TITLE: Four Somethings 4: "Something Blue"
PAIRING: Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones. Team mentioned.
CATEGORY: AU.
DISCLAIMER: I do not know the people involved, no harm intended. TW belongs to BBC and their author but I really believe that Jack and Ianto belong to each other.
WARNINGS: m/m relationship.
My mother tongue is Spanish and I work without a beta so all the mistakes are mine. I do not write much about TW so sorry in advance for any mistakes.
FEEDBACK: comments are love! Any kind of them will help me to improve my writing or leave it forever.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Something old" is the first line of a traditional rhyme which details what a bride should wear at her wedding for good luck; it is often recited as the "Four Somethings".
Something Blue – stands for purity, love and fidelity. Blue was the most popular colour to wear before white came into the picture. Most brides choose to incorporate blue into a hairpiece or garter to cover this item.
Five years had gone by since Jack decided to ask Ianto out on that first date. Even though he got older, there was not a single sign on him; that was not the case with Ianto, who at 28 had started to show some grey hairs, very few strands but visible anyway.
Owen, who was much older, did not have a single grey hair so he laughed at the poor Welshman when he caught him pulling some grey hair out in front of the bathroom mirror.
"Teaboy, you've got grey hair; no longer a boy I have to say," the doctor said.
"Only one word, Owen, decaf!" Ianto threatened their doctor.
"Oh yes, decaf is your next step to avoid caffeine, then love handles will appear, followed by a beer belly, glasses and before you even notice our dashing Captain will be changing you by a younger model," he said and left the bathroom laughing loudly.
Ianto let the words sink and then panicked. He knew that Jack wasn't so superficial and that he did love him but it was also true that Ianto's youth and good looks would begin to wither away and he didn't want Jack to feel obliged to stay by his side if he no longer desired him.
Ianto's campaign to remain young for as long as he could, without dying, started that same day, by reducing the consumption of sugar, fat and coffee with their daily Danish pastries. When Jack asked Ianto if he was not hungry and the man said that one pastry was enough, Owen looked at the young man and had to hide his smile behind his hand.
Jack looked at his boyfriend seriously but he had to stop his questioning when the Rift threw a whole family of little violet aliens who had taken a wrong turn. The mission was quite simple and easy. When the team was back, Ianto asked Jack if he would be needed between 7 and 8 that evening because he had an errand to run. Jack told him that he was free to go only if he promised to come back and have dinner with him as he was on the night shift.
At ten to seven, the Captain saw his boyfriend went out, wearing a tracksuit and carrying a sports bag. He had not asked Ianto what he would be doing but seeing him wearing such informal clothes called his attention. Another Rift alarm interrupted any further thought and by the time they came back, carrying a piece of space junk, Ianto was already back.
The Welshman looked quite edible in his shorts, tight t-shirt and all sweaty so the Captain felt the need to immediately offered his help to wash Ianto's back. Ianto thanked him but refused his offer of help as he was completely knackered. Jack looked at him, waiting for the joke to end but when he saw Ianto dragging his feet heavily, he believed him.
Ianto let the hot water massage his sore muscles, muscles he did not remember having used for a long time. The strong jets of hot water soothed the pain but as soon as he left Jack's bathroom, he put the terrycloth robe on and threw himself across the tiny bunk, falling asleep almost immediately.
Jack wondered why Ianto was taking so long to shower so he decided to get down to his former bedroom and that was when he found the sleeping Welshman, who was snoring soundly.
"Hey, stop snoring, get up and come upstairs to have dinner, old man," Jack said while shaking Ianto awake.
"I am not old" Ianto protested, feeling still a bit sleepy.
"However, you do look like that right now ;come on, soldier," Jack said and slapped his arse.
Ianto winced and with great difficulty, he got up and climbed up the stairs, cursing in Welsh and in many other alien languages.
During their dinner, Jack tried to make conversation but he only got monosyllabic answers.
"Why did you decide to start the gym, Ianto?" Jack asked.
"To be a better field agent and now that Gwen is pregnant, you will need me in the field more often than before" he replied while trying to hide a huge yawn.
"Always the rational and practical one, my Ianto" Jack said and caressed the Welshman's cheek who immediately leaned on it.
"Leave the dishes to me and go to bed," Jack said while gently pushing Ianto towards his manhole.
Even though he preferred sleeping in their soft big bed at their flat, he realized that the man was too tired to even try the short trip there.
When Jack finished tidying up and also signing some of his eternal paperwork, he went to bed, expecting to have some Ianto-time. His boyfriend had been quite evasive that morning and they had not been together since the previous night, a true miracle for both men who were very active lovers.
Jack thought that Ianto might be faking his sleepy mood but when he spooned him and led his left hand towards Ianto's nether region, he found it flaccid and unresponsive. Jack was puzzled; that had never happened to them; even in his sleep, Jack had been able to arouse Ianto with a single caress.
Jack wondered if he was losing his touch and charm or maybe Ianto was losing his interest in him. The Captain spent half of the night watching Ianto sleep. In the wee hours of the morning, Ianto turned around towards Jack and nuzzled his neck, sighing and moaning lowly, while rubbing his morning erection against the immortal's thigh. Jack remained quiet but when Ianto redoubled his efforts to arouse him, he answered passionately and let Ianto take him to heaven and back.
Calm reigned in the underground room and Jack felt reassured once again. Later, they showered together and the second round of lovemaking erased Jack's fears.
The morning went by without any incidents and Ianto was almost back to his own self. That peace would not last long. Gwen was tidying up her desk and Ianto was passing by wearing pinstriped trousers and a dress shirt; no jacket, waistcoat or tie due to the high temperature inside the Hub provoked by a broken thermostat.
She looked at him quite surprised and then she threw him another look at his pert arse; he definitely had a nice bum to pinch.
"Mrs Williams, what are you doing?" Jack asked while crossing his arms over his broad chest.
"Nothing?" she answered and blushed.
"Can it be that you were ogling my boyfriend's derriere, Mrs Williams?" he asked seriously, trying to hide his smile.
Both Tosh and Owen stopped what they were doing when they listened to Gwen babbling an excuse.
Ianto, who was on his way back from the Archives, looked at them and then at his watch to check if he was late for his third round of coffee. He wasn't late at all so he continued his way towards the kitchenette where he was suddenly hugged by Jack, who stated loud and clear and in a very possessive way,
"Ianto is mine, all mine, his pert arse, his love handles and his beer belly"
Owen snorted loudly and looked at Ianto who had a horrified look in his crystal blue eyes.
"Of course, Jack, of course," Gwen said, smiling.
"Happy to know you understood the situation that quickly" Jack replied and set his hands on Ianto's waist and caressed with his thumbs the incipient accumulation of fat around the former narrow waist.
Ianto paled because the evidence of his flaws was as clear as crystal. He remained in silence, finished preparing the coffee, delivered them very quickly and rushed down towards the Archives where he remained until Jack looked for him when the sounds of his stomach were too loud to go on ignoring them.
Ianto immediately excused himself for that and quickly took one of the frozen food stuck in the freezer.
When Jack saw only one portion, he frowned and asked Ianto if he wasn't hungry. The Welshman explained that he felt his stomach unsettled so he would only take a bath and then went to bed as soon as they arrived home.
Owen arrived for the night shift and saw their Captain eating alone with the TV on but he was not paying attention to the programme at all. There was no sign of a second plate. He laughed loudly and when Jack asked him what was so funny, the acerbic doctor only dismissed his boss's question.
Both men drove back to their flat in silence, Ianto looking through the window and Jack trying to think what he had done wrong during the day to make Ianto act so weird again.
Ianto went directly to take his bath and the closing of the door was a clear sign that he did not want Jack's company.
Jack decided to go to bed; he quickly disrobed and slid beneath the sheets and instinctively looked for Ianto's body. To his surprise, his boyfriend was wearing pyjamas; Jack didn't know Ianto owned one at all. They had been sleeping naked since they had moved together and not even the coldest Welsh nights had stopped them from doing that.
Jack wondered why Ianto would do something like that and when he tried to spoon him like every single night, Ianto rolled to the other side of the bed. Jack was tired and confused and he did not want to have an argument in the middle of the night so he silently turned around, leaving a huge space between them.
None of them could sleep at all, due to different reasons, and their morning at home was a bit tense and quiet.
When the rest of the team arrived, Ianto was looking tired, his eyes were reddish and it seemed as if the strong lights made his eyes hurt. He worked on his computer for a long time and for the first time in many years since she had met him, Tosh listened to him curse a lot while punching the delete key repeatedly.
"Is there any problem with your computer or your keyboard, Ianto?" she asked kindly.
"No, Tosh, thanks," Ianto answered her quite rudely.
"You are too close to the screen, Ianto, maybe you need glasses," she said.
"Ianto? Glasses? What for? He has a perfect sight" Jack said and looked at Tosh and Ianto.
"I can see very well, it's just that I am a bit tired" Ianto replied.
"Now that I remember, you did miss two shots in the last mission; maybe it is time to see an optician" Jack suggested thinking that Ianto would look really hot with glasses.
"I really hope you don't; they can be quite annoying," Tosh said while pushing her own glasses up along the bridge of her nose.
"I don't need glasses," Ianto said between clenched teeth.
"You are almost 30, pet, some men have far-sightedness before they are 40," Gwen said seriously.
"Why don't you ask Owen? Maybe he can give you some vitamins and teach you some exercises. You don't have to feel embarrassed" Jack suggested.
"The teaboy is not embarrassed, just worried. We have discovered all his vulnerable points, grey hair, love handles, poor sight, beer belly and he already knows what happens next" Owen said and laughed loudly, disappearing into his domain after receiving a lethal look from Ianto.
"What is he talking about, Ianto?" Jack asked.
"Nothing for you to worry about, sir. I already know what I have to do" Ianto said and walked away.
"What the hell is happening here?" Jack asked loudly but the girls could not give him a good answer.
The Rift, once again, interrupted the conversation and by the time they came back from the retrieval, all of Ianto's belongings had disappeared from Jack's bunker and by the end of the day, the young Archivist had asked for a ten-day-leave.
Jack could not believe the note he was reading; Ianto never took a day off since he had started working there and now, not only had he asked for these ten days but also insisted that he needed to spend those days alone so he would go to their flat to pick up his things and then stay in his own flat.
Jack, in spite of being completely heartbroken, accepted Ianto's decision and Ianto thought that if Jack was not fighting for him it was because he was not worth the effort and the Captain might have found his replacement.
The first four days were hell for each man; except for the year that never was, they had never been apart for so long but anger dominated those days, looking in the other's actions the causes of their estrangement.
The following three days were filled with sadness and despair. Tosh had talked to Ianto and the man sounded so depressed that she was really worried. The rest of the team saw how Jack retreated into himself, like a snail inside its shell and they could assure that they had seen him dry some treacherous tears with the back of his hand.
Both Tosh and Gwen were quite vocal about the current problem, however, Owen remained quiet. Their smart Tosh invited her two colleagues to eat out and Owen knew that Tosh must have smelt his fear.
As soon as they sat and ordered their food, Tosh looked at their doctor and asked:
"You know what is happening between Ianto and Jack so spill it. What are you hiding?"
"I know nothing; maybe they got tired of each other; Ianto of being just a convenient fuck and Jack of seeing Ianto losing his youth," he said and immediately bit his lower lip, remembering at that exact moment that Tosh had been nearby when the conversation between Ianto and himself had taken place.
"You … you were the one who put those silly ideas in Ianto's head and he got so stressed because of that that the believed every single one of your poisonous words. Don't you know that Ianto's biggest fear is Jack leaving him again? Haven't you realized that their relationship is no longer casual but committed, romantic and monogamous? They are living together, for God's sake. Jack can do all those things because he loves Ianto with all his immortal heart and he had promised to live by his side by the rest of Ianto's life" she finally said and remained quiet, looking at the desperate look in the doctor's eyes.
They returned to the Hub and at that moment, a very particular sound invaded the underground base and a blue light and some wind announced the arrival of the TARDIS and the Doctor.
As soon as the thin man stepped outside the ship, Gwen looked at him and said:
"We won't let you take Jack away again. He needs to fix things with Ianto before they lose everything they had worked so hard to get"
"I am not taking your Captain away. Be calm, Mrs Williams and baby girl. In fact, I am bringing him something he had asked me a long time ago but that I have recently found" the Doctor explained, leaving Gwen with a wide open mouth at the revelation about her baby.
"What is it?" the curious tech genius asked.
"It is a very strange metal, not only because of its bluish hue but also due to its chemical composition" he explained.
At that moment, Jack appeared and the Doctor looked at him very surprised at the image in front of him. It seemed as if the Captain had not changed his clothes for many days, there were tiny stains of blood, food and other fluids on them. His always bright blue eyes were now two thin slits so dark that you could no longer distinguish the blue in them.
"Jack, what's wrong with you? Where is your amazing Mr Jones?" he asked trying to cheer him up.
"He left me. He took the things out of my bunker and went away. I miss him so much, Doctor" Jack said and he could no longer hide his tears.
"That can't be possible, he would never leave you" he stated.
"That is true, Jack. Owen was joking with Ianto and we think he believed his jokes" Gwen affirmed.
"But Ianto is too intelligent to fall for Owen's tricks," Jack said.
"But sometimes the universe sends wrong signals and confuse people," the Doctor said.
"Maybe, maybe not. I am sorry I haven't asked sooner, is there anything you need, Doctor?" Jack asked politely.
"Yes, you can do something for me. You go inside the TARDIS to work with this beauty and make what it is usually made from it" the Doctor said, handing the Captain a piece of the strange metal.
"Where did you find it? I had almost lost the hope to find some of it" Jack said, taking the piece of metal carefully, almost reverently, in his hands.
"I got it from the heart of a falling star. So, what are you waiting for? Go now and the TARDIS told me she would let you play with some of her tools".
During the last three days of Ianto's leave, no one saw Jack except when there was a big Rift alarm; however, if it was a simple retrieval, the Doctor helped them.
Jack worked hard and by the end of Ianto's leave, Jack had been able to create something so special that it would show Ianto how much he loved him; the immortal only hoped for his boyfriend to truly believe him.
On the eleventh day, Ianto arrived earlier than the rest of the team as he was used to doing. He found the TARDIS parked near the Rift manipulator and his heart immediately fell and smashed against the floor. During the last ten days, Ianto had finally accepted his mortality, the loss of his youth and the lack of undivided attention of his Captain if he could spend the years he had left by his side; he prefered sharing Jack than not having him at all.
However, the sight of the Doctor's ship changed everything. Jack had finally made up his mind and was leaving with his Doctor to travel among the stars and having exciting adventures with the only man he had truly loved.
Ianto caressed the wooden blue surface of the Police public call Box and the sentient ship sent him soothing feelings and gifted him a song about eternal love.
"Mr Jones, so happy to see you before we go," the Doctor said.
"Doctor, the pleasure is always mine" he replied politely.
At that precise moment, Jack appeared only carrying a blue velvet small box in his hand.
"Or that box is bigger in the inside or you are travelling light, sir?" Ianto said, trying not to drown in those beautiful blue eyes he had learnt to love and had missed with madness.
"Everything I need right at this moment is in here. I really don't know what else I can do to prove you how much I truly love you. You always doubt my words so I thought that you might believe my actions, so I ask you "Jones, Ianto Jones, would you make me the happiest man in the universe by giving me your hand in marriage?" " Jack said and if his voice faltered with emotion in his last words, no one said a thing.
Ianto was so surprised that he remained in silence and he saw a pang of pain set in Jack's eyes.
The Doctor looked at both men and he could not believe what was really happening.
"Jack, go on with the explanation" the Doctor urged him.
Jack lifted his gaze and setting his eyes onto Ianto's, he explained nearly in a whisper:
"I have forged a pair of wedding rings with a very strange and alien metal. The Doctor found it in the heart of a falling star on Boeshane, my home planet. I forged a pair because it is a symbol of my love for you and it will also tie your soul to mine as if they were one. Through this bonding of souls, you will live for as long as I do" Jack finished his explanation and downcast his eyes.
"Are you telling me that you want to live the rest of your life with me?" Ianto asked.
"That is right, Ianto. I love you" Jack said, staring at his Welshman with all the love he could pack in his eyes.
"But you have seen that I am growing old, fat, with grey hair and short-sighted?" Ianto said and blushed deeply because he wasn't used to mentioning so many bad things about his own person altogether.
"Since the moment we bond, if our love is true and pure, you will remain forever young. However, I'd love you the same if you were bald, obese and with Alzheimer. I love you because you are you not because of your looks. I love you because you made of me a better person and I want to be even better if that is possible. I love you because I cannot imagine living in a universe where you do not exist" Jack said and opened the box to reveal the two bright blue wedding bands.
Ianto, with tears in his eyes, looked at them for a while and said:
"Have you realized that this is the last item of the Four somethings you have already given me? My answer is and will always be I do" Ianto replied and then approached a very nervous Captain.
Jack offered him a ring and Ianto quickly slid onto jack's ring finger while saying "With this ring, I thy wed". He then set a reverent kiss on the ring.
Jack nervously took the other ring and looked at Ianto's blue crystal eyes. The Welshman nodded, encouraging him to mirror his action and Jack did it, repeating Ianto's vow and then he added "I promise to be with you until death do us both part"
When Jack put Ianto's ring on his finger, a strong ray of blue light enveloped them, lifted them up with a new life force, a shared one born from their true love.
When the light faded away and both men had their feet back on the floor, the Doctor and the rest of the team, who had arrived at the beginning of the bonding ceremony, saw how their skin glow and how tiredness abandoned their bodies, making them look younger and healthier.
Both men shared a long and passionate kiss, sealing their future life with their love that would last until the end of times.
Finis.