Moment Of Truth In Your Lies
The Timelords returned them a whole year after Jack's disappearance and a few month after Ianto's. Apart from that missed time, the angry glares, accusation of abandonment and teasing questions everything was perfect.
Perfect as in Jack never repeated his question, going on living his life, pretending nothing had happened. It was for the best, although it made Ianto, the insecure being he was, wonder if it was out of lack of interest. Then Jack would do something, say something that would make the Welshman smile regardless of his mood and he would know. His lover just didn't want to push him.
A noble move, if not very wise. Ianto was too bent on keeping it to himself, too scared of the consequences to open his mouth without a little push.
Until one day when the push presented itself. Didn't it always happen like that, you live your life, the same old boring life, the same familiar faces, the same monotonous actions, repeated day after day. Until something happened and shattered your whole crystally perfect world.
Until you died in Ianto's case.
Or almost died, it had the same significance to a person who had died more times than he could remember.
They had been hunting a thing. That was all Ianto could say. He didn't know how it looked, how it was called or how to fight it. He had been locked in the Hub by none other than Jack "for his own safety", a thing that had started to become more and more common much to his dismay.
But the thing had broken in, of course it had, Ianto's life had to look like some Latino-American soap opera just with aliens and immortal boyfriends, didn't it? And it had been so close to blowing his mind, from splattering his brain on the wall and leaving him to explain why in a matter of hours that same brain was back in his head. Luckily, Jack had been right behind it, ready to shoot it in the back of the head, its only vulnerable place, and save the day.
They took the body, cleaned the blood. The only thing they couldn't erase was Ianto's fear, born at the only time he had stared Death in the face and dreaded what was to come. When everything was peaceful and quiet again, Ianto burst in Jack's office, locking the door behind him. His lover lifted his head at the sound, his smirk whispering of the sinful things he was expecting to happen, after all this sound had been their foreplay for so long. Taking one look at the man before him was enough to wipe any desire from his face, though.
"Yan, what's wrong?"
He pushed his chair back and in a flash he was standing before his lover, fingers curling around his biceps and eyes, dark with worry, roaming the other's body and searching for the source of Ianto's despair.
The Welshman took a moment to regain his composure, and to savour the warmth he wasn't sure he would feel ever again after this, before he brushed off the hands and took a step back.
"I need to tell you something," he said, voice shaking but chin held firmly up.
"It's that thing, isn't it?" For someone who had practically yelled at him to make him reveal his secret, Jack sounded surprisingly calm and even, dare Ianto think it, disappointed. "You don't have to tell me. If it makes you feel like that, bloody Hell, Ianto, you should have told me to stop bothering you. Besides you are feeling vulnerable right now and I'd hate to take advantage of this, not if you are going to regret it later. Why don't you sit down and let me bring you tea?"
Ianto shook his head, a tentative smile slipping past his defenses. His lover was far too cute. He wondered if the other man would still care like that for him in an hour.
"No, I want to tell you."
Ianto took the seat in front of the desk, hoping, maybe subconsciously to create a distance between them. Reading his mind, Jack refused to take the 'boss' position and instead of behind the desk he perched on the edge of it.
"I..." the Welshman started then closed his mouth. He had thought long and hard how to explain that, for years. He was expecting some kind of divine revelation but when nothing of that sort came he decided to just let it flow.
"I'm not from this world."
Oh, a joke. He lifted his head to see if he'll receive a smirk or a lewd remark for his effort but Jack was watching him as intently as before.
He smiled, of course his lover wouldn't rise to the bait on such occasion. He cared far too much for what Ianto was going to say.
So the Welshman told him. Everything. About Lisa's betrayal, about how he had wanted a fresh start, he described his little cafe in such detail it was as if Jack was standing inside it. He told him about the man he had met there.
"He was my first partner since Lisa, my true love, my soul mate as I thought then. I adored him and so did he. My Jack."
The man before him twitched, lips tightening. It was the first and as Ianto later realized last reaction he would get from Jack. No matter how insane, how made-up everything sounded, a sign of jealousy was the only thing he would be shown.
Ianto told him everything and Jack... he just listened, listened about a man who was and wasn't him, about a planet that had been but would never be. About a past that he would never remember. Not once did he utter a word or snort in disbelief. Somehow, that was easier.
"When he... when he died." The Welshman trembled as if he was seeing the man, or what was left of him, take his last breath, and maybe he did. "I was left alone, a part of him, the one he hated the most, engraved in my soul as a punishment for being alive. He didn't mean to, it was the only thing he could do, he even apologized, long before I could understand what had happened. He was sorry he gifted me with immortality and later on I realized why. It was a curse, the one befitting the lowest of the scums of Earth."
Ianto lifted his eyes, and to the other's surprise there were no tears in them. They were dead and Jack realized it wasn't the first time they had been like that.
"I clung to him, when he disappeared into the Void. I figured... why not. It was a fitting death, away from a universe I had never really thought I belonged to with a thing that held the brain but not the heart of the one that made me feel like, for once, I had found my place. And in that moment, death was a welcoming gift. Of course, it didn't work like that. I didn't die, or I did, hundreds and thousands of times, there, in that darkness."
His speech was interrupted by a shaky laugh and he needed a few seconds to realize it was coming from his own mouth.
"When I arrived in this world, brand new and... I met myself. He was long dead, converted and senile enough to easily accept there were two of us. I have traveled long and far but this was the first time I have seen myself. It gave me hope and I thought of you. For the first time I left my Jack's embrace, watched as he faded, knowing well enough he was returning to the cold safety of the Void, a plan forming in my mind.
Foolishly, I thought I can come to you. I believed, hoped you'd remember. You would take one look at me and... of course, I was wrong. You couldn't remember something you've never experienced. You couldn't love someone you have never seen."
"So I was just a replacement," Jack grit through clenched teeth, his first words since the beginning of the story.
"Yes, just like I'm your Ianto's substitute."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, you would have loved him. He would have been the perfect one for you. So brave, so dedicated even when half-dead. He would have made you happy, and who knows, even helped you find a way to end this curse that bonds the both of us. But life is cruel and your soul mate died long before you could meet him."
"Life is... are you pitying me? You! The one who spend an eternity in the Void, with nothing but a corpse?!"
Jack jumped on his feet, not sure if he was mad about the fact that someone felt sorry for him or the sudden realization that the only man he had ever felt close to had used him as a way to connect with a long-dead lover. Knowing himself, the reason to his anger was clear if not overwhelmingly humiliating.
Ianto shook his head, slowly, as if he was in a trance.
"Jealousy, Jack... it doesn't suit you." His eyes, suddenly focused and so intense, found the other man's. He smiled. "I told you, didn't I?"
He lifted himself from his seat and in a few seconds he was facing his lover. The other man tried to step back, he couldn't deal with that, with the familiar smile on the person he hadn't realized he knew so little of, but Ianto took his hands in his and brought them to his mouth, kissing every knuckle
"I loved him. My Jack." The immortal winced and Ianto tightened his hold. "But it's you who I'm holding. It's you who I'm kissing."
Jack pulled back his hands, taking a sharp breath and for a second Ianto thought he had ruined it. That it had been far too much for the other man to take in, that he couldn't continue to love him after that.
Those thoughts plagued him, eating at his heart until the other man dragged him into a kiss. Soft and sweet. Forgiving. Ianto relaxed, a little bit too much but he had Jack to hold him up. He hoped he would always have him.
"It's me you are loving," Jack whispered in his lips when they separated.
Both their faces were wet with tears as they nodded, first Ianto and then his lover.
That was enough. Of course, they would fight, they would fall out but they would always return to the other's embrace. They weren't perfect, they weren't soul mates but that was, would be, is close enough.
"Forever." Neither of them knew who whispered it, maybe it was both of them. They grinned.
A/N Well, it's over. I'm actually sad to see this one go but this is it. All mysteries are solved and the show must end. Thank you for sticking so long and I hope you liked it and I fooled you at least once!