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1.
Ianto never turns his mobile off. Jack likes to think he's just conscientious that way, but really, he knows it's because Ianto cannot take the whining from the rest of Torchwood when he is unreachable, whether it's because a mailbox is trying to eat Owen, or the Hob Nobs have run out whilst Tosh and Gwen are on all night stakeout.
So Ianto never turns his mobile off.
Even during sex.
Late one Wednesday night, Ianto and Jack have found their way to the ugly plaid sofa. They're necking, as Jack would call it, and Ianto has just straddled Jack's hips. While they have yet to entirely lose any items of clothing, Jack has made a point of unbuttoning Ianto's shirt all the way down to his belt, under his tie. It's been all of seven minutes since the rest of the team staggered home.
Jack slides agile fingers under Ianto's tie and onto his ribs. Ianto is kissing Jack seriously, with a great deal of focus, while Jack lets himself be kissed. They're both half hard, but they have all night, or at least that's what they tell themselves, and they're in no hurry.
Ianto's mobile chimes.
Both grab for the device, somehow fallen onto the cushion next to them. Ianto grinds against Jack, who loses focus, and Ianto gets there first. Jack growls a little, and Ianto kisses him hard before activating the phone, his mouth an inch from Jack's cheek.
"Jones," Ianto rasps, voice husky and strained.
Jack's cock goes from interested to painfully hard at warp speed. He must have made a noise, or Ianto sees something in his face, because Ianto drops the hand that is not holding the mobile to Jack's crotch and does wicked things, like barely resting his fingertips on the wool covered swell.
"Call you this weekend, Paul," Ianto says, and shuts the phone. Then he presses down, strokes, firm, his touch sure and knowing.
"Come for me, Jack," he rasps, and Jack is gone, coming from his lover's voice and his touch while Ianto greedily watches his face.
2.
Ianto Jones is damned if he will be killed by a human. Not an ordinary human. Torchwood never does ordinary, Ianto thinks, slamming the last of the clips into his gun, attempting to bring his ragged breathing under control. He's been running hither and yon for over an hour, decoying some of their assailants away from the ambush at the SUV to give Owen a better chance of getting Tosh away before she loses any more blood.
Somewhere out there is his Captain, too, but Ianto hopes he has enough sense to stash himself somewhere, though he doesn't waste much energy on hoping.
The people chasing have been brainwashed by an even nastier set of aliens bent on profit and sadism. Getting their hands on an immortal time traveler could be very profitable, and enjoyable as well, for villains of that stripe.
That had not stopped Jack from running off as bait.
Well, Ianto thinks, Jack may be a gallant fool, but at least he's good at heroing.
Ianto himself had dodged off seconds after, to provide a second target.
Doesn't matter. Still work to be done, Ianto tells himself. For the first half hour, his pursuers had not let up, which made Ianto feel good about Jack's chances. They would not waste their time on Ianto Jones, if they know he is standard issue human. Then there were just three after him, and the bullets came a lot closer. Jack must have died and resurrected, or healed in front of their eyes. Several blocks ago Ianto had winged one in the leg, and she dropped back, but the other two are starting to come very close.
Ianto takes a deep breath and whirls around the corner, fires a single bullet at the wheelie bins hiding his pursuers, and dodges across the alley into another one.
He knows this neighborhood well. One winter, when he was 13, and right before his parents had divorced in a welter of acrimony and bile, he had been sent to stay with his gran not a mile away, and he'd spent hours in the streets avoiding it all.
Ianto's pursuers fall for the trap, and Ianto leads them around twists and turns until he can slip sideways through the narrowest alley in Cardiff, to get the drop on them in a blind alley.
"Drop your guns and face the wall," he commands. His pursuers do so with alacrity. Cowards, he thinks.
Ianto walks down on the pair, a woman and a man, unremarkable looking, two-handing his gun. It would be so easy to put a bullet in the back of each skull. There are two empty slots in the vaults where he keeps his spare corpses, waiting to house anonymous bodies for later use in a cover up. Ianto can see the steps of the clean-up, the sweet stench of the alien chemical that breaks blood stains down beyond the reach of luminol, the garbage scattered across the pitted pavement, two body bags in the old van. It would be an easy one.
"Kneel," Ianto says. The pair comply without speaking or begging.
Ianto drops one hand from the weapon, holds the gun, unwavering, to the man's skull. "Be still," he says.
The man starts to sob, snuffling in his nose and throat.
Ianto's trigger finger flexes like a restive horse. A little more pressure will do it.
Then Ianto shakes his head, drops his finger from the trigger, and drags two sets of plastic handcuff strips from his coat pocket.
Before they can react with violence, Ianto has the man and woman trussed, wrists tight behind their backs.
A voice comes from behind him. "Ianto."
The Captain.
"Come here," Jack says. "They'll keep."
Ianto rises from where he has been kneeling on damp paving, and goes to his lover.
Jack drags him in close, and they inhale each other. The Captain smells like sweat and cordite and wet concrete. Ianto scrabbles at Jack's coat and shoulders, looking for the man underneath. Jack has other ideas and maneuvers Ianto around a corner, into a loading bay, and shoves him against a wall. He goes to his knees and unzips Ianto's woolen trousers, his breath hot on Ianto's thigh, then on the suddenly sensitive head of Ianto's cock.
Jack's mouth descends, ardent and alive.
"Mercy," Ianto breathes, and comes.
3.
Ianto walks into the Hub for the semi-annual "let's dig ourselves out from under this crap" storeroom cleaning event wearing old jeans and a tee shirt. Alright, it's more of a, "whenever Ianto gets really sick of the clutter so he wants to punish the rest of the team" event, and it happens whenever Ianto thinks he can make them do it, which is about every nine months, but what really matters here is that Ianto is wearing denim. Ripped at the knees, worn white and shredding at the seams, denim. Denim that fits really well.
Jack's mouth waters.
Ianto sets a bakery box on Gwen’s work station, and strides off to the kitchen with a new bag of coffee beans. He hasn’t seen Jack.
Jack is transfixed by Ianto’s long, muscled thighs, moving with an energy he never exhibits in formal trousers. Oh god. Ianto’s jeans are worn in the back as well. By back, Jack means over his backside. There’s a tiny tear just under his left butt cheek. That might be a flash of skin.
The cogwheel door rolls back and Jack forces himself to return to the everyday world where he has to greet his team while fighting a hard on, and heads down from his office to join them.
Tosh and Owen come in together, and Gwen a few steps behind.
“Where’s Ianto? I brought us strawberry pocky,” Tosh says.
“By us, you mean you and the teaboy. Eating phallic things with pink stuff inside,” Owen says. “Christ, it’s like a girls’ slumber party in here sometimes.”
“Later we’re going to watch ‘80s movies and pierce each others’ ears with a safety pin,” Gwen says. “You like pain, don’t you, Owen?”
“I work here, don’t I?” Owen says.
“No partying ‘til Ianto is satisfied,” Jack says.
“That’s your world, Harkness, not ours,” Owen says. “Unless the girls are harboring a secret passion for our cut-rate Jeeves.”
“Have we gotten to the ‘talking about boys’ stage of the proceedings already?” Ianto says, joining them. He leans against Tosh’s workstation and stretches his legs out in front of him.
Jack has the urge to rub his face against Ianto's denim clad inner thigh, until they both whimper. Until Ianto puts his hands in Jack's hair and holds tight. Until Ianto laughs, smooth and superior, letting Jack know just what he will do to him.
Ianto smiles like he knows what Jack is thinking, and sends Gwen and Tosh and Owen off for dust sheets and brooms and ordinary trash bags, with the promise of fresh Kona and chocolate croissants when they get back. They treat cleanup day like a holiday and troop off with the minimum of grumbling.
Ianto turns to Jack. and says, "Be quick now, and I'll take my time later."
Jack has him bent over a flat surface in seconds, reaches around and takes down the zipper himself. With nimble fingers and a practiced hip twist Ianto works the denim down over his arse and Jack's brain whites out for a nanosecond because proper Ianto is not wearing anything at all underneath.
"Jack," Ianto says. "Time?"
"Time," Jack agrees, though he doesn't think he's answering the same question Ianto is asking. He trails his fingers over Ianto’s lips, softly commands, “Suck,“ and Ianto takes the digits into his mouth and that is a sex act in itself, with Jack’s fingers tingling from Ianto's tongue.
Jack probes into Ianto's hole with two saliva-slick fingers, drags down his own zip with his free hand. He wants to rub himself off on Ianto's jeans but he's really looking forward to watching Ianto bending over in those denims for hours and Ianto will not wear come-stained clothing around the team, despite repeated requests, so Jack finds a handkerchief in his pocket and strokes his cock with the soft cotton.
They fall into a cadence of hands and arse and cock. Ianto gasps on each fingers-thrust and pushes a denim-clad thigh back against Jack’s leg until Jack is coming, but somehow, Jack keeps at Ianto, pushing and pushing so Ianto will feel slightly open all day, needing to be filled and having to wait, until Ianto exhales harsh and goes tight around Jack's fingers, once, twice, four times.
They are just in time. The garage alarm beeps and they put themselves to rights and grab an open-mouthed, sloppy kiss, before the rest of the team returns.
Jack will spend all day anticipating the night ahead. Hours and hours of cleaning and boxing up and labeling. Hours and hours of anticipating the scent of sweat and semen and Ianto’s heated skin.
He can wait. He loves this dance.
4.
Jack loves an audience.
At the moment, however, Ianto isn't giving him one. Jack wonders how to get his attention without being obvious. Ianto's very sharp at spotting that kind of thing. It makes Jack wonder whether all the people he ever conned were really stupid, or whether Ianto really is that perceptive.
Clearly, Jack's current strategy of lounging in the doorway of the tourist office is not working.
He clears his throat.
Ianto replies without looking up from his computer. "Need something?"
Well. Jack can't admit he just wants him to look up and smile. That would seem a bit desperate.
Instead he says, "Lunch?"
The rest of the team are out on minor Rift-related errands. He's lonely, damn it. It's so quiet in the Hub.
"Mmm. I really need to work through this," Ianto says. "But I'll order in shortly. Sandwiches all right?"
Ianto still hasn't looked up.
"Yeah. Sure," Jack says, and heads back to his office. He will not mope about this, Jack tells himself. It's good to have some time to oneself. To gather thoughts. Contemplate life.
Jack's got his phone out and is ringing Martha before he clears the cogwheel door.
"Jack, yeah, sorry, I have to run out the door. There's a thing - all right, Tony, I'm on it - call you back," Martha says, and Jack is left holding a useless phone.
Ianto brings him an avocado and prawn wrap for lunch. It's not Jack's favorite, but it's not on Jack's list of five things to never, ever get from the sandwich place, so he can't complain. There's an unwritten rule where you give Ianto your 'never under any circumstances' list for the usual takeaways, and sometimes he brings you your absolute favorite turkey club with extra bacon, and sometimes he brings you whatever the thinks you should have. One never knows. There is some weird arithmetic to it that Jack thinks he should have cracked by now.
He looks up from unwrapping his food to ask but Ianto has done an about face and is slipping out of the office. He seems preoccupied, and he obviously left his food elsewhere.
Jack sighs and eats the wrap alone. He picks up all the shredded lettuce scraps from the paper with a wet finger and eats those too. He folds the paper like origami but he doesn't know any, just remembers watching Owen fold cranes and sort of anatomical hearts and a tortoise from old autopsy reports last Christmas. For awhile, they all had cranes hanging near their workspace, white paper cranes with odd angles of lines and text and scribbles in red biro, but all of the cranes except Ianto's got ruined by a mini-windstorm that arose in the Hub a few weeks ago.
He rings around the rest of the team for updates. They're all stuck in traffic. They don't need him.
Ianto has come into the Hub proper, and now he's working at Tosh's station on her everyday laptop, which is still more powerful than Gwen and Owen's computers put together.
Ianto has left his jacket upstairs but his tie and waistcoat are as proper and fitted as ever.
Jack stands behind him for at least 12 seconds before Ianto looks up at him with a little smile.
"It's all finished," he says.
"What is?"
"This year's budget," Ianto says. He's a little smug.
"You've been ignoring me for the budget?" Jack feels his cock stir. "You finished it?"
"All done. Reconciled, checked four times," Ianto says. "Ready for your signature."
Jack's boxers begin to seem a bit tight. "No. You're teasing me."
"Nope," Ianto says. "I even hid Owen's eBay habit."
"We're not encouraging that," Jack says, reaching for Ianto's arm, and popping the button on his own trousers with the other hand.
"Happens anyway. Why fight it, when you can hold it over his head instead?"
Jack yanks Ianto to his feet. "Too. Damn. Smart," he says. He pulls Ianto against him.
"Pre-emptive strike. I know how much you hate the budget," Ianto says, swaying against Jack.
"You left me alone all day," Jack says. He backs Ianto against the wall, using all the power his extra inch of height gave him.
"All yours now," Ianto says, tipping his head back and showing off the line of his throat.
Jack leans in to bite softly at Ianto's neck. Ianto pulls Jack closer.
Jack can feel Ianto's hard-on under his thigh. "What'd you do about the boat?"
"Listed it under tech retrieval," Ianto says. He shifts under Jack until their cocks rub against each other.
"Oh," Jack breathes. He pushes against Ianto, and Ianto pushes back. A pulse of sensation skips from Jack's cock to his brain.
"Seven percent raises, plus cost of living," Ianto says, dropping his hands to Jack's arse and yanking their hips together. He slides a hand between them and takes Jack's cock from his boxers, takes his own out, and Ianto's big hand is stroking both of them in concert. It's more than double the pleasure. A wordless sound escapes Jack.
Ianto almost purrs, and they move together, thrusting and pressing, their cocks sliding under Ianto's ministering hand.
"Come, Jack. With me," Ianto says, hand firm and urgent, and Jack lets go, pleasure overloading him. He feels Ianto's cock leap against his belly and Ianto groans in his ear.
Jack can't get close enough to Ianto.
"If I transmit the budget to Buck House today, what do I get?" Ianto asks in his ear.
"Your own private show," Jack says into his hair.
"Excuse me," Ianto says, and wriggles away. He takes Jack's hand and drags him to Tosh's computer.
Jack laughs, uses the electronic pen Ianto hand's him to scrawl his name, waits through the retina scan, all the while planning his performance.
5.
Ianto leans over the body of the nameless young man, fixing his face in his memory, before lifting him into the grave and laying him down.
The young man babbled of cities melting, rain used to attack, humans poisoned and dying in the street. He had stumbled through the Rift, to be found in a dirty back street entirely by accident when Owen takes a wrong turn.
He had been terrified, and Torchwood brought him ease.
This morning, the young man had succumbed to the poison saturating his skin.
Ianto has known the young man for less than 36 hours, and now he is dead. He wants to sob, summon a few tears, but his face is dry. Sometimes he wishes he could go numb. Feel nothing as he shows nothing.
Torchwood has uses for an unknown corpse, but today Ianto says no. This unknown man will not turn up in the harbour, bloated beyond recognition. He will not be one of the burned teenagers caught in their own arson at the site of a mysterious explosion. Ianto makes other preparations.
Jack says nothing about Torchwood policy.
Ianto and Jack wash the body. They don't speak. When Ianto goes to kiss the man's forehead in farewell, Jack puts a hand on his arm and shakes his head.
The poison.
Then Jack leans over and brushes his lips over the young man's cheek, presses a firm kiss to his forehead. He murmurs in the corpse's ear. To Ianto, it sounds like he tells him to be at peace.
Jack doesn't die from the poison, but he looks gray and has difficulty breathing for most of the ride into the countryside.
This was Ianto's grandfather's land. Now it is held in trust for Ianto and his cousins. This is Ianto's designated corner, a broad swathe of hills falling away to narrow ravines and a stretch of plain. It can never be sold, under the terms of the trust, and Ianto wants the unknown young man to have a permanent grave.
He's spent all morning digging, with Jack keeping watch next to the body, which Ianto has wrapped in a linen sheet and his favorite wool blanket.
With the slowness of ritual, Ianto arranges the young man on the dirt at the bottom of the grave, which is as smooth as he can make it. He fusses over the wrinkles in the blanket, and makes certain that an extra fold pillows the young man's head.
At last, Ianto climbs from the grave and takes up his shovel again.
The final clod of thick soil drums down. Ianto replaces the chunks of grass as best he can by hand. He straightens and thinks about praying.
Ianto thinks he's done with praying.
Jack's hands settle onto his shoulders, and he leans in. He is warm and alive.
Ianto rubs at his dry eyes. He smells like dirt and sweat and there are blisters rising under his gloves.
Jack kisses his ear.
Ianto turns his head and catches Jack's mouth, twisting against Jack's solid chest and hips. The Captain is hard. Ianto presses back, and Jack pushes against him with a breathy sigh.
Jack lays them down on his coat and they kiss, rubbing against each other through their clothes, until Jack takes them both out of their layers and they become naked in the weak spring sun.
Ianto puts his hands all over Jack's skin. He begrudges every millimeter of air separating them.
Jack cannot stop kissing Ianto. He kisses his eyes, his elbows, the crease of his thigh and notch of his collarbone. He kisses his mouth until Ianto pushes him away to breathe. He kisses the back of his knee, the firm muscle at the back of his thigh, as he strokes his body open.
"You're a good man, Ianto Jones," Jack says fiercely, and slides into him.