He can't help the smile as his head almost hits the wall when Jack pushes him against it. It has been too long – five days, if memory serves – since the last time they managed to sneak out of the Hub and back to his place. One of Jack's hands settles on his neck, thumb tracing patterns on his cheek; the other pulls at his tie as they kiss. And surely that last night doesn't really count – they barely managed to make it to the bed before they fell asleep, after yet another day at Torchwood. One of those when the Rift seemed to throw everything it had – and then some - at them. He undoes Jack's shirt. The greatcoat gets in the way but he's too busy to push it off Jack's shoulders.
Jack pulls him away from the wall and they half-stumble, half-walk their way down the corridor, towards the bedroom. He loses track of what falls where and who loses what item of clothing long before his bare back hits the door frame. Jack has a way of getting his full attention, of making everything else seem irrelevant, even all those trivial things he would normally notice. He closes his eyes, drowning in the heat, in Jack's hands here, there and everywhere, in soft kisses and teasing bites. Runs his hands up Jack's back, along Jack's shoulders, down Jack's chest, and the whole world narrows to here and now.
He pushes Jack away just enough to move into the bedroom. They stagger. Almost stumble. He falls onto the bed, Jack towering above him for a moment before lying beside him. A single finger traces his nose, his lips, his jawline, bringing back memories of other places, other times, other lovers. He pushes the thoughts away and pulls Jack closer. If there is one thing he has learnt in his time in Torchwood is to make the most of now.
So he rolls them around, until he can comfortably straddle Jack and slowly kiss his way down Jack's chest.
Blip.
Tracing every rib, every muscle.
Blip.
Following paths he knows only too well. Finding new ones.
Blip.
Slides down a bit, so he's sitting on Jack's thighs.
Blip.
When he looks up, the image of Jack – hands above his head, eyes fixed on him, lips parted – almost makes him forget that annoying blipping noise that can only be...
"Leave it." Jack grabs his hand when he makes to move away and pulls him down, almost knocking the air out of him. "Whatever it is, it can wait." Giving him his best come-hither smile and eyebrow waggle, Jack taps a few buttons on his wriststrap. The blipping noise stops. "You, on the other hand, require immediate, urgent attention."
A hand settles on his hips, heat radiating from it. He swallows as it starts moving, barely there when travelling up his side, gripping tight when sliding down again. He goes with it, eyes on Jack. Sensations flood his body and mute any protest his mind manages to come up with, any argument about why it is not such a good idea to ignore the alarms that he routed from the Hub's computers to his PDA. Jack tries to unseat him; somehow he stands his ground, pressing his knees harder into Jack's sides, stubbornly refusing to move. Gives Jack what John once called 'the Wicked Jones Smile', with capitals.
John.
Memories come rushing back, more persistent the more he tries to ignore them and push them away. He freezes, one hand almost on Jack's belly, the other scratching its way down Jack's right arm. Barely a heartbeat before he moves again. Thwarts another of Jack's attempts to roll him over before leaning down to nibble at Jack's neck, then slowly making his way down again.
"You seem to have spent too much time around a certain rogue before he vanished." Jack is smiling, that same smile he always seems to have whenever John is the topic of conversation. The one that says too many things and nothing at all and he is never quite sure how to interpret. "Picked up some tricks from him." He shakes his head, not wanting to think about John right now. He doesn't want to talk about him, doesn't want to remember how John disappeared just as things were starting to settle down, just as he was starting to discover some pretty interesting things about life, the universe and everything else – version with extra Time Agent and without sanity. "As long as we don't end up turning foreplay into a fight more often than not..."
"I'm not him, Jack." It comes out sharper than he intended. He looks away, biting his lip, struggling to silence both the apology and the annoyed remark fighting to come out. The last thing he needs right now is another conversation to turn sour, to end in bad moods and silent treatments that will last about a week, to be followed, of course, by a tacit agreement not to mention it ever happened. But he is getting tired of always being the one who apologises.
Jack stares at him, a hint of disbelief on his face. As if Jack were surprised. As if it hadn't occurred to him that, not so long ago, Jack was the one to disappear without as much as a by-your-leave. As if he didn't see just how ironic it is for Jack fucking Harkness to be commenting on other people's vanishing acts. He takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
"I know." Jack brings a hand to his cheek, sounding almost apologetic. He pulls a face. There is a lot they both know yet seem to forget more often than not. They both miss John, that much is obvious. They are both trying to get used to being just the two of them again. They just have different ways of dealing with it.
"Doesn't look like it, sometimes." He moves away, pausing only to leave a soft kiss on Jack's lips before standing up. "Should check the alarms. It could be something." He turns his back towards Jack and starts fishing for his clothes in the chaos they left on their way in, barely resisting the urge to remind the world in general – and Jack in particular – of a few things.
"Ianto..." He stops in his tracks. Takes yet another deep breath before spinning around, hands busy doing up the buttons of his shirt. He shoots Jack a death glare that cuts the apology off before it even starts. Somewhere inside, it feels like the dam that was holding back all this... mess inside him is about to burst. He's not entirely sure he even wants to do anything about it.
So he doesn't.
"I'm tired, Jack." Slowly, Jack sits up, looking puzzled. "I'm tired of all this." He pauses for a second, hands halfway through doing up his tie, struggling to squish the whirlwind in his head into words. "I miss him too." And how it hurts to say it out loud. "But I try not to remind you of all the ways in which you are not him." Jack grimaces and looks away. "I try not to mention that at least he was taken. That what hurts is that there is nothing I can do to find him and bring him back. That this should give you an idea of what it was like when you just walked away." A very long moment of silence.
"I had good reasons." Jack sounds positively defensive, springing out of the bed and starting to get dressed. He forces himself to hold Jack's gaze, wondering just how stupid it is to bring all of this back out into the open when they had managed to pretend it wasn't there for so long. But he's tired of walking on eggshells around certain things. It chokes him, suffocates him sometimes. Even if he hadn't noticed until John came around and reminded him how it feels to be close to someone without having too much stuff hidden in the 'do-not-mention' closet.
"I didn't know that at the time." He swallows, loosening the tie a little. "All I knew is that you disappeared." He pulls the cuffs of his shirt in place. Runs a hand through his hair. "I am here, Jack, but it doesn't seem to be enough these days." There. Said it. And he'll probably kick himself later when all Hell breaks lose – hopefully not literally – and everything gets worse than it already is. "I'll be in the car."
He doesn't even look back as he leaves the room, grabbing his jacket as he walks past it.
Sitting behind the wheel of the SUV, he can't tear his eyes from his front door. Part of him wants to go back inside, pretend that he didn't say any of the things he said, and end the night with a fantastic round of make-up sex that isn't such because nobody really would apologise. Part of him knows they have been down that road before and eventually things come back to bite them. So he just sits there, watching, waiting, trying and failing not to nervously tap his fingers on the wheel. Jack seems to be taking his time, although he's not sure whether the delay is supposed to annoy him or give him – them both – a chance to calm down. Probably all at the same time. He rolls his eyes.
Life with Jack – with Torchwood – can be completely fucked up sometimes.
Jack eventually comes out five minutes later, a hand coming out of a greatcoat pocket to close the door behind him, and raises an eyebrow when noticing he is in the driver's seat. He learnt long ago that Jack's driving is dangerous enough on a good day. He only realises a snarky remark had been preemptively forming in the back of his head when Jack pointedly doesn't slam the door shut, instead closing it carefully.
The silence in the vehicle is awkward, even after he turns the key and the engine roars into life. Jack busies himself with his wriststrap, probably trying to figure out what the alarms picked up. Jack could just ask, but that would imply talking and that seems to be out of the question now. He keeps his eyes on the road, heading towards Cardiff Castle through almost empty roads. Still, he stops at every red light, respects every speed limit. In the passenger seat, Jack fidgets impatiently. He pretends not to notice.
"Do we know what it is?" There's a certain iciness to Jack's words as they get off the SUV and take scanners and ammunition from the boot. The almost worried look Jack gives him when he grabs a couple of extra magazines for his gun, however, tells a different story. The one about how much Jack hates to put people's life at risk, no matter how many times said people make it clear that working for Torchwood is their choice.
"Time bubble." It took some time, but he finally managed to reprogram Tosh's systems to detect and record them in the same way as Rift spikes. In the three weeks since the bubbles first appeared – the three weeks since John vanished – they have been more and more frequent, with no pattern on where or when they appear. So far, nothing has come through, and, as far as they know, nothing – nobody – has been taken. The only thing they can do is check them when they appear, and keep their fingers crossed that nothing nasty will be waiting for them. "Could be nothing."
"Could be the start to another Hell of a day." He bites back the need to say that it is still yesterday as far as his body is concerned, and will be until he manages at least two or three hours of sleep, a shower and a pot of fresh coffee. Almost slamming the boot closed, he makes sure the SUV is locked – he doesn't fancy joining Owen in the wall of fame of those who let the Torchwood vehicle open for whichever thief happened to be around – and follows Jack into the Castle. Locked doors are never a problem for Torchwood. Not for Jack, anyway.
The Castle is eerily quiet. Full of shadows that move just out of the corner of his eye and make him look around and point his gun at every hint of nothing. He tries – and fails – not to think of how different this place is at night from its sunny, lively daytime counterpart. A few steps to his left, Jack covers the other side of the courtyard as they slowly make their way towards the Norman keep.
"Scanner?" Jack's voice startles him. Turning around, he holds his torch in the crook of his arm, brings the gadget – one of Tosh's little wonders – out of his pocket and tosses it towards Jack, pointedly ignoring the annoyed look that Jack shoots him. "Keep your light down! I don't want to announce we are here."
He stops in his tracks, lowers both gun and torch and stares at Jack in disbelief.
"Could we leave everything not work related outside work?" Jack turns around and opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. He watches Jack try a couple more times, but no reply comes. "This is complicated enough as it is without bringing any more shit into it." He holds Jack's gaze, hoping that didn't sound as hurt – and almost desperate – as it did in his head.
It is Jack who, after a few heartbeats, looks away and nods.
"We'll deal with that later." He can hear everything Jack is not saying: 'once the world is safe again, at least for the time being'. Bloody Torchwood, always taking precedence over everything. Sometimes he just wants to shout that they are too busy saving Humanity to remember that they too are part of it. "Straight ahead. By the moat." He nods, trying not to pay too much attention to the uneasy feeling that something is very wrong. Then raises his gun and aims it just over Jack's shoulder.
With a confidence that stems from way too many close shaves, Jack spins around, Webley in hand, and he has to be grateful for Jack's implicit trust. But there is nothing there. Not even the shadow he saw just a moment ago. The faint footsteps he heard have disappeared as well. He swallows, pushing away the thoughts, calming his heart.
He must be imagining things.
"Seeing ghosts?" There's a hint of a smile in Jack's voice, despite everything they were just throwing at each other. As if something had suddenly made sense again. As if something had brought back all the many reasons why they stick together, despite all the skeletons in the closet and all the pain and all the things that aren't quite right but don't really matter. "Anyone we know?" He nods, reluctant, and puts his weapon down.
"I thought I saw John." Jack raises an eyebrow. He walks away, keeping his eyes on the scanner in his hands, before Jack can ask questions he doesn't really want to answer right now.