Rating: PG

Word count: ~ 1,800

Warnings: I just, I can't even, what is this? *cough* Um, none.

Summary: There are angels playing in the rain, far away at the edge of the horizon. More than anything, Ianto wants to join them.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Er…

Angel On the Precipice

(Flower on the Cliff Face)

It's raining, drops of water running down the windowpanes in drips and drabbles. Outside, the clouds are storm-grey touched with gold, the barest edge of sunlight turning the rainstorm from the dreariness of winter to the brightness of a water-drenched heaven.

Ianto curls in his window seat, watching the light that falls through the dripping glass and collects in puddles of silver on the floor. His book lies open on his lap, forgotten, streaked with shadow and brilliance reflected from outside. The whole world hovers between darkness and light, ethereal in its golden grayness, impossibly clear even as the rain falls in heavy sheets across the bay and over the city.

There are angels playing in the rain, far away at the edge of the horizon, where the sky curves down and the earth curves up, and there's nothing but blue-green and gold and storm cloud grey.

More than anything, Ianto wants to join them.

They itch, his wings, trapped as they are deep beneath the skin. He can feel them like lines of silk along his bones, anxious to emerge. It's been so long since Ianto brought out his wings, since he flew and twisted and dipped with his kin far out at sea, watching the clouds dance. It's been even longer since he let himself truly go, opened his wings and flew the way he was meant to, high high high up to where the sky is azure darkness and the stars are tiny diamond suns, where the air is so thin and he can fly so fast that breathing is nearly impossible, even for his kind.

He hasn't even tried to touch the clouds since Lisa died.

Falling in love, Ianto thinks, is a bit like going insane. First he loses control of his thoughts, his emotions, and his body.

Then he falls, falls like his wings have been torn from him in midair by some vast force.

He falls and falls and falls, and if he is very unlucky, he hits the ground.

It is early in the springtime that Ianto takes his first day off from Torchwood Cardiff in over a year.

(Jack had looked at him carefully, when he had asked, because Jack knows that he has no family to speak of, and that he does not take vacations.

"Everything all right, Ianto?" he'd asked.

Ianto had looked him in the eyes and smiled, careful and secret and just a little bit adoring. [Because he does, because he adores Jack so much that it sometimes feels like his heart is going to pound right out of his chest, like his blood is flowing through his veins only for this man, the gorgeous, broken, glorious man who Ianto knows loves him back. And that feeling is more breathtaking and utterly exquisite than any he's ever known.]

"Yes, sir," he'd replied truthfully. "I'm brilliant.")

He leaves so early it is still nearly the day before, and drives up the coast until the sun is high and golden and silver cliffs disappear into the sea. There is no one around, not in the middle of nowhere on a weekday at noon, so Ianto parks his Audi and slides out, manages to get his coat and shirt off without taking his eyes off the curve of earth where the ground falls away to nothingness.

His wings itch and burn against his bones, where he's kept them folded away, secret and safe and chafing from the care, since the last time love gave him the strength to use them.

(That was a long time ago, now. Before Canary Wharf, even, back when he'd loved Lisa more than anything, and before he found himself struggling to be what she wanted.

["Everyone has problems in a serious relationship," Adeola had told him once, on a coffee break outside Torchwood Tower. She'd been Lisa's friend first, but he had loved her anyway—platonically, like a sister, but it was still love, if not enough to support his wings. "Don't worry, you'll work it out.]

But Ianto hadn't wanted to, had been ready to break away and end it all when the Cybermen had happened. And then he hadn't been able to let go, because Adeola and practically everyone else he knew was dead, and Lisa was the only one of nearly a thousand people he had the ability to save. And maybe he could have saved her, if he loved her enough, but he'd gone and fallen for Jack, too, and after that it could only end in tragedy.)

But right now—right now, Ianto doesn't care about the past. He thinks of Jack and steps right up to the edge of the cliff, until he can stand with his bare toes against the open air and his feet still on solid ground.

The wind buffets him with gentle force, calling for him to step off the edge and join it in the sky. Ianto wants to follow, to step off the overbearing earth and dance among the clouds, like that chill breeze, but he waits, holds his breath and digs his heels in as he stares out at the wrinkled grey-blue of the ocean.

There is a flower growing on the cliff, three feet below him, with its face turned up to the sun. It clings with the beautiful, stubborn tenacity of one who knows that they will die, but is determined to fight until the end.

Ianto admires it, envies it for that fearlessness.

I will be like you, he thinks, and plants his feet in the earth, stretching his arms up towards the sky. Muscles burn, unused to such a stretch after so long confined into more human shapes, but it is a good burn, a release. Ianto glories in it, takes it in and holds it deep within himself, and then lets his wings unfold from along his bones. They slide out smoothly, greet the sun with a whisper like silk pulled over steel, and Ianto lets out his first full breath in nearly two years.

He is not like the angels who keep near Cardiff, content to dip their wings in the surf and brush the rainclouds whenever there is a chance they won't be seen. He is strong and free and wild in all ways, born to fly as hard and fast and high as he can. And he's most certainly not like the angels that the humans paint, pure and lovely with eagle or swan wings. No, his wings are narrow, long, and look as though they could never support his weight alone.

Because they can't.

Because Ianto can only fly when he loves, deeply and truly and with no regrets at all. If he does not, his wings will not support him and he'll fall down, down, down to his death in the churning sea below.

The wind takes him one half-step closer to the verge, pushing his body like a great pair of insubstantial hands, like fate.

The wind blows harder, and Ianto closes his eyes, feeling it all but lift him from his feet. The world below is so distant. He's not attached to it, and it holds no appeal. Why would it, when the clear sky is so beautiful? Why concern himself with anything when he can stand above everything and hear the crisp wind laugh?

And Jack.

Jack is the wind that holds his heart, his soul, his body.

The sweet wind swells like the rising tide, fluttering a few dry leaves past Ianto and sweeping them out into the immense azure expanse before him.

Ianto opens his eyes, feels that pounding rush in his veins, his very being, and lets the wind push him over the edge.

He flies, because that is what he was born to do, spreads his wings and soars high, high, higher, until the sky darkens from palest sapphire to deepest azure, and the Earth curves away so far below his eyes.

There, at the cusp of heaven and earth, where the stars look down and the clouds look up and there is nothing but empty air and cold diamond stars and a sun that is so bright it can almost burn away the darkness, Ianto spreads his wings out wide and lets himself fall back toward the earth, back towards where his heart and soul are kept in safe hands.

He falls, and keeps his eyes open, because it is a little like insanity and a little like love, and he cannot get enough.

Jack is waiting for him on the ground, leaning back against the Audi. His coat flutters around his legs, the chill wind kissing red onto his cheeks as he watches Ianto settle on the very lip of the cliff and lower his wings. They sweep out behind him, opalescent in the light of the setting sun, white touched with silver and blue and red and green, the tips of the feathers darkening nearly to purple-black as they settle. Ianto is breathing hard, every muscle sheened with sweat, but he smiles at Jack.

"Thought you'd be here," he says, and accepts the towel Jack fishes out of the pile on the front seat.

Jack watches him for a long moment, and there's no condemnation on his face, no betrayal or fear. "I thought Wake Angels were a myth," he says eventually. "Something pilots made up, like mermaids. Beautiful creatures that follow ships into space because those they love are aboard, and even gravity and lack of oxygen can't make them remain behind."

Ianto drapes the towel around his neck and gives the Captain an arch look. "Where do the fairies come from, Jack?" he asks. "There's always something out there older than humans, or any of the other races. The only difference is that the fairies exist to be capricious, cruel, and we exist to love."

Jack steps forward, uses the ends of the towel to tug Ianto closer, and he's smiling. "That's not the only difference," he whispers, and leans towards Ianto, his intent unmistakable.

But Ianto wouldn't want to mistake his intent, even if he could. He laughs against Jack's lips and thinks about eternity with this man. Eternity with his heart and soul in Jack's big, strong hands. An eternity of sweet, warm winds to carry him high and fast and far, but which will always return him to Jack's arms.

He can think of nothing better.