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Need	By : sein_Henker Category: S through Z > Torchwood Views: 1858 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Torchwood and all related characters, settings, and trademarks. I do not profit in any way from this material.

Chapter List
- 1-Need
- 1
Title: Need

Summary: Ianto is frustrated with Jack's refusal to take their relationship seriously, and John Hart just happens to be back in town to comfort him. Takes place between series two and three.

Rating: A for graphic sexual content.

Word Count: 9,149

Other Chapters: No.

Disclaimer: The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Torchwood and all related characters, settings, and trademarks. I do not profit in any way from this material.

[Pairings, Contains, and Warnings...]

~*~

Ianto's body was traitorous, and had been for about as long as the rest of him had been. He tried to take a deep breath but it kept catching in his throat and coming right back out as a moan. His voice wasn't working at all and his cock was working all too well. Somewhere in the pockets of the suit jacket Jack had thoughtlessly tossed on the floor you could probably find Ianto's forgotten heterosexuality. There was a hand running through his hair and another rubbing his cock through his trousers; His own hands were comfortably tied behind his back. His cock was hard and the kisses falling on his neck were soft. He took as deep a breath as he could manage and said "Jack—"

Jack held him closer. Ianto could feel Jack's naked erection pressed against his still-clothed thigh, but his face was angled up to give Jack more access to his neck, so he couldn't see it.

"Jack, I lo—" He yelped. Jack had bitten him before, but usually with a bit of gentle nibbling as warning.

"Too hard?" Jack asked, pulling his teeth out of Ianto's neck.

"Yes."

"Sorry." Jack licked and gently sucked the bite imprint to soothe it, and Ianto slowly relaxed again. Jack started to undo Ianto's belt buckle, and Ianto took a true deep breath. Completely convinced that if he didn't say it now it wasn't going to get said, tried it again:

"I love—" Then Jack's tongue was in his mouth. Jack seemed determined not to give Ianto a third chance. He unzipped Ianto's trousers without removing his tongue from Ianto's mouth, and he could have easily slid them and Ianto's pants down to Ianto's ankles without backing off, but Ianto dug deep and checked his libido and his rising panic and pulled his head back.

Jack started to follow him, but then stopped as he realized that breaking the kiss hadn't been an accident.

"Can we talk?" Ianto said.

"Now?"

"Just for a minute."

Jack backed off and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Should I untie you?"

"No, I just..." He met Jack's eyes and lost all his nerve in an instant. Jack clearly didn't want to have this conversation, and that was probably more for Ianto's sake than for his own. Ianto wanted more with Jack than what they had, but his odds of ever getting that did not look good enough for him to endanger their current relationship by asking. Jack Harkness was incontestably the best thing in Ianto's life, and whatever pain it caused him to wish for more from their relationship was bearable. The very idea of waking up in the morning without Lisa or Jack wasn't at all bearable.

"You just...?"

Ianto sighed. "Actually, yes, please untie me. That's all I wanted." For half a second Ianto saw the relief on Jack's face, and then Jack quickly stepped behind Ianto to tend to the knots at Ianto's wrists. "They're a little tight. I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" Jack said, kneeling down beside the desk and quickly undoing the tie. He brought each of Ianto's wrists to his lips and kissed it in apology, and that gentleness hurt far more than the teethmarks on Ianto's neck did. "I'm sorry. I'm being rough with you today! It isn't intentional, I swear..."

"Don't worry about it," Ianto said as Jack set the tie down on his desk and helped Ianto out of his trousers and pants. "It doesn't hurt that badly. I just... I want you."

"You have me," Jack said, standing drawing Ianto in for another kiss.

Then Jack's phone rang. Ianto had been cock-blocked by that fucking phone more than enough times to know Jack's ringtone for Gwen. It was that terrible Gwen Stefani song that Gwen hated as much as Ianto did. Gwen was out on call, so Jackhad to answer it, and Ianto knew she needed backup before he heard her say it. He couldn't be angry at her, but he was just a little bit angry at the fucking alien that had chosen such an inconvenient time to give Gwen more trouble than she could handle, and at the universe in general.

Jack was astoundingly good at getting rid of his own erections. Ianto had no idea what Jack did or thought about, but he'd definitely been hard when he answered the phone, yet he was fine by the time he hung up. He looked at Ianto apologetically as he pulled his own clothing back on.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Ianto asked. He was hard himself, but he imagined that jogging through the parking lot to the van in the rain and then chasing down a weevil—or whatever it was—might take care of the problem.

Jack shook his head, already pulling his coat on. "It's nothing Gwen and I can't handle on our own. You might as well stay here." He dropped a gentle kiss on Ianto's lips. "And we will finish this later! I promise!" He winked at Ianto before dashing out the door.

As soon as Jack was out of earshot, Ianto sighed. Wanking on his boss' desk felt unprofessional when his boss wasn't there to watch, so he pulled his pants and trousers back up and tried to think about his grandfather as he picked up his shirt.

"It's not you," someone said by the door. Ianto turned around immediately, took one look at the speaker, dropped the shirt, and opened the top drawer of Jack's desk to find the gun Jack kept there. "It's him. That word makes him break out in hives."

Ianto cocked the gun as he raised it and pointed it at John Hart's heart.

John put his hands up unenthusiastically. "Hello to you too, Eye Candy."

"What do you want?!"

"To say hello!" John sighed. "You're such bad hosts. There was no one at the door so I let myself in. I didn't exactly creep down here silently. The pterodactyl screeched and everything. You just weren't listening."

"You hid when Jack left."

"I thought you and I needed to have a heart-to-heart, and we'd be better off if he didn't know about it yet. He was clearly busy anyway." He sighed. "I'm no threat to you. I'm not even armed."

"I don't believe you."

John smirked. "Fair enough; I am armed, but I'm not going to hurt you. Could do, and already would have if I wanted to, but you're in love with Jack Harkness. You probably hurt enough without me compounding it." Ianto didn't respond, and John sucked his teeth. "Look, if I helped you with that—" He nodded to Ianto's still-hard cock, "—would you stop pointing that gun at me?"

"No," Ianto said, hating his body because it somehow found extra blood to send up to his face without seeming to take any out of his penis.

"Alright then. If I let you continue pointing that gun at me, can I help you with—"

"No."

John shrugged. "You can't blame me for trying. But I do prefer that our conversation be somewhat more relaxed so—" Ianto had been disarmed and pinned to the desk before he was aware of anything but a sharp pain in his shoulder. His erection was gone almost instantly. "Jack didn't really have you tied too tight, did he?" John asked, and Ianto felt the little slip of satin being wrapped around his wrists. He tried to pull away, but John had him completely pinned. "Fine. Don't answer me. But you'll have no one to blame but yourself if you're uncomfortable." He tied the knots just as Jack had done, probably using the creases from when Jack had done it to gauge how to do it, and it wasn't really uncomfortable at all, but it would hold very well. John held Ianto down with one hand and uncocked the gun with the other. He went to remove the clip, paused, then laughed and let Ianto up. "Did you know you were bluffing, Eye Candy? That's pretty dangerous when you're bluffing to someone who's actuallyarmed."

"It was a calculated risk."

"Badly calculated. I don't want to hurt you, but I don't like having guns pointed at me."

"As that's no longer an issue, would you untie me? I'd like to put my shirt back on."

"In that case, no."

"John—"

"First names! Now we're friends!" He sighed. "Yes, Eye Candy, I will untie you. But first I want to hear you say that Jack Harkness is an arsehole."

"Jack Harkness didn't break into my workplace and tie me up."

"Have you ever pointed a gun at Jack Harkness?"

Ianto turned to snap at John, but he choked on the lie before it came out. He stepped back and turned away. "Please untie me, John," he said tightly, trying to remember how to breathe. It was really no wonder Jack didn't love him. Ianto was a pretty little traitor, but he was a traitor, and Jack wouldn't have just forgotten that. It was probably easier on Jack to not let Ianto speak than to hear Ianto say those words and still doubt him.

"Oh." John took a step closer, but kept a comfortable distance between himself and Ianto as he undid the tie.

"I've said far worse than that about him before," Ianto said, trying to compose himself as he bent down to pick up his shirt. He remained angled away from John. "I... I've said a lot worse than that to him before, and I've spent the last two years wishing I could take it back."

"I've killed him," John said. "Repeatedly. Tortured him horribly. Blew up his friends and his city. He's still an arsehole."

Ianto looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not saying I'm not! But he is, and no matter what you've done, you're allowed to be upset when he hurts you."

"It doesn't hurt that badly," Ianto said, working his way up with the buttons.

"That's what you said about that bite, and I heard you yelp from down the hall."

"I was surprised. It was a yelp of surprise." Ianto quickly buttoned his collar to cover the mark that he was certain must be there. With it covered, he turned around and tried to smile. "Mild pain; moderate at worst."

"Oh, well, as long as your daily emotional pain level is only moderate at worst as a direct result of Jack's neurosis."

"I love him!" Ianto said. Then he flinched slightly and waited for the world to end the rats to crawl back into his stomach... but Jack hadn't been around to hear him say it, so neither of those things happened. Ianto sighed. "I can't lose him. Not foranything."

"I know," John said. "I do too. Have done for about as long as I've known him, probably always will. I'd put a bullet between your eyes right now if I thought it'd get me naked on that desk in your place."

Ianto took a broad stride backwards. This was Jack's office. There had to be another gun somewhere...

"Oh come on, Eye Candy. I'm armed, I got in here without you noticing, and I had youtied up a minute ago. Not to be cliché, but if I wanted you dead..." He let Ianto fill in the blank. He sighed. "It wouldn't work. Jack likes you. I'm sure he does several other four-letter words beginning with L as well. He wouldn't fuck me if I hurt you, he'd redefine 'pain' for me... Well, if I really hurt you, anyway. How's that shoulder?"

Ianto rolled it. "A little stiff. It'll feel fine in two days."

"Our little secret?"

"Until anything at all happens that requires me to raise my dominant arm."

John frowned, but he shrugged. "You did pull a gun on me."

"You did try to blow me up last March."

"I'm still in love with my ex and you're fucking him. Let's call it a no-fault confrontation and get drinks." He turned and walked gaily toward the kitchen, and Ianto picked up his jacket and tie and followed purely for the sake of not losing track of him.

"Why are you here?"

"To punch Jack in the face," John said. "And because I like you."

"Obviously. In that special, you-want-to-put-a-bullet-between-my-eyes kind of way." Ianto slipped his jacket back on. He pocketed the tie rather than try to tie it without a mirror.

"I didn't say I wanted to, I said that I would. It was a statement about how much I like Jack, not how little I like you, and it was nothing personal. As a person I like you a great deal and I imagine you're much more fun to look at without an extra hole in your head." There was a case of vodka on the kitchen counter. John must have brought it, because it hadn't been there before Ianto had gone up to Jack's office with him. John picked up two of the bottles and held one out to Ianto.

"I'm at work..."

John blinked at Ianto for a moment, then frowned. "Oh, Eye Candy," he said. He placed the bottle in Ianto's hand anyway and squeezed Ianto's shoulder. "I hope it really doesn't hurt too badly, because you are never going to get Jack Harkness drunk enough to tell you he loves you."

"I wouldn't want him to only say it because he's drunk!" Ianto said, feeling his grip tighten around the bottle. "How many times did he say it to you, then? You know, before he left you and never looked back."

"Ooooh," John said, smiling. "You bite. I like that." He opened his own bottle of vodka with his teeth, pitched the cap into the bin, and downed half of the bottle in one before answering. "Once. I was his devoted housewife, any-time-and-all-the-time shag, and partner in adventure for five years, and I think I got him to tell me he loved meonce, when we were more than a little bit buzzed and quite certain we were going to die."

"Maybe he just didn't love you."

"Maybe, but he liked me at least enough to accept my declarations of love. Even when I was blowing up this city."

Ianto flinched.

John chuckled. "Careful, Eye Candy. I bite too." He grabbed himself another bottle and sat down at the table. "How long have you known him?"

"A little more than two years."

"Having sex with him all that time?"

"No."

John smiled. "Give me the dates."

Ianto closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Let's see... June 20th, 2007, was the second worst day of my life. It was a Wednesday. I met Jack the following Sunday, so... June 24th of 2007. Then..." Another deep breath. "The worst day of my life was August 31st. That was a Friday... I know that it was exactly seven weeks later when Jack and I first had sex, so that was..."

"October 19th, 2007," John said. It sounded about right, so Ianto went with it. "He waited four and a half months for you. I'm impressed. He really does like you."

"I want him to do a little bit more than really like me."

"Then steer him away from the letter L," John said. "He'll tell you that he needs you. He'll tell you that you're perfect. He'll tell you that you are the sexiest being in thegalaxy and that he is unbelievably lucky to—well, it doesn't look like you and he are doing the waking-up-next-to-each-other thing, are you?" John sighed. "He'd tell you that he'd die for you, but I imagine that's not quite as powerful a statement now. Youshould never ever doubt that he'd kill for you, but that kind of declaration can really kill the mood, so..." John finished off his first bottle, and Ianto opened his. "My point, Eye Candy, is that this was my life for five years, and now it's yours. It doesn't get better. He won't change for you. Jack Harkness is passionate, innovative, and absolutely wonderful, but he will never let you get inside of him the way he'll get inside of you." Ianto took his first sip of vodka as John opened his second bottle. "And if you keep pushing it with that L word, you'll scare him off."

"I know."

"And commitment makes him itchy. He probably won't have sex with anyone else, since you seem like the sort to mind that, but don't go naming your relationship. I gave him five years and I don't think I ever heard him refer to me as anything more romantic than 'partner'—which was hardly romantic at all, since it was true in the professional sense of the word as well—until I first met you and got him to call me his wife. Never boyfriend, though. Say 'husband' and his head will probably explode." He shrugged and started his second bottle. "Wife... I'll take it."

"Were you really a good wife?"

John chuckled, but it sounded broken. "You'll be a better one; Don't worry." He took several more gulps of vodka. Ianto's throat burned just thinking about it. "He really doesn't like me, anyway, so he won't compare you to me."

"He likes you," Ianto said, not sure how true it actually was.

"No, he doesn't. And it's not the murder or the greed or the fact that I tortured him and tried to destroy everything he loves. It's..." John sighed. "He's your lover now. I should leave it to you to explore the less pretty parts of him."

"He told me once that you were a reminder of his past and he wanted you gone. It was pretty clear to me." Ianto frowned. "It ought to be you, but it isn't you. It's him."

John nodded.

"Do you ever..." Ianto took a moment to gather his thoughts and search for his courage inside the vodka bottle. "Your relationship with Jack: Before or after this 'doctor' of his came into the picture?"

John shrugged. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about, so let's guess 'before.' Romantic rival?"

"That's just the thing!" Ianto said. "I honestly don't know. I don't think anything's actually happened between them, but the way Jack talks about this doctor is just..." Ianto needed another drink. "It hurts..." He needed several more drinks. "He left us, once. He was just... gone for nearly six months. No goodbye. No explanation. Gwen said it was something to do with his special doctor, but that was all she knew, all any of us knew..." Ianto ran a hand through his hair. "He came back, but... Jack's doctor gave him a moment's notice, and that was all Jack needed to leave us. He mustn't have even thought about it, and you'd think that'd make it better but it actually makes it worse." Ianto sighed. "I'd much rather know that he chose to hurt me than know that I'm so insignificant to him that he didn't even think about me."

"He's an arsehole."

"I just can't shake the feeling that I will never be the most important man in Jack's life. And I hate it. The worst thing is that it wasn't until I realized I'd never be the most important man in Jack's life that I realized how badly I wanted to be." John squeezed Ianto's hand, just for a moment. "I have nightmares about him leaving again. Just like last time. Gone with no word and no way of knowing when he'll back. I wake up in a cold sweat and I try to tell myself he wouldn't do it again, but how can I believe it?"

"He's an arsehole."

"Yes."

"No, say it."

"Jack..." John smiled and nodded encouragingly. "...can sometimes be kind of an arsehole."

"Good effort. Wrong, but you tried." John stroked Ianto's cheek, and Ianto let him. "And you are in way too deep if you honestly think that thoughtful scorn would be better than no attention at all."

"Alright," Ianto said. "I'm in too deep. Tell me how to get out." Ianto closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. Commitment. Openness. Heterosexuality. He missed it a little. He really did. He and Lisa had known everything about each other. She'd cracked him wide open on their second date and dug down to the darkest parts of him and just... made him so much better. Ianto had told her things he'd still never told Jack, about his father and his worst fantasies and... Lisa had returned his trust fully. Ianto had known every detail of Lisa's life from the middle names of all five of her siblings to her darkest secrets and deepest regrets. She told him the gory details of her assignments as a low-ranking Torchwood London field agent. Every scar on Lisa's mind and body, Ianto had known the origin of. Jack had no visible scars of which to speak, and he didn't speak about the other kind. Ianto and Lisa would have gotten married if... They'd have had a wedding and a few kids and a nice little flat near some decent schools, and even though Torchwood London was always a surreal mess of a job they'd have been able to go home and have a normal life. Ianto would never have any of those things with Jack, and that sucked in a way that was only just bearable, but still so much more bearable than not having anything at all with Jack. Ianto wasdefinitely in too deep.

John shook his head. "You don't get out. You drown. Acquire a much better taste for vodka than you have now." John put his second bottle down on the table. It was empty. Ianto's first bottle was still more than half full. "It might help you tread water a bit if you allow yourself to be angry at him."

"So, what? Call him an arsehole occasionally?"

"When he deserves it, which will be more than occasionally." John carded his fingers through Ianto's hair, and Ianto let him the first time, but then when John moved his hands back down Ianto realized the ridiculousness of what was happening and pulled his head away slightly.

"You must hate me," Ianto said. "I think I hate that doctor and I've never even methim, let alone had to listen to Jack fuck him."

"No," John said. "I don't offer blow jobs to people I hate." He thought about it for a moment then shrugged. "Well, occasionally I do, but I haven't done it today. The offer stands, by the way."

"Not necessary, thank you."

John raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Eye Candy, I could get that right back up."

Ianto laughed, but he was sure he must have been blushing furiously. "You couldn't... I don't... I'm not actually interested in men."

"Does Jack know that?"

"I think Jack takes pride in that."

John smirked. "Of course he does." John stood up and walked back to the counter to get himself another bottle of vodka, and quite unsubtly slid his chair considerably closer to Ianto's as he sat back down. "In the fifty-first century, heterosexuality is a fetish; In the twenty-first century, it's a challenge."

"Good thing I never called myself heterosexual." Ianto smirked. "I bet you love it. Your favourite game."

"Second only to Strip Twister."

"And how many times have you won since you got here?"

"Only ten that I'm aware of," John said innocently.

Ianto laughed. Ten since March. It was August.

"But, you know, it doesn't always come up. Sometimes I get an interesting look from a man when I first approach him, but if things are going well I'm not going to stop andask him if he's really supposed to be doing this with me. That completely kills the mood."

They chuckled. "Ten," Ianto said. "You must think you're very good."

"I am very good, Eye Candy."

"Alright." Ianto took another drink of vodka, but the bottle was still half full and he was certainly he was speaking with a mostly-clear head. "I am heterosexual, I think, and I'll let you have one kiss if you can answer one question correctly."

"Oh dear," John said, smiling though there was a spark of apprehension in his eyes. "A pop quiz, and I was much too drunk last night to have done the reading."

"No reading necessary. You just had to pay attention during the lecture." Ianto was enjoying watching John squirm, but he was torturing himself with the wait too, so he didn't draw it out. "What's my actual name?"

John's jaw dropped. "We were introduced a year ago!"

"Yes, we were," Ianto sighed and shook his head, but smiled despite the slight disappointment because he had won. He picked his bottle back up.

John put his hand over the mouth of the bottle and pressed it back to the table. "It's been a year and you think I still don't know your name, Ianto Jones?"

Ianto grinned. He was at once relieved and terrified, and he wasn't quite certain of why. "Well, it's only that you hadn't said my name once since Jack introduced us, so I thought maybe—"

"How could I forget, with the way Jack looked at you when he said it?" John sighed. "I almost knew right then that I wasn't going to get what I'd come for... Well, except the diamond. And I did really want that diamond..." It was only then that he seemed to notice the way Ianto was looking at him. He stroked Ianto's cheek gently and then cupped Ianto's face, and it calmed Ianto down a lot more than it should have. "You don't have to kiss me if you don't want to, Eye Candy. I don't see the harm, though. Jack isn't the jealous type."

"Jack isn't allowed to be the jealous type." Ianto moved in closer to John, and sighed. Casual. Casual. No commitment. No love. No loyalty. That was what Jack wanted, so that was what Ianto was going to do. "Kiss me. I wouldn't have made the offer if I didn't want you to."

John smiled, and Ianto got the impression that it was more to calm him down than to express any great joy of John's own. The hand that was cupping Ianto's face moved back to hold his head, and John brought their lips together gently. The kiss was so calm that the butterflies in Ianto's stomach evaporated immediately, and Ianto opened his lips without even the softest of coaxing. John's eyes glittered. He slipped his tongue into Ianto's mouth and it didn't feel nearly as foreign or invasive as the tongue of a man who had tried to blow him up probably ought to have. He kissed like Jack did: with a slow, restrained dominance that made Ianto just nervous enough to be acutely aware of every movement and sensation while never letting him forget that there was absolutely nothing to worry about and that he was absolutely going to be taken care of. Something within Ianto understood and enjoyed the fact that he was never safer than when he surrendered to and put his full trust in some of the most dangerous people he had ever met.

John withdrew his tongue, and without even really breaking the kiss his lips moved up Ianto's jaw line. He nibbled Ianto's ear, and Ianto wasn't exactly sure if he'd lostJohn's favourite game, but he was very sure that John had won. John's hand slipped onto Ianto's thigh, well north of Ianto's knee, and instantly started kneading it's way up. Ianto gasped, but didn't even think about moving. John laughed into his ear softly and kept moving his hand upward until he was practically jacking Ianto off through his trousers. His lips ran down Ianto's neck, gentle over the area Jack had abused less than an hour ago.

John's hands moved to Ianto's belt buckle. He laid his fingers over the smooth leather, ready to loosen it, and then he met Ianto's eyes and smiled. "With your permission..."

"God yes..." Ianto sighed.

His belt was undone in a second. His trousers in another, and he stood up slightly to allow them and his pants to be pulled to the floor before all the reasons why allowing his lover's psychopathic ex to blow him might not be the best idea could ruin the mood. John slipped off his chair and onto his knees, and though Ianto had already been angled almost completely sideways on the chair he shifted a bit more and kicked out of his trousers and pants so that he could spread his legs more and allow John to settle more comfortably between them.

John unzipped his trousers and freed his own cock. He teased himself with his right hand and brought his left hand up to Ianto's balls. He caressed them slowly, then massaged them a bit more intently as he easily took Ianto's entire cock into his mouth. Ianto felt the wonderful warmth and tightness as he hit the back of John's throat and was, somewhere just beneath the surge of pleasure and arousal, impressed. Ianto was rather well endowed. Jack had never had any trouble with him either, but most of the women Ianto had dated over the years had. John fucked his own mouth on Ianto's cock, allowing Ianto to feel his cock slide across John's slick tongue and into John's tight throat. Ianto's eyes screwed shut, but no sooner had they done then John pulled back. The wet warmth around Ianto's cock turned to cool air from John's breath, and Ianto looked down.

John smiled up at him, and Ianto smiled back without meeting his eyes.

John licked several times from the tip of Ianto's shaft to his balls. Ianto's toes curled and it was a damn good thing Ianto was sitting, because his knees couldn't have supported a bird just then. John noticed (How could he not?) and he rested his forehead on Ianto's thigh for a moment in a silent message. Steady. And yet that smile on his lips said something else entirely. He gave one more slow lick over each of Ianto's balls, first the right then the left, then he stopped and sucked on Ianto's left ball until Ianto saw stars and couldn't help stamping his foot slightly. John hummed approvingly and Ianto choked out a long "Jesus Christ," that drowned out John's hum itself but did very little to shake off the vibrations that flowed from John's mouth to Ianto's balls and transformed from there into shivers that spread all through Ianto's body.

John pulled his head away and took Ianto's shaft into his mouth, but not down his throat, so that he could suck. It was hardly the most pleasurable thing he'd done, but it was all it took to finish Ianto off. Ianto barely managed to breathe out a "Now!" before coming powerfully into John's mouth. John swallowed as much of it as anyone could have and laughed, then jacked himself more vigorously for a minute until he came into his own hand. He caught most of his own seed and licked it off, but still dirtied his trousers a bit.

John smiled sweetly and stood up. He washed what he hadn't licked off his hands down the sink, then helped himself to paper-towels and managed to get himself decently clean and tucked back in with his trousers looking normal. Then he tore off two new paper-towels, wet them, and walked over to Ianto. "Want some help?"

"Allow me," Jack said, walking into the room. Ianto jumped, but John just shrugged and handed off the towels.

Ianto could hear his own heartbeat. He stared at Jack blankly for a minute while Jack looked at him curiously. Jack's eyebrow got progressively higher, and Ianto had no idea what he was being asked.

"Nod your head, Eye Candy—"

"You, shut up." Jack said. John looked marginally offended, but he rolled his eyes, shrugged, and backed off. Ianto took the advise anyway and nodded, and Jack quickly knelt down and began to clean off what little of Ianto's semen John hadn't swallowed. Ianto listened to his heartbeat and tried to decide if he should pull away or remain where he was. Jack's touch was so gentle. He really didn't seem to be in the slightest bit angry, and that was as painful as it was reassuring.

It took him too long to decide, which was in itself a decision. Jack went to throw the paper-towels away and Ianto quickly pulled his pants and trousers back on.

Jack turned to John and smiled, but neither of them looked quite comfortable. "What brings you to Cardiff?" Jack asked, not quite as casually as that question generally sounded.

John smiled. Then he punched Jack in the face.

"What was that for?!" Jack shifted his jaw and glared, but he didn't throw any punches of his own in retaliation. John's arms weren't raised and his stance was relaxed. He wasn't looking for a fight, and Jack could see that. Why Jack respectedthat was another question entirely, but Ianto supposed that if they were going to fight, they might as well all be aware of why.

"That was it. That's what brought me to Cardiff." John shrugged. "You thawed outhours after I buried you."

"So?"

"So you remembered that date for almost two-thousand years—"

"It was a pretty important date!"

"But you forgot my birthday almost thirty times when we were together."

Jack rolled his eyes. "We were trapped in a two-week time loop!"

"Which means you only had a maximum of two weeks to forget!"

"Which means that I remembered your birthday more than one hundred times in five years. I think I did rather well." Jack smiled, and all of the tension melted from his body. "And I remembered it this year, didn't I?"

John smiled back, and suddenly they sounded for all the world like dear old friends. "You did! And though I sincerely thank you for the bottle of wine you had sent, I'm not quite certain how I feel about you stalking me around the globe."

Jack shrugged. "You should probably start to feel like it's normal. You're a hostile alien threat—"

"—What?!" John laughed. "Boeshane boy, I'm from the lunar colony! I vote in Earth elections!"

"Not until the thirty-fifth century, you don't."

"I have an Earth ID!"

"Doesn't exist until the twenty-ninth century."

John rolled his eyes, and Ianto half expected him to stick his tongue out at Jack.

Jack laughed. "I notice you're not disputing that you're hostile."

John pouted dramatically. "I've been very good since March, you know."

"I do know!" Jack actually looked a little bit proud. He buried his fingers in John's hair and kissed him on the lips once, almost chastely, and Ianto tried not to hate them both. "You are a hostile alien threat, whatever you identify as and whatever the Acts of 3648 say. It's my job to know where you are and what you're doing." John seemed almost willing to swallow that, so of course Jack kept pushing. "And you've needed me, once or twice."

John scoffed and pulled away from Jack quite quickly. "Torchwood has interferedthree times, and I have never needed you."

"You're right. You probably could have gotten out of that execution on your own."

"You know very well that I could have."

"But then you wouldn't have met Torchwood Sana'a, and wouldn't that have been ashame?"

They both grinned.

"I love Torchwood." John said. "So ahead of its time. So many beautiful, easy people in one organization, all over the world. I've half a mind to start flashing around alien technology just to draw them out—"

"You do that and I will drag you back to Cardiff and lock you up downstairs so fast—"

"You promise?"

Jack gave a very long-suffering sigh. "You need to behave. Now the other Torchwood teams know you as my hostile alien threat, and when you don't behave, it reflects badly on me. I'm an immortal alien who wouldn't shut up about the Doctor for more than a hundred years. Trouble because of you is the last thing I need."

John wasn't even pretending to be properly chastened. "Yes, master—"

Jack inhaled sharply and flinched. The look on his face was ten times worse than it had been when John punched him.

John took a step back. He looked at Ianto and raised an eyebrow, but Ianto didn't understand Jack's response any more than John seemed to.

Jack exhaled slowly and took a deep breath. "Never call me that again." He helped himself to a bottle of vodka and John and Ianto watched in silence as Jack drank about a forth of it before forcing a smile and speaking again. "So, when you realized that my memory has improved considerably since I left you, you dropped everything and rushed off to Wales to suck off my lover and punch me in the face?"

"No," John said. "When I first realized it, I finished my drink, then I had a threesome with identical twins who kind of looked like you, then spent a month in Tuscany. I have the rest of my life, don't I? I figured I'd get up here eventually, and I have done. And really, given the state that I found Eye Candy in, it seemed rude not to help him get off."

"He does have a name."

"Yes, he and I have established that." John smiled over at Ianto. "You don't mind, do you, Eye Candy?"

"Not at all," Ianto said. He reacquainted himself with his vodka quickly, then sighed. "It's a considerably nicer way of calling me the office whore than what Owen favoured, so—"

"Owen called you what?!" Jack said as John said, "I am not calling you a whore!" There was a second of silence, and John threw on, "And if I were, I wouldn't mean it as an insult."

"I really don't mind," Ianto said calmly.

"You're very pretty," John said, shrugging. "That's all."

"Thank you," Ianto said. The compliment would have made him a bit uncomfortable coming from a twenty-first century man, but was willing to assume the connotations were a bit different in John's time.

"Can we talk about Owen?" Jack said, not at all as though it were a question.

"There's not much to talk about," Ianto said, wishing he hadn't mentioned it. "He's dead."

"And he was probably dead when he said some of those things." Ianto had to give him that. "Let's talk about them anyway." Jack turned to John, but John didn't wait for him to speak.

"I'm gone," John said. "Where's Beautiful Eyes? Wouldn't mind a word with her..."

"I told her to lock up the weevil we just caught and then call it a night, so... probably on her way home. To her husband."

"Damn."

"How long are you going to be in Cardiff?"

"Oh, you know... I thought I might hang around until Christmas or so..."

Jack glared.

"It's Cardiff. I'm here until I can get on a flight to some place more interesting. A day or two at the most."

"Why fly? There are ten trains to London every day, and they're never full."

"I love you too, Jack." Jack didn't flinch. John winked at Ianto, grabbed his unfinished third bottle of vodka and the last unopened one, and headed toward the door.

Jack almost let him go before he sighed and stopped him. "John...?"

John smiled. "Yes?"

Jack shrugged. "Get a Skype or a Facebook or something. It's the early twenty-first century! I have a Facebook. Ianto and Gwen have Facebooks, though Ianto never posts anything on his—"

"What would I say?!" Ianto asked. He'd only signed up for Facebook to see the pictures of David and Mica that Rhiannon posted. "'Just fed the pterodactyl. When Jack gets back from catching that blowfish with the sports car, we'll have sex in the back of the van, then call it an early weekend.' I don't know who'd like that status first: my old flatmate the psychiatrist, or Lisa's parents."

"I don't know who'd like it first, but I would like it the hardest." Jack leered and John laughed. Ianto rolled his eyes, and Jack turned back to his warmer audience and smiled. "The point is, John, you don't have to be a stranger when you're not in town."

"You just want to have an easier time of stalking me." John chuckled. "You have to keep the twenty-first century safe from me, after all. I think it's your job or something. Don't quite know. Wasn't really listening when you were going on about it..."

Jack just smiled. "I sleep a little bit better knowing that you and the twenty-first century are safe from each other. Help me with that."

John sighed. "We'll see."

"I expect a friend request from you by midnight."

"We'll see," John repeated, and then he left them alone.

Jack watched him go, then turned and stared at Ianto as though Ianto were in a great deal of trouble.

"This isn't really about Owen, is it?"

"This is absolutely about Owen. What did he say to you?"

Ianto shifted in his chair. He wasn't going to get any farther away from Jack without discovering a way to walk through walls, though, so he kept his eyes on the bottle in his hands and swallowed hard. "I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"I can tell."

"Can't speak ill of the dead."

"Then just give me the facts. No need to speak ill of anyone."

"It doesn't matter."

"Clearly it does! It's still bothering you five months after his death. What did he say?"

"Just..." Ianto shook his head. "Usual Owen shit. That I was completely superfluous to this team and that you only kept me around as your fuck toy, and even you didn't really care about me—"

"And that was usual?"

Ianto flinched. "It wasn't a casual or a daily conversation for us," he said quickly. "Just when he was upset. He didn't mean it. He did it to everyone—well, not you. He knew exactly how trying to assert any dominance over you would end for him. But it wasn't just me. I know he did it to Toshiko and Gwen and he probably did it to Suzie. He was good at figuring out exactly what it was that would get under our skins and..." He sighed.

"And for you that was..."

It wasn't a question, but Ianto answered anyway. "You. The fastest way under my skin is you. Has been for years. It's apparently a good way to get under other layers too, as I think John just discovered."

Jack took three broad strides, gripped Ianto's forearms, and pulled Ianto out of the chair and into his arms. Ianto hadn't even realized how badly he'd needed that until he heard himself sob with relief. He buried his face in Jack's shirt collar and enjoyed the feeling of Jack's arms around him and prayed that they'd stay there forever.

"Ianto..." Jack whispered, "You have no idea how much I care about you. And that's my fault and I'm sorry but I... I need you, and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for you. No one I wouldn't sacrifice and nothing I wouldn't surrender. I need you to understand that. You are not and have never been just the office whore and I neither hired you nor do I keep you around just because I want you within reaching distance whenever I'm hard. I am completely lost with you and if you don't believe that then it's only because you weren't around to see what a mess I was any of the times I had to be away from you for more than a week or what a mess I was beforeyou." Ianto shifted slightly, and Jack only held him tighter. "I thought about you every day when I was with my Doctor. I really did. And when John was burying me under Cardiff, my greatest fear wasn't the pain or that I was going to be stuck there forever, it was that I was going to be stuck there for so long that I would never see you ever again. That my last words to you were going to be 'Cover the central server building...'"

Ianto laughed. "I wouldn't have counted that."

"No?" Ianto pulled back a bit to look Jack in the face more easily, but stayed in his arms.

"No, nor any of the comments about finding Owen or about my arm. It would have been the last thing you said to me outside of Torchwood, while you were dropping me off on Saturday..."

Jack was clearly trying hard to remember. "Saturday... We'd gone to a movie! What was it?!" Ianto frowned, and Jack looked genuinely sorry. "It was two-thousand years ago for me. I think it's all there, somewhere, but sometimes I need a little help. Was that the night the movie was awful and we were sitting alone in the back so we—"

"No," Ianto said, blushing at just the memory. "We were near the front that night and it was packed because it was the midnight premier. The film was awful, though. Haunting in Connecticut. Everyone else thought it was terrifying, but—"

"But Torchwood is too hard to scare. We gave up on horror movies after that." Jack smiled. "I remember. For a while I stopped watching the film and started watching the people around us. All of the couples were moving closer together and sitting in each other's laps, so just for fun I started clinging to you..."

"And I asked if you were afraid," Ianto said, laughing. "I was genuinely worried for a minute!"

"I asked if you'd let me sit in your lap if I was..."

"And I said yes and you tortured me for twenty minutes before I dragged you out of that theatre and shagged you in the loo!"

They laughed together and held each other, and for the moment, everything seemed almost alright.

"Did we ever find out how that movie ended?" Jack asked.

"Did we ever start caring? They probably all died."

"Fair enough..." Ianto could tell Jack was trying quite hard to remember, but he wasn't having much luck. "What did I say to you when I dropped you off? What would have counted as my last words?"

"Well, other than 'Good night,' they were..." Ianto took a deep breath. "It was nothing spectacular; You pulled into my carpark at 1:30 in the morning and I teased you for keeping me up so late and told you that you had no right to be angry if I was late for work on Monday because I had to catch up on my sleep..."

"And I told you that you wouldn't have to worry about being late if you'd just come home with me," Jack finished quickly. "But you... you kind of froze and looked at me like I'd gone too far or something—"

"—No!"

Jack looked at him oddly. "Then you just... said good night and got out of the car."

Ianto stepped out of Jack's arms and looked back toward the bottle on the table.

Jack sighed. "It's funny how you pull away sometimes. I asked you on a date, and you shut down. I asked you to spend the night with me, and you shut down. Everything seems like it's fine between us, and then John shows up and he sucks you off an hour after saying hello." He didn't sound angry. He sounded hurt, but not betrayed, and that was worse.

And there was Ianto's heartbeat again. Surely all of Cardiff could hear it? Ianto swallowed hard and tried to collect some calm and polite words to explain his actions, but "Do you realize how terrifying you are, Jack?" slipped out before he'd quite sorted them out.

"No..." Jack said slowly. "What have I done?"

Ianto ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "You left. You saved my life, you destroyed my sexuality, and then you left, and I have never been more heartbroken." Jack opened his mouth. "No! Wait... I spent months cauterizing that wound... and then you came back, introduced me to your ex-lover, and then asked me on a date as if you'd nipped off to London for a weekend rather than fallen off the globe for a season. And I... I said yes. Not because I wanted to but because Ineeded to. Even when you'd hurt me as badly as I could imagine it was possible for you to and I was trying desperately to push you away I couldn't. And that is fucking terrifying and I have never forgotten it. And whether I say yes or no to any particular question you ask, you need to understand that it's always while I'm terrified that I want to say yes to you so much more than you really want to hear yes from me."

"... I'm so sorry," Jack said. "There is nothing I want more than to spend time with you. I know I left but I did come back for you."

"Do you really think it's okay for you to just leave as long as you always come backeventually? Is that how this is going to be? I make myself available to you all the time and you come and go as you please? Jack, this is my life. I only have one. And I would love nothing more than to give it to you, even knowing that you can't give me yours. I... Whether I live to be one hundred or die tomorrow, I am only going to be a very small part of your life. And that's okay. I don't need to be your life... but I do need to be your present. I need to know that you are mine now, even if you won't be in a hundred years."

"Yes," Jack said. Ianto allowed himself to be pulled back into Jack's arms. "You areabsolutely my present. I will give you everything that you will give to me for as long as you're around to take it, and I will never leave you again. I promise."

"And if your doctor stepped through that door right now and said 'Jack, I need you—'"

"I would tell him that you're coming with me."

Ianto pulled away again, fighting back tears even as he told himself that he was being immature. Jack had said he wouldn't leave him again. That should be good enough, shouldn't it? And yet... Jack would still drop everything for his doctor, without even really thinking about it. If he brought Ianto along, that just meant that Ianto would have to watch them. He'd see every look that passed between them and overhear every conversation and Jack would have that fucking look in his eyes the whole time and it would fucking hurt every bit as badly as being left alone again would. Jack's doctor wouldn't be the third wheel on that adventure, even if Jack and Ianto were shagging at every possible stop in the adventure.

"Ianto," Jack said, but he didn't reach out for Ianto. "Listen to me. Look at me." Ianto did, against his better judgement. "I need you. But you are not the only person I need and you are not the only person allowed to need me. Everything that I am, I am because of the Doctor. That matters, and that will always matter. I owe himeverything, and he is allowed to call me on that whenever he likes... but I'm not waiting for him. Those days are over. I found him, he diagnosed me, and I left him. I have a life here, with you. That's the life I chose, and that's the life I will choose every single time, as long as I have a choice. But I don't have a choice if he tells me he needs me."

"Do you love him?"

Jack thought about it a moment. "It's different."

"Different how?"

"Different... I imagine it's different the way your love for me is different from your love for Lisa." Ianto flinched. "Sorry, but hear me out... If she were still alive, you'd be with her right now. Not me."

"That isn't fair," Ianto said, though he couldn't really deny it. "If she were still alive, I'd have never met you." If she were still alive, they'd still be in London. Torchwood London would never have fallen, or if it did they'd both be survivors. Ianto had long ago stopped allowing himself to imagine that he ever could have saved her after the Battle of Canary Wharf.

"And wouldn't you be so much better off?" Jack laughed quietly, and Ianto recalled his earlier musings on what life with Lisa might have been like and certainly couldn't deny it, though he couldn't bring himself to smile. "There are relationships that give you life and there are relationships that kill you in incredible ways. It's the difference between a passion and an addiction and even though you can't imagine giving either of them up, one is so much more real. Don't tell me you wouldn't choose Lisa if you could. You would, for all the reasons why I chose and will choose you every time. I'm just... luckier than you are, for now."

And Ianto kissed him. Jack gasped into his lips but quickly got into it. They held each other tight and snogged each other thoroughly and it wasn't until Ianto felt the tears rolling down his cheeks that he realized he was crying. Jack seemed to realize it in the same moment, and he immediately broke the kiss and looked Ianto over.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Ianto said, wiping them away. He could have pushed the conversation one step further. He could have tried one last time to say the four letter word that Jack clearly didn't like. But he didn't. He'd loved Lisa, and on the absolute worst day of his life, he'd buried her, and to this day he had to remind himself to breathe whenever he thought about it. And he loved Jack too, and at 'for now,' Ianto had finally seen the future that Jack must have seen years ago, and he could hardly begrudge Jack anything that Jack thought would make that easier. He smiled when he thought he had his tears under control. "Let me take you out to dinner. You wanted to try the new Thai place..." Jack needed him. Jack had chosen him. And really, that was enough.
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