you've been in enough wars, you should either be dead...or not able to fight anymore. You should have- well, someone I know would say you should have learned better. Do I seem like a soldier to you, Ianto?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, afraid because Jack just looked very, very sad, but unable to lie comfortingly as he wanted to. “You do.”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“I don't think that's a bad thing.”
“No,” Jack said. “I don't think so either. That's the trouble, isn't it?”
Ianto didn't know what to say. Luckily at that point, the food arrived, so Ianto didn't have to do anything but nod politely while the waiter ground pepper and grated parmesan onto his pasta.
Then he took time to put a bite in his mouth, chew it methodically and swallow before saying, “Why don't you ever want to talk about your past, sir? I mean. I can't help but notice that you haven't given a proper answer to any of our- my questions. Even tonight. You just fob us off with these cryptic comments that could mean any one of a dozen things. It's like trying to get the future out of a bloody fortune-teller.”
"But the thing about fortune tellers is what they say always makes sense in the end."
"That's fantastic, Jack. For you. But we don't get to go to the end with you."
"Look, I've already got twice as much in my head as a person should have at the end of their life and since it seems no one can fix this, that probably means I'm just at the beginning of mine. At this point if I tell you something, you'll probably remember it longer than I will. And then when you tell me about it, I won't even know if it's true."
"Is that the appeal?" Ianto asked, "that I'm an archivist?"
Jack shook his head and grinned, gesturing with his fork. "Nope. That's the terror," he said, before adding, "Hey, can I try this?" and spearing one of the prawns in Ianto's pasta before the other man could even answer.
“Does anyone ever say no to you, Jack?” Ianto asked.
“Not often, no. Does anyone ever say it to you?”
“Frequently,” Ianto said.
“Really? When was the last time?” While Ianto tried and failed to come up with an example, Jack chuckled under his breath.
“You see,” he said, while Ianto sputtered, “we're more alike than you think. This shrimp is pretty good. Want a bite of my veal?”
"Yes, but I have better table manners, so cut me a piece, will you?"
Jack chuckled and did as he was told. "See, no argument from me."
"It was your idea," Ianto reminded him.
"Oh. True. But seriously, Ianto, you're a powerful guy with no idea what to do with it."
"That's not what you were saying earlier."
Jack snorted. "Would you believe me if I said I handled that badly? The start of that, I mean?"
"I know you handled it badly, Jack. The question is whether I believe you believe that," Ianto said laughing.
"Well, I do. Thing is, it was still fun as hell." Jack placed a slice of his veal onto Ianto's plate. "See? Table manners."
“And very nice they are indeed, sir,” Ianto said.
“I aim to please,” Jack said, and winked. “Anyway. I know why I think I handled it badly; why do you?”
“I believe I already told you. Were you not paying attention? You can't try to lead me up in the way you think I should go, while trying to make me think I'm the one in the driver's seat, like some sort of bizarre confidence trick. It's beneath you, Jack. It's clumsy.”
“You're right. It was beneath me. The very best cons, the mark doesn't even know they've been conned, at the end. If you went up to them and told them afterwards that they'd been taken for all they were worth, they'd actually argue with you. But it's only a few that have the patience for that – and who don't need to stick around and gloat. Well, gloat too ostentatiously, anyway.”
“I suppose...,” Ianto said, a bit bemused. He hadn't meant the analogy literally. “Why do you know so much about it?”
“Maybe I just like grifter movies...,” Jack said, smiling. “Ever seen The Sting?”
"Yeah, but don't deflect me like that. Movie night's a different date."
"I didn't think dinner with you was going to be this ongoing series of negotiations."
"And you didn't think fucking me was going to be this ongoing series of, well, anything."
Jack shrugged; it was almost shy. "You're a complex man."
"Flattery later, Jack. One true fact. How hard can it be?"
"Five," he said, instantly.
"What?"
"Five wars. Well, five wars that I'm sure we could both agree on were wars. Police actions, national strife, brief involvements in other people's battles, leaving that out. Commanding people, being commanded. Ongoing battle. Five wars. And I loved it, a lot of the time. It was also horrible. No one tells you what it's really like. And even if they do, it doesn't really get the point across."
"You miss having a commanding officer," Ianto said, meaning no innuendo by it, but Jack smirked.
"I miss having a cause more than maybe half a dozen people believe in."
"Do you really hate this life so much, Jack?"
"No. Not today anyway."
Ianto reached across the table and took Jack's hand briefly, smoothing his thumb over the top of it. When he pulled his hand away again, he smiled, almost shyly.
“Did you think you'd be a soldier?” Jack said, unable to keep the brusqueness out of his voice. It wasn't that he minded Ianto's compassion or more probably, pity, but...okay. If he were honest, he had to admit, he did mind it, just a little. “You didn't think it was a bad thing -for me- but honestly, if you could have chosen it, would you? I'm fairly certain you didn't know that's what you were signing up for when you showed up for work one bright morning at Canary Wharf.”
“No,” Ianto said. “I don't think so. I might make a good one, but I don't think I'd have done it by choice. You always hear about people who want to see the world and join up, but that always seemed silly to me. There are probably better ways of seeing the world that don't involve possibly being obliged to kill people when you get there.”
“I think my commanding officer would approve,” Jack said, masking his wince with one of his best grins. “I do have one, you know. He's just a bit, well, absentee at the moment. The best kind, really. Always easier to ask forgiveness than get permission.”
"Does he know you see him that way?" Ianto asked, warily.
"Yeah."
"He all right with it?"
"Well, he knows he can't do anything about it, how's that?"
"Uncomfortable."
"I was given the choice to stay. I didn't take it."
"Do you want me to be grateful?" Ianto asked, it coming out with more of an edge than Jack thought he had probably intended.
"No. I want you to recognize it. It was hard. And you won."
"That's a lot to live up to, Jack. I --"
"It is what it is," he said with a shrug, cutting Ianto off. "Facts don't always have to imply things. They can be big enough on their own."
Ianto ate for a while in silence, directing all of his attention to his plate. This whole evening was so completely mind boggling, and Jack...Jack was like he'd never seen him before, by turns vulnerable, and cruel, and forthright, and then, perhaps most disconcerting of all, oddly forbearing. Ianto wasn't used to Jack's kindness being directed at him; Jack mostly treated him like someone on whom kindness was, if not wasted, then irrelevant.
He was aware that Jack had finished his own meal some time ago, and now was simply looking at him, but he didn't really know what to make of that either.
“Are you going to lick the plate?” Jack said. “It was good, but not that good. Someday you'll visit Rome, and a little trattoria that I know about, and then you'll understand real Italian food.”
“Maybe,” Ianto said, wondering if Jack meant to tell him the address of the place, or take him there – or if it even existed at all.
“Would you like dessert? Or a drink?” Jack inquired politely, and Ianto shook his head. “I wouldn't dare to offer you coffee, of course.”
Jack signaled for the bill, and it appeared almost instantly; Ianto mentally added yet another esoteric power to the list he was continually compiling. As they walked out of the restaurant and back to the car, Ianto felt that strange silence descend upon them again, awkwardly this time.
“Do you still want me to come home with you?” Jack asked abruptly, and for once without the slightest trace of smoothness.
“What? I thought,” Ianto said, stumbling over his words a little with surprise, “I mean. We already deci-”
“I can walk from here, if you're worried about that.”
Ianto took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. "I... no, I wasn't worried about that. I'd say you don't have to if you don't want to, but if you didn't, you'd have already made your excuses."
"I can't tell if you're having a low opinion or a high opinion of me right now," Jack said, trying to be jaunty and not really succeeding.
Ianto tried to think of how to phrase it. "I'm being impressed with us."
"Why?"
"Because neither of us has run screaming?” Ianto offered lightly.
Jack snorted.
"Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I'm always pressing in on you like this," Ianto said.
Jack shrugged. "I've let you. Could argue I've forced you. Least I can do is finally step up," he said, not looking at Ianto. Hands in his pockets, head down was a lot easier for this sort of thing, Ianto supposed, even for Captain Jack Harkness.
"I liked it, driving over here," Ianto said. "How do we get back to that? Because while potentially useful, this has been almost entirely terrifying."
Jack lifted his head and grinned, producing Ianto's car keys from his pocket and tossing them in his hand. "That's easy. We get back in the car."
Ianto couldn't help himself. He reached for Jack, right there in the street, and kissed him hard on the mouth, their teeth clacking together. Jack kissed him back hungrily, and then pulled away so he could say, “Only good times from now on, Ianto Jones.”
“Oh, Jack,” Ianto said, laughing ruefully. “You lie so sweetly.” And he kissed him again.
“Yeah, I really do,” Jack whispered against his lips. “Want me to do it some more?” He pressed his hands into Ianto's back as he pulled him against his body; Ianto could feel the warmth of it burn through his thin vest and shirt.
“Yes,” Ianto said, helplessly. “Oh, yes.”
Jack laughed, and backed Ianto up against a wall; he could feel the cold bricks against his back as Jack kissed him. Somehow Jack had opened his coat, and now was pressing up against him urgently; Ianto could feel his body all warm and hard and perfect against his. It was like nothing on earth, kissing Jack. It was kissing the way you always thought it would be like before you ever did it, the way you imagined it would be from reading books and watching films, but almost never actually was. He smelt spicy, and intoxicating and just somehow, absolutely, blindingly right.
It was almost impossible to make himself push Jack away, but he managed it somehow, if only because if this continued, they'd be having it off right there in the alley, and Ianto really didn't want to have to avoid this street for the rest of his life.
“Not here, Jack,” he said, panting a little. “Take me home.”
Once they were in the car, Ianto put a hand on Jack's thigh. “Drive fast,” he said.
“You bet,” Jack said, low in his throat, as he gunned the motor.
My car loves you almost as much as I do Ianto thought, and it took him a moment to realize he should probably view the sentiment with some alarm.
But the fact was Jack was glorious with Ianto's new car, which responded better and wanted speed far more than the tricked out but clumsy Torchwood SUV.
"Some day let's just go driving," Ianto said breathlessly, and Jack spared a moment to look at him and grin.
And here it was, something they could both enjoy that wasn't entirely or overtly about Torchwood or sex, that didn't leave Ianto worrying that they never read, or watched movies or had anything at all to talk about other than work. This was suddenly like they had lives, like they had private existences, like there really was some secret dark space they could fit each other into.
Ianto realized then that that thing in the restaurant was them getting sorted. Despite Jack's attempts to be gracious and Ianto's clumsy attempt to take his hand, that wasn't the date. This was. Ianto smiled. Maybe there would be time to figure it out.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Take the long way."
"Why?"
"Anticipation."
Jack grinned, and made an entirely illegal, but extremely flashy turn to get them onto Cathedral Road, and bombed up the street. Ianto's car purred under his hands, and it wasn't flying, but it would do. It had been a long time since he had driven for the pure pleasure of it; he remembered rally racing before the Great War, doing the run from London to Edinburgh, when driving was still only the sport of the insanely rich, or at least the richly insane. And he remembered his partner, James, who had let him drive the famous Silver Ghost, and taught him exactly where to put his weight in the motor-car where it would do their speed the most good. Jamie used to be so impressed with Jack's supposed nerves of steel, said he'd spent too much time with lesser mortals, when Jack could sit there digging out a sandwich while he negotiated hairpin curves after people had thrown snow on the road, just to make their lives a little more interesting. Finally he'd met someone who was his match, Jamie used to say.
Jack never told him that as far as he was concerned, it didn't count. It wasn't like he was risking anything, and he was so relieved to get up to speed again, feel the wind on his face, after years of carriages and hansom cabs, driving something that hummed and buzzed and really got going. He was so grateful to sit there, Jamie had had no idea; Jack knew he was on the slow path, had to be on the slow path, waiting, waiting and waiting some more, but come on.
As he accelerated down the end of Pencisely Road, so he could hit the turn onto Western Avenue with maximum splash, he decided to tell Ianto just that.
“I love driving,” Jack said. “I was beginning to go a little crazy before they got around to inventing it.”
Ianto knew he must be sitting there with the open-mouthed wonder of a child, but he didn't care. Because this -- vaguely tipsy, somewhat aroused and speeding through the streets of Cardiff -- was apparently the moment he'd always wanted with Jack. Maybe it was being given information unbidden, even though it wasn't like it contained any actual details of anything and maybe it was having found a vice outside themselves they shared. Ianto didn't know and didn't care, because this was fucking spectacular.
"We should do more of it then," he said.
Jack returned his grin, and somehow it was both gleeful and predatory. "You're on, but not tonight," he said, as he swung the car through another ridiculous and illegal turn.
As they sped towards the bridge over the Taff, Ianto felt his breath catch with excitement. It only got better as Jack hurtled down the street, way too fast, until he pulled up into the bit of wasteground that served as a convenient parking space for Ianto's flat with a screech of tires and perfect precision, before turning to kiss Ianto. They kissed like teenagers for a few moments, all hot and sloppy and passionate, getting tangled with the gearshift and the confines of the wheel as they tried to press closer together.
“Ow,” Jack said, as something banged his shoulder. “We could always move to the backseat. I'm told it's traditional.”
Ianto laughed. “It's a bit ridiculous, when the house is just there.”
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” Jack said. “Let's go.”
Jack bounded out of the car in a fashion Ianto couldn't help but think, as he followed him, should be described as giddy. Not that he'd ever say that aloud.
He fished in his pocket for his keys and tried to be nonchalant about opening the building's front door, an effort seriously impaired by Jack pressing up behind him and then reaching around to squeeze his cock.
Ianto moaned. "Not... helping us... get inside. Sir," he managed, laughing and desperately, desperately trying not to drop his keys. If the keys dropped, someone would have to crouch down to get them and any hope of avoiding public sex would be essentially gone, negating at least one of the reasons why he had insisted Jack come home with him tonight.
Jack laughed, but didn't stop, and Ianto was truly amazed when he was able to get the key into the lock on only the fifth go. He and Jack stumbled up the stairs onto the landing, still kissing feverishly, and Ianto wondered if Mrs. Morgan from downstairs would choose this particular moment to come out and see the show.
By then, Ianto was quite honestly past caring, and he dropped to his knees right there, in his own doorway, and began tonguing Jack's cock and balls through the wool of his trousers. Jack let him do so for a minute, before grabbing the collar of Ianto's shirt, and using it to haul him up, and push him into his own sitting room.
He stopped there, though, and Ianto wondered why he wasn't guiding them effortlessly into the bedroom, in proper Captain Jack Harkness style.
They stood a few feet apart staring at each other and panting.
"Jack?" he eventually asked, fairly sure nothing was wrong, but completely unclear on what was supposed to happen next under the circumstances.
"We've given ourselves the time. Why rush?" Jack said, but it was clear he still wanted to.
For a moment, Ianto looked at him incredulously. "May I take your coat then?" he asked, advancing on Jack, but somehow managing to force himself only to reach for the collar of the man's greatcoat as he shrugged out of it.
"Thank you," Jack said, sounding smug, and he stretched as Ianto went to hang it in the hall cupboard.
Ianto wondered then if Jack really was trying to slow this down into a different sort of intensity or if this was just a slightly complicated tease designed to make Ianto beg. Because he could, he really, really could, right now if Jack wanted and maybe even if he didn't.
When he got back to the sitting room, Jack was sitting comfortably on his sofa, looking completely at ease.
“Now then,” Jack said. “Why don't you come here?”
Ianto looked at him, sitting there, larger than life and twice as fantastic – his presence almost too big for his little, ordinary flat - and wanted nothing more than to scramble towards Jack on his knees, unfasten the buttons of his trousers and swallow down his cock, swallow it down his throat, with Jack's hands fisting his hair, forcing it down as deep as it could go. He wanted to suck Jack's balls into his mouth, while Jack rubbed his cock against his cheeks, wanted to lose himself in an orgy of lust and worship.
He went over to Jack, and stood in front of him, not knowing what to do, and then almost without volition, dropped to his knees.
Jack smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. Ianto raised his face up into it, and when Jack pulled away, he moaned.
“Please, Jack,” he said.
"Please what?" Jack asked softly. "Please kiss you? Please fuck you?" He enunciated each word making each suggestion sound filthy through the mere shape of its letters.
"Please rub my prick against your greedy lips?" Jack leaned forward to whisper this particular suggestion as Ianto gasped, rubbing his cheek against the other man's.
"Please tie you up? Please let you come? Please make love to you like you're the most beautiful girl in the world?" Jack delivered that suggestion with an obscene purr. "Please keep you there, like this? Please set you free? What is it you want, Ianto? Because you know, no matter how happy I want to make you, I'm a very distractible man." And Jack leaned back into Ianto's sofa and spread his legs just a little bit more.
Ianto shook his head. "Not tonight you're not," he breathed.
"Really? What makes you so sure?"
Ianto smirked before averting his eyes shyly, half sincere and half coy. "Me."
Jack chuckled. “So tell me. What do you want?”
“Everything,” Ianto said. “I want everything.”
“Greedy boy, aren't you?” Jack said, running his fingers through Ianto's hair.
“Yes,” Ianto whispered. “Everything you said. Except the setting free. I don't want that.”
“That's good,” Jack said. “I didn't really intend to follow through on that one. But you know how forgetful I am. Why don't you ask me again?”
Oh God, Ianto thought. Jack was really going to make him do it, make him sit here and beg for every last thing. And he loved it; he could feel himself swelling, and he could feel his heart pound, as the excitement rose in him, thrumming in his ears like the noise of pounding surf.
“Please, Jack,” he managed, his voice cracking a little. “I want you. Please let me suck you. I'll make it good for you, you know I will. Take my mouth, Jack. Please.”
"Oh you hate when I make you tell me, don't you?" he asked. "The thing is, I sort of enjoy you completely mortified. Because aside from that very appealing blush and those very sweet downcast eyes and that entirely obscene mouth, it shows me your ambition. Only perfect is good enough for Ianto Jones and oh fuck do I love the benefits of that." Jack chuckled.
Ianto reached for Jack's zipper, but Jack's hand shot out and snagged his wrist, hard. "No. If you beg, it becomes about me giving you permission. And I didn't," Jack said, arching his eyebrows and giving Ianto one of those smug open-mouthed smiles of his. "Plus, wasn't there a whole list of things you were going to remind me of?"
Ianto closed his eyes and Jack thought it looked like he was praying.
"Please fuck me, please let me come, please let me suck you, please keep me right here at your feet or tied up or whatever you want."
Jack stared at him. "You left one out," he said flatly and Ianto made a noise of dismay before he went up onto his knees and leaned his hands on Jack's thighs and leaned into the other man's face as far as he could.
"Please make love to me like I'm the most beautiful girl in the world," Ianto said, practically chewing on the vowels and all dismayed and dirty and wild and smug before throwing his head back and just cackling at the sheer absurdity of it.
Jack smiled, a little awed. Ianto was brave in a lot of ways, but Jack hadn't thought this -- saying something so loaded and dirty and strange (to him anyway) -- was one of them. Jack was wrong. And Jack was delighted.
“That's what I like to hear,” Jack said, with a note of (could it be?) pride in his voice. “Such a good boy.”
Ianto would have sworn that he couldn't blush any harder, but he found he was wrong.
“But” Jack added, “you'll have to do a little bit better, before you get what you want. Oh yes. You're going to need it bad, before I give it to you. I mean, come on, do you really think you've earned it yet?”
“What...uh,” Ianto stuttered a little, and then started again. “What do you want me to do?”
“Why don't you show me what I'll be getting, for a start?”
When Ianto didn't move, he said encouragingly, “Go on. Strip.”
Ianto didn't quite understand it, but there was something about Jack's tone that made him start unbuttoning his vest, and then pull off his shirt, blushing under Jack's steady gaze. He had to stand up then, kick off his shoes and socks, undo his trousers and lose them with his briefs. And then he was standing in front of Jack, feeling, somehow, more naked than naked, since Jack was still sitting there fully dressed.
“Very nice,” Jack said. “Now turn around.”
Ianto did so, feeling like a right fool, but all the time, feeling his cock swell and jump and bob up against him as if it had a life of its own.
“Kneel down again,” Jack said, “but this time, stay facing the wall. I want to look at that beautiful ass of yours.”
Ianto couldn't quite manage it though, the facing the wall thing. Because even though his back was to Jack, he was just too goddamn mortified and having no other way to hide his face he leaned down in his kneel until his forehead touched the ground.
Jack couldn't help but make a startled and pleased noise, but he also knew Ianto well enough to know he was suffering in a way that probably wasn't very useful to either of them if he let it go on for very long.
Jack moved from the couch to crouch beside Ianto and smoothed a hand over his back before kissing along his spine.
"Always so thorough," he murmured, making sure than Ianto could hear the smile in his voice and he grinned even bigger when he felt the tension go out of Ianto's back. "I only do this because you're beautiful," he added, "and because you do it so well."
Ianto gave a breathy chuckle and Jack felt almost overwhelmed by how pleased he was. "That's right, just relax. I'll let you be more actively useful. Soon."
Jack took this opportunity to lose his own clothes; he wanted to feel Ianto against him. He heard Ianto gasp a little at the unmistakable sounds of clothes hitting the floor, and Jack smiled at his eagerness.
He knelt behind him again, kissing his spine, and then licking a slow, wet stripe all the way down to his ass. Ianto moaned and bucked against him, and Jack laughed. Then he worked back up till he was poised behind him, and he could feel his cock slapping lightly against Ianto's cheeks.
“Now I seem to remember, someone saying something to me about spit being a good enough lubricant. Do you remember that, Ianto?”
“Yes,” Ianto got out, as Jack reached around him, and began to pull at his nipples.
“Do you think that person was right?”
Ianto groaned.
“I mean, I could spit down on my cock right now, and shove it in you; give you the ride of your life. Would you like that?”
“I...” Ianto tried, but Jack's fingers were dancing on his cock now, and he could obviously no longer really form words.
“I'm waiting,” Jack said, twisting his nipple hard.
“Anything you want,” Ianto gasped out finally, and Jack smiled.
“Clever boy,” Jack said. “But I was asking what you want.”
“I -”
“Luckily, I know what you want, don't I? Better than you do, apparently. I think you want to say, 'no, Jack, - please don't.'”
“Yes- I mean, no, I don't – Please, Jack.”
“Very nice,” Jack said, and got up. “You've been so good, I'm going to let you suck my cock now.”
The sound Ianto made at that was pleased and smug, but Jack still had to encourage him to kneel up again so as to manage his appointed task.
Jack held his cock out to Ianto, but the other man didn't take it in his mouth right away, rubbing his face against Jack's thigh and burying his nose in the curls at his groin instead.
Ianto moaned and Jack chuckled. "Like you need to be more turned on," Jack teased affectionately and he smiled when Ianto laughed softly with him before getting on with things in a manner that surprised Jack.
The franticness, the desperation was gone, replaced instead by a quiet, peaceful ease, which was definitely at least as dirty. Ianto Jones was sucking cock like it would save him from himself.
Jack carded his fingers through Ianto's hair and that seemed to stir the man from his reverie because he sucked hard and swirled his tongue just so before pulling back so he could press at Jack's slit with it.
Jack gasped and tried to cover being off-balance with a laugh. "Ahaahah. There are those clever tricks I'm used to," he said. "I wondered where you went for a bit."
Ianto pulled off for a moment so he could speak. "Just here," he said with a smile, and Jack pulled him up to his feet before he could go back to his task.
"Let me take you to bed, okay?" he said, a question in tone, not fact.
Ianto nodded his head vehemently, and Jack pulled him into the bedroom, which he had maybe been in once before under far less pleasant circumstances. It was neat, but not obsessively so, and pretty much, exactly what Jack had expected, down to its location. Which was good, because when you were trying to sweep someone off their feet, going the wrong way down the hall usually killed the mood.
He pushed Ianto down onto the bed, and knelt between his thighs, bending over him to run his hands over his body, before pinning his arms above him. He kissed him once, before rearing back, and saying, “You'll remember I want you to keep your hands there, yeah?”
“Yes,” Ianto said.
“Even if I'm not holding you down, I don't want you to move. I would find it very disappointing if you did.”
Ianto nodded fiercely, and gripped the rails of the headboard as tightly as he could; feeling for the moment as though he would rather die than let Jack down, in any fashion at all.
Jack smiled. “Now, where do you keep your lube?” he asked, matter-of-factly.
Still mostly holding on to the rails, Ianto pointed to his night table. "Drawer," he said, and watched Jack try not to laugh; he supposed he had just used the exact same tone he employed at the Hub when someone couldn't find something he had tidied into an utterly obvious location.
Jack leaned over and pulled the drawer out. Sure enough, lube. Just lube. No rubbers. Which wasn't a surprise really; there was no way Ianto was fucking anyone other than him unless he'd managed to squirrel more away in the Hub than just Lisa. The man didn't have the time. He was always working or with Jack. And Jack knew Ianto was responsible about these things. Agonizingly so. 51st century and unable to die were two ideas it had taken Ianto a long time to grasp on the subject, and Jack had humoured him, but this was so much better.
Jack picked up the bottle. It was only half full.
"Aren't you the slut," he mused.
Ianto made an interrogative sound and raised his head slightly.
Jack waved the bottle at him. "Copious use of lube, no rubbers, and I've never gotten to have you in your own bed before. Which tells me you jerk off. A lot."
Ianto blushed furiously.
"Well, do you?" Jack asked.
Ianto rolled his eyes and nodded.
"Because it's quite a pretty picture," Jack said softly. "You stroking your prick furiously while trying to decide if you should suck on your fingers or shove them up your ass. I'd like to see sometime," he said.
Ianto knew he had to say something although he wasn't quite up to yes, although he knew, eventually, some night, Jack would get him there so easily he wouldn't even notice it happen. Hell, he wouldn't mind the same view from Jack at all.
"Can't fall asleep if I don't," he murmured.
Jack grinned and leaned down into his face. "Do you think of me?"
Ianto looked up and away from Jack for deliverance. "Before I ever even knew you," he said, appalled again at the things sex could make him say out loud.
Jack looked so profoundly triumphant that under normal circumstances, Ianto would have wanted to smack him; amazingly instead, his cock twitched at the sight. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then felt Jack lightly slap his face.
“None of that,” Jack said. “I want you to watch this.”
Ianto opened his eyes obediently, watched Jack slick himself up with a few practiced strokes. Then he felt Jack's fingers on his own arse, rubbing slippery wetness into him.
He was so grateful to finally, finally have something inside him – he felt himself try to clench down on Jack's fingers so he couldn't take them away.
“It gets better,” Jack said, and then Ianto was empty again. He moaned despairingly, feeling his arsehole open and wanting, desiring Jack so badly he thought he might die of it. Then Ianto felt Jack's slippery cockhead nudge his hole, but instead of beginning to fuck him, he kept it just out of reach, laughing as Ianto tried with all his might to slide down onto it, while still not moving his hands.
"I really, really, hate you right now," Ianto managed through grit teeth even as he was both laughing and breathless.
"And yet you're still doing exactly as I say," Jack teased.
"Usually works out for the best," Ianto said, reflexively, still squirming and shifting and seeing how far he could really stretch his arms.
"I'm so glad you know that," Jack murmured.
Ianto shuddered, and Jack went on. “Do you think I can make you beg some more?”
“I think you can make me do whatever you want right now,” Ianto said, helplessly.
“So smart,” Jack said, stroking Ianto's cock and making him shiver and moan. “So clever. So pretty.”
“Put your legs on my shoulders now,” Jack said, and Ianto did, almost crying with relief. And with that, Jack plunged inside him, splitting Ianto with one slippery, wonderful, blessed thrust that drew out of him a guttural, wordless cry.
Jack had to pause for a moment once he was inside the other man, because while he might have a lot of self-control, he didn't have that much and the temptation to end this fast was high.
"Fucking hell," Jack managed, biting his lower lip and sucking air in through his teeth.
"Move, dammit," Ianto snarled at him, trying to shift himself, but not really having any useful leverage for it.
"When I'm ready," Jack ground out and he couldn't help but smile when he saw Ianto go smug for a moment. Oh yeah, Jack thought. You do this to me like no one else.
If Jack were in any condition to be sensible about it, he could have been. He'd had a lot of amazing sex, amazing lovers, people with whom he'd had completely ridiculous chemistry (John Hart, for instance, had been overwhelmingly glorious), but they were all different, at least just a little. But Ianto...Ianto was different a lot and whether it was his twisty mind or the fact that he seemed to always be able to keep up with things he shouldn't have been able to handle at all, Jack didn't know. And right now, he didn't care.
It was like nothing else he could remember these days and that was all that mattered, so Jack pulled back and thrust a bit, not too far, not too much, not too hard, not yet, just a bit of a tease. Because that was exactly what Ianto deserved even if Jack thought he might die from it. Of course, he thought with a snicker, that was earlier.
Ianto tried to thrust back against him, trying to get him to fuck down harder, and Jack put his hands on the other man's hips, restraining him, letting him know that he wasn't in control of this, no, not at all, that Jack was going to take him when and how he liked, that Jack could keep him here at this high pitch of need forever if he wanted to, and he would just have to wait 'til Jack decided to let him go.
A few minutes of this would drive anyone crazy, and Ianto was no exception, whimpering and moaning and writhing, while Jack worked his way into him, and Jack knew that once he really slammed into him, it would be a galloping, wild, insane fuck.
So finally, he did – changed the angle of his stroke so that when he buried his cock inside him, deep and hard and fast, he hit Ianto's sweet spot on every thrust, fucking him mercilessly now and letting him soar towards the orgasm he'd been waiting for patiently for so long.
Ianto started chanting Jack's name and couldn't stop. He wanted to stop, vaguely, but any other syllable just seemed too difficult, too not to the point. Jack would know this was him begging. He had to.
Once or twice, Ianto scrunched his eyes shut as he felt his entire body tensing for the moment this would be over, but somehow he always snapped them back open again, needing to see Jack as breathless, desperate and as awed as himself.
He hurt everywhere, from the pounding he was taking, to the way Jack had folded his body in half, to the simple fact of how much air his lungs were desperately trying to take in, and it was fantastic.
Jack shifted slightly and grabbed Ianto's already taut balls, squeezing lightly. Ianto thrashed his head back and forth; it was too much and too perfect and Jack seemed to laugh for just a fraction of a second before moving his hand to Ianto's cock and whispering, "Time to let go."
Jack felt Ianto clamp around him like a vise, or a fist, as he came in one beautiful howling moment, and Jack just pressed into him harder, riding it out, before sinking down, and biting down on Ianto's neck, feeling his skin and muscle move between his teeth, and then he came too, in five desperate, wrenching pulses.
He collapsed onto Ianto awkardly, heart pounding and feeling as though it might explode out of his chest; Ianto's come and his sweat resolving into one wonderfully sticky, glorious mess between them.
“Wow,” Jack said feebly, when he could get his tongue to work.
Ianto still hadn't moved his hands from where Jack had instructed him to hold them, and he had his eyes closed.
Ianto stayed quiet as long as he could now that it was over, because quiet was good and safe, and the quiet with Jack had been what had made each part of this insane day work. Ianto wondered, to the extent that he could think, if Jack understood that, if that's why Jack always worked so hard never to be quiet at all.
When the other man finally levered himself up enough to pull out of him, Ianto made an unhappy noise, grateful as he was to finally let his legs crash to the bed. To his relief, Jack laid back down on top of him and kissed him long and slow and deep.
"You know," he said, after he paused for air, and Ianto could picture his face even though he still hadn't been able to bring himself to open his eyes, "you really can let go now."
Ianto made some sound in acknowledgment, but didn't speak until he felt Jack's hands reach up to pry his fingers lose from the headboard slats.
"Thank you, sir," Ianto said affectionately, smiling. His voice might be hoarse and he might not be planning on opening his eyes anytime soon, but he was definitely amused.
"Any time," Jack said, with relish.
Ianto made a noise that could have meant anything, and Jack grinned.
"You were exceptional," he said fondly.
At that, Ianto cracked an eyelid, and said, "You too."
"I know," Jack said, loving how Ianto never completely gave in and rolled over for him, never just batted his eyelashes and admitted he was outclassed. No, he went out chin in the air and flags waving.
"It's a wonder we don't drown in your ego," Ianto said, still fond and probably not really keeping track of what he was saying.
"Wonder's good," Jack said cheerfully and rolled off Ianto to lay on his back next to him. He let himself drift a bit, just enjoying the ease of their breathing and the novelty of not being in the Hub or somewhere too temporary and crass to even consider in such circumstances.
"Why haven't we done this sooner?" he eventually inquired idly.
Ianto shrugged. "Weevils, sir," he said, deadpan.
Jack said, "They are distracting, aren't they? But fun, right? Don't they kind of get your juices flowing?"
"I have to say that's almost as disturbing as the fact that you name them," Ianto said. Unfortunately he yawned as he said it, which rather took the bite out of his retort.
"You're as fond of Janet as I am," Jack said.
"Not really, sir. No," Ianto said.
"I bet she won some major beauty awards on her home planet. You should try not to be so prejudiced."
"You're right, sir, as always," Ianto said. "Jesus, I'm tired."
"It's been a taxing day," Jack agreed. "You should sleep."
Jack sat up, and Ianto's heart suddenly went straight into his mouth. "You're not going?" he said, his voice, much to his horror, sounding like that of a frightened child.
Jack thought the kindest thing he could do was not acknowledge Ianto's obvious panic, which he had to admit he found sort of perversely sweet.
"I"m not leaving. I am fetching a damp cloth so we can be slightly less sticky in the morning. Also a book, since I need some way to stay out of trouble while you sleep." Jack said it all blandly as he walked into the bathroom, made a vague effort to clean himself off and then wetted the towel for Ianto.
He paused for a moment to look at himself in the mirror. Tired. Satiated. Shagged out. Jack smirked at himself. It was a good look on him, but he shook his head and muttered, "You stupid bastard," to his reflection anyway.
"Here," Jack said, dropping the towel onto Ianto's stomach before padding out to the living room in search of reading material.
"What do you recommend?" he called.
Ianto was no longer panicked, but still confused. He briefly swiped at his stomach with the towel and dropped it on the floor by the bed. "Aren't you exhausted?" he called back with a distinct lack of force.
Jack came to lean in the bedroom doorway. "Sure. Means I might even doze for a couple of hours. Don't get drunk, body doesn't need sleep. Can't die. Just one of those things."
Ianto passed a hand over his face. It was almost too much to take in, but right now he was too tired to be freaked out by it.
"I've been re-reading Atonement," he said. "It's pretty good. I didn't know you liked to read."
"Sometimes there's not much else to do. Especially when you can't sleep," Jack said, wandering back out to the sitting room, while still in the midst of his sentence.
"There's a lot of hurry up and wait in the trenches," Ianto heard him bellow. "Anything else that doesn't sound depressing? Not Welsh, by the way. I like the way it sounds, but you people show no restraint when it comes to consonants."
Ianto decided not to reply; Jack wouldn't pay any attention to his suggestions anyway, and he didn't feel like shouting.
He had almost dropped off when finally Jack came back into the room.
"What did you find?" Ianto asked sleepily.
"Sherlock Holmes," Jack said. "I like mysteries."
"Those were my father's," Ianto said. "Do you ever enjoy new things? Jack?"
Jack didn't reply. Ianto opened his eyes with a jerk, and realized he had lost some time. Jack was sitting up in the bed next to him; the bedside lamp was on, and Ianto's face was, he realized, about an inch away from Jack's torso. He turned over, so his face was buried in the pillow, away from the light, and he could feel Jack's leg touching his back, all the way down the length of his spine.
"Jack?" he mumbled. "You can leave the light on."
"Go to sleep, Ianto," Jack said kindly, and turned a page. "You can ask me more questions in the morning."
end
Continue to To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back.
This story won a Skiffy Award for "Best of Jack Harkness: Romance".
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Authors:
rm & kalichanRating/Warning: NC-17, character study by way of much conversation, some porn and a little nice, friendly d/s
Summary: After death, a date: dinner, discussion, and driving – for Jack and Ianto, the death bit might actually be the easy part.
Author's Notes: Direct sequel to A Strange Fashion of Forsaking; takes place after that story somewhere in between 2x05: Adam and 2x06: Reset. You don't have to read that first (although we think it is probably not as squicky as its warnings suggest), but it will make more sense if you do. Title adapted from a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido. 2nd installment of I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling.
Wordcount: ~11,300
The shower was helping a lot, Ianto reflected, and he was relieved (if slightly shocked) that Jack had left him to it alone. He didn't usually; Jack, being Jack, always wanted more, but he must have understood at least vaguely that Ianto needed some space to shift gears between... well, that and a date.
Ianto laughed and shook his head. How fucking ridiculous. Although, he supposed the rest of the team would theoretically get a good chuckle out of it. Of course he had, had to kill Jack to get him to go on a proper date the way normal people did. But no one, absolutely no one was going to ever know that.
Because Ianto was still ashamed and frightened and tingling all over and just a little bit puzzled. For one thing, what the hell were he and Jack going to talk about over dinner under these or perhaps any circumstances?
He shook his head under the spray of the shower, hoping the heated water would either clear his mind or, at the very least, make him stop thinking. There really was no way to prepare; Jack was like a force of nature, who would refuse to stay within whatever parameters Ianto thought out regardless. Still, he found himself feverishly trying to calculate the vectors of various possible conversational gambits and arcs until he finally banged his head lightly on the tile and turned off the shower. If answers existed, he wasn't finding them here.
As he dried off, he caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror, but ducked down before he could really meet his own eyes.
From where he'd laid it on the side of the sink, he heard his comm beep. Jack must really be getting impatient, he thought.
Jack was sitting at his desk, waiting. What was Ianto doing in there for so long? He wondered, not for the first time, if he'd been right to let him shower alone. What if he was...upset in there, or something? He walked over to the windows, and pulled up the blinds. There it was: the live, beating heart of Torchwood - sleeping now, but still pulsing with the thrum of Toshiko's ongoing experiments with the Rift, littered with post-it notes and experiments and boxes of biscuits, littered with life. And there was where Ianto had stood, picking up the trash after...Jack cut off that train of thought with surgical precision.
It wasn't a home, Torchwood, and that was why Jack liked it. It didn't pretend to be what it wasn't; it was something different, something new. Something he'd made to fit all his broken bits and lies and promises. It was fucked up, no question. But it was beautiful, and Jack smiled to himself. It would be here, when he got back. Always. Assuming Ianto ever got his ass out of the shower, and they actually managed to make it out the door.
"Hi, sorry," Ianto said, slightly breathless as he walked into Jack's office, shrugging on the jacket for the extra suit he kept down in the lockers and still doing up his tie.
"Nope," Jack murmured affectionately, taking the tie from Ianto. "It's late. We're off duty. No tie," he said, smiling, glad to have the excuse to touch the other man again. "Leave the jacket too. It's warm out."
Ianto gave a nervous laugh, wondering if Jack even noticed how easily and ridiculously he was taking control again. Actually, now that he thought about it, Jack was probably doing it intentionally with the assumption that Ianto was still scattered and unnerved.
Of course, it was true, and while Ianto appreciated the thought, it also made him want to pull himself together. After all, if having just done the most obscene thing of his, or indeed anyone's life, didn't give him the personal authority to be something more than just the office boy, nothing ever would.
"So where are we going?"
"La Lupa," Jack said, managing to make the vowels obscene. "Walk or SUV?"
"My car," Ianto said. Jack had made him a promise, and they certainly weren't walking to Ianto's flat from the restaurant or for that matter, into work in the morning. "The SUV is not conducive to being off-duty, sir."
Jack smirked. "Neither is you calling me sir."
"I think that probably depends."
"You're wearing clothes. Doesn't count."
Jack took a step towards where his greatcoat was flung. Ianto cast his eyes up to the heavens and then moved quickly enough so he could get there first.
"What happened to it being warm enough, sir?" Ianto said, deadpan, as he settled the coat round Jack's shoulders.
"Okay, I lied. I just like looking at your chest. Problem?"
"Not at all," Ianto said. "Shall we go?"
"Definitely. Would you like me to drive?"
"It is my car," Ianto pointed out firmly.
"So?" Jack said, before grabbing the keys out of Ianto's discarded jacket pocket. Ianto looked at him askance, and Jack actually stood still, before going on. "Let me be a gentleman, Ianto. Who knows, you might even enjoy it."
"Or expire from shock," Ianto muttered.
"Hey, hey, none of that," Jack said. "I have some manners, earlier discussions aside."
Ianto felt the corner of his mouth quirk, but he kept quiet, not wanting to encourage the banter. It felt false and like they were both hiding behind it, but it was, by and large, easier to keep it up than to stop. Which said a great deal about what they'd been doing for months now.
Jack looked at him for one long, steady moment before nodding and then heading for the door. He held it open for Ianto, no more or less flamboyantly than usual. "After you," he said.
In the car, they were silent. Jack drove the car like he drove all cars – as if they'd been purpose-built for him, and it was a short ride through Cardiff's streets.
Ianto settled into the silence, which surprisingly, didn't feel awkward. He hadn't known that Jack knew how to do this, hadn't known that Jack could exist in a silence, which wasn't necessarily hostile, but was wrapping around them like cotton wool, without trying to cut through it with sheer force of personality.
After parking, Jack came round and opened Ianto's car door for him; Ianto thought this time he'd managed to keep the eye roll wholly to himself (although with Jack, you never knew). How someone from the future could be so caught up in the past, was one of those things that Ianto was sure he would never be able to really puzzle out.
The restaurant was all dark wood and curtains, warmly lit; as they entered, Ianto could smell the sharp, good garlic smell, the mellow ripeness of tomato sauce, olive oil and basil, and he felt something inside him begin to unknot.
"So," Jack said after they had been seated, and without looking up from the wine list he was examining as carefully as if it were some alien code, "what kind of evening is this?"
"Hmm?"
"I thought about not saying anything, but maybe it's better to just be straightforward. Is this the kind of date where we do light conversation, with a spot of work-gossip; I tell you charming mostly true stories, and you listen appreciatively, and comment dryly when appropriate? Because I can certainly do that, if you like," Jack said, and then without missing a beat, turned to the waiter, who had just appeared at his elbow, and proceeded to order a bottle of very expensive tocai friulano.
Ianto raised an eyebrow at the wine, suitably impressed enough to have to laugh at himself. He smiled then, focusing on Jack's question and it suddenly felt desperately, desperately sad. Because it shouldn't be that type of evening at all. But dear god it would be easier if it were. But they were so long past it, which meant it would never really happen now. Unless they were to fake it, awkwardly, as Jack was offering to do, kindly, but with that edge in his voice.
As usual, Jack wanted something else, and Ianto, somehow, was supposed to guess. Why anyone thought his coffee and filing skills extended to that, he would never know. He decided to go for honesty without actually answering Jack's question. It might stall for time if nothing else.
"I would have liked that," he said softly and wondered with dismay if it read like a woman being coy when she thinks she's being sure. "Seems a bit late though for that sort of thing. I mean. Considering. Everything. What are my other choices?"
Jack laughed. "Time rolls back around sometimes, you know. You'll think the moment for something has passed, and then somehow...you're there again."
"How metaphorical," Ianto said. "If this isn't that moment, what moment is it?"
"Well, right now, it's the moment for deciding what you want to eat. Unless you'd like to have me order for you. After that? I don't know. Maybe something real. A real conversation, to go with this real date. If you ask me, Italian is the only way to go for a date. Some people say French, but I always think it's too forced."
"It's messy though, which I suppose suits us if nothing else," Ianto blurted, and then only barely managed to laugh at himself instead of being mortified. "And as much as I do have a morbid curiosity as to what you would order for me? No," he added, sincerely amused as he finally opened the menu.
Jack, he noted to himself, had just more or less dodged the very question he asked in the first place. Ianto did have something to say about that, but first he hoped they could get the matter of food and the ritual of the wine out of the way. It was a ritual he had always liked, but somehow he expected to feel ridiculous as he was forced to sit there watching Jack do it.
Astoundingly, when the waiter brought the bottle and presented it to Jack before opening it, Jack refrained from being a ham and even managed to keep from saying anything untoward. In fact, aside from being smooth and graceful, he didn't draw attention to the process at all, focused on it only as much as he had to be and otherwise just watching Ianto.
It was unnerving. But also incredibly satisfying. The full attention of Captain Jack Harkness, and he wasn't even tied up. Or dead. Oh God. Ianto cogitated briefly on how much he hated his brain.
"We should have a toast. How about this?" Jack said, raising his glass and clinking it to Ianto's. "If wishing damns us, you and I/ Are damned to our heart's content;/ Come then, at least we may enjoy/Some pleasure for our punishment."
"That's...cheerful," Ianto said, before taking a sip of wine, hoping to moisten his suddenly dry mouth.
"How do you like it?" Jack asked. "Hope it's okay."
"It's good," Ianto said. "I never see you drinking much. Only water, when we go out to the pub or whatever."
"No, it doesn't really do too much for me anymore. I still like the feel of it though. And, sometimes, it's not an occasion without it. Would you have done better?"
"Hmmm?"
"With the toast," Jack said.
Ianto shook his head. "Surely not. More cautious. Less dark. Maybe next time."
"Aaa-ha," Jack said grinning as he set his wine glass down. "There's going to be a next time?"
"Considering all the other things I know there's going to be a next time of, I had rather hoped."
"Wishing damns us," Jack teased.
"Doing damns us," Ianto corrected. His tone was playful, but Jack still frowned.
"You still feeling tangled up about earlier?"
"A bit, yeah." He paused. "When you die, I mean, do you, really?"
"You've seen a bullet go through my skull, Ianto."
"Yes, but you don't, your body doesn't.... I mean, the medical stuff is Owen's department. But it's not exactly corpse-like. So, I mean, when you're dead, do you know you're dead?"
Jack started to answer and then stopped. "That's awfully philosophical."
"You wanted serious discussion and made a toast about damnation. Which I think means you have to answer the question."
"Fair enough," Jack said. "Fair enough."
But instead of going on, his eyes slid away as if he was staring off into some private, unimaginable distance, and Ianto shivered.
"Right," Jack said, finally. "Yes. I know when I'm dying. It lasts forever. That last part, right before the end. It could be pain, or peace, or whatever - but it's the whole world, the whole universe shrunk down to that one, infinitely long moment. When I'm actually dead - I don't know anything at all. And when I come back to life, I know that too. That's the horror, Ianto. Can you imagine it? Remembering that...nothingness? You can't."
Ianto stared at him.
"You want to know if it's real. Am I just asleep? Is it like hibernation?" Jack asked evenly. "It's not. It might seem that way because I'm just very good at it. I've had a lot of practice. Come back to life with shit and piss-stained pants often enough, and you learn to be careful about when you eat...if you think you might be dying later. Does that answer your question?"
Well, trust Jack to say things.
Ianto looked down at the table half ashamed and half afraid. He wanted to berate himself for being a coward, but really, he thought, this was just natural human instinct in action.
Oh. Right. It was his turn to speak. "Reckon I just got lucky then."
There was a pause and then Jack roared with laughter.
Ianto gave a wry smile, mainly because he didn't know what else to do.
Jack sobered. "Do you start to see why I don't tell people things?" he asked. "That it's not personal? That you can be the most serious, capable person in the world and it will still never be appropriate mealtime conversation, that it will still never, ever be something you want to know."
"I wanted to know," Ianto said stubbornly. "Don't tell me I didn't, Jack."
Jack shook his head, but didn't say anything.
The waiter returned, and Jack ordered saltimbocca, while Ianto looked down again at the menu, trying to decide between the penne with smoked salmon and prawns, or the linguine with scampi. It was difficult because (perhaps unsurprisingly) his appetite seemed to have done a runner, and finally he ended in choosing one at random, so that the waiter would stop looking at him impatiently, and more importantly, go away.
He cleared his throat. “So not worried about dying tonight, then?” he tried, in an effort to show how very not bothered he was by what had rapidly become a very disturbing conversation.
“Not really,” Jack said. “I've upset you. I'm sorry.”
Ianto didn't know what to say. Should he reassure Jack? Could he reassure Jack? What did Jack want from him? Ianto shook his head to clear it, although it also implied a negation he now had to address.
"I did ask. I just wish you'd stop forgetting my story. Believe me, I know it's easier, considering. But the whole thing with Lisa -- look, I'm used to life being ugly and brutal and messy. Really fucking messy. And I get why the universe is apparently revolted by our sad little planet and wants to encase it in metal and take our feelings away or whatever. I just don't happen to need to throw it in your face every two seconds. You could do the same for me. Because, really, Jack do you think I'm upset that you came back to life or upset because I don't actually know what I would have done if I didn't know that you could?"
"I don't know what you want me to say to that."
Ianto took a sip of his wine to buy time. He shrugged as he set the glass down. "I don't know. Tell me who you are when you're not busy being Torchwood."
"Can't I just reassure you you're not a monster again, instead?"
Ianto shook his head. "Not right now."
"Enjoying it?" Jack asked, with a hint of flirtation – restrained for him – back in his voice.
Ianto made a face. "Maybe. A small amount."
"Anyway," Jack said, "I could never forget your story, try as I might. That's what really kills people, or changes them. Forgetting. I wouldn't do that to you."
"Never is a long time, Jack, especially for you. And you don't get out of answering so easily. I know your slippery ways."
"You certainly do," Jack said, lasciviously.
Childishly, Ianto thought about throwing a breadstick at him, but decided that it would be too hard to keep what little portion of dignity that remained to him while doing so. He sighed.
"My point is, you remember what I did to you." He took a deep breath before adding, "And to Torchwood. And to us, I guess. But you don't seem to remember or be able to imagine what it was like for me to try to take care of her for months, locking her up in dark, stinking places and then coming home and being torn between missing her and wanting her and just wanting to forget she had ever existed. So you dying and coming back? Yeah, it's weird as fuck all. And maybe I'm daft for asking questions with answers that revolt me. But I've made a choice to be here and keep being here. It's not that it's the least I can do; it's that in the scheme of things it's not that bad. You're not that bad. Me? Well, we all have our issues."
Jack leaned his chin in his palm, just watching Ianto talk. It was a lot of words all at once for him and Jack wondered if this was just how he was when he was comfortable (he was, wasn't he?) with someone or if earlier events had shaken a lot and possibly too much loose.
"That's fair. About Lisa. If you want to tell me --"
"I don't, particularly. They're more her secrets than mine. But if you need to ask, I'll answer. Only seems right."
"Actually, I think I already know what I need to about that. See, here's the thing, Ianto...,"
There was no response, except that Ianto's breath quickened.
"You think I don't remember or can't understand. I think you're wrong. You like to take care of people. You get off on it. Always waiting, with the proper tool right to hand, the right comment at the perfect moment. The cup of coffee ready to our hands, the correct gesture as you put on my coat, getting the right file before we even know we need it. The thing about the basement - it wasn't that you played me, oh so beautifully...and don't think I don't tip my hat to you. It wasn't that which made it terrible."
Ianto said nothing.
"Let's be honest for a minute. She was broken, and you hated that. And you were lying to us, getting one over on Torchwood, and maybe you hated that too. I know you loved her - hell, you still love her. But that's not why you couldn't let her go. That's not why you couldn't tell us. Really, truthfully, you liked having her there, didn't you? You wanted her to need you - only you. And you didn't want it any other way."
Jack paused a moment to see if Ianto would interject, and then continued. "And that still doesn't make you a monster. Or if it does, who am I to cast stones? I'm a monster too. But there isn't the dungeon or basement built that could hold me. Even in Torchwood. And don't think I don't regret it. Because you're not the only one who's made a choice to be here, and I already know the answers to all the questions."
Ianto was stunned.
For one thing Jack's ego was huge and powerful and maybe not even misplaced or misshapen and that was just fundamentally frightening. That was the thing about immortality. You can't be human and immortal, Ianto decided. If you become immortal, you become something else. And it was so fucking alien.
But that wasn't why he could barely speak, even though he was trying anyway.
"I don't... I didn't... God, Jack, do I seem like I could control anyone? It wasn't like that with Lisa."
"Yeah, you do," Jack said, almost, but not entirely forgoing the tone that made it clear that matters sexual were amongst those on the table. "Look, I'm not saying it was like that between you and her before Canary Wharf, but something awful happened and it was damned convenient for the workings of that twisty little mind of yours."
Jack shrugged. "This is how the world works and before you tell me I don't understand the blood and the gore and the sitting there fucking helpless, remember how many wars I've fought in. I've watched a hell of a lot of lovers die, slow and grisly and asking me to fix what I couldn't. So yeah, I know all about how fucking easy it is to love someone when they're fucking dying, Ianto."
Whoa. Ianto not only had no idea how they had got here, he had no idea what to say or how to get them back out, because the quiet in the car had been really nice and he wanted it back, and this? This was probably necessary. But it was horrible. And he had no idea what to say.
"I don't know how many wars you've been in, sir," Ianto said quietly, meek and breathless and sad.
“Too many,” Jack said. “Or maybe...not enough. I had a lot of time to do some thinking recently. It seems to me if you've been in enough wars, you should either be dead...or not able to fight anymore. You should have- well, someone I know would say you should have learned better. Do I seem like a soldier to you, Ianto?”
“Yes,” Ianto said, afraid because Jack just looked very, very sad, but unable to lie comfortingly as he wanted to. “You do.”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“I don't think that's a bad thing.”
“No,” Jack said. “I don't think so either. That's the trouble, isn't it?”
Ianto didn't know what to say. Luckily at that point, the food arrived, so Ianto didn't have to do anything but nod politely while the waiter ground pepper and grated parmesan onto his pasta.
Then he took time to put a bite in his mouth, chew it methodically and swallow before saying, “Why don't you ever want to talk about your past, sir? I mean. I can't help but notice that you haven't given a proper answer to any of our- my questions. Even tonight. You just fob us off with these cryptic comments that could mean any one of a dozen things. It's like trying to get the future out of a bloody fortune-teller.”
"But the thing about fortune tellers is what they say always makes sense in the end."
"That's fantastic, Jack. For you. But we don't get to go to the end with you."
"Look, I've already got twice as much in my head as a person should have at the end of their life and since it seems no one can fix this, that probably means I'm just at the beginning of mine. At this point if I tell you something, you'll probably remember it longer than I will. And then when you tell me about it, I won't even know if it's true."
"Is that the appeal?" Ianto asked, "that I'm an archivist?"
Jack shook his head and grinned, gesturing with his fork. "Nope. That's the terror," he said, before adding, "Hey, can I try this?" and spearing one of the prawns in Ianto's pasta before the other man could even answer.
“Does anyone ever say no to you, Jack?” Ianto asked.
“Not often, no. Does anyone ever say it to you?”
“Frequently,” Ianto said.
“Really? When was the last time?” While Ianto tried and failed to come up with an example, Jack chuckled under his breath.
“You see,” he said, while Ianto sputtered, “we're more alike than you think. This shrimp is pretty good. Want a bite of my veal?”
"Yes, but I have better table manners, so cut me a piece, will you?"
Jack chuckled and did as he was told. "See, no argument from me."
"It was your idea," Ianto reminded him.
"Oh. True. But seriously, Ianto, you're a powerful guy with no idea what to do with it."
"That's not what you were saying earlier."
Jack snorted. "Would you believe me if I said I handled that badly? The start of that, I mean?"
"I know you handled it badly, Jack. The question is whether I believe you believe that," Ianto said laughing.
"Well, I do. Thing is, it was still fun as hell." Jack placed a slice of his veal onto Ianto's plate. "See? Table manners."
“And very nice they are indeed, sir,” Ianto said.
“I aim to please,” Jack said, and winked. “Anyway. I know why I think I handled it badly; why do you?”
“I believe I already told you. Were you not paying attention? You can't try to lead me up in the way you think I should go, while trying to make me think I'm the one in the driver's seat, like some sort of bizarre confidence trick. It's beneath you, Jack. It's clumsy.”
“You're right. It was beneath me. The very best cons, the mark doesn't even know they've been conned, at the end. If you went up to them and told them afterwards that they'd been taken for all they were worth, they'd actually argue with you. But it's only a few that have the patience for that – and who don't need to stick around and gloat. Well, gloat too ostentatiously, anyway.”
“I suppose...,” Ianto said, a bit bemused. He hadn't meant the analogy literally. “Why do you know so much about it?”
“Maybe I just like grifter movies...,” Jack said, smiling. “Ever seen The Sting?”
"Yeah, but don't deflect me like that. Movie night's a different date."
"I didn't think dinner with you was going to be this ongoing series of negotiations."
"And you didn't think fucking me was going to be this ongoing series of, well, anything."
Jack shrugged; it was almost shy. "You're a complex man."
"Flattery later, Jack. One true fact. How hard can it be?"
"Five," he said, instantly.
"What?"
"Five wars. Well, five wars that I'm sure we could both agree on were wars. Police actions, national strife, brief involvements in other people's battles, leaving that out. Commanding people, being commanded. Ongoing battle. Five wars. And I loved it, a lot of the time. It was also horrible. No one tells you what it's really like. And even if they do, it doesn't really get the point across."
"You miss having a commanding officer," Ianto said, meaning no innuendo by it, but Jack smirked.
"I miss having a cause more than maybe half a dozen people believe in."
"Do you really hate this life so much, Jack?"
"No. Not today anyway."
Ianto reached across the table and took Jack's hand briefly, smoothing his thumb over the top of it. When he pulled his hand away again, he smiled, almost shyly.
“Did you think you'd be a soldier?” Jack said, unable to keep the brusqueness out of his voice. It wasn't that he minded Ianto's compassion or more probably, pity, but...okay. If he were honest, he had to admit, he did mind it, just a little. “You didn't think it was a bad thing -for me- but honestly, if you could have chosen it, would you? I'm fairly certain you didn't know that's what you were signing up for when you showed up for work one bright morning at Canary Wharf.”
“No,” Ianto said. “I don't think so. I might make a good one, but I don't think I'd have done it by choice. You always hear about people who want to see the world and join up, but that always seemed silly to me. There are probably better ways of seeing the world that don't involve possibly being obliged to kill people when you get there.”
“I think my commanding officer would approve,” Jack said, masking his wince with one of his best grins. “I do have one, you know. He's just a bit, well, absentee at the moment. The best kind, really. Always easier to ask forgiveness than get permission.”
"Does he know you see him that way?" Ianto asked, warily.
"Yeah."
"He all right with it?"
"Well, he knows he can't do anything about it, how's that?"
"Uncomfortable."
"I was given the choice to stay. I didn't take it."
"Do you want me to be grateful?" Ianto asked, it coming out with more of an edge than Jack thought he had probably intended.
"No. I want you to recognize it. It was hard. And you won."
"That's a lot to live up to, Jack. I --"
"It is what it is," he said with a shrug, cutting Ianto off. "Facts don't always have to imply things. They can be big enough on their own."
Ianto ate for a while in silence, directing all of his attention to his plate. This whole evening was so completely mind boggling, and Jack...Jack was like he'd never seen him before, by turns vulnerable, and cruel, and forthright, and then, perhaps most disconcerting of all, oddly forbearing. Ianto wasn't used to Jack's kindness being directed at him; Jack mostly treated him like someone on whom kindness was, if not wasted, then irrelevant.
He was aware that Jack had finished his own meal some time ago, and now was simply looking at him, but he didn't really know what to make of that either.
“Are you going to lick the plate?” Jack said. “It was good, but not that good. Someday you'll visit Rome, and a little trattoria that I know about, and then you'll understand real Italian food.”
“Maybe,” Ianto said, wondering if Jack meant to tell him the address of the place, or take him there – or if it even existed at all.
“Would you like dessert? Or a drink?” Jack inquired politely, and Ianto shook his head. “I wouldn't dare to offer you coffee, of course.”
Jack signaled for the bill, and it appeared almost instantly; Ianto mentally added yet another esoteric power to the list he was continually compiling. As they walked out of the restaurant and back to the car, Ianto felt that strange silence descend upon them again, awkwardly this time.
“Do you still want me to come home with you?” Jack asked abruptly, and for once without the slightest trace of smoothness.
“What? I thought,” Ianto said, stumbling over his words a little with surprise, “I mean. We already deci-”
“I can walk from here, if you're worried about that.”
Ianto took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. "I... no, I wasn't worried about that. I'd say you don't have to if you don't want to, but if you didn't, you'd have already made your excuses."
"I can't tell if you're having a low opinion or a high opinion of me right now," Jack said, trying to be jaunty and not really succeeding.
Ianto tried to think of how to phrase it. "I'm being impressed with us."
"Why?"
"Because neither of us has run screaming?” Ianto offered lightly.
Jack snorted.
"Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I'm always pressing in on you like this," Ianto said.
Jack shrugged. "I've let you. Could argue I've forced you. Least I can do is finally step up," he said, not looking at Ianto. Hands in his pockets, head down was a lot easier for this sort of thing, Ianto supposed, even for Captain Jack Harkness.
"I liked it, driving over here," Ianto said. "How do we get back to that? Because while potentially useful, this has been almost entirely terrifying."
Jack lifted his head and grinned, producing Ianto's car keys from his pocket and tossing them in his hand. "That's easy. We get back in the car."
Ianto couldn't help himself. He reached for Jack, right there in the street, and kissed him hard on the mouth, their teeth clacking together. Jack kissed him back hungrily, and then pulled away so he could say, “Only good times from now on, Ianto Jones.”
“Oh, Jack,” Ianto said, laughing ruefully. “You lie so sweetly.” And he kissed him again.
“Yeah, I really do,” Jack whispered against his lips. “Want me to do it some more?” He pressed his hands into Ianto's back as he pulled him against his body; Ianto could feel the warmth of it burn through his thin vest and shirt.
“Yes,” Ianto said, helplessly. “Oh, yes.”
Jack laughed, and backed Ianto up against a wall; he could feel the cold bricks against his back as Jack kissed him. Somehow Jack had opened his coat, and now was pressing up against him urgently; Ianto could feel his body all warm and hard and perfect against his. It was like nothing on earth, kissing Jack. It was kissing the way you always thought it would be like before you ever did it, the way you imagined it would be from reading books and watching films, but almost never actually was. He smelt spicy, and intoxicating and just somehow, absolutely, blindingly right.
It was almost impossible to make himself push Jack away, but he managed it somehow, if only because if this continued, they'd be having it off right there in the alley, and Ianto really didn't want to have to avoid this street for the rest of his life.
“Not here, Jack,” he said, panting a little. “Take me home.”
Once they were in the car, Ianto put a hand on Jack's thigh. “Drive fast,” he said.
“You bet,” Jack said, low in his throat, as he gunned the motor.
My car loves you almost as much as I do Ianto thought, and it took him a moment to realize he should probably view the sentiment with some alarm.
But the fact was Jack was glorious with Ianto's new car, which responded better and wanted speed far more than the tricked out but clumsy Torchwood SUV.
"Some day let's just go driving," Ianto said breathlessly, and Jack spared a moment to look at him and grin.
And here it was, something they could both enjoy that wasn't entirely or overtly about Torchwood or sex, that didn't leave Ianto worrying that they never read, or watched movies or had anything at all to talk about other than work. This was suddenly like they had lives, like they had private existences, like there really was some secret dark space they could fit each other into.
Ianto realized then that that thing in the restaurant was them getting sorted. Despite Jack's attempts to be gracious and Ianto's clumsy attempt to take his hand, that wasn't the date. This was. Ianto smiled. Maybe there would be time to figure it out.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Take the long way."
"Why?"
"Anticipation."
Jack grinned, and made an entirely illegal, but extremely flashy turn to get them onto Cathedral Road, and bombed up the street. Ianto's car purred under his hands, and it wasn't flying, but it would do. It had been a long time since he had driven for the pure pleasure of it; he remembered rally racing before the Great War, doing the run from London to Edinburgh, when driving was still only the sport of the insanely rich, or at least the richly insane. And he remembered his partner, James, who had let him drive the famous Silver Ghost, and taught him exactly where to put his weight in the motor-car where it would do their speed the most good. Jamie used to be so impressed with Jack's supposed nerves of steel, said he'd spent too much time with lesser mortals, when Jack could sit there digging out a sandwich while he negotiated hairpin curves after people had thrown snow on the road, just to make their lives a little more interesting. Finally he'd met someone who was his match, Jamie used to say.
Jack never told him that as far as he was concerned, it didn't count. It wasn't like he was risking anything, and he was so relieved to get up to speed again, feel the wind on his face, after years of carriages and hansom cabs, driving something that hummed and buzzed and really got going. He was so grateful to sit there, Jamie had had no idea; Jack knew he was on the slow path, had to be on the slow path, waiting, waiting and waiting some more, but come on.
As he accelerated down the end of Pencisely Road, so he could hit the turn onto Western Avenue with maximum splash, he decided to tell Ianto just that.
“I love driving,” Jack said. “I was beginning to go a little crazy before they got around to inventing it.”
Ianto knew he must be sitting there with the open-mouthed wonder of a child, but he didn't care. Because this -- vaguely tipsy, somewhat aroused and speeding through the streets of Cardiff -- was apparently the moment he'd always wanted with Jack. Maybe it was being given information unbidden, even though it wasn't like it contained any actual details of anything and maybe it was having found a vice outside themselves they shared. Ianto didn't know and didn't care, because this was fucking spectacular.
"We should do more of it then," he said.
Jack returned his grin, and somehow it was both gleeful and predatory. "You're on, but not tonight," he said, as he swung the car through another ridiculous and illegal turn.
As they sped towards the bridge over the Taff, Ianto felt his breath catch with excitement. It only got better as Jack hurtled down the street, way too fast, until he pulled up into the bit of wasteground that served as a convenient parking space for Ianto's flat with a screech of tires and perfect precision, before turning to kiss Ianto. They kissed like teenagers for a few moments, all hot and sloppy and passionate, getting tangled with the gearshift and the confines of the wheel as they tried to press closer together.
“Ow,” Jack said, as something banged his shoulder. “We could always move to the backseat. I'm told it's traditional.”
Ianto laughed. “It's a bit ridiculous, when the house is just there.”
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” Jack said. “Let's go.”
Jack bounded out of the car in a fashion Ianto couldn't help but think, as he followed him, should be described as giddy. Not that he'd ever say that aloud.
He fished in his pocket for his keys and tried to be nonchalant about opening the building's front door, an effort seriously impaired by Jack pressing up behind him and then reaching around to squeeze his cock.
Ianto moaned. "Not... helping us... get inside. Sir," he managed, laughing and desperately, desperately trying not to drop his keys. If the keys dropped, someone would have to crouch down to get them and any hope of avoiding public sex would be essentially gone, negating at least one of the reasons why he had insisted Jack come home with him tonight.
Jack laughed, but didn't stop, and Ianto was truly amazed when he was able to get the key into the lock on only the fifth go. He and Jack stumbled up the stairs onto the landing, still kissing feverishly, and Ianto wondered if Mrs. Morgan from downstairs would choose this particular moment to come out and see the show.
By then, Ianto was quite honestly past caring, and he dropped to his knees right there, in his own doorway, and began tonguing Jack's cock and balls through the wool of his trousers. Jack let him do so for a minute, before grabbing the collar of Ianto's shirt, and using it to haul him up, and push him into his own sitting room.
He stopped there, though, and Ianto wondered why he wasn't guiding them effortlessly into the bedroom, in proper Captain Jack Harkness style.
They stood a few feet apart staring at each other and panting.
"Jack?" he eventually asked, fairly sure nothing was wrong, but completely unclear on what was supposed to happen next under the circumstances.
"We've given ourselves the time. Why rush?" Jack said, but it was clear he still wanted to.
For a moment, Ianto looked at him incredulously. "May I take your coat then?" he asked, advancing on Jack, but somehow managing to force himself only to reach for the collar of the man's greatcoat as he shrugged out of it.
"Thank you," Jack said, sounding smug, and he stretched as Ianto went to hang it in the hall cupboard.
Ianto wondered then if Jack really was trying to slow this down into a different sort of intensity or if this was just a slightly complicated tease designed to make Ianto beg. Because he could, he really, really could, right now if Jack wanted and maybe even if he didn't.
When he got back to the sitting room, Jack was sitting comfortably on his sofa, looking completely at ease.
“Now then,” Jack said. “Why don't you come here?”
Ianto looked at him, sitting there, larger than life and twice as fantastic – his presence almost too big for his little, ordinary flat - and wanted nothing more than to scramble towards Jack on his knees, unfasten the buttons of his trousers and swallow down his cock, swallow it down his throat, with Jack's hands fisting his hair, forcing it down as deep as it could go. He wanted to suck Jack's balls into his mouth, while Jack rubbed his cock against his cheeks, wanted to lose himself in an orgy of lust and worship.
He went over to Jack, and stood in front of him, not knowing what to do, and then almost without volition, dropped to his knees.
Jack smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. Ianto raised his face up into it, and when Jack pulled away, he moaned.
“Please, Jack,” he said.
"Please what?" Jack asked softly. "Please kiss you? Please fuck you?" He enunciated each word making each suggestion sound filthy through the mere shape of its letters.
"Please rub my prick against your greedy lips?" Jack leaned forward to whisper this particular suggestion as Ianto gasped, rubbing his cheek against the other man's.
"Please tie you up? Please let you come? Please make love to you like you're the most beautiful girl in the world?" Jack delivered that suggestion with an obscene purr. "Please keep you there, like this? Please set you free? What is it you want, Ianto? Because you know, no matter how happy I want to make you, I'm a very distractible man." And Jack leaned back into Ianto's sofa and spread his legs just a little bit more.
Ianto shook his head. "Not tonight you're not," he breathed.
"Really? What makes you so sure?"
Ianto smirked before averting his eyes shyly, half sincere and half coy. "Me."
Jack chuckled. “So tell me. What do you want?”
“Everything,” Ianto said. “I want everything.”
“Greedy boy, aren't you?” Jack said, running his fingers through Ianto's hair.
“Yes,” Ianto whispered. “Everything you said. Except the setting free. I don't want that.”
“That's good,” Jack said. “I didn't really intend to follow through on that one. But you know how forgetful I am. Why don't you ask me again?”
Oh God, Ianto thought. Jack was really going to make him do it, make him sit here and beg for every last thing. And he loved it; he could feel himself swelling, and he could feel his heart pound, as the excitement rose in him, thrumming in his ears like the noise of pounding surf.
“Please, Jack,” he managed, his voice cracking a little. “I want you. Please let me suck you. I'll make it good for you, you know I will. Take my mouth, Jack. Please.”
"Oh you hate when I make you tell me, don't you?" he asked. "The thing is, I sort of enjoy you completely mortified. Because aside from that very appealing blush and those very sweet downcast eyes and that entirely obscene mouth, it shows me your ambition. Only perfect is good enough for Ianto Jones and oh fuck do I love the benefits of that." Jack chuckled.
Ianto reached for Jack's zipper, but Jack's hand shot out and snagged his wrist, hard. "No. If you beg, it becomes about me giving you permission. And I didn't," Jack said, arching his eyebrows and giving Ianto one of those smug open-mouthed smiles of his. "Plus, wasn't there a whole list of things you were going to remind me of?"
Ianto closed his eyes and Jack thought it looked like he was praying.
"Please fuck me, please let me come, please let me suck you, please keep me right here at your feet or tied up or whatever you want."
Jack stared at him. "You left one out," he said flatly and Ianto made a noise of dismay before he went up onto his knees and leaned his hands on Jack's thighs and leaned into the other man's face as far as he could.
"Please make love to me like I'm the most beautiful girl in the world," Ianto said, practically chewing on the vowels and all dismayed and dirty and wild and smug before throwing his head back and just cackling at the sheer absurdity of it.
Jack smiled, a little awed. Ianto was brave in a lot of ways, but Jack hadn't thought this -- saying something so loaded and dirty and strange (to him anyway) -- was one of them. Jack was wrong. And Jack was delighted.
“That's what I like to hear,” Jack said, with a note of (could it be?) pride in his voice. “Such a good boy.”
Ianto would have sworn that he couldn't blush any harder, but he found he was wrong.
“But” Jack added, “you'll have to do a little bit better, before you get what you want. Oh yes. You're going to need it bad, before I give it to you. I mean, come on, do you really think you've earned it yet?”
“What...uh,” Ianto stuttered a little, and then started again. “What do you want me to do?”
“Why don't you show me what I'll be getting, for a start?”
When Ianto didn't move, he said encouragingly, “Go on. Strip.”
Ianto didn't quite understand it, but there was something about Jack's tone that made him start unbuttoning his vest, and then pull off his shirt, blushing under Jack's steady gaze. He had to stand up then, kick off his shoes and socks, undo his trousers and lose them with his briefs. And then he was standing in front of Jack, feeling, somehow, more naked than naked, since Jack was still sitting there fully dressed.
“Very nice,” Jack said. “Now turn around.”
Ianto did so, feeling like a right fool, but all the time, feeling his cock swell and jump and bob up against him as if it had a life of its own.
“Kneel down again,” Jack said, “but this time, stay facing the wall. I want to look at that beautiful ass of yours.”
Ianto couldn't quite manage it though, the facing the wall thing. Because even though his back was to Jack, he was just too goddamn mortified and having no other way to hide his face he leaned down in his kneel until his forehead touched the ground.
Jack couldn't help but make a startled and pleased noise, but he also knew Ianto well enough to know he was suffering in a way that probably wasn't very useful to either of them if he let it go on for very long.
Jack moved from the couch to crouch beside Ianto and smoothed a hand over his back before kissing along his spine.
"Always so thorough," he murmured, making sure than Ianto could hear the smile in his voice and he grinned even bigger when he felt the tension go out of Ianto's back. "I only do this because you're beautiful," he added, "and because you do it so well."
Ianto gave a breathy chuckle and Jack felt almost overwhelmed by how pleased he was. "That's right, just relax. I'll let you be more actively useful. Soon."
Jack took this opportunity to lose his own clothes; he wanted to feel Ianto against him. He heard Ianto gasp a little at the unmistakable sounds of clothes hitting the floor, and Jack smiled at his eagerness.
He knelt behind him again, kissing his spine, and then licking a slow, wet stripe all the way down to his ass. Ianto moaned and bucked against him, and Jack laughed. Then he worked back up till he was poised behind him, and he could feel his cock slapping lightly against Ianto's cheeks.
“Now I seem to remember, someone saying something to me about spit being a good enough lubricant. Do you remember that, Ianto?”
“Yes,” Ianto got out, as Jack reached around him, and began to pull at his nipples.
“Do you think that person was right?”
Ianto groaned.
“I mean, I could spit down on my cock right now, and shove it in you; give you the ride of your life. Would you like that?”
“I...” Ianto tried, but Jack's fingers were dancing on his cock now, and he could obviously no longer really form words.
“I'm waiting,” Jack said, twisting his nipple hard.
“Anything you want,” Ianto gasped out finally, and Jack smiled.
“Clever boy,” Jack said. “But I was asking what you want.”
“I -”
“Luckily, I know what you want, don't I? Better than you do, apparently. I think you want to say, 'no, Jack, - please don't.'”
“Yes- I mean, no, I don't – Please, Jack.”
“Very nice,” Jack said, and got up. “You've been so good, I'm going to let you suck my cock now.”
The sound Ianto made at that was pleased and smug, but Jack still had to encourage him to kneel up again so as to manage his appointed task.
Jack held his cock out to Ianto, but the other man didn't take it in his mouth right away, rubbing his face against Jack's thigh and burying his nose in the curls at his groin instead.
Ianto moaned and Jack chuckled. "Like you need to be more turned on," Jack teased affectionately and he smiled when Ianto laughed softly with him before getting on with things in a manner that surprised Jack.
The franticness, the desperation was gone, replaced instead by a quiet, peaceful ease, which was definitely at least as dirty. Ianto Jones was sucking cock like it would save him from himself.
Jack carded his fingers through Ianto's hair and that seemed to stir the man from his reverie because he sucked hard and swirled his tongue just so before pulling back so he could press at Jack's slit with it.
Jack gasped and tried to cover being off-balance with a laugh. "Ahaahah. There are those clever tricks I'm used to," he said. "I wondered where you went for a bit."
Ianto pulled off for a moment so he could speak. "Just here," he said with a smile, and Jack pulled him up to his feet before he could go back to his task.
"Let me take you to bed, okay?" he said, a question in tone, not fact.
Ianto nodded his head vehemently, and Jack pulled him into the bedroom, which he had maybe been in once before under far less pleasant circumstances. It was neat, but not obsessively so, and pretty much, exactly what Jack had expected, down to its location. Which was good, because when you were trying to sweep someone off their feet, going the wrong way down the hall usually killed the mood.
He pushed Ianto down onto the bed, and knelt between his thighs, bending over him to run his hands over his body, before pinning his arms above him. He kissed him once, before rearing back, and saying, “You'll remember I want you to keep your hands there, yeah?”
“Yes,” Ianto said.
“Even if I'm not holding you down, I don't want you to move. I would find it very disappointing if you did.”
Ianto nodded fiercely, and gripped the rails of the headboard as tightly as he could; feeling for the moment as though he would rather die than let Jack down, in any fashion at all.
Jack smiled. “Now, where do you keep your lube?” he asked, matter-of-factly.
Still mostly holding on to the rails, Ianto pointed to his night table. "Drawer," he said, and watched Jack try not to laugh; he supposed he had just used the exact same tone he employed at the Hub when someone couldn't find something he had tidied into an utterly obvious location.
Jack leaned over and pulled the drawer out. Sure enough, lube. Just lube. No rubbers. Which wasn't a surprise really; there was no way Ianto was fucking anyone other than him unless he'd managed to squirrel more away in the Hub than just Lisa. The man didn't have the time. He was always working or with Jack. And Jack knew Ianto was responsible about these things. Agonizingly so. 51st century and unable to die were two ideas it had taken Ianto a long time to grasp on the subject, and Jack had humoured him, but this was so much better.
Jack picked up the bottle. It was only half full.
"Aren't you the slut," he mused.
Ianto made an interrogative sound and raised his head slightly.
Jack waved the bottle at him. "Copious use of lube, no rubbers, and I've never gotten to have you in your own bed before. Which tells me you jerk off. A lot."
Ianto blushed furiously.
"Well, do you?" Jack asked.
Ianto rolled his eyes and nodded.
"Because it's quite a pretty picture," Jack said softly. "You stroking your prick furiously while trying to decide if you should suck on your fingers or shove them up your ass. I'd like to see sometime," he said.
Ianto knew he had to say something although he wasn't quite up to yes, although he knew, eventually, some night, Jack would get him there so easily he wouldn't even notice it happen. Hell, he wouldn't mind the same view from Jack at all.
"Can't fall asleep if I don't," he murmured.
Jack grinned and leaned down into his face. "Do you think of me?"
Ianto looked up and away from Jack for deliverance. "Before I ever even knew you," he said, appalled again at the things sex could make him say out loud.
Jack looked so profoundly triumphant that under normal circumstances, Ianto would have wanted to smack him; amazingly instead, his cock twitched at the sight. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then felt Jack lightly slap his face.
“None of that,” Jack said. “I want you to watch this.”
Ianto opened his eyes obediently, watched Jack slick himself up with a few practiced strokes. Then he felt Jack's fingers on his own arse, rubbing slippery wetness into him.
He was so grateful to finally, finally have something inside him – he felt himself try to clench down on Jack's fingers so he couldn't take them away.
“It gets better,” Jack said, and then Ianto was empty again. He moaned despairingly, feeling his arsehole open and wanting, desiring Jack so badly he thought he might die of it. Then Ianto felt Jack's slippery cockhead nudge his hole, but instead of beginning to fuck him, he kept it just out of reach, laughing as Ianto tried with all his might to slide down onto it, while still not moving his hands.
"I really, really, hate you right now," Ianto managed through grit teeth even as he was both laughing and breathless.
"And yet you're still doing exactly as I say," Jack teased.
"Usually works out for the best," Ianto said, reflexively, still squirming and shifting and seeing how far he could really stretch his arms.
"I'm so glad you know that," Jack murmured.
Ianto shuddered, and Jack went on. “Do you think I can make you beg some more?”
“I think you can make me do whatever you want right now,” Ianto said, helplessly.
“So smart,” Jack said, stroking Ianto's cock and making him shiver and moan. “So clever. So pretty.”
“Put your legs on my shoulders now,” Jack said, and Ianto did, almost crying with relief. And with that, Jack plunged inside him, splitting Ianto with one slippery, wonderful, blessed thrust that drew out of him a guttural, wordless cry.
Jack had to pause for a moment once he was inside the other man, because while he might have a lot of self-control, he didn't have that much and the temptation to end this fast was high.
"Fucking hell," Jack managed, biting his lower lip and sucking air in through his teeth.
"Move, dammit," Ianto snarled at him, trying to shift himself, but not really having any useful leverage for it.
"When I'm ready," Jack ground out and he couldn't help but smile when he saw Ianto go smug for a moment. Oh yeah, Jack thought. You do this to me like no one else.
If Jack were in any condition to be sensible about it, he could have been. He'd had a lot of amazing sex, amazing lovers, people with whom he'd had completely ridiculous chemistry (John Hart, for instance, had been overwhelmingly glorious), but they were all different, at least just a little. But Ianto...Ianto was different a lot and whether it was his twisty mind or the fact that he seemed to always be able to keep up with things he shouldn't have been able to handle at all, Jack didn't know. And right now, he didn't care.
It was like nothing else he could remember these days and that was all that mattered, so Jack pulled back and thrust a bit, not too far, not too much, not too hard, not yet, just a bit of a tease. Because that was exactly what Ianto deserved even if Jack thought he might die from it. Of course, he thought with a snicker, that was earlier.
Ianto tried to thrust back against him, trying to get him to fuck down harder, and Jack put his hands on the other man's hips, restraining him, letting him know that he wasn't in control of this, no, not at all, that Jack was going to take him when and how he liked, that Jack could keep him here at this high pitch of need forever if he wanted to, and he would just have to wait 'til Jack decided to let him go.
A few minutes of this would drive anyone crazy, and Ianto was no exception, whimpering and moaning and writhing, while Jack worked his way into him, and Jack knew that once he really slammed into him, it would be a galloping, wild, insane fuck.
So finally, he did – changed the angle of his stroke so that when he buried his cock inside him, deep and hard and fast, he hit Ianto's sweet spot on every thrust, fucking him mercilessly now and letting him soar towards the orgasm he'd been waiting for patiently for so long.
Ianto started chanting Jack's name and couldn't stop. He wanted to stop, vaguely, but any other syllable just seemed too difficult, too not to the point. Jack would know this was him begging. He had to.
Once or twice, Ianto scrunched his eyes shut as he felt his entire body tensing for the moment this would be over, but somehow he always snapped them back open again, needing to see Jack as breathless, desperate and as awed as himself.
He hurt everywhere, from the pounding he was taking, to the way Jack had folded his body in half, to the simple fact of how much air his lungs were desperately trying to take in, and it was fantastic.
Jack shifted slightly and grabbed Ianto's already taut balls, squeezing lightly. Ianto thrashed his head back and forth; it was too much and too perfect and Jack seemed to laugh for just a fraction of a second before moving his hand to Ianto's cock and whispering, "Time to let go."
Jack felt Ianto clamp around him like a vise, or a fist, as he came in one beautiful howling moment, and Jack just pressed into him harder, riding it out, before sinking down, and biting down on Ianto's neck, feeling his skin and muscle move between his teeth, and then he came too, in five desperate, wrenching pulses.
He collapsed onto Ianto awkardly, heart pounding and feeling as though it might explode out of his chest; Ianto's come and his sweat resolving into one wonderfully sticky, glorious mess between them.
“Wow,” Jack said feebly, when he could get his tongue to work.
Ianto still hadn't moved his hands from where Jack had instructed him to hold them, and he had his eyes closed.
Ianto stayed quiet as long as he could now that it was over, because quiet was good and safe, and the quiet with Jack had been what had made each part of this insane day work. Ianto wondered, to the extent that he could think, if Jack understood that, if that's why Jack always worked so hard never to be quiet at all.
When the other man finally levered himself up enough to pull out of him, Ianto made an unhappy noise, grateful as he was to finally let his legs crash to the bed. To his relief, Jack laid back down on top of him and kissed him long and slow and deep.
"You know," he said, after he paused for air, and Ianto could picture his face even though he still hadn't been able to bring himself to open his eyes, "you really can let go now."
Ianto made some sound in acknowledgment, but didn't speak until he felt Jack's hands reach up to pry his fingers lose from the headboard slats.
"Thank you, sir," Ianto said affectionately, smiling. His voice might be hoarse and he might not be planning on opening his eyes anytime soon, but he was definitely amused.
"Any time," Jack said, with relish.
Ianto made a noise that could have meant anything, and Jack grinned.
"You were exceptional," he said fondly.
At that, Ianto cracked an eyelid, and said, "You too."
"I know," Jack said, loving how Ianto never completely gave in and rolled over for him, never just batted his eyelashes and admitted he was outclassed. No, he went out chin in the air and flags waving.
"It's a wonder we don't drown in your ego," Ianto said, still fond and probably not really keeping track of what he was saying.
"Wonder's good," Jack said cheerfully and rolled off Ianto to lay on his back next to him. He let himself drift a bit, just enjoying the ease of their breathing and the novelty of not being in the Hub or somewhere too temporary and crass to even consider in such circumstances.
"Why haven't we done this sooner?" he eventually inquired idly.
Ianto shrugged. "Weevils, sir," he said, deadpan.
Jack said, "They are distracting, aren't they? But fun, right? Don't they kind of get your juices flowing?"
"I have to say that's almost as disturbing as the fact that you name them," Ianto said. Unfortunately he yawned as he said it, which rather took the bite out of his retort.
"You're as fond of Janet as I am," Jack said.
"Not really, sir. No," Ianto said.
"I bet she won some major beauty awards on her home planet. You should try not to be so prejudiced."
"You're right, sir, as always," Ianto said. "Jesus, I'm tired."
"It's been a taxing day," Jack agreed. "You should sleep."
Jack sat up, and Ianto's heart suddenly went straight into his mouth. "You're not going?" he said, his voice, much to his horror, sounding like that of a frightened child.
Jack thought the kindest thing he could do was not acknowledge Ianto's obvious panic, which he had to admit he found sort of perversely sweet.
"I"m not leaving. I am fetching a damp cloth so we can be slightly less sticky in the morning. Also a book, since I need some way to stay out of trouble while you sleep." Jack said it all blandly as he walked into the bathroom, made a vague effort to clean himself off and then wetted the towel for Ianto.
He paused for a moment to look at himself in the mirror. Tired. Satiated. Shagged out. Jack smirked at himself. It was a good look on him, but he shook his head and muttered, "You stupid bastard," to his reflection anyway.
"Here," Jack said, dropping the towel onto Ianto's stomach before padding out to the living room in search of reading material.
"What do you recommend?" he called.
Ianto was no longer panicked, but still confused. He briefly swiped at his stomach with the towel and dropped it on the floor by the bed. "Aren't you exhausted?" he called back with a distinct lack of force.
Jack came to lean in the bedroom doorway. "Sure. Means I might even doze for a couple of hours. Don't get drunk, body doesn't need sleep. Can't die. Just one of those things."
Ianto passed a hand over his face. It was almost too much to take in, but right now he was too tired to be freaked out by it.
"I've been re-reading Atonement," he said. "It's pretty good. I didn't know you liked to read."
"Sometimes there's not much else to do. Especially when you can't sleep," Jack said, wandering back out to the sitting room, while still in the midst of his sentence.
"There's a lot of hurry up and wait in the trenches," Ianto heard him bellow. "Anything else that doesn't sound depressing? Not Welsh, by the way. I like the way it sounds, but you people show no restraint when it comes to consonants."
Ianto decided not to reply; Jack wouldn't pay any attention to his suggestions anyway, and he didn't feel like shouting.
He had almost dropped off when finally Jack came back into the room.
"What did you find?" Ianto asked sleepily.
"Sherlock Holmes," Jack said. "I like mysteries."
"Those were my father's," Ianto said. "Do you ever enjoy new things? Jack?"
Jack didn't reply. Ianto opened his eyes with a jerk, and realized he had lost some time. Jack was sitting up in the bed next to him; the bedside lamp was on, and Ianto's face was, he realized, about an inch away from Jack's torso. He turned over, so his face was buried in the pillow, away from the light, and he could feel Jack's leg touching his back, all the way down the length of his spine.
"Jack?" he mumbled. "You can leave the light on."
"Go to sleep, Ianto," Jack said kindly, and turned a page. "You can ask me more questions in the morning."
Continue to To Learn This Holding and the Holding Back.
This story won a Skiffy Award for "Best of Jack Harkness: Romance".
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 10:18 am (UTC)Of course, he thought with a snicker, that was earlier.
Weirdly that was my favourite line; the gallows humour in the midst of the dark seriousness and the hotness was just fantastic, and very very Jack. I am curious as to how you two write this (are you a character each, or segment by segment?) because I love the switch in perspective, from Ianto in awe of Jack Harkness this larger than life guy, while at the other end of the spectrum we see that Ianto occasionally inspires a similar kind of awe in Jack, just by virtue of being "twisty" and unusual.
Basically I love this a lot. It's hard to find Ianto-focussed fic which does his voice well and still manages to encapsulate the mess of history and contradictions that is Captain Jack Harkness — and yet, I never once felt like there was a hitch in their voices or a flaw in their characterization. If I was one for hyperbole, I'd call it a gift for the fandom.
Don't ever stop writing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 12:14 pm (UTC)We are not one character each (although our process in HP is closer to that -- we both write all the character perspectives, but sometimes I will doubelcheck with her about Lucius and she with me about Severus, because we _know_ them in a way the other doesn't), but mostly just go back and forth in chunks until we get stymied or there's a critical decision moment and want to see what will happen in a manner that's beyond our individual control.
For myself (and Kali's answer, will not, I don't think, be the mirror to this), it's definitely Jack who resonates more with me, and Ianto is really a character I have to come to through a lens of desire because I am not neat or young or confused or nuts in that particular way. (I do, however, share his temper, at least sa noted in the discussion of the piece that comes after this).
I'm actually a writer and actor by trade, so for me writing is probably most akin to improvisational exercise (I teach classes on this) without the full body involvement. What would I do, if this was me, in these given circumsstances: given circumstances not being "What if I were Jack Harkness?" or "What if I were Ianto Jones?" but being "What if I were that lonely? or that nervous? or had seen that much death? or didn't know how to be ashamed of my desire and yet felt I should be?" The details tend to add up to the men.
One of th3e thinks that I think Kali and I both believe is that Ianto and and Jack are actually a lot alike. They're both conmen, they're both very dominant agressive people, they both have an almost pathological need to be loved (and are sort of bad at it), but Jack's figured out how to navigate itw ithin himself and the world to a pretty good extent. Ianto's just learning and in a lot of ways, floundering, but it's the unpredictability and the strength of the struggle that's totally getting Jack to keep coming back to him.
Again, thank you so much. Not least for the opportunity to play DVD commentary track!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 11:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 12:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-28 10:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-28 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-23 06:42 am (UTC)And...and...your titles quote Lucie Brock-Broido! I love her poetry!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-23 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-24 02:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-24 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-05 11:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-06 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-08 02:06 am (UTC)Oh, and I've always meant to ask - is the title a line from anything in particular or just a really great title?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-08 02:19 am (UTC)The title for this one -- like both the first and third in the series -- is from a poem in the collection entitled The Master Letters by Lucie Brock Broido; this one's called "Unholy" and also includes some excellent lines like "to seek the Captain's calloused hand". We felt it really fit, esp. considering the story which precedes it. In the original, it's "Dear Master," but considering the Captain references later in the poem, it seemed like a justifiable switch.
Thanks for your comment :-D
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-11 02:25 pm (UTC)The sex was amazing, but the dinner conversation is insanely good. You hit so many different emotional notes, and captured so beautifully the overriding precarious feeling of them both negotiating their own emotional mine field. It's so clear they both want to move forward, even if they are not sure how to do it without bringing the whole thing down.
So yeah, so looking forward to reading the rest of the installments.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-06 08:45 pm (UTC)They are indeed both fucked up and brave - even when they're being sane, even when they're being cowards, and we really do love them very much.
So thank you again, and hope you are indeed enjoying the rest.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-05 09:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-06 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 05:43 am (UTC)So yeah, I know all about how fucking easy it is to love someone when they're fucking dying, Ianto.
That has got to be rm, right? (I think I notice her cadence more because she posts more frequently to lj. I don't think I've read enough of your own stuff to know your style.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 02:14 pm (UTC)Any other guesses? *g*
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-26 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-26 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-28 04:11 am (UTC)The dialogue, sets this apart. It's hard to write and often you get the feeling with many fics it's hurried foreplay before the smut. Whilst I'm always up for a bit of porn, I think both Jack and Ianto are verbose, and like to converse. That said, the sex was beautifully written and deliciously erotic.
I had to remind myself this was post Adam and that puts the last chapter into context better (it dawned on me a while after reading) as well as this. If it's possible to reverse the effect of retcon with the right triggers then the neural pathways (sorry, I'm a biologist!) are there somewhere. Not only that, the traumatic nature of the implanted memories for Jack and Ianto (as opposed to the rest of the team) has to have left its mark somehow whether or not there's a conscious memory of it.
By the time we get to this point in the series Ianto has matured, but I think their dynamic still ebbs and flows. I am glad you don't shy away from the fact there would be tenderness in their relationship by this point, regardless of the fact they are neither of them sappy.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-28 05:28 am (UTC)So thank you SO much for joining in; it's so fantastic to have yet another pithy, thoughtful, intelligent perspective!
We have a great time with the dialogue -- reading things aloud to make sure voices work, so it's always lovely to hear that it speaks to people and sounds right. And Adam was this episode that really kicked us into high gear; there was so much in it about Ianto, and what kind of person he is, and what demons lurk in his subconscious. But they are tender with each other, and that's an important facet we don't wish to minimize. I think we always hope to show their sweetness without it getting saccharine.
re: biology; I know almost nothing aside from layman stuff, what scientific background I have is in physics and math [and that's not much]. But I think it's important to both of us not to sound silly, and to make our metaphors work, at least as far as the fake science on Who/TW does.
Thank you so so much for your fabulously detailed comments. They are really delightful to read.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-24 03:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-24 09:03 pm (UTC)As soon as they decide to let random non-Brits write Torchwood novels, I'm sure we'd be the first in line to apply (even if I should have at least marginally learned my lesson about making things loved into work with my HP trivia book).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 02:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-08 11:49 am (UTC)The "date" conversation was amazing.
The sex has been pretty good too - I like the dark side of life (in stories anyway)
Now, must keep reading.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-09 12:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 02:00 am (UTC)The smex was awesome, too. Almost frighteningly intense, and isn't that fitting for them?
(and excuse my icon usage. I'm just fond of that icon and take advantage of every opportunity to use it. ^^U)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-09 12:25 am (UTC)