Prologue – Act One

I want to stand with you on a mountain.
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever.
Until the sky falls down on me.

Savage Garden's song "Truly, Madly, Deeply"

Standing in that doorway, Jack Harkness' body would make a blind man shiver. But he was real, not like some Photoshopped cutout from GQ or Playgirl. The wonder at what was behind his attraction to Jack's normalcy would be a constant component of Ianto's internal deconstructive musings, both in therapy and out. For his part, Jack would have none of amateur analysis he could see like a BBC News crawl across Ianto's forehead. He leaned forward and pulled Ianto into the doorway with him. With him standing closer, Jack framed Ianto's face, with a firm hand behind his neck and the other under his chin and whispered into his mouth, as if to warn off any extraneous considerations, "Thinking breeds hesitation." Jack kissed Ianto. His tongue and lips were demanding, a consuming fire that stitched salacious invitations throughout Ianto's body, exploding nerve endings like overloaded circuit breakers.

Jack pulled back a little and pressed his forehead against Ianto, appreciating his lover's heavy breathing – so many lovers, so many kinds of lovers across so much time and an immortal learns a thing or two about the art of sex. Jack knew he could conjure Ianto a mind smashing orgasm here in this doorway without loosening a button on his Hugo Boss suit (Ianto would later correct him, "Torchwood pays sufficiently. I only buy from Savile Row."). Maybe at some point Jack would do just that, but not tonight. This was different, Ianto was different, somehow, in some way he couldn't admit. "Hell", Jack thought, "Who's deconstructing now?!"

"Come here", Jack said while already pulling Ianto back to the living area. He thought of the couch but he didn't want Ianto thinking again, considering the whole time how to get stains out of leather, and instead pulled out a chair from the dining room table. Jack loosed the tie before he removed Ianto's suit jacket and vest and tossed them on the table. Ianto reached over to prevent the vase from spilling over his clothes. But when he looked back at Jack, he got a scowl. "Stop!" Jack commanded, "There is plenty of time, LATER, for your OCD." Jack smoothed over his remark with a charming smile and started unbuttoning Ianto's shirt. Ianto's eyes followed Jack's hands at each button, which made Jack slow down just a bit. When he got to the last button from the belt, Jack took his index finger and in distracting gesture, moved the finger up to just underneath Ianto's nose, tickling it slightly. This caused Ianto to blink and rock back a bit before recognizing Jack's jest.

Ianto grinned, laughing internally at his intense shyness and uncertainty. He removed his silver cuff links, a gift from his sister at his last birthday, and rolled up his sleeves like someone about to tend to something important. At this moment, in his experience, usually someone says or does something sweet or endearing.

"Sit," Jack instructed, knuckles pressed into his hips and standing like George Reeve's Superman. Ianto dropped to the chair wondering if he bitten off more than he could take on. Jack ignored Ianto's quizzical look and continued, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," Ianto said breathlessly.

"You shouldn't," Jack said then walked behind the chair. Just as Ianto started to look behind him, he action was corrected by the sound of Jack snapping Ianto's tie between his hands, the silk fibers left a hissing reverb that echoed down the seated man's spine. Jack tied Ianto's hands behind his back, securing the knot just enough to make the scene exciting. "I'm not one to be trusted, Ianto, or didn't Dr. Segal tell you that," he said, noting that Ianto was showing no sign of objecting. As Jack came back around, he noted Ianto's erection pressing against his pants. He didn't look at Ianto's face – he would later wonder if he feared rejection – another in a growing list of sensations this man resurrected from him, Jack would later reflect.

Jack got on his knees and deftly released Ianto penis from his pants. He ran his fingers teasingly up and down the shaft a few times, as if to give his hand a sense of the span and vigor of it before continuing, "I'm not like you, Ianto. I'm not a kind person. The dangers of Torchwood are easy compared to being with me." He stopped stroking and settled on trying to firmly grasp the middle section. Jack gave it one of his famous sidelong glances, enjoying is girth. "But, I can promise you one thing, Ianto Jones," he said as he massaged the pre-cum across the head, "It will never be boring".

Ianto didn't hear and didn't care what Jack promised at that moment. He was on fire and that thumb made his hips shoot up like chair cushion was on fire. Now that he knew he was fully in control, Jack charted Ianto's arousal in his face, and moved his thumb to keep the intensity flowing at just the right level. Ianto's glossolalist's moans reflected ecstasy from someplace unholy, otherworldly. His eyes as his senses were restricted to his skin and an anticipation that was somewhere in the distance – a place he just had to get to now. As Ianto's head fell back, his bicep muscles strained against the bind, and his hips strained upward as far as they could manage, Jack took away his hands. Ianto's head snapped back, eyes fiery and pleading but Jack didn't see this because a moment later he his mouth was around Ianto's cock.

Ianto had only a limited experience with fellatio – Lisa, like many women, found it demeaning, so he only asked once and because he loved her, he never brought it up again. The other times were the results of unmemorable, sloppy, late night shags in the bathroom during some mate's house party. "Amazing," slipped from Ianto's lips, which were nearly bleeding from his knawing at them. He let his head fall back, as he moaned in some unknown language. The warmth of Jack's mouth and the moisture from Jack's tongue shifted the rhythm and Ianto found himself following a new, slower wave. And although he remained hard, Ianto could tell this was going to be altogether something different, something much better. He found he liked the drippings of saliva that Jack's downward stroke left on his pubic hair and how his head could just feel Jack's tonsils. He also relished the fact that Jack's hand had to stretch just a bit to completely hold and successfully massage his balls. On occasion, one of Jack's fingers would caress Ianto's gouch but never went any further, somewhat to Ianto's disappointment.

Somewhere between that thought and oblivion, Jack's mouth loosened, becoming a light but quickened stroke that focused on Ianto's bellend. While maintaining a firm hold around the head, Jack's tongue moved in small circles. If something was coming through the rift at that moment, Cardiff was doomed and the world was on its own. Ianto's body was a collapsing star and Jack's mouth on his dick was the singularity consuming Ianto's soul. The spasms started in his lower abdomen, not his cock as in other encounters but where his Indian friend once told him was the sacral chakra. Rolling waves moved from this energy center to the edges of his body like late evening tide. The feeling was joyful, less of a sense of release than an expansion to the edges of his body. When it was over, he began shivering because every pore in his body was open and exposed – he wasn't sure if he should be grateful or ashamed. Ianto later wondered if he had been masturbating wrong all these years.

Jack sat back on his heels, wiping the combined Ianto's sperm and his salvia from the corners of his mouth then sucking it off his finger. He looked at Ianto, dazed, panting, and a seemingly a bit lost slumped in the chair, ass so far forward in the chair, he threatened to fall. Jack completely moved Ianto's pants, suppressing a laugh when Ianto jumped at his touch and began shivering again. Jack stood up and looked around for something to wrap around and warm him but only saw his long coat. He grabbed it, turned around, and loosened the tie on Ianto's wrists. It took Ianto a minute to restore the sensation to his arms and he nearly fell off the chair completely trying to stand up. Jack caught him and put the coat around his shoulders. "I think you'd better lie down," Jack advised. Nodding and slight gesture toward the bedroom was about all Ianto could do. Holding him up like a wounded soldier going to the medic, Jack guided him into the bedroom.

Prologue – Act Two

Hear the night music playing? Don't you know what it's saying?

We should feel it together forever

Feel the beat and just hold on to the sweet midnight flowing

Feel the music inside you, I'll be there too

Now's the time that our dreams are finally coming true

Feels so good we're crying

Now's the time when it's down to me and you

Spread these wings - we'll be flying

"Don't You know What the Night Can Do?" Steve Winwood

This was usually when he would exit "stage right". But as he sat in the bed, next to a quietly, contently sleeping Ianto Jones – as he played nearly absent-mindedly with a misplaced curl on Ianto's head and let that old feeling fall over him like a gentle snow on a Christmas morning, Jack Harkness could hear his conscious somewhere off in the distance screaming like a chastising nana. By this time, he was spit sober and couldn't even lie himself into believing it was the drink that brought him here, like the drink did on so many other occasions at so many afterhours bars across G-d knows how many worlds. Nameless faces, sometimes tiresome encounters typically leaving a less than anticipated impression, easily forgotten with the next morning's brief hangover. He had hoped this could be . . . . "Who am I fooling," he grunted to himself.

He looked around Ianto's bedroom and grinned at how he had anticipated (fantasized?) its look so accurately. Auster but elegant – warm, pale gray almost like fog walls with dark oak trim, 2 matching tall, four drawer dressers, door leading to a walk-in closet (with everything precisely in its proper place), Bose speakers with Bluetooth connection with the living-room's system, a cozy armchair with a small side table and lamp, and track lighting strategically placed for correct illumination of Constellation-Mana, an original work of Kumi Yamashita's shadow art series. Jack noticed a nondescript leather bound book with a rather expensive looking but well-used fountain pen accompanying it. He recognized it quickly as Ianto's diary companion as he had seen the young man scribbling in it on a number of occasions. He looked down on his sleeping lover as if asking permission to do wrong then eased out of the bed. Jack was used to keeping floorboards quiet as he creeped and the object of his curiosity wasn't far from the bed. He hesitated, guilt leaked from his hands as his fingers caressed the cover – what could he learn from its pages that would stop him from leaving?

"Jack?" Ianto called without opening his eyes, his hand reaching out to retrieve some warmth he was missing.

Jack was not so much startled as irritated. He was ready, he convinced himself, ready for this book to give him the reasons to bolt. "It's nearly morning."

"Yes," Ianto sat up, using the headboard as a second spine. "Give me a second and I can get your things collected." He rubbed his eyes like a youngster readied too early for a school day. As he reached behind him to turn on the light he said, "I'd imagine everything is dry by now." He rubbed his eyes again, adjusting to the new light. He finally looked directly at Jack, the new sun's rays just making out his silhouette. It could stop here, Ianto lied to himself before offering, "Do want something to drink? Water, coffee, or . . ."

"I'm fine . . . ." Jack said initially only to immediately regret it – he hated that look Ianto got when he couldn't figure someway to be of service – he was like Mr. Carlson when the Crawley's were out of town. "On second thought," he immediately interjected, "some toast and a coffee should do well." Ianto bounced out of bed toward the kitchen like a cheerleader just assigned an individual level 8 stunt.

Ianto had taken the room's warmth out with him and the sudden chill Jack felt caught him off-guard. As he grabbed a throw from off the chair then put it around his shoulders, his eyes again to drawn toward the diary lying invitingly on the side table.

March 23rd – He's returned. The others are pissed but glad to see him, Gwen the most. Wonder how that is going to go now that she's engaged to Rhys?

March 24th – Things are moving fast. Captain John Hart – I reckoned Jack would go for something flashy – is one of Jack's lovers. What did he see in him that warranted two years (or was it two weeks) in a time loop? But, Jack did ask me out albeit in the most conventional way. What do you wear on a date like that?

March 26th – He's been dead two days now. Gwen has held vigil, ever left his side. I can't. I can't stand looking at that gray, plain face. I smell his coat to remember his bright smile, thinking wishes will bring him back.

Jack scrolled past some mundane pages reflecting Torchwood activity, noting that nothing was written about his "resurrection".

April 23rd – Conflicted! Jack seems to have forgotten about asking me out. I seem to be the focus of his sexual teasing one minute whenever he catches me alone. Is he ashamed of me or something? Is Owen right and I'm just some shag in the night – a shag that isn't getting shagged (and do men shag one another and does that hurt)? Yet, why is this bothering me anyway? He's some urbane galaxy-traveler so what would he want with me anyway. No, my therapist says I underestimate my worth. Lisa used to say the same thing.

April 25th – It's almost time for Tosh's yearly date with our young man from the Great War. Her eyes are full of preparation. It's good to see her that way – she deserves this especially considering her unnecessary pining over unavailable Owen. But who am I to talk? I'm in love with a man who thinks the only thing I'm good for is as a pin cushion for his fingers! My sister's right, I need to start dating again. Maybe that new girl at the coffee shop.

May 2nd – Linda's her name. She's nice enough. Smart. Knows her coffee. I should be thrilled but all I talked about all night was "my work" and "my boss". I didn't give any real details, which is probably why she thought me strange and did not return my texts.

May 4th –Dr. Segal said I should take a stand and I will now. Tommy's gone, so the work is settled. I'm not sure what I'm going to say. "Hey Jack, what about that date you promised a while ago, eh?" On second thought, that sounds silly. But he's up in his office and everyone's gone home so this is a good time. At least if I make a complete fool of myself, none of them will notice – I blush too easily.

May 4th – Amazing. He's kissed me before but this time it was different. He initially seemed to want to go further, to what I don't quite know, but he hesitated. Did he notice my erection cuz it didn't go away until I got back to the flat and worked it through in the shower. I reckon it was a bit amateurish. He did say we're going out this Saturday. He was actually rather insistent. Strange but brilliant! I've got to pick up a new tie – I wonder if I have enough time to pop into London and see Danny at Anderson and Shepard!

Jack remembered that kiss too – it was delicious and if he thought he could have gotten away with it, he would have fucked Ianto then and there. What Ianto wasn't aware of is as Jack pulled away about to push the young man back on the desk, he caught a scent that bothered him. "That's where that terrible perfume smell I got from you that day came from, eh?" Jack said to himself, "You got farther than what your diary admitted." He immediately felt ashamed of himself upon realizing that he'd asked Ianto out that day because the smell of another person on him, albeit faint, made him jealous – "Did you fuck her or just kiss her goodnight?" ran roughshod through his mind. But, Ianto's voice from the kitchen led Jack to quickly close the diary.

"Jam or butter?"

"Both. It isn't like I have to worry about cholesterol or Type II diabetes, now do I?!" Jack started to pull the throw tighter around him and head toward the kitchen when Ianto came back to the bedroom with a breakfast-n-bed tray.

"My sister gave me a pair of these a couple of Christmases ago," Ianto proudly offered. "Nice to have a chance to use them!" Bacon, eggs over easy, toast prepared to order, and black coffee – all smelling like love. Ianto looked at Jack expectedly, motioning him back to the bed, "Well, come sit down!"

"Yes sir!" said Jack who until then didn't realize that he was hungry. He got back in the bed after letting the throw fall dramatically on the floor, meaning he was completely naked again. He got under the covers and Ianto presented the tray over Jack's lap. "My compliments to the chef – it is rare I get such service," he said while tugging at the apron tied around Ianto's otherwise naked body.

Ianto kissed Jack's forehead gratefully, took his coffee mug from the tray, then sat himself on the other side of the bed. Jack ate greedily, as he was prone to and Ianto sipped quietly for some time before asking, "Tell me about two years trapped with Captain Hart," Ianto said as he knew there were two ways to get Jack to talk, booze and food – however the former got the straightest, clearest answers.

Jack chuckled a bit then sighed in acquiesce. "It's really rather boring." He took another bite but continued talking, as was his way, "Not much to tell . . ."

Ianto put his half-finished coffee cup on the tray and leaned back against the headboard, closing his eyes to give a visual to the story Jack was about to reveal.

"John was a cadet like me," Jack recalled. "I joined the Time Agency straight out of college. It was a way to prove to my parents that I could be on my own. He was always getting into trouble with the training officers – he seemed to enjoy that more than the idea of joining the corp, I don't know. Sometimes me and the others joined in, just to have some fun if we'd had too much drink during a leave but usually we ignored him. We all wanted to graduate after all." Jack opened his eyes, starred across the smooth, cream colored ceiling conjuring what was for him a very distant memory, "Like I said, he had a crush on me and one day, when were we supposed to paired on a simulated mission, he must of rigged the equipment and locked us both in a time-loop. However, between drugs he'd put in the water and my gullibility, he had convinced me we were going to be there forever, marooned together It felt like two years but when the authorities unraveled his plot and extracted us, it turned out to be only two weeks," his voice trailed off into regret with a ting of anger.

"You were in love with him?" asked Ianto.

Jack thought a moment then said, "No, not really. I was young, dumb, and maybe more homesick than I was willing to admit to myself, so it worked. The authorities were embarrassed that a trainee had so easily manipulated an Agency computer system, so we both got off with a slap on the wrist. The punishment was the teasing I got from the rest of the cadets – I wasn't as sophisticated as I am now, so it was a tough last few weeks in training. Rabbi Teelbaulm was my captain then and played interference so it didn't get too bad –still."

"A rabbi in space?"

"You'll meet HER soon enough – she was like, like a mom to me then. She left the Agency shortly after I did. I lost track of her until I had been with Torchwood for some time. Rabbi Aliyah is a true immortal, born to it. Without her help, I'd just kept trying to find ways to kill myself, over and over again. She's in charge of Torchwood Tel Aviv – they have one of the oldest rifts on Earth. Some say it was the first rift and the real ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel." He cracked his neck and rested his hands behind his head before finishing the story and offering Ianto reassurance, "Eventually, John and I graduated. We went our separate ways. I would hear about his exploits from other Agents or occasionally run across him on intergalactic pleasure ships."

"There are red light districts in space?"

"Yes, I'll take you to one sometime – it's hilarious!" He saw Ianto's bewilderment from the corner of his eye and chuckled.

Prologue – Act Three

You only need one man to love you.

But him to love you free like a wildfire,

crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow,

sudden like an inhale and overcoming

like the tides. Only one man and all of this.

- Unknown author

When the story's visual faded to black in Ianto's mind, he opened his eyes confident that Captain John Hart and others of his elk were not a threat to relationship with Jack now – this was going to be different. Ianto started to wonder if the space/time traveling gigglio was a smoke screen, a façade, something he was going to, could break into. Time and persistence was something Ianto Jones did well – he had infinite patience too and he realized he would need it here, with this man. He blocked off the questions that would later slip in and temper his self-assurance – how does a time traveler who can never die stay interested in a mortal? Instead, Ianto focused on the moment and in this moment, Jack Harkness was in HIS BED in HIS FLAT at THIS TIME. So, with the same courage he had used to kiss him at the Hub, Ianto moved the tray from Jack's lap to the floor then said, "It's Saturday, the Hub is closed, and I'm not done with you yet," and he moved to straddle Jack.

Jack laughed at his partner's enthusiasm but held his against Ianto's chest and with a firm, low tone said, "Wait," which startled Ianto back onto his heels. Jack leaned over the side of the bed where Ianto had heretofore placed the breakfast tray. He took a chunk of butter onto his fingers smeared it inside his backside. Although the action made sense on some level, it still shocked (and thrilled) Ianto. Jack turned to his side while grabbing Ianto's penis and pulled it and its owner definitively toward his backside, placing the tip firmly against his anus. "Inhale then push in slowly," Jack instructed. Ianto nodded into space, braced his hand on Jack's ass and die what he was told. Jack's moan was soulful and bewildered Ianto initially. "Stop thinking!" Jack commanded breathlessly. "Breath!"

Ianto exhaled and Jack pushed him all the way inside him then stopped, his rectal muscles throbbing incessantly against Ianto's shaft. He had never felt anything like it before and he thought he'd loose his mind when Jack began to move back and forth against him slowly. Jack grabbed his hand and wrapped it around his waist which shook Ianto loose from falling off a sexual cliff. The more slow and insistent the thrusting, the more powerful Ianto felt and he found the rhythm that got those indescribably, unexplainably delicious sounds from Jack Harkness. And there was this spot, this one place that if the tip of Ianto's dick hit just right, he could feel Jack shutter uncontrollably. He began concentrating on that spot and was rewarded with pleading. "Don't stop, please," Jack grunted. He didn't stop but increased the speed, ever so slightly until he could feel Jack's hole tighten just a little more and his ass quiver like waves in during a summer storm. But things shifted rapidly, unexpectedly and Ianto Jones had an organism he would later reference mentally when he answered Martha's questions about Jack's love making – "inventive".

Ianto couldn't believe what had just happened to him. He'd just fucked the most fuckable man (likely) in the universe! It felt so good, so powerful, and yet he was uncertain if it was enough. Through his panting and still accelerated heartbeats, Ianto realized that Jack had not come – Jack had not ejaculated during this entire night and that couldn't be right! Was he, had he done something wrong?

Jack turned over and noted the dissatisfied look on Ianto's face. He immediately recognized it. Reeducation was required, "I'm what is referred to as a "dominant bottom." Jack raised up and rested his face on his hand, elbow anchored against the pillow where his head had before lay, giving himself a good eye contact with a concerned Ianto. "My pleasure comes from experiencing the pleasure of my partner," he looked up for a second, "or partners . . ." Immediately, Jack realized that the last bit was inopportune and quickly adjusted, "I get pleasure from your pleasure. It makes me feel … the sensations are indescribable . . . " Jack started to fall back into the previous moments but quickly realized Ianto was not yet with him. He changed tactics and gave a directive, "Ianto, when we are at the Hub, watching the rift, stopping aliens, keeping the world safe, you serve me." That got a grin at least. This time Jack leaned in for emphasis, "But when we are here, here alone, in 'bed', it is about me pleasing you, OKAY?"

Ianto would have clapped like a Euro Disney show but chose adult dignity instead and remained thoughtful. "So, I can have anything I want right now?"

Jack leaned back a bit, wondering which bottle the genie had just arose from, "Yes."

"I want to watch you come." Ianto was now the one to sit up on his elbow, his face eager, anticipating.

Jack wasn't sure about this – Closer, closer, I am a moth loving the fire, he thought as he lay on his back. Only so close, only so close, I can't let him touch it, too close. He lathered his cock with the butter then took Ianto's hand and placed it around, mid-shaft. With that same greased hand, Jack moved Ianto's hand, using a well-known rhythm, up and down. When Ianto's hand would grip too firmly or the stroke become too quick, Jack would tug at it. When the caress and tempo was just right, Jack laid back, falling almost inside the mattress, letting it all wash over him – giving into it all. I just wanna feel his love for this moment, just this moment and then I can ignore it, control it, was the lie he told himself.

For his part, Ianto was a quick learner – once he realized what got the best reaction, he tempered things, making it last as long, just as Jack had done to him. He first felt Jacks thighs shake and Ianto leaned into Jack's neck, kissing and licking his shoulder. It initially distracted Jack, changing the direction of the sensation only to immediately return like dedicated lightening into his pelvis. "Ah damn Ianto," Jack groaned while exploding streams of cum all across the sheets. Ianto would not change these for days.

Jack pulled Ianto so that he lay snuggly against his chest. Ianto liked this a great deal as it affirmed to him that Jack was pleased. As he contently fell asleep to the slowing of Jack's heartbeat, little did he know that Jack Harkness was quietly crying, finally acknowledging to himself that he was in love.

A Skype call came into her private line. "Dr. Segal?"

"Yes, Rabbi Teelbaulm. How are you?" Segal responded like it was a call from a collection company.

"It's done," the rabbi declared.

"Are you sure?" another stupid question for although she did not know the Talmudic scholar personally, her reputation as an extraordinary psychic was well known around Torchwood's upper administration.

Aliyah appreciated Segal's hesitation, "The 456 are returning soon." She took off her reading glasses and sighed heavily, "It is the only way."

"But Ianto . . . ," Segal pleaded, "there has to be another way." As unprofessional as it was, she had grown very fond of Ianto Jones and felt corrupted by her involvement in the Institute's plot.

"Jack won't do it otherwise," replied the rabbi. As if in consolation, she added "They will have some time together – I will make sure it is good for both of them."

The call ended.