[RP] Little angels hang above my head and read me like an open book...

[twdenmother]

[[Locked to no_daylight]]Shortly after a rather disastrous conversation with J, and a somewhat less disastrous exchange on the journals with Winter, a freshly showered and shaven Ianto is at a Chicago hotel, looking for a certain Glaysa-Labolas demon

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[no_daylight]

And out of one of the lounge chairs rises one Glaysa-Labolas, who approaches his faun with an expression which would look perfectly pleasant and acquaintancely to anyone unaccustomed to Winter's particular brand of warmth.

"Ianto," he greets him, reaching out to clasp Ianto's hand. And there it is: the slight nudge, close and comfortable as a nudge against the shoulders, informing the swell of pain in Ianto that it's not needed here any more and it can show itself to the door. "I'm sorry I'm the only one here to greet you. Anna is wintering in Greece."

A gentle smile engages in a brief flirtation with his expression.

"She calls it a holiday. To me it seems like a production. Come on; we can let you hang up your coat."

He gives the slightest pull toward the elevators before letting Ianto's hand slip away, perfectly casual again at least in the eyes of the general public.

[twdenmother]

The moment Winter takes his hand, Ianto, predictably, feels better. It's enough to make him wonder why he waited this long, why he kept away... But he knows why. Because there were things to do, because Torchwood needed him, or he needed to think they did, because obviously he was gaining some sort of masochistic pleasure out of being self-sacrificing beyond all reason.

Maybe because he knows Winter's quite close to luring him away, and given Torchwood's history with the Organization, given a terrified boy afraid of being used as a weapon, if he left, it would likely have to be for good.

He's not sure he can handle that, but as his conversation with J made quite clear, he's not sure he can stay, either.

But now he's here, and this is truth in cliché -- he's somewhat surprised to discover that he really does feel as if a great weight's been lifted off his shoulders. He neatly sets that observation in the part of his mind labeled 'things too inane to say aloud', and focuses instead on the suggestion of a smile, the quiet warmth that

[no_daylight]

"She keeps threatening to take me home with her," he says. "So that her family can fatten me up. All I can imagine is being buried up to my neck and made into foie gras

[twdenmother]

"I'd rather we skip the cannibalism jokes, if it's all the same," Ianto says, and Winter might detect a brief spike of extreme discomfort. "I've seen the real thing." And he came closer than he ever wants to think about to being a set of neatly-wrapped body parts in a freezer, though for now he thinks he'll leave that part out.

Still, he forces down the bile that's threatening to rise into his throat, and even leans into the caress a little. It's such a simple thing, touch. So easy to overlook, to the point where you might not even notice that you're starving for it until something brings it to your attention. As it is, that brief contact is more than enough to take Ianto's mind off nearly having been eaten. He closes his eyes for a moment and just feels, a faint smile hovering at the corners of his lips.

This is right, being here with Winter, being touched in a way that doesn't bring Jack to mind. This is different and perfect and his. There's no one to gossip about it, no Owen to make snide remarks. Just them