Everybody knew about it, but nobody said anything. The secret was out in the open, but really inside the people carrying it. All the occupants of the Hub gave their raised eyebrows and looks of epiphany, but no speech left their lips. There were no audible conversations about the newest and frankly, thought to be the most ill-fated coupling in the workplace, and yet, the tail-end of laughter and dry words drifted around like gusts of wind, not loud enough to be rebuked.
Captain Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones were having an affair.
Ianto thought that was the kindest word for what he and Jack did. Sleeping together sounded bland, sex too simple, and fucking too vulgar. Yes, they did have copious amounts of sex, but that wasn't all they did. There had to be some depth to it that the others didn't notice. He didn't want to think that Jack was just using him, although sometimes, that was what the both of them needed most. Someone to use, to cast aside and then crawl back to when the dark had passed somewhat.
Owen made his opinion very clear: "You work together and you're friends, so you're just fuck buddies, Ianto. This is how it is, you've just never had that before."
Tosh was more of a romantic: "It's nice that you have someone to be with when things get hard. Besides, Jack needs a person like you to keep him steady."
Gwen didn't say anything at all usually, besides the occasional: "It's fine, really." Ianto knew she didn't mean it.
But to him, they didn't matter so much. This secret was a great deal lighter than Lisa, a great deal happier. It was the thing he laughed about, sitting at his desk at night, all alone and flipping through the meaningless travel brochures on the wall. Behind that same wall was a man, a charismatic, intelligent, smile-lined, deathless man who enjoyed throwing Ianto on couches, floors and beds to have his way with him. Who'd have thought?
In those nights, he always managed to wander into the main Hub, climb the stairs quietly, and find Jack working mostly. Sometimes he'd be asleep already, but more likely not. Ianto would sit on Jack's desk and curl his arms around Jack's neck and kiss him until his vision became spotty from lack of oxygen. They'd take a few breaths and Jack would smile, his hands sliding over Ianto's suit jacket to count Ianto's ribs. One of Ianto's thumbs would brush softly over Jack's cheek, and the other hand would tangle in his hair. Somehow, Jack would use a free palm to swipe away what papers were left on his desk, and push Ianto back, back until he could feel the hard surface underneath him. Ianto would wrap his legs around Jack's waist pressing their bodies as closely together as possible (they had their atoms fusing) and Jack would start by unbuttoning Ianto's jacket and untying his tie. From there, it would be anyone's game.
Afterwards, they'd pick their clothes up off the floor, Ianto wearing Jack's military coat and Jack wearing nothing at all, and make their way slowly (they could hardly stop kissing) into Jack's cot. It was barely wide enough for two people, but neither of them minded. Legs and torsos and arms twisted together into coiled masses of sweaty, mouth-marked skin. Ianto never had to wonder if this was better than the sex, because it was. In the quiet, the whirring noise of machinery and devices down below, Jack and Ianto would whisper to each other, lovers, heartaches, stories that tore into them like million of paper cuts and flew them higher than the Medusa Cascades, all at once and with miniscule progress of distance.
When Ianto fell asleep, because he always fell asleep first, he heard the rise and fall of Jack's voice, felt the gentlest kiss on his forehead. He forgot how old Jack really was only sometimes, and the times tended to be now.
But then, he remembered the thousands of years weighing on Jack's shoulders. Nightmares dragged and yanked Jack's limbs, jostling Ianto in his sleep and ultimately waking him. Jack looked scared when he dreamed; his muscles tightened like he needed to run away, and his pulse slammed ever faster into the skin of his neck and wrist. He was a light sleeper, so the fact that Jack couldn't always wake up from the dreams was more frightening to Ianto than the dreams themselves.
Ianto never wanted to cause Jack pain. Whomever or whatever had done this to him deserved to suffer.
Jack screamed the same names every nightmare, calling out for Rose and a doctor. Ianto didn't know whether the doctor was for Jack or for Rose, but either way, some horrible things had happened to them. Daleks were another thing, and Jack was constantly trying to warn Rose and the doctor about the Daleks coming for them. Ianto researched Daleks after he heard of them the first time, and he cried when he read what he'd found. No one saw him, but he thought Jack knew.
On his worst days, Ianto went into pubs and drank Scotch until the lights made highways across his line of sight, blurs, and sharp, angular faces. He wondered if he was just a phone call to relieve stress, a mistress of sorts while Jack waited for his Rose and his doctor. He knew Jack didn't love him, that wasn't how Jack did things. At best, someday Ianto would be forgotten among centuries and stars, a vague face in the corner of the eye. He'd tried to be invisible when he started at Torchwood, and he'd get his wish. He'd blend into the lovers Jack had had before him, countless lovers, Roses, and doctors.
There was no way for this to work in the long run, hell, even in a few months.
But mistresses never lasted anyway.
Months that Ianto hadn't predicted went by. Every time Jack kissed him, he fell farther, but he was very good at denial. Ianto got through to Jack in ways that only Gwen came close to. He was becoming more and more included into Torchwood workings, a new member of the team. The group liked him because he knew things, he knew what to say when everything was bleak and no one seemed ready to get up from their chairs and go home.
He knew how to pull smiles out of Jack when he was angry beyond reason, and when Jack finally did grin, Ianto tricked himself into thinking there was something else in his eyes. Maybe Jack loved him.
Really, it didn't matter whether Jack loved him, because Ianto had known from the moment Jack helped him catch the pterodactyl in that warehouse that he was done for. He'd fallen in love with Lisa over a few years and sheer desperation kept him with her after Canary Wharf, but with Jack, it was almost instantaneous.
People thought Romeo and Juliet were the pinnacle of romantic achievement, but Ianto had never liked that story. Someone who had been pining fruitlessly over someone else that couldn't love them simply could not walk into a dance and fall in love at first sight, especially throwing in the clause that the other person returned the sentiment. It was illogical and completely ridiculous. The marriage and death thing was also unadvisable, since only half of marriages lasted these days and dying was all too common in the alien-catching profession.
Ianto wasn't supposed to feel exactly like Romeo every time he looked at Jack. If anything, Jack was the Romeo, the sweeper-off-feet, the impulsive-decision-maker, the one who always stepped in. But that just didn't fit the story.
"Who are they? Rose and the Doctor, I mean," Ianto asked rather abruptly. They hadn't had a case in a few days, and Jack and Ianto were curled up on the couch. Gwen had gone home to Rhys, and Owen and Tosh were out playing pool. It was just the two of them, and he wanted to savor what time they had.
Jack looked down at him in surprise. "How did you...?"
"I know a lot of things, and you aren't even allowed to ask that." He hated it when Jack danced around personal questions like this.
"Why not? You have things you won't tell me." And Jack had that hard look in his eyes. Ianto pushed past it because no one got anywhere with him if they didn't.
"How many secrets do you have compared to me? I can think of only one thing you don't know. Pay up."
Jack stubbornly pressed his lips together and didn't say anything.
"Who are Rose and the Doctor, Jack? You say their names during your nightmares and I'm tired of wanting to shoot them for hurting you," said Ianto honestly. He adjusted his position so he could softly kiss Jack on the jaw.
His lover rested his chin on Ianto's head. Ianto could feel him speak. "We all met in 1941. I was running from the Time Agency, and they just happened to be there, but I don't really believe in coincidence anymore. A little boy with a gas mask was haunting a group of children and I got sucked into helping the Doctor and Rose solve the puzzle. I traveled with them for a while after that. I could still die back then." Jack laughed. "It feels strange to think I could have died with them.
"We gallivanted all over the place, crossing time and space in a blue police box. I loved them both very much." At this, Jack grew quiet and ran his thumb over Ianto's hip. "The Doctor and Rose Tyler were my best friends. One day, we materialized in a spacecraft taken over by Daleks. The Doctor, he had this crazy idea and Rose never left his side, so I was the last line of defense. I went down blazing, like always." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Somehow, Rose melded with the heart of the time machine, the living blue box. The Doctor was dying too, and she couldn't bear the both of us dead, so she brought me back to life, knowing he could regenerate. When she brought me back to life though, she used too much power." Jack shrugged. "The sweetheart made it so I couldn't ever die again."
Ianto looked up at Jack. "Where are they now?"
"The Doctor is gone. I can't find him, but I have his hand in a container in case I need him. So far it hasn't worked, but..." Jack trailed off. "Rose was caught in the battle of Canary Wharf. She's listed among the missing, so he's not with her. There weren't a lot of places to go besides the Void, and I can't think about her there."
Seeing that Jack was finished speaking, Ianto laid his head on Jack's chest, listening to the heartbeat that was only beating because of a girl far away from Cardiff, and a man that held out a hand and said, 'Come with me'. Everybody needed someone to say, 'Come with me', just once. Ianto had taken that outstretched hand too, and this strange, unwieldy, beautiful thing had come out of it. He wouldn't have traded that, not for anything. "I'm glad you told me."
"Someone has to know. Someone besides me has to recognize how important they are."
"If they saved you, they have all the importance in the world," Ianto whispered, his eyes drifting shut.
When that building collapsed on top of Ianto, caused by the otherworldly explosives, his last thought was if he should have told Jack he loved him.
Of course, they made it out just in time, no one really injured, just Tosh. As soon as the others were out of sight, Jack ran to Ianto and kissed him, nearly knocking him over. "What was that for?"
"You didn't die on me."
Ianto smiled. "I try not to do that, Captain."
Jack grinned, that look that promised sex on the nearest horizontal surface. "You better not."
But then, all hell broke loose. He should have seen it coming. The people at Torchwood lived to die another day, just like James Bond. At the end of the night, however, Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato didn't.
They should have seen it coming.
It was quiet around the Hub with Owen and Tosh gone. Gwen left more and more now, mostly because she had a husband. Ianto never thought about marrying anybody. Lisa was the closest he'd gotten before, and even then, he knew he wasn't ready. He didn't even want to know what Jack would think if he asked.
'By the way, I was wondering if you'd marry me'. No, it was better not to think about it.
Not that Ianto didn't have a ring stashed away. Not that Jack and Ianto were technically dating.
Ianto and Jack didn't have separate rooms anymore. They spent so much time in Jack's room that somehow, all of Ianto's things ended up there as well. Suits were neatly folded next to military coats and suspenders that Ianto liked playing with when they were alone. He'd hook his thumbs through them and pull Jack in close; Jack would laugh and put his hands into the back pockets of Ianto's slacks. Sometimes, they'd just stand like that, an imitation of the secondary school slow dance that got just a few things wrong.
Jack got in the habit of waking up early, but Ianto was up early too, so they fought over who got to make breakfast. Supplies were limited at the Hub anyway, so they went out for breakfast more often than not. Ianto always made coffee though. Jack told him that all the coffee tasted weird in the future, so he had to get as much of the good stuff as he could before that time came.
The one time they went to dinner instead of grabbing a pizza or takeout, Jack took him to a nice restaurant, saying that they both deserved a break from that food. Ianto could've said he'd cook, there were supplies aplenty at the Hub now, but he didn't. This sounded and felt too much like a date for him to point out that he and Jack weren't really dating after all.
Jack paid, which Ianto thought was hilarious. They both made similar salaries, by which Ianto meant far too much money. He personally had no idea what he was supposed to do with all of that; why not spend it on Jack? But Jack insisted, kissing him across the table to shut him up. He thought he saw someone he knew in the background of the restaurant, but was too lost in his lover (assuming, since they had no real title) to care.
That night, the two of them laid awake, fully clothed, just drunk enough to feel buzzed and happy. "Can you promise me something?" asked Ianto blearily.
"Depends on what you want me to promise."
Ianto laughed drowsily. That response was so typical. "Can you promise me...that..." But he was drifting off so fast. Why could he never say what he needed to say?
Ianto didn't directly meet the infamous Doctor. He saw him over a webcam, or whatever the Tardis had. He had brown hair that stuck up all over the place and a cheerful smile, even though everyone was in danger. Donna, the woman standing next to him, had red hair and a boisterous attitude, and looked nothing like the Rose Tyler Jack described. So she really was gone.
Jack looked at the Doctor as one would look at a mythical hero that walked out of a storybook: awestruck, trusting, admiring, and a bit enamored. Whatever the Doctor said was law and gospel, but Ianto couldn't stay mad at him. That man attracted people, made them want to run after him without a second thought. The danger, that never mattered. The loss, there was always someone to pick you back up. The Doctor seemed to fix everything he touched. If Ianto had ever wondered why Jack and the Doctor were so close, he had his answer. Deep down, they were both too old and too caring to leave Earth behind.
When the Doctor mentioned Daleks, Jack pulled Ianto and Gwen into his arms, kissing them both on the forehead. He was scared; they all were scared. But there was no stopping any of them. Once events had been set into motion, every single person on those screens, Sarah Jane and her son, Donna, Martha, Harriet Jones, Gwen and Ianto and Jack, and the Doctor were staying to fight, to fight and to save what they could.
And Rose, when she came, a gun in her arms and a smile on her face, she blew open the whole wide world, and Ianto understood now.
There was no battle but this. There would be no other day better than this one.
Ianto yanked on the Rift manipulator cords, plugging things into other things, the colors and whirring passing him by. He called Jack to him, just for a moment, he said. He only needed a moment. As soon as Jack was close enough, long strides spurred by urgency, Ianto pulled Jack down to his level and kissed him, putting as much unspoken passion and love as he could into it. "Thus with a kiss, I die," he murmured, pushing Jack away and pressing the Enter key on the final program.
Sometimes the melodrama came out at good times. Sometimes quoting a play he'd been reading a lot lately meant more than just joking laughter.
Sometimes it felt like the truth. And with the Daleks' mechanical voices screaming in his ears and the shouts of the people over the CCTV, he couldn't bear another lie.
They survived the Dalek attack. Ianto never talked about the incident with Romeo's line, and neither did Jack, but he wanted to. He didn't want to get tired of being the concealed lady from a canceled love, but even Ianto only had so much patience. Someday, he was going to have enough.
Discovering that Jack hadn't slept with anyone while he and Ianto had been sleeping together put that 'having enough' on hold for a while.
Maybe Jack focused his attention on one person at a time, but maybe Ianto was special. And he, much to his own chagrin, spent a lot more time on the latter.
Of course, the angst that went into the average relationship, especially unrequited, kept him from saying anything. Why should he? He had a good life right now, a good job, good colleagues, a man that treated him like a lover. Ianto risked all of that by telling Jack how he felt.
"He loved her so much that he couldn't bear to live a day without her." Gwen paused. "Have you ever loved somebody that much, Jack?"
Jack didn't reply, and hesitation was often better than an actual answer.
Many literature enthusiasts insisted that at the beginning of the play, Romeo had been pining over Rosaline without having loved her truly. After all, how could one love someone so far out of reach?
That stupid trip to the hospital with the old man and his endorphin-producing alien tagalong hit Ianto like a brick to the face. Who better to pretend to be the concerned couple who found the man then him and Jack? It wasn't like Rhys liked getting involved in this kind of work. Besides, Ianto knew he gave off the 'boyfriend vibe' as Gwen called it. He didn't even need to use his prodigious acting skills.
The surgeon that met them in the room, Rupesh, he was so easy to trick. Apparently, Ianto and Jack looked more date-like than Ianto knew. Lots of other people in the hospital noticed the way they were with each other and backed off of Jack. But Jack was only playing the part, unlike him, who had thrown away the script a long time ago.
Ianto wasn't a boyfriend or a partner, he reminded himself. He wasn't the other half of Jack's dialogue, the East or the Sun, the nightingale or the lark, the Montague or the Capulet. He was a man with a ring burning a hole through his breast pocket and a lover that left him in bed to look for the Doctor.
"He thought we were a couple," said Ianto quietly, turning to Jack as they walked together. "Do you think we are?"
"I hate that word, couple," Jack replied, a hard tone entering his voice. He began to walk faster to the SUV, leaving Ianto behind.
He had to say something. He just had to bring it up again. "I hate it too!" Ianto called after him, but he was lying.
There were words for the different relationships Ianto had in his life. He had a sister, a colleague and friend in Gwen, a niece and nephew, a dad, acquaintances in the people working at the pizza place. But there was no word for what he and Jack had.
If that which they called a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, what would happen if there was no name to begin with?
All of the sudden, there was a bomb, and Jack was kissing Ianto goodbye, and Ianto was so, so terrified that just this one time, Jack wouldn't make it out alive. He'd seen what explosions did to people, and he knew Jack felt it every time he died. There'd be pain beyond belief, but Ianto selfishly thought that it didn't matter as long as Jack came back to him. He'd apologize, tell Jack he didn't mean to bring up being a couple and the two of them could stay the way they were forever and Ianto would never mind, because when you loved someone, little things didn't matter.
Jack was gone for so long, and when he came back, he was drowning in concrete. Ianto wanted to scream and scream and cry and never let go of Jack's hand once they were back in the car, but he let go.
Maybe he was dreaming when Jack took Ianto's hand again and kissed his fingers individually, like Jack was saying he was sorry.
Now this was the final scene. Ianto and Jack stood firm at the 456's tank, guns raised and with one look at each other to say they were going down together, like they always did.
But Jack never went down forever, while Ianto was far too mortally human.
Neither of them expected the virus to be released into the air, for Ianto to fall and Jack to shout at the creature that it could have anything it wanted as long as Ianto lived. That Jack was willing to sacrifice the world for him made Ianto cry.
Before he knew it, both of them were on the floor, Ianto cradled in Jack's arms, his head supported by the crook of Jack's elbow. He'd never been held like this. He'd never been treated like something so precious, something so loved that the world didn't matter anymore. He'd never been so content to never hear those three little, huge words.
"I love you," he told Jack, his insides burning while his extremities began to freeze.
"Don't," Jack choked out, and Ianto knew what he meant. He still had hope that they would be okay, but Ianto knew better. Every story had to end, and this one was no different.
"Can you promise me something?" Ianto had finally figured out what he wanted to say.
He wanted to kiss all the tears off Jack's face, but he was too weak to lift his head up. "Anything."
"Promise me you won't forget me. In a thousand years when everyone you know on this planet is gone, don't forget us. Please promise me that, Jack."
And Jack rocked him back and forth as one would a child, trying to coax them into sleeping. Jack held him so close, close enough to be one body, a JackIanto. Their atoms had fused a while ago, in that cot destroyed by the fires. Hands freezing, numbing, and shaking, Ianto reached into his pocket and took out the ring, sliding it into Jack's palm when his fingers didn't work anymore. He was leaving fast, and he was so scared, but there was no place he'd rather be.
"Yes."
Ianto let his eyes fall shut for the last time, the vague remembrance of a kiss brushing his lips before he faded.
One thing he knew was that Friar Laurence was right: it was better to die young. When you're old, there are things you wish you could have done, things you wish you hadn't, people you wanted to apologize to. But when you died young, you died the best you were, in love, in health, in life.
Ianto's best days were right here, fighting and falling in love with a man that couldn't die, being a part of the most beautiful open secret of an affair there was. It was really alright in the end. No matter how many sleeping potions Juliet took, Romeo always died first anyway.
Please tell me how I did.