Set sometimes early in Season 2. Very minor spoilers for season 1, KKBB, and references to the Torchwood Archives and Ianto's Desktop. Quick note: Yes, the first part of this used to be 'Wake'. It's really not anymore. Sorry to those of you who liked the fluff.
Ianto sighed as he slammed the hatch of the SUV closed on the second Weevil. He trudged back into the alley, and knelt wearily by Jack.
"I guess it explains why you always come out of the most dangerous situations unscathed," he sighed as if Jack would respond. The impossible man had been lying there dead for a few minutes now. Ianto shifted slightly on his knees — these trousers were beyond hope, anyway — and reached tentatively towards Jack, only to pull away. He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes with the heel of his hand. This would be the third time he watched Jack die and come back to life; and while Gwen seemed rather more cavalier about the whole thing, Ianto didn't trust it nearly so much. Worry gnawed in the pit of his stomach (just worry, it wasn't the rats, couldn't possibly be the rats) and he couldn't help thinking what if this time it doesn't work?
Suddenly Jack convulsed, gasping for air, his eyes snapping wide open. Ianto caught hold of Jack's nearest flailing hand before it collided with his face; he wasn't expecting Jack's fingers to latch onto his like a lifeline, for Jack's focus to swing entirely towards him. For a moment they froze like that: hands folded together, eyes locked, pulses settling back to normal rates. Jack was the one to break eye contact, wincing as he sat upright. Automatically Ianto slipped an arm behind his shoulders to help him to his feet. Jack staggered upright with a grunt of fading pain. He stumbled, leaning fully on Ianto for a moment. He shivered, even with the heavy greatcoat, and without thinking Ianto wound his arms around him. In a shocking display of vulnerability, Jack let his head rest on Ianto's shoulder as his breathing steadied.
"Thank you," Jack whispered hoarsely.
Ianto pressed his cheek briefly against Jack's hair. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Jack stood up straight, leaving only his hand on Ianto's shoulder. "You?"
"I wasn't hurt," Ianto replied.
"Good." Jack smiled and clapped his shoulder. "Let's get these guys back to the Hub, then."
Jack drove, as usual, but for the first time Ianto resented it. Sitting in the passenger seat gave him too much opportunity to focus on the blood all over Jack. His skin was flawless again, but the blood hadn't vanished. And as Cardiff flashed by outside the windows, Jack broke his reverie.
"You can see why I didn't tell you." Ianto looked up just as Jack glanced at him. "Kinda freaks people out." He gestured to his blood-soaked shirt.
Ianto's thoughts had turned to the slight hoarseness lingering in Jack's voice, to the desperate way he'd clutched at Ianto's hand as he came back to life. He compared the memory to one from months ago, the first time he'd seen Jack's return to life: gasping, lashing out for a grip on the first solid, warm, living thing he'd come across…
"Is it always like that?"
The question slipped from him. He met Jack's gaze, saw him prepare to sidestep — but then the half-grin slid from his face, and he stared out at the road for a moment before he spoke.
"Yeah," he sighed finally. "Yeah, it's… not exactly fun. And… usually, the more violent the death, the harder it is coming back." Jack glanced over at him, and managed a smile. "I always will come back, though."
"Mm." Ianto laced his fingers together to stop himself fiddling.
Jack reached over and covered Ianto's tense hands with one of his own. "Hey," he murmured. "Seriously, are you okay?"
Ianto looked over at him again. "Yeah," he replied. "I'm fine."
Jack flicked another glance at him — then without warning he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.
"Jack—" Ianto glanced back at the Weevils in the boot. "We really should get back before they wake up—"
A firm hand cupped his chin, and Ianto's gaze was dragged back to the captain's blue eyes. "Ianto, do not mess around with me here, are you alright?"
"Yes!" Ianto snapped uncharacteristically. Jack sat back in his seat, and Ianto sighed. He wished he could backtrack — if one of them here was entitled to snappishness, it was the one who had recently died and been violently resurrected — but he couldn't. Instead he ran his hands over his face.
"Okay," Jack said simply, and pulled back onto the road. Ianto leaned his elbow on the door and his head in his hand, gazing determinedly out the window instead of at his… at Jack.
Ianto sighed again, and closed his eyes. God, but he was tired of this. Of the way that Jack shook everything up in Ianto's neatly ordered world, of the way he made it seem acceptable at the same time as he was throwing everything off-kilter. Ianto found that his eyes were open again, staring at the glass without seeing beyond it. He could just barely make out Jack's reflected profile in the darkened window.
If Jack had never left with the Doctor, Ianto wondered, would anything have changed? He'd never know, because the man who had come back for them — for him, supposedly, though Ianto wasn't sure if he believed that or if Jack had ever meant it in a singular way to begin with — was different. Oh, he was still Captain Jack Harkness and everything that that entailed. But in small moments you could see little chips, little… glitches, almost, where there used to be bravado and innuendo and Jack would get a different look in his eyes. He was perhaps a little more sincere… though of course, he was back to keeping whatever secrets he felt like keeping. Right after Jack had returned, Gwen had emailed Ianto asking if Jack had told him anything the mysterious "Grey" John Hart had mentioned. Ianto had laughed out loud upon reading it.
Jack also hadn't mentioned to him the trauma which obviously came hand-in-hand with his resurrections. And quite frankly, Ianto didn't trust it — the mysterious force which kept Jack tethered to the land of the living. With the way the man threw himself headfirst into the line of fire, though, it was clear that Jack had no questions as to whether it would work or not — either that, or he simply didn't care.
That thought made Ianto faintly sick, and again he found himself scrutinizing Jack's wavering reflection in the window, superimposed upon the lights of the city flashing by. He sighed again, silently so as not to draw Jack's attention to him. There was obviously nothing he could do about the man's apparent immortality — which was for the best, probably, because he wasn't totally sure what to do with Jack anymore. For that reason, neither was there much Ianto had done about the strange limbo their relationship was currently hanging in — Jack was clearly going to wait for Ianto to take the first step in whichever direction he chose, which was enough in itself to blow the younger man's mind, the very idea that he was enough for Jack to wait for.
Honestly, though, Ianto thought abruptly — wasn't that typical? He'd never been the one to do anything big for Jack. He was never the one leading investigations, unraveling the secrets of the Rift and the universe, saving the day. He took care of the little details. Always had. After this amount of time, he'd come to expect nothing else.
He was startled out of his thoughts when the SUV pulled to a halt, and Jack cut the engine. They'd reached the Hub's underground parking lot, and Jack was getting out to unload the Weevil bodies from the boot. Ianto hurried to the back of the SUV, making sure he had another sedative ready just in case. Little details.
Jack hadn't opened up the car, though — instead he was just leaning against it, his face unusually pale under the cheap lights of the garage.
"Jack?"
The Captain jerked upright, drawing in a sharp breath. "Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head slightly. He unlatched the boot, and the two of them set to work dragging the two unconscious Weevils into the Hub: one to the incinerator, the other to the cells. Owen could decide later whether he wanted to study it or not.
Ianto caught up with Jack just as he was locking the alien in its new concrete home. He cleared his throat slightly, as Jack was simply standing there making no move to leave the lower levels anytime soon.
"I, um… was thinking of making a coffee, if you'd like one," he murmured.
Jack seemed to rouse himself, and smiled slightly at Ianto. "Gonna keep you up all night."
Ianto made a show of checking his watch. "Actually, sir, it's six in the morning. Might as well start the day."
"Ah. Sorry I called you in so early. And I thought we were going to drop the sir?"
Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Would that be the royal we, Jack? Because you've never called me sir, that I can recall."
Jack's little smile grew. "Well, it could be. Wasn't there something a while back about King Ianto…?"
"The coffee cult, yes," Ianto smiled slightly in return. "Which is still an offer, by the way." He didn't hold out a hand, but Jack took the invitation anyway. He nodded slightly, and followed half a step behind Ianto as they made their way back toward the Hub proper. Little things.
As Ianto handed Jack the blue-and-white mug he'd claimed, he studied the man before him. Neither of them made any attempt to pretend that he wasn't doing it, but neither did they acknowledge it. Neither one made a move to break the quiet or the tension between them. Ianto simply studied him.
Jack looked better than he had in the car park, more normal as he leaned against the wall and sipped at his coffee with a tiny smile curling the corner of his mouth. The sight went a long way to ease the strange ache Ianto had carried ever since Jack's hand had gripped onto his as if his immortal life depended on it. The little things could make it better, even just a bit. Ianto could handle helping the Captain with the most thankless tasks that kept Torchwood running. He could handle a cup of coffee and an undemanding presence at the end of a mission.
He could handle being there for Jack to wake up to.
Ianto drew in a breath, and looked down into his coffee cup as if it held all the answers to the universe (although, given everything that Torchwood had shown him, Ianto had long ago decided that the answer was indeed forty-two). If he could do it, it might become much more than one more little thing that he did. It would tear him apart, he knew, to stay with Jack's dead body as often as he could — but he also knew that it would be worth it to know the moment when he was alive again. To hope that he was still doing whatever little good he could do for Jack, in whatever small ways he could manage. And that was enough.
Ianto cleared his throat. Jack looked up at him instantly, blue eyes clear and bright as usual.
"So," Ianto began. "Tosh's Rift-predictor program seems to indicate that it'll be quiet Thursday night. If you're still interested, we could go out for dinner?" He smiled slightly as he recalled another proposition he'd made months ago, offering a stopwatch in place of a date. "Something other than pizza or Chinese, maybe?"
"Yeah." Jack smiled at him, a real and warm and soft smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Yeah, I'd like that."
…
AN: so, briefly last week there were fluff bunnies… and now they're gone again. Oh, well. Thanks a million to Maximilien Robespierre for the advice.