Moving On - 10/18
Title: Moving On
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Ten
Ianto looked at the mangled component he’d finally managed to wrangle free from the coffee machine. This was going to have to be replaced before the machine had any hope of functioning again. He’d hoped, when he discovered the fault at lunchtime, that it would be a simple fix, but it seemed he’d been too optimistic. Still, it could have been worse. It was at least repairable.
He glanced briefly at his watch, although he knew it was late - after all, the others had all gone home on that premise, with the promise of picking up again early the following morning. No, everywhere he could think of that might stock the required part was definitely closed by now.
“Jack!” he called down to the sofa, where his… where Jack was slumped, his head resting on the wall behind him. “What did you do to this?” He held up the component.
Jack lifted his head and blinked. “I didn’t do…” he started to deny. His eyes cleared as he clearly noticed the part Ianto was waving. “Ah.”
“Yes, ah”, Ianto responded, waiting.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jack said, sitting up and rolling his shoulders. “Maybe Owen had a…”
“Jack.” Ianto raised an eyebrow as he interrupted him. Did Jack really think that was going to work on him? The guilt was written across his face as clear as day.
He set the piece of metal down on the surface next to the coffee machine and started to walk down to the sofa.
Jack lifted his hands in defeat. “Okay, so I thought I could do it. I’ve watched you do it hundreds of times - and I probably shouldn’t admit quite how often I’ve stared at you while you prepared the coffee but there you go. And it’s just coffee… I knew I could never get anything like your coffee but I thought - how hard could it be to make something.”
Ianto stopped in front of him. “If you wanted more coffee making, why didn’t you just come and get me? I was in the archives all morning, hardly out of reach.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you when you were busy, and I didn’t know how long we were going to have before yet another Weevil call came in,” Jack explained, an expression on his face that Ianto guessed was supposed to convey innocence and good intentions, but didn’t quite work on Jack.
“So instead you decided to break the coffee machine,” he said flatly, crossing his arms.
“I think you know I didn’t mean to,” Jack frowned. “I just… did something - what I thought was the right thing - and then it made a strange groaning sound and stopped. I swear you’ve done something to it; it only works for you.”
‘It works for me because I took the time to figure out how to operate it,’ Ianto thought, but didn’t say aloud. “And yet you still thought you’d play with it,” he responded, narrowing his eyes.
Jack bit his lip and looked up pleadingly. “I’m sorry?”
Ianto fought to hold onto his irritation, but it was difficult with Jack looking at him like that. “I’m sure you will be, when I can’t make you any more coffee,” he said, his tone softening despite himself.
Jack’s face fell, as if he hadn’t actually thought that far yet. “But you can fix it, yes?”
Ianto sighed and twisted to drop onto the sofa next to Jack. “Luckily, yes. But not tonight. I’m going to need to find a replacement for the broken part, and I only hope that somewhere nearby will have one in stock. Or we could go weeks before it’s repaired, while I wait on an order.”
Ianto could almost feel Jack’s shudder at that thought. “Do whatever you have to,” Jack said. “Pay whatever you have to, just fix it. I’m not sure how long I can last without your coffee.”
He slid a hand onto Ianto’s knee; part of Ianto felt that he ought to shrug it off, he was annoyed at Jack after all, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. “Yes, well I’m not entirely sure I won’t withhold my coffee from you anyway, since you were the one who broke it in the first place.”
Jack leaned closer. “Aww, come on. I’ll make it up to you. I don’t know how, you’ll have to tell me what you want, but I’ll do it.”
“Anything I want?” Ianto would have to think about that one - there were just too many options.
“Anything,” Jack said fervently.
Ianto let himself sway a little bit against Jack. “I’ll hold you to that,” he murmured.
Jack’s fingers squeezed his leg. “Oh I’m counting on it,” he replied, and although Ianto wasn’t looking, he knew the words had been accompanied by at least a hint of a salacious look.
Ianto shifted until he was settled more comfortably against Jack’s side. The traces of irritation he had been trying to hold onto were faded away; Jack would be making up for the mistake, and the Rift, it seemed, had finally fulfilled Tosh’s predictions and had stopped spitting Weevil incidents at them at every turn.
He wasn’t fool enough to pass up the opportunity to actually spend a little time together; events of the last week had meant that, after the first couple of nights, they hadn’t had a chance to do anything but work.
If the machine had been irreparable, that would have been a different story, but it wasn’t, so Jack was safe. For now.
Jack let out a long breath and his head came to rest against Ianto’s shoulder as he stretched his legs out, a slight groan escaping as they straightened.
Ianto wouldn’t be surprised if his legs were aching - Jack had been out on every Weevil call they’d had in the last week, which added up to a lot of running. Even for Jack that had to be exhausting. He could almost - almost - understand why Jack had attempted to make his own coffee.
“Tired?” he asked mildly.
Jack shook his head against his shoulder. “Not really. Just a bit achy. Lot of running and tackling Weevils this week.”
Ianto took a breath. “I should have helped more,” he said quietly.
Jack’s head lifted and he twisted to look at him; Ianto looked back. “What?”
“I know you and the others have been running yourselves ragged this last week,” he elucidated. “And I’ve just been back here quietly sorting the archives and making coffee. I know I’m lacking in field skills - I was practically hopeless in the…”
He couldn’t quite bring himself to name the place. The nightmares hadn’t been as bad or as frequent as he’d feared at first they might be, but they haunted him enough.
“The countryside,” he eventually continued, “but…”
“Stop,” Jack interrupted, freeing his hands and gripping Ianto by the arms. “You did nothing wrong in the Beacons. You and Tosh kept each other alive; you helped Tosh escape. You did a good job.”
Ianto shrugged a little, finding it hard to make himself really believe Jack’s words, although he knew they made sense. “I still let us get captured, though,” he said. “Doesn’t say an awful lot for my ability in the field.”
Jack shook his head, a touch of defeat in his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, we could do some training. Work on the skills you need to use in the field, get you more prepared.”
Ianto paused. If he said yes, if he agreed to this, then there was every chance he’d be asked to go into the field on a more regular basis. Which on one hand, he wanted; the team would be much stronger for having five field agents rather than four, even if they weren’t always all out on a case at the same time. Even if he still spent more of his time running the day-to-day minutiae of the Hub than he did running around the streets of Cardiff. It could only be a good thing.
On the other hand, the thought was mildly terrifying. He was aware that the majority of this probably stemmed from the fact that he didn’t have field training, and might very well change somewhat if he did, but it didn’t change how he felt right at that moment.
Slowly, he nodded. “Okay.”
“Right then,” Jack said decidedly, pushing forwards to press a brief kiss to Ianto’s lips before getting to his feet, pulling Ianto with him. “Come on, then.”
Ianto let Jack tug him through the Hub, although he wasn’t quite sure what was going on. He hadn’t really expected any sort of training to start right then and there, but if that’s what Jack intended, he didn’t have a problem with that.
He didn’t pay particular attention to their direction, caught up in his own thoughts, and blinked as they came to a halt and he looked around. They were in the firing range.
“Why are we here?” he asked, his confusion flooding through into his voice. Whatever he had started to think of when he realised Jack was intending an immediate start, none of it had required the shooting range.
“I know we did weapons training here before, but that was quite a while ago, and you haven’t exactly had much need to practise since,” Jack started, pulling Ianto closer with the hand he had yet to release.
“It may be a small thing, but if you feel more comfortable with one of the weapons in this room, it will increase your confidence in going into field situations in general. Even if you never use it, knowing that you can if you need to will help.”
He dropped Ianto’s hand and went over to the locked cabinet at the back of the tunnel where the practise weapons were kept, leaving Ianto to ponder what he’d said.
It did make a measure of sense, although he strongly suspected that at least some of it was pure bullshitting on Jack’s part.
“Besides,” Jack added, twisting around with two sets of ear protectors looped over his wrist, “it’s too late to start on anything else right now. And I…” He cut himself off abruptly and turned back to the cabinet.
His curiosity peaked, Ianto crossed to stand just behind Jack. “And you…?” he asked leadingly, wondering if Jack would continue with mild prompting or not.
Jack blew out a breath noisily and turned around, leaning against the still closed door on the other side of the cabinet. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and Ianto thought he might very well turn back around and carry on without saying anything.
“And I enjoyed doing firearms training with you the last time,” Jack eventually said, staring at a point somewhere behind Ianto’s left ear.
Ianto frowned. “You enjoyed it?” he asked. He didn’t know if he wanted to ask Jack just what it had been about the training session he’d enjoyed.
Jack nodded, his eyes sliding across to meet Ianto’s. In them Ianto detected a slight undercurrent of shame, an emotion he was sure many would say wasn’t even in Jack’s lexicon. He tried not to let its presence now worry him, but it wasn’t an easy ask.
There was a long silence, Ianto staring back at Jack and trying to discern his thoughts.
“Okay, I have to ask,” he finally started, deciding it was better to know for sure than to let his mind fill in the blanks on its own.
“It was you, more than the actual training, really,” Jack interrupted, intuiting the question Ianto had been about to ask. “I…well, it was an opportunity to get close to you - not that I thought about it that way when I decided you and Gwen needed training. In fact, if I had thought about it, I might never have gone through with it. It was only supposed to be in order to correct your stance, and after that to unnerve you a bit, distract you, but when it came down to it… being in your personal space like that. I liked it. Too much.”
Ianto blinked as he tried to take in all of the information in Jack’s explanation. “Too much?” he echoed.
Jack took a step closer. “At the time, it really wasn’t appropriate for me to be thinking of you like that.”
Ianto shook his head to clear it. He remembered the previous session, he even remembered that Jack had been close when he’d been shooting, but he’d been concentrating so hard on what he was doing that it hadn’t really registered just how close he’d been. The thought of it now, however, in hindsight… he felt a warmth begin to suffuse him, spreading out from a pit in his stomach.
“I didn’t even notice,” he murmured wonderingly. Jack’s face fell, although it was clear he tried to hide it. “Nothing to do with you personally,” he clarified. “I was just really focused on getting it right; I wouldn’t have noticed anyone.”
Jack nodded. “As hard as that is on my ego…” He paused to flash a grin. “It’s a good thing that you can focus like that. It’s a good field skill, actually.”
“I suppose it’s a start,” Ianto shrugged. If he could move beyond sheer terror to get to focused, that was.
“It is,” Jack said firmly, shaking his shoulders out and handing Ianto the ear protectors. “And as for the rest, that’s what we’re down here for.” He pivoted on his heel and went back to the cabinet, picking out a few things and coming back to lay them on a table next to Ianto.
“All of the handguns are weapons you fired last time, so there’s nothing new to learn,” Jack told him, handing him a clip of ammunition and an unloaded gun. “Just relax and concentrate on the targets.”
Ianto paused for a second before loading the gun, making sure the safety was on before putting it back down so he could put the ear protectors on. Jack had his on too by the time he was set.
“In your own time.” Jack’s voice was a little tinnier than usual, coming through the headphones in the protectors, but the warmth in his tone still came right through.
Ianto eyed up the weevil cut-outs that served as targets, trying to remember all he’d learned about stance the last time.
Before he could take a shot, though, there was a warm hand on his shoulder. “You’re tensing up again,” Jack said quietly, letting his hand drift down Ianto’s back.
Ianto barely suppressed a shiver as Jack’s fingers brushed across a knob of his spine. “That’s not helping,” he muttered.
Jack stepped even closer, almost pressing himself against Ianto. “Who said I was trying to help?”
“Well, this is supposed to be a training session,” Ianto retorted, attempting to quell the rising tide of feeling in his body and find the calm he’d found in the previous training.
“My bad.” The words came through the speakers over Ianto’s ears, but he could feel Jack’s breath on his neck, emphasising just how close he was.
Taking deep breaths, he poured all of his concentration into lining up the shot, determined he wasn’t going to let Jack get to him. Not when he knew that at least part of the reason Jack was so close was precisely in an attempt to distract him from the shot.
He squeezed the trigger several times in quick succession; the shots hit the target, although he couldn’t see exactly how good or bad they were from this distance.
“Good,” Jack said quietly, moving away just far enough for Ianto to re-engage the safety, twist around and put the handgun back on the table. Jack handed him a slightly larger calibre weapon, folding Ianto’s fingers around the handle with his own. “Now try this one, and this time I want you to aim for the lowest target.”
Ianto nodded and turned back to face down the tunnel. To his mild surprise, Jack didn’t press up against him again, choosing instead to linger just on Ianto’s peripheral vision.
The heavier weapon had more of a kick to it, and the first time he fired the shock travelled right up his arm to his shoulder before he consciously remembered to relax.
“Here,” Jack said after he fired the final shot, “let me take that.”
Ianto relinquished the gun when Jack’s hand came out, and he brought his own hands up, pushing the ear protectors down around his neck and breathing a sigh of relief as the cool air of the tunnel hit his ears again.
“Yeah,” Jack chuckled, “they can be a bit hot, can’t they?” When he stepped back into Ianto’s field of vision Ianto could see he’d done the same. “Let’s go check out how you did then, yeah?”
He took Ianto’s hand as they walked down the tunnel to the now riddled-with-holes Weevil target.
Ianto couldn’t remember exactly where the holes in the targets had been the last time, but he was fairly sure they were at least a little closer to the centres of the targets this time around. They still weren’t brilliant though; he doubted he’d ever be a crack shot.
“Looking pretty good,” said Jack, crouching down to look more closely at the bullet holes in the lower target. “You’re better than you think you are.”
“Not that good though,” Ianto replied, pointing out the one bullet that had missed the target completely, hitting the cardboard cut-out in the middle, somewhere around the cardboard Weevil’s gut.
“Practice is all that is,” Jack said, straightening and giving him a grin. “Few more sessions and even your odd stray shot will be fantastic.”
“If you say so.” Ianto wasn’t entirely convinced.
Jack suddenly stopped still. “Did I show you and Gwen the stun guns the last time?”
Ianto shook his head. It had been projectile weapons only, he was absolutely certain of it. “Nope.”
Jack’s grin grew wider. “I think you’re going to like this.”
Ianto let himself be dragged back to the top end of the tunnel by their joined hands. Jack handed him a chunky gun with a solid round muzzle. Instead of a revolver chamber, ammunition clip or loading chamber, it had a multitude of switches on one side.
“It’s very loosely based on current taser technology,” Jack said, pulling the ear protectors from around his neck and putting them down on the table. “And when I say very loosely, I mean very loosely. This thing is a heck of a lot more adjustable than anything on the market these days.”
Ianto weighed it in his hand, twisting it to study the business end for a moment. There was nothing there to suggest anything would come out of it that travelled anywhere through the air. “I’m assuming that you have to get close enough to actually make contact with your intended target.”
Jack nodded. “Yep, requires skin contact. Which has the advantage that it’s pretty much impossible to miss, although it’s rather harder to get into position.”
Which was patently obvious, but Ianto knew Jack liked to state such things occasionally. He hadn’t quite figured out why, yet, but he was confident that one day he would. Instead of pointing any of this out to Jack, however, he turned his attention back to the multitude of controls. “What happens if you get the settings wrong?”
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “Someone’s out for longer or shorter than you expected, that’s all. It’s guaranteed non-fatal. It has automatic fail-safes that make sure of it.”
Ianto had to admit he liked the sound of that. He liked the sound of pretty much everything about this particular little bit of tech, actually. An idea struck him and he looked up at Jack speculatively, a sly grin spreading across his face. He double checked the power switch on the side to make sure it was set to ‘off’ before he said anything.
“So, you’ve tested it exhaustively then, I take it,” he started. “Put your own seal of approval on that guarantee?” He jabbed in Jack’s direction with the stun gun.
Jack dropped his hand and backed up a few steps. “Ianto?” he said, his voice wary. “What are you doing?”
Ianto followed, keeping himself close to Jack. “What? It was a perfectly logical question,” he said with all of the faux-innocence he could muster.
Jack’s eyes narrowed and he took another step back, the backs of his thighs colliding with the table. “I…” He stopped, and a moment later Ianto could see the light dawning in his eyes as he caught Ianto’s true intent.
Ianto advanced another step, and Jack ducked to the side, skirting around the table, his eyes locked on Ianto, clearly intent on anticipating his every move. Ianto stared back.
He feinted to the left before diving around the table on the right, but Jack was too quick and darted away from the table completely, travelling down the tunnel a short distance.
By the time Ianto had made his own way around the table, Jack had slipped in behind one of the unmarked Weevil targets. Oh yes, this was definitely on.
For every move Ianto made after him, Jack was just a shade faster, dodging out of the way just before Ianto could get a hold on him.
Ianto was breathless and giddy by the time he spotted his chance. Forgoing the feinting and darting, he simply ran into Jack, rushing him against the wall.
Jack oofed as his back hit the wall, Ianto colliding with him full-body a fraction of a second later.
“Gotcha,” Ianto panted, his wrists resting against Jack’s shoulders, holding him in position.
“You certainly do,” Jack exhaled, his eyes darkening as they breathed in each other’s faces.
Ianto felt his body ignite as Jack’s chest rose and fell against his own, their breathing not slowing any even as they recovered from the exertion of the chase.
It was barely the work of a few centimetres to fit his mouth against Jack’s; Jack’s lips fell open beneath his own almost instantly and Ianto took what he was offering, devouring Jack’s mouth in a voracious kiss.
Dimly, he managed to keep a hold on the stun gun instead of letting it fall to the floor, but he was grateful when Jack’s hands scrambled for his own, taking the gun and dropping it to the floor from a lower point, freeing Ianto’s hands to clasp onto Jack’s shoulders tightly.
As soon as the stun gun was gone, Jack’s hands were suddenly everywhere - in his hair, across his back, gripping his arse to pull them even closer together. Ianto could feel all the blood rushing to his groin, his brain synapses shutting down one by one.
“Jack…” Ianto muttered hoarsely as they broke for breath momentarily, “I…” The temptation of Jack’s lidded-stare and swollen lips was too much and he didn’t complete the sentence, choosing instead to dive back in, wrapping his tongue around Jack’s and swallowing the resulting guttural groan.
He pressed closer and closer, but it just wasn’t close enough. He ran his hands down Jack’s sides, searching for the point where his shirt disappeared under his trousers. Finding it, he tugged it free as far as he could; he couldn’t bring himself to pull back enough to free the front.
He grumbled in frustration as he dove his fingers under the back of the freed shirt only to remember that Jack always wore a T-shirt under it, which also had to be twisted out of the way before he could reach actual skin. Too many bloody layers, he grumbled mentally.
Jack’s skin burned beneath his fingers when he finally got to it, and even better was the low choked moan it evoked from Jack. A moment later, he couldn’t control his own as Jack followed his lead, his hands sweeping up under Ianto’s newly untucked dress shirt.
How they’d made it even this far without this contact was a mystery to Ianto, and he had too few brain cells still functioning to work it out.
“This off, now” Jack muttered, pulling back. Ianto’s body complained at the loss of Jack’s lips on his own and at the disappearance of Jack’s clever fingers from his back, but his mind caught up a few seconds later as Jack started fumbling at his tie, undoing the knot so he could start on the buttons below.
He tugged at Jack’s shirt, freeing the rest of it from his trousers and pulling buttons from their holes with trembling fingers. He barely had it unbuttoned - and there was still that damn T-shirt in the way - by the time Jack had finished with his, his head ducking to press his mouth against clavicle in a move that sent Ianto’s heart rate through the roof.
Fingers desperate now, he shoved Jack’s braces from his shoulders, swiftly followed by his shirt. Getting Jack out of the T-shirt proved a little more difficult, and unfortunately involved dragging Jack’s lips from their exploration of Ianto’s upper chest, but it was worth it for that first moment of pressing back against Jack’s body with nothing between their chests but hot, tingling skin.
Their lips gravitated back together, hands touching whatever bit of skin they could as they writhed against each other. Ianto was hard as a rock underneath his trousers, and every time he tilted his hips against Jack he could feel that he was in much the same condition.
When Jack’s fingers squeezed between them to work at Ianto’s belt, all Ianto could do was think ‘yes, yes,’ and do his best to tug Jack’s belt buckle out of its own hole with fingers that wouldn’t quite follow his commands.
Jack paused with his fingers on Ianto’s button and pulled back, leaving Ianto to stare at him confusedly. “Are you sure about this?” he rushed out all on one short breath, his eyes almost black with intensity.
The words took a moment to filter through Ianto’s mind, but as soon as they did, he raised his eyebrows, sending Jack his best ‘are you a complete idiot?’ look and leaning forward to bite down gently on Jack’s bottom lip. Why on Earth wouldn’t he be sure about this?
He sought to further dispel any doubts Jack might have about what Ianto wanted by popping Jack’s trousers button and slipping his hand inside, curving his fingers around the length of Jack’s erection through his boxers.
Jack’s mind was clearly eased, as before Ianto could even register the movement, he had Ianto’s trousers undone and had bypassed his boxers too, wrapping his hand directly around Ianto’s cock. Ianto had to steel himself not to explode right there on the spot.
A quick twist of his wrist loosened Jack’s zipper, giving Ianto the freedom to urge them down around hips, which in turn allowed him to free Jack’s cock, smoothing his thumb over the already leaking tip.
“God, Ianto,” Jack growled, his head falling back. “You…” With a throaty moan, he manoeuvred them around until he could press his erection against Ianto’s.
Ianto let his head drop forward, and he latched onto Jack’s shoulder to help him regain some measure of control. The hot pressure of Jack’s cock against his own in the circle of their hands was almost overwhelming; it was a long time since he’d felt anything quite like it.
Involuntarily, he jerked his hips, setting up a slick friction between his cock and Jack’s that threatened to completely short out his brain.
Jack was muttering under his breath, and it took Ianto a long moment to work out that it was his name.
As he felt the edge approaching, he gripped the back of Jack’s neck with his free hand, his fingertips twisting in the short hair there, and pulled him back into a deep and sloppy kiss.
Their movements against each other became more and more uncoordinated but Ianto was past the point where it mattered. He felt Jack shudder and moan into his mouth, spilling hotly over their hands, and followed him into the abyss a moment later, Jack’s name a muffled cry on his lips.
When Ianto regained his senses, he and Jack were sitting next to each other on the floor, leaning back against the wall. He had no idea how they’d gotten to that position; he didn’t have the energy to care.
Wordlessly, Jack handed him his discarded T-shirt to clean up with. Ianto turned his head to look at Jack, and was met with a relaxed, sated grin that he suspected matched his own perfectly.
“Okay, I don’t know about the gun training bit,” Ianto started nonchalantly, leaning into Jack’s shoulder a little. “But we are definitely doing that again.”
Chapter Eleven
As always, comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Ten
Ianto looked at the mangled component he’d finally managed to wrangle free from the coffee machine. This was going to have to be replaced before the machine had any hope of functioning again. He’d hoped, when he discovered the fault at lunchtime, that it would be a simple fix, but it seemed he’d been too optimistic. Still, it could have been worse. It was at least repairable.
He glanced briefly at his watch, although he knew it was late - after all, the others had all gone home on that premise, with the promise of picking up again early the following morning. No, everywhere he could think of that might stock the required part was definitely closed by now.
“Jack!” he called down to the sofa, where his… where Jack was slumped, his head resting on the wall behind him. “What did you do to this?” He held up the component.
Jack lifted his head and blinked. “I didn’t do…” he started to deny. His eyes cleared as he clearly noticed the part Ianto was waving. “Ah.”
“Yes, ah”, Ianto responded, waiting.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jack said, sitting up and rolling his shoulders. “Maybe Owen had a…”
“Jack.” Ianto raised an eyebrow as he interrupted him. Did Jack really think that was going to work on him? The guilt was written across his face as clear as day.
He set the piece of metal down on the surface next to the coffee machine and started to walk down to the sofa.
Jack lifted his hands in defeat. “Okay, so I thought I could do it. I’ve watched you do it hundreds of times - and I probably shouldn’t admit quite how often I’ve stared at you while you prepared the coffee but there you go. And it’s just coffee… I knew I could never get anything like your coffee but I thought - how hard could it be to make something.”
Ianto stopped in front of him. “If you wanted more coffee making, why didn’t you just come and get me? I was in the archives all morning, hardly out of reach.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you when you were busy, and I didn’t know how long we were going to have before yet another Weevil call came in,” Jack explained, an expression on his face that Ianto guessed was supposed to convey innocence and good intentions, but didn’t quite work on Jack.
“So instead you decided to break the coffee machine,” he said flatly, crossing his arms.
“I think you know I didn’t mean to,” Jack frowned. “I just… did something - what I thought was the right thing - and then it made a strange groaning sound and stopped. I swear you’ve done something to it; it only works for you.”
‘It works for me because I took the time to figure out how to operate it,’ Ianto thought, but didn’t say aloud. “And yet you still thought you’d play with it,” he responded, narrowing his eyes.
Jack bit his lip and looked up pleadingly. “I’m sorry?”
Ianto fought to hold onto his irritation, but it was difficult with Jack looking at him like that. “I’m sure you will be, when I can’t make you any more coffee,” he said, his tone softening despite himself.
Jack’s face fell, as if he hadn’t actually thought that far yet. “But you can fix it, yes?”
Ianto sighed and twisted to drop onto the sofa next to Jack. “Luckily, yes. But not tonight. I’m going to need to find a replacement for the broken part, and I only hope that somewhere nearby will have one in stock. Or we could go weeks before it’s repaired, while I wait on an order.”
Ianto could almost feel Jack’s shudder at that thought. “Do whatever you have to,” Jack said. “Pay whatever you have to, just fix it. I’m not sure how long I can last without your coffee.”
He slid a hand onto Ianto’s knee; part of Ianto felt that he ought to shrug it off, he was annoyed at Jack after all, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. “Yes, well I’m not entirely sure I won’t withhold my coffee from you anyway, since you were the one who broke it in the first place.”
Jack leaned closer. “Aww, come on. I’ll make it up to you. I don’t know how, you’ll have to tell me what you want, but I’ll do it.”
“Anything I want?” Ianto would have to think about that one - there were just too many options.
“Anything,” Jack said fervently.
Ianto let himself sway a little bit against Jack. “I’ll hold you to that,” he murmured.
Jack’s fingers squeezed his leg. “Oh I’m counting on it,” he replied, and although Ianto wasn’t looking, he knew the words had been accompanied by at least a hint of a salacious look.
Ianto shifted until he was settled more comfortably against Jack’s side. The traces of irritation he had been trying to hold onto were faded away; Jack would be making up for the mistake, and the Rift, it seemed, had finally fulfilled Tosh’s predictions and had stopped spitting Weevil incidents at them at every turn.
He wasn’t fool enough to pass up the opportunity to actually spend a little time together; events of the last week had meant that, after the first couple of nights, they hadn’t had a chance to do anything but work.
If the machine had been irreparable, that would have been a different story, but it wasn’t, so Jack was safe. For now.
Jack let out a long breath and his head came to rest against Ianto’s shoulder as he stretched his legs out, a slight groan escaping as they straightened.
Ianto wouldn’t be surprised if his legs were aching - Jack had been out on every Weevil call they’d had in the last week, which added up to a lot of running. Even for Jack that had to be exhausting. He could almost - almost - understand why Jack had attempted to make his own coffee.
“Tired?” he asked mildly.
Jack shook his head against his shoulder. “Not really. Just a bit achy. Lot of running and tackling Weevils this week.”
Ianto took a breath. “I should have helped more,” he said quietly.
Jack’s head lifted and he twisted to look at him; Ianto looked back. “What?”
“I know you and the others have been running yourselves ragged this last week,” he elucidated. “And I’ve just been back here quietly sorting the archives and making coffee. I know I’m lacking in field skills - I was practically hopeless in the…”
He couldn’t quite bring himself to name the place. The nightmares hadn’t been as bad or as frequent as he’d feared at first they might be, but they haunted him enough.
“The countryside,” he eventually continued, “but…”
“Stop,” Jack interrupted, freeing his hands and gripping Ianto by the arms. “You did nothing wrong in the Beacons. You and Tosh kept each other alive; you helped Tosh escape. You did a good job.”
Ianto shrugged a little, finding it hard to make himself really believe Jack’s words, although he knew they made sense. “I still let us get captured, though,” he said. “Doesn’t say an awful lot for my ability in the field.”
Jack shook his head, a touch of defeat in his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, we could do some training. Work on the skills you need to use in the field, get you more prepared.”
Ianto paused. If he said yes, if he agreed to this, then there was every chance he’d be asked to go into the field on a more regular basis. Which on one hand, he wanted; the team would be much stronger for having five field agents rather than four, even if they weren’t always all out on a case at the same time. Even if he still spent more of his time running the day-to-day minutiae of the Hub than he did running around the streets of Cardiff. It could only be a good thing.
On the other hand, the thought was mildly terrifying. He was aware that the majority of this probably stemmed from the fact that he didn’t have field training, and might very well change somewhat if he did, but it didn’t change how he felt right at that moment.
Slowly, he nodded. “Okay.”
“Right then,” Jack said decidedly, pushing forwards to press a brief kiss to Ianto’s lips before getting to his feet, pulling Ianto with him. “Come on, then.”
Ianto let Jack tug him through the Hub, although he wasn’t quite sure what was going on. He hadn’t really expected any sort of training to start right then and there, but if that’s what Jack intended, he didn’t have a problem with that.
He didn’t pay particular attention to their direction, caught up in his own thoughts, and blinked as they came to a halt and he looked around. They were in the firing range.
“Why are we here?” he asked, his confusion flooding through into his voice. Whatever he had started to think of when he realised Jack was intending an immediate start, none of it had required the shooting range.
“I know we did weapons training here before, but that was quite a while ago, and you haven’t exactly had much need to practise since,” Jack started, pulling Ianto closer with the hand he had yet to release.
“It may be a small thing, but if you feel more comfortable with one of the weapons in this room, it will increase your confidence in going into field situations in general. Even if you never use it, knowing that you can if you need to will help.”
He dropped Ianto’s hand and went over to the locked cabinet at the back of the tunnel where the practise weapons were kept, leaving Ianto to ponder what he’d said.
It did make a measure of sense, although he strongly suspected that at least some of it was pure bullshitting on Jack’s part.
“Besides,” Jack added, twisting around with two sets of ear protectors looped over his wrist, “it’s too late to start on anything else right now. And I…” He cut himself off abruptly and turned back to the cabinet.
His curiosity peaked, Ianto crossed to stand just behind Jack. “And you…?” he asked leadingly, wondering if Jack would continue with mild prompting or not.
Jack blew out a breath noisily and turned around, leaning against the still closed door on the other side of the cabinet. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and Ianto thought he might very well turn back around and carry on without saying anything.
“And I enjoyed doing firearms training with you the last time,” Jack eventually said, staring at a point somewhere behind Ianto’s left ear.
Ianto frowned. “You enjoyed it?” he asked. He didn’t know if he wanted to ask Jack just what it had been about the training session he’d enjoyed.
Jack nodded, his eyes sliding across to meet Ianto’s. In them Ianto detected a slight undercurrent of shame, an emotion he was sure many would say wasn’t even in Jack’s lexicon. He tried not to let its presence now worry him, but it wasn’t an easy ask.
There was a long silence, Ianto staring back at Jack and trying to discern his thoughts.
“Okay, I have to ask,” he finally started, deciding it was better to know for sure than to let his mind fill in the blanks on its own.
“It was you, more than the actual training, really,” Jack interrupted, intuiting the question Ianto had been about to ask. “I…well, it was an opportunity to get close to you - not that I thought about it that way when I decided you and Gwen needed training. In fact, if I had thought about it, I might never have gone through with it. It was only supposed to be in order to correct your stance, and after that to unnerve you a bit, distract you, but when it came down to it… being in your personal space like that. I liked it. Too much.”
Ianto blinked as he tried to take in all of the information in Jack’s explanation. “Too much?” he echoed.
Jack took a step closer. “At the time, it really wasn’t appropriate for me to be thinking of you like that.”
Ianto shook his head to clear it. He remembered the previous session, he even remembered that Jack had been close when he’d been shooting, but he’d been concentrating so hard on what he was doing that it hadn’t really registered just how close he’d been. The thought of it now, however, in hindsight… he felt a warmth begin to suffuse him, spreading out from a pit in his stomach.
“I didn’t even notice,” he murmured wonderingly. Jack’s face fell, although it was clear he tried to hide it. “Nothing to do with you personally,” he clarified. “I was just really focused on getting it right; I wouldn’t have noticed anyone.”
Jack nodded. “As hard as that is on my ego…” He paused to flash a grin. “It’s a good thing that you can focus like that. It’s a good field skill, actually.”
“I suppose it’s a start,” Ianto shrugged. If he could move beyond sheer terror to get to focused, that was.
“It is,” Jack said firmly, shaking his shoulders out and handing Ianto the ear protectors. “And as for the rest, that’s what we’re down here for.” He pivoted on his heel and went back to the cabinet, picking out a few things and coming back to lay them on a table next to Ianto.
“All of the handguns are weapons you fired last time, so there’s nothing new to learn,” Jack told him, handing him a clip of ammunition and an unloaded gun. “Just relax and concentrate on the targets.”
Ianto paused for a second before loading the gun, making sure the safety was on before putting it back down so he could put the ear protectors on. Jack had his on too by the time he was set.
“In your own time.” Jack’s voice was a little tinnier than usual, coming through the headphones in the protectors, but the warmth in his tone still came right through.
Ianto eyed up the weevil cut-outs that served as targets, trying to remember all he’d learned about stance the last time.
Before he could take a shot, though, there was a warm hand on his shoulder. “You’re tensing up again,” Jack said quietly, letting his hand drift down Ianto’s back.
Ianto barely suppressed a shiver as Jack’s fingers brushed across a knob of his spine. “That’s not helping,” he muttered.
Jack stepped even closer, almost pressing himself against Ianto. “Who said I was trying to help?”
“Well, this is supposed to be a training session,” Ianto retorted, attempting to quell the rising tide of feeling in his body and find the calm he’d found in the previous training.
“My bad.” The words came through the speakers over Ianto’s ears, but he could feel Jack’s breath on his neck, emphasising just how close he was.
Taking deep breaths, he poured all of his concentration into lining up the shot, determined he wasn’t going to let Jack get to him. Not when he knew that at least part of the reason Jack was so close was precisely in an attempt to distract him from the shot.
He squeezed the trigger several times in quick succession; the shots hit the target, although he couldn’t see exactly how good or bad they were from this distance.
“Good,” Jack said quietly, moving away just far enough for Ianto to re-engage the safety, twist around and put the handgun back on the table. Jack handed him a slightly larger calibre weapon, folding Ianto’s fingers around the handle with his own. “Now try this one, and this time I want you to aim for the lowest target.”
Ianto nodded and turned back to face down the tunnel. To his mild surprise, Jack didn’t press up against him again, choosing instead to linger just on Ianto’s peripheral vision.
The heavier weapon had more of a kick to it, and the first time he fired the shock travelled right up his arm to his shoulder before he consciously remembered to relax.
“Here,” Jack said after he fired the final shot, “let me take that.”
Ianto relinquished the gun when Jack’s hand came out, and he brought his own hands up, pushing the ear protectors down around his neck and breathing a sigh of relief as the cool air of the tunnel hit his ears again.
“Yeah,” Jack chuckled, “they can be a bit hot, can’t they?” When he stepped back into Ianto’s field of vision Ianto could see he’d done the same. “Let’s go check out how you did then, yeah?”
He took Ianto’s hand as they walked down the tunnel to the now riddled-with-holes Weevil target.
Ianto couldn’t remember exactly where the holes in the targets had been the last time, but he was fairly sure they were at least a little closer to the centres of the targets this time around. They still weren’t brilliant though; he doubted he’d ever be a crack shot.
“Looking pretty good,” said Jack, crouching down to look more closely at the bullet holes in the lower target. “You’re better than you think you are.”
“Not that good though,” Ianto replied, pointing out the one bullet that had missed the target completely, hitting the cardboard cut-out in the middle, somewhere around the cardboard Weevil’s gut.
“Practice is all that is,” Jack said, straightening and giving him a grin. “Few more sessions and even your odd stray shot will be fantastic.”
“If you say so.” Ianto wasn’t entirely convinced.
Jack suddenly stopped still. “Did I show you and Gwen the stun guns the last time?”
Ianto shook his head. It had been projectile weapons only, he was absolutely certain of it. “Nope.”
Jack’s grin grew wider. “I think you’re going to like this.”
Ianto let himself be dragged back to the top end of the tunnel by their joined hands. Jack handed him a chunky gun with a solid round muzzle. Instead of a revolver chamber, ammunition clip or loading chamber, it had a multitude of switches on one side.
“It’s very loosely based on current taser technology,” Jack said, pulling the ear protectors from around his neck and putting them down on the table. “And when I say very loosely, I mean very loosely. This thing is a heck of a lot more adjustable than anything on the market these days.”
Ianto weighed it in his hand, twisting it to study the business end for a moment. There was nothing there to suggest anything would come out of it that travelled anywhere through the air. “I’m assuming that you have to get close enough to actually make contact with your intended target.”
Jack nodded. “Yep, requires skin contact. Which has the advantage that it’s pretty much impossible to miss, although it’s rather harder to get into position.”
Which was patently obvious, but Ianto knew Jack liked to state such things occasionally. He hadn’t quite figured out why, yet, but he was confident that one day he would. Instead of pointing any of this out to Jack, however, he turned his attention back to the multitude of controls. “What happens if you get the settings wrong?”
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “Someone’s out for longer or shorter than you expected, that’s all. It’s guaranteed non-fatal. It has automatic fail-safes that make sure of it.”
Ianto had to admit he liked the sound of that. He liked the sound of pretty much everything about this particular little bit of tech, actually. An idea struck him and he looked up at Jack speculatively, a sly grin spreading across his face. He double checked the power switch on the side to make sure it was set to ‘off’ before he said anything.
“So, you’ve tested it exhaustively then, I take it,” he started. “Put your own seal of approval on that guarantee?” He jabbed in Jack’s direction with the stun gun.
Jack dropped his hand and backed up a few steps. “Ianto?” he said, his voice wary. “What are you doing?”
Ianto followed, keeping himself close to Jack. “What? It was a perfectly logical question,” he said with all of the faux-innocence he could muster.
Jack’s eyes narrowed and he took another step back, the backs of his thighs colliding with the table. “I…” He stopped, and a moment later Ianto could see the light dawning in his eyes as he caught Ianto’s true intent.
Ianto advanced another step, and Jack ducked to the side, skirting around the table, his eyes locked on Ianto, clearly intent on anticipating his every move. Ianto stared back.
He feinted to the left before diving around the table on the right, but Jack was too quick and darted away from the table completely, travelling down the tunnel a short distance.
By the time Ianto had made his own way around the table, Jack had slipped in behind one of the unmarked Weevil targets. Oh yes, this was definitely on.
For every move Ianto made after him, Jack was just a shade faster, dodging out of the way just before Ianto could get a hold on him.
Ianto was breathless and giddy by the time he spotted his chance. Forgoing the feinting and darting, he simply ran into Jack, rushing him against the wall.
Jack oofed as his back hit the wall, Ianto colliding with him full-body a fraction of a second later.
“Gotcha,” Ianto panted, his wrists resting against Jack’s shoulders, holding him in position.
“You certainly do,” Jack exhaled, his eyes darkening as they breathed in each other’s faces.
Ianto felt his body ignite as Jack’s chest rose and fell against his own, their breathing not slowing any even as they recovered from the exertion of the chase.
It was barely the work of a few centimetres to fit his mouth against Jack’s; Jack’s lips fell open beneath his own almost instantly and Ianto took what he was offering, devouring Jack’s mouth in a voracious kiss.
Dimly, he managed to keep a hold on the stun gun instead of letting it fall to the floor, but he was grateful when Jack’s hands scrambled for his own, taking the gun and dropping it to the floor from a lower point, freeing Ianto’s hands to clasp onto Jack’s shoulders tightly.
As soon as the stun gun was gone, Jack’s hands were suddenly everywhere - in his hair, across his back, gripping his arse to pull them even closer together. Ianto could feel all the blood rushing to his groin, his brain synapses shutting down one by one.
“Jack…” Ianto muttered hoarsely as they broke for breath momentarily, “I…” The temptation of Jack’s lidded-stare and swollen lips was too much and he didn’t complete the sentence, choosing instead to dive back in, wrapping his tongue around Jack’s and swallowing the resulting guttural groan.
He pressed closer and closer, but it just wasn’t close enough. He ran his hands down Jack’s sides, searching for the point where his shirt disappeared under his trousers. Finding it, he tugged it free as far as he could; he couldn’t bring himself to pull back enough to free the front.
He grumbled in frustration as he dove his fingers under the back of the freed shirt only to remember that Jack always wore a T-shirt under it, which also had to be twisted out of the way before he could reach actual skin. Too many bloody layers, he grumbled mentally.
Jack’s skin burned beneath his fingers when he finally got to it, and even better was the low choked moan it evoked from Jack. A moment later, he couldn’t control his own as Jack followed his lead, his hands sweeping up under Ianto’s newly untucked dress shirt.
How they’d made it even this far without this contact was a mystery to Ianto, and he had too few brain cells still functioning to work it out.
“This off, now” Jack muttered, pulling back. Ianto’s body complained at the loss of Jack’s lips on his own and at the disappearance of Jack’s clever fingers from his back, but his mind caught up a few seconds later as Jack started fumbling at his tie, undoing the knot so he could start on the buttons below.
He tugged at Jack’s shirt, freeing the rest of it from his trousers and pulling buttons from their holes with trembling fingers. He barely had it unbuttoned - and there was still that damn T-shirt in the way - by the time Jack had finished with his, his head ducking to press his mouth against clavicle in a move that sent Ianto’s heart rate through the roof.
Fingers desperate now, he shoved Jack’s braces from his shoulders, swiftly followed by his shirt. Getting Jack out of the T-shirt proved a little more difficult, and unfortunately involved dragging Jack’s lips from their exploration of Ianto’s upper chest, but it was worth it for that first moment of pressing back against Jack’s body with nothing between their chests but hot, tingling skin.
Their lips gravitated back together, hands touching whatever bit of skin they could as they writhed against each other. Ianto was hard as a rock underneath his trousers, and every time he tilted his hips against Jack he could feel that he was in much the same condition.
When Jack’s fingers squeezed between them to work at Ianto’s belt, all Ianto could do was think ‘yes, yes,’ and do his best to tug Jack’s belt buckle out of its own hole with fingers that wouldn’t quite follow his commands.
Jack paused with his fingers on Ianto’s button and pulled back, leaving Ianto to stare at him confusedly. “Are you sure about this?” he rushed out all on one short breath, his eyes almost black with intensity.
The words took a moment to filter through Ianto’s mind, but as soon as they did, he raised his eyebrows, sending Jack his best ‘are you a complete idiot?’ look and leaning forward to bite down gently on Jack’s bottom lip. Why on Earth wouldn’t he be sure about this?
He sought to further dispel any doubts Jack might have about what Ianto wanted by popping Jack’s trousers button and slipping his hand inside, curving his fingers around the length of Jack’s erection through his boxers.
Jack’s mind was clearly eased, as before Ianto could even register the movement, he had Ianto’s trousers undone and had bypassed his boxers too, wrapping his hand directly around Ianto’s cock. Ianto had to steel himself not to explode right there on the spot.
A quick twist of his wrist loosened Jack’s zipper, giving Ianto the freedom to urge them down around hips, which in turn allowed him to free Jack’s cock, smoothing his thumb over the already leaking tip.
“God, Ianto,” Jack growled, his head falling back. “You…” With a throaty moan, he manoeuvred them around until he could press his erection against Ianto’s.
Ianto let his head drop forward, and he latched onto Jack’s shoulder to help him regain some measure of control. The hot pressure of Jack’s cock against his own in the circle of their hands was almost overwhelming; it was a long time since he’d felt anything quite like it.
Involuntarily, he jerked his hips, setting up a slick friction between his cock and Jack’s that threatened to completely short out his brain.
Jack was muttering under his breath, and it took Ianto a long moment to work out that it was his name.
As he felt the edge approaching, he gripped the back of Jack’s neck with his free hand, his fingertips twisting in the short hair there, and pulled him back into a deep and sloppy kiss.
Their movements against each other became more and more uncoordinated but Ianto was past the point where it mattered. He felt Jack shudder and moan into his mouth, spilling hotly over their hands, and followed him into the abyss a moment later, Jack’s name a muffled cry on his lips.
When Ianto regained his senses, he and Jack were sitting next to each other on the floor, leaning back against the wall. He had no idea how they’d gotten to that position; he didn’t have the energy to care.
Wordlessly, Jack handed him his discarded T-shirt to clean up with. Ianto turned his head to look at Jack, and was met with a relaxed, sated grin that he suspected matched his own perfectly.
“Okay, I don’t know about the gun training bit,” Ianto started nonchalantly, leaning into Jack’s shoulder a little. “But we are definitely doing that again.”
Chapter Eleven
As always, comments and concrit are loved!