The Hour of the Wolf
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~ 1,400
Warnings: Angst, weird romance, somewhat vague spoilers for Cyberwoman, Countrycide, and They Keep Killing Suzie.
Summary: Jack's hands, broad and calloused. Ianto’s seen them hold a gun, wrestle down a Weevil, but he’s also seen them cradling some delicate piece of equipment. They’d feel good on Ianto’s skin, the calluses rough but the touch soft.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: This is why I shouldn't be allowed to re-watch Cyberwoman and/or Countrycide anymore. I tend to obsess. Just a little bit.
The Hour of the Wolf
"The Hour of the Wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born."
-Ingmar Bergman, The Hour of the Wolf
"Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf? ... It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart."
-Commander Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5
Ianto’s greatest gift is his orderly mind.
It’s always been that way, ever since he was a child. Maybe his memory isn’t exactly eidetic, but he can look at something and file it away, and unlike other people, he’ll be able to call up that file later, in near-perfect detail. In school, he never had to cram for tests, because normal studying-which he did religiously-was good enough. In the Torchwood One Archives, he knew where things were filed and stored without having to turn to the computers, and he had learned the floor plans within the first week.
At Torchwood Three, he learns how to compartmentalize, how to shut away one part of himself and divide his psyche enough that he can betray Jack and flirt with him in the same moment, that he can work towards saving Lisa-when his logical mind knows very well that it’s a slim chance of success, if there is one at all-even as he helps Torchwood wipe out alien menaces.
He closes the door to Lisa’s room behind him as he leaves, and he’s Torchwood’s butler once more.
He opens the door, and he’s a grieving boyfriend, trying everything to save the woman he loves.
It’s a good skill, a great one. It’s let him survive this long, locking away the aftermath of Canary Wharf so that he can focus on Lisa, tucking Lisa away into a non-dominant corner of his brain when he’s with Jack and the others.
But there are problems, too, because when Ianto tries to separate the different parts of himself, they're separate. The overlap is small, and he can't control it.
Jack flirts, and Ianto flirts back.
Jack smiles, and Ianto wants.
*.~.*.~.*
They survive the cannibals together, the five of them, and then stagger back into the Hub punch-drunk and high on the fumes of a close and hard-won victory. For once, no one wants coffee-it’s well after midnight, deep into the witching time, and most of them are dreaming of sleep. Ianto watches them leave, one by one, and looks up to where Jack stands at the railing overlooking the main floor.
Jack looks back at him, mouth quirking in an odd little half-smile, and Ianto can't help but smile back, if only a little.
He should go down to the basement and check on Lisa, should make sure she’s comfortable and-
But he shouldn't, because Lisa’s dead and burned to ash, and Ianto hadn’t been able to save her.
It aches, the way he forgets sometimes. It’s automatic, to think of her a dozen times a day, to call that bit of himself to the forefront and turn towards the room where he kept her, and it always takes several steps to remember what's happened.
Even now, more than a month after her death, taking care of her is still a chore.
Quickly, as though afraid that Jack will read his thoughts, Ianto turns away and heads for the door, raising a halfhearted hand in farewell.
The door rolls open, the lift rises, and he steps out into the coolness of a Cardiff night.
The walk home seems as though it will never end.
*.~.*.~.*
In the shower, the water scorching-hot against his back and a dull throb in his cuts and scrapes, Ianto leans against the wall, mindful of his many bruises, and closes his eyes.
He’s tired, and he doesn't want to think about the cannibals, about the horror of their touches-not sexual, because he could bear that, and not just violent, because after his childhood he could bear that, too. More intimate than that, if less personal-they wanted to cut him apart, to take him and divide him into pieces, whittle him down until everything human was gone and all that remained was a sack of meat.
They almost succeeded, might have if not for the fierce, driving desire to protect the only teammate who’s shown him kindness since Lisa, to protect Tosh, and that's the most horrifying thing of all.
But Ianto is good at compartmentalizing things, and as the water beats down on him, he shuts Brynblaidd and what happened there away in the darkest corners of his memory. It settles into the shadows with Canary Wharf, with the majority of his childhood, and is chained there, never to be set free.
Something good, Ianto thinks desperately, grasping for any memory to fill the void. Something happy.
Jack.
Jack's smile rises in his mind, Jack's strong shoulders under the line of his coat, the white flash of teeth as he laughs, the way his sandy hair flops when it gets a bit too long. His hands, big and strong, the way his face softens when he looks at Ianto, the gentle touch of-
No, too dangerous.
Jack's hands, broad and calloused. Ianto’s seen them hold a gun, wrestle down a Weevil, but he’s also seen them writing, careful and sure, or cradling some delicate piece of equipment. They’d feel good on Ianto’s skin, the calluses rough but the touch soft. Ianto imagines them tracing across his shoulders, sliding down his side. Pictures bright blue eyes and a wicked, wanton grin, a flash of all-consuming heat as Jack presses closer, pushes Ianto right up against the time.
His breath is coming in sharp, hard pants now, searing his throat. Ianto shudders as tremors of desire race up his spine, bowing his head under the spray. He’s hard, almost painfully so, and it feels good. This is life and heat and ecstasy, so different from that frozen cellar or cold, death-touched kitchen. Ianto wraps a hand around his cock, sucking in a muted gasp at the flash and flare of pleasure, and then grits his teeth.
Want, he thinks, and it’s Jack who would pin him to the shower wall with desperate kisses, Jack who would reach down and wrap long, strong fingers around his thigh, pulling it up. Ianto can imagine it, wrapping his leg around Jack's waist, warm-hot skin against his and cool tiles at his back, Jack's hand on his cock and Jack's cock inside of his body, hard and all heat and pressure.
Another twist of his own fingers, the sound of Jack's breathy, husky laughter in his ears, and Ianto closes his eyes and comes undone.
*.~.*.~.*
I want, he thinks, and perhaps standing over Suzie’s twice-dead corpse isn’t the best place, perhaps a stopwatch isn’t the best item with which to proposition so experienced a man, but-
I want, Ianto thinks, and smiles at Jack, tentative but inviting.
Jack grins back, wicked and wanton, and it’s good.