"This is still intensely painful - Jack, I'm going to kill you."
"You're just saying that. Although if it would make you feel better..."
Ianto just rolled his eyes extravagantly from the passenger seat of the SUV. Jack winced a little and redirected his attention to parallel-parking. No matter how many times and decades he tried it in, it never seemed to get noticeably easier.
"You're going to hit the curb," Ianto said, sticking his head out the window.
"No, I'm not," Jack said. "I was driving before you were born, thanks very much."
"I know you're old, Jack, but it doesn't change the fact that you're about to hit the curb."
Jack opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by a suspicious scraping sound.
"Yup. Tire straight into the storm drain."
"Good enough!" Jack said, putting the car into park and secreting the keys into the fourth pocket on the left. This time, he was not going to forget where in the rather voluminous coat he put them.
"I bet you get a ticket for this," Ianto said, still peering out the window.
"I'll just flash my pearly whites and get it dropped," Jack said, unbuckling Ianto's seatbelt.
"You mean you'll flash your Torchwood ID at the station and make suggestive motions in the direction of your crotch."
"Same difference. Ready to try the stairs up to your place?" Jack asked, getting out of the SUV.
"I think there's ten pence in that drain."
"Yeah, time to get you up the stairs before I have to carry you up."
"I should make you carry me up on general principle," Ianto muttered, watching disinterestedly as Jack opened his door and rolled the window up.
"Not until you let me do that thing you never let me do with the rope," Jack said, tugging a little at Ianto's arm. "Now come on, you'll be much happier when you're in bed."
"Don't even starttttt," Ianto said, allowing himself to be gently pulled out of the seat.
"Pain killers kicking in?" Jack asked, keeping a firm grip on the other man's unusually slouched shoulders.
Ianto nodded, leaning back against Jack's hands.
"None of that," Jack said. "Come on, we're going inside."
"Yeah, alright," Ianto said, finding his feet. "I'm going to bed, and you're leaving without any pressuring for bizarre sex acts."
"I wouldn't ask for sex!" Jack said. "Contrary to what you seem to believe, I am extremely sorry for shooting you."
"I suppose," Ianto muttered, "I just don't understand how these things are contradictory, when filtered through the cesspool of your brain."
"Well," Jack said, unlocking the door to Ianto's dingy apartment, "that's certainly a fine way to speak to the gentleman chastely escorting you to bed."
Ianto didn't say anything, just removed the roving hand from his arse while toeing off shoes that were rather worse for the wear. Fearful of the eventual consequences, Jack followed suit, agreeably removing his hand from said arse, and kicking off the rather disgusting boots and, after a moment of reflection, the even more disgusting socks.
It wouldn't do to track remnants of Weevil and Ianto guts all over the floor, especially if he ever wanted to see anything below the waistband of Ianto's rather high-fastening trousers again. And though the hospital had done a rather good job, even in Jack's grudging estimation, he wouldn't be able to sleep soundly until Ianto was tucked in (and the door was triple-locked, the Hub alarms were forwarded to his wrist-strap, and Gwen's periodic check-in was received).
Thankfully, the A&E had done a rather good job, even before Ianto's fastidious and nit-picking review, of cleaning the entire torso, and not just the area where Jack's bullet had narrowly missed a kidney. Which not only made pouring the afflicted man into bed easier, it also meant that dodging the verbal barbs was much easier, as the painkillers had thankfully been administered by a doctor somewhat more heavy-handed with the opiates than Owen.
Jack turned the sheets down beneath Ianto's chin, reminded rather forcefully of the times he had performed the same service for his children, and also for the men, burning with fever, that had died in the trenches under his watch.
"Jack," came a soft voice from the bed, even as he turned to self-flagellate with reruns of the American History Channel.
"Hmm? Do you need a glass of water?"
"No," Ianto said, glassy eyes half-closed. "I just wanted you to stay. It's alright though, you don't have to."
"Oh," said Jack back, already shrugging off the overly-warm coat. "I would rather. Just in case you need, you know, medical attention."
He was under the covers, with the lights off, arm over the bulky bandages of his bedmate, when Ianto whispered, "You're not qualified to give medical attention. And this doesn't get you off the hook."