Jack Wakes - Chapter 7

by Gracefultree

A/N: Here's a nice long chapter to make up for the delay in posting. Enjoy!

.

Ianto and I rode in silence to my flat. I spent the time trying to get myself out of Captain-space and back into a mood for sex. Usually, I can jump from one to the other in a split second, but Ianto startled me by talking about the Doctor. And he startled me even more by knowing about my immortality and wanting to help me deal with the pain of it. I glanced over at him a few times, but he was staring out the window.

I parked the SUV and pulled the keys from the ignition, turning to him with a slightly crooked smile on my face. "I don't spend much time here," I warned him. "So don't get your hopes up about a luxurious flat."

He glanced over at me before shrugging. "As long as it has the bed you were promising," he answered, offering a small smile in return. I could see the lust simmering behind his eyes and it sparked my own, sending me back into that happy place I'd been looking for. We entered the building side-by-side.

As soon as the door to the flat closed behind us, I took him in my arms and kissed him, pressing his back against the wall. We stood there kissing in the dark and running our hands over each other's clothed bodies to ease the hunger for a few minutes before he asked for the tour. With a chuckle I flipped the light switch.

"You weren't kidding. I had better flats in Uni!" he exclaimed, amusement in his voice. "To think, this is where Jack Harkness lives," he murmured. I I hung up my coat and watched him take in the small kitchen, the dining table and pair of chairs, the large bed with matching nightstands. I felt a moment of insecurity. Maybe I should have a bigger couch? A bigger television? There was room, barely, unless I got a flatscreen, and somehow, if I was going to spend the money on that, I felt like I'd want to put it in a better looking place than this. His eyes scanned the bookshelves, and he took a step towards them before he remembered where he was. "Have a seat," he said, pointing at the table. "I'll make some coffee."

"Okaaaay… I doubt I have coffee in, though."

"That's OK. I brought my own," he said with a smirk. He removed his suit jacket and draped it over the chair opposite the one I chose. He hefted the small carryall I hadn't even noticed he'd been carrying and walked to the kitchen.

As I watched, Ianto rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He moved around the kitchen gracefully, opening cabinets and drawers, examining the contents of the refrigerator, and, finally pulling several items from his bag, including a small thermos and a air-tight jar of coffee grounds. He cleaned to coffee machine, tutting softly over its simplicity and the sort of filters I used. Without pausing, he started washing mugs and spoons and various other bits of mismatched crockery from my cabinets. I waited.

"I'm a bit nervous," he admitted as he set a mug of coffee in front of me and took the seat opposite me with his own. "Coffee calms me. I've never done this kind of thing before."

"What kind of thing are we talking about?" I asked, sipping my coffee. It was just what I needed, and somehow he knew I was in the mood for cream, which must have been in the thermos because I knew I didn't have any in the fridge.

"Having sex with a stranger."

"You're more nervous about that than having sex with a man?" I wondered aloud.

"I find myself thinking that the sex of one's partner isn't as important as the person him- or herself. You have a way of expanding the horizons of the other people about you. Besides, I trust you to know what you're doing with someone like me," he answered. Then he smiled brightly. "And if it's anything like what was going on at the warehouse, I'd be an idiot to stop now. That was fantastic!"

I grinned at him and reached for his hand. I stroked my thumb over the back of his hand, and he started relaxing immediately. "How do I become 'not a stranger,' Ianto?"

"I'm not sure. We'd have to spend time together, I guess."

"Before or after sex?"

He blinked a few times, processing my question. "Um, well, sex is a way to get to know each other, isn't it?"

"Of course."

"So, by having sex with you, that makes you not a stranger anymore."

"I can live with that logic." I tugged on his hand gently and maneuvered us to the bed. We sat down, our hands still clasped. I traced his cheekbone with the fingers of my other hand, and he closed his eyes as I caressed him. I pulled him forward into a brief but passionate kiss. His hands settled on my thighs and he shifted closer. We kissed more deeply. He slid my braces down.

"Can we talk about the condom thing again?" he asked a few minutes later when he realized he'd been rubbing my erection through my trousers. I'd kept up the small, intimate touches to his face and head, enjoying the opportunity to have time to be like that with a lover after several years of relatively meaningless and most certainly emotionless sex. Not to mention the sex I'd paid for, but that was a whole other can of worms I wasn't going to be thinking about that night. If Ianto wanted me, really wanted me, I had the feeling I wouldn't need to seek release anywhere else for as long as we were together.

"Sure." I pulled back so we could see each other's expressions during the talk.

"You said you were clean, and it seems you prefer not to use them…" He paused. "Is it your condition that keeps you safe?"

"A combination of that, evolution and inoculation. I had a job once that made sure I wouldn't be able to catch most of the illnesses humans can catch throughout the universe. The ones I can catch haven't been developed yet."

He nodded thoughtfully. "You're from the 51st Century," he stated. We both knew the answer, so I didn't respond. "It's been a while since I've had sex without condoms. Except for the girlfriend before Lisa, who was on the pill, I always used them. Lisa really didn't want to get pregnant, so we used them and she took birth control pills."

"Reasonable. Unwanted and unexpected pregnancies can cause all kinds of emotional and relational upheavals between people."

"A girlfriend I was seeing in Uni tried to claim that a condom broke when she got pregnant. It turns out she was cheating on me and thought I had better prospects for a job than the real father of the child."

"You figured it out?"

"He confronted me for trying to steal away his woman and child. I got the picture, dumped her, and moved on. Brigitte and I were exclusive for the short time we dated, then I met Lisa. Lisa and I were exclusive, though we talked about the possibility of other people, just in case one of us was attracted to someone else, because I didn't want a repeat of the thing with Veronica. I wanted us to be able to talk about it in the open rather than go behind each other's backs."

He was talking a lot about past lovers and their relationships. Was this a good sign? What did it mean for what we were going to do? Was he going to ask me to only be with him? I had no idea what I'd say if he did. Part of me wanted to agree, but that was ridiculous, since we hadn't even slept together yet! Were we getting into a relationship? Were we dating? Shit, it's been too long since I've actually dated someone. I'm not sure I know the rules!

He sighed. "I'm a one lover at a time person, Jack. That's what I like and prefer. That way my partner gets all my attention, romantically, anyway. You should know that about me."

"I'm not," I said cautiously.

"I know, and I wouldn't expect you to be," he said seriously. "I mean, even if half of what was said about you around the water cooler was true, it would be ridiculous to think you'd be monogamous. I don't think it would bother me as long as we talk about it."

"That's very modern thinking of you." We stared into each other's eyes for a moment. "I don't always have more than one lover," I explained, part of me wanting — needing — him to accept me. "In fact, I usually prefer to only have one, but I need the option to be available. I need to be able to flirt and take it as far as it goes. It's about me needing the freedom to be me. I've tried being monogamous and it doesn't work well for either of us. I get resentful, angry. I withdraw, and it sours everything."

"So, what if we decided that I'd be faithful to you and you had the option for being with other people, though there's not an expectation that you'd definitely do it or not do it? If you're sure you can't catch or carry anything, I think I'd be willing to forgo condoms for the time being."

"That sounds better than I expected would come of this conversation," I said, kissing him again. He melted into the kiss, pulling me down on top of him as he laid back. I crawled over him, positioning him as I went so that he was sprawled out in the center of the bed. I started undoing his shirt buttons for the second time that night. He pulled his lips away from mine for a moment.

"Jack? One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"I really hope you're as good as your reputation says," he growled as he pulled me into another kiss and started in on taking off our clothes. I just laughed and prepared to show him a night of pleasure he'd never forget.

Ianto's second orgasm of the night impressed me even more than the first had, accompanied as it was by a hoarse cry of my name and an almost impossible to bear tightening around my cock. I let go, spilling into him as he shot across my sheets. We collapsed into a tangled heap of arms and legs and torsos, each of us delirious with pleasure and short of breath. We'd taken a lot of time getting to this point, and the anticipation I drew out was well worth the effort. I rolled him to his back so I could kiss his lips again after the enforced distance while I fucked him from behind. (Not the position I would have chosen for a first time, but he wanted "the classic experience," so I went along with it. The way I saw it, we'd have much more time for other things both later that night and in the future.)

We lay there for half an hour, just kissing and cuddling, nuzzling necks and trailing fingers along overheated skin. He dozed while I watched him, enjoying the unguarded expression on his face. He woke up to find me still looking at him and the first thing he did was whisper my name through a sleepy smile as he touched my face gently. The look in his eyes was remarkably similar to love, though I didn't want to get ahead of things and convinced myself that it was just the wonder of a new relationship and a very thorough fuck. I returned the smile and kissed him.

And, no, I didn't take the time to consider the look in my eyes and how close it was to what I was seeing in his. I hadn't admitted I loved him yet, that night, though looking back, I did.

We showered together, mostly because I'd "forgotten" to clean us up, and enjoyed the hot water and soapy skin as I showed him the glory of a good scalp massage. (He'd never had one before, and certainly never had one while naked, and even more certainly never had one that turned into another round of sex.) He appreciated my thoroughness.

As we lay in bed after the shower, he started asking questions about sex between men, and what else we might do. We even touched on some of the kinkier kinds of sex we might try, and he enthusiastically chose a safeword in preparation. Everything felt so good and natural, he told me, despite us both being men, and I answered that that's how sex should feel, no matter the gender of one's partner. We talked for several hours, about that and other things, before a third round, and he enjoyed it just as much as all the others, if not more, since this time I managed to keep him on his back so I could see the expression on his face when he came. I think I convinced him it was worth repeating.

Depending on how long this thing lasted, I might even consider letting him top me, not something I feel comfortable allowing all that often. But if he's going to be more than just a shag, I reasoned, there's no logical purpose to keeping the sex "one-way." It would feel good to trust someone enough to let them top me. It's been far too long.

And if Ianto were that person… I'd be a happy man.