Advent '10 Fic: Brittle
Title: Brittle
Author: heddychaa
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angstporn
Wordcount: ~1651
Warnings: Explicit sexuality, character death
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Torchwood's characters, concepts, and events belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and the BBC.
Summary: He doesn't know if it's because Jack wants everyone else to be immortal, too, or if he's just so thick that he can't imagine that other people aren't.
A/N: Advent fic 15, this one for saintmaybe1121, who requested "pornetry where Ianto grows a backbone and gives Jack an ultimatum, and there's no mention of Christmas anywhere". Title and poetry snippets come from Jacob Sam-La Rose, "Brittle". I promise you tomorrow's story won't be a sad one! Thank you to azn_jack_fiend, _lullabelle_, and count_to_seven for the support and beta for all of this month's stories!
Brittle
I was always a serious child.
I never believed
The first time, they are giving each other lazy handjobs in Ianto’s bed and Jack is just talking about nothing, like he does sometimes when he’s happy and off his guard. Then he says “It’s gonna be amazing, Ianto. Just wait until you see. For a few months, anyway, Bowie Base One is like nothing humanity’s ever done.” And Ianto, to shut him up, slinks down his body and sucks his cock until he forgets Mars even exists.
that a lost tooth, buried
under a pillow and a wish
Later, it happens while they’re brushing their teeth in Jack’s mirror, shouldering each other back and forth to get to the sink. Jack spits and says, “You know? I think you’re gonna look hot when you start going grey. Dignified.”
Ianto dips his head to get a mouthful of water from the tap and then stands again, swishing it around morosely. He spits, and when he lifts his head, he gives Jack in the mirror his best bland look, but he can’t help the tension in his jaw, bordering on grinding his teeth. “I’m surprised I’m not grey already,” he says, pats Jack on the arse by way of a curt goodbye, and leaves.
could be resurrected
as some dream come true.
Their trips to Flat Holm are always windy, always chilly, always wet, always lonely and hopeless. So much so that even when they return, even when they have their cold hands clasped together, four palms and eighteen knuckles and twenty frigid fingers all touching, they have this horrible unshakeable feeling like they’re never going to be warm again.
This time, Ianto leaves Jack standing in his towel after their joint hot shower, loping down the hall with not much more than a promise to be back soon. When he returns, Jack just tilts his head in question, eyeing the bundle in Ianto’s arms.
So Ianto tosses them over: a pair of boxers, one grey wool sock, and then the other. “There, fresh from the dryer,” he says, proudly, and watches with a tight-lipped smile as Jack pulls each of them on in turn, groaning with pleasure.
“God, Ianto,” Jack says, “Don’t ever dare leave me.”
Out of obligation, Ianto laughs.
I knew it would be there,
each morning, still
Ianto drives into him slowly, staggering his hips inch by inch because more than anything he wants Jack to fucking feel it, his cock forcing him open, his fingertips digging into Jack’s biceps. He bites his lip in concentration, watching Jack’s hands fisting the sheets, Jack’s eyes screwing shut, Jack’s head tossing back and forth impatiently on the pillow. And Ianto growls out, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” flexing the muscles in his arms, drawing back and sinking in deeper, finding Jack’s ear and throat with his teeth and not caring if it hurts. “Take it, yeah. Tell me you want it. Tell me you love it.”
Jack lifts his hips to meet him and Ianto just pushes him down in return, like they’re fucking in competition with one another, like this is some kind of fight-to-the-death instead of something warm and intimate and strange, like it started as, before it got under Ianto’s skin.
And the more Ianto pushes, the harder Ianto pushes, the more Jack just grins and bares his teeth, taking it, opening his eyes full of challenge, full of fucking superiority, looking up and also looking down, watching disaffected as Ianto struggles with whatever it is he’s trying to own or take or assert here.
Because, of course, Jack never fucking gets it, doesn’t even try, just stretches himself out and lets his wrists go slack in Ianto’s palms and smiles, waiting for Ianto to spend himself to the point of collapse, so that then he can pet his hair and murmur “there, there”, always with the goddamn daddy complex, but at least here and now Ianto can be more than that, whatever he is the rest of the time, and just for now be everything, be more than everything, and make Jack take all of it in.
“Don’t you dare come,” he commands, barely over a whisper, to force him to really fucking listen, make him strain to find and recognize Ianto inside his cluttered flighty fucking head. He pumps Jack’s cock rough and fast in his fist, spit-wet fingers, kneeling with his cock seated deep and unmoving in Jack’s arse, with Jack’s body angled up over his thighs. “Not until I say, not until I--”
Jack winces, like he’s genuinely in pain, when he comes. And Ianto thinks good, good and follows after him with nothing but a relieved exhale. He thinks, then, that he kisses Jack on the cheek, extricating their bodies from one another. He thinks he whispers, “That’s okay.”
“Jesus Christ, Ianto,” Jack says with a laugh in his voice, cradling Ianto’s head to his shoulder as they lie together, after, Ianto on his belly, half-draped over Jack’s body. Jack’s fingers sink into Ianto’s hair. “You do know you don’t have to be so intense all the time? I have never met a man quite so determined to fuck like it’s the end of the world.”
the same small nugget
of dirty pearl,
He follows Gwen’s advice. He makes them both coffee and then he sits down at the kitchen table, holding the mug between his hands, and waits for Jack to follow suit.
Jack, always three steps behind, it seems, sits across from him, looking over his shoulder like he expects to see some explanation taped to his own ear.
“It has to stop,” Ianto blurts. “Something has to stop, and I don’t even care what.”
He stares down into his coffee, and then remembers, belatedly be brave, hold his eyes. He can’t know you’re serious if you can’t even maintain eye contact.
When he looks up, Jack has an eyebrow quirked, on the edge of an awkward laugh.
“I’m not joking around, Jack,” Ianto says. Be assertive and direct. “You can either hear me out or you can leave. I don’t-I don’t mean the flat, either. I mean all of it. Me. This.”
One side of Jack’s smile crumples. “Okay, shoot,” he says, sounding chastened. “I’m listening.”
Now what? Because of course he didn’t think through things this far. Ninety percent of him had been convinced Jack would just laugh him off.
“You don’t take this shit seriously,” he accuses, because it’s the first thing to come to mind, and thank God for his mug because otherwise he’d be pounding the table with his fists like a little boy, like the little boy Jack makes him feel like he is.
“What, you wanna get married?” Jack counters, sarcastic, and his face says he’s had this fight before. How many times?
“No, I fucking don’t, and if you think that’s what this is about you’re more fucking self-centred than I ever thought.” He tightens his hand around the mug handle so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap off in his palm.
“Then what, Ianto? Please enlighten me.” His own coffee sits completely unnoticed on the table, rippling under the vibrations of their joint anger.
“You don’t take our... our situation seriously. You always run your mouth and you don’t even hear what you’re fucking saying, or how it would sound to me. And I don’t know if it’s because some part of you wants us all to be immortal, too, or if your head’s just so far up your own arse you don’t realize yet that other people aren’t.”
“Do you want me to take you out of the field?” His face is serious, now. Kind. He’s asking, ‘Are you afraid?’
“No,” Ianto replies, quickly, because that’s not it at all. Maybe it says something about him (something good he hopes) that he hadn’t even considered it as an option. “No, no, not at all. I just want you to acknowledge the reality, here.”
“And what reality is that?” Jack asks, but like hell he doesn’t know the answer. It’s a challenge, to see if Ianto can face it himself, can do himself what he’s asking of Jack. If he can fucking stand it.
“That I’m going to die,” Ianto answers back, point-blank. Some part of him hopes hearing it vocalized like that, so matter of fact, hits Jack like a fucking punch to the gut. His hands twist over his mug, and he stares at his reflection in his coffee, and all he wants to say is, ‘That I’m never going to go grey and I’m never going to get married and I’m never going to see the future you talk about, not even a little bit of it, and yeah, every time I fuck you it could be the last time. And yeah, I do fuck you like the world is ending, because for me it’s always ending, every single fucking day.’
Instead, he looks up to see Jack’s sad face and he says, as bravely as he can muster, “And I live with that, Jack. I live with that every single day. I just want you to recognize that.”
“Do you want me to take you out of the field?” Jack repeats, except this time he isn’t asking for Ianto’s benefit.
Ianto reaches across the table and takes his hand.
crusted in blood,
evermore brittle.
Are you afraid?
“It was good, yeah?”
No, just sad.
Author: heddychaa
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angstporn
Wordcount: ~1651
Warnings: Explicit sexuality, character death
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Torchwood's characters, concepts, and events belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and the BBC.
Summary: He doesn't know if it's because Jack wants everyone else to be immortal, too, or if he's just so thick that he can't imagine that other people aren't.
A/N: Advent fic 15, this one for saintmaybe1121, who requested "pornetry where Ianto grows a backbone and gives Jack an ultimatum, and there's no mention of Christmas anywhere". Title and poetry snippets come from Jacob Sam-La Rose, "Brittle". I promise you tomorrow's story won't be a sad one! Thank you to azn_jack_fiend, _lullabelle_, and count_to_seven for the support and beta for all of this month's stories!
Brittle
I was always a serious child.
I never believed
The first time, they are giving each other lazy handjobs in Ianto’s bed and Jack is just talking about nothing, like he does sometimes when he’s happy and off his guard. Then he says “It’s gonna be amazing, Ianto. Just wait until you see. For a few months, anyway, Bowie Base One is like nothing humanity’s ever done.” And Ianto, to shut him up, slinks down his body and sucks his cock until he forgets Mars even exists.
that a lost tooth, buried
under a pillow and a wish
Later, it happens while they’re brushing their teeth in Jack’s mirror, shouldering each other back and forth to get to the sink. Jack spits and says, “You know? I think you’re gonna look hot when you start going grey. Dignified.”
Ianto dips his head to get a mouthful of water from the tap and then stands again, swishing it around morosely. He spits, and when he lifts his head, he gives Jack in the mirror his best bland look, but he can’t help the tension in his jaw, bordering on grinding his teeth. “I’m surprised I’m not grey already,” he says, pats Jack on the arse by way of a curt goodbye, and leaves.
could be resurrected
as some dream come true.
Their trips to Flat Holm are always windy, always chilly, always wet, always lonely and hopeless. So much so that even when they return, even when they have their cold hands clasped together, four palms and eighteen knuckles and twenty frigid fingers all touching, they have this horrible unshakeable feeling like they’re never going to be warm again.
This time, Ianto leaves Jack standing in his towel after their joint hot shower, loping down the hall with not much more than a promise to be back soon. When he returns, Jack just tilts his head in question, eyeing the bundle in Ianto’s arms.
So Ianto tosses them over: a pair of boxers, one grey wool sock, and then the other. “There, fresh from the dryer,” he says, proudly, and watches with a tight-lipped smile as Jack pulls each of them on in turn, groaning with pleasure.
“God, Ianto,” Jack says, “Don’t ever dare leave me.”
Out of obligation, Ianto laughs.
I knew it would be there,
each morning, still
Ianto drives into him slowly, staggering his hips inch by inch because more than anything he wants Jack to fucking feel it, his cock forcing him open, his fingertips digging into Jack’s biceps. He bites his lip in concentration, watching Jack’s hands fisting the sheets, Jack’s eyes screwing shut, Jack’s head tossing back and forth impatiently on the pillow. And Ianto growls out, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” flexing the muscles in his arms, drawing back and sinking in deeper, finding Jack’s ear and throat with his teeth and not caring if it hurts. “Take it, yeah. Tell me you want it. Tell me you love it.”
Jack lifts his hips to meet him and Ianto just pushes him down in return, like they’re fucking in competition with one another, like this is some kind of fight-to-the-death instead of something warm and intimate and strange, like it started as, before it got under Ianto’s skin.
And the more Ianto pushes, the harder Ianto pushes, the more Jack just grins and bares his teeth, taking it, opening his eyes full of challenge, full of fucking superiority, looking up and also looking down, watching disaffected as Ianto struggles with whatever it is he’s trying to own or take or assert here.
Because, of course, Jack never fucking gets it, doesn’t even try, just stretches himself out and lets his wrists go slack in Ianto’s palms and smiles, waiting for Ianto to spend himself to the point of collapse, so that then he can pet his hair and murmur “there, there”, always with the goddamn daddy complex, but at least here and now Ianto can be more than that, whatever he is the rest of the time, and just for now be everything, be more than everything, and make Jack take all of it in.
“Don’t you dare come,” he commands, barely over a whisper, to force him to really fucking listen, make him strain to find and recognize Ianto inside his cluttered flighty fucking head. He pumps Jack’s cock rough and fast in his fist, spit-wet fingers, kneeling with his cock seated deep and unmoving in Jack’s arse, with Jack’s body angled up over his thighs. “Not until I say, not until I--”
Jack winces, like he’s genuinely in pain, when he comes. And Ianto thinks good, good and follows after him with nothing but a relieved exhale. He thinks, then, that he kisses Jack on the cheek, extricating their bodies from one another. He thinks he whispers, “That’s okay.”
“Jesus Christ, Ianto,” Jack says with a laugh in his voice, cradling Ianto’s head to his shoulder as they lie together, after, Ianto on his belly, half-draped over Jack’s body. Jack’s fingers sink into Ianto’s hair. “You do know you don’t have to be so intense all the time? I have never met a man quite so determined to fuck like it’s the end of the world.”
the same small nugget
of dirty pearl,
He follows Gwen’s advice. He makes them both coffee and then he sits down at the kitchen table, holding the mug between his hands, and waits for Jack to follow suit.
Jack, always three steps behind, it seems, sits across from him, looking over his shoulder like he expects to see some explanation taped to his own ear.
“It has to stop,” Ianto blurts. “Something has to stop, and I don’t even care what.”
He stares down into his coffee, and then remembers, belatedly be brave, hold his eyes. He can’t know you’re serious if you can’t even maintain eye contact.
When he looks up, Jack has an eyebrow quirked, on the edge of an awkward laugh.
“I’m not joking around, Jack,” Ianto says. Be assertive and direct. “You can either hear me out or you can leave. I don’t-I don’t mean the flat, either. I mean all of it. Me. This.”
One side of Jack’s smile crumples. “Okay, shoot,” he says, sounding chastened. “I’m listening.”
Now what? Because of course he didn’t think through things this far. Ninety percent of him had been convinced Jack would just laugh him off.
“You don’t take this shit seriously,” he accuses, because it’s the first thing to come to mind, and thank God for his mug because otherwise he’d be pounding the table with his fists like a little boy, like the little boy Jack makes him feel like he is.
“What, you wanna get married?” Jack counters, sarcastic, and his face says he’s had this fight before. How many times?
“No, I fucking don’t, and if you think that’s what this is about you’re more fucking self-centred than I ever thought.” He tightens his hand around the mug handle so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap off in his palm.
“Then what, Ianto? Please enlighten me.” His own coffee sits completely unnoticed on the table, rippling under the vibrations of their joint anger.
“You don’t take our... our situation seriously. You always run your mouth and you don’t even hear what you’re fucking saying, or how it would sound to me. And I don’t know if it’s because some part of you wants us all to be immortal, too, or if your head’s just so far up your own arse you don’t realize yet that other people aren’t.”
“Do you want me to take you out of the field?” His face is serious, now. Kind. He’s asking, ‘Are you afraid?’
“No,” Ianto replies, quickly, because that’s not it at all. Maybe it says something about him (something good he hopes) that he hadn’t even considered it as an option. “No, no, not at all. I just want you to acknowledge the reality, here.”
“And what reality is that?” Jack asks, but like hell he doesn’t know the answer. It’s a challenge, to see if Ianto can face it himself, can do himself what he’s asking of Jack. If he can fucking stand it.
“That I’m going to die,” Ianto answers back, point-blank. Some part of him hopes hearing it vocalized like that, so matter of fact, hits Jack like a fucking punch to the gut. His hands twist over his mug, and he stares at his reflection in his coffee, and all he wants to say is, ‘That I’m never going to go grey and I’m never going to get married and I’m never going to see the future you talk about, not even a little bit of it, and yeah, every time I fuck you it could be the last time. And yeah, I do fuck you like the world is ending, because for me it’s always ending, every single fucking day.’
Instead, he looks up to see Jack’s sad face and he says, as bravely as he can muster, “And I live with that, Jack. I live with that every single day. I just want you to recognize that.”
“Do you want me to take you out of the field?” Jack repeats, except this time he isn’t asking for Ianto’s benefit.
Ianto reaches across the table and takes his hand.
crusted in blood,
evermore brittle.
Are you afraid?
“It was good, yeah?”
No, just sad.