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The Corner, Chapter 18/18
Author: lady_Razzle
Rating: NC17 overall.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto Jack/Ten Ianto/Ten, Ianto/others
Summary: The only thing waiting in the dark is what you take in with you.
Warnings/AN: Spoilers to end of series. Most canon pairings referenced. There will be angst, and the shifting of time.
Disclaimer: Not so much.
Betad by my sweet little curious_wolf.
Previous Chapters: Here
Download: James Morrison, You give me something
Chapter 18
As if in a daze, Jack stepped up to the desk. He was dizzy, nauseous. It took him three tries to pick up the drink and finally lift it to his dry lips. It was too hot to drink.
#
“You’re the best possible kind of fool,” The Doctor told Ianto. “There are only three good reasons to leave us. One is the physical inability to get back on. That’s being dead, dismembered or trapped somewhere. The second is if I kick you off. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, you’re off,” he said with curious enthusiasm. “And then, there’s love,” he added softly, “Which is just about the best reason to leave.”
“But I don’t know if we have the slightest bloody chance,” Ianto lamented. “I mean, all the damage we’ve done to each other, all the hurt. It will take a shitload of fixing.”
The Doctor smiled inwardly at Ianto’s choice of words. Not ‘might’ but ‘will’. This discussion was arbitrary but that was the thing about twenty-first century humans. They needed to say it.
“Is it worth it?” Ianto wondered aloud.
“Are you asking me?” The Doctor asked kindly.
“Would you have given up the universe for Rose?” Ianto asked.
“Yes,” The Doctor replied before Ianto even had the chance to close his mouth around the question. “In a heartbeat. But I’m 900 years old and I’ve seen a lot of it. On the other hand, I’ve laid the universe out in front of you and you can’t take your eyes off the Earth,” The Doctor added with playful reproach.
Ianto smiled.
“I’ve been to the moon, anyway. That’s more than most of Wales can claim.”
The Doctor grinned. “More or less,” he said diplomatically. He leaned back onto the crumbly, pumice-like ground.
“Just tell me when you want to go home,” The Doctor said playfully. Ianto reached back and took his hand. “Besides, I could take you all around the galaxy and you’d still be in love with him. I’m not sure I want some mopey bugger bringing us all down.”
They stood, hand in hand, on the surface of the moon, as Ianto thanked his friend.
And that, for the time being, was that.
#
Jack turned through ninety degrees and tilted his head, squinting in confusion at what he appeared to be seeing.
“Did you forget something?”
Ianto smiled slowly.
“I suppose you could say that,” he replied. “When I said we hadn’t said everything, it’s not as simple as ‘we already know’. There’s more to it than that.”
He looked down, bit his lip and squinted at the wall in thought. He circled the desk and took Jack’s chair. “I’m not the same man I was,” he said after a few moments.
Jack nodded in understanding.
“The universe changes you,” he agreed.
“I don’t doubt it,” Ianto conceded. “But I’ve only been gone for about three quarters of an hour.”
He ignored Jack’s confusion and refused to let him interrupt. “I only got as far as the moon,” he went on. “And I was already spazzing out about how I’d left you. And maybe I’m a right twat, and maybe you’re a complete wanker and I’ll be really sorry in a week but I’m not sure that matters. I mean, at least I’ll know, you know?”
“You’re staying?” Jack sounded as if he could barely believe it. “You’ll really stay with me?”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” Ianto replied. “If I leave…” he sagged. “I can’t leave. But if you leave me again…”
Jack was on his feet in a heartbeat and belted around the desk, skidding to his knees in front of Ianto and grabbing his hands. “Do you really think I could do that?” he asked. “After this? I didn’t know how I felt, Ianto, that’s the only reason I could leave. I couldn’t leave now, not now I know. It might have taken a universe to twat me into it but it’s the only thing in the universe I give a shit about, right now.”
“Yeah, right now,” Ianto replied. “But a million things might happen and there’s hundreds of reasons why you might just fuck off again and so you will hear me. If you leave me again, I won’t be here when you get back. And you won’t find me, not even to retcon me.”
Jack pushed himself up and grabbed Ianto around the back of his neck, pulling him close and forcing their mouths together.
“I will not,” he insisted from a bare breath away. “I’m a selfish, rash bastard, but I’m not stupid. I won’t waste my last chance.”
Jack was cradling Ianto’s face, but found his grip largely ineffective as Ianto launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around Jack’s neck and kissing him. Jack’s arms came up to surround Ianto’s waist, hands wide over his back and pulling him closer, pushing them together in a hungry, noisy, wet caress.
“I’m stronger,” Ianto whispered after a few moments’ struggling kisses. “And more important than I ever was.” Jack leaned in and kissed him again. “I’m not going back to being your teaboy.”
Jack shook his head and started pressing kisses to all the parts of Ianto that he could reach.
“As if I would,” he said, his fingers knotting in the twists of Ianto’s hair that had turned out to be wavy now it had grown out. “I’ll be your slave. I’ll tidy, I’ll take orders from you, I’ll make the coffee…”
Ianto pushed Jack back.
“Not a chance,” he insisted. “I may be different, but I’m not mental. I still make the fucking coffee. And you’re still the boss,” he added.
Jack looked at him suspiciously.
“You sure?” he asked, with an equal lack of conviction. “You’re not going to get pissed off when I start ordering you around?”
A slow smile crept over Ianto’s face and he slid his hands under Jack’s shirt.
“I give as good as I get, these days,” he said, running his fingers up Jack’s braces. “Want to find out?”
“We don’t have to do that,” Jack said.
Ianto pouted, tipping his head to one side. Jack couldn’t resist a look like that. He was only human.
#
An hour or so later, Jack’s fingers were twisted in Ianto’s hair again. But this time they were horizontal, and naked, and soaked in relieved-love-fuck sweat.
They had been staring at each other for minute after minute in the time after their little confirmation.
“Do you think I should cut my hair?” Ianto asked, after the silence.
“No,” Jack answered quickly. “I mean, if you want to, you can. But you don’t need to. Not for me.”
“I think I’ll leave it long,” Ianto decided.
“Okay,” Jack replied, with a non-committal smile. He folded his arms under his chest and rested his face in the cleft between Ianto’s shoulder and collarbone. He breathed in deeply.
“It won’t be the same.”
Jack lifted his head a little, forehead still resting against him but his lips free.
“You keep saying that,” he replied, smile enduring.
“It’s true,” Ianto went on. “We’re going to argue, you know.”
Jack lifted his face away completely, breathing in deeply and pushed himself over Ianto, cutting him off with a firm, passionate kiss. They broke apart to share all the air that fit between their lips.
“I know,” Jack said. “It’s different. You’re different; I’m different, too. Being back with him, it changed how I see… everything. I don’t know how I’ll be now. And I know you’re more confident. You’re not stronger, because you always were strong. But you’re new, I’m new, and I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if I’ll have to go again, or what I might say that will fuck everything up. There’s a million things that might happen and either of us could wake up dead tomorrow. So, I mean, fuck it. We’re just like normal couple. Except that when faced with the universe, I came back to you. And when faced with the universe, you came back to me.” He held a gaze that held nothing but affection and, for some reason, relief. “You reckon that’s worth a go?”
“Clean slate?” Ianto requested.
“With lessons learned,” Jack insisted. Ianto nodded. “Just like a normal couple,” Jack insisted.
Ianto’s laughter was bright and fresh and clean.
“Normal for us,” he said.
“A new kind of normal,” Jack agreed.
“A sort of highly-sexed, end of the world kind of normal?”
Jack grinned.
“A sort of highly sexed, mutually respectful normal.”
“Doesn’t sound very normal,” Ianto suggested.
“Well, maybe normal’s overrated,” Jack concluded.
“Gwen and Rhys,” Ianto pointed out. Jack nodded, accepting his, very valid, point.
“Jack and Ianto,” Jack said. “Means something different.”
T’End.