And the fire that breaks from thee
Rating: G-ish
Warnings: Faint angst, extremely fluffy schmoop, AU/crackish setting
Word Count: ~3400 (complete)
Summary: “The wardings have to hold,” Jack says softly, and Ianto's hands tighten on the stone, white-knuckled. Sometimes, he thinks that if he loved Jack even an inch less deeply, an ounce less madly, he would hate him with all of his soul. Steampunkish!AU
Disclaimer: I don’t hold the copyrights, I didn’t create them, and I make no profit from this.
Notes: Because I am stuck on IJatAP, and no matter what trick I try-writing backwards from the end, writing from the middle, POV changes, time-skips, etc.-nothing works. (What, you thought I included those kinds of things because they're interesting plot devices? Ha. You poor sucker.) So. Have a vaguely steampunkish setting, angst, copious fluff, and magic as I attempt to muscle through my writer’s block. Enjoy!
(And before you ask, yes, I have been watching The End of Days and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and I have been having feels, okay? Janto feels. Hush.)
(Title from The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins, because I have no imagination.)
And the fire that breaks from thee
The walls rise tall and stately, but they loom over the Lower City and cast it into deep shadow, even at noon. Ianto braces his hands on the crenellation in front of him and looks down over the city, the darkness of Lower fading to the twilight of Middle and then giving way to the brilliance of Upper. It’s not a lovely place, not even remotely-too much decay and desperation and hatred and hopelessness for that-but it’s Ianto's in every way that’s ever mattered, bound and sworn by the stark black tattoos that encircle his wrists like the world’s lightest manacles.
Ianto feels the weight of them, though. Especially at times like this.
On his right, the wall marches across the lip of a cliff that drops down into mist below. There's a waterfall beneath the stonework, roaring proudly as it crashes down into open air and is lost to the haze that fills the valley, and just far enough beyond it for safety are the airship docks, humming with life and labor. Ianto turns around to face the open air above the valley but carefully doesn’t look as, with a humming, throbbing thrum of engines and magic, yet another gunship takes to the sky.
Their kingdom is small, barely large enough to bear the name, but it’s all any of them have, and they're tireless in its defense, down to the very last man.
Ianto just wishes that it wouldn’t be this man.
Jack looks at him from where he stands on Ianto's left, feet braced against the bite of the wind before them. He doesn’t say anything, but there's a blaster strapped to his leg, a sword at his waist, and a heavy bandolier across his chest. Those are enough-Ianto requires no more proof to know that he’s going to war.
The breeze picks up, hurtling past them with the scent of iron and fire. Three valleys away, the enemy has made camp. Ianto doesn’t need to be wind-Gifted to know that, not with this stench in his face and the grim greyness of the clouds on the horizon. Only three valleys, but it might as well be at the ends of the earth for all the ease it brings Ianto, whose ties to the city could only be more permanent if he were chained hand and foot in its deepest level. Maybe less, even then.
He can't leave, is physically incapable of it, held here by the tattoos on his wrists and an oath made to stone and blood and earth and heart.
“The wardings have to hold,” Jack says softly, and Ianto's hands tighten on the stone, white-knuckled. Sometimes, he thinks that if he loved Jack even an inch less deeply, an ounce less madly, he would hate him with all of his soul.
“They’ll hold,” he promises, bleak and weary, and it’s the only promise with any meaning that he can give. The wards will hold, even if Ianto has to inscribe them in the very last of his heart’s blood and speak them with his dying breath to make it so.
Then Jack's large, hot hand closes over the back of Ianto's neck, holds tightly, and Ianto shuts his eyes to the gathering clouds, leans into the touch, and simply breathes. There's no certainty that Jack will return from this fight, that any of his crew will, that anyone will, but Ianto knew that when all of this started. Just as Jack knew that the ties reaching down into Ianto's soul bind his life and death and everything in between to the city.
They’ve both accepted that.
There's a clatter of footsteps on the steps below them, the stairs leading up to the top of the wall, and Ianto knows without looking that it’s a runner, come to summon Jack to the docks and send him to war. Doubtless Tosh and Owen and Gwen are already there, overseeing preparations for the launch.
Ianto opens his eyes, feels the wind stir gently around him, and turns to face Jack fully. “Be careful,” he says, the closest to words of love that they’ll come, here and now. Half the time, Ianto isn’t even certain that Jack feels the same, but that’s all right. His love isn’t something of less worth just for not being fully returned. “Strong winds to you.”
Jack simply looks at him for a long moment, something vast and wordless in his eyes, and then he smiles and steps forward, right into Ianto. “I'm always careful,” he says laughingly, which is a boldfaced lie. But before Ianto can treat him to an arched brow and a witheringly doubtful look, he slides his hand around to cup Ianto's cheek and kisses him softly, sweetly, thoroughly.
Times like this, Ianto wonders why he ever doubts Jack's feelings at all.
“Wait for me,” Jack whispers, resting their foreheads together and smiling, just a little.
“Always,” Ianto returns, a touch breathlessly.
It’s not one runner, in truth; it’s two. One wears the Council’s colors, and staggers towards Jack with a quick, panting bow, while the other in Academy colors stumbles to a stop in front of Ianto.
“It’s time,” both children gasp together, and that’s it.
It’s war.
Jack takes a step back, one hand falling to his sword, and he offers Ianto a crooked grin. “Well, Wind-Master? Aren’t you going to offer me a lift?”
Ianto rolls his eyes at the insufferable man, even as he raises a hand. The tattoos spread and swirl, sweeping down his arm in intricate tangles of black as a Pegasus-wind picks up around him. “I should drop you, just to make a point,” he responds tartly. “I'm not a coach service, Captain.”
The servant wind twists around Jack like living hands, lifting him from his feet and over the city, aiming for the section of wall above the docks. It’s an hour’s trip to get down from this part of the wall, through the Lower City, and to the docks that way, or half an hour to go along the top of the wall and pass through all of the guard points there. Jack's never one to make things harder for himself than he has to, even if it means trusting that Ianto won’t drop him mid-flight.
“No, you're far too pretty,” Jack agrees cheerfully. “Be safe, Ianto. I want something to look forward to when I come home.”
It’s not a declaration of love, but it is close enough to make Ianto's heart twist and flutter in his chest. “Of course, sir,” he says simply, and lets Jack take from that what he will.
It’s the work of half a thought to control the wind carrying Jack, and Ianto forcefully directs the rest of his mind to the task at hand. He turns back to the wall, where the Academy runner is still waiting, and asks, “Full wardings?”
The girl nods, and then rattles off a series of coordinates that would be incomprehensible to any non-Gifted. They're dimensions and distances and technical terms that the Academy teaches its warders, especially those who work the walls. Ianto translates them into more practical terms, determining what is wanted, and then lets out a long, slow breath and lays both hands flat on the top of the wall. The tattoos, which retreated back to his wrists when Jack was set safely down, swirl again and sweep up his arms, spread across his shoulders and neck and then down his torso. They glow, glitter blackly in the storm-light, and Ianto reaches for his gift.
The newborn wind howls, whirling beyond the walls like a living thing, like a monster with teeth and claws, and something inside of Ianto howls with it, fierce and furious. “Tell the captains to active their shipboard wards,” he tells the runner. “This is a dragon-wind, and I have little say in what it eats right now.”
The girl is a trainee-one of the Gifted, likely working for the Academy as a runner to pay her way through the necessary courses for Mastery of her Gift-and she understands the wind-term in a way someone else wouldn’t. Dragon-winds are dangerous, easily able to escape the Gifted that summons them if even the smallest bit of concentration shifts, and she blanches a bit before turning and leaping down the stairs again.
Ianto could tell her not to bother-he’s never been one to lose his concentration, especially when so much is on the line-but he doesn’t.
The wind roars around him, just past him, vicious and deadly, and Ianto closes his eyes and basks in it. There are ships on the horizon, red and gold rather than the city’s black and silver, but they matter little.
Jack's ship is rising, lifting off the docks, and dragon-wind or not, Ianto parts the storm to let it pass. His mind is the wind’s, and just for a moment he catches sight of Jack standing tall and proud on the wide deck, boots planted and one hand on his sword. Jack lifts his head, as though he can feel Ianto's regard, and smiles. He blows a kiss to the deadly winds, and then his ship is through and gone, steaming out towards the advancing fleet with a score of warships at his back.
Bound to the city, locked to the ward-wind and the wall, Ianto opens his eyes as the storm crashes around them. It screams, wild and lonely and aching, and Ianto sets his feet more firmly to the stone. His tattoos gleam in the dimness, a hint of wing and claw and flame in the dark lines, and the world shakes with the force of it.
The city will stand.
Even if Ianto can't go out and join the battle, he can make certain that Jack will always have something to come back to.
*.~.*
The first time Jack Harkness meets Ianto Jones, it’s at a war council. There are four Academy Masters and three Fleet Captains, two of the Lord’s councilors and then the Lord of the City himself, all grim and quiet with weariness. It’s been a long siege, and the people are getting more restless with each failed attempt to break through the surrounding forces.
“How much longer?” the Lord asks, brown hair wild and rectangular glasses sliding down his nose the way they always do. “If we have to hold, how much longer can we last?”
The councilors look at each other, and then the lovely redhead answers without looking down at her papers. “Three weeks, if we keep rationing as it is. Five, maybe, if we increase it.”
Lethbridge-Stewart, the most senior of the Captains, shakes his head. “They won’t give us that long,” he says gruffly. “Reinforcements could be here by the end of the month, and then we’ll be overrun by sheer numbers.”
The Academy Masters exchange glances, and then look at the youngest among them, a tall and slender man with dark hair and pale eyes. He looks back and nods, just once. Jack glances at him, too, and then stops, caught by those blue eyes and that resigned, determined expression. The man stares back, the blue gem of a wind-Gifted Master glittering at his throat, and there's something faintly curious in his eyes. Jack smiles, unable to help himself, and offers a wink. The man blinks, and then clearly smothers a chuckle as he shakes his head.
“We think we have a way to break the siege,” Martha, the fire-Gifted Master, says, stepping forward. She’s the Headmistress of the Academy, and a friend, but right now Jack can only see the soldier in the tense line of her spine and the darkness of her eyes. She nods to the wind-Gifted man. “Ianto is our newest Master, but he’s able to call the dragon-wind.”
Jack draws in a sharp breath, because the dragon-wind is a thing of legend in the Academy, a wind strong enough to rend metal and tear through stone, to reshape the world before it. It’s also more than enough to kill its summoner and then run rampant through the city, and would likely do far more damage than the invading army could ever hope to.
The Lord looks Ianto over, careful and calculating. “Have you done it before?” he asks after a long pause.
Ianto meets his eyes without flinching and inclines his head. “For my trials,” he murmurs, “three months ago now. And twice more since.”
And the city is still standing. That’s…impressive.
It also sounds interesting, and Jack's never been the type to pass up something like that. He steps forward, nodding to the Lord, and offers, “My ship can take him out into the siege, add a bit of distance from the city and a bit more proximity to the enemy. If that’s agreeable?”
If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say Lethbridge-Stewart was rolling his eyes. “Harkness,” the old man says exasperatedly, “one of these days, your recklessness-”
“Can you do it?” Ianto cuts in. He’s still looking at Jack-has hardly looked away. “You’d have to keep them off us long enough for me to call up the wind, and then continue to hold them off until I dismiss it. It would be dangerous.”
Jack offers him a grin. “That’s why I volunteered,” he says cheerfully. “My crew’s the best in the Fleet. I know we can do it.”
Ianto studies him for a long moment, and there's something in his eyes-something like hope, or surprise, or intrigue, or interest, or maybe all of those-that makes Jack's blood move just a little more quickly, his heart pound just a bit louder in his chest. It’s the same kind of thrill he gets standing on the deck just before a battle, but also somehow softer, sweeter.
“All right,” Ianto answers after an endless, suspended moment. He turns, breaking their gaze, and faces the others in the room. Jack had almost forgotten they were there. “I can be ready by dawn.”
“Done.” The Lord stands, slapping his hands on the table before him, and nods to both of them. “Good luck.”
Jack crosses the room in four long strides, and as he falls into step beside Ianto, their shoulders just barely brushing, he suspects that they won’t need luck at all. Not with both of them together.
They break the siege.
But then, that’s rather a given.
*.~.*
The fleet returns at dawn, just as the storm clouds start to clear. They're singed and limping and entirely too tattered, but Ianto counts twenty-one coming back, just as twenty-one went out, and it’s the greatest relief he’s felt since the last time there was a war on their doorstep and Jack went off to fight.
Martha’s with him now, steady and strong at his side, and she grips his shoulder hard. “Can you see…?” she asks softly, barely audible.
Ianto closes his eyes and concentrates, separating himself from the dragon-wind for the brief moment it takes to be certain that it is indeed their fleet at the edge of the valley and not some trick. The second of far-vision is enough to show him Jack, no longer quite so tall and steady, but alive nevertheless, and he releases it with a sigh of expelled tension. “Yes,” he says, and has to clear his throat before he can get another word out. “Yes, it’s them. No ships lost, though several look badly damaged.”
Martha sags a little as well, eyes fluttering shut as the sconces around them flicker madly. “Good,” she manages. “Drop the wind, then. Let’s welcome them home.”
Raising his hands, Ianto brings them together with a sharp, ringing clap, and his tattoos flare once more and then whirl back down to his wrists. Around the city, the dragon-wind roars once more and then dispels with a burst of fire-scented breeze that’s powerful enough to flutter clothes and raise dust, but little more. The release of power leaves Ianto panting and grey-skinned, wavering where he stands until Martha carefully grips his elbow and steadies him on his feet.
“All right, Ianto?” she asks worriedly, even as the airships sweep in low over the city, making the very foundations tremble with the rumble of their engines as they make their victory lap to the cheers of those below.
But before Ianto has a chance to answer, the fleet is overhead, and a single figure drops from the lead ship’s deck, freefalling towards them. Ianto bites out a curse, tattoos flaring again as his Pegasus-wind all but lunges to catch the idiotic madman.
Jack lands safely, as he always does.
Ianto is still far from amused.
“You,” he informs the Captain witheringly, “are a fucking nitwit.”
But Jack just laughs, taking two strides forward and catching Ianto in his arms, spinning them both around the rough grey stones with an entire world in his eyes. “I came back,” he says, like it’s something he should get a pat on the head for. “I came back for you,” he whispers as they slow and then still, mindless of the ships still overhead or the guards on the wall or the blood and singes on Jack's clothes. Jack reaches up to cradle Ianto's face, big calloused hands against pale and wind-chilled skin, and he leans in for a kiss. Ianto meets him halfway, wraps his arms around Jack's shoulders and tries to keep from shaking apart, because he loves Jack, loves him in a way that is soul-sucking and ridiculous and more than a little destructive. Loves him like air and sky and the ground beneath his feet, and sometimes he thinks-he knows that Jack is all of those and more to him, and that’s both utterly terrifying and deeply reassuring, all at once.
“Welcome home,” Ianto breathes into the warm air between them, the first hint of heat in his world since Jack left two days ago. “Welcome home, Jack. I missed you.”
Jack smiles at him, not the wide and masking grin he so often wears, but something smaller, softer, so much sweeter that it makes Ianto ache all over and right down to his soul. He leans in for another kiss, another sweep of his hands over Ianto's face and down his shoulders, ending in a loose clasp around his wrist, and this is one manacle that Ianto will never tire of. He smiles, and touches Ianto gently, and he whispers, “I'm home.”
And that’s all Ianto has ever wanted in this life, all of it and nothing more or less.
Warnings: Faint angst, extremely fluffy schmoop, AU/crackish setting
Word Count: ~3400 (complete)
Summary: “The wardings have to hold,” Jack says softly, and Ianto's hands tighten on the stone, white-knuckled. Sometimes, he thinks that if he loved Jack even an inch less deeply, an ounce less madly, he would hate him with all of his soul. Steampunkish!AU
Disclaimer: I don’t hold the copyrights, I didn’t create them, and I make no profit from this.
Notes: Because I am stuck on IJatAP, and no matter what trick I try-writing backwards from the end, writing from the middle, POV changes, time-skips, etc.-nothing works. (What, you thought I included those kinds of things because they're interesting plot devices? Ha. You poor sucker.) So. Have a vaguely steampunkish setting, angst, copious fluff, and magic as I attempt to muscle through my writer’s block. Enjoy!
(And before you ask, yes, I have been watching The End of Days and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and I have been having feels, okay? Janto feels. Hush.)
(Title from The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins, because I have no imagination.)
And the fire that breaks from thee
The walls rise tall and stately, but they loom over the Lower City and cast it into deep shadow, even at noon. Ianto braces his hands on the crenellation in front of him and looks down over the city, the darkness of Lower fading to the twilight of Middle and then giving way to the brilliance of Upper. It’s not a lovely place, not even remotely-too much decay and desperation and hatred and hopelessness for that-but it’s Ianto's in every way that’s ever mattered, bound and sworn by the stark black tattoos that encircle his wrists like the world’s lightest manacles.
Ianto feels the weight of them, though. Especially at times like this.
On his right, the wall marches across the lip of a cliff that drops down into mist below. There's a waterfall beneath the stonework, roaring proudly as it crashes down into open air and is lost to the haze that fills the valley, and just far enough beyond it for safety are the airship docks, humming with life and labor. Ianto turns around to face the open air above the valley but carefully doesn’t look as, with a humming, throbbing thrum of engines and magic, yet another gunship takes to the sky.
Their kingdom is small, barely large enough to bear the name, but it’s all any of them have, and they're tireless in its defense, down to the very last man.
Ianto just wishes that it wouldn’t be this man.
Jack looks at him from where he stands on Ianto's left, feet braced against the bite of the wind before them. He doesn’t say anything, but there's a blaster strapped to his leg, a sword at his waist, and a heavy bandolier across his chest. Those are enough-Ianto requires no more proof to know that he’s going to war.
The breeze picks up, hurtling past them with the scent of iron and fire. Three valleys away, the enemy has made camp. Ianto doesn’t need to be wind-Gifted to know that, not with this stench in his face and the grim greyness of the clouds on the horizon. Only three valleys, but it might as well be at the ends of the earth for all the ease it brings Ianto, whose ties to the city could only be more permanent if he were chained hand and foot in its deepest level. Maybe less, even then.
He can't leave, is physically incapable of it, held here by the tattoos on his wrists and an oath made to stone and blood and earth and heart.
“The wardings have to hold,” Jack says softly, and Ianto's hands tighten on the stone, white-knuckled. Sometimes, he thinks that if he loved Jack even an inch less deeply, an ounce less madly, he would hate him with all of his soul.
“They’ll hold,” he promises, bleak and weary, and it’s the only promise with any meaning that he can give. The wards will hold, even if Ianto has to inscribe them in the very last of his heart’s blood and speak them with his dying breath to make it so.
Then Jack's large, hot hand closes over the back of Ianto's neck, holds tightly, and Ianto shuts his eyes to the gathering clouds, leans into the touch, and simply breathes. There's no certainty that Jack will return from this fight, that any of his crew will, that anyone will, but Ianto knew that when all of this started. Just as Jack knew that the ties reaching down into Ianto's soul bind his life and death and everything in between to the city.
They’ve both accepted that.
There's a clatter of footsteps on the steps below them, the stairs leading up to the top of the wall, and Ianto knows without looking that it’s a runner, come to summon Jack to the docks and send him to war. Doubtless Tosh and Owen and Gwen are already there, overseeing preparations for the launch.
Ianto opens his eyes, feels the wind stir gently around him, and turns to face Jack fully. “Be careful,” he says, the closest to words of love that they’ll come, here and now. Half the time, Ianto isn’t even certain that Jack feels the same, but that’s all right. His love isn’t something of less worth just for not being fully returned. “Strong winds to you.”
Jack simply looks at him for a long moment, something vast and wordless in his eyes, and then he smiles and steps forward, right into Ianto. “I'm always careful,” he says laughingly, which is a boldfaced lie. But before Ianto can treat him to an arched brow and a witheringly doubtful look, he slides his hand around to cup Ianto's cheek and kisses him softly, sweetly, thoroughly.
Times like this, Ianto wonders why he ever doubts Jack's feelings at all.
“Wait for me,” Jack whispers, resting their foreheads together and smiling, just a little.
“Always,” Ianto returns, a touch breathlessly.
It’s not one runner, in truth; it’s two. One wears the Council’s colors, and staggers towards Jack with a quick, panting bow, while the other in Academy colors stumbles to a stop in front of Ianto.
“It’s time,” both children gasp together, and that’s it.
It’s war.
Jack takes a step back, one hand falling to his sword, and he offers Ianto a crooked grin. “Well, Wind-Master? Aren’t you going to offer me a lift?”
Ianto rolls his eyes at the insufferable man, even as he raises a hand. The tattoos spread and swirl, sweeping down his arm in intricate tangles of black as a Pegasus-wind picks up around him. “I should drop you, just to make a point,” he responds tartly. “I'm not a coach service, Captain.”
The servant wind twists around Jack like living hands, lifting him from his feet and over the city, aiming for the section of wall above the docks. It’s an hour’s trip to get down from this part of the wall, through the Lower City, and to the docks that way, or half an hour to go along the top of the wall and pass through all of the guard points there. Jack's never one to make things harder for himself than he has to, even if it means trusting that Ianto won’t drop him mid-flight.
“No, you're far too pretty,” Jack agrees cheerfully. “Be safe, Ianto. I want something to look forward to when I come home.”
It’s not a declaration of love, but it is close enough to make Ianto's heart twist and flutter in his chest. “Of course, sir,” he says simply, and lets Jack take from that what he will.
It’s the work of half a thought to control the wind carrying Jack, and Ianto forcefully directs the rest of his mind to the task at hand. He turns back to the wall, where the Academy runner is still waiting, and asks, “Full wardings?”
The girl nods, and then rattles off a series of coordinates that would be incomprehensible to any non-Gifted. They're dimensions and distances and technical terms that the Academy teaches its warders, especially those who work the walls. Ianto translates them into more practical terms, determining what is wanted, and then lets out a long, slow breath and lays both hands flat on the top of the wall. The tattoos, which retreated back to his wrists when Jack was set safely down, swirl again and sweep up his arms, spread across his shoulders and neck and then down his torso. They glow, glitter blackly in the storm-light, and Ianto reaches for his gift.
The newborn wind howls, whirling beyond the walls like a living thing, like a monster with teeth and claws, and something inside of Ianto howls with it, fierce and furious. “Tell the captains to active their shipboard wards,” he tells the runner. “This is a dragon-wind, and I have little say in what it eats right now.”
The girl is a trainee-one of the Gifted, likely working for the Academy as a runner to pay her way through the necessary courses for Mastery of her Gift-and she understands the wind-term in a way someone else wouldn’t. Dragon-winds are dangerous, easily able to escape the Gifted that summons them if even the smallest bit of concentration shifts, and she blanches a bit before turning and leaping down the stairs again.
Ianto could tell her not to bother-he’s never been one to lose his concentration, especially when so much is on the line-but he doesn’t.
The wind roars around him, just past him, vicious and deadly, and Ianto closes his eyes and basks in it. There are ships on the horizon, red and gold rather than the city’s black and silver, but they matter little.
Jack's ship is rising, lifting off the docks, and dragon-wind or not, Ianto parts the storm to let it pass. His mind is the wind’s, and just for a moment he catches sight of Jack standing tall and proud on the wide deck, boots planted and one hand on his sword. Jack lifts his head, as though he can feel Ianto's regard, and smiles. He blows a kiss to the deadly winds, and then his ship is through and gone, steaming out towards the advancing fleet with a score of warships at his back.
Bound to the city, locked to the ward-wind and the wall, Ianto opens his eyes as the storm crashes around them. It screams, wild and lonely and aching, and Ianto sets his feet more firmly to the stone. His tattoos gleam in the dimness, a hint of wing and claw and flame in the dark lines, and the world shakes with the force of it.
The city will stand.
Even if Ianto can't go out and join the battle, he can make certain that Jack will always have something to come back to.
*.~.*
The first time Jack Harkness meets Ianto Jones, it’s at a war council. There are four Academy Masters and three Fleet Captains, two of the Lord’s councilors and then the Lord of the City himself, all grim and quiet with weariness. It’s been a long siege, and the people are getting more restless with each failed attempt to break through the surrounding forces.
“How much longer?” the Lord asks, brown hair wild and rectangular glasses sliding down his nose the way they always do. “If we have to hold, how much longer can we last?”
The councilors look at each other, and then the lovely redhead answers without looking down at her papers. “Three weeks, if we keep rationing as it is. Five, maybe, if we increase it.”
Lethbridge-Stewart, the most senior of the Captains, shakes his head. “They won’t give us that long,” he says gruffly. “Reinforcements could be here by the end of the month, and then we’ll be overrun by sheer numbers.”
The Academy Masters exchange glances, and then look at the youngest among them, a tall and slender man with dark hair and pale eyes. He looks back and nods, just once. Jack glances at him, too, and then stops, caught by those blue eyes and that resigned, determined expression. The man stares back, the blue gem of a wind-Gifted Master glittering at his throat, and there's something faintly curious in his eyes. Jack smiles, unable to help himself, and offers a wink. The man blinks, and then clearly smothers a chuckle as he shakes his head.
“We think we have a way to break the siege,” Martha, the fire-Gifted Master, says, stepping forward. She’s the Headmistress of the Academy, and a friend, but right now Jack can only see the soldier in the tense line of her spine and the darkness of her eyes. She nods to the wind-Gifted man. “Ianto is our newest Master, but he’s able to call the dragon-wind.”
Jack draws in a sharp breath, because the dragon-wind is a thing of legend in the Academy, a wind strong enough to rend metal and tear through stone, to reshape the world before it. It’s also more than enough to kill its summoner and then run rampant through the city, and would likely do far more damage than the invading army could ever hope to.
The Lord looks Ianto over, careful and calculating. “Have you done it before?” he asks after a long pause.
Ianto meets his eyes without flinching and inclines his head. “For my trials,” he murmurs, “three months ago now. And twice more since.”
And the city is still standing. That’s…impressive.
It also sounds interesting, and Jack's never been the type to pass up something like that. He steps forward, nodding to the Lord, and offers, “My ship can take him out into the siege, add a bit of distance from the city and a bit more proximity to the enemy. If that’s agreeable?”
If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say Lethbridge-Stewart was rolling his eyes. “Harkness,” the old man says exasperatedly, “one of these days, your recklessness-”
“Can you do it?” Ianto cuts in. He’s still looking at Jack-has hardly looked away. “You’d have to keep them off us long enough for me to call up the wind, and then continue to hold them off until I dismiss it. It would be dangerous.”
Jack offers him a grin. “That’s why I volunteered,” he says cheerfully. “My crew’s the best in the Fleet. I know we can do it.”
Ianto studies him for a long moment, and there's something in his eyes-something like hope, or surprise, or intrigue, or interest, or maybe all of those-that makes Jack's blood move just a little more quickly, his heart pound just a bit louder in his chest. It’s the same kind of thrill he gets standing on the deck just before a battle, but also somehow softer, sweeter.
“All right,” Ianto answers after an endless, suspended moment. He turns, breaking their gaze, and faces the others in the room. Jack had almost forgotten they were there. “I can be ready by dawn.”
“Done.” The Lord stands, slapping his hands on the table before him, and nods to both of them. “Good luck.”
Jack crosses the room in four long strides, and as he falls into step beside Ianto, their shoulders just barely brushing, he suspects that they won’t need luck at all. Not with both of them together.
They break the siege.
But then, that’s rather a given.
*.~.*
The fleet returns at dawn, just as the storm clouds start to clear. They're singed and limping and entirely too tattered, but Ianto counts twenty-one coming back, just as twenty-one went out, and it’s the greatest relief he’s felt since the last time there was a war on their doorstep and Jack went off to fight.
Martha’s with him now, steady and strong at his side, and she grips his shoulder hard. “Can you see…?” she asks softly, barely audible.
Ianto closes his eyes and concentrates, separating himself from the dragon-wind for the brief moment it takes to be certain that it is indeed their fleet at the edge of the valley and not some trick. The second of far-vision is enough to show him Jack, no longer quite so tall and steady, but alive nevertheless, and he releases it with a sigh of expelled tension. “Yes,” he says, and has to clear his throat before he can get another word out. “Yes, it’s them. No ships lost, though several look badly damaged.”
Martha sags a little as well, eyes fluttering shut as the sconces around them flicker madly. “Good,” she manages. “Drop the wind, then. Let’s welcome them home.”
Raising his hands, Ianto brings them together with a sharp, ringing clap, and his tattoos flare once more and then whirl back down to his wrists. Around the city, the dragon-wind roars once more and then dispels with a burst of fire-scented breeze that’s powerful enough to flutter clothes and raise dust, but little more. The release of power leaves Ianto panting and grey-skinned, wavering where he stands until Martha carefully grips his elbow and steadies him on his feet.
“All right, Ianto?” she asks worriedly, even as the airships sweep in low over the city, making the very foundations tremble with the rumble of their engines as they make their victory lap to the cheers of those below.
But before Ianto has a chance to answer, the fleet is overhead, and a single figure drops from the lead ship’s deck, freefalling towards them. Ianto bites out a curse, tattoos flaring again as his Pegasus-wind all but lunges to catch the idiotic madman.
Jack lands safely, as he always does.
Ianto is still far from amused.
“You,” he informs the Captain witheringly, “are a fucking nitwit.”
But Jack just laughs, taking two strides forward and catching Ianto in his arms, spinning them both around the rough grey stones with an entire world in his eyes. “I came back,” he says, like it’s something he should get a pat on the head for. “I came back for you,” he whispers as they slow and then still, mindless of the ships still overhead or the guards on the wall or the blood and singes on Jack's clothes. Jack reaches up to cradle Ianto's face, big calloused hands against pale and wind-chilled skin, and he leans in for a kiss. Ianto meets him halfway, wraps his arms around Jack's shoulders and tries to keep from shaking apart, because he loves Jack, loves him in a way that is soul-sucking and ridiculous and more than a little destructive. Loves him like air and sky and the ground beneath his feet, and sometimes he thinks-he knows that Jack is all of those and more to him, and that’s both utterly terrifying and deeply reassuring, all at once.
“Welcome home,” Ianto breathes into the warm air between them, the first hint of heat in his world since Jack left two days ago. “Welcome home, Jack. I missed you.”
Jack smiles at him, not the wide and masking grin he so often wears, but something smaller, softer, so much sweeter that it makes Ianto ache all over and right down to his soul. He leans in for another kiss, another sweep of his hands over Ianto's face and down his shoulders, ending in a loose clasp around his wrist, and this is one manacle that Ianto will never tire of. He smiles, and touches Ianto gently, and he whispers, “I'm home.”
And that’s all Ianto has ever wanted in this life, all of it and nothing more or less.