None of these pieces really have a timeline, but in my head this grew formNorwegian Wood. (Which followed on from Heatwave-my head is a strange place sometimes.)
(Sorry if you got a repeat alert for this, I reread and found too many typos to live with...Must have been tired when I posted!...fixed now)
"Monitor's routed to my wrist strap," Jack announced, leaning on the tourism counter. "You done?"
Ianto looked up. "Not quite. Two more cover stories to plant into the media. You go ahead, if you like."
Jack shook his head and smiled, hoping it didn't look forced. "I'll wait on the Plass," he offered.
The Plass was deserted. Too late for the office workers and too early for the party people. Jack leaned on the railing and looked out across the bay, watching the last rays of the sun quenched on the far horizon. Gulls rode the waves, bobbing like corks as they dove for their dinner. Quiet and peaceful, a rare moment. Domestic, almost.
And just a little boring.
The stars were beginning to appear overhead. Jack ignored them, quite pointedly. He was not going to have Ianto come out to find him staring up longingly. There might be the promise of endless freedom in every twinkle, but it was a false promise. Jack didn't want to go out there again. He had Ianto, here on Earth, just as he'd dreamed of that entire year, and he didn't want to run away to space again.
The problem with that was, he wasn't doing a very good job of convincing himself. Jack was feeling twitchy, and was close to hating himself for it.
Ianto emerged from the office less than half an hour later, murmuring apologies for keeping Jack waiting. There was no point driving home, not on a clear night like this. Their flat – the one Jack had talked Ianto into moving into, chiefly because of the Jacuzzi – was within walking distance, so they left the SUV at the Hub, and walked. Side by side, not touching, but so comfortable together their strides fell unconsciously into sync. Jack fought the childish impulse to break stride. Really, it was time he grew up a bit, wasn't it?
Whenever Jack had been this close to someone before, they'd always want to hold hands, hang off his elbow, even wrap an arm around his waist - which apart from being cloying, made walking awkward. Jack had no issues with physical contact, but he did resent the feeling that he was being publicly claimed. As much a sign of ownership, in Jack's mind, as a brand, or a collar. All of which he'd seen out amongst those stars, all of which he'd fled from.
Ianto wasn't like that. He had his quirks, but possessiveness wasn't one of them. Excessive tidiness, yes, an insistence on order and planning that Jack found wildly frustrating, not to mention the way the Welshman could never simply ask for what he needed. Which led to Jack stuffing up frequently, and spectacularly.
Oddly enough, it was those very quirks that Jack remembered most clearly, longed for with such desperation, that year when he had nothing much to do other than think. Because he'd been hanging from those damned chains, which didn't allow for much besides thinking. Or he'd needed something to think about, apart from what method of death the Master was going to experiment with, this time.
He'd decided, having had ample opportunity to consider it from every angle, that the flaws kept Ianto from being annoyingly perfect. Jack couldn't tolerate perfection in anyone – except himself, of course - and dreams of what he and Ianto could have together kept Jack sane for a year.
They stopped, still in sync, waiting for traffic lights to change. Hardly any traffic, but Ianto didn't J-walk. "Should we stop and grab something for dinner?" Ianto asked. "Or should I tease the Rift by trying to cook?"
That was another quirk, one Jack hadn't known about before. Ianto liked cooking. His diet of take-away was more by necessity than choice, as the Rift wasn't domesticity-friendly. Jack quite approved of the Rift, sometimes. At least, more than the approved of Ianto clanging pots and pans for hours on end and grumbling about Jack being in the way when all he was trying to do was help. That was what you were supposed to do, wasn't it?
The lights changed. Ianto was still waiting for an answer. Jack smiled. Worth a try, he supposed. It wasn't as though he really wanted another meal of takeaway. Ianto's food tasted good, the few times they'd actually gotten the chance to eat it.
"It'd be nice to eat something we don't have to peel the shrink-wrap off first," he agreed.
We. They. We. When, Jack wondered fretfully, did I stop being an I.
-XXX-
This is what you wanted, Jack reminded himself forcibly, as he waited with Ianto for the lift to arrive. This was what kept you going all those months on the Valiant.
In a year of captivity, he'd planned for freedom. With insanity all around him, pressing closer with each death at the hands of a madman, Jack had tied his own sanity to the image of pale skin, blue eyes and a soft smile. Surrounded by nightmares and death, he'd dreamed of life in the arms of a Welshman.
He'd occupied hours, no days of boredom with planning for how it would be when life was back to normal. He'd blocked out screams – even when they were his own - listening instead to the voice in his mind rehearsing phrases he'd use to make amends to Ianto, and the team, for every piece of neglect, for every time his trust had wavered. He planned for every eventuality, every scenario, down to how exactly how he would win Ianto back, if he'd lost him during his absence. Including the dirty tactics to use if Ianto had turned to someone else.
Jack had it all, now. Everything he'd dreamed of and more than he'd hoped for. Yeah, he'd had to work for it a bit, but that should make the prize all the more valuable, right?
Jack watched the lights above the lift sourly as they paused at every floor on the way down. Taking bloody forever, it was. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Ianto's eyebrow lift enquiringly. He didn't ask, of course. Ianto knew exactly how much good asking did. He'd wait until Jack chose to tell him whatever it was that had his feet shifting as though their soles were on fire.
As far a Jack was concerned, Ianto would wait forever to hear this. To hear that he'd given Jack everything he'd longed for, as well as things he'd needed that Jack hadn't even known about himself – and that it was making Jack feel as though the lift he was about to step into was a cage. That this life he'd dreamed of made him long for escape.
It made no difference that Jack knew exactly what would happen if he did escape. That as soon as he was free of this imaginary cage, he'd beat himself to death trying to get back in. He'd done it before, hadn't he?
Jack remembered waking from the darkness Abaddon had nearly sent him into permanently. It might have been Gwen who woke him, but it was thoughts of Ianto that brought him back. He'd drawn Ianto into his arms, well aware the entire team was watching, with their eyes trying to escape their sockets, thinking only that there was no better way of letting him know, letting them all know, that Jack's mind was finally clear, that his choice was made, his priorities sorted. Ianto, and Torchwood, in that order.
But the walls had closed in so quickly, smothering, choking. The sound of the Tardis was the call of freedom, and he hadn't stopped to consider whether it was calling to him. He'd fled the walls, forsaken safety and routine for excitement and adventure, and spent a year regretting his stupidity. Spent a year vowing to make it up to him. To all of them, really.
So here it was, all of it, all he'd wanted. Ianto by his side, in his arms, in their home. A normal life, or as close to normal as possible with both of them working for Torchwood. He'd longed for this, damn it, yearned for the feeling of safety to be found in the embrace of someone he trusted more than he trusted himself. Someone to chase the nightmares away, or wake him when they wouldn't be banished. Someone to share his dreams.
Jack had it all and he was twitchy. This had been his vision of freedom for a year, and he wanted to escape from it. He was an idiot, and he knew it, and he wouldn't let his own idiocy destroy him, destroy them.
The lift arrived, disgorged its horde of neighbors. People smiled at them, exchanged greetings. Some of them even knew their names. Neighbors. Domesticity. Jack's skin itched.
Ianto jabbed the button for their floor, glanced at Jack, smiled that smile, then pressed the button for the top floor as well.
"You look like you could use a roof," he murmured, smiling a different smile. The crooked one.
Guilt settled heavy on Jack's soul. Ianto wouldn't ask, but he knew something was wrong, and Jack had no doubt the younger man was blaming himself for not being able to help. Ianto deserved better than this. Ianto deserved better than Jack.
"I don't need a roof Ianto," Jack lied. The doors opened on their floor. Ianto stepped through while Jack stood frozen. Ianto was about to walk away from him, through the lift door and to their flat, no doubt, but something very close to terror wreathed through Jack's soul at the thought of Ianto leaving him, wanting to escape him. Jack ordered his stiff legs to move, but his eyes were fixed on the call button for the top floor, and it beckoned like the statue of liberty.
He was a goddamned hypocrite, that's what he was. Pushing Ianto away with one hand, and hanging on for dear life with the other.
Ianto turned back with one foot still in the doorway, and the smile wavered. "Jack, please, of course you do." His voice turned plaintive. "And even if you don't need one, I do. Well, I need you to need one, or want one at least….oh that isn't terribly clear, is it? Sorry."
The sensors in the elevator door began to complain about Ianto's body blocking the entrance. Jack nudged him forward and stepped out himself. The lift doors groaned shut, reminding him of prison doors shrieking on their hinges. Ianto leaned against the wall opposite the lift-well while Jack waited for something to make sense, and came up blank.
Ianto's hands scrubbed through his hair. Jack bent his efforts to banishing the feeling that his last chance of freedom had departed with the grinding gears as the lift continued to the roof without him. He'd promised Ianto more than this, and he was going to keep his promise.
Ianto glared at the closing doors as though it was the innocent metal contemplating betrayal, instead of someone too old and jaded to be worthy of him. Jack wondered with a feeling of dread whether Ianto trying to send him to the roof alone was some sort of test, or rejection, and exactly what he'd done to deserve either.
"What's wrong, Ianto?" Jack asked, as if he wasn't still twitching.
Ianto gazed at the pattern on the carpet beneath his feet. "I'm sorry Jack, but, we've hardly had a minute apart since we moved in," he said, somewhat fretfully. "Don't you think it's getting to be a bit much?"
Something started growing inside Jack that was part relief, part realization that he really was an idiot who couldn't possibly deserve to be with this amazing young man, but mostly something he wasn't ready to admit to, not yet.
Ianto's lower lip snuck in between his teeth. "Oh hell, it's just me, is it?" he said, looking up with eyes adorably wide. Jack could've laughed at the panicky note tainting the Welsh vowels. "But I thought," Ianto babbled. "Given that we've both lived alone for a long time – well, you longer than me, oh hell that's not funny, sorry." He paused, breathed in and out carefully, and tried again. "I thought you'd want your own space a bit, too." He paused again, wide-eyed and gulping, took in Jack's blatant confusion and began to backtrack furiously. "But it's OK, if you don't. I'll get used to it. Oh crap, I didn't mean that either, Jack. I want to get used to it. Shit, that's no better." Ianto slumped against the wall and buried his head in his hands. "I'm not good at this," he mumbled. "Jack. I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean that how it sounded."
Jack gently pried Ianto's hands out of his hair, before the younger man tore any out.
"What do you mean, then?" Jack asked carefully. His skin wasn't itching anymore, he noted with surprise. In fact, it might actually be tingling.
Ianto took a deep breath. "We wake up together, we go to work together, where we work. Together. We leave work together. We eat and sleep – or don't sleep" at which he blushed quite prettily "Together. And what I'm saying, Jack, is that togetherness is all very well, but don't you think we're overdoing it, just a bit?"
Jack felt a laugh building deep inside, and as it escaped, all the doubts, fears, and every last twitch escaped with it.
"I suppose we are," he agreed, feeling relieved and stupid in equal measure. "But I thought it was just me. And I was trying to….I didn't want you to think that I…..Because I've left before and I didn't want you thinking I wanted to leave again. Because I'm not…and I won't…and I don't want to." And it was suddenly, completely true. Jack didn't want to leave. He just needed to know he could.
Whatever else he might have said dried up as Ianto hugged him. Just a hug. Arms around him, tightly, squeezing, and Jack waited for them to feel like ropes tying him down. Waited for the walls to close in again. But they didn't. Because this hug, these arms, they weren't holding him in. They were letting him go, in the sure and certain knowledge that he'd be back.
And it all made sense, suddenly. Ianto working late, telling Jack to go home first. Ianto making so much noise in the kitchen that Jack had to retreat to another room. Ianto trying to send him to the roof. He was twitchy, too, bless him.
Ianto released Jack and reached the button for the lift again. "Up or down?" he enquired. "Our roof, or another?"
Jack hadn't stopped smiling yet. "Our roof's fine," he agreed. He didn't need distance, just space. Open air around him, and the security of knowing somewhere beneath his feet Ianto waited, reveling in his own space. Clanging pots and pans and swearing when the onions made his eyes water. Cooking a meal the Rift probably wouldn't let them eat, at least not tonight. What the hell, they could have it tomorrow, whatever it was.
Ianto was bloody near perfect. And he was a good cook, too.
"Lamb stew?" Jack asked hopefully.
Ianto laughed. "Give me ninety minutes."
Freedom wasn't in the stars. Freedom was an open door. One you could walk out of, and into again. Jack stepped through the lift door again, and could swear his feet were growing wings
Hope you enjoyed!
