AN: Happy Birthday, Ianto Jones!
GIFTS
It's Ianto's birthday, and Jack gives him a gift he never expected. So he gives one back.
Ianto leaned into the cool white sheets in perfect contentment. It was his birthday, his twenty-fifth, and Jack had arranged for them to have a bit of time to themselves, for a change. The Hub had been left in the capable hands of Gwen, Owen and Tosh, and he and Jack had buggered off to a cottage by the sea where, for the next twenty-two hours, they would enjoy each other's company secure in the knowledge that there would be no Weevil-based interruptions. It had begun predictably enough, with Ianto shoved against the wall as soon as the door was shut, then snogged into oblivion, after which the two of them had made their way to the bedroom, and one thing had, of course, led to another.
Hence the sheets and the contentment. Jack was wrapped around him, naked and sweaty, with his cheek rough against Ianto's shoulder. Soon they'd have to move, have to dress and strike out in search of food, but for now it was just them in their tiny universe, with Jack quietly murmuring in a language Ianto didn't understand.
Ianto nudged Jack with his elbow. "In English, please. I need to know if I should be kissing you or kicking you out of bed."
"Nothing, just nonsense words."
Ianto always knew when Jack was lying, but he also knew when to not press the issue. Jack was secretive, especially about his past, and Ianto didn't want to ruin their little idyll with demands. Gwen would insist on an answer, he knew, and even Owen and Tosh might be curious enough to badger Jack about it, but not Ianto. He understood the need to keep some things private. He changed the subject.
"I half expected you to be wearing a ribbon on your cock, you know. Some birthday gift you turned out to be," he teased.
"I'm not your gift," Jack responded. "Sit up, I'll go get it."
While Jack left the room to fetch his present, Ianto wiggled up until he was sitting with his back against the headboard with the sheets covering his lap- no need to tempt Jack further. He could hear Jack rifling through the duffle that was all they'd brought for their overnight. Returning to the bedroom, Jack settled himself cross-legged on the bed facing Ianto.
He handed Ianto a small box, uncertainty written across his face. It was a box sized for jewelry, carefully wrapped. Cuff links, Ianto wondered? Or maybe a stopwatch to replace the one that had fallen overboard during a particularly ill-considered tryst? Ianto unwrapped it carefully, sliding a nail under the taped edge to preserve the paper as his mam had always done. Not that she had ever re-used the paper; he and Rhi had found boxes of the saved paper when they'd gone through the house.
Jack was looking more nervous by the second, and his fingers twitched as if he wanted to snatch the box back, either to change his mind or simply to rip the wrapping off and move things along. Just for fun, Ianto made a show of carefully smoothing the creases out of the paper before turning his attention to the box. Satisfied that he'd tormented Jack long enough, he opened the box and unfolded the tissue to see his gift.
It was a shell. A lovely thing, translucent and full of fire as if carved of opal, and shot with streaks of gold. Beautiful, but Ianto had no idea what it meant, why Jack would give him a shell. He looked as Jack questioningly.
Jack shrugged, embarrassed, and looked away "It's from a dakka crab. It fell through the Rift about fifty years ago; I kept it alive as long as I could." Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "It's the only thing from Boeshane ever to fall through. I used to capture them as a child."
Tears sprung to Ianto's eyes. He lifted the shell reverently to the light, watching as the setting sun sparked off the facets within the spiral. This was a piece of Jack. One of a kind and irreplaceable, and Jack had given it to him, had shared a bit of his history.
"I- I wanted you to have it," Jack said shyly. "I can't tell you everything about myself, there's just too much and I'm ashamed of a lot of it, but I wanted you to have this."
Ianto clutched the shell safely to his chest and used his other hand to pull Jack in to a kiss that left them both breathless.
"Thank you, Jack. This means the world to me."
Jack settled them back against the headboard so that they were lounging with Jack's arms loosely around Ianto. Ianto nestled into his embrace.
"Dakka crabs are bioluminescent. They glow when it's time to mate, hence the shell. The whole bay used to light up. Kids would catch them, and my mother would make jokes about 'all the fucking crabs', which was terribly funny at the time. Dad helped me and Gr– my brother build traps."
Ianto listened as Jack told stories about his childhood and his home with increasing wonder. It was an alien world, yet to Jack it was just the place he came from. He spoke of a mischievous boy with a brother who adored him, using words from his own language when English didn't have one. Ianto relaxed, taking it all in, until Jack stopped suddenly.
"Ianto, have you fallen asleep on me?"
"Not at all, just, just enjoying. You sound like you were quite a handful."
Jack chuckled. "I think all boys are."
"I wasn't. I love hearing about it. It's the perfect gift. I hope I can find you a present that means this much to you. When is your birthday, anyway? It's not in any of the files.
Jack tensed. "I don't have one."
"Come on, everyone has a birthday, even if they never celebrated it."
"We celebrated it. Almost the same as we do here, in fact, with special treats and presents, but I don't know when it is. Between the different day and year lengths on Boeshane and all my time travel, there's no way of knowing when it is. Even my age is just a guess."
After a moment's thought, Ianto came to a solution. "Would you like to share mine?" he offered. "That way we'd only have to take one day off every year. Also, no danger of forgetting."
"I'd never forget your birthday," Jack said with sincerity.
"Do you want it? Make it official in the files and all?" He and Jack could never have a conventional relationship with marriage and children, and Ianto found he didn't really want that anymore, but they could have this.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."
"Then it's yours. Happy Birthday, Jack"
"Happy birthday, Ianto."
The dakka shell dropped to the sheets, momentarily forgotten as Jack pulled him into a deep kiss.
Thousands of years later on what was as close to August 19th as Jack could figure, he stood on the beach of the Boeshane Peninsula with a small shell in his hand, looking out at the glowing bay. "Happy Birthday, Ianto," he whispered into the wind.
AN: A year ago, I posted my first real story. An Unremarked Occasion (which I wish I'd named differently). It was an angstfest, and Gmariam suggested that maybe this year I'd write some fluff. It was going so well, and then… yeah. Oops.