No Word For Blue
It was a Sunday in the city above, up where things like that mattered. Down in the Hub days of the week went unheeded. They would have days on and days off, a rotating duty roster, if anyone ever bothered not to come in. Gwen usually took her days off. The others, Ianto, barely existed outside. Ianto still hadn't finished unpacking after three years. There were boxes all over his flat, Jack had seen them: stowed under tables and pushed into corners, gathering dust.
Sunday morning, and Jack was shivering slightly as he climbed up to his office. It was always chilly here in the mornings, since, as if by some silent agreement, the last one out at night always turned the heat down. Jack didn't mind the cold as he slept, or didn't sleep, and it added a sense of time to a place which no wind or rain or even the slightest brush of sunlight would ever touch. It made him appreciate that first cup of coffee all the more. Drawing the steam into his lung felt like the first breath of rebirth ought to feel, such joy as he couldn't help but smile and hear in his head a snippet of a hymn that he had once learned.
"Satisfactory, sir?"
"It'll do," he said with a wink. Though the moment seemed to call for innuendo, even for him it was a little early for that. "Anyone else in yet?"
* * *
Gwen had a fragrance about her, that Jack had first noticed when he put his arm around her on the invisible lift. It was a tangle of mixed flowers with a chemical sweetness; not a perfume, he suspected, most likely a shampoo or some sort of body wash. Once he had put a finger on it he caught it every time she came close to him. When she went home to Rhys, the husband-to-be, he kept thinking that Rhys must not even smell it anymore, after being so close to her so often.
It took much more time to pick up on Ianto's scent. The first time they kissed, really kissed, on that rooftop overlooking the Plass, he had almost tasted a hint of coffee but he wasn't sure whose breath it had been on. Only later did he slowly become aware of a distinctive neutral aroma around Ianto, the spiky clarity of air off the Irish Sea or bleak countryside washed by the rain.
* * *
An hour later he cornered Ianto in his office. He pressed him against the wall and kissed him passionately. Ianto was warm against him, smelling of salt and tasting of coffee and dark chocolate. He broke the kiss suddenly, grasped the back of Ianto's head with his hands and pressed their foreheads together. They were both breathing hard, not enough air. A fevered heat quivered through his entire body.
"Jack," Ianto whispered the name as if it was something holy. "Jack..."
If he hadn't been so close, Jack would not have heard the slight crack in his voice. He held Ianto to him harder, until he was sure he had left bruises on his shoulders, and Ianto's fingernails had certainly dug marks into his back, and still, if only he didn't have to let go.
* * *
Jack could feel Ianto's eyes on him as he got dressed. Smoothed out his hair, splashed cold water on his face, buttoned up his shirt and tucked it into his belt just as it was so it would look as though nothing had happened. Which it hadn't, not really.
"Do you have any shirts that aren't blue?" In the mirror he saw Ianto still on the bed, lying propped up on his elbows. Jack smiled and jokingly counted on his fingers.
"Lessee, one two, one's turquoise, so... two and a half? Why, don't you think I look dashing in blue?"
"Of course I do," Ianto replied, "though I think you look more dashing not in it."
Jack snorted.
"It's just a good thing we aren't in ancient Greece," Ianto added through a yawn.
He turned to face the young man, puzzling through the seeming non sequitur. Ianto was always a little loopy after sex: his lilting accent was stronger, and things slipped out of his mouth that would never otherwise get past his careful filter. Mostly Jack found this charming. Of course he couldn't tell Ianto that he actually had been in ancient Greece once, and if it had only been for a few days he had found it extremely well to his liking.
"Why's that?" he settled for.
"Greek had no word for blue. That's why Homer is always going on about the 'wine-dark sea' and the 'bronze sky.' Then we read it and we say, how lovely! how poetic! what a fine turn of phrase! But he only put it like that because the right word didn't exist."
Jack hadn't known that. He considered asking Ianto where he had learned Greek, was he much for the classics, tease him that English and Welsh weren't enough for him, for a moment he really wanted to, but then he though better of it. He caught himself staring thoughtlessly at Ianto, who had closed his eyes and appeared to be dozing again. Something itched deep behind his ribs.