Torchwood Fic: Shoot First, Apologize Later
Since August 25, 2008, there has been an email sitting in my inbox, reminding me that I owe ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riverlight a story. It took me three tries and a long, long time, but I have finally finished it, and here it is. I hope you enjoy it, R!
Many thanks tofox and iulia for hand-holding and prodding and beta.
Jack/Ianto. NC-17. 6,571 words.
Jack and Ianto are in jail for some reason.
Shoot First, Apologize Later
Ianto kept pacing the cell. Jack sat perfectly still on a bench and watched, waiting for him to wind down. Ianto was wearing a black pullover and jeans, which showed dishevelment less obviously than his usual suit would have done. He made up for it with the livid scratches on the side of his throat, the split lip, blackening eye, and still-intermittently-bleeding nose. There was also a shock of hair standing straight up from the back of his head, which Jack hadn't pointed out to him yet. He was a little worried that it was held in place by dried blood, but Ianto didn't seem concussed. Mostly Jack was thinking about how to get a copy of Ianto's mug shot and where he could hang it once he'd had it framed.
"I'm really sorry," Jack repeated, when Ianto had done eight lengths of the cell without looking at him.
Ianto glared on cue, but the glare had been weakening in force every time Jack apologized. It was almost all the way down to exasperation now, and when Ianto came to the wall he stopped and stood facing it, hands on hips.
"Really," Jack tried. "Really, really, really sorry."
Ianto turned around to face Jack, but his gaze was on the cell door. "I should press charges against you."
Definitely exasperated, and he was actually talking to Jack, which was a plus. Jack stretched, opening his arms invitingly, and Ianto rolled his eyes, winced like that hurt, and finally caved and came to sit down at Jack's side. Jack curled an arm around Ianto's shoulders, and Ianto leaned into him. He didn't quite rest his head on Jack's shoulder, but he seemed to relax a little for the first time all night. That was something.
"So," Jack said carefully, "do you want to tell me what I, uh..." He cast about for a diplomatic term. "Interrupted?"
Ianto snorted and pulled away from Jack far enough to give him a deeply skeptical look, but he didn't shrug off Jack's arm.
"So that I can better tailor my further apologies," Jack added.
He wasn't exactly sure why he was apologizing--he'd walked in right at the point when the bastard on top of Ianto bounced Ianto's head off the floor, which probably had something to do with Jack's less than perfectly graceful handling of the situation from that point on. But Ianto had been furious with Jack, and spoke to him only to forbid him--he'd been forbidden! By Ianto Jones!--to mention Torchwood within earshot of Ianto's assailants. Jack had shut up and let himself be arrested partly for the sheer novelty of Ianto's behavior, but he was a big boy and he knew when abject groveling was called for, even when he had no idea why.
Ianto sighed and leaned against the wall, tipping his head back over Jack's arm across his shoulders. Jack settled in beside him and waited.
"I was reading the paper," Ianto finally said, and Jack could not be held accountable for what his eyebrows did in response to that summation of events.
Ianto glared at him sideways. "I was reading the paper the other day," he reiterated, and then closed his eyes. "I was reading the classifieds and things, and there were the wedding announcements, and I saw that my best mate Dai who lived next door when we were kids finally married Gretchen from two streets over."
Jack winced, but said nothing. Ianto visibly gathered himself and soldiered on, without opening his eyes.
"I rang him up, said I'd seen it in the paper and congratulations, and of course he invited me over for a drink and things, so I went and bought a little present and went to their place to see them."
Yesterday's secret errand, Ianto's distraction and insistence upon leaving at a reasonable time. Check and check.
"Gretchen had made hors d'oeuvres, we drank wine, they were--we were..." Ianto opened his eyes and stared at the wall. "It was all very..."
"Normal?" Jack offered softly. Ianto really never got much of that these days.
Ianto's mouth quirked upward, then flattened. He shook his head a little, reached up to rub his nose and jerked his already-bloodstained fingers down before he made contact.
"Grown up," Ianto said. "They've just got married, got proper jobs, talking about kids, all that. But they don't quite believe it yet--still all feels a bit like playing house. They asked me, didn't I feel that way, too, like it's not quite real, like the real adults will..."
Jack winced again, but Ianto seemed too fixated on the far wall to notice. After a moment, Ianto's eyes slid shut.
"Anyway, then I noticed that the especially hideous vase they'd got as a wedding present from some great aunt or another was actually that shapelearner we've been looking for since February--Gretchen had stuck some dried flowers in it, so I suppose it was imitating them. Keeping still, drying out. She took the flowers out to show me how horrid it was, and I could see that it was starting to change, just from her handling it."
It must have been itching for a more interesting form by now, so of course it'd catch on quick.
"I got Gretchen to put it down, chatted some more. Dai asked me if I'd be getting married anytime soon."
After all this time, the thought shouldn't have made his heart speed up--and judging by the way the evening was going, there ought to be little danger of it happening any time soon--but Jack kept very still and waited for what Ianto would say next.
"I told him not likely, but I didn't mind as my boyfriend's pretty fantastic when he's not utterly insane."
Jack beamed. "You didn't--did you actually say that?"
"No," Ianto said, but his voice was grumpy mostly in a trying-to-be-grumpy way. "I said he's older and American and travels quite a bit so I didn't know when they might be able to meet him," those words were sharp, effortlessly acid, and Jack's smile dimmed. "So I think they could infer the fantastic and insane aspects."
"Oh."
Ianto heaved another sigh. "So then when Gretchen went to go to bed I thought I'd just take the damned shapelearner and run. I had to find something inorganic to handle it with--that took time--and Dai caught me heading for the door. He started yelling and I yelled back. Gretchen came out in a little t-shirt and yelled at both of us, which was distracting. Dai punched me. I overreacted."
Ianto said that with finality, like it was the absolute end of the story. Jack supposed he could see the rest of the trajectory from here--he'd been able to see most of it from the part where Ianto said they were childhood friends of his, really--but he also thought Ianto wanted to say it.
Jack tugged Ianto closer, shifting a little sideways to kiss the top of his head and surreptitiously sniff for blood. There wasn't much, he didn't think.
"Obviously you didn't overreact too badly," Jack said, "unless that wasn't Dai yelling at me to fucking rot in prison."
"No, that--" Ianto laughed, shaky and uncertain, and pressed closer still to Jack. "I wasn't expecting him to hit me and I just fought back, like I couldn't afford to lose. I don't remember the last time I was in a fight I could afford to lose. I've known Dai all my life, until I went to London, but I was ready to kill him. I was ready to kill whoever that bastard was who hit me, whether it was Dai or anyone, until Gretchen pulled me off."
Ianto twisted his head sideways and down in an odd motion; Jack realized after a moment that he was letting himself feel the scratches on his throat. Gretchen had done that, then, getting him to stop.
"And then I think I tried to say something and Dai jumped me and started pounding on me. I was debating whether to go limp or stop him, and it was right about then that some lunatic kicked in the door and started waving a gun around, and Gretchen called the police and the whole thing went completely down the drain."
"Ah," Jack said. "I really am really, really sorry about that."
Ianto waved off Jack's apology this time, which Jack knew better than to mistake for actually accepting it. "They won't press charges, they just wanted us out of their house. Anyway, it's not like the Cardiff Police didn't know who they were arresting. They'll let Gwen know where we are and she'll get us sorted."
That was certainly true, Jack thought, glowering a bit in memory. They'd been really enthusiastic with the cuffs. Also, he didn't think they usually took that many pictures. The camera had certainly seemed to be functioning fine, no matter what they said about technical difficulties.
"Gwen may be right about how we need to liaise more with the police," Jack said. They'd been well-set with the police in the Seventies, but Jack had lost track, somewhere along the line, of just how far they'd fallen in the estimation of the rank and file. So now he and Ianto had to cool their heels in lockup.
"Mm," Ianto said, and then, "What I want to know is what you were doing there, anyway."
Jack mentally shuffled through various lies which might not make Ianto start pacing and glaring all over again. The cell was chilly, and they were making nice progress toward a bit of a cuddle on the bench here.
"You weren't jealous," Ianto said, sounding like he'd been over this point several times. "If you'd come in and I'd been having kinky sex with them, you'd have thought you were in heaven. And you mostly trust me to cross the street without holding my hand, so you weren't worried about my safety."
His lies would have been more creative than that, but Jack supposed the truth wasn’t worse than whatever Ianto was thinking, by this point. "I followed you because you kept it secret from me."
Ianto flinched, so Jack didn't bother pointing out Ianto's track record with things he insisted on keeping secret.
"It wasn't..." Ianto shrugged against Jack's grip, shifting away down the bench, but at least he didn't stand up again. "It wasn't that kind of secret, Jack, it was just... Dai."
Jack folded his empty arms. "Dai who you knew for your entire life and never once mentioned to me."
Ianto raised both hands in silent protest, then sighed and dropped them. "I was in love with Gretchen from the ages of six to ten, three weeks when I was fifteen, and half a year when I was eighteen."
Ah. And seeing her in a little t-shirt had been distracting. And then Dai had punched him. "And Dai...?"
"Dai was in love with Gretchen at nursery, from ages eleven to thirteen, and from sixteen on."
That hadn't been what Jack was asking. He raised an eyebrow.
Ianto looked away and shook his head. "Dai was my best mate. I never--you're a whole new thing, Jack. I'd no idea how I was going to tell them about you, if I even could. If I hadn't been so busy worrying about the shapelearner and keeping them distracted from it, I probably wouldn't have done. To introduce you, right off..."
Well, at least Jack had managed to find the weird discontinuity in Ianto's thinking this time; that was progress. Jack stared at the far wall for a few seconds, schooling himself to patient gentleness, because this was obviously not one of those things he could hurry Ianto through with a little teasing and a gratuitous display of savoir faire.
"Ianto, you can have things that are separate without being secret. They're your friends. You could have told me about it and--"
"You would have just nodded and smiled and not followed me when I said, 'Bye, off for drinks with my best mate from primary school and his wife who I used to fancy, don't wait up'?"
Ianto was giving him the look Jack had never, in all his years, ceased to find bone-chillingly terrifying. It was the does this make me look fat? look, the one that said there was no right answer to this question.
So, might as well try for disarming honesty. "Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't have demanded to know their names and run a few background checks--and maybe done a scan for alien lifeforms and technology in the vicinity of their address--"
Ianto rolled his eyes.
"But I would have known to handle the situation more delicately, if I did see you were in trouble," Jack said evenly. "I would have known I needed to defer to your judgment, because you knew who we were dealing with and I didn't. And I wouldn't have been quite so scared that you were about to get yourself killed." Again.
Ianto stood up, turning his back and running his hand through his hair. Jack sighed and slumped against the wall. There never was any right answer.
"I'm going to have to go back, you know," Ianto said. "To apologize, and to make sure that shapelearner hasn't got away or killed my friends while I was here."
Jack considered apologizing again, but that moment seemed to have passed, even if this did seem like two steps back. "How do you think that will go?"
Ianto shrugged stiffly. "Depends how fast the shapelearner learns. But if Dai and Gretchen are all right, it won't be a problem. Me and Dai have been knocking each other down since we could stand up, and he'll believe me when I tell him I was saving him from a horrible wedding present by helping it disappear."
"Ah." Jack watched the line of Ianto's shoulders, waiting, and saw the move telegraphed a beat before Ianto turned to face him.
"Of course it will help that I'm telling the absolute truth."
Ianto was looking a little to one side of Jack's face, choosing his words without letting Jack distract him from them. Jack sat back and let him go.
"I'll have to explain about my psychotically overprotective boyfriend," Ianto added. He'd now used that word to refer to their relationship more times tonight than the entire time since they'd started sleeping together; mixing with the civilians had an interesting effect on his vocabulary.
"Still, should be all right, give or take some well-meant advice to leave you."
Jack let himself smile a little. "They're your friends, they'll be worried."
"Yes," Ianto agreed, stepping closer, so that Jack had to raise his chin to meet Ianto's eyes. "I suppose it will be easier to argue my own side if I can remember what it is I like so very much about you."
Jack let the smile widen, just a cool and confident fraction of an inch, instead of jumping to his feet and laughing and kissing Ianto full on his busted-up mouth. He'd been wondering for a while now if Ianto would ever be ready to demand to have anything made up to him; Jack himself was careful never to demand that of Ianto and therefore could not teach that particular move by example.
This was shaping up to be an excellent night after all.
He only let it show a little, just enough to look like good old up-for-anything Captain Jack Harkness. "I could probably refresh your memory."
Ianto started to raise his eyebrows, then stopped with a wince, and his sour look was at least half sincere. "I'm going to need quite a bit of reminding, Jack. I've suffered a blow to the head."
"Okay," Jack said, reaching for Ianto's right hand with both of his. "I'll be thorough."
Without taking his eyes from Ianto's, Jack raised Ianto's hand to his lips, brushing the lightest of touches over his bruised knuckles, more of his breath than his mouth. Ianto blinked twice, rapidly, and Jack let his eyes flutter closed, and pressed a soft kiss to each finger, above the knuckles, not forgetting Ianto's thumb, and then the back of his hand, all the way up to his wrist. Ianto's fingers twitched in his grip, and Jack kissed each of Ianto's perfectly neat cuticles, and only then did he turn Ianto's hand over and kiss each fingertip--again, not forgetting the thumb--working his mouth by excruciating degrees down to Ianto's palm.
It was sweating a little by the time he got there, and he figured that meant he was taking approximately the right course. He allowed himself another glimpse up, and Ianto was watching him, eyes already darkening with interest. His fingers twitched when Jack's eyes met his--uncertain whether he was supposed to be liking this, whether he was supposed to be turned on by it or bored, whether he was supposed to be doing something. Uncertainty, anticipation, anything that would keep Ianto just a little off-balance would give Jack a chance to give him a better surprise than they'd started the evening with.
He lowered his eyes again, working down Ianto's palm to his wrist, nudging back the sleeve of his pullover to press kisses along the veins, a little scrape of teeth here and there to keep his attention. He smiled into the kiss when he pressed his left hand to the top of Ianto's thigh, his fingers spreading up over the crease of his groin, just to one side--and on the wrong side of that lovely denim--from where Ianto would want it most. Ianto startled a little at the touch, but pushed into it in the next instant. Jack eased his hand upward, over pocket and belt, his fingertips questing for bare skin even as he traced the tip of his tongue over Ianto's wrist.
The door clanged open with a crash like Judgment Day, and Ianto jumped away as Gwen's voice carried in from the corridor, "--come and pick them up in the morning, instead, if they're--"
"No," Ianto said, an edge of desperation in his voice as he turned toward the door. "Gwen, I won't be responsible for what happens if you leave me here with him all night."
And that, Jack reflected, was nearly entirely true.
***
Jack kept his mouth shut all the way to the car park, meekly following Ianto, who was walking nearly on Gwen's heels. Gwen said, "Backseat, Jack," in a preemptively quelling sort of tone. She'd probably had to get out of bed to come down to the police station to sort him and Ianto out--by way of the scene of crime, evidently, as she was driving the SUV.
Discretion was clearly the better part of valor, for now. Jack climbed in the back while Ianto got in the front, and almost immediately stubbed his toe on something on the floor that made a plastic rustling noise. Jack sat down and then picked it up; whatever it was, it was wrapped in a bin liner and taped shut. "Gwen? Were you halfway through taking out the trash?"
"Oh, that," Gwen said, starting the SUV and checking her mirrors before heading for the street, blessedly off the property of the Cardiff Police. "I stopped by the house where you were arrested first, to check whether everyone there was all right. Dai explained what had happened--as far as he understood it, anyway--and he insisted that I'd better take that because it was evidence and bound to have fingerprints or traces on it--"
Somebody had been watching American police procedurals.
"Gwen, you beauty," Ianto said suddenly, reaching back and grabbing the thing from Jack's hands, his face flashing into and out of a grin as he came up against his split lip. "Dai, you bloody genius, good man."
Gwen was giving Ianto a puzzled look, but Jack twisted around and started checking behind the seat to see if any of the portable containment units in the SUV had avoided being appropriated as picnic coolers.
"Ianto, what could it possibly be evidence of? He knew who you were."
"It's not evidence," Ianto said. "It's that shapelearner that got away from us--only Dai thinks it's a hideous wedding present. He must have meant for it to get broken in the fight, or he'd never have hit me."
Ianto sounded genuinely pleased, and Jack realized with a sick start that all the time they'd been in the cell, Ianto had been far more worried about his friends than he had been angry with Jack. He snagged a containment box and turned around to offer it, opened, to Ianto, who turned to drop the thing in.
Jack kept his eyes lowered as he snapped the lid shut and did up the clasps. He didn't need to see whatever was in Ianto's eyes when he looked at Jack just now, and he didn't need Ianto seeing him looking, either.
"They were all right, then?" Ianto asked as he settled back into his seat.
"Dai and his wife? Yeah, fine. They said you should come round tomorrow, they want to talk to you."
"About the unsuitable company I'm keeping, no doubt," Ianto agreed, and raised a hand to his hair, as if already trying to make himself presentable for that meeting. Jack continued to not enlighten him about the bit sticking up in back, and noticed that Gwen hadn't pointed it out either. "I'll have to think of a way to explain Jack that doesn't make me sound entirely mad."
Jack glanced up at the rearview mirror and met Gwen's gaze; she looked a little more skeptical at that prospect than he was accustomed to expect from her, and then she looked back to the road.
"Tell them he's off his meds," Gwen suggested airily. "And if they ask what he's on, say, 'Oh, what isn't he--'"
"But he's really lovely when he's well, and it's not his fault--" Ianto sounded like he was relishing that line of explanation.
"Hey," Jack snapped, though he didn't really know whether he wanted to reprimand them for their entirely unenlightened attitude toward the (admittedly still primitive, but at least embryonically decent and scientific) treatment of mental illnesses, or the fact that they thought it was a good idea to slander his (all things considered, really remarkable) mental stability to Ianto's friends when he'd simply made a perfectly rational mistake.
Gwen just laughed, and Ianto relaxed into his seat in a manner that suggested there was smirking going on. Jack rolled his eyes and sat back, watching Cardiff go by.
When Gwen pulled up at Ianto's she waved at the box and said, "I'll just put that in containment, shall I?"
Ianto gave Jack a single quick glance as he got out, but it was enough. Clearly apologizing was still on the menu for tonight. Jack grinned and opened the back door. "Yeah, Gwen, we'll deal with it tomorrow. Drive safely."
Gwen rolled her eyes, and barely waited until he was out the door--let alone closing it--before she took off down the street. Jack chased far enough to slam the door and then turned back, to find Ianto standing in the door at his building, watching, with a small, wary smile on his face. Jack trotted over to him, and Ianto said, "Well, I suppose I'd better let you in or we'll be doing this in the street."
"Ooh, could we?" Jack said, and of course just then it started to rain.
Ianto rolled his eyes and stepped inside, muttering about rain gods, but really, it was only remarkable that it had been briefly not raining, just then. Jack followed him up to his flat while forbearing to point that out. Jack paused to lock up the door behind them, and turned round from that just in time to see Ianto distractedly running a hand through his hair. He winced when he hit a sore spot and looked down at his fingers, betrayed. When he looked up at Jack, his expression settled back to wariness.
"I need a shower," Ianto said, in an absent tone directed more to himself than to Jack. "But I don't want you disappearing while I'm not looking."
"Better not take your eyes off me, then," Jack said agreeably, shrugging his coat off without Ianto's assistance and hanging it up beside the door while Ianto stood conspicuously still, watching. "Your shower's not that tiny."
"If you cause me to have a slip and fall accident, I will kill you just to watch you die," Ianto informed him evenly.
"Fair enough," Jack agreed, unbuttoning his shirt. Ianto shook his head and toed off his trainers, walking away in the direction of the bathroom without a further word. Jack unlaced his boots and lined them up neatly under his coat and then, remembering that he was apologizing and might as well do the thing up right, placed Ianto's trainers neatly beside them, undoing the laces so he could put them on easily when he wanted them.
He did leave the rest of his clothes in a trail on the way back to the bathroom, though. Certain things were simply a part of the experience. He found Ianto in the bathroom, presenting a lovely sight as he bent naked over the edge of the tub, testing the water with his fingers. Ianto's dirty clothes were all in the hamper, and there was a stack of clean towels already conveniently positioned on the edge of the sink.
Mindful of Ianto's warning, Jack stood in the doorway, enjoying the show at a safe distance, until Ianto had turned on the spray, stood up, and looked around for him.
"Come on, then," Ianto said. The last of his exasperation was fading rapidly toward pure weariness, and Jack realized his window for getting in an apology was narrowing; if Ianto fell asleep on him, he'd wake up tomorrow and write the whole thing off. Jack knew himself well enough to know that as soon as Ianto let him off the hook, he'd let himself off as well. Life--Ianto's life, in this case--was too short to waste apologizing for things that had already been forgiven, however tacitly and reluctantly.
Jack followed him into the warmth of the shower--barely more damp than standing outside, as Ianto was blocking most of the spray. He winced as he let it run directly onto the back of his bloodied head, and Jack reached around, deflecting the water with his hand. Ianto bowed his head and closed his eyes, and Jack stepped forward, pressing his lips to Ianto's forehead.
He reached around to the shower shelf with his other hand, picking up Ianto's shampoo. "This might sting."
Ianto winced when Jack dripped the shampoo on, but his shoulders slumped as Jack began to work it into his hair, going gently over the tender spots, guiding Ianto to tip his head the other way to keep the soap out of his eyes.
When Ianto's hair rinsed clean of shampoo and blood, Jack picked up a washcloth and soaped it, and proceeded to gingerly clean up Ianto's face, and when he'd done that he was on a roll and went on with cleaning the rest of him. Ianto stood still and permitted Jack's attentions in silence, only making a little startled sound when Jack cleaned the scratches on his neck, and then when he found the darkening bruises elsewhere on Ianto's body.
Jack consoled himself that Dai probably looked the same, or worse, and that Ianto had permitted it to keep from killing the man. Jack also thought that it was probably best if he didn't go round to Dai and Gretchen's ever again for the rest of Ianto's life.
By the time he'd finished washing Ianto's feet, Jack was already on his knees, and Ianto was half hard. Jack looked up, one hand on the neutral territory of Ianto's knee, his lips hovering just off the skin of Ianto's hip. He found Ianto watching him, looking neither eager nor forbidding under his bruises, but... persuadable.
Jack brushed his mouth against Ianto's hip and said softly, "May I?"
Ianto blinked asymmetrically, and then sighed, braced an arm against the tiled wall, and said, "Don't you dare let me fall."
It still hit him like a kick in the gut sometimes, the way mortal people trusted him to know what the hell he was doing, and to use that knowledge well. He closed his eyes before Ianto could see that part of his reaction. He'd had to get good, in the last century and a half, at thinking about just one thing at a time, whatever was important at the moment. Right now what was important was sucking Ianto's cock, and doing a good enough job of it to make Ianto remember why he liked letting Jack into his pants. Or having Jack as his boyfriend, which--
No. One thing at a time. Jack placed a firmly supporting hand on the back of Ianto's thigh, and moved his mouth--without more than a little delay to tease--to where it would do the most good.
Ianto let out a soft sound, more than a sigh, less than a grunt, as Jack's mouth closed around his cock. Jack smiled as he sucked--not too hard, just warming up. He loved the sensation of Ianto getting hard in his mouth--it lent a certain immediacy to the sense of accomplishment. Jack's cock was stiffening from the taste and heat, the weight of Ianto's cock, the nudge at the back of his mouth. But this wasn't about him, it was about Ianto. Jack could wait.
He kept one hand on Ianto's thigh, and slid the other between to cup Ianto's balls, playing with them as he sucked Ianto's cock. Jack had long since learned Ianto, and he put his education to use now, bringing him slowly but surely to the brink and then backing off--taking him deep only to switch to maddening licks, alternating complicated tongue tricks with simple suction, and then the least scrape of teeth or tug on his balls, when it seemed like Ianto was nearly there. It wasn't teasing, anymore, it was just a matter of making it last.
Ianto was quiet, nearly always--noisy when Jack or the particular circumstances called for it, but as a rule, quiet. The sounds he made now were nearly lost under the sound of the shower and the roar of blood in Jack's ears, but every one of them was an accomplishment.
Then Ianto said, nearly a growl though still low, "Fuck."
A moment later his hand was fisted in Jack's hair, hard against the back of his head, and then Ianto's hips snapped forward. Jack smiled the best he could just then, shifted both hands to rest on the sides of Ianto's thighs, and gave himself over as Ianto thrust again and again, his breathing going harsh and erratic. He was fucking Jack's mouth now, being rough with him in a way Jack knew perfectly well Ianto had never been--never dared to be--with anyone else.
All Jack's senses narrowed down to this: the pistoning of Ianto's cock, the bitter-salt taste of him, Ianto's knuckles against the back of his head and the erratic tugging on his hair, and Ianto's low, steady, beautiful Welsh cursing. He went silent as the rhythm of his hips began to fall apart, and Jack tightened his fingers on Ianto's thighs, pulling him in. Ianto came with a gasp, spilling into Jack's mouth, down his raw throat, and Jack sucked him gently through it as Ianto went still.
It was the fine trembling in Ianto's legs that made him stop, mindful of his promise. Jack let Ianto slip from his lips and sat back onto his heels, shifting his hands to hold and tug on Ianto's hips. There was water dripping from Ianto's eyelashes and his chin, his eyes closed and his cheeks apple-red. Ianto resisted for a moment, then set his other hand on Jack's shoulder and let Jack ease him down, his knees coming down on Jack's thighs, his arms looping over Jack's shoulders. Jack leaned his forehead against Ianto's chest to feel him breathing, closing his own eyes and inhaling the smell of sweat and come not quite washed away by the shower water yet. He ran his hands in slow water-slicked slides over Ianto's back, letting his own breathing slow in time with Ianto's.
Jack had lost nearly all feeling in his legs when Ianto shifted his weight backward--enough for the water of the shower to start falling on Jack, and he turned his face up into it automatically, closing his eyes. The fall of water was eclipsed, then, and Jack didn't have time to open his eyes before he felt a brush of lips on his forehead like a benediction. Ianto murmured, "Apology accepted, yes," as his hand closed on Jack's cock.
Jack tried to push up into Ianto's touch--couldn't, with Ianto's weight on his thighs--and let out a moan of frustration and startled pleasure. He wondered for a second whether it was the forgiveness or the politeness that was turning him on so hard, that had him racing toward orgasm at just the awkwardly-angled grip of Ianto's hand. Then he forced himself to stop wondering, and a few seconds after that, to stop thinking about anything at all.
He forced himself to just feel: the quick wet stroke of familiar fingers on his cock, lingering just where he liked. Pressure against his forehead--Ianto leaning close, Ianto's breath against his face. Ianto's hand against the back of his head had gone gentle now, a caress, and the warm water fell all around, like being back home in a summer rain, caught outside with some beautiful boy.
Jack tilted his face up, searching for a kiss as his breathing went ragged. Ianto gave him one, lips gingerly brushing over his. Jack's mouth was still sensitive, magnifying the touch, but he chased it the best he could while Ianto had him pinned down. Ianto deepened the kiss, and Jack just barely registered the hot wet slide of lips and tongue before he tasted blood and jerked back.
Ianto hissed wordlessly and then closed his battered mouth over Jack's again, his grip on Jack's cock tightening just to the edge of too much. His hand in Jack's hair kept him still as Ianto bit down on Jack's lower lip, and Ianto swallowed any sound Jack made as he shuddered and came.
Jack slumped forward as his orgasm ended, leaning his head against Ianto's shoulder. Ianto leaned into him, curled over and around him. Jack thought vaguely that there was an architectural principle at work, only they needed a better roof to keep out the rain.
A few seconds later, Jack's brain inevitably returned to full function. He raised one hand from Ianto's back to grope for the faucet, and managed to shut off the water before it had cooled much.
Ianto made a sleepy discontented sound, loud in the sudden silence. He shifted just enough for Jack to realize that he'd lost--and would soon regain--feeling in his legs below the mid-thigh.
He pushed gently at Ianto. "Time for bed. Neither of us needed a cold shower tonight."
"Granted," Ianto sighed, sounding more awake. He pushed himself carefully to his feet, steadying himself against the wall under the showerhead as he pushed the curtain back and reached for a towel.
Jack seized his moment while Ianto was drying his face to push up to his own feet, gritting his teeth as the pins and needles hit like half a resurrection. He rubbed at his thighs, waiting it out, and when he looked up Ianto was watching him with a distinctly sardonic expression under the bruises and holding out a towel.
"I'd say that will teach you, except that it so obviously won't."
Jack flashed Ianto a grin and stepped out of the shower onto the mat, watching as Ianto followed to guard against any last possibility of slip-and-fall accident. "That? That was nothing. Did I ever tell you about the time I broke my back in the middle of--"
"Oh, God, it's too late for stories of gruesome sex injuries," Ianto said, stifling a yawn which made his argument for him. "Although I'm sure it's fascinating," he added, gave Jack a brief kiss, and sidled past him and out of the bathroom.
"Three vertebrae," Jack added as he followed, toweling off with a practiced minimum of drips on the floor. "All it taught me was to have a good eye for the structural integrity of bedroom furniture."
Ianto's bed, for instance, was surprisingly sturdy for something that had started out as flat-pack; in any case it had no especially dangerous failure states. Ianto had his back to Jack as he hung a towel over the back of a chair, but there was a lingering hint of eye-rolling as he turned round and flipped back the duvet.
Jack finished his own use of the towel--drying off, not the strange, automatic modesty of wrapping it round himself to walk from one room to another, as Ianto did--and crossed to drape it beside Ianto's. Now to bed, for a last bit of apology in the form of cuddling before Ianto fell asleep, though there was always the faint possibility of round two...
Ianto kissed him softly, and this time the taste that made Jack pull back was an unfamiliar finality. Ianto met his eyes for an instant, then turned away, getting into bed as he spoke. "Let's be adults, Jack. Stay if you can stay, go if you need to go. None of this slipping out in the night, it's..."
Ianto was lying on his side, with his back to Jack, and he raised one hand to wave it, groping for a word. "Juvenile."
Jack stared at him a moment, feeling off-balance and proud and tender all at once. Mixing with civilians really was giving Ianto ideas--well, there were worse ideas for him to have.
"All right," Jack said. "You're right."
He moved to the edge of the bed, setting one hand on Ianto's shoulder, and Ianto looked up at him, then closed his eyes as Jack leaned down to kiss his forehead.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Jack said softly, and took both towels with him as he walked back to the bathroom, shutting off the light as he went.
He hung up the towels neatly, and followed the trail of his clothes backward, dressing again as he went. He stopped by the door, facing his boots and coat, both still damp. Rain was pelting against the windows. He'd have to walk, or borrow Ianto's car, which tended to annoy Ianto.
On the other hand, Torchwood had already sorted two crises in one tonight, and Ianto was lying naked in bed, likely feeling very grown up about going to sleep alone.
"Well, the hell with that," Jack said, and left his shoes and coat where they were, and his clothes in a trail to Ianto's bedroom.
riverlight a story. It took me three tries and a long, long time, but I have finally finished it, and here it is. I hope you enjoy it, R!Many thanks to
fox and iulia for hand-holding and prodding and beta.Jack/Ianto. NC-17. 6,571 words.
Jack and Ianto are in jail for some reason.
Shoot First, Apologize Later
Ianto kept pacing the cell. Jack sat perfectly still on a bench and watched, waiting for him to wind down. Ianto was wearing a black pullover and jeans, which showed dishevelment less obviously than his usual suit would have done. He made up for it with the livid scratches on the side of his throat, the split lip, blackening eye, and still-intermittently-bleeding nose. There was also a shock of hair standing straight up from the back of his head, which Jack hadn't pointed out to him yet. He was a little worried that it was held in place by dried blood, but Ianto didn't seem concussed. Mostly Jack was thinking about how to get a copy of Ianto's mug shot and where he could hang it once he'd had it framed.
"I'm really sorry," Jack repeated, when Ianto had done eight lengths of the cell without looking at him.
Ianto glared on cue, but the glare had been weakening in force every time Jack apologized. It was almost all the way down to exasperation now, and when Ianto came to the wall he stopped and stood facing it, hands on hips.
"Really," Jack tried. "Really, really, really sorry."
Ianto turned around to face Jack, but his gaze was on the cell door. "I should press charges against you."
Definitely exasperated, and he was actually talking to Jack, which was a plus. Jack stretched, opening his arms invitingly, and Ianto rolled his eyes, winced like that hurt, and finally caved and came to sit down at Jack's side. Jack curled an arm around Ianto's shoulders, and Ianto leaned into him. He didn't quite rest his head on Jack's shoulder, but he seemed to relax a little for the first time all night. That was something.
"So," Jack said carefully, "do you want to tell me what I, uh..." He cast about for a diplomatic term. "Interrupted?"
Ianto snorted and pulled away from Jack far enough to give him a deeply skeptical look, but he didn't shrug off Jack's arm.
"So that I can better tailor my further apologies," Jack added.
He wasn't exactly sure why he was apologizing--he'd walked in right at the point when the bastard on top of Ianto bounced Ianto's head off the floor, which probably had something to do with Jack's less than perfectly graceful handling of the situation from that point on. But Ianto had been furious with Jack, and spoke to him only to forbid him--he'd been forbidden! By Ianto Jones!--to mention Torchwood within earshot of Ianto's assailants. Jack had shut up and let himself be arrested partly for the sheer novelty of Ianto's behavior, but he was a big boy and he knew when abject groveling was called for, even when he had no idea why.
Ianto sighed and leaned against the wall, tipping his head back over Jack's arm across his shoulders. Jack settled in beside him and waited.
"I was reading the paper," Ianto finally said, and Jack could not be held accountable for what his eyebrows did in response to that summation of events.
Ianto glared at him sideways. "I was reading the paper the other day," he reiterated, and then closed his eyes. "I was reading the classifieds and things, and there were the wedding announcements, and I saw that my best mate Dai who lived next door when we were kids finally married Gretchen from two streets over."
Jack winced, but said nothing. Ianto visibly gathered himself and soldiered on, without opening his eyes.
"I rang him up, said I'd seen it in the paper and congratulations, and of course he invited me over for a drink and things, so I went and bought a little present and went to their place to see them."
Yesterday's secret errand, Ianto's distraction and insistence upon leaving at a reasonable time. Check and check.
"Gretchen had made hors d'oeuvres, we drank wine, they were--we were..." Ianto opened his eyes and stared at the wall. "It was all very..."
"Normal?" Jack offered softly. Ianto really never got much of that these days.
Ianto's mouth quirked upward, then flattened. He shook his head a little, reached up to rub his nose and jerked his already-bloodstained fingers down before he made contact.
"Grown up," Ianto said. "They've just got married, got proper jobs, talking about kids, all that. But they don't quite believe it yet--still all feels a bit like playing house. They asked me, didn't I feel that way, too, like it's not quite real, like the real adults will..."
Jack winced again, but Ianto seemed too fixated on the far wall to notice. After a moment, Ianto's eyes slid shut.
"Anyway, then I noticed that the especially hideous vase they'd got as a wedding present from some great aunt or another was actually that shapelearner we've been looking for since February--Gretchen had stuck some dried flowers in it, so I suppose it was imitating them. Keeping still, drying out. She took the flowers out to show me how horrid it was, and I could see that it was starting to change, just from her handling it."
It must have been itching for a more interesting form by now, so of course it'd catch on quick.
"I got Gretchen to put it down, chatted some more. Dai asked me if I'd be getting married anytime soon."
After all this time, the thought shouldn't have made his heart speed up--and judging by the way the evening was going, there ought to be little danger of it happening any time soon--but Jack kept very still and waited for what Ianto would say next.
"I told him not likely, but I didn't mind as my boyfriend's pretty fantastic when he's not utterly insane."
Jack beamed. "You didn't--did you actually say that?"
"No," Ianto said, but his voice was grumpy mostly in a trying-to-be-grumpy way. "I said he's older and American and travels quite a bit so I didn't know when they might be able to meet him," those words were sharp, effortlessly acid, and Jack's smile dimmed. "So I think they could infer the fantastic and insane aspects."
"Oh."
Ianto heaved another sigh. "So then when Gretchen went to go to bed I thought I'd just take the damned shapelearner and run. I had to find something inorganic to handle it with--that took time--and Dai caught me heading for the door. He started yelling and I yelled back. Gretchen came out in a little t-shirt and yelled at both of us, which was distracting. Dai punched me. I overreacted."
Ianto said that with finality, like it was the absolute end of the story. Jack supposed he could see the rest of the trajectory from here--he'd been able to see most of it from the part where Ianto said they were childhood friends of his, really--but he also thought Ianto wanted to say it.
Jack tugged Ianto closer, shifting a little sideways to kiss the top of his head and surreptitiously sniff for blood. There wasn't much, he didn't think.
"Obviously you didn't overreact too badly," Jack said, "unless that wasn't Dai yelling at me to fucking rot in prison."
"No, that--" Ianto laughed, shaky and uncertain, and pressed closer still to Jack. "I wasn't expecting him to hit me and I just fought back, like I couldn't afford to lose. I don't remember the last time I was in a fight I could afford to lose. I've known Dai all my life, until I went to London, but I was ready to kill him. I was ready to kill whoever that bastard was who hit me, whether it was Dai or anyone, until Gretchen pulled me off."
Ianto twisted his head sideways and down in an odd motion; Jack realized after a moment that he was letting himself feel the scratches on his throat. Gretchen had done that, then, getting him to stop.
"And then I think I tried to say something and Dai jumped me and started pounding on me. I was debating whether to go limp or stop him, and it was right about then that some lunatic kicked in the door and started waving a gun around, and Gretchen called the police and the whole thing went completely down the drain."
"Ah," Jack said. "I really am really, really sorry about that."
Ianto waved off Jack's apology this time, which Jack knew better than to mistake for actually accepting it. "They won't press charges, they just wanted us out of their house. Anyway, it's not like the Cardiff Police didn't know who they were arresting. They'll let Gwen know where we are and she'll get us sorted."
That was certainly true, Jack thought, glowering a bit in memory. They'd been really enthusiastic with the cuffs. Also, he didn't think they usually took that many pictures. The camera had certainly seemed to be functioning fine, no matter what they said about technical difficulties.
"Gwen may be right about how we need to liaise more with the police," Jack said. They'd been well-set with the police in the Seventies, but Jack had lost track, somewhere along the line, of just how far they'd fallen in the estimation of the rank and file. So now he and Ianto had to cool their heels in lockup.
"Mm," Ianto said, and then, "What I want to know is what you were doing there, anyway."
Jack mentally shuffled through various lies which might not make Ianto start pacing and glaring all over again. The cell was chilly, and they were making nice progress toward a bit of a cuddle on the bench here.
"You weren't jealous," Ianto said, sounding like he'd been over this point several times. "If you'd come in and I'd been having kinky sex with them, you'd have thought you were in heaven. And you mostly trust me to cross the street without holding my hand, so you weren't worried about my safety."
His lies would have been more creative than that, but Jack supposed the truth wasn’t worse than whatever Ianto was thinking, by this point. "I followed you because you kept it secret from me."
Ianto flinched, so Jack didn't bother pointing out Ianto's track record with things he insisted on keeping secret.
"It wasn't..." Ianto shrugged against Jack's grip, shifting away down the bench, but at least he didn't stand up again. "It wasn't that kind of secret, Jack, it was just... Dai."
Jack folded his empty arms. "Dai who you knew for your entire life and never once mentioned to me."
Ianto raised both hands in silent protest, then sighed and dropped them. "I was in love with Gretchen from the ages of six to ten, three weeks when I was fifteen, and half a year when I was eighteen."
Ah. And seeing her in a little t-shirt had been distracting. And then Dai had punched him. "And Dai...?"
"Dai was in love with Gretchen at nursery, from ages eleven to thirteen, and from sixteen on."
That hadn't been what Jack was asking. He raised an eyebrow.
Ianto looked away and shook his head. "Dai was my best mate. I never--you're a whole new thing, Jack. I'd no idea how I was going to tell them about you, if I even could. If I hadn't been so busy worrying about the shapelearner and keeping them distracted from it, I probably wouldn't have done. To introduce you, right off..."
Well, at least Jack had managed to find the weird discontinuity in Ianto's thinking this time; that was progress. Jack stared at the far wall for a few seconds, schooling himself to patient gentleness, because this was obviously not one of those things he could hurry Ianto through with a little teasing and a gratuitous display of savoir faire.
"Ianto, you can have things that are separate without being secret. They're your friends. You could have told me about it and--"
"You would have just nodded and smiled and not followed me when I said, 'Bye, off for drinks with my best mate from primary school and his wife who I used to fancy, don't wait up'?"
Ianto was giving him the look Jack had never, in all his years, ceased to find bone-chillingly terrifying. It was the does this make me look fat? look, the one that said there was no right answer to this question.
So, might as well try for disarming honesty. "Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't have demanded to know their names and run a few background checks--and maybe done a scan for alien lifeforms and technology in the vicinity of their address--"
Ianto rolled his eyes.
"But I would have known to handle the situation more delicately, if I did see you were in trouble," Jack said evenly. "I would have known I needed to defer to your judgment, because you knew who we were dealing with and I didn't. And I wouldn't have been quite so scared that you were about to get yourself killed." Again.
Ianto stood up, turning his back and running his hand through his hair. Jack sighed and slumped against the wall. There never was any right answer.
"I'm going to have to go back, you know," Ianto said. "To apologize, and to make sure that shapelearner hasn't got away or killed my friends while I was here."
Jack considered apologizing again, but that moment seemed to have passed, even if this did seem like two steps back. "How do you think that will go?"
Ianto shrugged stiffly. "Depends how fast the shapelearner learns. But if Dai and Gretchen are all right, it won't be a problem. Me and Dai have been knocking each other down since we could stand up, and he'll believe me when I tell him I was saving him from a horrible wedding present by helping it disappear."
"Ah." Jack watched the line of Ianto's shoulders, waiting, and saw the move telegraphed a beat before Ianto turned to face him.
"Of course it will help that I'm telling the absolute truth."
Ianto was looking a little to one side of Jack's face, choosing his words without letting Jack distract him from them. Jack sat back and let him go.
"I'll have to explain about my psychotically overprotective boyfriend," Ianto added. He'd now used that word to refer to their relationship more times tonight than the entire time since they'd started sleeping together; mixing with the civilians had an interesting effect on his vocabulary.
"Still, should be all right, give or take some well-meant advice to leave you."
Jack let himself smile a little. "They're your friends, they'll be worried."
"Yes," Ianto agreed, stepping closer, so that Jack had to raise his chin to meet Ianto's eyes. "I suppose it will be easier to argue my own side if I can remember what it is I like so very much about you."
Jack let the smile widen, just a cool and confident fraction of an inch, instead of jumping to his feet and laughing and kissing Ianto full on his busted-up mouth. He'd been wondering for a while now if Ianto would ever be ready to demand to have anything made up to him; Jack himself was careful never to demand that of Ianto and therefore could not teach that particular move by example.
This was shaping up to be an excellent night after all.
He only let it show a little, just enough to look like good old up-for-anything Captain Jack Harkness. "I could probably refresh your memory."
Ianto started to raise his eyebrows, then stopped with a wince, and his sour look was at least half sincere. "I'm going to need quite a bit of reminding, Jack. I've suffered a blow to the head."
"Okay," Jack said, reaching for Ianto's right hand with both of his. "I'll be thorough."
Without taking his eyes from Ianto's, Jack raised Ianto's hand to his lips, brushing the lightest of touches over his bruised knuckles, more of his breath than his mouth. Ianto blinked twice, rapidly, and Jack let his eyes flutter closed, and pressed a soft kiss to each finger, above the knuckles, not forgetting Ianto's thumb, and then the back of his hand, all the way up to his wrist. Ianto's fingers twitched in his grip, and Jack kissed each of Ianto's perfectly neat cuticles, and only then did he turn Ianto's hand over and kiss each fingertip--again, not forgetting the thumb--working his mouth by excruciating degrees down to Ianto's palm.
It was sweating a little by the time he got there, and he figured that meant he was taking approximately the right course. He allowed himself another glimpse up, and Ianto was watching him, eyes already darkening with interest. His fingers twitched when Jack's eyes met his--uncertain whether he was supposed to be liking this, whether he was supposed to be turned on by it or bored, whether he was supposed to be doing something. Uncertainty, anticipation, anything that would keep Ianto just a little off-balance would give Jack a chance to give him a better surprise than they'd started the evening with.
He lowered his eyes again, working down Ianto's palm to his wrist, nudging back the sleeve of his pullover to press kisses along the veins, a little scrape of teeth here and there to keep his attention. He smiled into the kiss when he pressed his left hand to the top of Ianto's thigh, his fingers spreading up over the crease of his groin, just to one side--and on the wrong side of that lovely denim--from where Ianto would want it most. Ianto startled a little at the touch, but pushed into it in the next instant. Jack eased his hand upward, over pocket and belt, his fingertips questing for bare skin even as he traced the tip of his tongue over Ianto's wrist.
The door clanged open with a crash like Judgment Day, and Ianto jumped away as Gwen's voice carried in from the corridor, "--come and pick them up in the morning, instead, if they're--"
"No," Ianto said, an edge of desperation in his voice as he turned toward the door. "Gwen, I won't be responsible for what happens if you leave me here with him all night."
And that, Jack reflected, was nearly entirely true.
***
Jack kept his mouth shut all the way to the car park, meekly following Ianto, who was walking nearly on Gwen's heels. Gwen said, "Backseat, Jack," in a preemptively quelling sort of tone. She'd probably had to get out of bed to come down to the police station to sort him and Ianto out--by way of the scene of crime, evidently, as she was driving the SUV.
Discretion was clearly the better part of valor, for now. Jack climbed in the back while Ianto got in the front, and almost immediately stubbed his toe on something on the floor that made a plastic rustling noise. Jack sat down and then picked it up; whatever it was, it was wrapped in a bin liner and taped shut. "Gwen? Were you halfway through taking out the trash?"
"Oh, that," Gwen said, starting the SUV and checking her mirrors before heading for the street, blessedly off the property of the Cardiff Police. "I stopped by the house where you were arrested first, to check whether everyone there was all right. Dai explained what had happened--as far as he understood it, anyway--and he insisted that I'd better take that because it was evidence and bound to have fingerprints or traces on it--"
Somebody had been watching American police procedurals.
"Gwen, you beauty," Ianto said suddenly, reaching back and grabbing the thing from Jack's hands, his face flashing into and out of a grin as he came up against his split lip. "Dai, you bloody genius, good man."
Gwen was giving Ianto a puzzled look, but Jack twisted around and started checking behind the seat to see if any of the portable containment units in the SUV had avoided being appropriated as picnic coolers.
"Ianto, what could it possibly be evidence of? He knew who you were."
"It's not evidence," Ianto said. "It's that shapelearner that got away from us--only Dai thinks it's a hideous wedding present. He must have meant for it to get broken in the fight, or he'd never have hit me."
Ianto sounded genuinely pleased, and Jack realized with a sick start that all the time they'd been in the cell, Ianto had been far more worried about his friends than he had been angry with Jack. He snagged a containment box and turned around to offer it, opened, to Ianto, who turned to drop the thing in.
Jack kept his eyes lowered as he snapped the lid shut and did up the clasps. He didn't need to see whatever was in Ianto's eyes when he looked at Jack just now, and he didn't need Ianto seeing him looking, either.
"They were all right, then?" Ianto asked as he settled back into his seat.
"Dai and his wife? Yeah, fine. They said you should come round tomorrow, they want to talk to you."
"About the unsuitable company I'm keeping, no doubt," Ianto agreed, and raised a hand to his hair, as if already trying to make himself presentable for that meeting. Jack continued to not enlighten him about the bit sticking up in back, and noticed that Gwen hadn't pointed it out either. "I'll have to think of a way to explain Jack that doesn't make me sound entirely mad."
Jack glanced up at the rearview mirror and met Gwen's gaze; she looked a little more skeptical at that prospect than he was accustomed to expect from her, and then she looked back to the road.
"Tell them he's off his meds," Gwen suggested airily. "And if they ask what he's on, say, 'Oh, what isn't he--'"
"But he's really lovely when he's well, and it's not his fault--" Ianto sounded like he was relishing that line of explanation.
"Hey," Jack snapped, though he didn't really know whether he wanted to reprimand them for their entirely unenlightened attitude toward the (admittedly still primitive, but at least embryonically decent and scientific) treatment of mental illnesses, or the fact that they thought it was a good idea to slander his (all things considered, really remarkable) mental stability to Ianto's friends when he'd simply made a perfectly rational mistake.
Gwen just laughed, and Ianto relaxed into his seat in a manner that suggested there was smirking going on. Jack rolled his eyes and sat back, watching Cardiff go by.
When Gwen pulled up at Ianto's she waved at the box and said, "I'll just put that in containment, shall I?"
Ianto gave Jack a single quick glance as he got out, but it was enough. Clearly apologizing was still on the menu for tonight. Jack grinned and opened the back door. "Yeah, Gwen, we'll deal with it tomorrow. Drive safely."
Gwen rolled her eyes, and barely waited until he was out the door--let alone closing it--before she took off down the street. Jack chased far enough to slam the door and then turned back, to find Ianto standing in the door at his building, watching, with a small, wary smile on his face. Jack trotted over to him, and Ianto said, "Well, I suppose I'd better let you in or we'll be doing this in the street."
"Ooh, could we?" Jack said, and of course just then it started to rain.
Ianto rolled his eyes and stepped inside, muttering about rain gods, but really, it was only remarkable that it had been briefly not raining, just then. Jack followed him up to his flat while forbearing to point that out. Jack paused to lock up the door behind them, and turned round from that just in time to see Ianto distractedly running a hand through his hair. He winced when he hit a sore spot and looked down at his fingers, betrayed. When he looked up at Jack, his expression settled back to wariness.
"I need a shower," Ianto said, in an absent tone directed more to himself than to Jack. "But I don't want you disappearing while I'm not looking."
"Better not take your eyes off me, then," Jack said agreeably, shrugging his coat off without Ianto's assistance and hanging it up beside the door while Ianto stood conspicuously still, watching. "Your shower's not that tiny."
"If you cause me to have a slip and fall accident, I will kill you just to watch you die," Ianto informed him evenly.
"Fair enough," Jack agreed, unbuttoning his shirt. Ianto shook his head and toed off his trainers, walking away in the direction of the bathroom without a further word. Jack unlaced his boots and lined them up neatly under his coat and then, remembering that he was apologizing and might as well do the thing up right, placed Ianto's trainers neatly beside them, undoing the laces so he could put them on easily when he wanted them.
He did leave the rest of his clothes in a trail on the way back to the bathroom, though. Certain things were simply a part of the experience. He found Ianto in the bathroom, presenting a lovely sight as he bent naked over the edge of the tub, testing the water with his fingers. Ianto's dirty clothes were all in the hamper, and there was a stack of clean towels already conveniently positioned on the edge of the sink.
Mindful of Ianto's warning, Jack stood in the doorway, enjoying the show at a safe distance, until Ianto had turned on the spray, stood up, and looked around for him.
"Come on, then," Ianto said. The last of his exasperation was fading rapidly toward pure weariness, and Jack realized his window for getting in an apology was narrowing; if Ianto fell asleep on him, he'd wake up tomorrow and write the whole thing off. Jack knew himself well enough to know that as soon as Ianto let him off the hook, he'd let himself off as well. Life--Ianto's life, in this case--was too short to waste apologizing for things that had already been forgiven, however tacitly and reluctantly.
Jack followed him into the warmth of the shower--barely more damp than standing outside, as Ianto was blocking most of the spray. He winced as he let it run directly onto the back of his bloodied head, and Jack reached around, deflecting the water with his hand. Ianto bowed his head and closed his eyes, and Jack stepped forward, pressing his lips to Ianto's forehead.
He reached around to the shower shelf with his other hand, picking up Ianto's shampoo. "This might sting."
Ianto winced when Jack dripped the shampoo on, but his shoulders slumped as Jack began to work it into his hair, going gently over the tender spots, guiding Ianto to tip his head the other way to keep the soap out of his eyes.
When Ianto's hair rinsed clean of shampoo and blood, Jack picked up a washcloth and soaped it, and proceeded to gingerly clean up Ianto's face, and when he'd done that he was on a roll and went on with cleaning the rest of him. Ianto stood still and permitted Jack's attentions in silence, only making a little startled sound when Jack cleaned the scratches on his neck, and then when he found the darkening bruises elsewhere on Ianto's body.
Jack consoled himself that Dai probably looked the same, or worse, and that Ianto had permitted it to keep from killing the man. Jack also thought that it was probably best if he didn't go round to Dai and Gretchen's ever again for the rest of Ianto's life.
By the time he'd finished washing Ianto's feet, Jack was already on his knees, and Ianto was half hard. Jack looked up, one hand on the neutral territory of Ianto's knee, his lips hovering just off the skin of Ianto's hip. He found Ianto watching him, looking neither eager nor forbidding under his bruises, but... persuadable.
Jack brushed his mouth against Ianto's hip and said softly, "May I?"
Ianto blinked asymmetrically, and then sighed, braced an arm against the tiled wall, and said, "Don't you dare let me fall."
It still hit him like a kick in the gut sometimes, the way mortal people trusted him to know what the hell he was doing, and to use that knowledge well. He closed his eyes before Ianto could see that part of his reaction. He'd had to get good, in the last century and a half, at thinking about just one thing at a time, whatever was important at the moment. Right now what was important was sucking Ianto's cock, and doing a good enough job of it to make Ianto remember why he liked letting Jack into his pants. Or having Jack as his boyfriend, which--
No. One thing at a time. Jack placed a firmly supporting hand on the back of Ianto's thigh, and moved his mouth--without more than a little delay to tease--to where it would do the most good.
Ianto let out a soft sound, more than a sigh, less than a grunt, as Jack's mouth closed around his cock. Jack smiled as he sucked--not too hard, just warming up. He loved the sensation of Ianto getting hard in his mouth--it lent a certain immediacy to the sense of accomplishment. Jack's cock was stiffening from the taste and heat, the weight of Ianto's cock, the nudge at the back of his mouth. But this wasn't about him, it was about Ianto. Jack could wait.
He kept one hand on Ianto's thigh, and slid the other between to cup Ianto's balls, playing with them as he sucked Ianto's cock. Jack had long since learned Ianto, and he put his education to use now, bringing him slowly but surely to the brink and then backing off--taking him deep only to switch to maddening licks, alternating complicated tongue tricks with simple suction, and then the least scrape of teeth or tug on his balls, when it seemed like Ianto was nearly there. It wasn't teasing, anymore, it was just a matter of making it last.
Ianto was quiet, nearly always--noisy when Jack or the particular circumstances called for it, but as a rule, quiet. The sounds he made now were nearly lost under the sound of the shower and the roar of blood in Jack's ears, but every one of them was an accomplishment.
Then Ianto said, nearly a growl though still low, "Fuck."
A moment later his hand was fisted in Jack's hair, hard against the back of his head, and then Ianto's hips snapped forward. Jack smiled the best he could just then, shifted both hands to rest on the sides of Ianto's thighs, and gave himself over as Ianto thrust again and again, his breathing going harsh and erratic. He was fucking Jack's mouth now, being rough with him in a way Jack knew perfectly well Ianto had never been--never dared to be--with anyone else.
All Jack's senses narrowed down to this: the pistoning of Ianto's cock, the bitter-salt taste of him, Ianto's knuckles against the back of his head and the erratic tugging on his hair, and Ianto's low, steady, beautiful Welsh cursing. He went silent as the rhythm of his hips began to fall apart, and Jack tightened his fingers on Ianto's thighs, pulling him in. Ianto came with a gasp, spilling into Jack's mouth, down his raw throat, and Jack sucked him gently through it as Ianto went still.
It was the fine trembling in Ianto's legs that made him stop, mindful of his promise. Jack let Ianto slip from his lips and sat back onto his heels, shifting his hands to hold and tug on Ianto's hips. There was water dripping from Ianto's eyelashes and his chin, his eyes closed and his cheeks apple-red. Ianto resisted for a moment, then set his other hand on Jack's shoulder and let Jack ease him down, his knees coming down on Jack's thighs, his arms looping over Jack's shoulders. Jack leaned his forehead against Ianto's chest to feel him breathing, closing his own eyes and inhaling the smell of sweat and come not quite washed away by the shower water yet. He ran his hands in slow water-slicked slides over Ianto's back, letting his own breathing slow in time with Ianto's.
Jack had lost nearly all feeling in his legs when Ianto shifted his weight backward--enough for the water of the shower to start falling on Jack, and he turned his face up into it automatically, closing his eyes. The fall of water was eclipsed, then, and Jack didn't have time to open his eyes before he felt a brush of lips on his forehead like a benediction. Ianto murmured, "Apology accepted, yes," as his hand closed on Jack's cock.
Jack tried to push up into Ianto's touch--couldn't, with Ianto's weight on his thighs--and let out a moan of frustration and startled pleasure. He wondered for a second whether it was the forgiveness or the politeness that was turning him on so hard, that had him racing toward orgasm at just the awkwardly-angled grip of Ianto's hand. Then he forced himself to stop wondering, and a few seconds after that, to stop thinking about anything at all.
He forced himself to just feel: the quick wet stroke of familiar fingers on his cock, lingering just where he liked. Pressure against his forehead--Ianto leaning close, Ianto's breath against his face. Ianto's hand against the back of his head had gone gentle now, a caress, and the warm water fell all around, like being back home in a summer rain, caught outside with some beautiful boy.
Jack tilted his face up, searching for a kiss as his breathing went ragged. Ianto gave him one, lips gingerly brushing over his. Jack's mouth was still sensitive, magnifying the touch, but he chased it the best he could while Ianto had him pinned down. Ianto deepened the kiss, and Jack just barely registered the hot wet slide of lips and tongue before he tasted blood and jerked back.
Ianto hissed wordlessly and then closed his battered mouth over Jack's again, his grip on Jack's cock tightening just to the edge of too much. His hand in Jack's hair kept him still as Ianto bit down on Jack's lower lip, and Ianto swallowed any sound Jack made as he shuddered and came.
Jack slumped forward as his orgasm ended, leaning his head against Ianto's shoulder. Ianto leaned into him, curled over and around him. Jack thought vaguely that there was an architectural principle at work, only they needed a better roof to keep out the rain.
A few seconds later, Jack's brain inevitably returned to full function. He raised one hand from Ianto's back to grope for the faucet, and managed to shut off the water before it had cooled much.
Ianto made a sleepy discontented sound, loud in the sudden silence. He shifted just enough for Jack to realize that he'd lost--and would soon regain--feeling in his legs below the mid-thigh.
He pushed gently at Ianto. "Time for bed. Neither of us needed a cold shower tonight."
"Granted," Ianto sighed, sounding more awake. He pushed himself carefully to his feet, steadying himself against the wall under the showerhead as he pushed the curtain back and reached for a towel.
Jack seized his moment while Ianto was drying his face to push up to his own feet, gritting his teeth as the pins and needles hit like half a resurrection. He rubbed at his thighs, waiting it out, and when he looked up Ianto was watching him with a distinctly sardonic expression under the bruises and holding out a towel.
"I'd say that will teach you, except that it so obviously won't."
Jack flashed Ianto a grin and stepped out of the shower onto the mat, watching as Ianto followed to guard against any last possibility of slip-and-fall accident. "That? That was nothing. Did I ever tell you about the time I broke my back in the middle of--"
"Oh, God, it's too late for stories of gruesome sex injuries," Ianto said, stifling a yawn which made his argument for him. "Although I'm sure it's fascinating," he added, gave Jack a brief kiss, and sidled past him and out of the bathroom.
"Three vertebrae," Jack added as he followed, toweling off with a practiced minimum of drips on the floor. "All it taught me was to have a good eye for the structural integrity of bedroom furniture."
Ianto's bed, for instance, was surprisingly sturdy for something that had started out as flat-pack; in any case it had no especially dangerous failure states. Ianto had his back to Jack as he hung a towel over the back of a chair, but there was a lingering hint of eye-rolling as he turned round and flipped back the duvet.
Jack finished his own use of the towel--drying off, not the strange, automatic modesty of wrapping it round himself to walk from one room to another, as Ianto did--and crossed to drape it beside Ianto's. Now to bed, for a last bit of apology in the form of cuddling before Ianto fell asleep, though there was always the faint possibility of round two...
Ianto kissed him softly, and this time the taste that made Jack pull back was an unfamiliar finality. Ianto met his eyes for an instant, then turned away, getting into bed as he spoke. "Let's be adults, Jack. Stay if you can stay, go if you need to go. None of this slipping out in the night, it's..."
Ianto was lying on his side, with his back to Jack, and he raised one hand to wave it, groping for a word. "Juvenile."
Jack stared at him a moment, feeling off-balance and proud and tender all at once. Mixing with civilians really was giving Ianto ideas--well, there were worse ideas for him to have.
"All right," Jack said. "You're right."
He moved to the edge of the bed, setting one hand on Ianto's shoulder, and Ianto looked up at him, then closed his eyes as Jack leaned down to kiss his forehead.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Jack said softly, and took both towels with him as he walked back to the bathroom, shutting off the light as he went.
He hung up the towels neatly, and followed the trail of his clothes backward, dressing again as he went. He stopped by the door, facing his boots and coat, both still damp. Rain was pelting against the windows. He'd have to walk, or borrow Ianto's car, which tended to annoy Ianto.
On the other hand, Torchwood had already sorted two crises in one tonight, and Ianto was lying naked in bed, likely feeling very grown up about going to sleep alone.
"Well, the hell with that," Jack said, and left his shoes and coat where they were, and his clothes in a trail to Ianto's bedroom.
Re: OH <3
(Are you the last? It seemed like the whole thing just sort of fell apart, so--no pressure, honestly! *g*)
*hugs lots* You're very welcome and thank you back!
Re: OH <3
(And, yeah, I figured you wouldn't mind if it was late since it was such a low-pressure thing in the first place, but thanks for saying so anyway. I guess it'll just be a surprise for you when I'm finally done!)
Re: OH <3