there's gonna be an accident ;; capnhotness, in_absolutio
Late night at the Hub and unexpected Weevil activity send Ianto Jones to bed alone. He conscientiously - and perhaps with unrealistic hope - leaves Jack's side of the bed empty, and curls up with half the pillows and most of the blankets, and a dog on his feet, to sleep. It's blissful and warm and lasts naught-point-two minutes before Ianto ( Read more... )
Honestly, it's so rare that Ianto does adopt an apologetic role that Jack isn't entirely sure what to do with the unhesitating search for understanding and forgiveness. It isn't like Ianto, but Jack isn't going to consider the implications another might delve into. He can take things at face value.
"Was he?" Jack wonders, not so much questioning the honesty of the statement as he is trying to remember the short - very short - list of survivors from the battle. Truth be told, up until the point where he met with the Doctor again, Jack had spent more time studying the list of missing and presumed dead, staring at 'Rose Tyler' as if he could change the course of history if only his will were strong enough. "I saw the bruise. He said it was a misunderstanding. I guess he's - " Not interested in any particular long-term help, in something more than comfort to ease his hurt. Jack is too polite to ask if all Canary Wharf survivors display masochistic tendencies, both to keep from hurting Ianto and to keep from jumping to yet another conclusion about John.
"I hope I didn't offend him," he supplies instead, brushing a thumb across Ianto's cheekbone carefully. "You'll have a good excuse for me." Ianto always does.
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Admittedly, Ianto is counting on Jack not being able to remember the names of all - or most - of the living from Canary Wharf, and among them he knows there were at least two named John. He knows, because he's kept up with them to the best extent that he can, both the ones who were brought back and the ones who are trying to move on with their lives. The survival rate is not good, the mortality rate high; their numbers are shrinking, and they all do have problems. Even Ianto, with his bevy of personal issues, considers himself lucky to have gotten out and actually managed to have a life after all that, but how close had he come to not? He compulsively squeezes Jack's hand, again, and lifts it to his lips to press a kiss to the knuckles.
"They love each other," Ianto states, as if that ambiguous description of a future Doctor and Master will actually help to soothe Jack's suspicions; surely, two people in love with someone else would not betray those they love with someone else? It just feels like too much. "Their relationship is ... volatile." That much, at least, he thinks Jack can understand.
Ianto looks down at his bare feet on the carpeted runner of the staircase, and wiggles his toes against the plush piling as he takes time to carefully think what Jack must have inferred from all this. "I let him stay to talk ... it was late, I was sleepy, and we both fell asleep on our bed. I didn't mean for him to stay there. I was going to put him up in the guest room." The one where his own alternate had stayed, that night.
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While the statement goes a long way to smooth over the rough, hurt edge to the feelings he's actively trying to ignore, it does very little to settle all the conflicting emotions broiling in his head and heart. "Volatile I get," Jack responds, brushing his fingertips over Ianto's lips slowly. They're volatile, but not exactly fire in a powder keg. He can only recall a few times when they've come to blows and each other those times they've grudgingly deserved whatever it was they received.
"I came home late," he answers, though he's still actively trying to give nothing away, "and the bedroom door was locked. I figured I'd done something." Then he finds John in their kitchen, in Ianto's bathrobe, and awful assumptions begin to slot into place. Jack doesn't say that, even as an underlying suggestion, but it's obvious where his statement leads. He'd felt shut down even before he discovered a strange man had slept in Ianto's bed the night before.
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"I'm sorry," Ianto apologizes carefully, reaching out to rest his hand on Jack's hip, fingertips grazing the soft cotton of the pyjama bottoms. I didn't think you would be home at all is certainly not a wise thing to say, lending all sorts of implications to the situation that Ianto really would rather not. I thought you'd call first doesn't make for a good explanation or excuse, either. "I didn't mean for you to think that."
Ianto takes a breath and exhales it slowly. "I missed you last night," he admits, tugging Jack's hand closer and spreading the fingers so that he can rest his cheek against the palm. "I would've slept alone if at all. He just sort of - happened. But we're just friends. We didn't ..." Well. He hopes he doesn't have to explain that, not really.
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"It's fine," Jack rushes to say, almost but not quite tripping over his own words to reassure his husband. He pauses, cupping Ianto's face in both hands now, and leans closer to brush a soft kiss against Ianto's lips. It is fine, he's convinced himself. It's fine that Ianto didn't, it would be fine if he did. There's nothing worse than a double standard, after all. "I missed you, too," he amends, leaning back from the nearly chaste kiss to offer Ianto a small smile. I'm not used to sleeping alone anymore sounds too desperate to express, so he doesn't.
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Uncertain, now, how many times they will have to have this discussion - turn it into an argument - and have it settled, Ianto still finds himself reluctant to hedge around it. He leans into the kiss and makes a soft, frustrated noise of loss when it's over. Even one night apart, and here he is like some desperate, longing thing. Ianto worries, sometimes, that eventually his need for Jack will become too much for the other man to handle. "It's not fine," he replies, as if inferring Jack's thoughts through the words. "Maybe fine that I didn't, but ... it wouldn't be fine if I did."
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Ironically, sometimes Jack worries the same thing about his own feelings for Ianto. Desperate, longing, and perhaps someday too much to handle. "I'm not going to hold you to unreasonable standards," Jack answers, careful and gentle with the response. "It can't be fine that I have, but not fine for you to do so."
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"You don't anymore," Ianto responds quietly. "Are you planning to again?" There's a touch of fear in his tone as if he's concerned that Jack will answer in the affirmative - that he's trying not to hold Ianto to a double standard because he wants to keep his options open. Ianto knows better, he really and truly does, but knowing is not the same as actually applying the knowledge reasonably to the situation. He finally takes the step up to join Jack at the top, to put them on even footing again.
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An expression of hurt briefly replaces the understanding look he's held throughout the conversation thusfar, lending him just that much more understanding of Ianto's perspective. "No," he answers simply, quietly, letting the response stand alone at just that. As much as he wants to say of course not or I respect our commitment too much, Jack understands he may as well lack the right to such broad statements after his own infidelities and assumptions of Ianto's nonexistent ones.
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The response is simple, but it comes across no less meaningful because of it. Ianto reaches out and wraps his arms around Jack, not the one commanding the embrace so much as the one looking to be held. He rests his chin against Jack's shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut, heart racing unexpectedly in the circumstances of this equally unexpected conversation. "Then neither of us are," he states reasonably. "Which means it's not fine, it's not okay. It doesn't matter what you've done, only what you're going to do, and if you catch me doing something I shouldn't, or you think I am, then ... you don't have to just take it because it's only fair."
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"I'm just ... confused," Jack admits, folding Ianto into a warm embrace without necessity of coercion, one arm settling around his husband's waist while he threads the fingers of his other hand through Ianto's hair. "You make everything I feel so complicated, Ianto. I never cared about this before and now - " Now it's wrong. Now he feels a heavy, almost unspeakable guilt about the things he's done, the hurt he's caused Ianto.
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"I'm not trying to complicate your life," Ianto says softly, tightening his grasp. He can't help but think about the future Jack, the one who's dead - especially with the Doctor from that same timeline currently standing in his kitchen - and the guilt is nearly overwhelming. Ianto desperately does not want to break Jack. He turns his head, opens his eyes, and gently kisses the side of Jack's neck. "Whatever you've done, it doesn't matter anymore. It's in the past. We have ... a brilliant future to work on together."
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I don't think I can stand losing you ...
Somehow, morbidly, when Ianto says 'brilliant future,' Jack can only think of the inevitable, tragic end of all this. The day Ianto will die, as all mortals do, and the day he has to move on without this constant achingly pleasant tug at his heartstrings. And he has absolutely no idea that Ianto, through an odd twist of fate, is thinking of the same thing.
"It all matters," Jack reasons, tightening his grip around Ianto's waist and murmuring furiously against his lover's hair. "Everything, Ianto. Everything we've done, everything we'll do. I love you, but I've hurt you. I love you, but I can't say I won't hurt you again in the future. I'm sorry, but not sorry enough to forget whole portions of who we are together for the sake of our ultimate happiness."
He doesn't want to say it, doesn't know if he'd survive the revelation unscathed, but their time together is too precious to sacrifice even the worst of times.
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Nearly inferring from Jack's words the train of thought the other man is running along, Ianto reaches for one of Jack's hands and lifts it to his chest, turning the palm down to rest over his heart. He presses down firmly and holds it there, forcing his partner to feel the heartbeat, the strong and steady pulse. Ianto says nothing on the matter of his own mortality, but he hopes that this wordless gesture serves as adequate reminder that he is here, he is whole, he is alive. He doesn't want Jack to fear the future, he doesn't want Jack to become preoccupied with his death. Ianto knows that it will happen someday - maybe sooner than even he expects - and he doesn't want to leave a desolate shell of a man in his wake. It's neither flattery nor compliment.
"My heart's still beating," he says quietly. "I've been hurt, I'm sure I'll be hurt again, whether it's you or someone else. I don't mean to forget it, but you can't keep feeling guilty over what's over and done with and in the past." Ianto drags his lower lip between his teeth, hesitating for a moment of silence. "I don't want the past to taint our future. We've learned from it and, I'd like to think, we've grown, too."
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Complacent, pliable, Jack lets Ianto maneuver his hand and spends a silent, almost breathless, moment feeling the steady strum of his partner's heart and warmth of Ianto's skin beneath his palm. "We have," Jack agrees quietly and leans closer, dipping his head slightly, to brush his lips gently across Ianto's jaw. "I want to be everything you need to be, Ianto. I want to stop feeling jealous and suspicious and guilty. We're past that. We've been through too much already."
That, in a subtle sort of way, is Jack's promise to put aside his guilt and try to stem the jealousy he's often found himself feeling lately. "This is all I want," he murmurs after a slight pause, somehow needing and wanting to assert that now that he understands how Ianto may have felt in the past. "Everything I need is right here."
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"You are everything I need," Ianto replies, tilting his chin down and lifting Jack's hand back up to press another gentle, almost reverent kiss there. As far as the suspicious and guilty part goes, well ... Ianto's done enough of that, himself, for the both of them. And really, inasmuch as Jack doesn't want to forget it, and Ianto actually agrees, it doesn't mean he exactly wants to dwell on it, either.
The fear is still lingering in his heart, paranoia over Jack's eventual fate - too much investment, almost; what will Jack do when he's gone? - but Ianto sets that aside as well, determined not to make a hypocrite of himself. He releases Jack's hand and eases himself back into the other man's embrace. "I love you, Jack."
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