disclaimer: i don't own. warning: janto. spoilers: 'something borrowed', but not particularly extreme ones.
He's holding her. He's holding her tight against his body, almost as if he knows you're watching and he's doing it to make you jealous. Why else would he hold her so close?
And the image of her in a wedding dress dancing with him is almost enough to send you running out of the room, screaming. Almost.
He's whispering into her hair and you edge closer, feeling both curious and slightly nauseated. 'Have fun on your honeymoon' he says to her, and you see how her eyes widen and her lips part at the feeling of his breath on her face at the proximity of his face to hers. And you know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of that stare.
'I will … what'll you be up to when I'm gone?' she replies composedly, if a little breathlessly. And you hate her for the way she looks up at him from under her eyelashes and sticks out her chest grotesquely, and you hate her even more for the way he grins at her.
'Oh, the usual: pizza … Ianto…' Your body freezes at the sound of your name, then turns to ice as they both laugh. They laugh together, conspiratorially, like you're a private joke. Like the thing that you and Jack share is some sort of cosmic joke that everyone seems to be in on except you.
'Saving the world a couple of times' you're not even really listening any more, but you almost smirk at how casually he says that – typical Jack. If only it was you he was sharing the joke with.
'Will you miss me?' she asks archly, and you can't stop yourself from hissing 'whore' under your breath and receiving more than a few disapproving looks from various great-aunts. She's married for God's sake, you think, and you expect Jack to come out with more or less the same thing, but the 'Always' which spills from his lips is whispered with such intensity, such tenderness, that the blood in your veins turns to bleach and you can feel it burning through every inch of your body.
And suddenly you can't take it anymore. You can't take how she's curving her body, arching it so that as much of it is pressed against him as possible. And more than that, you can't take how he is encouraging her – grinning and winking and holding her close.
So you interrupt them with a clumsy 'Ahem, can I … uh …' and Gwen thinks you want to dance with her, so she accepts graciously enough. And you almost laugh out loud at the look on her face when you turn to Jack, holding him against you like it's the end of the world.
You feel his breath in your hair, and you turn to look at him. You need to catch his eye, just so that he can assure you that it wasn't as it seemed, just so you can assure yourself that it wasn't as it seemed. But as you turn your head, you find yourself facing his cheek as he stares off into space. You follow his line of sight, feeling physically sick when it lands on Gwen, dancing and laughing with Rhys.
But you don't say anything – how can you? – so you just sway in his arms, the two of you in perfect harmony, but a hundred miles apart.
#*#*#
He didn't think you'd heard that conversation, but you had, you'd heard it all. And it made you want to tear yourself apart with your own fingernails.
How? How could it be that he seemed more in love with her than with you?
How could he love her when he'd only met her a year ago and you'd been with him for nigh on three?
How could he use what the two of you have as a casual joke in comparison to the intensity of 'I'll always miss you'?
And how could she?
She'd just got married for fuck's sake. To the man she keeps on assuring everybody that she' loves so much', but you don't think anyone believes her in the slightest any more except him, poor bastard.
Doesn't he know that once you meet Captain Jack Harkness your love life is instantly doomed? Because his charm, his smile, his eyes are enough to sweep anyone off their feet, let alone his accent.
So now, as he steps in after you to your flat after a long night of playing 'wedding-fairies', you ignore his attempt to grab you into a kiss, shrugging out of his grasp and shutting the door of your bedroom behind you.
After a long moment, he follows you in and sits on the end of your bed, where you are curled into a ball trying ridiculously hard to seem angry and not just pathetic. You think you fail though, because he puts his arm around you gently.
'Ianto? What is it?' he asks softly. You just glare up at him, willing the tears brimming in your eyes not to fall and make you seem weak. A too-long second later he sighs and looks away. That's it. He's not even going to push you. The bastard.
'It's Gwen!' you say. And you want to yell it, but it comes out as a strangled whisper. He looks up at you, sharply. 'Why do you love her more than you love me? How do you love her more than you love me? Why the fuck am I just another thing you'll 'do' while she's gone?'
And you're sobbing now, but what the fuck, you don't care anymore. Why should you? Because he clearly doesn't. 'Ianto, it's not like that. You know I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry. Forgive me?' and he says it whilst trapping you in his lazuline gaze, like a predator trapping its prey, and you're frozen like a mouse caught in the stare of a snake.
But he's so beautiful and sad and sincere that all you can do is nod in response.
And when he kisses you, you attack his lips just as eagerly as you did the night before, and the one before that and the one before that. Which not only makes you second-best and just-a-toy, it makes you weak and pathetic and too-in-love-with-him-to-stay-mad.
And that almost makes you want to rip yourself a part with your own fingernails even more.
reviews would be better that Ianto's coffee (which i know is difficult to conceptualise...) ;D
xx