Let's see those suits!

[cpt_51century]

Who:  Jack and Dabble Ianto
When: Just after the Ianto and Ianto shopping trip!

It had been a very weird morning for Jack, meeting Patrick Logan, a weird novelist look alike who had been skulking about.

Jack was very willing to go up to the sixth floor where he and Ianto slept when in London in an apartment that had seen better days.  He was going to

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[cpt_51century]

"Don't lie to me," Jack said, a gently whisper, though there could so easily be rage behind his words. The look on his face was determined. He knelt in front of his lover. He wrapped his arms around him and tugged him to his chest. "What happened? Were you hurt? Did someone touch you?"

Was Ianto mean to you?

Jack was not above telling Ianto off. They had been nothing but kind to him, Jack stayed out of his way, and he didn't rub the other Ianto in his face. He made sure of it!

[cpt_51century]

He was so confused.

Jack let Ianto push him away because he could not hold anyone against their will. He sat back on his heels, trying to catch his eye. Those tears made them sparkle. He hated to say it, but Ianto was beautiful when he cried.

He was always beautiful.

That didn't mean that Jack wanted to see him in tears. The last time--

"Then what is it?" Jack was sure he had done something wrong."

[cpt_51century]

All of this because Ianto had gotten it into his head that-- Jack was going to kill that other one. He'd shoot him in the back of the head for this. The anger came quickly, and left just as quickly, burning bright and strong and fizzled itself out. They must have spoken. The story Jack gleaned from his barely-there telepathy told only heartache. Ianto had been happy with a false Jack...who said he loved him, made love to him every night, and then left him a few months into it.

Jack pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose and then went to follow Ianto into the bathroom. He gently flushed the toilet and sat with his back to the tub.

"I'm not leaving you."

Bed for me!

[cpt_51century]

Jack's teeth were grinding together, but as much as he wanted to save Ianto's beautiful fingers from being hurt, he did not move to stop him. "No I don't," he said softly. He had a conflicting feeling about Ianto. He tried to imagine him as being his own, of coming to save him before he could be hurt.

But that wasn't true. Ianto was from another place. His own Ianto was dead.

He was no better than that collector Jack...except that he did not spent two hundred years finding Iantos to try and save.

He was not smitten with the older Ianto. Or the younger one.

"I don't," he said emphatically. "I always come back for you."

[cpt_51century]

Jack was floored.

"I am nothing like that Jack," he spat, getting the foul taste out of his mouth. "I have not been trolling time and dimensions to find another version of you. Two hundred years ago, Ianto Jones died in my arms. I didn't love him. He was just another casualty to that war. I lost family during it. Flesh and blood."

Jack pressed a hand to his heart.

"I didn't expect you. You were not part of the plan. You are not the man that died on me and I am not the man that collects versions of you...or dumps you for a woman to marry and have children! That Jack's Ianto didn't die on him, his grandson--" Never mind. "Do you want to get married? Five years from now it becomes legal on Earth, or we can go to a billion worlds and have a ceremony. Have children? A little bit of help from technology and I can carry our children. Conceived the same way men and women do it."

He sighed.

"Yan. If you're going to blame me, blame me for what I have done. Not for what people that look like me have done."

[cpt_51century]

There was sadness in Jack's eyes as he wet a washcloth and used it to gently dab at Ianto's face to calm the swelling around his eyes and cool the headache raging in his head. "You're not identical," Jack murmured. "It's...horrible...what has happened to him. I won't sugar coat it. What that other Jack did to him was terrible. But just because this merged world screwed him over doesn't mean it will screw you. He'll find someone else. He's young, handsome, incredibly smart. Not even Captain Jack Harkness can ruin that."

Jack wiped Ianto's trembling lips and flushed the toilet again before he pulled Ianto into his arms.

"You've no reason to trust me. The other Jack you knew was the man I use to be. I just don't want to give up, Yan. You're worth trying for."

[cpt_51century]

Jack was silent as he held Ianto close to him, fingers stroking through the short hair at the base of his neck. "You don't always die. New York Jack's Ianto is alive and happy. He was the one that ended the relationship, not Jack. Old age happens, but not for a very, very long time. If the 456 come again, I know exactly how to stop them now, I will not let you die. We've got decades together, if you can stand me that long."

He hadn't been planning on touching the Alissa issue, but it had come up.

"Yan, she might be immortal, but do you think they'll stay together forever? Unlikely. My Doctor's nearly immortal and he lost interest in me too. She will in her Jack. And chances are, before you look any older than you do right now, you won't want me around anymore. All we have are moments. But I won't give that up."

[cpt_51century]

Empathy, for a creature like Ianto, was going to break him. It was so easy it seemed to take the emotions of those that looked like him, bathe in them, and come out a sobbing mess. There was probably guilt in there too for being a lucky one when the others were not.

Jack gently stroked him, fingers moving across Ianto's skin through his clothing, rearranging his limbs to allow him to lift the long, solidly build man into his arms.

I need you. You make me want to be better.

"Funny," he murmured. "I was about to tell you the same thing."