[fic] torchwood - in love, but not at peace - pg13 - jack/ianto
Guys, I wrote fic. Um, Jack/Ianto fic. Gwen is barely in it.
I know, guys. I'm scared too.
Anyway, happy my birthday to you!
***
Title: In Love, But Not At Peace
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~5000
Summary: In which a morning routine is established, groceries are purchased, and Ianto realizes his relationship with Jack has changed. And he's okay with that.
Notes: So, I guess this is my first Jack/Ianto fic. Who knew! Title and... emotional arc come from the Dar Williams' song "In Love, But Not At Peace." (download) A MILLION THANKS to solsticezero who not only worked beta magic, but answered my neurotic questions.
Cause you know life is hard, but now you also know your mind,
So now you're going out to love, but on your own side this time
Where you still think of famine, and you'll still dig up train fare
And you won't mind the wrinkles cause you'll know how they got there
In love but not at peace
--"In Love, But Not At Peace," Dar Williams
***
Jack keeps an old wind-up alarm clock in his quarters, but it hasn't worked for as long as Ianto has known him. It sits on the small table next to the bed, an up-ended box, really, along with a glass of water and a book and, this morning, Ianto's stopwatch, cuff links, and wristwatch.
Ianto is staring at the collection of items long before Jack's wrist strap beeps at six-thirty.
"Can't sleep?" Jack asks, and Ianto presses his nose into Jack's chest in reply.
"It's bloody freezing down here," he says. He rubs his thumb over Jack's breastbone, right over the place where his words, his breath, have made Jack's skin warm and moist.
"Sorry," Jack says, only flinching a little when Ianto shoves his freezing toes in between Jack's calves. "I didn't realize it would take so long to answer that distress call. I would have sent you home without me if I'd known."
"S'fine," Ianto says, even though he really should be irritated that he spent half the night nodding off on the couch, waiting for Jack to return, and the rest of the night tossing and turning in Jack's laughably small bed.
He's not, though. Not even a little. Well, no, there's irritation, sure, at the lingering pain behind his eyes that comes from too little sleep, but that will be eased with the first cup of coffee, which he and Jack will drink while standing in front of the coffee maker, willing it to brew faster and leaning against each other, not talking while they share a slice of toast or container of yogurt or whatever they can find in the tiny Torchwood refrigerator.
Ianto doesn't know when it happened, when this became a morning routine, when waking up next to Jack became mundane and expected, and on this morning, no different than any other, he's suddenly bowled over by that fact.
He looks up at Jack, a deep worry line in his forehead.
"Hey," Jack says. "What's up?"
Jack is concerned, which is to be expected, really, because most mornings don't start with Ianto staring at him in shock, even mornings when they wake up in Jack's too cramped bed with no heat, because Jack didn't realize they'd be staying and didn't think to turn it on.
Ianto smooths his expression and offers Jack a tired smile.
"Nothing," he says, and squeezes Jack's hip. "Headache."
"You're an addict," Jack says fondly.
"And you're not?"
"I'm not the one with withdrawal headaches," Jack points out, and somehow nudges Ianto with his whole body. "Breakfast?"
Ianto nods and slides off the bed, taking the quilt with him and wrapping it around his shoulders. He turns to look around Jack's small room and hears Jack stretching and waking up behind him. He looks at the broken clock next to his belongings, at the wardrobe full of clothes that haven't changed since the 1940s and the aging photographs on the walls, photographs of people Jack didn't even know. He looks at the industrial door that leads to the en suite and the pile of boots and shoes haphazardly left on the floor.
He looks at it all like he's seeing it for the first time. He looks at it the way he didn't get a chance to look at it the first nervous night he let Jack lead him down here, the night he was more concerned with how he looked than how the room looked.
He turns and looks back at Jack, who's giving him a half smile, trying to puzzle him out.
They stare at each other for a long moment.
"Coffee?" Jack finally asks, and Ianto nods decisively, leading the way up the ladder and into Jack's office.
He feels Jack behind him the entire way, and wonders when that, too, became routine.
***
Ianto feels guilty, sometimes, for getting frustrated with Gwen.
He loves Gwen, he truly does, with all of his heart and soul. Gwen is more of a sister than his blood sister has ever been. Gwen understands him in a way that he doubts anyone else ever has, save maybe Jack. Gwen can look at him and read his mood and know exactly what he needs and exactly what he wants.
But Gwen is so, so human and so, so naive and Owen and Tosh have been gone for weeks, now, but when Gwen sees one of Tosh's files spill all over the Hub floor, she bursts into loud, messy tears, and the first thing Ianto thinks is, Oh god, not again.
It's a terrible thing to think and he knows that, even as he's thinking it, even as he's cleaning up the thick stack of papers covered with Tosh's illegible scrawl, even as Jack's got an arm around Gwen's shoulders and is herding her over to the couch. It's not Gwen's fault she's not used to this. It's not Gwen's fault that he is.
He doesn't think he'd even want to go back to the way it was before, is the hell of it. He doesn't know if he was ever as innocent as Gwen, he doubts it, really, but he doesn't know that he'd want to go back to the easy arrogance of his life pre-Canary Wharf. It hurts, yes, knowing his own limitations, knowing how fucking hard it is just to live your life, but at least he knows now. He's seen the worst and knowing that he was able to survive it is... comforting.
He misses them, too. He misses feeling like a team and seeing Tosh smile and forcing a laugh out of Owen. But he likes feeling like a family and getting to know Rhys and sharing this easy companionship with Jack. He wouldn't trade Tosh and Owen for these things, but he appreciates that if he had to lose two friends, these are acceptable consequences.
He doesn't say this to Gwen, or even to Jack. He knows that Gwen is on her own journey and that Jack probably learned these things a long time ago. He thinks there are places you go in life, emotional voyages you need to take yourself. He knows, at the very least, that these are revelations that he'd rather keep to himself. These are the things that make him who he is now, as opposed to who he was when Jack and Gwen washed blood off his hands and sedated him five feet away from the body of his late girlfriend.
Everything comes with a price, but that doesn't mean the end result isn't worth it.
He puts Tosh's files away and makes Gwen a cup of tea. She curls around him when he hands it to her, and he allows the contact, another concession in the wake of their friends' deaths. Jack stretches his arm around the back of the sofa until it rests on Ianto's shoulder, until Gwen is cocooned between them. They look at each other, he and Jack, and an understanding passes between them, turning and twisting in the space over Gwen's head.
Jack's fingers stroke his neck and Ianto listens to the last of Gwen's hiccups echo through the silence of the Hub.
***
The rift ebbs and flows, a quiet tide of otherworldly happenings and disappearances that are all too real. Ianto knows better than to ascribe it sentience, but sometimes he wonders if it can tell they're mourning. In the first days after Jack's disappearance with the Doctor, it remained unnaturally quiet as they got their bearings. After Grey and Hart and Tosh and Owen, it allowed time for them to get the city back together and then eased them into full activity, a slow scattering of Weevils building until they were used to working in the field with a smaller team.
On this day when Ianto's skin suddenly feels like it fits for the first time in years, when everything seems to have taken on quality that makes it all somehow sharper, the predictors are quiet and Jack sends Gwen home early.
"We need to go to the shops," Ianto tells him as he pulls on his coat. It doesn't occur to him that he's assumed that Jack will be returning with him. Jack returns to Ianto's flat nearly every night. It's a routine, like toast-at-the-coffee-maker, like wrist-strap-instead-of-alarm-clock.
"We're out of creamer," Jack says, nodding as he powers down his computer.
"And jam and eggs and dish soap," Ianto says. Which, of course, Jack hasn't noticed. Jack notices the creamer because Jack uses the creamer. Jack prefers his toast dry, won't eat eggs in the morning, and never does the washing up.
Ianto thinks these things with fondness. He's long since come to terms with Jack's selective memory, and he's happy enough that Jack remembers the creamer that he doesn't bother to be annoyed that he forgets the rest.
Jack fidgets on the way to the shops and proclaims, firmly, that he's not going to wait in the car while Ianto is shopping, that it'll go faster if he helps, that he's not a child and can certainly be trusted to fetch groceries, and that he bets none of those cashiers from the last time are even working today, anyway.
Ianto relents. Another routine.
He sends Jack off for creamer and dish soap and finds himself comparing jam brands. He's trying to remember what size he bought last time when he hears, "Oh my word, Ianto Jones, is that you?"
He doesn't have to turn around to know the source of the voice. You don't live next door to a girl for seventeen years and forget what her voice sounds like. You don't forget the voice of the first girl to pull you behind the school and push you against the maintenance shed and then push her lips against yours.
"Bryn?" he says, though it's not a question. How could it be, with all that history?
"Oh, Ianto!" Bryn says, clearly thrilled. "I didn't know you were back in town again! How are you, love? How's Lisa?"
Ianto can't hide the flinch. Bryn Owens would remember the name of a girl she met once for five seconds at her own wedding.
"I'm... fine," he says. "But. Lisa. Um."
This is a new situation. Most of the people who he knew who knew Lisa died when Torchwood Tower fell. The rest were notified in the aftermath of the battle. He's never had to tell someone himself.
"Lisa died," he says quietly.
Lisa died twice. Lisa turned into a monster. Lisa would have destroyed them all. But those aren't things he can say to a polite girl who sent him Christmas cards every year, even after he skipped town and turned his back on his old life.
"Oh, Ianto," she says again, her voice hushed. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't--"
"It's fine," he says quickly. "It was a long time ago." Not really, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to and that has to count for something. "I'm--"
He means to tell her he's coping. He may even mean to tell her he's moved on, but Jack does it for him when he takes that moment to reappear, holding the proper type of dish soap and store-brand creamer.
"Look," he says, oblivious to Bryn, oblivious to everything but his own little world, just as he always is, "I don't taste a difference between this kind and your kind and since it's for the flat and I'm the only one who'll be using it, why don't we just get this? It's two quid cheaper."
Ianto's torn between lecturing Jack on quality purchases and explaining Jack to Bryn, but he doesn't know what there is to explain. He wonders what she could possibly be thinking about this brash, older, gorgeous, American man who is obviously spending time at Ianto's flat. He wonders what he would think in her place, and nearly misses the way both she and Jack are staring at him expectantly.
"It's worth the extra two quid, but put it in the basket, it's your funeral," Ianto says absently, his eyes flicking back to Bryn. Jack and Bryn are eyeing each other, now, and Ianto manages to say, "Jack, this is Bryn Owens. She lived next door when we were kids. Bryn, this is--"
He falters. His boss? His boyfriend?
"Jack," he says decisively.
Jack puts the creamer and soap in Ianto's basket, and for once in his life does not leer or waggle his eyebrows or make a lewd comment. He smiles his Captain Jack Harkness Smile and shakes her hand and says, "Nice to meet you," but he doesn't even flirt and Ianto wonders if he's feeling okay.
"Nice to meet you too," Bryn says, and she smiles back, cheeks still pink, because even Jack's tamest smile is enough to bring out a blush.
"So," Jack says, "you grew up with Ianto? I bet you've got some stories to share." There are about two feet of distance between him and Jack. Jack's not touching him, not even leaning into Ianto's space, but Ianto has never felt so possessed by him.
No. That's not it. He's never felt it was so obvious that he possessed Jack.
"Oh, plenty," Bryn says, laughing. "You two should come round ours for dinner some time. Gav would love to see Ianto again, I reckon, and I have childhood pictures, too."
"Well, with an offer like that, how can I resist?" Jack says, winking. Bryn giggles again. "Ianto, give her your card."
Ianto blinks at Jack and then reaches automatically into his pocket and pulls out a business card. It just lists his name and his mobile. He gives them to nurses in A&E and beat cops who have an eye for strange happenings. He never imagined giving one to his first girlfriend at Jack's behest. He's suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that there's no rank, no office, no profession listed on it. He wonders if Bryn notices, if she thinks he's Jack's kept man. He wonders if he should have introduced Jack as his boss after all. He wonders when things like this started to matter, if they really matter at all. Is he ascribing too much meaning to his business card?
It's being out in the real world with Jack that's doing this to him. In their bubble of Torchwood and Ianto's flat and Gwen's flat, at the local pub and the restaurants they like and the businesses they frequent, it's just accepted that Jack and Ianto are Jack and Ianto. He's never had to explain it. Now, confronted with someone from his past, someone who hasn't watched his relationship with Jack evolve, who hasn't seen him in years, he finds himself scrambling to explain himself.
His eyes flick to Jack, to their shared grocery basket, and he wonders if maybe some things speak for themselves.
"We'll get together soon, yeah?" Bryn asks. She steps forward and kisses his cheek. "I'm really so sorry to hear about Lisa. But I'm glad you're happy." She turns to Jack and says, "It was lovely to meet you, Jack. I'll see you soon, I'm sure!"
She waves cheerfully and disappears around the corner into the diary section. Ianto stares after her.
"She seemed much too nice for the sullen bad boy I've heard so much about," Jack says with a sly smile, leading Ianto towards the check-out with a hand at the small of his back.
"You've heard nothing," Ianto says absently. "You snoop."
"Same difference," Jack says dismissively. He loads their purchases onto the belt and takes the basket from Ianto, stowing it underneath on the messy pile already accumulated. "Anyway, the point is, it would be just like you to have a girl-next-door with a heart of gold."
"She married a boy from school," Ianto says. He pulls his wallet out and prepares to swipe his card as the bored cashier scans and bags their items and Jack shifts from foot to foot impatiently. "Gavin. Never could convince me to do what was right, even as kids. I ran off to London and she was still sending me e-mails, updating me on the neighborhood. I came back for her wedding. Brought Lisa."
"Hm," Jack says, his eyes guarded.
"Lost track of her after--after London."
He fumbles, mind blank, to remember his PIN. It takes him two tries. The cashier doesn't notice, hands him his receipt without even looking.
"We should go, if she actually calls," Jack says, taking the bags from Ianto and leading the way back out to the car. "Would you like that?"
"Would you?" Ianto asks automatically. He blushes when he realizes what he's said, embarrassed and horrified and not sure why. But Jack only shrugs.
"If it makes you happy," he says, and the hell of it is, Ianto is rather sure he actually means it.
***
The drive back to Ianto's flat is quiet but not awkward. Ianto doesn't know if it's because they've had so much practice in feigning normalcy or because they've done such epically awful things to and for each other that a trip down memory lane doesn't even rate.
Jack drives, toning down his usual heroic and law-defying maneuvers for a pleasant trip through the streets that even manages to keep to the speed limit.
Ianto thinks.
Ianto thinks about Gwen and Rhys and their marriage within Torchwood. He thinks about seeing Bryn and Gavin walk down the aisle with Lisa next to him. He thinks about London and the estate where he grew up.
He thinks about Lisa.
He thinks about Jack.
Ianto thinks his way into the flat and onto the sofa, while Jack puts away the groceries. He thinks his way into the bedroom to change his suit for tracksuit bottoms and an old t-shirt, his mind still going as he sits on the couch and lets Jack pick the program on the telly.
He's still thinking when Jack's hand settles into his hair.
"Ianto," Jack says, and it's rare enough that Jack is the one to break a silence like this, but the cadence of his voice is soft and understanding when he continues. "It's okay to want those things."
The problem is, Ianto's not entirely sure what Jack's talking about.
"What things?" he asks. He's relatively sure they're not still talking about store-brand creamer.
"Bryn's things," Jack says. "Marriage and... you know, things." He gestures, twirling his pointer finger around. Ianto doesn't know what that's supposed to signify. He doubts that Jack knows.
"I... what makes you think I want Bryn's things?" He's genuinely curious, seeing as how he's just spent the past thirty minutes realizing that it's possible he never wanted those things.
"Just...." Jack shrugs and then returns his hand to Ianto's hair. "You've been... quiet."
He has, but not in envy. In realization.
Ianto grew up without his mother, under his father's thumb. Ianto grew up being told what was going to come of him--he was going to get a respectable job in a shop or on a construction crew or somewhere in town. He was going to work hard, like he father worked, and marry a girl from the estate, like his father had, and have some children and he was damn well going to be happy with it.
He didn't understand how he was supposed to be happy with those things as an adult when they certainly didn't thrill him as a child.
He ran to London to escape his father's exceedingly low expectations, but he hadn't really escaped, had he? He'd replaced one set for another. He'd decided he'd get a posh job, marry a gorgeous, posh girl, have some kids, make a lot of money, and prove everyone back on the estate that he was better than they thought he could be.
He never stopped to think if he actually wanted those things. He never stopped to think if the point was to make himself happy or make his family unhappy.
"I loved Lisa," Ianto says, and he feels Jack stiffen beside him, but continues anyway. "I really did, but I wonder, sometimes, if things would have worked out if Canary Wharf hadn't happened." He feels Jack relax, incrementally. Ianto leans against him, eyes still on the television. "I just... have you ever done something because it was expected of you?"
Jack releases a long breath.
"Yeah," he says quietly.
"Have you ever done something because it... wasn't expected of you?"
Now Jack laughs.
"That too," he says.
Ianto closes his eyes and rests his head against Jack's shoulder. They don't talk like this. Ianto doesn't talk like this. But that doesn't meant Jack doesn't know it. That doesn't mean Ianto should be afraid to reveal the truth behind words he's never explicitly said.
That doesn't mean he isn't.
"The person I was in London," Ianto says quietly. "The person... the person I made myself be... it wasn't anything more than that. I created a persona. I imagined the person I'd like to be, imagined what he would want from life, and that's what I decided to do. Lisa, our flat, our plans... I don't know how much of that was me and how much of that was a stab in the dark at what I thought the person I wanted to be would want."
Jack's arm wraps more tightly around his shoulder. He preens a bit under the touch.
"You were willing to sacrifice the world for Lisa," Jack says softly. "You shouldn't doubt that you loved her."
"I know that," Ianto says. "And I don't. But I've loved a lot of people. I loved Bryn. But I don't still love her. Not like that. And I don't know that I would have still loved Lisa if fate hadn't intervened. I don't know that I wouldn't have begun to resent her for pulling me into the life she represented, the life I thought I wanted."
Jack pulls away from him, just slightly, but it's enough to make Ianto open his eyes.
"What are you saying?" Jack asks.
Ianto shrugs.
"Just that... I'm happy. I'm really very happy. There's death and danger and it's terrible, most of the time, but at the end of the day, I've you and Gwen and I don't want anything else. I don't want kids and marriage and a posh flat and a job I can brag about. I want this. It's messy and it's awful but it's... me."
He smiles weakly at Jack.
Jack's smile in response makes him feel warm down to his toes.
***
The Rift monitor makes an odd noise while Jack's cooking dinner, so Ianto changes into clothes more appropriate for the weather and the job and follows Jack outside to the car. They drive through the city and into the Welsh countryside, into a rain storm and into the mud. Ianto keeps his eyes on the monitors in the SUV, looking up only to comment on Jack's poor driving habits and squabble over the proper route to get to the red flare on Ianto's viewscreen.
They spend an hour chasing a slug the size of a St. Bernard through the trees and the mud, the rain creeping down the back of Ianto's jacket and then his shirt. He mentally laments the sorry state of his mud-encrusted trousers and sighs when his stomach grumbles. It's not the first time the rift has interrupted his dinner and he doubts it will be the last, but the night had been going rather well and Ianto was looking forward to ending it with a film and a beer and bed.
But even this is typical, now. He and Jack play well at being a regular couple, but this will always be a part of them. As much as he loathes washing mud and alien secretions out of his clothes, as much as he'd like a full night's sleep, there's a thrill to this, too. Darting through the underbrush two steps behind Jack, running out to save the world at a moment's notice--this is something that he needs. It's something he wouldn't give up. Not for anything.
And, yes, sometimes instead of saving the world they're just capturing a giant alien slug, but even that is amazing in its absurdity.
They fall into bed, after. They don't fuck every night, which is something Ianto is sure would surprise most anyone who knows them. They flirt outrageously whenever they get the chance and Jack can't keep his hands to himself, but sometimes they're tired and sometimes they're busy and sometimes, after the kinds of days they have, they'd really just rather crawl into bed and wait for it to be morning.
Tonight, though--tonight they fuck.
It's hard not to, after the night they've had, after the conversation they've had.
When they're both sweaty and sated and curled under the duvet, Jack's head rests on Ianto's shoulder and Jack's arm settles across Ianto's chest.
"I'm glad, you know," Jack says quietly. Ianto opens his eyes and looks down, meeting Jack's gaze in the dark of the bedroom, in the fleeting, fractured light that sneaks in from between the closed curtains. "It is awful, Torchwood. It destroys people. And as much as I'd never want that for you, it found you anyway and I'm glad that you're happy. I know it can't be... easy."
Ianto snorts, a small, tired puff of air.
"Of course it's not easy," Ianto says. "That's rather the point, isn't it? It's good that it's difficult. It means more, when it's difficult."
Jack's smile is radiant. Jack's smiles are always radiant, though, when he truly means them.
"It does," Jack agrees. "But not everyone knows that. I should have known that you would. It must be why I like you so much."
"And here I thought you liked me because of my coffee and my suits and my arse," Ianto says. He pinches Jack's arm, where it's thrown carelessly across his chest.
"Mm, also true," Jack says. "If I like you because of your coffee, maybe this is why I love you."
There are things that Ianto doesn't say, things that Ianto and Jack don't talk about. Jack lives him with, near enough, and Jack holds him when he has nightmares and Jack knows how he takes his coffee and what kind of laundry detergent he uses. These are things that Ianto accepts, the same way he accepts that he's never loved anyone the way he loves Jack, maybe because he's more jaded now or maybe because he never knows what Torchwood will bring so he's trying to cram all of his loving into the short time he has left.
Ianto is confident in these feelings, in this knowledge, but that doesn't make them any easier to vocalize.
"Might be," he agrees, peering down at Jack guilelessly and hoping Jack will accept that for what it is, for what it means.
Jack does, of course. They wouldn't have lasted this long if he couldn't read Ianto's intentions this well.
Jack leans up on one elbow and kisses Ianto long and gentle in a way that makes Ianto's stomach flutter and his ears flush. When he pulls back, he whispers in Ianto's ear, "Get some sleep." He then puts his head on Ianto's shoulder and takes his own advice. Jack needs less sleep than a regular person and Ianto's a perpetual insomniac, so they frequently pass each other in the night, but tonight, Ianto welcomes the chance to watch Jack sleep.
He turns his head and stares at the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. The numbers are green because the red lights on most alarm clocks hurt his eyes. He hasn't used the alarm in months because Jack doesn't trust it--one power outage had them late for work and ever since, Jack just sets his wrist strap, the same way he does at the Hub. The clock is just another decoration for his bedside table with the books he hasn't had time to read and whatever odds and ends he's dropped there for the moment. He spies Jack's mobile and his own cuff links, the notepad he'd shoved into his trouser pocket and a handkerchief with Jack's initials monogrammed in the corner.
None of these things are foreign in his flat any more. The time when they were seems far in the past, and even though they don't talk about things, this, their relationship, Ianto suddenly wants to catalogue when they went from sly fumbles in the office to shagging in a bed to staying the night to dating to... where they are now. He's an archivist--he can't help record them, bring order to them, even if it's only in his mind.
He wasn't lying when he told Jack he was happy, because he is, but he's also terrified all the time. He doesn't think that's a bad thing--in fact, he thinks it's a crucial, vital component to his happiness. He's relatively sure that the day he stops being terrified will be the day he falls out of love with Jack, and since he's still falling a bit more in love with him every day, he doesn't see the fear stopping any time soon.
It's not just fear for himself--he's afraid for Gwen. He's afraid for what Jack will go through when he's gone. He's afraid that he won't be enough for Jack or that Jack will go away again or that something worse than death will happen to Jack. He's really, truly, deathly afraid that tomorrow he'll be killed by an alien or a cannibal or a lorry and Jack will have to come back to the flat by himself, go back to the Hub by himself, go back to Torchwood by himself. He doesn't really like the idea of Jack with other people and he's not ashamed to admit it. But what he really hates is the idea of Jack alone.
He's afraid that one day he'll stop being afraid, and as long as he has that fear riding low in his belly and deep in the back of his mind, he thinks he'll be okay.
So he lets his eyes slip from the clock on the bedside table to the sight of Jack's tousled hair on his chest and closes his eyes. He listens to the sounds of Cardiff and the rumble of Jack's deep breathing and he lets himself sleep.
I know, guys. I'm scared too.
Anyway, happy my birthday to you!
***
Title: In Love, But Not At Peace
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~5000
Summary: In which a morning routine is established, groceries are purchased, and Ianto realizes his relationship with Jack has changed. And he's okay with that.
Notes: So, I guess this is my first Jack/Ianto fic. Who knew! Title and... emotional arc come from the Dar Williams' song "In Love, But Not At Peace." (download) A MILLION THANKS to solsticezero who not only worked beta magic, but answered my neurotic questions.
Cause you know life is hard, but now you also know your mind,
So now you're going out to love, but on your own side this time
Where you still think of famine, and you'll still dig up train fare
And you won't mind the wrinkles cause you'll know how they got there
In love but not at peace
--"In Love, But Not At Peace," Dar Williams
***
Jack keeps an old wind-up alarm clock in his quarters, but it hasn't worked for as long as Ianto has known him. It sits on the small table next to the bed, an up-ended box, really, along with a glass of water and a book and, this morning, Ianto's stopwatch, cuff links, and wristwatch.
Ianto is staring at the collection of items long before Jack's wrist strap beeps at six-thirty.
"Can't sleep?" Jack asks, and Ianto presses his nose into Jack's chest in reply.
"It's bloody freezing down here," he says. He rubs his thumb over Jack's breastbone, right over the place where his words, his breath, have made Jack's skin warm and moist.
"Sorry," Jack says, only flinching a little when Ianto shoves his freezing toes in between Jack's calves. "I didn't realize it would take so long to answer that distress call. I would have sent you home without me if I'd known."
"S'fine," Ianto says, even though he really should be irritated that he spent half the night nodding off on the couch, waiting for Jack to return, and the rest of the night tossing and turning in Jack's laughably small bed.
He's not, though. Not even a little. Well, no, there's irritation, sure, at the lingering pain behind his eyes that comes from too little sleep, but that will be eased with the first cup of coffee, which he and Jack will drink while standing in front of the coffee maker, willing it to brew faster and leaning against each other, not talking while they share a slice of toast or container of yogurt or whatever they can find in the tiny Torchwood refrigerator.
Ianto doesn't know when it happened, when this became a morning routine, when waking up next to Jack became mundane and expected, and on this morning, no different than any other, he's suddenly bowled over by that fact.
He looks up at Jack, a deep worry line in his forehead.
"Hey," Jack says. "What's up?"
Jack is concerned, which is to be expected, really, because most mornings don't start with Ianto staring at him in shock, even mornings when they wake up in Jack's too cramped bed with no heat, because Jack didn't realize they'd be staying and didn't think to turn it on.
Ianto smooths his expression and offers Jack a tired smile.
"Nothing," he says, and squeezes Jack's hip. "Headache."
"You're an addict," Jack says fondly.
"And you're not?"
"I'm not the one with withdrawal headaches," Jack points out, and somehow nudges Ianto with his whole body. "Breakfast?"
Ianto nods and slides off the bed, taking the quilt with him and wrapping it around his shoulders. He turns to look around Jack's small room and hears Jack stretching and waking up behind him. He looks at the broken clock next to his belongings, at the wardrobe full of clothes that haven't changed since the 1940s and the aging photographs on the walls, photographs of people Jack didn't even know. He looks at the industrial door that leads to the en suite and the pile of boots and shoes haphazardly left on the floor.
He looks at it all like he's seeing it for the first time. He looks at it the way he didn't get a chance to look at it the first nervous night he let Jack lead him down here, the night he was more concerned with how he looked than how the room looked.
He turns and looks back at Jack, who's giving him a half smile, trying to puzzle him out.
They stare at each other for a long moment.
"Coffee?" Jack finally asks, and Ianto nods decisively, leading the way up the ladder and into Jack's office.
He feels Jack behind him the entire way, and wonders when that, too, became routine.
***
Ianto feels guilty, sometimes, for getting frustrated with Gwen.
He loves Gwen, he truly does, with all of his heart and soul. Gwen is more of a sister than his blood sister has ever been. Gwen understands him in a way that he doubts anyone else ever has, save maybe Jack. Gwen can look at him and read his mood and know exactly what he needs and exactly what he wants.
But Gwen is so, so human and so, so naive and Owen and Tosh have been gone for weeks, now, but when Gwen sees one of Tosh's files spill all over the Hub floor, she bursts into loud, messy tears, and the first thing Ianto thinks is, Oh god, not again.
It's a terrible thing to think and he knows that, even as he's thinking it, even as he's cleaning up the thick stack of papers covered with Tosh's illegible scrawl, even as Jack's got an arm around Gwen's shoulders and is herding her over to the couch. It's not Gwen's fault she's not used to this. It's not Gwen's fault that he is.
He doesn't think he'd even want to go back to the way it was before, is the hell of it. He doesn't know if he was ever as innocent as Gwen, he doubts it, really, but he doesn't know that he'd want to go back to the easy arrogance of his life pre-Canary Wharf. It hurts, yes, knowing his own limitations, knowing how fucking hard it is just to live your life, but at least he knows now. He's seen the worst and knowing that he was able to survive it is... comforting.
He misses them, too. He misses feeling like a team and seeing Tosh smile and forcing a laugh out of Owen. But he likes feeling like a family and getting to know Rhys and sharing this easy companionship with Jack. He wouldn't trade Tosh and Owen for these things, but he appreciates that if he had to lose two friends, these are acceptable consequences.
He doesn't say this to Gwen, or even to Jack. He knows that Gwen is on her own journey and that Jack probably learned these things a long time ago. He thinks there are places you go in life, emotional voyages you need to take yourself. He knows, at the very least, that these are revelations that he'd rather keep to himself. These are the things that make him who he is now, as opposed to who he was when Jack and Gwen washed blood off his hands and sedated him five feet away from the body of his late girlfriend.
Everything comes with a price, but that doesn't mean the end result isn't worth it.
He puts Tosh's files away and makes Gwen a cup of tea. She curls around him when he hands it to her, and he allows the contact, another concession in the wake of their friends' deaths. Jack stretches his arm around the back of the sofa until it rests on Ianto's shoulder, until Gwen is cocooned between them. They look at each other, he and Jack, and an understanding passes between them, turning and twisting in the space over Gwen's head.
Jack's fingers stroke his neck and Ianto listens to the last of Gwen's hiccups echo through the silence of the Hub.
***
The rift ebbs and flows, a quiet tide of otherworldly happenings and disappearances that are all too real. Ianto knows better than to ascribe it sentience, but sometimes he wonders if it can tell they're mourning. In the first days after Jack's disappearance with the Doctor, it remained unnaturally quiet as they got their bearings. After Grey and Hart and Tosh and Owen, it allowed time for them to get the city back together and then eased them into full activity, a slow scattering of Weevils building until they were used to working in the field with a smaller team.
On this day when Ianto's skin suddenly feels like it fits for the first time in years, when everything seems to have taken on quality that makes it all somehow sharper, the predictors are quiet and Jack sends Gwen home early.
"We need to go to the shops," Ianto tells him as he pulls on his coat. It doesn't occur to him that he's assumed that Jack will be returning with him. Jack returns to Ianto's flat nearly every night. It's a routine, like toast-at-the-coffee-maker, like wrist-strap-instead-of-alarm-clock.
"We're out of creamer," Jack says, nodding as he powers down his computer.
"And jam and eggs and dish soap," Ianto says. Which, of course, Jack hasn't noticed. Jack notices the creamer because Jack uses the creamer. Jack prefers his toast dry, won't eat eggs in the morning, and never does the washing up.
Ianto thinks these things with fondness. He's long since come to terms with Jack's selective memory, and he's happy enough that Jack remembers the creamer that he doesn't bother to be annoyed that he forgets the rest.
Jack fidgets on the way to the shops and proclaims, firmly, that he's not going to wait in the car while Ianto is shopping, that it'll go faster if he helps, that he's not a child and can certainly be trusted to fetch groceries, and that he bets none of those cashiers from the last time are even working today, anyway.
Ianto relents. Another routine.
He sends Jack off for creamer and dish soap and finds himself comparing jam brands. He's trying to remember what size he bought last time when he hears, "Oh my word, Ianto Jones, is that you?"
He doesn't have to turn around to know the source of the voice. You don't live next door to a girl for seventeen years and forget what her voice sounds like. You don't forget the voice of the first girl to pull you behind the school and push you against the maintenance shed and then push her lips against yours.
"Bryn?" he says, though it's not a question. How could it be, with all that history?
"Oh, Ianto!" Bryn says, clearly thrilled. "I didn't know you were back in town again! How are you, love? How's Lisa?"
Ianto can't hide the flinch. Bryn Owens would remember the name of a girl she met once for five seconds at her own wedding.
"I'm... fine," he says. "But. Lisa. Um."
This is a new situation. Most of the people who he knew who knew Lisa died when Torchwood Tower fell. The rest were notified in the aftermath of the battle. He's never had to tell someone himself.
"Lisa died," he says quietly.
Lisa died twice. Lisa turned into a monster. Lisa would have destroyed them all. But those aren't things he can say to a polite girl who sent him Christmas cards every year, even after he skipped town and turned his back on his old life.
"Oh, Ianto," she says again, her voice hushed. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't--"
"It's fine," he says quickly. "It was a long time ago." Not really, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to and that has to count for something. "I'm--"
He means to tell her he's coping. He may even mean to tell her he's moved on, but Jack does it for him when he takes that moment to reappear, holding the proper type of dish soap and store-brand creamer.
"Look," he says, oblivious to Bryn, oblivious to everything but his own little world, just as he always is, "I don't taste a difference between this kind and your kind and since it's for the flat and I'm the only one who'll be using it, why don't we just get this? It's two quid cheaper."
Ianto's torn between lecturing Jack on quality purchases and explaining Jack to Bryn, but he doesn't know what there is to explain. He wonders what she could possibly be thinking about this brash, older, gorgeous, American man who is obviously spending time at Ianto's flat. He wonders what he would think in her place, and nearly misses the way both she and Jack are staring at him expectantly.
"It's worth the extra two quid, but put it in the basket, it's your funeral," Ianto says absently, his eyes flicking back to Bryn. Jack and Bryn are eyeing each other, now, and Ianto manages to say, "Jack, this is Bryn Owens. She lived next door when we were kids. Bryn, this is--"
He falters. His boss? His boyfriend?
"Jack," he says decisively.
Jack puts the creamer and soap in Ianto's basket, and for once in his life does not leer or waggle his eyebrows or make a lewd comment. He smiles his Captain Jack Harkness Smile and shakes her hand and says, "Nice to meet you," but he doesn't even flirt and Ianto wonders if he's feeling okay.
"Nice to meet you too," Bryn says, and she smiles back, cheeks still pink, because even Jack's tamest smile is enough to bring out a blush.
"So," Jack says, "you grew up with Ianto? I bet you've got some stories to share." There are about two feet of distance between him and Jack. Jack's not touching him, not even leaning into Ianto's space, but Ianto has never felt so possessed by him.
No. That's not it. He's never felt it was so obvious that he possessed Jack.
"Oh, plenty," Bryn says, laughing. "You two should come round ours for dinner some time. Gav would love to see Ianto again, I reckon, and I have childhood pictures, too."
"Well, with an offer like that, how can I resist?" Jack says, winking. Bryn giggles again. "Ianto, give her your card."
Ianto blinks at Jack and then reaches automatically into his pocket and pulls out a business card. It just lists his name and his mobile. He gives them to nurses in A&E and beat cops who have an eye for strange happenings. He never imagined giving one to his first girlfriend at Jack's behest. He's suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that there's no rank, no office, no profession listed on it. He wonders if Bryn notices, if she thinks he's Jack's kept man. He wonders if he should have introduced Jack as his boss after all. He wonders when things like this started to matter, if they really matter at all. Is he ascribing too much meaning to his business card?
It's being out in the real world with Jack that's doing this to him. In their bubble of Torchwood and Ianto's flat and Gwen's flat, at the local pub and the restaurants they like and the businesses they frequent, it's just accepted that Jack and Ianto are Jack and Ianto. He's never had to explain it. Now, confronted with someone from his past, someone who hasn't watched his relationship with Jack evolve, who hasn't seen him in years, he finds himself scrambling to explain himself.
His eyes flick to Jack, to their shared grocery basket, and he wonders if maybe some things speak for themselves.
"We'll get together soon, yeah?" Bryn asks. She steps forward and kisses his cheek. "I'm really so sorry to hear about Lisa. But I'm glad you're happy." She turns to Jack and says, "It was lovely to meet you, Jack. I'll see you soon, I'm sure!"
She waves cheerfully and disappears around the corner into the diary section. Ianto stares after her.
"She seemed much too nice for the sullen bad boy I've heard so much about," Jack says with a sly smile, leading Ianto towards the check-out with a hand at the small of his back.
"You've heard nothing," Ianto says absently. "You snoop."
"Same difference," Jack says dismissively. He loads their purchases onto the belt and takes the basket from Ianto, stowing it underneath on the messy pile already accumulated. "Anyway, the point is, it would be just like you to have a girl-next-door with a heart of gold."
"She married a boy from school," Ianto says. He pulls his wallet out and prepares to swipe his card as the bored cashier scans and bags their items and Jack shifts from foot to foot impatiently. "Gavin. Never could convince me to do what was right, even as kids. I ran off to London and she was still sending me e-mails, updating me on the neighborhood. I came back for her wedding. Brought Lisa."
"Hm," Jack says, his eyes guarded.
"Lost track of her after--after London."
He fumbles, mind blank, to remember his PIN. It takes him two tries. The cashier doesn't notice, hands him his receipt without even looking.
"We should go, if she actually calls," Jack says, taking the bags from Ianto and leading the way back out to the car. "Would you like that?"
"Would you?" Ianto asks automatically. He blushes when he realizes what he's said, embarrassed and horrified and not sure why. But Jack only shrugs.
"If it makes you happy," he says, and the hell of it is, Ianto is rather sure he actually means it.
***
The drive back to Ianto's flat is quiet but not awkward. Ianto doesn't know if it's because they've had so much practice in feigning normalcy or because they've done such epically awful things to and for each other that a trip down memory lane doesn't even rate.
Jack drives, toning down his usual heroic and law-defying maneuvers for a pleasant trip through the streets that even manages to keep to the speed limit.
Ianto thinks.
Ianto thinks about Gwen and Rhys and their marriage within Torchwood. He thinks about seeing Bryn and Gavin walk down the aisle with Lisa next to him. He thinks about London and the estate where he grew up.
He thinks about Lisa.
He thinks about Jack.
Ianto thinks his way into the flat and onto the sofa, while Jack puts away the groceries. He thinks his way into the bedroom to change his suit for tracksuit bottoms and an old t-shirt, his mind still going as he sits on the couch and lets Jack pick the program on the telly.
He's still thinking when Jack's hand settles into his hair.
"Ianto," Jack says, and it's rare enough that Jack is the one to break a silence like this, but the cadence of his voice is soft and understanding when he continues. "It's okay to want those things."
The problem is, Ianto's not entirely sure what Jack's talking about.
"What things?" he asks. He's relatively sure they're not still talking about store-brand creamer.
"Bryn's things," Jack says. "Marriage and... you know, things." He gestures, twirling his pointer finger around. Ianto doesn't know what that's supposed to signify. He doubts that Jack knows.
"I... what makes you think I want Bryn's things?" He's genuinely curious, seeing as how he's just spent the past thirty minutes realizing that it's possible he never wanted those things.
"Just...." Jack shrugs and then returns his hand to Ianto's hair. "You've been... quiet."
He has, but not in envy. In realization.
Ianto grew up without his mother, under his father's thumb. Ianto grew up being told what was going to come of him--he was going to get a respectable job in a shop or on a construction crew or somewhere in town. He was going to work hard, like he father worked, and marry a girl from the estate, like his father had, and have some children and he was damn well going to be happy with it.
He didn't understand how he was supposed to be happy with those things as an adult when they certainly didn't thrill him as a child.
He ran to London to escape his father's exceedingly low expectations, but he hadn't really escaped, had he? He'd replaced one set for another. He'd decided he'd get a posh job, marry a gorgeous, posh girl, have some kids, make a lot of money, and prove everyone back on the estate that he was better than they thought he could be.
He never stopped to think if he actually wanted those things. He never stopped to think if the point was to make himself happy or make his family unhappy.
"I loved Lisa," Ianto says, and he feels Jack stiffen beside him, but continues anyway. "I really did, but I wonder, sometimes, if things would have worked out if Canary Wharf hadn't happened." He feels Jack relax, incrementally. Ianto leans against him, eyes still on the television. "I just... have you ever done something because it was expected of you?"
Jack releases a long breath.
"Yeah," he says quietly.
"Have you ever done something because it... wasn't expected of you?"
Now Jack laughs.
"That too," he says.
Ianto closes his eyes and rests his head against Jack's shoulder. They don't talk like this. Ianto doesn't talk like this. But that doesn't meant Jack doesn't know it. That doesn't mean Ianto should be afraid to reveal the truth behind words he's never explicitly said.
That doesn't mean he isn't.
"The person I was in London," Ianto says quietly. "The person... the person I made myself be... it wasn't anything more than that. I created a persona. I imagined the person I'd like to be, imagined what he would want from life, and that's what I decided to do. Lisa, our flat, our plans... I don't know how much of that was me and how much of that was a stab in the dark at what I thought the person I wanted to be would want."
Jack's arm wraps more tightly around his shoulder. He preens a bit under the touch.
"You were willing to sacrifice the world for Lisa," Jack says softly. "You shouldn't doubt that you loved her."
"I know that," Ianto says. "And I don't. But I've loved a lot of people. I loved Bryn. But I don't still love her. Not like that. And I don't know that I would have still loved Lisa if fate hadn't intervened. I don't know that I wouldn't have begun to resent her for pulling me into the life she represented, the life I thought I wanted."
Jack pulls away from him, just slightly, but it's enough to make Ianto open his eyes.
"What are you saying?" Jack asks.
Ianto shrugs.
"Just that... I'm happy. I'm really very happy. There's death and danger and it's terrible, most of the time, but at the end of the day, I've you and Gwen and I don't want anything else. I don't want kids and marriage and a posh flat and a job I can brag about. I want this. It's messy and it's awful but it's... me."
He smiles weakly at Jack.
Jack's smile in response makes him feel warm down to his toes.
***
The Rift monitor makes an odd noise while Jack's cooking dinner, so Ianto changes into clothes more appropriate for the weather and the job and follows Jack outside to the car. They drive through the city and into the Welsh countryside, into a rain storm and into the mud. Ianto keeps his eyes on the monitors in the SUV, looking up only to comment on Jack's poor driving habits and squabble over the proper route to get to the red flare on Ianto's viewscreen.
They spend an hour chasing a slug the size of a St. Bernard through the trees and the mud, the rain creeping down the back of Ianto's jacket and then his shirt. He mentally laments the sorry state of his mud-encrusted trousers and sighs when his stomach grumbles. It's not the first time the rift has interrupted his dinner and he doubts it will be the last, but the night had been going rather well and Ianto was looking forward to ending it with a film and a beer and bed.
But even this is typical, now. He and Jack play well at being a regular couple, but this will always be a part of them. As much as he loathes washing mud and alien secretions out of his clothes, as much as he'd like a full night's sleep, there's a thrill to this, too. Darting through the underbrush two steps behind Jack, running out to save the world at a moment's notice--this is something that he needs. It's something he wouldn't give up. Not for anything.
And, yes, sometimes instead of saving the world they're just capturing a giant alien slug, but even that is amazing in its absurdity.
They fall into bed, after. They don't fuck every night, which is something Ianto is sure would surprise most anyone who knows them. They flirt outrageously whenever they get the chance and Jack can't keep his hands to himself, but sometimes they're tired and sometimes they're busy and sometimes, after the kinds of days they have, they'd really just rather crawl into bed and wait for it to be morning.
Tonight, though--tonight they fuck.
It's hard not to, after the night they've had, after the conversation they've had.
When they're both sweaty and sated and curled under the duvet, Jack's head rests on Ianto's shoulder and Jack's arm settles across Ianto's chest.
"I'm glad, you know," Jack says quietly. Ianto opens his eyes and looks down, meeting Jack's gaze in the dark of the bedroom, in the fleeting, fractured light that sneaks in from between the closed curtains. "It is awful, Torchwood. It destroys people. And as much as I'd never want that for you, it found you anyway and I'm glad that you're happy. I know it can't be... easy."
Ianto snorts, a small, tired puff of air.
"Of course it's not easy," Ianto says. "That's rather the point, isn't it? It's good that it's difficult. It means more, when it's difficult."
Jack's smile is radiant. Jack's smiles are always radiant, though, when he truly means them.
"It does," Jack agrees. "But not everyone knows that. I should have known that you would. It must be why I like you so much."
"And here I thought you liked me because of my coffee and my suits and my arse," Ianto says. He pinches Jack's arm, where it's thrown carelessly across his chest.
"Mm, also true," Jack says. "If I like you because of your coffee, maybe this is why I love you."
There are things that Ianto doesn't say, things that Ianto and Jack don't talk about. Jack lives him with, near enough, and Jack holds him when he has nightmares and Jack knows how he takes his coffee and what kind of laundry detergent he uses. These are things that Ianto accepts, the same way he accepts that he's never loved anyone the way he loves Jack, maybe because he's more jaded now or maybe because he never knows what Torchwood will bring so he's trying to cram all of his loving into the short time he has left.
Ianto is confident in these feelings, in this knowledge, but that doesn't make them any easier to vocalize.
"Might be," he agrees, peering down at Jack guilelessly and hoping Jack will accept that for what it is, for what it means.
Jack does, of course. They wouldn't have lasted this long if he couldn't read Ianto's intentions this well.
Jack leans up on one elbow and kisses Ianto long and gentle in a way that makes Ianto's stomach flutter and his ears flush. When he pulls back, he whispers in Ianto's ear, "Get some sleep." He then puts his head on Ianto's shoulder and takes his own advice. Jack needs less sleep than a regular person and Ianto's a perpetual insomniac, so they frequently pass each other in the night, but tonight, Ianto welcomes the chance to watch Jack sleep.
He turns his head and stares at the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. The numbers are green because the red lights on most alarm clocks hurt his eyes. He hasn't used the alarm in months because Jack doesn't trust it--one power outage had them late for work and ever since, Jack just sets his wrist strap, the same way he does at the Hub. The clock is just another decoration for his bedside table with the books he hasn't had time to read and whatever odds and ends he's dropped there for the moment. He spies Jack's mobile and his own cuff links, the notepad he'd shoved into his trouser pocket and a handkerchief with Jack's initials monogrammed in the corner.
None of these things are foreign in his flat any more. The time when they were seems far in the past, and even though they don't talk about things, this, their relationship, Ianto suddenly wants to catalogue when they went from sly fumbles in the office to shagging in a bed to staying the night to dating to... where they are now. He's an archivist--he can't help record them, bring order to them, even if it's only in his mind.
He wasn't lying when he told Jack he was happy, because he is, but he's also terrified all the time. He doesn't think that's a bad thing--in fact, he thinks it's a crucial, vital component to his happiness. He's relatively sure that the day he stops being terrified will be the day he falls out of love with Jack, and since he's still falling a bit more in love with him every day, he doesn't see the fear stopping any time soon.
It's not just fear for himself--he's afraid for Gwen. He's afraid for what Jack will go through when he's gone. He's afraid that he won't be enough for Jack or that Jack will go away again or that something worse than death will happen to Jack. He's really, truly, deathly afraid that tomorrow he'll be killed by an alien or a cannibal or a lorry and Jack will have to come back to the flat by himself, go back to the Hub by himself, go back to Torchwood by himself. He doesn't really like the idea of Jack with other people and he's not ashamed to admit it. But what he really hates is the idea of Jack alone.
He's afraid that one day he'll stop being afraid, and as long as he has that fear riding low in his belly and deep in the back of his mind, he thinks he'll be okay.
So he lets his eyes slip from the clock on the bedside table to the sight of Jack's tousled hair on his chest and closes his eyes. He listens to the sounds of Cardiff and the rumble of Jack's deep breathing and he lets himself sleep.