TW: Making Amends, chapter 1/2 [T - M]
Torchwood - Making Amends
Fandom:
Torchwood
Title:
Making Amends (chapter 1)
In which Ianto is brassed off, Jack is confused and Tosh is clever.
Author:
lt_indigo
Pairing(s):
Jack/Ianto
Warning(s):
T (this chapter)
Disclamer:
If I owned this, not only would Ianto not be bloody dead, but I would not be posting to LJ; I would be making money from this.
Word count:
1,200
Author's note:
Is it actually possible to do angsty fluff or fluffy angst? Because I think I've pulled it off. Possibly.
This is badly_knitted's fault. She gave me the prompt, whether she intended to or not. I'm not quite sure it's what she was expecting.
Jack was getting frustrated. Not since he had landed in the nineteenth century had anyone shown an immunity to his pheromones. Not that Ianto was actually immune; he just knew how to cope with being around them, and how to limit their effects on him. Not even Jack’s wife, or Estelle had figured that out.
Granted, Ianto normally employed his powers for good, to completely overwhelm Jack and take control in the bedroom. This was something that Jack approved of. A lot, if truth be told. Currently, however, Jack was getting the cold shoulder. He wasn’t precisely sure what he had done to deserve such treatment, and Tosh wasn’t telling either. Normally he could rely on Tosh for such things, because Ianto always went to her with his problems, but this time she had been short with him:
“If you don’t know, then perhaps you don’t deserve him.”
He had stopped asking her at that point. He also didn’t want to push Ianto, because he hadn’t been relegated to the decaf just yet, and he was canny enough about his caffeine addiction to realise that it would be a very bad thing indeed. Sometimes he wondered if Ianto had deliberately gotten them all hooked just so that he could pull the decaf punishment out. Then he remembered that he had been an addict long before Ianto had come into his life, just that he had always visited one of the coffee chains on the Quay. Starbucks, Costa and Caffé Nero had all lost valuable customers in Torchwood (depending on who was buying) the day Ianto Jones had joined the team. He knew he hadn’t forgotten Ianto’s birthday (because he had some very vivid memories of being unwrapped and played with that night), and he had given Ianto plenty of space to brood on the anniversary of the Battle of Canary Wharf. He was sure Ianto knew the date they had first slept together, but was also pretty sure that it wasn’t classed as an anniversary because of the circumstances. Ah…
Fuck. Two days ago had been the anniversary of the day the Cyberman had terrorised Torchwood Three. The day Ianto probably still considered to be the one Lisa died, even though he would vehemently deny it. The anniversary of the day Jack had pointed a gun at Ianto’s head, and meant it. The day Ianto’s poor decisions had gotten two innocent people killed.
Jack knew he was a complete arse on occasions. This was one of them, but he hadn’t done it on purpose: he genuinely hadn’t realised. Perhaps that did make him an arse, simply because he hadn’t realised. Instead, he had tried to seduce Ianto that night, talk him into bed before the others had even left for the night. In fact, as he recalled, he had proposed that they start there and then, in Jack’s glass-walled office, with Ianto bent over the desk. No wonder he had reacted the way he had, him and his eidetic memory. How had Jack not even noticed how off Ianto had been that day? Thinking back, it was obvious; he had been quiet, ruthlessly efficient, buried in OCD overdrive. Jack knew, he knew that was a sign that something was not right with his lover, when Ianto’s normally adorable obsessive-compulsive tendencies got the better of him and he turned into a total neat-freak.
There was only one person to talk to.
.oOo.
“Is it even possible to make it up to him this time?”
Tosh didn’t even look up from her work. “So you’ve worked it out? No, probably not.”
“Tosh?”
The tiny, pathetic little whine, the plea in Jack’s voice caught her attention more than any actual words could have done. She turned to find him looking genuinely contrite, and she knew him well enough to know that it was because he had unintentionally hurt the man he loved rather than he wasn’t getting laid because of it. She sighed and took her glasses off, placing them beside her computer carefully.
“I’m not the one you should be talking to,” she said, a lot more compassionately than before.
Jack shrugged helplessly. Tosh realised why he had come to her instead, to try and make peace with Ianto: she could smell the spicy tang of his pheromones in the air. Ianto had been very forthcoming about the topic of Jack’s pheromones, and was aware that he generally had at least some control over how potent they were, but that control could be lost. She appreciated the fact that Jack had always been careful around her, given her past, so that she wouldn’t get swept up in the lust that Ianto had described to her. It meant, though, that she didn’t have a lot of resistance to them.
Bless him, he seemed to realise that, and backed off.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head to clear it, and adopted Ianto’s trick of breathing through her mouth to lessen the effect. “It’s not your fault. I know it’s not really considered to be romantic, but have you thought about texting him, or calling him to talk it over? Ianto knows you well enough that he’ll realise why you sometimes want to talk that way.”
He looked embarrassed. “We’re not really good at talking.”
She smiled indulgently. “Maybe he’ll appreciate the effort of you trying even more, then.”
.oOo.
‘I’m sorry. Can we talk? I’ll phone you.’
Ianto wasn’t quite sure what to make of the text. Jack never apologised unless he meant it, so he had at least realised what he had done to deserve the last two days of enforced abstinence. Ianto knew that was hard on him; Jack thrived on even just a simple touch, and Ianto had denied him everything, had avoided even being in the same room as him. Jack had slept on the couch the first night, and last night had gotten the hint and stayed at the Hub.
Ianto didn’t enjoy this any more than Jack did, but Jack sometimes forgot about real things, things that mattered to Ianto. Things that hurt Ianto. For such a sexual being, he really was quite rubbish at being in an actual relationship. If that was indeed what they had. Tosh seemed to think so, but Ianto couldn’t define it (even if Jack sleeping on the couch was scarily domestic). It had only been a year since Lisa, and Ianto had woken up that morning feeling guilty that he had moved on so quickly, that he was happy in someone else’s bed. And he was. Ianto had long-since realised that he had been fooling himself about sex with Jack only being about distracting him from Lisa; even with Jack’s pheromones, he had loved every single moment of being with Jack, had hated himself for loving it for too long. Jack had always made him feel special, cared for. Even in the days immediately after Lisa, Jack had taken care of him, had even tried to convince Ianto that sex wasn’t a good idea. He tried to be a better man, he really did. Perhaps Ianto should let him.
The phone in his hand rang, displaying Jack’s name. Ianto didn’t hesitate to answer it.
Chapter Two (MA rated - NSFW)