Thank you to everyone who is still reading. I didn't mean for it to turn out this long!
All they'd wanted was an ordinary evening. Ordinary. That commodity so rare and wonderful, so prized in the world of Torchwood. A dinner that wasn't cancelled by a rift alert. A nice restaurant. Good food. Wine. And it had started that way.
Surely it wasn't such a tragedy, someone from Ianto's 'real life' seeing them together. He hadn't even seemed to mind, at first. But now Ianto was silent. Not the silence of contentment, the silence that was comfortable because they knew each other well enough not to need to fill the spaces with meaningless chatter. This was the silence of the unsaid. Of secrets and pain.
The moon danced across the water, lacing the waves with silver threads. They leaned side by side against the rails on the jetty. It should have been the perfect setting. But in the perfect setting Ianto wouldn't be standing frozen, hands locked around the railings, tension in every muscle, eyes focused unseeingly across the marina.
"You really want to meet Rhiannon, then?" he asked dully.
"Of course I want to," Jack answered. "But not if it's gonna do this to you. I can wait."
"It's not that." Ianto protested. "I do want you to meet her. I want her to meet you."
Jack moved behind him, covered his hands with his own, gently trying to pry them loose from their white knuckled grip on the rails.
"Tell me," Jack ordered softly. "Tell me what's wrong."
A shudder ran through Ianto's body. "I've been lying to you," he said. "And once you've met my sister, it'll all start to come out. So I have to tell you the truth."
Jack rested his head on Ianto's and waited.
"My dad wasn't a master tailor." Ianto said hollowly. "He worked for Debenhams."
"And you said I was a shit," Jack hissed. "Is this payback for embarrassing you before?" But he was as much relieved as angry.
"He wasn't a tailor." Ianto continued woodenly. "He was an arse. I adored him, and he despised me. I was never what he wanted for a son."
Not a joke then. He would have preferred a joke. Ianto's adulthood so far had been mostly trauma. He should at least have had a decent childhood. Jack hated the universe sometimes.
"The things you told us about him," Jack prompted. "Where did they come from?"
"The Electro," Ianto said, still using the same lifeless voice that didn't sound remotely like him. "I said he took me there on Saturdays. Kids movies. But he didn't. I used to go by myself. I was supposed to be playing football. Something to toughen me up, he said. So he signed me up for football at the oval across town. Never came with me though, just put me on the bus. I hated it. Bloody nose most weeks. Mud. Chasing after a stupid ball and half-killing each other to get it. I wanted to quit after two matches. But he said it would make a man out of me, that I'd go or else. So I went. But then, oh about five weeks in, I think, I saw the Electro through the bus window. After that I just got off at that stop and spent the morning at the movies instead of at the oval." He paused, staring blindly across the water. "Remember I got caught shoplifting?"
"On your record," Jack agreed. "Just the once."
"Just the one time I got caught," Ianto corrected. "He only gave me enough for bus fare. I stole the money for the movie tickets. Stole food too. Every week for that whole season. After the movie I'd find a patch of dirt, mess up my clothes. Get back on the bus and pretend I'd been on the oval. But then I got caught stealing, and it all came out. Dad was furious. He beat me senseless that night."
Jacks forget about trying to pry those stubborn fingers loose and wrapped his arms tightly around Ianto's waist instead.
"I don't remember that it hurt," Ianto said in a voice that was obviously meant to be soothing. "All I can remember is Mam and Rhiannon, crying. I didn't," he added, with a strange pride in his voice. "I didn't cry. They did it for me. He said he'd keep going if I cried like a girl. So I didn't."
Silence. Jack got his breathing and his anger under control. "It's in the past, Ianto. He's gone."
"There's more, though. I want you to know. I don't want to lie to you anymore."
If he needs to talk, Jack thought, I have to let him. But if I could get this wristband working I'd go back and kill that piece of shit myself. Slowly. Drag out every tear he wouldn't let my Ianto shed.
"The playground." Ianto continued. "Mam made him take us Sundays, while she cooked lunch. We loved it, Rhi and me. Loved the old wooden swings. Then they put new ones in. Flimsy-looking plastic. Higher. We didn't want to go on them. But he put us on anyway. Angry 'cause we were fussing." His voice had dropped into a childlike cadence. "He pushed too hard. Too high. I didn't hang on properly. Came off. Broke my leg. And it hurt. God, it hurt. I could see the bone sticking through the skin. Scared the hell out of me. Rhi saw it and started bawling. So did I. I was just a kid." His voice broke. "Kids are allowed to cry, aren't they Jack?"
Tears ran from Jack's eyes into Ianto's hair. "Everyone's allowed to cry, Ianto."
"Dad didn't think so," Ianto answered. "Said I had to stop. Slapped me across the back of the head and told me to be a man. Cause no son of his was gonna turn into a poofter."
Inside Jack's head every little detail dropped neatly into place. Like the random spikes of Rift energy coalescing into a recognizable pattern. Here, here and here. Join the dots and it means the Judoon are on their way. But now he remembered every uncertain word, every half-hearted protest, every time he'd flinched away from being touched. The way his eyes had dropped, in those early days, whenever he'd seen Jack watching him. The confusion. The guilt, sometimes. And I just thought he was being coy, Jack realized. Playing games. Teasing. But of course I didn't understand. How could I? No one that was supposed to love me ever tried to make me hate myself.
The sobs were coming out now, finally. All those tears from all those years ago. Jack caught him as the tense muscles collapsed, cradling him tenderly in his arms. Like the child he never got to be. Somehow they ended up on a soft patch of grass. Weeping together, one from the pain, one for the pain. Because real men do cry. Strong men cry. Strong women too. And bug-eyed aliens. Because pain is universal. And tears are given to make the unbearable bearable.
Strong. Jack thought. He's so strong. He's been through so much. He's survived so much. It should have broken him but it didn't. He didn't let it. And he's become this. This amazing, gentle, brave, compassion being. My beautiful Welshman. My love.
He didn't know exactly when the thoughts became words, when the love words spilled from his mind to his lips, from his lips to the ears of the man he loved. But he heard the protests when they began. "Don't. Don't. Please don't. I can't."
He's given me everything, and he's torn himself apart to do it, and I keep pushing for more. "Sssh. It's OK. I won't. I won't ask anymore."
"I'm sorry Jack."
"Don't," Jack said sharply, earning a weak smile. "Don't you dare apologize, Ianto Jones."
"But it was so long ago. God, look at me, I'm a mess." Jack breathed a sigh of relief at the sudden change in tone. Back to normal. Any minute now he'll realize he's sitting on my lap in the dirt and he'll jump up and start dusting us off.
"I am looking," Jack assured him. "One of my favorite pastimes."
"And I shouldn't have dumped it all on you," Ianto continued, either not hearing or just ignoring the frivolous comment. "I don't know why I did."
"I do," Jack said. "It's obvious actually. Should have realized before."
Ianto waited through an annoying silence. "Are you going to tell me?"
"Because you love me," Jack said confidently.
"Damn it Jack. You promised."
"I promised I wouldn't say it. And I didn't."
"Semantics," Ianto grumbled.
"A loophole," Jack countered. "But it's OK. I won't push it. I don't need to anymore."
Jack got to his feet carefully, Ianto still in his arms. "You can put me down now."
"But I don't want to," Jack said. Because up close like this, he could see the peace in Ianto's eyes. Peace which had never been there before. And some tiny irrational part of him was afraid that it would vanish if he looked away.
"This is silly. I'm quite capable of standing up. Walking, even. There's nothing wrong with me."
"You never said a truer word. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you."
Ianto sighed, defeated. "If you're going to carry me, the least you could do is kiss me while you're at it."
And sometime during that kiss, he did manage to get his feet back down on the ground. Just as well, really, because Jack's legs had started trembling. And the rest of him.
They broke apart eventually. "I seem to remember that this was supposed to be a quiet evening at a nice restaurant," Ianto said. "Why doesn't anything ever work out the way it's supposed to? We didn't even get dessert."
A smile spread slowly across Jack's face. "We were never gonna have dessert there. I had other plans."
"Do I want to know?"
Jack smirked. "In the fridge at home," he said. "Is a jar of chocolate body paint with your name on it."
Ianto stifled a groan. "You insisted on 200 thread count sheets," he said in a strangled voice.
"But I bought chain store cotton too," Jack assured him. "For contingencies."
They argued all the way back to the car. Holding hands. There was no one around, after all.
A/N: A bit cliché I know but at least I didn't leave them walking off into the sunset. They're creatures of the night so it had to be the moon. Should I leave it here? Or go ahead and do the C O E bit?