A short character study/relationship study for Jack and Ianto that I started forever ago and only just finished up recently.
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood.
There were lots of little things about Ianto Jones that Jack Harkness had memorized.
One of them was the sound of his heartbeat. Jack claimed that, if you played him the heartbeats of a dozen different people and told him to pick out which one was Ianto's, he could do it. Ianto told him he was ridiculous. But Jack didn't need much sleep, so when he would lie awake next to Ianto in their bed, he would rest his head on Ianto's chest and listen to the steady pounding of Ianto's heartbeat. The few times Ianto was hurt badly enough to merit a heart monitor, Jack would sit with him as much as he could and wait for the beeping to return to the steady rhythm that was as familiar to him as his own. Once it did, he knew Ianto would be okay.
Jack was fairly certain that he truly could pick Ianto's heartbeat out among others, but he never had to try it out.
Another thing Jack had memorized about Ianto was the way his accent fluctuated. Sometimes, when he was doing his best to sound proper, he would barely have a Welsh accent at all. Jack didn't like that voice; he loved the Welsh vowels. They would come out more when Ianto spoke normally. But when he was in a state of high emotion - when he was angry or scared or when Jack had him writhing with pleasure on their bed - then the accent would come out in full force, oftentimes interspersed with Welsh phrases. Jack could still remember when he went to visit Ianto after the Cyberwoman incident and got screamed at in Welsh, being called things he didn't understand but assumed were serious insults. In bed, Ianto would sometimes scream things too, but those were different. And sometimes, while he slept, Jack would hear Ianto whisper things in Welsh that sounded much more like endearments. He never looked them up to see what they meant. He preferred the mystery of not knowing.
Jack could pick out Ianto's voice in a crowd, he was sure, although he'd never truly had to test that.
And then there was Ianto's body - Jack had mapped it out so many times it was more familiar to him than his own. He knew where the dimples on his back were, where his sensitive spots were, where every single freckle on his skin lay. He knew exactly where to brush against Ianto's skin to elicit the biggest reaction, knew where Ianto loved being touched and where he was ticklish and where he would freeze and distance himself if contact were made. Jack could tell if and where Ianto was injured within seconds, just by the way he held himself. He could tell if Ianto were overtired by the way he stood, if he were pleased by the sparkle in his eyes, if he were trying his best not to snap at someone by the tension in his arms. He knew Ianto was approaching him by the sound of his footsteps, knew his breathing and what it meant, knew everything about his body and would never let himself forget it.
Even if Jack lost all his senses but touch, he would still be able to know Ianto's body in an instant.
Jack knew Ianto, would always know Ianto, and would never forget him, no matter what happened, no matter how long he lived. If Jack believed in souls, he would say that Ianto's soul was bonded to his, irrevocably and eternally.
And as the years passed, as Jack lived his life without Ianto for centuries upon centuries, he never forgot.