"Whoa…. Hold on to something!" Jack shouted from the controls.
Ianto hardly had time to process exactly what that meant before he felt the ship drop sharply. Jack's gleeful, adrenaline-fueled cackle was slightly unnerving, especially as Ianto's head hadn't quite stopped spinning.
"Sorry, had to duck a rogue asteroid. You'd be surprised how they sneak up on you."
"And I hadn't thought anything could be worse than your road driving…."
Jack shot him a wide grin, one that had none of the background heaviness that usually made Jack's grins look half-rueful. "This? This is nothing, just a little spin around the Orion Arm. We're not even out of the solar neighborhood."
Ianto rolled his eyes as the ship resumed its course toward the Eagle Nebula. He couldn't help thinking of how at-ease, how completely natural Jack was up here in the stars. This was a part of Jack and he seemed to come more alive than Ianto had ever seen him on Earth.
"I swear you sort of glow up here, Jack," Ianto said. "In your element… rather literally."
"Really?" Jack said, still smiling. "Cos, to be honest, you're looking a little greenish right now."
"Nope. Fine. Totally used to your driving."
"This is called piloting, Ianto," Jack said, enjoying getting a bit of pedantry back on his lover. "And just be glad you never flew with me in the RAF."
"Certainly must have made it easier for those parachute missions… they wanted to jump!"
Jack just smirked. "You wanna know when you get that glowy look?"
"There's a difference between glow and afterglow, Jack."
"Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know your afterglow! But I meant glow… that sort of 'in your element' thing."
Ianto shrugged, expecting Jack to say it was something like cleaning or going through century-old archives.
"When you're curled up with big cup of coffee and a book," Jack said. "You are absolutely in your own world."
Ianto thought about that for a moment and how Jack must see him in those moments. "We're that different," he said.
Jack detected a note of resignation. "Yeah, we are," he said, reaching out to pull Ianto over to the control center. "But that's a good thing. I mean, you're sort of a stabilizing influence. I can't go at full-tilt all the time, and you quiet me down. So maybe I… spice things up for you?"
"You do that," Ianto conceded fondly. "I reckon we balance one another rather well."
"And you know it's gotta take one hell of a guy to balance somebody like me," Jack grinned, pulling Ianto into a long, hungry kiss.