Astonished (1/2) by AJ (TW, NC-17, Jack/Ianto)
Title: Astonished 1/2
Written by: AJ
Genre/Universe: HTGT, Angst/Torchwood
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Ianto/Jack, mentions of other canon pairings
Word count: 2154 for this part.
Warning(s): Spoilers for Series 1
Beta by: The awesome vands88, and the equally fantastic xenrayven. I tweaked, so all remaining mistakes are definitely mine.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted in Torchwood are the property of Russell T Davies, BBC Wales, CBC and the various writers involved in the series. No disrespect is intended in their use, and no money is being made.
Notes: Though I did catch the slashy vibe with Jack and Ianto early on, I see slash like the kid from the Sixth Sense sees dead people, and a certain moment at the end of Episode 8 had me trying not to splutter whilst staring at the television in disbelief. I know there have been a dozen HTGT fics about Jack and Ianto, but if ever a couple needed some it's them. This is my attempt to make sense of what went on, though I make no promises with respect to being Cillit Bang for plot holes.
Feedback: In a word, loved. Feedback policy is here
Summary: Jack knows Ianto is more than just a teaboy, but Ianto still has a few surprises for Jack.
Captain Jack Harkness is very perceptive when he's seeing what he wants to see. As Ianto passes him his morning coffee and their hands brush (Jack's doing, though Ianto isn't complaining much), Ianto knows that Jack hasn't missed the tiny hitch in his breath, or the slight catch in his voice as he quietly wishes his boss good morning. Hell, Jack can probably hear his heartbeat quicken a little and see the delicate flush in his cheeks even when Ianto has turned to leave. Jack probably knows, somehow, that an hour ago Ianto's back was pressed against cold tiles and his knees were threatening to buckle as he gasped for air, one hand milking a shuddering climax from his aching cock, the other braced against the wall of the shower screen as the hot spray cascaded over him and Jack's name slipped from his lips drowned out by the noise of the falling water.
Jack doesn't know what Ianto is hiding in the basement though. Ianto isn't sure what makes him feel more disloyal; the way he's hiding Lisa from Jack and the others, or the fact that he thinks about Jack more than he does about Lisa.
Ianto can tell that Jack realises he's more than just a tea boy, but it's still obvious that Jack doesn't really have a clue how much more he can be. Nobody told Jack it was the quiet ones you had to watch. He thinks Ianto is sweet and innocent: the sort of guy who needs hand holding, soft whispers, reassuring touches and to take everything slowly and gently. When he's alone in the Hub, cleaning up everyone else's mess before he sneaks down to Lisa, Ianto imagines how Jack would react if he showed him just how wrong he was.
That night, Gwen goes back home to her bloke after spending an hour fondling Jack, his Jack, in the shooting range. Ianto slams Jack up against the wall in his office and kisses him with ferocious lust, as though he could mark Jack with the strength of his intent. Jack doesn't make a sound, he can't really, but Ianto can still hear that he's taken aback. He likes that, surprising Jack, and he spends several hours continuing to dumbfound him. He even shocks himself a couple of times along the way, because he never realised you could do quite so many entertaining things with a stopwatch.
Days later, on his hands and knees in the basement scrubbing blood and who knows what else off the floor, Ianto concludes that not all ways of surprising Jack are fun.
That's where he is when Jack finds him, and stands over him for minutes, hours, days before Ianto looks up and sees the agony he feels inside reflected in Jack's eyes. He knows he has no right to, but at that moment he wants Jack to be the one kneeling in front of him in the filth and grime. He's not sure whether he'd kick Jack or take advantage of the proximity of Jack's mouth to his cock, possibly both and he's not sure which action would be filled with the most hatred. Almost as soon as Ianto has had the thought, Jack turns wordlessly and walks away, leaving Ianto alone with the ghosts and shadows.
******
A few days later, Ianto realises that Jack has ghosts and shadows of his own, and thinks that only Torchwood could find evil fairies. Torchwood twists everything until the stories don't work any more and they're rescuing beautiful monsters from rapacious princesses and helping Cinderella divorce the abusive prince and find herself a nice cobbler to marry instead. Hansel and Gretel are terrorising the nice old lady in the gingerbread house with stolen alien technology, and the three little pigs got blown through the Rift by the big bad wolf and need help fitting in with twenty-first century Cardiff. Ianto is willing to bet that none of them are going to live happily ever after.
******
Ianto sits huddled in a blanket back at the Hub, still shivering. He's battered and aching, and he thinks Toshiko hates him even though he can't remember why. All he can remember is pain and fear and wishing he'd taken his grandmother's advice and got a nice quiet job in a bank or something. Jack dragged him out of the Hub, where he was safe and warm and all he ever had to put up with was cleaning up shit and people letting his coffee get cold; away from the SUV, where it was safe and warm and all he ever had to put up with was being stuck in a metal box with people that might have made it into his version of Hell; and into some cold, wet, middle-of-nowhere village of the lunatic cannibals that somehow turned out to be worse than anything alien. Maybe he's in the wrong job because right now he thinks whatever alien things there are out there need protecting from the humans down here. The worst of it is that Jack's still punishing him. Ianto doesn't know how but Jack took him there to hurt like this, to be broken and reduced to this pathetic, shivering thing.
Owen didn't look him in the eye once when he was checking him over and Ianto barely heard his muttered advice about rest and warmth and stuff. Owen is clearly still preoccupied with trying to get into Gwen's knickers and Ianto can see from the way Gwen's acting that Owen might be in luck there. Jack has obviously noticed too because now he's backing off and waiting to see what happens. It's so like Jack to seem unperturbed about Gwen being with someone else, and yet to back off because he realises Owen won't be similarly relaxed about Gwen being with him. Ianto knows all this isn't a good thing because Jack doesn't want him now, how could he? He doesn't want to be Jack's second choice anyway. It isn't good. It isn't anything. It's still the only cheerful thought in his head though.
******
Toshiko has gone home and Ianto is putting the box he had ready neatly back in the stores. He's somehow relieved he won't need to lock the pendant away because although a sealed box marked 'not for use' in a locked safe is final enough for the Ghost Machine and the Life Knife, it's not for that. He hears Jack pacing around his office and quickly finishes cleaning up before going off to make coffee. As he's pouring water into the machine, he wonders whether Jack would sleep if he didn't drink so much of the stuff. He finishes brewing it despite his worries and pours two cups, taking one up to Jack. He tentatively places the coffee down on Jack's desk as his boss turns swiftly and looks at him, his expression unreadable. Ianto doesn't know which of them moves first but next thing he knows he's pinning Jack against the desk and they're tearing off each others' clothes and somebody's taken all the air out of the room and replaced it with hot, dry air from the inside of a preheated oven that makes Ianto's head feel fuzzy and his mouth feel devoid of moisture. Then Jack's tongue forces its way into his mouth and hints at what other parts of Jack would like to be doing to Ianto, and Ianto forgets about any sensation in his mouth except that.
Other parts of Jack aren't doing anything to Ianto just yet though. By Ianto's last count, his turn's a bit overdue. Ianto grabs the tie that Jack hastily removed from around his neck, and before Jack knows what's hit him he's turned around and thrust forward face down over his own desk and Ianto is securing both hands behind his back with the narrow strip of silk. Somewhere during that process, Ianto suspects he heard the sound of breaking china and liquid splashing to the floor. Jack doesn't struggle; he clearly knows better, or he trusts Ianto. If the latter is the case, Ianto isn't sure that it would be the wisest decision Jack's ever made because he's not sure he trusts himself right this minute.
******
The rest of Jack's clothing is removed roughly; he'd be very surprised later if it's all in the original number of pieces. Ianto rummages around for a few seconds, swearing under his breath, and then Jack feels two hastily lubricated fingers push slowly inside him. Jack's cock is pressed between the cool, smooth surface of the desk and his warm stomach; the contrast is delicious and Ianto's fingers are making him squirm. He's not sure which direction his body is trying to move in; it seems to be all of them at once. Fingers are soon replaced by something Jack likes a whole lot more and Jack hears the splinter and crack of wood as though it's happening some distance away. Ianto's attempting to fuck him through the desk, with some degree of success by the sound of things although the desk seems to be holding and Jack's a little too preoccupied to think beyond that.
Some time later Jack realises that Ianto is gone and his hands are untied. He flexes his aching wrists, picks up a broken chair that seems to have made its way halfway across the room and tries to work out what the hell just hit him and whether there's a reason he should think it's a bad thing. Ianto is nowhere to be seen, and Jack feels a bit abandoned after the earlier intensity so he opts for the soothing fresh air and view from the roof. When he returns hours later, as red rays are beginning to filter above the horizon, he finds that the broken fragments of his coffee cup have been disposed of and the coffee mopped from the floor. His chair has been repaired with superglue so you wouldn't know it had been broken if you didn't know where to look. The surface of his desk smells of lemon polish, even though Jack's pretty sure he did a thorough job of cleaning it with his tongue at Ianto's insistence. That morning Ianto doesn't meet his eyes and barely says two words to Jack as he brings fresh coffee in a different cup. Jack's confused and a little hurt, but he figures that whatever Ianto just fucked out of his system was fairly big, and he can choose any or all from a long list of things that might be, and the dust is going to take a while to settle.
******
Lying awake in the half-light, Ianto remembers the drawer sliding closed, and the hope that he'd never have to open it and see Suzie's face again. It had been a hellish time for Jack, and Ianto realised then, standing in that cold room full of death, that somewhere along the line he'd forgiven his boss. He still hadn't forgotten. Just, maybe it was time to let go, because he knew Jack had and the others weren't looking at him so coldly. Gwen and Owen were still preoccupied with whatever was or wasn't going on between them (Owen was pretty fast on the scene when he thought Gwen was dying, not that Jack wasn't equally quick). Toshiko had been looking at him with a bit too much sympathy in her eyes since that business with the pendant, but it was better than the way she had glared at him not so long ago. Ianto was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he liked Myfanwy better than anyone else at Torchwood Three, because she didn't pity him and never expected more from him than food, and it was hardly her fault she liked anything covered in barbeque sauce. Still, he'd decided that he could maybe live with the idea of not killing Jack slowly and painfully now.
As Jack turned to look directly at him Ianto found words coming out of his mouth as though someone else had put them there. Maybe it was Owen's earlier jibe, but suddenly he realised there was something he'd rather be doing than cleaning up, making coffee and going home to an empty flat. Later, as his finger pressed that button on the top and Jack pressed his naked, sweat-drenched body against Ianto's, he thought he'd probably call that a good decision if anyone asked. Somehow what was left of that anger and hate had twisted into a sadistic edge that was so much more fun than bitterness was, and maybe he shouldn't complain because he didn't think his head would ever have found this place any other way. Jack seemed to like it anyway, and Ianto has to admit as he surveys the sleeping form beside him that he can't remember Jack sleeping for so long in all the time he's known him.
Part 2 is here
Written by: AJ
Genre/Universe: HTGT, Angst/Torchwood
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Ianto/Jack, mentions of other canon pairings
Word count: 2154 for this part.
Warning(s): Spoilers for Series 1
Beta by: The awesome vands88, and the equally fantastic xenrayven. I tweaked, so all remaining mistakes are definitely mine.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted in Torchwood are the property of Russell T Davies, BBC Wales, CBC and the various writers involved in the series. No disrespect is intended in their use, and no money is being made.
Notes: Though I did catch the slashy vibe with Jack and Ianto early on, I see slash like the kid from the Sixth Sense sees dead people, and a certain moment at the end of Episode 8 had me trying not to splutter whilst staring at the television in disbelief. I know there have been a dozen HTGT fics about Jack and Ianto, but if ever a couple needed some it's them. This is my attempt to make sense of what went on, though I make no promises with respect to being Cillit Bang for plot holes.
Feedback: In a word, loved. Feedback policy is here
Summary: Jack knows Ianto is more than just a teaboy, but Ianto still has a few surprises for Jack.
Captain Jack Harkness is very perceptive when he's seeing what he wants to see. As Ianto passes him his morning coffee and their hands brush (Jack's doing, though Ianto isn't complaining much), Ianto knows that Jack hasn't missed the tiny hitch in his breath, or the slight catch in his voice as he quietly wishes his boss good morning. Hell, Jack can probably hear his heartbeat quicken a little and see the delicate flush in his cheeks even when Ianto has turned to leave. Jack probably knows, somehow, that an hour ago Ianto's back was pressed against cold tiles and his knees were threatening to buckle as he gasped for air, one hand milking a shuddering climax from his aching cock, the other braced against the wall of the shower screen as the hot spray cascaded over him and Jack's name slipped from his lips drowned out by the noise of the falling water.
Jack doesn't know what Ianto is hiding in the basement though. Ianto isn't sure what makes him feel more disloyal; the way he's hiding Lisa from Jack and the others, or the fact that he thinks about Jack more than he does about Lisa.
Ianto can tell that Jack realises he's more than just a tea boy, but it's still obvious that Jack doesn't really have a clue how much more he can be. Nobody told Jack it was the quiet ones you had to watch. He thinks Ianto is sweet and innocent: the sort of guy who needs hand holding, soft whispers, reassuring touches and to take everything slowly and gently. When he's alone in the Hub, cleaning up everyone else's mess before he sneaks down to Lisa, Ianto imagines how Jack would react if he showed him just how wrong he was.
That night, Gwen goes back home to her bloke after spending an hour fondling Jack, his Jack, in the shooting range. Ianto slams Jack up against the wall in his office and kisses him with ferocious lust, as though he could mark Jack with the strength of his intent. Jack doesn't make a sound, he can't really, but Ianto can still hear that he's taken aback. He likes that, surprising Jack, and he spends several hours continuing to dumbfound him. He even shocks himself a couple of times along the way, because he never realised you could do quite so many entertaining things with a stopwatch.
Days later, on his hands and knees in the basement scrubbing blood and who knows what else off the floor, Ianto concludes that not all ways of surprising Jack are fun.
That's where he is when Jack finds him, and stands over him for minutes, hours, days before Ianto looks up and sees the agony he feels inside reflected in Jack's eyes. He knows he has no right to, but at that moment he wants Jack to be the one kneeling in front of him in the filth and grime. He's not sure whether he'd kick Jack or take advantage of the proximity of Jack's mouth to his cock, possibly both and he's not sure which action would be filled with the most hatred. Almost as soon as Ianto has had the thought, Jack turns wordlessly and walks away, leaving Ianto alone with the ghosts and shadows.
******
A few days later, Ianto realises that Jack has ghosts and shadows of his own, and thinks that only Torchwood could find evil fairies. Torchwood twists everything until the stories don't work any more and they're rescuing beautiful monsters from rapacious princesses and helping Cinderella divorce the abusive prince and find herself a nice cobbler to marry instead. Hansel and Gretel are terrorising the nice old lady in the gingerbread house with stolen alien technology, and the three little pigs got blown through the Rift by the big bad wolf and need help fitting in with twenty-first century Cardiff. Ianto is willing to bet that none of them are going to live happily ever after.
******
Ianto sits huddled in a blanket back at the Hub, still shivering. He's battered and aching, and he thinks Toshiko hates him even though he can't remember why. All he can remember is pain and fear and wishing he'd taken his grandmother's advice and got a nice quiet job in a bank or something. Jack dragged him out of the Hub, where he was safe and warm and all he ever had to put up with was cleaning up shit and people letting his coffee get cold; away from the SUV, where it was safe and warm and all he ever had to put up with was being stuck in a metal box with people that might have made it into his version of Hell; and into some cold, wet, middle-of-nowhere village of the lunatic cannibals that somehow turned out to be worse than anything alien. Maybe he's in the wrong job because right now he thinks whatever alien things there are out there need protecting from the humans down here. The worst of it is that Jack's still punishing him. Ianto doesn't know how but Jack took him there to hurt like this, to be broken and reduced to this pathetic, shivering thing.
Owen didn't look him in the eye once when he was checking him over and Ianto barely heard his muttered advice about rest and warmth and stuff. Owen is clearly still preoccupied with trying to get into Gwen's knickers and Ianto can see from the way Gwen's acting that Owen might be in luck there. Jack has obviously noticed too because now he's backing off and waiting to see what happens. It's so like Jack to seem unperturbed about Gwen being with someone else, and yet to back off because he realises Owen won't be similarly relaxed about Gwen being with him. Ianto knows all this isn't a good thing because Jack doesn't want him now, how could he? He doesn't want to be Jack's second choice anyway. It isn't good. It isn't anything. It's still the only cheerful thought in his head though.
******
Toshiko has gone home and Ianto is putting the box he had ready neatly back in the stores. He's somehow relieved he won't need to lock the pendant away because although a sealed box marked 'not for use' in a locked safe is final enough for the Ghost Machine and the Life Knife, it's not for that. He hears Jack pacing around his office and quickly finishes cleaning up before going off to make coffee. As he's pouring water into the machine, he wonders whether Jack would sleep if he didn't drink so much of the stuff. He finishes brewing it despite his worries and pours two cups, taking one up to Jack. He tentatively places the coffee down on Jack's desk as his boss turns swiftly and looks at him, his expression unreadable. Ianto doesn't know which of them moves first but next thing he knows he's pinning Jack against the desk and they're tearing off each others' clothes and somebody's taken all the air out of the room and replaced it with hot, dry air from the inside of a preheated oven that makes Ianto's head feel fuzzy and his mouth feel devoid of moisture. Then Jack's tongue forces its way into his mouth and hints at what other parts of Jack would like to be doing to Ianto, and Ianto forgets about any sensation in his mouth except that.
Other parts of Jack aren't doing anything to Ianto just yet though. By Ianto's last count, his turn's a bit overdue. Ianto grabs the tie that Jack hastily removed from around his neck, and before Jack knows what's hit him he's turned around and thrust forward face down over his own desk and Ianto is securing both hands behind his back with the narrow strip of silk. Somewhere during that process, Ianto suspects he heard the sound of breaking china and liquid splashing to the floor. Jack doesn't struggle; he clearly knows better, or he trusts Ianto. If the latter is the case, Ianto isn't sure that it would be the wisest decision Jack's ever made because he's not sure he trusts himself right this minute.
******
The rest of Jack's clothing is removed roughly; he'd be very surprised later if it's all in the original number of pieces. Ianto rummages around for a few seconds, swearing under his breath, and then Jack feels two hastily lubricated fingers push slowly inside him. Jack's cock is pressed between the cool, smooth surface of the desk and his warm stomach; the contrast is delicious and Ianto's fingers are making him squirm. He's not sure which direction his body is trying to move in; it seems to be all of them at once. Fingers are soon replaced by something Jack likes a whole lot more and Jack hears the splinter and crack of wood as though it's happening some distance away. Ianto's attempting to fuck him through the desk, with some degree of success by the sound of things although the desk seems to be holding and Jack's a little too preoccupied to think beyond that.
Some time later Jack realises that Ianto is gone and his hands are untied. He flexes his aching wrists, picks up a broken chair that seems to have made its way halfway across the room and tries to work out what the hell just hit him and whether there's a reason he should think it's a bad thing. Ianto is nowhere to be seen, and Jack feels a bit abandoned after the earlier intensity so he opts for the soothing fresh air and view from the roof. When he returns hours later, as red rays are beginning to filter above the horizon, he finds that the broken fragments of his coffee cup have been disposed of and the coffee mopped from the floor. His chair has been repaired with superglue so you wouldn't know it had been broken if you didn't know where to look. The surface of his desk smells of lemon polish, even though Jack's pretty sure he did a thorough job of cleaning it with his tongue at Ianto's insistence. That morning Ianto doesn't meet his eyes and barely says two words to Jack as he brings fresh coffee in a different cup. Jack's confused and a little hurt, but he figures that whatever Ianto just fucked out of his system was fairly big, and he can choose any or all from a long list of things that might be, and the dust is going to take a while to settle.
******
Lying awake in the half-light, Ianto remembers the drawer sliding closed, and the hope that he'd never have to open it and see Suzie's face again. It had been a hellish time for Jack, and Ianto realised then, standing in that cold room full of death, that somewhere along the line he'd forgiven his boss. He still hadn't forgotten. Just, maybe it was time to let go, because he knew Jack had and the others weren't looking at him so coldly. Gwen and Owen were still preoccupied with whatever was or wasn't going on between them (Owen was pretty fast on the scene when he thought Gwen was dying, not that Jack wasn't equally quick). Toshiko had been looking at him with a bit too much sympathy in her eyes since that business with the pendant, but it was better than the way she had glared at him not so long ago. Ianto was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he liked Myfanwy better than anyone else at Torchwood Three, because she didn't pity him and never expected more from him than food, and it was hardly her fault she liked anything covered in barbeque sauce. Still, he'd decided that he could maybe live with the idea of not killing Jack slowly and painfully now.
As Jack turned to look directly at him Ianto found words coming out of his mouth as though someone else had put them there. Maybe it was Owen's earlier jibe, but suddenly he realised there was something he'd rather be doing than cleaning up, making coffee and going home to an empty flat. Later, as his finger pressed that button on the top and Jack pressed his naked, sweat-drenched body against Ianto's, he thought he'd probably call that a good decision if anyone asked. Somehow what was left of that anger and hate had twisted into a sadistic edge that was so much more fun than bitterness was, and maybe he shouldn't complain because he didn't think his head would ever have found this place any other way. Jack seemed to like it anyway, and Ianto has to admit as he surveys the sleeping form beside him that he can't remember Jack sleeping for so long in all the time he's known him.
Part 2 is here