Torchwood fic: Lost (Part Two)
“Coffee, sir?”
Jack starts, changing windows on his computer screen with the deft click-click of the guilty (page of text flickering from view), and swirls around on his swivel chair as he composes a toothy grin. “Ianto! Haven’t you gone home yet? It’s late. When are you going to leave me alone to watch some porn?”
To Jack’s slight chagrin, Ianto’s facial expression remains utterly unreadable; his faint, polite smile as blank as a stone.
“I’ll be gone soon, sir.” As he leans over to put the mug on the table, the suit - already retreated into, Jack notes; already pulled on as armour and comfort - pulls tight over his back, and a flickering grimace briefly tugs at the younger man’s features.
“Bruises?”
Ianto’s smile widens, emotionless. “Not many, sir.”
Jack leans back in the chair, rests his hands behind his head and raises an eyebrow. “Huh.”
Ianto takes a quick step back, straightens the jacket of that perfect, infuriating suit. Even now - defences up, hidden behind cotton and silk, erecting a bespoke barrier between himself and the world - it’s clear that Ianto is hurting. Jack is never going to win prizes for reading people, he knows that: but it doesn’t take an emotional genius to work out that what happened only hours ago is weighing on Ianto’s mind. And for now, tense and angry as Jack is, much as he wants to send Ianto away and get on with his search, he can’t quite restrain a smile; can’t quite stop himself speaking up as Ianto turns to leave.
“Hey, Ianto. Tell me something. When Gwen asked that question - why didn’t you mention the kiss?”
Ianto does not turn: standing perfectly still between two desks, it is only after a pause that he reaches out his right hand, absently moves a pencil so that it is perfectly at right angles to the edge of the desk.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Oh, come on. Course you do.” Jack gets to his feet, slides his hands into his pockets. All of a sudden, he feels anger rising up in him. He wants to grab Ianto and shake it out of him - recognition of the kiss, recognition of Jack saving his life not once but twice. He wants a ‘thank you’.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t. Excuse me.”
Jack catches hold of Ianto’s shoulder before he can move away, gripping hard. The younger man’s sharp whimper of pain does not make him stop: this thing has him again, this anger, and Jack suddenly wants to squeeze until Ianto screams. Wants to make him hurt. And all those things come rushing back, all that knowledge he’d rather forget, all those things he was good at that he’s ashamed of - ways of hurting. Ways of breaking. Ways of turning men into husks.
His voice comes out as a snarl. “I saved your life, Ianto Jones, and you can’t even mention it as part of a stupid game?”
Ianto does not look back at him, but his voice cracks, tears caught in the rough edges of his words. “I never kissed you.”
Jack does not lose control often. Not after Time Agent training. Losing control is a weakness that only gets you into trouble. Losing control is one of the things drilled into him as getting comrades killed. (Mercy. Fraternizing with the enemy. Lack of a sense of proportion.) But when he does - and he almost does so often: Gwen should have let him shoot those people, should have let him finish it, complete the task, close the case - it is so inescapable, so unavoidable: this white-hot rage boiling up inside of him, this need to hurt and to make his mark, this need to break through the cage that immortality has forged and touch someone. Be touched.
He doesn’t mean to knock Ianto to the ground: he only means to shake him, to grab and clench, to clasp and to hold. But Ianto falls forward, heavy and hard, arms out forward in an effort to break his fall. As he hits the ground, Jack can hear the air being forced out of him.
For a long moment, everything is still. Computers beep. The pterodactyl shuffles her wings. Ianto’s breathing sounds against the cold hard floor of the Hub, harsh and rough in his throat. Jack can hear his own heart beating. Eternal. Remorseless.
It seems like miles, the three steps to where Ianto is slowly raising himself up on his hands. Seems like a fall of a hundred million feet to the floor as Jack slowly hitches up his trousers at the knee, crouches, reaches out a hesitant hand to touch Ianto’s back.
“Sorry. That was - that was thoughtless.”
“Don’t touch me,” Ianto says, voice suddenly sharp. “I’m fine.”
Those Welsh vowels send shivers scampering down Jack’s spine, and the little hairs over his forearms stand up. Always does that to him, a Welsh accent. Or at least, Ianto’s does. Has ever since he caught Ianto making, as far as Jack knows, his only call home from work: Ianto was speaking Welsh, then, fluent and fast, a little smile - startlingly genuine - over his lips. That was what was really attractive: the open honesty of Ianto’s expression, the first unguarded look Jack had ever seen from him. There was something about secretly watching from the shadows that was erotic: the most erotic encounter he’s ever had with the younger man. Including, even, that kiss - amazing, the way that imminent death tones down the passion of a scene. Ianto may be young and handsome, but he has never been emotionally open; his physical attractiveness hampered by the iron curtain drawn between himself and the world. Which is explained, of course, by Lisa.
Guilt curdles in Jack’s stomach, and all he can do is watch: watch Ianto press the heels of his hands against his eyes, watch him take a deep breath to compose himself, watch him stand and straighten out his suit.
Ianto’s bleakly cheerful smile makes something in Jack hurt. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”
Jack waves a hand irritably. “No. No. Just get home. Get some - some rest.”
As Ianto turns and walks, Jack calls after him: “I don’t want to see you here before Wednesday, you understand? You need some time off.”
*
The coffee is perfect, exactly as Jack expects it to be. A little cold, after the… interruption, but delicious. Beethoven, a pointless kernel of trivia reminds him, always made coffee with exactly sixty beans per cup. Jack has seen - not that Ianto knows he has seen - Ianto’s own tally: a page in a Filofax filled with neat handwriting in black ink; their names in one column, another for bean count, others filled with ticks or crosses: milk, cream, sugar, double shot, large, small. In a few places footnotes had been carefully noted: only in the mornings. Not before lunch. To take home.
Suzie’s column had a thin line through it, and beneath that ‘Gwen’ was written in a slightly different shade of ink. Some of the columns had not yet been filled in for her.
It is only healthy, after all, to check through your employee’s work stations after they have left for the night. Not that it helped in the end. Not that it averted the biggest crisis to strike Torchwood Three to date - betrayal from the inside.
Jack grunts, taps at his keyboard. Not that Ianto meant to betray them. Not that he would have called it betrayal.
Not that he can be forgiven, though. No. Not that you can ever trust someone the same way after they have done that. Though - Jack opens his inbox again, rereads Toshiko’s message - it seems that Ianto is developing loyalty to more than a Cyberwoman.
*
Jack is already on his feet and running to the thin galley kitchen, gun raised and cocked, before his higher mind can process the sound: a crash; a resounding, reverberating smash of crockery and glass. Adrenaline courses and pumps, his muscles tingle and burn, his world is suddenly focused into purpose and need and the reassuring narrowness of a goal, and he is ready to shoot whatever fucker has broken in until it’s well and truly dead -
But it is only Ianto; Ianto, still not gone home; Ianto, standing amid a pile of glass shards; Ianto, wide-eyed, raising his hands hesitantly above his head.
“Don’t shoot me, sir.”
Jack forces out an exhalation, slides his gun into its holster with suddenly shaking fingers, clenches his fists briefly. “Ianto. You - you gave me a shock.”
Ianto flicker smiles, and - defences torn down by shock - it actually seems genuine. Vulnerable. Almost nervous.
“Sorry, sir.”
Jack waves a hand sharply. “Don’t. Come on - get out of there.”
It seems that the shock of this - of Ianto’s slip of his hands as he emptied the little-used dishwasher - has been enough to clear out the cobwebs: Jack is indescribably glad (the feeling welling up, making him grin) to find that Ianto does not jerk away as Jack brushes a shard of glass from his shirt.
“Thank you, sir.”
Jack shrugs, smooth and fluid, and tries not to look at Ianto’s lips. Late nights are always worst for this - for the wanting. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll just -” Ianto’s eyes slip to the side, his accent becoming stronger than usual - “tidy up then, sir.”
“I’ll help,” Jack says quickly, though he couldn’t exactly explain why. “Two heads are better than one, right?”
A smile flickers over Ianto’s lips. “To pick up glass, sir?”
“You bet. I’ll start over there.”
Ianto takes the little pan and brush whilst Jack takes the broom, and they work towards each other from opposite sides of the kitchen. Ianto’s sweeps are every bit as methodical and neat as his personality would suggest: he moves logically from left to right, stepping slowly forward, sweeping all the shards into the centre of the room. Jack hides as much as possible in corners.
When their eyes meet, Jack smiles wide, attempting some kind of inarticulate apology.
At the centre of the room Ianto pushes their two piles of glass into one, piling it neatly before sweeping it all into his dustpan. He looks up at Jack, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, and flickers a smile at him.
“All clean, sir.”
* * *
The way that Jack is looking at him makes Ianto just as nervous as it makes him aroused. Crouched in the middle of the kitchen, they are close enough together for Ianto to feel Jack’s breath on his skin; close enough to be almost touching; close enough for Jack’s eyes to be the most amazingly piercing blue Ianto has ever seen. Close enough to fall into each other and sink without a sound or a protest. In the late-night Hub, silence is absolute but for their breathing; the faint crunch of glass under Jack’s boot as he leans forward, slides his hand behind Ianto’s head, and kisses him.
Jack’s lips are smooth and warm, accompanied with the faintest scratch of late-night stubble across Ianto’s skin. As he presses closer - carefully pushing Ianto away from the glass and back into the fridge, cushioning his skull against the metal with his hand - Ianto becomes aware of more, his senses heightened with fear: the slick heat of Jack’s tongue pressing between his lips. The coffee taste of his breath. The heavy mass of his body pressing closer, closer -
Ianto turns his face away, breathless; pushes closer whilst evading Jack’s lips, blushing.
“Is this because of -?”
Ianto nods, blushing a vivid red; presses closer to Jack, trying to touch everywhere at once, trying to avoid Jack’s mouth, Jack’s teeth, the irrational fear, the memory of the knives and the blood and -
“Trust me,” Jack says, firm and hard in more ways than one, pinning Ianto by the chest against the fridge and kissing him rough again.
For a moment, Ianto is consumed by the irrational fear, the horror that he can’t escape. There is anger, too, simmering hot; there is the knowledge that this is cruel, this is unfair, this is wrong. He whimpers, he twists, he tries to slide away - and Jack keeps kissing, hard enough to hurt, one hand gripping Ianto’s jaw and tilting his head up, keeping him there.
And suddenly, in that breathless, painful moment, something clicks - the unbearable fear becomes raging hatred, consuming anger, and with a grunt Ianto grabs Jack by the collar and rolls him, forceful and violent, straddling him and forcing his wrists down, helpless, to the floor.
And kissing him, though Ianto could not say why he does, could not say why suddenly he wants and needs and desires. He leans down and forces his lips to Jack’s, kissing hard and demanding, marking, pressing their bodies close enough together to crawl into each other’s skin. Wanting, possessing, taking - and shivergasping at the slide of Jack’s tongue between his lips, grinding their erections together and thrilling at Jack’s groan, dizzy with lust as he grips Jack’s wrist hard enough to hurt (wanting to hurt, needing to leave marks), trying to disappear into him.
When Jack manages to pull his lips away, and his eyes flutter open (pupils wide and dark), he does not struggle - only smiles that infuriatingly cocky smile, arches his hips against Ianto’s.
“Bed.”
It is not a question.
They stumble to Jack’s quarters, half falling down the hatch - Ianto going first and then grabbing at Jack before he is even halfway down, pulling him roughly down onto the neatly-made bed. They land in an awkward tangle of limbs, and for a moment all Ianto is aware of is Jack’s laugh, Jack’s weight, Jack’s heat; no pain, no fear, no grieving.
He plucks at Jack’s braces with trembling, demanding fingers; kisses hungrily (biting, sucking, gasping) as he works his fingers between the buttons, deftly slips them open. Jack’s skin is smooth and hot, perfectly shaped over pectorals and biceps (he kicks Jack’s shirt off the bed, arches his body to press closer), his fingernails scraping over Ianto’s back so desperately, Ianto’s fingers gripping at the fastenings of his trousers and tugging them open, bit by bit, millisecond by desperate grasping millisecond -
Jack grabs his shoulders and rolls him, Ianto landing back on the bed with a gasp as Jack straddles his hips, grinds down, his lips at Ianto’s ear, all hot breath and wet tongue and sharp teeth: “I’ve wanted this for so long, Ianto Jones,” and a shudder runs down Ianto’s spine, making him groan with pleasure.
He wishes he could just disappear, right here. Just meld into Jack and stop, right inside of him: in a chrysalis of confidence and strength, hidden from the world.
Jack takes his time stripping Ianto: kissing hungrily at his neck as his well-practiced fingers slide slowly down, tugging away the jacket, unbuttoning the shirt, loosening the tie before - eyes fixed on Ianto, smile sinful - slowly sliding back, trailing his tongue down: sucking briefly at one nipple, circling the other, dipping his tongue into Ianto’s navel (Ianto shudders, gasps, swears in Welsh, slides his fingers into Jack’s hair), sliding lower…
Panic blossoms again in Ianto’s belly as Jack nuzzles the crotch of his trousers, and the Welshman tugs at his hair, hard.
Jack makes a pained noise, looking up. “What?”
“No,” Ianto pants. “Sir, please - no.”
And Jack stops, to Ianto’s grateful surprise: slides back up with a kiss here and there; tugs briefly at Ianto’s lower lip with his teeth. Sinful slick slither-whisper: “this doesn’t mean you don’t want sex, does it?” And Ianto shakes his head, and Jack laughs, and Ianto, for a moment, smiles - smiles wide.
And then he arches and moans, because Jack’s fingers are inside his trousers and they’re touching and stroking and oh, he can hardly see, can hardly breathe, just wants so badly.
The rest of their clothes hit the walls at various velocities and angles - shoes kicked off, tie pulled over Ianto’s head, Jack’s trousers falling off the edge of the bed as nudged by Ianto’s feet - and then there’s a pause, a moment’s breathing and watching, as they’re suddenly both naked and waiting and unsure of who’ll make the first touch, the first move. Ianto is painfully hard, aching and wanting, and Jack doesn’t look much different.
“So,” Jack says finally, that irrepressible grin bubbling up - Ianto can’t think how, after the last two day’s events, can’t think of how a man can be so seemingly happy after that -, “how are we going to work this little thing out?”
Ianto pulls him forward and kisses him, hard.
*
They kiss for what feels like hours, and at some point during jerking each other off and kissing and licking and biting Jack stretches out an arm - hitting his bedside table with a deep thunk - and fumbles blindly in the drawer, finally pulls back, breathless, from the kiss, and looks down at Ianto with a grin, holding up a silver tube and a matching foil packet.
“Always be prepared, Ianto Jones.”
Ianto nods and pulls him closer, again - kisses and nips at his lips, gasping at the cool touch of Jack’s lubed fingers pressing his thighs apart, takes a deep breath. (Doesn’t think of the man in the house, of his touch, of the way that he looked at himself and Tosh. Doesn’t think of what he said he was going to do.) Looks at Jack. Closes his eyes. Tries to relax.
Jack’s fingers are competent and cold - pressing and stretching and coaxing - and Ianto hisses at the touch, taking deep slow breaths, trying to think about other things: Jack’s back under his fingertips. The press of their chests and legs together. Jack’s lips on his neck: silky smooth tongue sliding over his Adam’s apple; breath gliding over Ianto’s damp skin -
Jack’s fingers slide away, a moment later replaced by the weight of Jack himself: arms braced to either side of Ianto’s torso, legs tangled together.
“Ready?”
Ianto arches, gasps, thrills riding up his spine as he bites his lip, nods quickly, desperately, needing.
Jack grins and provides.
*
Ianto wakes early the next morning, yawning and rubbing his eyes. For a long moment, he does not know where he is: things do not seem to fit, and life is several different puzzles muddled together, pieces impossible to combine. Realization trickles slowly into his mind, things come together: the ache of his body. The scratches and fingertip bruises over his skin. The damp patch on the bed. The smell of Jack - aftershave, sweat and come - on the sheets.
He stretches, kicks off the cover, hesitantly smiles in the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe.
Once dressed, he climbs the ladder and emerges into the Hub proper, straightening his suit. After its night on the floor the garment is crumpled, creased: in it, Ianto feels more revealed, more vulnerable, more naked than he ever felt last night - last night when Jack was thrusting into him, groaning against his ear, last night when Jack came deep inside of him and they collapsed together in a puddle of limp limbs and come, when Ianto fell asleep with Jack’s hand lazily stroking his belly.
It is too early for the others to be here, even if they weren’t having a day off: the hands of the clock in the kitchen indicate seven forty. Normally, the Hub would be empty but for Ianto and Jack: today, it is no different.
Except, Ianto thinks with a little smile to the cafetière, that today everything is different.
Not for the better, not necessarily. The fear still clings like a spider’s web to his skin, prickling every now and again: breathlessness threatens. He does not look at the knife rack. He knows that the terror will come again, and again, and again; knows that the day ahead of him is riddled with potholes of fear, traps to avoid.
He picks up the coffee and carries it out into the main room, walking at his best manservant glide: barely noticeable, a part of the furniture. Jack is at his workstation, tapping away busily at his computer. The signs of the night before are gone: scrapes and bite-marks hidden beneath fresh clothes, combed hair.
“Coffee, sir?” Ianto lays down the coffee beside the mouse pad, and hides the frantic beating of his heart beneath a placid smile.
Jack grunts, fumbles out a hand for the mug. “Thanks.”
There is a horribly long pause, and it dawns on Ianto that Jack is going to pretend it never happened, that nothing ever changed. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ianto steps back, turns -
Jack’s grip on his wrist is firm and warm, the fingers that Ianto knows so well - has sucked, has licked, has had inside of him - wrapped neatly about his wrist.
“Hey, ‘yanto. Sleep well?”
Ianto stops, catches his breath, turns with a carefully composed smile. “Yes, thank you, sir.”
There is another long silence, and this time Jack does not hide the computer screen from Ianto. Google is open; several searches are running in different tabs. Ianto is not sure if he should ask - but then, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And there are Jack’s fingers on his wrist, and Jack-bruises on his skin.
“What’s that, sir?”
Jack turns around in his chair, retracts his hand, and looks from the screen to Ianto with a slow shrug.
“I’m looking for someone. Something. Someone I’ve lost.”
“Someone important to you, sir?”
Jack slides his hands into his pockets and reclines the chair. His eyes are blank.
“Very.”
Ianto doesn’t know how to suggest that perhaps, just maybe, he has found someone closer to home.
Jack starts, changing windows on his computer screen with the deft click-click of the guilty (page of text flickering from view), and swirls around on his swivel chair as he composes a toothy grin. “Ianto! Haven’t you gone home yet? It’s late. When are you going to leave me alone to watch some porn?”
To Jack’s slight chagrin, Ianto’s facial expression remains utterly unreadable; his faint, polite smile as blank as a stone.
“I’ll be gone soon, sir.” As he leans over to put the mug on the table, the suit - already retreated into, Jack notes; already pulled on as armour and comfort - pulls tight over his back, and a flickering grimace briefly tugs at the younger man’s features.
“Bruises?”
Ianto’s smile widens, emotionless. “Not many, sir.”
Jack leans back in the chair, rests his hands behind his head and raises an eyebrow. “Huh.”
Ianto takes a quick step back, straightens the jacket of that perfect, infuriating suit. Even now - defences up, hidden behind cotton and silk, erecting a bespoke barrier between himself and the world - it’s clear that Ianto is hurting. Jack is never going to win prizes for reading people, he knows that: but it doesn’t take an emotional genius to work out that what happened only hours ago is weighing on Ianto’s mind. And for now, tense and angry as Jack is, much as he wants to send Ianto away and get on with his search, he can’t quite restrain a smile; can’t quite stop himself speaking up as Ianto turns to leave.
“Hey, Ianto. Tell me something. When Gwen asked that question - why didn’t you mention the kiss?”
Ianto does not turn: standing perfectly still between two desks, it is only after a pause that he reaches out his right hand, absently moves a pencil so that it is perfectly at right angles to the edge of the desk.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Oh, come on. Course you do.” Jack gets to his feet, slides his hands into his pockets. All of a sudden, he feels anger rising up in him. He wants to grab Ianto and shake it out of him - recognition of the kiss, recognition of Jack saving his life not once but twice. He wants a ‘thank you’.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t. Excuse me.”
Jack catches hold of Ianto’s shoulder before he can move away, gripping hard. The younger man’s sharp whimper of pain does not make him stop: this thing has him again, this anger, and Jack suddenly wants to squeeze until Ianto screams. Wants to make him hurt. And all those things come rushing back, all that knowledge he’d rather forget, all those things he was good at that he’s ashamed of - ways of hurting. Ways of breaking. Ways of turning men into husks.
His voice comes out as a snarl. “I saved your life, Ianto Jones, and you can’t even mention it as part of a stupid game?”
Ianto does not look back at him, but his voice cracks, tears caught in the rough edges of his words. “I never kissed you.”
Jack does not lose control often. Not after Time Agent training. Losing control is a weakness that only gets you into trouble. Losing control is one of the things drilled into him as getting comrades killed. (Mercy. Fraternizing with the enemy. Lack of a sense of proportion.) But when he does - and he almost does so often: Gwen should have let him shoot those people, should have let him finish it, complete the task, close the case - it is so inescapable, so unavoidable: this white-hot rage boiling up inside of him, this need to hurt and to make his mark, this need to break through the cage that immortality has forged and touch someone. Be touched.
He doesn’t mean to knock Ianto to the ground: he only means to shake him, to grab and clench, to clasp and to hold. But Ianto falls forward, heavy and hard, arms out forward in an effort to break his fall. As he hits the ground, Jack can hear the air being forced out of him.
For a long moment, everything is still. Computers beep. The pterodactyl shuffles her wings. Ianto’s breathing sounds against the cold hard floor of the Hub, harsh and rough in his throat. Jack can hear his own heart beating. Eternal. Remorseless.
It seems like miles, the three steps to where Ianto is slowly raising himself up on his hands. Seems like a fall of a hundred million feet to the floor as Jack slowly hitches up his trousers at the knee, crouches, reaches out a hesitant hand to touch Ianto’s back.
“Sorry. That was - that was thoughtless.”
“Don’t touch me,” Ianto says, voice suddenly sharp. “I’m fine.”
Those Welsh vowels send shivers scampering down Jack’s spine, and the little hairs over his forearms stand up. Always does that to him, a Welsh accent. Or at least, Ianto’s does. Has ever since he caught Ianto making, as far as Jack knows, his only call home from work: Ianto was speaking Welsh, then, fluent and fast, a little smile - startlingly genuine - over his lips. That was what was really attractive: the open honesty of Ianto’s expression, the first unguarded look Jack had ever seen from him. There was something about secretly watching from the shadows that was erotic: the most erotic encounter he’s ever had with the younger man. Including, even, that kiss - amazing, the way that imminent death tones down the passion of a scene. Ianto may be young and handsome, but he has never been emotionally open; his physical attractiveness hampered by the iron curtain drawn between himself and the world. Which is explained, of course, by Lisa.
Guilt curdles in Jack’s stomach, and all he can do is watch: watch Ianto press the heels of his hands against his eyes, watch him take a deep breath to compose himself, watch him stand and straighten out his suit.
Ianto’s bleakly cheerful smile makes something in Jack hurt. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”
Jack waves a hand irritably. “No. No. Just get home. Get some - some rest.”
As Ianto turns and walks, Jack calls after him: “I don’t want to see you here before Wednesday, you understand? You need some time off.”
*
The coffee is perfect, exactly as Jack expects it to be. A little cold, after the… interruption, but delicious. Beethoven, a pointless kernel of trivia reminds him, always made coffee with exactly sixty beans per cup. Jack has seen - not that Ianto knows he has seen - Ianto’s own tally: a page in a Filofax filled with neat handwriting in black ink; their names in one column, another for bean count, others filled with ticks or crosses: milk, cream, sugar, double shot, large, small. In a few places footnotes had been carefully noted: only in the mornings. Not before lunch. To take home.
Suzie’s column had a thin line through it, and beneath that ‘Gwen’ was written in a slightly different shade of ink. Some of the columns had not yet been filled in for her.
It is only healthy, after all, to check through your employee’s work stations after they have left for the night. Not that it helped in the end. Not that it averted the biggest crisis to strike Torchwood Three to date - betrayal from the inside.
Jack grunts, taps at his keyboard. Not that Ianto meant to betray them. Not that he would have called it betrayal.
Not that he can be forgiven, though. No. Not that you can ever trust someone the same way after they have done that. Though - Jack opens his inbox again, rereads Toshiko’s message - it seems that Ianto is developing loyalty to more than a Cyberwoman.
*
Jack is already on his feet and running to the thin galley kitchen, gun raised and cocked, before his higher mind can process the sound: a crash; a resounding, reverberating smash of crockery and glass. Adrenaline courses and pumps, his muscles tingle and burn, his world is suddenly focused into purpose and need and the reassuring narrowness of a goal, and he is ready to shoot whatever fucker has broken in until it’s well and truly dead -
But it is only Ianto; Ianto, still not gone home; Ianto, standing amid a pile of glass shards; Ianto, wide-eyed, raising his hands hesitantly above his head.
“Don’t shoot me, sir.”
Jack forces out an exhalation, slides his gun into its holster with suddenly shaking fingers, clenches his fists briefly. “Ianto. You - you gave me a shock.”
Ianto flicker smiles, and - defences torn down by shock - it actually seems genuine. Vulnerable. Almost nervous.
“Sorry, sir.”
Jack waves a hand sharply. “Don’t. Come on - get out of there.”
It seems that the shock of this - of Ianto’s slip of his hands as he emptied the little-used dishwasher - has been enough to clear out the cobwebs: Jack is indescribably glad (the feeling welling up, making him grin) to find that Ianto does not jerk away as Jack brushes a shard of glass from his shirt.
“Thank you, sir.”
Jack shrugs, smooth and fluid, and tries not to look at Ianto’s lips. Late nights are always worst for this - for the wanting. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll just -” Ianto’s eyes slip to the side, his accent becoming stronger than usual - “tidy up then, sir.”
“I’ll help,” Jack says quickly, though he couldn’t exactly explain why. “Two heads are better than one, right?”
A smile flickers over Ianto’s lips. “To pick up glass, sir?”
“You bet. I’ll start over there.”
Ianto takes the little pan and brush whilst Jack takes the broom, and they work towards each other from opposite sides of the kitchen. Ianto’s sweeps are every bit as methodical and neat as his personality would suggest: he moves logically from left to right, stepping slowly forward, sweeping all the shards into the centre of the room. Jack hides as much as possible in corners.
When their eyes meet, Jack smiles wide, attempting some kind of inarticulate apology.
At the centre of the room Ianto pushes their two piles of glass into one, piling it neatly before sweeping it all into his dustpan. He looks up at Jack, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, and flickers a smile at him.
“All clean, sir.”
* * *
The way that Jack is looking at him makes Ianto just as nervous as it makes him aroused. Crouched in the middle of the kitchen, they are close enough together for Ianto to feel Jack’s breath on his skin; close enough to be almost touching; close enough for Jack’s eyes to be the most amazingly piercing blue Ianto has ever seen. Close enough to fall into each other and sink without a sound or a protest. In the late-night Hub, silence is absolute but for their breathing; the faint crunch of glass under Jack’s boot as he leans forward, slides his hand behind Ianto’s head, and kisses him.
Jack’s lips are smooth and warm, accompanied with the faintest scratch of late-night stubble across Ianto’s skin. As he presses closer - carefully pushing Ianto away from the glass and back into the fridge, cushioning his skull against the metal with his hand - Ianto becomes aware of more, his senses heightened with fear: the slick heat of Jack’s tongue pressing between his lips. The coffee taste of his breath. The heavy mass of his body pressing closer, closer -
Ianto turns his face away, breathless; pushes closer whilst evading Jack’s lips, blushing.
“Is this because of -?”
Ianto nods, blushing a vivid red; presses closer to Jack, trying to touch everywhere at once, trying to avoid Jack’s mouth, Jack’s teeth, the irrational fear, the memory of the knives and the blood and -
“Trust me,” Jack says, firm and hard in more ways than one, pinning Ianto by the chest against the fridge and kissing him rough again.
For a moment, Ianto is consumed by the irrational fear, the horror that he can’t escape. There is anger, too, simmering hot; there is the knowledge that this is cruel, this is unfair, this is wrong. He whimpers, he twists, he tries to slide away - and Jack keeps kissing, hard enough to hurt, one hand gripping Ianto’s jaw and tilting his head up, keeping him there.
And suddenly, in that breathless, painful moment, something clicks - the unbearable fear becomes raging hatred, consuming anger, and with a grunt Ianto grabs Jack by the collar and rolls him, forceful and violent, straddling him and forcing his wrists down, helpless, to the floor.
And kissing him, though Ianto could not say why he does, could not say why suddenly he wants and needs and desires. He leans down and forces his lips to Jack’s, kissing hard and demanding, marking, pressing their bodies close enough together to crawl into each other’s skin. Wanting, possessing, taking - and shivergasping at the slide of Jack’s tongue between his lips, grinding their erections together and thrilling at Jack’s groan, dizzy with lust as he grips Jack’s wrist hard enough to hurt (wanting to hurt, needing to leave marks), trying to disappear into him.
When Jack manages to pull his lips away, and his eyes flutter open (pupils wide and dark), he does not struggle - only smiles that infuriatingly cocky smile, arches his hips against Ianto’s.
“Bed.”
It is not a question.
They stumble to Jack’s quarters, half falling down the hatch - Ianto going first and then grabbing at Jack before he is even halfway down, pulling him roughly down onto the neatly-made bed. They land in an awkward tangle of limbs, and for a moment all Ianto is aware of is Jack’s laugh, Jack’s weight, Jack’s heat; no pain, no fear, no grieving.
He plucks at Jack’s braces with trembling, demanding fingers; kisses hungrily (biting, sucking, gasping) as he works his fingers between the buttons, deftly slips them open. Jack’s skin is smooth and hot, perfectly shaped over pectorals and biceps (he kicks Jack’s shirt off the bed, arches his body to press closer), his fingernails scraping over Ianto’s back so desperately, Ianto’s fingers gripping at the fastenings of his trousers and tugging them open, bit by bit, millisecond by desperate grasping millisecond -
Jack grabs his shoulders and rolls him, Ianto landing back on the bed with a gasp as Jack straddles his hips, grinds down, his lips at Ianto’s ear, all hot breath and wet tongue and sharp teeth: “I’ve wanted this for so long, Ianto Jones,” and a shudder runs down Ianto’s spine, making him groan with pleasure.
He wishes he could just disappear, right here. Just meld into Jack and stop, right inside of him: in a chrysalis of confidence and strength, hidden from the world.
Jack takes his time stripping Ianto: kissing hungrily at his neck as his well-practiced fingers slide slowly down, tugging away the jacket, unbuttoning the shirt, loosening the tie before - eyes fixed on Ianto, smile sinful - slowly sliding back, trailing his tongue down: sucking briefly at one nipple, circling the other, dipping his tongue into Ianto’s navel (Ianto shudders, gasps, swears in Welsh, slides his fingers into Jack’s hair), sliding lower…
Panic blossoms again in Ianto’s belly as Jack nuzzles the crotch of his trousers, and the Welshman tugs at his hair, hard.
Jack makes a pained noise, looking up. “What?”
“No,” Ianto pants. “Sir, please - no.”
And Jack stops, to Ianto’s grateful surprise: slides back up with a kiss here and there; tugs briefly at Ianto’s lower lip with his teeth. Sinful slick slither-whisper: “this doesn’t mean you don’t want sex, does it?” And Ianto shakes his head, and Jack laughs, and Ianto, for a moment, smiles - smiles wide.
And then he arches and moans, because Jack’s fingers are inside his trousers and they’re touching and stroking and oh, he can hardly see, can hardly breathe, just wants so badly.
The rest of their clothes hit the walls at various velocities and angles - shoes kicked off, tie pulled over Ianto’s head, Jack’s trousers falling off the edge of the bed as nudged by Ianto’s feet - and then there’s a pause, a moment’s breathing and watching, as they’re suddenly both naked and waiting and unsure of who’ll make the first touch, the first move. Ianto is painfully hard, aching and wanting, and Jack doesn’t look much different.
“So,” Jack says finally, that irrepressible grin bubbling up - Ianto can’t think how, after the last two day’s events, can’t think of how a man can be so seemingly happy after that -, “how are we going to work this little thing out?”
Ianto pulls him forward and kisses him, hard.
*
They kiss for what feels like hours, and at some point during jerking each other off and kissing and licking and biting Jack stretches out an arm - hitting his bedside table with a deep thunk - and fumbles blindly in the drawer, finally pulls back, breathless, from the kiss, and looks down at Ianto with a grin, holding up a silver tube and a matching foil packet.
“Always be prepared, Ianto Jones.”
Ianto nods and pulls him closer, again - kisses and nips at his lips, gasping at the cool touch of Jack’s lubed fingers pressing his thighs apart, takes a deep breath. (Doesn’t think of the man in the house, of his touch, of the way that he looked at himself and Tosh. Doesn’t think of what he said he was going to do.) Looks at Jack. Closes his eyes. Tries to relax.
Jack’s fingers are competent and cold - pressing and stretching and coaxing - and Ianto hisses at the touch, taking deep slow breaths, trying to think about other things: Jack’s back under his fingertips. The press of their chests and legs together. Jack’s lips on his neck: silky smooth tongue sliding over his Adam’s apple; breath gliding over Ianto’s damp skin -
Jack’s fingers slide away, a moment later replaced by the weight of Jack himself: arms braced to either side of Ianto’s torso, legs tangled together.
“Ready?”
Ianto arches, gasps, thrills riding up his spine as he bites his lip, nods quickly, desperately, needing.
Jack grins and provides.
*
Ianto wakes early the next morning, yawning and rubbing his eyes. For a long moment, he does not know where he is: things do not seem to fit, and life is several different puzzles muddled together, pieces impossible to combine. Realization trickles slowly into his mind, things come together: the ache of his body. The scratches and fingertip bruises over his skin. The damp patch on the bed. The smell of Jack - aftershave, sweat and come - on the sheets.
He stretches, kicks off the cover, hesitantly smiles in the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe.
Once dressed, he climbs the ladder and emerges into the Hub proper, straightening his suit. After its night on the floor the garment is crumpled, creased: in it, Ianto feels more revealed, more vulnerable, more naked than he ever felt last night - last night when Jack was thrusting into him, groaning against his ear, last night when Jack came deep inside of him and they collapsed together in a puddle of limp limbs and come, when Ianto fell asleep with Jack’s hand lazily stroking his belly.
It is too early for the others to be here, even if they weren’t having a day off: the hands of the clock in the kitchen indicate seven forty. Normally, the Hub would be empty but for Ianto and Jack: today, it is no different.
Except, Ianto thinks with a little smile to the cafetière, that today everything is different.
Not for the better, not necessarily. The fear still clings like a spider’s web to his skin, prickling every now and again: breathlessness threatens. He does not look at the knife rack. He knows that the terror will come again, and again, and again; knows that the day ahead of him is riddled with potholes of fear, traps to avoid.
He picks up the coffee and carries it out into the main room, walking at his best manservant glide: barely noticeable, a part of the furniture. Jack is at his workstation, tapping away busily at his computer. The signs of the night before are gone: scrapes and bite-marks hidden beneath fresh clothes, combed hair.
“Coffee, sir?” Ianto lays down the coffee beside the mouse pad, and hides the frantic beating of his heart beneath a placid smile.
Jack grunts, fumbles out a hand for the mug. “Thanks.”
There is a horribly long pause, and it dawns on Ianto that Jack is going to pretend it never happened, that nothing ever changed. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ianto steps back, turns -
Jack’s grip on his wrist is firm and warm, the fingers that Ianto knows so well - has sucked, has licked, has had inside of him - wrapped neatly about his wrist.
“Hey, ‘yanto. Sleep well?”
Ianto stops, catches his breath, turns with a carefully composed smile. “Yes, thank you, sir.”
There is another long silence, and this time Jack does not hide the computer screen from Ianto. Google is open; several searches are running in different tabs. Ianto is not sure if he should ask - but then, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And there are Jack’s fingers on his wrist, and Jack-bruises on his skin.
“What’s that, sir?”
Jack turns around in his chair, retracts his hand, and looks from the screen to Ianto with a slow shrug.
“I’m looking for someone. Something. Someone I’ve lost.”
“Someone important to you, sir?”
Jack slides his hands into his pockets and reclines the chair. His eyes are blank.
“Very.”
Ianto doesn’t know how to suggest that perhaps, just maybe, he has found someone closer to home.