What Cannot Be Expressed: Vanilla Twilight
What Cannot Be Expressed
"Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul."
~ Anon.
(See the Masterlist)
Title: Vanilla Twilight
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness, Jack/Ianto.
Warnings: Heavily implied M/M relationship and some swears.
Spoilers: Set between Series 1 and 2
Summary: Losing Jack is like a dull ache gnawing at Ianto's stomach; but, even though he's gone, Ianto can feel him in the starlight...
A/N: This is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. It is by a band called Owl City, and I greatly recommend that you go and find it on YouTube, if only so you can have the same reaction to the lyrics as I do. I've never written anything set between Series 1 and 2 before, so this is a venture into the unknown for me.
Vanilla Twilight
"The silence isn't so bad, till I look at my hands and feel sad, 'cause the spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly…"
Click to viewThere is something incredibly revealing about starlight. Whilst the sun provides an endless blanket of light, starlight is more of a spotlight. It is musky, understated.
The thing about starlight is that it also reveals the shadows, and it is the shadows that truly define a person.
That's why Ianto often left the curtains of his flat open at night. As much as the sun was bright, it was also oppressive - it blinded with its intensity and crushed with its all-consuming glare. He loved the gentle shadow of the starlight, loved the feeling that finally he was being laid bear, open, honest and yet not vulnerable. The grey-ish glow creeping through his windows soothed him, indicating that there was more out there than this tiny flat, in this plastic town, in this crumbling world.
Sprawled fully-clothed on his bed, Ianto cocked his head towards the gentle light sneaking through the glass. He had lost track of the amount of time he had spent staring at the ceiling, counting the flecks of cracked plaster and paint that he had never gotten around to fixing. It had happened a lot, this whole lying-awake business, since Jack had run away; focusing instead on the starlight making its way into his room was an adequate way of dulling whatever pain he was feeling.
It was an odd sort of pain, more like a dull ache contracting in his stomach, taking him by surprise when he was least expecting it. When he had lost Lisa - he still struggled to say the ominous word: died - the pain had been an onslaught of agony tearing into him, as though someone had taken hold of his heart and was squeezing it tightly in their palm. He had felt it in every inch of himself, each cell shrieking with the grief that was tearing his mind and his body apart.
This was different. Maybe, in a way, it was harder.
At least after Lisa, he had known absolutely what it was he was missing. He had known what the pain meant, what it was, why he was feeling it. This was such an alien feeling to him, as if someone had cut a small hole in the pit of his stomach - he could feel the absence and he did not know how to fill it. It was so discreet, so hidden, that on a busy day he could ignore it, put it to the back of his mind as he carried on with the filing, organising and coffee-making that kept Torchwood's head above the water.
But it was guaranteed to sneak up on him, pouncing like some sort of snarling creature when he was least expecting it to happen. These were the times when his stomach would cramp, his muscles would clench, and his brain would scream at him that something, somewhere, was hurting. The first time it had happened, a few days after they had seen the footage of Jack sprinting towards that familiar blue box, it had crippled him; forced him to clutch at his stomach and steady his breathing, fingers scrunching up the yellowed documents he had been trying to sort.
It had passed as suddenly as it had arrived, but it had left him confused.
Now, three months after Jack's departure, he had taught himself to steady his reaction to the attacks; but that did not mean they had alleviated.
To be perfectly honest, there wasn't much for Ianto to mourn. He and Jack had never made any promises to each other, no pacts of fidelity and exclusiveness - perhaps it had gone deeper than just a shag, but there was no reason for Ianto to feel any real loss. He had, at the beginning, tried to tell himself that this was just the natural gut reaction to losing a friend, a boss, someone who had, there was no doubt, helped pull him out of the pathetic pit he had dug for himself following Lisa.
But it went deeper than that.
There was some feeling there, he could tell that now. He felt comfortable in his mind labelling Jack as his lover rather than his boss, his friend, his fuck-buddy. And he was in no doubt that whatever underlying emotions had overtaken the sex, Jack had felt them too - you didn't kiss a fuck-buddy in front of your friends, especially not that damned emotionally. He had no real need to feel abandoned in that sense, no need to feel that he'd lost something.
After all, he knew where Jack was. You didn't work at Torchwood One without knowing of the Doctor. As a Junior Researcher, and an experienced charmer, he had managed to gain access to some of the more secure archives, meaning that he also knew of Jack's somewhat infamous history surrounding the elusive figure with the changing face.
Ianto clenched his hands against the bedclothes, the smooth yet ragged open-close action reminding him of that absence that he was still finding it difficult to explain. In moments like these, when tiredness dulled his mind, he imagined calloused fingers slipping between his own, gripping tightly and reassuringly against his own skin. He didn't need it - but it was nice. He closed his eyes from the glare of the starlight, imagining those fingers creeping up his arm, along his shoulder, running softly yet tantalisingly through his hair...
Sex with Jack had always held an intimacy that none of the other one-night stands or casual shags he'd had before had invoked. The immortal was ultimately a sensual being, revelling in touch and connection, even if it was just for one night. It was a connection that Ianto had needed after fighting against human interaction for so long. With his eyes closed, Ianto felt that touch ghosting over him; rough fingertips, soft lips, ravenous tongue, searching out and mapping every inch of him.
Licking his lips and almost tasting Jack's breath on his face, Ianto forced his eyes open once again. The starlight was still streaking steadily and constantly through his window, creating strange shadows across his haphazardly arranged limbs. With the spectral-feel of Jack's fingers still ghosting over the skin between his own digits, Ianto felt a heady mix of sadness and happiness seep into his already foggy brain.
Jack was out there. Even if he never came back, he was always there in the starlight shining through his bedroom window. And, in the split second before his drooping consciousness closed off completely, Ianto felt a small smile quirk at the corner of his mouth.
I can live with that.
I don't why I'm quite so inspired at the minute. Maybe it's the fact that I now have a backbone to the one-shots I'm doing, basing them on the songs, and it's knowing that I now have it as a series that is encouraging me to finish them. Whatever it is, it's incredibly fulfilling.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. If you are lurking out there, I'd love it if you left me a review, as it always spurs me on to hear your feedback and suggestions. Remember, if you have any suggestions for songs I could use, don't hesitate to let me know. As always, thank you for reading my vents!