Torchwood: Jack/Ianto: Holding back

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Title: Holding back
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 442 - Resurrection
Summary: Jack thought he was protecting them, when he was only protecting himself.

They lay there, Jack's fingertips tracing idle patterns on Ianto's torso. He was enjoying the feeling of Jack's hand on his skin. He'd had sex plenty of times, but intimacy, this was new. They'd never found time for it before. Now they had the whole night together, avoiding their past selves. Suddenly they had nothing but time.

At first Jack hadn't said anything about what had happened to him, letting the silence hang between them like a jealous lover. Jack knew he wanted to make it up to Ianto for leaving, so he had to give him something. After a few minutes covering the basics of finding his Doctor, Martha Jones and the year one hundred billion, he found the rest of it spilling out of him like an overflowing dam. Soon he'd told Ianto everything, The Master, the endless torture,  watching his team being killed right in front of him. He couldn't stop himself even if he'd wanted to.

Ianto had so many questions, and Jack answered them without him uttering a single word, but there was one question he'd purposely not answered. It was the one Ianto wanted an answer for more than any; before John Hart, before the year that never was, before the Doctor. It was the very first question. He pulled himself close, head resting underneath Jack's chin.

'Why didn't you tell me?'

He knew that Jack was keeping dozens of secrets from him, as was his right, but this was something Ianto couldn't understand. Jack couldn't die. If there was a secret he should have shared, shouldn't it be this one?

Jack tensed in his arms, pulling away slightly, but Ianto didn't let go.

'I didn't want you to look at me like I was... wrong.'

Wrong. That wasn't a word from Jack's normal vocabulary. Someone had planted it there, and Ianto was pretty sure he knew who. Knowing Jack couldn't die wasn't what worried him; it was knowing Jack could die, and had, maybe dozens of times, and that no one had been there to help him

'Gwen knew.' That was all he could find words to say. 'Why?'

'She was there the night Suzie shot me in the head and then killed herself. Retcon wouldn't have worked, else I'd have done it. She was protecting me. Protecting you.'

'We wouldn't have loved you any less.'

What he meant was that he wouldn't have loved Jack any less, but he couldn't say those words,not yet. It was too soon for that. He wasn't sure that Jack loved him back.

'I wanted to. I just... couldn't ever find the right time.'

When would have been the right time? Before Ianto's cyber girlfriend killed him, after he'd killed her, after the cannibals had nearly killed them all, before Suzie resurrected, spilling the beans, the night he'd made his suicide pact with John, when he'd been rescued from 1941?

'Doesn't matter. We're here for you now.'

Yes, Ianto was here. That was all that mattered.

The considerably extended version can be found here.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Poor Jack. He puts on a good act, but underneath it there's such vulnerability, so much fear of being rejected. Ianto never would though.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

It's so true. Once I'd written it, I knew I wanted to write more and explore that. It's still early days, but Ianto is coming to see that there's much more to Jack than what he shows the rest of the world.

[bk_forever]

I saw you posted a much longer version to your journal, I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I will though =)