Thanks to my wonderful beta Demetra.
Centuries ago.
Or it can be just yesterday.
You don't remember.
Sometimes it's hard to remember and suffocating words come to caress your throat.
Would you … would you tell me your story?
Wandering man, tell me, tell me what is to be you?
Gone too long.
Maybe never returned.
From water.
Black waters. Somewhere.
Echoing voices and you are damned.
Falling stone through the depth of an ocean.
Too close, yet distant. What they said?
Where you've been.
Wet skin and on your lips only one wish.
Licking away blood and black ink hair plastered on your face.
Gone too far. Gone for so long.
A summer night and no one is around.
A black consumed armor and that sheepish smile plastered on your lips.
She came and crowned you with a helm.
Dried blood and dirt decorating the dark metal.
You just wanted to be taken home.
Black feathers caressing your pale and cold cheeks.
Died as a warrior. Reborn like a warrior.
Wind humid and leading with its leaves, whispering of an age by now gone.
Water caressing your legs as she slowly and carefully speaks to you.
You saw her. Somewhere. Centuries ago.
Looking down at your hands they are still stained with blood. It doesn't wash away easily.
It's like tattooed on your skin.
Looking up, black feathers dancing in front of your eyes, swallowing and lusting eyes.
Bottomless eyes. Black holes eating everything around.
They were used to be sky blue.
She kisses you. Her lips soft and her hand clings on your long and battered mantle.
You don't want to move. You don't want to be lead out from the swallowing waters.
You don't want to remember.
Could she just cover your eyes and her hand dance a bit further.
Like he used to do.
Lower. Coiling instinct.
Could she … could she just leave you alone.
The heaviness of your mantle. The constriction of your helmet and the caress of the long tail of black feathers on your thirsty skin.
The forest becomes smaller, like everyone wants to hear. Everyone wants to steal your swallowing breath.
Like her. Like him.
Who was he?
"Not yet." You ask looking her. "Not again."
She steps back, with long black veils dancing like snakes around her sensual body.
Her little breast visible at your eyes and your breath becomes a silent gasp as you feel like chocking and waters screams at you.
Tied to something, someone whom you don't want to remember.
Where he went?
Who he was?
How long you loved him?
What war you fought in his name?
Somewhere. Sometimes. Ago.
You were, you were like made of fire and blood was tattooed on your skin.
You tried.
You wanted.
He asked.
He left.
She wants.
She asks.
Slowly, you start to move. Silence is all around you.
The long, heavy mantle is being dragged around you. You stare at her from under your helmet.
Ground.
Waters lets you go. Finally.
"Welcome home hero." She smiles softly while extending her long arm towards you. Inviting you.
Breathing heavily you stare around. Slowly pulling the mantle around you.
Naked skin exposed to the air. No more water lulling you.
"Why!" You scream out, reaching for her.
She stares at you like your words are made of silence.
And then again.
Again that sensation devouring you. Like before. Like many and many centuries ago.
Fire eating you alive. Fury licking at your inner being.
Falling on the ground, struggling and yelling as nails dig into the dirty mold and you let that feeling take you all over again.
She just stares. Stares at you rubbing your forehead on the ground, like wanting to get rid of everything, of the feeling which is dripping into you.
And then you smell again. His scent. One second and then it's gone with him. Somewhere.
Lifting up, staggering on your feet you swallow black blood and sour emotions.
What was yours, was taken.
What war you fought in the name of whom?
She lets you walk past her.
Long mantle dragging with it mold and dirtiness.
It wasn't an ordinary love. It was more.
You keep trying, you still keep trying for him.
The forest is like tracing a path for you to follow. Silent animals slowly coming out from the darkness and watching you.
You don't know what they want. What they mean while staring at you making your way out of the forest.
Only one step and then the forest and its secrets, its waters will be behind your shoulders and turning you stare at her.
Black feathers dancing along the wind, cold eyes and then with a single move you step away.
Yelling in pain Sun blinds you as you stagger on your feet. Lowering your head you stare around you.
Dizzy with feelings and need. Taken by memories and sensations.
Where he went, you must go.
You cast your unblinking eyes around yourself but you would like to look away. The world has changed since your last dance.
He was dancing on a summer night, he was leading your somewhere. Somewhere where you've never been before.
Still … the air smells the same and birds sing on trees.
There's something keeping you there.
Drenched in his love and feelings you must dance along what he wants.
You try to look away but he's calling you.
She steps beside you and her long fingers take your arm.
"You come like rain, like a silver knight you cover me."
Dragging your mantle you start to walk and she silently follows you.
"I would … I want him." You whisper trying to recognize something which could lead your memory to him.
"Am I damned?" You ask stopping for a moment and turning toward her.
Long black veils dancing around her voluptuous body. A crown made of silver adorning her long blond hair.
She smiles. "No he loved you deeply."
You stand in front of her and your sky blue eyes dance along her body.
"Tell me more. Please." You ask hoarsely.
"With time. You will know." She nods and keeps walking.
"What do you want from me!" You yell slapping away the mantle from your shoulder. "It's been too long time ago. I don't even remember."
She stops and sighs looking up at you. "Are you a warrior?"
"I ..." You start, then looking away you stare at the forest. "I thought to be that."
She doesn't say anything but stares at your long red mantle being dragged around by the wind.
"Muse let me return into the swallowing waters!" You yell out. "I'm not doing it right."
"Follow me." She only commands. And you follow.
Somewhere. Some time ago. Centuries gone.
He was with you. He was the center of your universe. He was what kept you breathing. The ground under your feet. He was the inner peace and water which could wash your blood away.
He was the stronger one. The stone in love. The prince with a shining kingdom.
He was the summer rain which could wash every sin away. He was the constant. The blistering need to have. Hold. You could fly high and every wound could be licked away.
He was. He was beside you. During the war. He was with you. He was under you. Panting and wanting. Skin mixing. Semen sticking. Kisses tying.
Shores and sand on your skin he said something. You believed in that something.
In him and his love.
Centuries ago. Centuries ago you were alive between the others.
You were respected and loved. Not damned somewhere.
"With or without you Jack." He said.
"What?" You asked in a lazy and hot night of summer, sitting on the bed.
He caressed your face. Shrugged and smiled. "Tomorrow in the battle think about me."
You chuckled and shook your head. "I would conquer the entire world, if you only commanded me."
He closed his eyes and kissed you. Sweet and kind yet needy and strong.
"Ianto." You whispered against his lips. Needy. Wanting. Craving.
"Would you destroy the world for me?" He asked biting your neck.
You nodded only making in humming a sound recognizable as a yes.
"I love you my warrior Jack." He moaned as you lowered your head and teases his nipples.
"What is mine, is mine. What I have I consign into your hands because my tomorrow only speaks through yours. Ianto I'm yours."
He tenderly took away the helm and caressed the feathers. "Then share your secrets with mines."
Then it was like velvet and your fingers hunted down for sheets, for something to hold onto.
Coiling desire. Mixing sensations. Wet sounds as you let him, only him dominate you.
Sex is a greedy and sultry king that never has enough, that always searches for company.
He danced and licked at your skin and devoured you.
Ianto knew it. He knew you.
Your weakness and your strength.
He gently danced over you, rode you. Entwining fingers and words of love.
If you could tattoo these on your whole skin. If you could engrave those and read them always. Forever.
If you could wear an armor made of only these.
Your strength sits in his being, in what Ianto offers. What you take you try to give back.
Unfolding dance and swirling love as he rides you and comes.
Love. Oh my love. Sensual and addicting love. Was I your serve?
Did I fight in the name of my beloved?
You left and he asked to be at your side.
"Your place doesn't belong beside me during the battle." You said while he was adjusting your armor.
"You keep undying secrets my warrior. I don't know what consumes you. Let me find out standing beside you in the battle." Ianto pleaded caressing the black feathers.
You stepped back and smiled. "Kiss me love because my secrets don't belong to such pure creature. They will not dirt you my beloved."
You rode away. His eyes on you.
The Muse stops and lifts your chin. "Tell me warrior what happened."
You grunt and push her away. "Why this madness, let me go back to where I belong!"
"And where Jack. Where do you belong?" She softly asks, eyes piercing through you.
Waters?
You belong to them?
Ianto?
You scream out in pure fury. Why she's tormenting you.
"He shouldn't have followed me!" You yell, ground shaking under your feet.
Slapping away your mantle you burn with the anger of what happened to Ianto.
"What am I supposed to do? He's gone."
Too taken. Too into. Too drove by your own fury. Too gone to notice him.
Ianto.
It was a moment, more like a flash you thought to have seen him. Then he was gone. Quickly, as his vision came.
The battle was won and in blood you sealed another victory.
Your men stood beside you. Cheered the winner. The unbeatable.
On a silver plate the head of the enemy, you would have served it to Ianto.
Dragging mantle and triumphant smile plastered on your lips.
Jack. Jack Harkness. The only one. The warrior washed in glory and gold.
She came.
She came, walking slowly toward you.
"Jack." She whispered wearing a light dress made of black veils. "Where you've been?"
You stopped and stared at her.
"In the battle. For Ianto." You replied licking your lips, tasting blood and dirt.
She stared down and opened a door.
The door of Ianto's bedroom.
Air stuck in your throat.
"Ianto!" You yelled out pushing away the people around his bed.
"Jack." She called you. The head of the enemy sitting on the silver plate. Looking at you with a winning smile.
"Ianto no!" You cried out reaching for his hand. Cold and unmoving.
"No who took away what was mine!" You yelled out ragged, blood still dirtying your hands.
Lifting his body from the bed she tried to stop you.
"Jack is too late."
"That's not true." You said. A winner can't be a looser too.
She followed you silently. Sometimes begging you to understand that for Ianto it was over.
Deep dark waters.
They will shush you and the dull pain of living a life without him by your side.
A winner can't be a loser.
You had to pay for what you've done.
"For what I've done I will pay and he has to live again." You whisper stepping into the cold and dark waters.
"Muse no one will say my name again. No one will cast any mention of who I was. Of what I did." You said before bowing your head.
"No shame. No regret. He has to live without the burden of what I did. Of my blood thirst which lead him to this."
"Warrior. It's not over yet." She said but waters were gently tying you to them. Drenching and dragging you down.
"Jack!" She called you with Ianto lying between her arms, on the ground.
Then it was silence and damp feelings.
A warrior rode away and his shining helmet was seen by no one again.
Air stuck in your throat.
"Muse?" You call her stopping in front of her.
"A winner can't be a loser." She smiles before turning and caressing your cheek.
"Now. Look at your hands."
You stare down at them and for the first time they are clean. No blood to be seen on them.
And when you lift your eyes to look at her you find yourself sitting on the bed.
And Ianto is slowly taking away the mantle.
Gentle summer night breeze.
"Where you've been?" He asks kissing your shoulder.
"Far away from here." You only reply catching his wandering hand in yours.
"I love you Ianto."
He smiles, moon painting his skin with silver. "I love you Jack."
"I will not fight any war. I just want to be with you." You say before kissing him.
Closing the tiny gap which divided you two.
Breathe.
Finally breathing as she smiles and leads you out of the forest.
You start all over again because a winner will remain a winner.
A lover will be always tied to the object of his passion because we are slaves of the people we chose to love.
Ianto. Is yours.