Some of you have been gracious enough to tell me you were waiting for the continuation of the previous piece of this collection, so here it is, with my thanks for your encouragement, and my apologies if it doesn't seem to go quite far enough. (Excuses at the end...)
Hope you enjoy.
Ianto sighed heavily as he paused to lock the door of the tourism office, uncomfortably aware of eyes burning into the back of his neck. He wanted nothing more than to scurry home, to retreat to his one remaining haven to lick his invisible wounds – both new and newly opened, but he couldn't ignore the insistence of senses honed by too many threats in the dark.
A casual-yet-thorough scan of the Plass revealed nothing, so with a resigned sigh Ianto squinted determinedly at the spot which actively repelled examination. It took a moment or two for his brain to pierce the fog induced by the perception filter, hampered as it was by his reluctance to find a reason to remain, but eventually his vision cleared, and there was Jack. Lurking on the stone with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, in a pose that strove to appear relaxed. Watching. Waiting. Something inside Ianto lurched, but with relief or trepidation he couldn't have said.
No threat then, just a lurking immortal, and yet Ianto hesitated, battling the temptation to walk away with the face-saving excuse that he'd not made the effort to look beyond the veil. Too tired or too sure Jack wouldn't have bothered. Either could have been true, had he felt less guilt for allowing Jack to rile him into speaking what was far better left unsaid.
Either excuse would serve equally well as a salve for Jack's pride if Ianto turned away now, which was likely the driving force behind the insufferable immortal's decision to linger within the shield of the filter. Not that Ianto could blame him, being so close to seizing a similar escape for himself. But to do so could only widen the gulf which had opened between them tonight, and it was that which kept him fiddling with the already locked door.
When the door was finally, comprehensively secure, when there was no excuse left to linger, Ianto straightened his shoulders and turned to face the figure standing squarely in the centre of the stone. Their eyes met, locked. Having removed any possible trace of doubt, Ianto raised a hand in acknowledgement, taking guilty yet definite satisfaction in having thrown the onus back on Jack.
For an endless moment, neither moved. Then an odd smile broke over Jack's face, a matching rueful quirk twisted Ianto's lips, and almost in perfect sync they took a step, towards instead of away.
They met somewhere halfway, side by side yet further apart than they'd been for weeks, looking out at the bay to avoid looking at each other. Beyond the railings clenched within their fists, waves crashed, gulls screamed after fish, making quite sufficient noise to drown out speech, excuse enough for the silence neither was ready to break.
"It wasn't because Gwen asked," Jack said eventually, when the birds were either full-beaked or defeated. "It was because Beth did. And Carys. They asked for help, Ianto."
Ianto turned his head, just his head. Moonlight leeched the color from his eyes, leaving them silver steel. Steel. Jack barely controlled a shudder. Aged wood protested faintly as the hand which still clutched it clenched.
"They asked Gwen," Ianto clarified. "Lisa asked me." His head turned back to the ocean again, eyes locking on the silvered waves.
Jack shuffled his feet, battling the impulse to shift closer, to wrap this infuriating man in his arms and squeeze the thoughts out of him. Or render him incapable of thought, which was far more appealing, however less noble.
"So is this a Gwen thing?" Jack asked hesitantly, well aware this could be phrase that mended or tore beyond repair. "Or a Lisa thing?"he finished, bracing himself for the outburst.
Ianto, however, merely looked at him for another endless moment, brows creased in thought. "What it comes down to, Jack," he said finally, with resignation rather than bitterness. "Is that it could be either. Or both."
Jack scuffed the floor with a foot. Accusations he was proof against, but this was an admission as well. "I didn't think it was such a big deal," he muttered, annoyed by the defensive note in his voice.
"It wasn't," Ianto agreed, somewhat placidly, as though he already knew where this was going and was waiting for Jack to catch up. "Before."
Ah. Before. They'd both known, before. They'd both accepted, before, without a word, and with something akin to relief, drowning the yearning for one they couldn't have in the distraction of each other.
But that was before. Before leaving, and coming back, for him, for all of them. Before dating. Before waking up curled around each other after a lazy evening in front of the television, of the kind Jack hadn't experienced since he could hardly remember when. Their separate yearnings might not be extinguished, might always flicker somewhere on the edge of consciousness, more instinct that awareness, but that didn't matter to Jack, then or now. Or ever. Not in comparison to the mutual yearning, which could be so …..so damned magnificent, if one of them wasn't indoctrinated with the whole one-true-love fairytale forever concept.
"I deserve better than second choice, Jack," Ianto added quietly. "And so do you."
"It's not like that," Jack snapped, stung, then heard the echoes of his own voice and dropped his tone to something closer to pleading. "I don't see it like that, Ianto."
A weak response, but the truth for all that, which ought to give it some weight, but wouldn't. The chasm between his century and this had seldom felt so unbridgeable.
"And I can't see it any other way," Ianto responded, vowels dull.
True as well. Jack sighed. A sigh of regret for all the missed opportunities, all those times when he could have explained, or tried to, and at least then Ianto would have the theory if not the belief. But tonight…. now…this was hardly the time to introduce the concept of multiple first choices. Not if he wanted it to come across as anything other than a desperate excuse from an invented morality.
Even now, neither seemed able to take the step away, apart. The space between seemed to vibrate, as though, Jack thought fancifully, they were a pair of magnets. Only at the moment they seemed to be set on repelling instead of attracting.
"I suppose it's all for the best, then, tonight," Ianto offered eventually, to the night sky and the sea, because a brief glance at Jack had shown the dark head hung in defeat and it opened up a whole new layer of hurt knowing he'd done that. "I mean, like you said," Ianto added hastily. "Better we found out sooner than later. At least we've still got a shot at staying friends, huh?"
Jack would have fought it if he could, but he couldn't escape that Ianto was merely echoing his thoughts from earlier in the Hub. If it had to happen, better it happened now. "Friends," he agreed dully. If he couldn't have this amazing man in his bed, he'd settle for by his side. It would be enough. Eventually. Or maybe he was just the kind who liked to have his scars somewhere he could prod at them, and it had to be mental scars, now, since he didn't get to keep the physical ones.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, this was the both of them leaving the door open just a crack. Just in case, one day, one of them might be brave enough to walk back through it. Yes. That. "Friends," Jack repeated, more firmly. "Yeah, I'd like that."
-XXX-
The worst part, Jack decided, as the days dragged into weeks, was how awkward it wasn't. Ianto was far too professional to let whatever what or wasn't between them affect his behavior at work, so instead of the gaping absence he'd braced himself for, the presence Jack had come to rely on was still there at his side, calm and efficient and friendly. If anything, Jack realised, with an ever-growing hopeless ache, Ianto seemed less self-conscious about hovering at Jack's right hand now than he had when drawn there by something sweeter than duty.
Coffee still arrived on Jack's desk seconds before he opened his mouth to ask for it, a bottle of water was pressed into his hand when returned parched from a chase, and his favorite foods still made it onto meal orders without him having to shout across the office. Jack's coat remained mended, laundered, and found its way to its hook regardless of where Jack threw it on his way across the Hub.
But Ianto didn't linger while he drank the coffee, unless there was paperwork to be signed. The water wasn't a sip from Ianto's own bottle, but from a spare he'd taken to carrying, and pizzas weren't a large to share, but two smalls sometimes eaten at different ends of the table.
Jack smiled as he thanked his faithful butler, determinedly showing no trace of how much it hurt when his coat was handed to him instead of held for him. If he no longer had a Welshman to hold him up, his pride would suffice.
But still, they noticed, the rest of the team. They noticed, but they didn't ask. Not even Gwen.
Tosh regarded Jack with eyes too sad to be reproachful and treated him even more gently than usual at work, neatly dividing her compassion by leaving the Hub with Ianto, who no longer lingered after-hours. Another loss that Jack should have expected, but hadn't, until he retreated from the empty Hub and found his bunker equally oversized and echoing with absence.
Owen invited Jack to the pub more often, and was heard to muffle a sardonic snort or six when Jack failed to escort anyone home. Odd how he'd lost the taste for those casual pickups, when he'd so recently been chafing beneath the expectation they'd cease.
Inevitably came the loss he'd been dreading most. Jack gasped back into life, flailing as he often did when the death had been hard-fought, wrapped in arms which might have grounded him if they were only strong enough to contain his unintentional thrashing. A familiar scent tickled his nostrils, something he ought to know, something which ought to soothe but didn't, and inevitably, with a feminine cry of pain, the arms were gone.
Stronger, wool-clad arms wound around his shoulders, his chest, sheltering and secure, and within their circle Jack calmed, settled. He would later flush hotly at the memory of nuzzling into the shelter of a neck bristly with five o'clock shadow, but for now lay he lay quiet, chest heaving as he sucked in the smell of warm damp wool, old coffee and a dozen other elements which combined to evoke all the safest places he'd ever known. When Jack rose to full awareness, the arms had changed again and it was Gwen was beside him. Her perfume wafted into his lungs, the scent he should have recognised but hadn't, her voice murmured reassurances and apologies, and he knew then whose arms hadn't been enough.
Gwen lingered that night, and with a feeling of nothing left to lose Jack contemplated committing the crime for which he'd already been judged and sentenced. Heart thumping with what he tried to convince himself was anticipation; he peered at her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes and asked whether she shouldn't be getting home to Rhys. Gwen smiled, agreed, and urged him to call if he needed her. Then she hugged him, kissed his cheek as a sister would, if he'd ever had one, and went home to her boyfriend.
He should've known. He had known. There's no lure to be had from forbidden fruit if it's spread out on a plate for anyone to grab.
-XXX-
When Rhys stumbled into a mission, Jack saw the fear looking out of Gwen's eyes and told himself firmly to be glad he no longer had justifiable cause to endure that particular dread. When Tosh made a too-obvious comment about the possible benefits of in-house dating, Jack's eyes met Ianto's, exchanging a glance that should have been rueful, that might have acknowledged the wisdom of their choice, but achieved neither.
And so it went, and so it might have gone on, but for the warehouse, and the torture and death of a harmless alien possessed by nothing other than human greed.
Without thinking it through, without letting himself think it through, Jack locked up the Hub and let his feet follow where his heart led.
When I posted 'Slipping Away,' something was telling me I should have set it up as a separate fic instead of part of this collection – and so I should. There was too much story to fit into one drabble, and as it turns out, still too much to fit into two of them. You might of course prefer to decide for yourself what happens when Jack crashes through Ianto's door, but if you're interested in my version, it's in the works.