Greetings all, hope you enjoy this latest offering. In my addled brain, it's set just after Freedom Come, Freedom Go, but will hopefully still satisfy if you don't feel like flicking back to read that one.
There was no-one to see the coat swishing dramatically as Jack swept along the hallway. No doors opened to investigate the footsteps pounding along outside their door. Not a single person peeked out to determine the source of the whistling. It was, Jack thought, a good thing. Wasn't it?
Actually, Jack found the lack of reaction equal parts relief and disappointment. He wasn't very good at being ignored, but had to admit this was an improvement on the initial response of doors opening a crack, only to be slammed and locked whenever he or Ianto hove into view.
Nor did he yearn for the stage where the building had decided to extend its collective welcome. Jack had found it disconcerting, even stifling, to have their passage marked by a progression of smiling faces popping out of doorways, accompanied by smiles, greetings or requests for help with such weighty matters as carrying groceries. They'd even been asked to help unblock a drain once, for God's sakes! (Ianto handled that one, without the use of alien gadgetry, even. Jack was terribly impressed and had plans for that plunger….)
No, Jack decided, stopping outside a door identical to every other along the hallway apart from its number, he didn't miss that sort of attention. But something in him, possibly his ego, mourned for the progression of slightly slack jaws, not to mention the lost flirting opportunities.
Something else, something deeper, rejoiced to consider that behind each brass-numbered door, heads had tilted, and then bent back to their interrupted tasks, reassured that there was no danger, especially not now the 'boys from forty-two' were home. Jack liked to think that more than one of them sighed at the thought of the dashing American and his companion – the one whose shoes weren't as noisy but who could've made a fortune modeling suits, if the advertisers liked their models on the slightly dangerous side. As, indeed, who wouldn't?
It was also comforting, in a way too uncomfortable to admit to out loud, that the entire building accepted there was no point sighing over either of them. Especially considering that the frightful old biddy from forty-nine would have the liver out of anyone who set their sights on nice Mr. Jones' friend. (It had been her drain. Jack had since accused Ianto of interfering in local politics and received only a mysterious smile in return).
As the key slid into the lock, Jack added the tiny thrill of having 'his' key to 'their' place to the plus side of the mental ledger. After so many years of avoidance, something so commonplace held the allure of the exotic, and he wondered how long it would before he was used to it. Longer than it took the neighbors to become bored with them, hopefully. It'd been a long time coming, this feeling of content at having dived into this particular world again, and hard-earned, considering he'd spent possibly the entire first month seesawing between ecstasy and terror, and was possibly still teetering. Fortunately, Ianto was the patient sort.
It wasn't a lack of patience that had sent Ianto home before Jack tonight. They'd established, at about the time the terror faded and the ecstasy mellowed, that they needed what Jack referred to as 'the chance to miss each other', being formerly unfamiliar with the term, or indeed the concept, of 'personal space.'
The clamor which usually accompanied Ianto preparing dinner greeted Jack as the door opened. He was, Jack deduced, currently 'cleaning while you go', an activity which had previously led Jack to think Ianto was finished and start 'helping'. At which point Ianto had done the tight-lipped thing because something burned while he was searching the countertop for the spatula which Jack had helpfully put in the dishwasher.
Looking back, Jack couldn't quite recall why getting up close and personal with dirty dishes seemed so important at the time. Nowadays, he quite enjoyed watching Ianto doing hard labor at the sink. Possibly all the bending involved with putting the dishes away.
Ianto met him halfway across the kitchen, having abandoned cooking, cleaning and whatever the hell else currently on his agenda, as, Jack couldn't help thinking, was only proper. Bad enough that Jack didn't get doors opening along the hallway to check him out anymore, but to have Ianto delay greeting him in preference to getting the last spot off the fry-pan would be a slight his ego would never recover from.
"Ran the gauntlet?" Ianto asked, when his lips were free for speaking with.
"No gauntlet," Jack answered, trying not to pout.
Ianto nodded wisely. "Mrs. Caldwell had a word at the last tenants' meeting," he explained, sighing at the blank expression which decorated on Jack's face in response. Honestly, the man could remember the name of every alien species he'd ever encountered, but ask him the name of the person who lived at the other end of their floor….and you got this.
Seconds passed. Jack stole a slice of eggplant and munched it with a sublime lack of concern for Ianto's tapping foot.
"The scary fossil from number forty-nine," Ianto elaborated eventually. "And you really have to learn our neighbor's names, Jack, before someone overhears one of your horrible aliases."
Jack smirked with a total lack of repentance. Of course he knew what the lovely old battleaxe was called. Gods, what a woman. He'd have liked to have met her forty years ago, actually. He just liked ruffling Ianto's feathers. They were cute feathers, after all.
Ianto sniffed and turned back to the counter. Jack moved in behind him, hands settling comfortably into place on Ianto's hips. "Whatcha cooking?" he demanded, peering over Ianto's shoulder. "And how much longer before I get to eat it? There was a disturbing lack of Hobnobs in the Hub."
"Only 'cause you ate the whole packet yesterday,' Ianto reproved. "And it's moussaka."
Jack's eyes brightened. It was one of Ianto's best dishes, hence one of Jack's favorites, but given the long and fiddly cooking process involved, moussaka generally failed to happen without benign intervention from the Rift.
"If you're that hungry," Ianto scolded, blocking another snatch at the eggplant. "Stop distracting me so I can finish it."
Jack stole a final kiss and another slice of eggplant, and bore the lightly-fried spoils of victory away to the safety of the couch, resting his treat on a piece of paper towel so as not to drip on the upholstery.
It was only when he tried to toe his boots off that Jack realized he'd already set them beside the door, just below the rack that he'd also apparently hung his coat on.
Coat hung up, boots by the door, consideration for the furniture - Dear Lord, he was so domesticated it ought to be frightening. Well, it had been, to Ianto as well, and that was a conversation he didn't want to have to live through again in a hurry. Still, looking back, as Jack seemed to be doing an inordinate amount of tonight; he couldn't help feeling glad that they'd had to work through it, after all. However awkward.
Because it meant that, at moments like this, Jack no longer asked himself why the hell he was doing the domestic thing again. Not just doing, but delighting in it, not that he'd ever say that out loud.
Nor, at the other end of the pendulum, did he bludgeon himself for waiting so long. Jack had every reason to be cautious, based on way too much experience. There was a shitload of pain waiting at the end of this, however long it lasted, and it was self-preservation that had kept him dodging.
On balance, though, there was this, or living without this. Living without Ianto, and Jack had enough of that on the Valiant, thank you very much. Maybe it came down to choosing between regrets, but he'd rather wear the pain of regret for a risk taken, rather than for one he hadn't.
On balance, Jack concluded that he didn't much mind being 'one of the boys from forty-two'.
At least, not as long as the other one was Ianto.
Thank you for reading.