Chapter Thirty Six
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A Secret Shared
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It was still warm as they ambled contentedly along; Ianto with his hands in his pockets, Jack with an arm hooking through the one that had recently been held out to him.
There'd been no awkwardness surrounding the relaxed linking of limbs, no shyness; no sly smiles. The gesture had been purely instinctive and totally not acknowledged in any way.
On the inside, though, it was a different story. Both men were acutely aware that this was a habit they couldn't allow themselves to become comfortable with. And each with an eye focussed on the road in front, and an ear trained to the rear, they were both in readiness to take one step to the side should a vehicle be seen up ahead, or an engine be heard from behind.
Laid to tarmac, but with no firm edging in place; already crumbling at its edges, the dusty road they were walking along was thankfully not classed as a main tourist track. And leading only as far as the few local properties that lay just beyond the more recently built modern villas, it tended to be used mostly by local residents and ex-pats.
Appreciative of this opportunity to stroll lazily in the evening sunshine together, both men were quite happy to wander along in complete silence. Over the five minutes, or so, since they'd set off neither one of them had uttered a single word. And content to simply acknowledge each unusual bird, butterfly or captivating scene with just a shared smile, they strolled arm in arm over the dusty surface; just enjoying the moment.
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Another minute or so on; with his head angling away to one side, Jack stared harder into the distance and in gaining his attention, nodded for Ianto to do the same.
Upon noticing, also, that they were approaching the track that they needed, Ianto nodded his comprehension and, still, with neither of them feeling the need for discussion, they both instinctively kicked up a gear.
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Reluctantly separating to push their way through the final set of bushes, Ianto came out on the other side first, and with a quiet gasp he instantly found himself holding his breath.
Leaving a snap of twigs and rustle of leaves in his wake, Jack stepped up beside him. "Wow."
Slowly, Ianto nodded his concurrence. "Yep."
Both looking down at the small stretch of white sand below, Jack slipped his hand into Ianto's. "Come on …"
Excitedly, he began to lead him downward over the hardened track of sun-cracked mud and stones; stopping to point with a child-like awe as a tiny lizard basking in the last of the day's sunshine scurried away, dashing for the safety of parched grass and thistles.
A sudden impulse determining that he go with his instincts, Jack turned back, and with a finger crooked under Ianto's chin he kissed him softly. "I'm so happy that it's you I'm getting to share this moment with."
Aware that he was coming very close to saying something that could be classed as embarrassing and totally out of character, Ianto, instead, just smiled his thanks and joining in with Jack as his face broke into a huge grin, he allowed himself to be dragged over the last few yards to get down to the beach.
Looking out over the expanse of turquoise blue it was obvious to both men that this would be an ideal vantage point for taking in the perfect sunset.
"It's a shame we can't stick around to see it …"
Even with them having had no discussion on the subject, Jack somehow knew there was no need for him to explain himself further.
"How about we come back another evening armed with a torch?" Ianto offered looking out over the water. "We could leave the car parked in that cut-out at the top then drive back to the villa once it's gone down."
"We could snog as the sun sets!" Jack was already starting to sound a little more hopeful.
"Then we could make out in the moonlight ….." Ianto found himself chuckling as Jack flicked both brows at his own addition to their list of alliterative suggestions.
"Do you think we'd get away with some naked tanning down here?"
Watching Ianto turn away, as he posed the question, Jack began to follow him back across the sand to where a log was waiting; just begging to be sat on. Looking for all the world like it was never meant to be there, its very existence was pointing heavily to somebody having kindly rolled it down the bank at some stage in the past. It'd certainly been there for a long while, that much was obvious.
With Jack dropping down next to him, and having mulled over the question sufficiently, Ianto offered up his considered opinion. "Not with the moon overhead, no." He laughed as Jack scowled playfully at him. "Okay, go on then; a spot for some naked tanning? Quite probably, yeah. But don't go getting any ideas, Harkness. Taking my kit off is as far as I'll be going. So if you were planning on trying any moves that would involve me getting sand in my nooks and crannies … then you can just think again."
Pouting before grinning and edging closer, Jack reached out for a hand. "This spot is beautiful. I can't quite believe we're sitting here together like this."
"It is a bit dream-like." With the sun already glinting over the surface of the water, Ianto was absently hooking their fingers together as he dared to agree with Jack.
Jack found himself sighing as he looked back up at the ball of deepening orange. "How long before we have to leave, d'you think?"
Shucking his sleeve back, Ianto checked his watch. "Well, it's nearly seven thirty, so, with us needing to reach the safety of some street lamps before it gets completely dark, I'd say we're safe for another hour, at least. Why? Do you wanna stay here for a while? I thought you'd be starving by now."
Suddenly nervous beyond belief, and way too preoccupied to realise that yet another joke about his ravenous appetite had just been made, as he turned from the view out to sea, the breath that left Jack was very shaky. "I think I'd like to get something over and done with while we're here ….." Hesitation already apparent on his face, he swallowed hard as he offered as an afterthought. "If that's okay with you, of course."
Clenching his fingers, Ianto tightened their hold. "You don't have to tell me anything … you do know that, don't you." He squeezed again. "I mean it, Jack. If this is going to make you feel uncomfortable … then don't worry … I don't mind."
"I know …. but it's fine, really. And it's not that I don't want to share this with you … it's just that I'm not very proud of myself, or of what I've got to tell you, that's all. And I guess it's because I also know that by the end of all this your entire opinion of me will have changed ….. and that's the part that really scares the shit out of me."
He took in Ianto's growing look of consternation and brushed his thumb soothingly over the backs of his fingers. "What I need you to remember …. is that I'm not the person I used to be ….. I've grown up; I'm not that selfish young kid that just thinks only of himself, anymore. But I can't change the facts of what happened back then, they'll always be there."
Ianto nodded his understanding and seeing that Jack's nerves were already making him tremble, he leaned forward just enough to allow their lips to brush together. "Just tell me what you're comfortable with, okay? And remember, I'm not expecting you to tell me anything at all, so just stop if you have to."
Swallowing noisily, Jack nodded gratefully. "Okay ….." And drawing in a deep breath he held it for just a beat before making a start. "Right, what I'm about to tell you is my way of explaining how I ended up living in Wales, okay? ….. Oh, ….. and yeah …. of how I came to know about those damned shutters …..."
As he saw Ianto laugh silently at him, for just a moment, he allowed himself to laugh quietly with him. "Anyway, first off, I need to take you back to our first date. You remember? In the pub that night? The first time I mentioned Mickey?"
This being the last thing he was expecting to hear about, Ianto frowned slightly but nodded anyway.
"Well …" Jack stopped again and sighed as if collecting his thoughts. "I told you I was with him when I was twenty two, yeah?" He waited for the nod then nodded himself. "Yeah, well, I was, literally, just twenty two. And, if you'll bear with me, we now need to come bang up to date; to earlier this week, in fact. You remember I explained about that whole disastrous swallowing episode?" Ianto nodded again. "Well that moment actually happened on my twenty second birthday … and I think that's why I took everything so personally when I came home the next day to find he'd kicked me out."
As he nibbled thoughtfully on his bottom lip, Ianto tried to prevent his forehead from furrowing. "And this is all relevant to you coming over to live in Wales, is it?"
Looking like he wanted to smile but not daring to quite just yet, Jack nodded. "Yeah, well you see, as I said, this all happened around my birthday and I didn't cope with the situation quite as well as I might have made out."
"I remember you saying something about being upset after you bumped into him in a diner …"
As he laughed hard at that tendency of his to understate the facts when it suited him, Jack's upper torso rocked forward then back again. "Hmmm … upset? Is that how it came across? Well, let me tell ya, I was already way beyond upset by that point, in fact, I don't think I'd be far wrong if I said that that particular incident was the final nail."
Reaching down with his free hand he found a pebble and sent it spinning through the air. As it landed with a hollow plop in the water's edge, he was already turning back to find Ianto's stare. "When I came home that first day and found my stuff out on the stairs, I literally had nowhere to go. Of course, I still wanted to be a part of the show so going home wasn't an option and there was no way I could have afforded to rent anywhere on my own. But luckily …" He paused to laugh at himself again. "….Or maybe not so luckily, now thinking about it … another guy in the ensemble offered me the use of his floor. His parents were renting this condo not far from the theatre for him and on the first night I stayed there he disappeared off to his room with some girl he'd picked up outside the stage door … this other guy he shared with was already holed up in his room with the tv blaring ….. and so I …. well ….. I just sat there on the floor and cried into my tumbler of cognac; which I absolutely loathe the taste of by the way, but it was all I could find in his kitchen. I still managed to finish the whole glass, though, and then straight away went and got myself another and another, and I just kept right on drinking until I passed out."
His mouth turning downward with distaste, he shuddered at the unpleasant memory. "Anyway, the next night when we got back I'd already pre-armed myself with a bottle of scotch and had every intention of doing exactly the same thing all over again, i. e., send all thoughts of Mickey from my head by drinking myself into oblivion ….. But that night I decided it might be a clever idea to add a little weed to the mix as well."
Ianto looked up abruptly. "You? … Smoking dope?" No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't picture it.
Jack just laughed softly at the shocked expression then carried on. "By the time I bumped into Mickey and his brood in that diner three weeks later, the booze and the dope had become something of an 'any spare moment I could find' kinda thing for me. All I wanted to do was forget; not feel the pain. Only problem was, that by then it had already started to affect my performance, I was forgetting lines; forgetting lyrics … and I looked like hell. So, after being blanked by Mickey that day, well, things were only ever going to go from bad to worse. That night a different pal of that other guy's turned up and said he was willing to share. By then I was so low I thought nothing of adding a couple of lines to my nightly concoction."
"Coke?" Ianto's eyes were now comically wide. "You? ….. Fuck …"
Again, Jack just laughed quietly at him; Ianto didn't realise it yet, but this was the mild part of the story. "Needless to say, it did the trick and from that moment on it was a no brainer … I met up with him almost every day. What little money I was earning went to him; I got the buzz and stayed happy, happy happy until the booze sent me to sleep. Unfortunately, by that time I was looking like shit, I sounded like shit …. and every time normal play was resumed the bad memories became real again. The depression was overwhelming; every day I just felt worse and worse … and …well … anyway …."
With a sigh he began to trail three fingers through the sand, leaving a swirl of wavy lines as he went. "….. Next thing I know it's Christmas week. Packed audiences meant guaranteed revenue; you were expected to pull out all the stops. I'd already turned up late far too many times for it to be ignored, every other day I'd had people shouting at me in frustration; pulling the outfits into place for me just to make sure I made each call. So on Christmas Eve itself, after managing to miss the matinee completely, when I eventually turned up stoned that night, I was told to go home and not bother coming back again."
Blowing out a long breath, Ianto weighed up the situation. "So on top of what Mickey put you through, you ended up losing your job as well. Shit."
And, still, the only thing that Jack could do was laugh. Although this time it was tinged with an element of bitterness. "It gets better. Christmas morning I'd been left all alone in that stinking condo, I had no money left to get myself home with, but there was no public transport running anyway. So with the other two guys off celebrating elsewhere, I called my folks."
Heaving a sigh as he remembered the event, he stared vacantly down at the sand. "They sounded like they were having a great time; said they were missing me … told me how proud they were of me …... I finished the call and spent the next hour in tears. I don't think I've ever felt so low, since."
Looking up again, he found Ianto' gaze. "That afternoon, after leaving all my stuff piled in the corner of the living room, I walked outside …. and threw myself in front of the first car that came along."
"Shit!" Sensing that retaining just a modicum of dignity might be important for Jack, right now, Ianto ignored the sudden compulsion he felt to reach out and hold him.
With a familiar feeling of shame starting to eat its way through him, and no longer able to hold eye contact, Jack, found himself looking quickly out to sea. "The vehicle swerved just in time. The young woman behind the wheel managed to stop the thing just two feet short of going through a plate glass window."
"Christ."
It was slowly occurring to Ianto that these one worded observations of his probably weren't helping much, but he really, really didn't have a clue how to respond.
Jack sighed deeply and in lowering his face, aimed his gaze down at the sand again. "She was okay; she wasn't hurt physically … But somebody called the cops anyway."
"Ooops. Not good."
Ianto sighed internally at this continued wave of verbal short-comings of his. Okay, in managing three this time, there'd been a distinct improvement on the word count front, but their overall content was still falling miserably short of being anything like consolatory or constructive.
The guilty party sat next to him; now hunching in on himself, shrugged as he agreed with the observation. "No, it wasn't good. I was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, creating a disturbance and causing a danger to others."
"Bollocks." Okay, back to square one with the word count, then.
"Oh, I was lucky. I was never charged with anything, and after nearly passing out on the alcohol fumes the cops didn't bother testing for anything else."
"Well, that was a result."
"Like I said, I was lucky. And I was also let off the assault charge ….." Seeing yet another shocked expression fall into place, he laughed at Ianto as he confirmed. "Yeah, you heard right; I took a swing at the arresting officer, but I missed him by a mile which is why I was let off. Oh, and the same guy told me later that he'd ignored the fact that I called his mom a fat whore and him the spawn of an ugly bitch on the grounds that I seemed deeply distressed about something."
Wanting to laugh but not sure it was appropriate at this stage, Ianto kept his show of mirth to himself. "So … they just let you go?"
"Not quite. I was banged up in a cell for the entire night and told to think about my actions while I sobered up. What I didn't realise was that they'd already put the ball in my parent's court. When they'd called them on my behalf, they'd suggested heavily that a night spent in custody might be good for me. So that's what happened. And they came to get me the next morning."
"So, basically, after having had a shit month anyway, you ended up spending Christmas in the nick ….." Ianto couldn't decide whether to chuckle at the notion of just how pissed off Jack must have been because of that, or whether to hug him in a show of sympathy.
Relieving him of the quandary, Jack began to laugh, himself, at his own sad and sorry case. "Yeah. But, unfortunately, that's not the complete story."
"There's more?"
"'Fraid so … and it gets worse. When my folks turned up the next day dad was so ashamed that he refused to even get out of the car. And when mom saw the state I was in she burst into tears. I found myself being taken straight back to that other guy's place to get my stuff; couldn't bear to leave me alone there a minute longer, she said, and then the next thing I know I'm back in my own room at home and crying my eyes out there, instead."
"But at least, then, you had your family there with you and they could look after you …"
Already looking down at his knees, Jack fell silent.
Pitching down a little, Ianto tried to catch his eye. "Hey … look, if it's too much, don't worry; this really isn't any of my business. But, seriously, if you ever wanna start comparing notes on drug abuse and run-ins with the law, then look no further."
Jack managed a smile, but as he righted his head it was already slipping from view. "Yan, the level of shame that I've felt ever since and the actual reason for me leaving the States is because of something far worse than you've heard about so far."
Lips rolling inward and pursing hard, he looked up at the sky as he fought to continue. "Yan, I …. Oh, God …"
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He started to cry.
There'd been no warning and it took Ianto totally by surprise. One second Jack was sitting there gripping his fingers, the next, both hands were covering his face and he was sobbing into them.
"Shit ….. come here …"
With Jack already gasping in shuddering breaths, Ianto enveloped him and pulled him in close. "Hey ….." Twisting his face around to find him, he kissed the side of Jack's head. "Look, if it's this bad then maybe it's not me you should be talking to."
Pulling gently away to reveal already wet cheeks, Jack shook his head. "I'm okay, I just never realised that doing this would hurt so much. I've never been able to tell anyone how I feel about what happened, before ….. haven't spoken about it at all since it happened."
"I'm not asking you to now …."
"I know, and that's just another reason for me to want to tell you; you deserve to hear this ….. and even if it ends up being the last piece of truth I get to tell you, I still want you to hear it." He gave a sudden gasp inward before sniffing hard. "Yan, there's some God-awful stuff about me that you don't know. Most of it? The stuff that the stiffs and prudes would be appalled by? Well, I know you won't give a fuck about that. And other than it being a threat to my public reputation I couldn't care less about it myself. But there are certain things that I've done over the years that I'm not proud of at all and what I'm trying to tell you about now, is one of them."
"This is the part where my opinion of you changes, is it?" He took hold of Jack's hand again and squeezed gently.
Nodding, Jack squeezed back then lowering his lids he breathed slowly for a few seconds. "Two days after I got home, Dad had taken himself off to some function or another, he had to make a speech about logistics or statistics or somethin' like that, and with him being real pissed at me anyway I'd been deliberately keeping out of his way and we hadn't spoken at all. Gray had been dispatched off to a pal's on Christmas night so that mom and dad could start thinking about how they were going to deal with me, and on that particular afternoon mom was throwing herself into doing anything around the house that meant her not having to think about how badly she'd failed her eldest son …"
"So, she wasn't so much angry with you as with herself, then ….." Deliberately taking the reins for a second, Ianto gave Jack some extra time to breathe and compose himself.
"Something like that, yeah. But as far as her and dad were concerned I was still the kid from hell. And they were right, because despite their best efforts to start me back off on the straight and narrow, when I realised they'd binned every drop of booze in the house I …."
He stopped; his eyes quickly flicking from side to side as he re-booted the information that had been locked away for so long. And as the enormity of what he'd done all those years ago came back with a bang to jar at buried memories and drag up old emotions, his face began to mirror the turmoil inside his head.
"Jack?" Watching him with an increasing amount of concern, Ianto took a firm grip of his fingers and squeezing quickly over and over again, he tried to regain his attention. "I think you should be saving this for someone that can help you deal with it."
A fresh set of tears slipped out to trail down over Jack's cheeks. "But that's just it ….. I want you to help me …" His handsome features were unrecognisable as they screwed up in despair and once again he was weeping with deep and choking gasps.
"Oh, for fucks ….." Again pulling him in close, Ianto rocked him. "Jack, please don't cry … hey, come on, I don't like seeing you like this." Softly shushing him, he kissed his hair and began to murmur soft and soothing pieces of nonsense into the ear closest to him. In the past, doing stuff like this had only ever left him feeling deeply humiliated and for years now he'd made a point of leaving the consoling and embarrassing crap for Els to get stuck into.
But today was proving to be vastly different. Holding him now, the only thing he cared about was that Jack realised that he 'wanted' to be there for him; he wanted him to realise that he was cared for …. regardless.
Looking up and drawing in another shaky breath; wiping at his eyes, Jack nodded that he was okay to carry on. His lids fell as he finally admitted the reason for his deep distress. "I found mom's prescription pain killers in the bathroom cabinet."
"Oh, fuck …. you didn't …." Already guessing where this was going but not even daring to imagine it; despondency growing deeper, Ianto sat there shaking his head at him.
"I'd already swallowed three quarters of the bottle by the time I came to my senses."
"Jack! … You idiot!"
"I was lost, Yan …. …. and I missed him so much ….." A sense of worthlessness quickly overwhelming him again, Jack sniffed noisily to prevent the wet strands that were slowly escaping from his nose from dripping any lower, then continuing to cry quietly he stared hopelessly across at Ianto. "But I didn't wanna friggin' die! I just wanted to feel …. wanted, I guess. Mom became hysterical when she found out what I'd done. I found her out in the utility and just stood there crying as I handed her the bottle … and what was left in it …"
He gasped in a shuddering breath. "She lost it for a second, then the next thing I know I'm being pushed onto the back seat of her car and she's screaming at me to stay awake. Then she made the fifteen minute journey over to emergencies, in five. God, Yan, I'll never forget it; it was so awful. She was shaking … and crying ….. and she was so scared."
Starting to sob noisily he managed to force the words out. "I can't believe I did that to her; can't believe how selfish I was. I'm so ashamed of what I put her through that day …. she'd never done anything to deserve that …..." His face folding into even tighter creases, he stared across at Ianto through a wash of tears. "Yan? What sort of a person does doing that make me? I don't know how I've lived with this." His sobs started to grow deeper and louder. "What sort of a boy does that to his own mom?"
Knowing exactly what was needed, and leaning forward, Ianto enveloped him in another tight embrace to demonstrate that despite this admission of his, he was thinking no less of him.
"A desperate one, Jack …." He whispered in his ear, and as Jack continued to sob in his arms; kissing his temple, he began to rock and shush him again.
Letting him have a couple of minutes before distracting him, Ianto shucked Jack's forehead from his shoulder and catching his eye, sent him a soft smile. "You're still here ….. surely that's the main thing?"
"That's what mom said afterwards ….." The smile he offered in return was a sorrowful one. "And when the docs had finished pumping me out she was insistent that she be allowed to take me straight back home where she could keep a constant eye on me."
"Did they let her?"
"No, they made me stay in the place for observation purposes. But I could see how scared she was so I left it until about nine that night then told them that even if they didn't agree, I was walking anyway. In the end they just gave up on us. The head doc there kept insisting that I make an appointment to see a shrink. But mom wasn't having any of that either. She knew me; she could tell the experience had frightened the shit out of me just as much as her, so she told them she had a better way of dealing with me ….. and two weeks later I found myself on a plane bound for Heathrow."
"She got you away from it all."
"You got it. And I spent the next two years being just an ordinary kid in Cardiff." He wiped at his face and began to laugh ruefully. "God, I must look a mess …."
"Not from where I'm sitting, you don't. Now, come on, let's go back; we don't have to go out tonight, I'll rustle up something back at the villa. Let's just chill out this evening, yeah? It might do us both good to have an early night."
"No, that's not fair on you, I don't expect you to cook on your first night here. We can just dive into the first place we come to." He wiped his palms beneath his eyes. "How do I look? Will I get away with just a rinse in the men's room?
"Probably not, but, anyway, it's not what's showing on the outside that I'm worried about."
"Hey, I'll be fine ….. give me a beer and a burger and I'll be as right as rain."
And Ianto could do nothing but laugh. "Thinking of your stomach again? Things must be improving ….."
Features returning to normal, he gave a soft sigh. "Jack, I can tell it's taken a lot for you to do this, so thank you for trusting me. And you were right, by the way, my opinion of you has changed … but maybe just not quite in the way you were expecting." With a soft smile he took hold of Jack's hand again. "I now admire you more than ever ….. For your honesty; for your courage in admitting everything to me like this … you're a braver man than I'll ever be ….."
"I doubt that very much." The words were genuine as they blustered out with a laugh.
"Trust me, Jack, I have my reasons for making that statement …. Just please don't ever ask me what they are." He watched as another dribble of goo began to drip down from the tip of Jack's nose, and reaching deep into both jacket pockets he eventually came away with a screwed up serviette from one of his previous burger experiences.
His mind began to wander as he tried to recall when he'd last worn this jacket. Whenever it was, it would point to the last time he'd actually had a burger.
"Thanks, Yan."
He was distracted by Jack eagerly taking the piece of tissue from him and watched on with affection as a nose was blown very loudly and then the residue wiped away.
"Better?"
His face folding into something of a reproachful smile, Jack nodded, and suggesting he'd finished with it, he jokingly handed the used piece of paper back.
Ianto raised one brow then started to laugh at him.
And then they were laughing together; leaning into each other as they stared out over the water.
Finally, Ianto gave a sigh. "I don't suppose many people get to see you like this, do they ….."
Jack's features widened as he accepted the fact himself. "Hmm ….. If they could see me now, eh?"
"Oh, God, please don't start singing …" He'd made sure to add a significant amount of humour to his voice to suggest that he was only playing around this time.
Not misreading him for a second and turning to face him, rubbing a palm over the arm closest, Jack began to shake his head in amazement. "Ianto Jones … you … are …..brilliant ….. You know that?"
With his mouth pitching down at the corners Ianto's shrug was almost dismissive. "Weeeell, it wouldn't be the first time I've been told that …."
His face broke into a grin as he was playfully punched on the same arm, but as Jack suddenly heaved in a deep and involuntary après sob gasp, he stood to hold down a hand. "Come on, that's it, we're going back; I'm on gourmet beans on toast duty ….."
Both on their feet, Jack went in for a hug, which was gladly reciprocated. "Thanks, Yan, I don't think I'll ever be able to explain how much this evening has meant to me ….."
Leaning back just far enough to find Jack's lips, Ianto kissed him softly. "No more words tonight … I think we're all talked out… don't you?"
With a new smile spreading across his face, Jack nodded his agreement then kissed him in a way that spoke of so many things. And with Ianto not flinching away, but happily melting into the embrace, he found himself holding on to a stronger hope ….. and dared to dream just a little harder.
A secret shared at last. ... A secret that not even Joe was aware of.
He felt drained.
Unable to admit to anybody before exactly what it was he'd done that day, he was only glad that Ianto was still going to be around to help him pick up the pieces …..
… ... his Ianto ….. the man he wanted more than anything in the world ….. the man with whom he wished he could share every other scandalous secret about himself.
Maybe one day … maybe one day soon.
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Back out on the roadway, and secretly grateful for Ianto's insistence that they go straight back; as a thumb was brushed over his cheek and he was informed …. "Beans on toast …. Bath … then bed." Jack smiled at his fellow Welshman.
Turning in the direction of home, and with the sun finally setting, hands were forced into jacket pockets and once again Jack was offered an arm.
Taking it gratefully he hitched them both tightly together and gave his reply ….. "Oh, yeah. Now you're talkin' ….."
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IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ JH IJ
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tbc.
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A/N : At the end of chapter 29, I mentioned a suicide attempt …. I would just like to point out that Jack's story above is not the instance I was referring to …. That one has still yet to happen …. And just to get you thinking, I've decided to let you all know that the person involved on that occasion is not Jack.
Now ….. with keeping in mind those of you who are convinced that a dose of the wet stuff hitting the spinny thing is long overdue … I shall wander off to edit the next chapter.
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Grins …
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Adios amigos!
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