The moment Ianto was awake he was awake.  No slow rise, no semi-doze, no sleepy stretch and gradual realisation it was morning.  He was awake.  Jack, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have moved an inch since he’d passed out the previous night, and appeared very, very asleep.  Ianto was pleased to see that but not happy with the knowledge that his partner was catching up on five months of angst-riddled insomnia.  That was still almost too bizarre to believe.  One afternoon had cost Ianto five months of his life, and Jack…well, only time would tell what it had cost Jack, but Ianto knew from his own experiences that Jack would need to crawl rather than bounce back from this.

With the first intimation of Ianto leaving the bed, Jack stirred.

“Don’t go.”

Neither a command nor a plea, the hoarse request sounded empty, almost as if Jack had lived this dream so many times that he expected his words to be ignored, the phantom Ianto to be gone when he turned to reach for him.

“I’ll go, you’ll sleep without being disturbed by my fidgeting, then I’ll come back with breakfast and…”

“Don’t go.”

Ianto shuffled back to Jack and draped himself over the man’s motionless body.

“Are we talking special requests?” Ianto smiled, rubbing his bristly chin over Jack’s bare shoulder and his morning erection against Jack’s backside.  “Because, if that’s the case…”  Ianto’s hand slid over Jack’s waist and his fingertips explored lower, trailing over a semi-hard cock that rapidly responded to his touch.  Ianto’s lips moved to just behind Jack’s ear, his voice dropping low, deliberately husky.  “Shall I fuck you, Jack?  Here, like this, without you moving a muscle?  I remember one occasion when you simply…”  Ianto withdrew his hand and eased Jack onto his front, nudging his legs further apart.  “…and said…”

“Fuck me.”

“That’d be it.  Didn’t I call you a lazy bugger or something equally ungrateful?”  Jack mmmed his agreement; it sounded like a soft, erotic purr.  Ianto threw back the covers and leaned over to grope for lubricant in the drawer of the bedside cabinet.  “Ungrateful because I loved it, loved fucking you, always.  Always and…all ways.”

“Do it?”

Container found, Ianto left it to one side as he ran his hand over the newly exposed skin, looking for five month’s difference.  No scars or blemishes, just the loss of a little weight making Jack’s bone structure slightly more pronounced.  Ianto rolled over Jack, on hands and knees as he investigated the changes with lips, tongue, teeth, and Jack groaned as he made his way down the elegant spine, vertebra by vertebra, taking a late detour for the purpose of biting gently into Jack’s left buttock.  Jack wriggled so sexily that Ianto repeated the bite on his right buttock.

“Fuck me.”  That was both a command and a plea.  “Ianto…”

“Patience,” Ianto smirked, grinding his rough chin over the tooth-dimpled flesh.

“Five months,” Jack reminded him.  “Five loveless, sexless months.”

Okay, that touched a nerve.  Ianto stopped playing and pumped some slick onto his hand, drawing a wet love-heart on Jack’s lower back and letting the tail trail between Jack’s cheeks, leading to the moment when one slippery digit pressed into Jack’s body and his moan of relief arrowed straight to Ianto’s groin.

“I loved you every minute I was gone,” Ianto promised Jack.

“More.”

“More?  Umm…  I love you, I adore you, I worship you with my mind and body.  In fact my entire world revolves around you, your swollen head, and your glorious arse.”  Jack laughed into the pillow.  “Or did you mean more of…this?” Ianto asked lightly, pushing another finger inside him, probing and twisting, enjoying Jack’s shudder of absolute pleasure.

“Tease.”

“Is that an accusation, or a request, because…”

Ianto’s fingers began a slow withdrawal…

“Ianto.”

…but staged a rapid reversal.

“I want to take my time.  I keep promising myself long, luxuriant sessions that take two hours to get to the point of penetration, but the moment I have you like this there’s every chance it’s going to be over within ten minutes.”

“I’ll settle for that.”

“Should’ve brought the stopwatch home.”

“Two minutes.  That’ll do it after so long.”

“Poor Jack,” Ianto affectionately taunted as he returned to biting the nearest buttock.

With a frustrated moan, Jack began to rise to his elbows and knees, obviously more than ready to take what he wanted; Ianto quickly pushed him down again, holding him there with one hand on the small of his back while the other slid free and reached for more slick.  A quick swipe over his erection and Ianto was ready to give Jack what he needed, kneeing Jack’s legs further apart and arranging himself comfortably before slowly guiding his cock into Jack’s body.

“Good,” Jack murmured as Ianto pressed inside him, “oh, that’s…good.”

Ianto groaned with the effort of holding back as he made the first few strokes gentle and considerate, but a sudden rapid-fire tirade of demands and encouragement from Jack made it impossible to sustain that tempo for long.  The thrusts became faster and deeper, the tight, slippery passage sucking delectably at Ianto’s cock.  Before too long, Jack’s muscles began clenching around him, so fiercely that it had to be deliberate.

“You want me to…?” Ianto gasped.

“Uh-huh.”

“Fuck.”

“Fourteen,” Jack said breathlessly.

“Fourteen what?”

“Minutes.”

Ianto found himself giggling and panting, winding and dipping his hips in the hope of somehow lessening the effects of Jack’s spasming muscles, and aiming for an ambitious twenty minutes.  Not a chance.  Ianto’s attempts to avoid stimulation had simply supplied more for Jack, who let out a strangled cry as his back arched; Ianto instinctively thrust hard, grinding and pumping as Jack insisted on more, more, more.  Ianto supplied as much more as he could manage, but it wasn’t long before he juddered to a halt, brain scrambled and bones dissolved by pure ecstasy.

Ianto zoned out and in; Jack was laughing into the pillow, the usual outpouring of happiness that followed a successful coupling.

“Damn, I needed that.  So good,” he gleefully declared; Ianto wasn’t about to argue.

“Love you, Jack,” Ianto mumbled before kissing Jack’s shoulders and limply dragging himself off and to the side of Jack’s body.

“Seventeen,” Jack chuckled.  “We have to practise.”

“Practise, yes,” Ianto agreed, smiling and slumping and heroically passing out.

Jack took a long look at Ianto, reassuring himself that all was well.  All was more than well.  Ianto was here and physically whole and psychologically undamaged and…Jack’s.  Moving closer to his lover and succumbing to his own ongoing languor, Jack drifted off to sleep feeling highly contented.  More than contented.  Complete.

…

Jack refused to let himself overreact when he woke up alone.  Ianto was back, he was around the house somewhere, he’d held him in the night, fucked him early morning, Ianto was back.  So why did the house feel as empty as it had for the past five months?

Slipping into Ianto’s purple dressing gown, Jack hurried downstairs and, out of habit, straight to the kitchen.  On the counter was an envelope, ‘Tesco’ written across the back in Ianto’s handwriting.  Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down, Jack checked every room, quick to notice that everywhere was spotless and tidy, and items that Jack had misplaced when he’d unpacked for Ianto were back in their correct locations.  He hurried back upstairs to retrieve his phone from his coat pocket, sat on the bed, and called Ianto’s number.  The fearful anticipation of dead air was short-lived: the connection was immediately made, and Ianto answered within four rings.

“Yes, Jack?”

“Where are you?”

“Wines and spirits.  Any requests?”

“No.  I just needed to hear your voice.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Sorry.  I should’ve stayed in, shouldn’t I.  But there was nothing much in the fridge and I wanted to spoil you with breakfast in bed.  Lunch in bed, rather.”

“It’s okay.”

“I was counting on you still being asleep when I got back.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sound like you mean it.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll be home soon.  Sure there’s nothing special you fancy?”

“Just you.”

“You’re so predictable,” Ianto chuckled.

“How long will you be?”

“Depends on the check-out.  Half-an-hour or so?  Stop worrying, Jack.  Remember, I never went anywhere.”

“Don’t be long.  Please, don’t be long.”

Ianto wasn’t, but it didn’t stop Jack greeting him at the front door as if he’d been away for years.  Ianto fended Jack off and managed to make it to the kitchen to unpack the groceries, shooing away all offers of assistance in a bid to preserve the reinstated order of his fridge and cupboards.

“You kept the love spoon,” Ianto observed, nodding to where the object in question was propped on the window sill.

“I had to.  Everything it meant…”  Ianto glanced at Jack, obviously curious.  “I looked it up,” Jack explained, “and I understood why you chose this one.  The symbolism: the love, the two becoming one, keys for the joining of households.  It’s very special.”

“It means all that?  I just thought it was the nicest one I had in stock,” Ianto grinned.

“You—  Never.”

Ianto laughed and successfully deflected another of Jack’s advances; Jack dithered in the doorway until Ianto was finished, then launched a fresh attack, revelling in the fact he could kiss and hold his partner again and reluctant to let go, even as Ianto prised him away just so he could catch his breath.

“You said we need to talk,” Ianto reminded Jack as he guided him into the living room and onto the sofa.  “Let’s get it over with.”

Jack sighed and sank back in his seat.

“Yes.”

“I don’t mind if…”

“I have to.  You’re right, get it over with.  Get it over with.”  Jack stopped to think, to compose his words, or at least try to.  It wasn’t happening.  “I’ve had this speech prepared for months and now…  You keep doing this to me.  I know what I’m going to say until I’m face-to-face with you and then I’m…I’m…”

“Speechless?” Ianto suggested with a kind smile.

Jack stared at him for a long moment.

“I love you so much.  And before you disappeared I told you you didn’t deserve it.  How could I have been so…”

“I didn’t pay any attention to that.”

“You didn’t?”

“Of course not, I recognise when it’s all noise.  So, unless you reiterate it now…”

“Not a chance.  Not.  A.  Chance.”

A further two seconds of thought and Jack was back on his feet, restlessly pacing.  Ianto watched and waited, and waited, and eventually felt obliged to prompt,

“Are you angry with me for something?”

“I am angry, yes, but not with you.”

“Then…?”

“I’m angry with myself.”

“Why, what have you done?”

“It’s what I didn’t do.  I didn’t think.  You told me you couldn’t forgive me for leaving you and I thought you were being unreasonable.  I imagined I understood because I’d been left too, I knew what it was like.”

“I know all that.”

“There’s nothing like learning the hard way, is there,” Jack said with a humourless laugh at his own expense.  “There’s one hell of a difference between people you love abandoning you and knowing they’re okay, and the person you love most disappearing without a trace, and not knowing, never knowing.  If you’d had any choice in what happened to you, if you’d left me the way I left you, then…I’m not sure I’d be able to forgive you either.  Ianto, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for even asking.”

“Then…  You don’t…”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness, no.  And if I’d stopped to think, really think, I wouldn’t have insulted you by expecting it.”

While Jack continued to pace, Ianto picked over what Jack had told him – was showing him – and came to an easy conclusion.  Not prepared to see Jack suffer a moment longer, he rose and stepped in front of the captain to bring him to a halt, cupping his face in his hands and giving him a gentle kiss.

“I forgive you.”  Jack looked stunned; Ianto kissed him a second time.  “I told you I couldn’t forgive you until you realised you didn’t deserve it.  You understand now.  If you understand then this has gone far enough.  I forgive you.”  Ianto embraced Jack, a gesture that perfectly matched the very genuine warmth in his voice.  “Thank you for coming back.”

Jack groaned and hugged Ianto.

“You too.”

“I never went anywhere.”

“But you went nowhere for so long.  You’re not going to leave me for another six months now, are you?”

“I…”

“’Cause you’ve already been gone for five months and approximately sixteen centuries.”

“I…”

“And please, please, please tell me you’ve given up any stupid ideas about going to London.”

“Jack.  Stop for breath.”

“Okay,” Jack complied, body tense as he waited for Ianto’s answers.

“You have to agree to my conditions before I’ll even think about staying.”

“Ianto…”

“I will leave, Jack, if I need to.  It’ll break my heart, but I will go.”  Jack gave a grim nod; Ianto pressed on: “I need your word that I’m going to be allowed to face the same…challenges…as your other employees.”

“Don’t ask me to risk you,” Jack begged, “not after…”

“I’m asking you to train me, to let me gain experience, not to put me at risk.  There’ll be no more joking about dying horribly, we need to chase that idea right out of your head.  You want to keep me safe?  Then keep me safe by training me well.  Give me a real chance and I promise I’ll never let you down.”

“It’s not that I doubt your ability, I just…”

“If I’m staying in Cardiff, I have to be a full member of the team, otherwise…what’s the point?” Ianto insisted, giving Jack no room to manoeuvre.  Jack’s hold on Ianto tightened.  “Jack…”

“All right, all right.”

“Promise.”

“You have my word.”

“Swear on my life.”

“I—  No.”

“I’ll start packing this minute.”

“All right!  I swear, I absolutely swear.  I’ll train you, you’ll be in the field, you’ll…have whatever you want,” Jack concluded with a sigh.

“Thank you,” Ianto smiled.

“Just…can we take it slowly?”

“Of course we can,” Ianto agreed.  “I’m not running an experiment to prove whether or not you can be frightened to death.”

“If anyone could do it…”

Ianto laughed and gave Jack a brisk kiss.

“I’m glad that’s sorted; it’s deferred your punishment over cancelling my transfer.”

“Which you wanted me to do.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?”

“You have my forgiveness – don’t push your luck.”

“Your forgiveness,” Jack mused.  “For you it’s only a day since I made you angry enough to walk out on me.  It’s not like you to let that go so easily.”

“I know,” Ianto agreed, nodding thoughtfully, “I know what I’m usually like.  But…it’s all so small.  This existence, this speck of time I’m living in, it’s miniscule.  Life really is too short, Jack.  Well, for some of us.”  Ianto hugged Jack and was almost crushed by the bear hug he received in return.  “I was thinking about this as I drove back to Cardiff: even after all that I’d experienced it was you my thoughts returned to, time after time, the wish that I could’ve shared that journey into the future with you.  I want us to share everything in our speck of time.  I don’t care how difficult it is, I don’t care if we fight every minute of every day until our problems are resolved, I have to be with you.  You know how bloody-minded I can be, and I’ve made the decision.  I’m ready to take a chance.  In fact, I insist upon it.”

“That sounds…wonderful.”

“Besides, I love you.  Even when you’re behaving like a complete arse I love you.”

“Thank you.”

“And at least one of us has to behave like an adult.”

“Yeah,” Jack sighed contentedly.  “You.  Let it be you.”  He was about to kiss Ianto when he suddenly pulled back.  “Wait.  If you’d made up your mind that we were going to be together here, how come you could still blackmail me into agreeing to give you what you want regarding Torchwood?”

“Stop thinking.”

“You crafty…”  With a chuckle Ianto kissed Jack, muffling the string of insults.  It was, admittedly, a short string: Jack’s interest soon switched from haranguing Ianto to fondling his delectable backside.  “Can we go back to bed?” Jack suggested, already guiding Ianto toward the door.

“Rather than back to bed, can we go back to normal?  Old-fashioned normal.  Heavy on sanity and stopwatches, light on stalking and over-possessiveness?  Can you even do normal anymore?”

“You thought that I didn’t care about you back then.”

“Selectively normal,” Ianto revised his request.

Jack considered and hmmed.

“I suppose I have been a little…”

“More than a little.”

“Yes, a lot, okay.  Maybe we can discuss how much in bed.”

Ianto suddenly stood his ground.

“No.”

“No?”

“Don’t look like that, it’s not like I’ve gone off you.”

“Then…?”

“I have to go to work,” Ianto said firmly.

“You—  No!  No work!”

“I have to get rid of that tree.”

Jack leaned back to see if Ianto was serious.  Apparently.

“This minute?” he asked in disbelief.

“Soon.”

“Monday.”

“Sooner.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Sooner.”

“It can wait.”

“I’d only be an hour or so.”

“Oh, sure, an hour for the tree, then you’d start doing all the other stuff and…”

“What other stuff?” Ianto asked suspiciously.

“Hey, know what we’ve forgotten?” Jack announced brightly, desperate to change the subject before he lost Ianto to the Hub for the remainder of the weekend.  “Car keys.”

“Car keys?”

“Yours.  Where?”

“Hall table.”

Gesturing a ‘stay right where you are’, Jack hurried away to bring in the bags of Christmas presents that were still in the Rover’s boot.  Ianto watched through the window, admiring the view: Jack, uncombed hair, white t-shirt, dark grey trousers (nothing underneath, and he could always tell), bare-armed, bare-footed, and devastatingly sexy with it.  Jack noticed he was under observation and gave Ianto one of his zillion-kilowatt smiles as he trotted back up the path, and it lasted until he was back in the living room, putting down the bags, and tugging Ianto into his arms for an enthusiastic smooch.

“Happy Christmas,” Jack wished Ianto as he released him and went rummaging for certain gifts.

“It’s May.  Allegedly.”

“It’s May.  Here.  From Gwen…Owen…and Tosh.”

It took a few seconds for that to sink in.

“From…  You all did that, all exchanged…”

“Yes, we did.”

“I thought it was just you.”

Jack shrugged disarmingly and Ianto shook his head in bemusement, then sat on the floor with Jack and took the first of the presents, the one from Gwen.  It was a complicated kit to make a two-foot tall robotic giraffe.

“All the instructions are in Japanese,” Jack explained, “but Tosh can translate where necessary and at least you’ll be able to get this one out of the autopsy room without a transporter.”

“We never heard Gwen’s solution to the original problem.”

“You know Gwen,” Jack grinned as they studied the impenetrable instruction book.  “She’d’ve reasoned with it, talked it ‘round..”

“Empathised, sympathised…”

“Patronised…”

Ianto elbowed Jack in the ribs, but it didn’t stop them giggling over their colleague’s humane but often unrealistic approach to their work before Ianto reached for the next present, the one from Owen.

“Owen,” Ianto shook his head in disbelief.  “Is this going to explode in my face?”

Ianto risked peeling up a corner of the wrapping paper and taking a peek beneath; within seconds, the rest of the paper had been ripped off and thrown aside.  Owen’s present was completely practical and well-timed – a sophisticated new GPS that would come in very handy since the anomaly had screwed up the Rover’s existing system.

“We did a little work on it,” Jack explained.  “Our computers can track its signature just about anywhere, even retrospectively.  You’re never going to go missing again, not in this galaxy at least.”

“Seriously?”

“What good is all the alien tech we have access to if we don’t hijack a little of it occasionally?”

“We should all have one of these,” Ianto suggested.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, making a mental note.

Toshiko’s present was an unmarked CD.  Ianto went to where his laptop sat on the dining table and booted it up, inserting the disc and soon realising which programme was being loaded.

“CJ!” Ianto exclaimed.  “She gave me CJ!”

Jack recalled Gwen joking about Captain Jack, available for download, and waited patiently to meet his technological counterpart.  Ianto went to rummage in a drawer and came back with a microphone, which he plugged into a USB port.

“Captain,” Ianto addressed the computer, “can you check my mail for me, please.”

“You want mail?” Jack’s voice emerged from the speaker, dripping salaciousness.  “Get your ass over here, I’m all the male you’ll ever need.”

Ianto laughed and the real Jack fell back on the floor, guffawing.  As his e-mail programme opened, Ianto unplugged the microphone and started to click through the messages in the inbox.

“Tosh sent the photographs through,” Ianto told Jack excitedly, “the ones I took yesterday.  She’s enhanced them and…  Look at this.  I can barely believe it happened.”

“Five months,” Jack said, all humour lost, the hurt in his voice prompting further and immediate TLC.

Ianto abandoned the laptop and returned to Jack, falling to his knees beside where his partner was sprawled on the carpet and crawling over him.

“I have this constant need to keep reminding you I had no choice.”

Jack shook his head, grasped Ianto’s shoulders, and pulled him down for a kiss.  A slow roll placed Jack above Ianto but, just when things were beginning to get interesting, Ianto found himself groping thin air as Jack disappeared back to the pile of unopened presents, selecting one and holding it out to Ianto.

“Here, this one.  From me, all the rest are from me.”

“At the risk of sounding like CJ, I’m rather more interested in unwrapping you.”

Jack visibly wavered, but his resolve won out

“This, c’mon.”

Ianto sat up and took the brightly adorned gift, peeling away the paper and ribbons, pausing before he opened the box inside.

“I wanted to get you something nice, Jack, but I didn’t get the chance.  The book was a joke and…”

“Next year,” Jack promised, gesturing for him to get a move on.

Ianto removed the box’s lid and the protective layer of foam packing.  The verging-on-wary expression turned to pleasure.

“That’s very elegant.”  He removed the tie pin Jack had bought in Vienna and closely examined it.  “Beautiful, in fact.”

“It matches your cufflinks.”

“Yes.  Back to suits, then.  Can I take it that your bit of rough has had his day?”

“No way.”

“Really?” Ianto grinned, and started to put the pin back in its box before changing his mind and poking it though the material of his t-shirt, wearing it like a badge.

“That came from Vienna,” Jack explained.

The sadness in Jack’s voice drew Ianto’s eyes to him.

“You went alone?”

“I had this crazy idea that you might show up.  I went to all the places you’d told me you wanted to visit, and I kept thinking I saw you and—  Doesn’t matter.  Doesn’t matter, you’re back now, you’re here.”

Ianto’s sympathy met Jack’s persistent ache, and he soothingly stroked Jack’s forearm.

“We can book again, whenever you like.”

With a quick shake of the head, Jack moved on, finding another specific present, sitting and staring unsurely at it before handing it over.

“Okay…  I’m sorry if I’ve crossed a line here.”

Ianto frowned curiously, unable to help his hesitation.

“What sort of line?”

“Just…”  Jack motioned to the present and Ianto took the prompt, tearing off the wrapping.

Inside was a double frame made from dark brown leather; Ianto relaxed a little, thinking it might be naughty pictures of Jack, but when he opened the frame the smile froze on his face and he fell completely still.  On the left, painstakingly reconstructed, was a picture of young Ianto and his mother, the damaged original having been scanned and repaired, literally pixel by pixel; the photo on the right was an enlargement of one in Ianto’s album, an affectionate portrait of the grandmother who’d taken him in when he was eleven.

“You read…”  Ianto cleared his throat, attempting to shift the hoarseness.  “You read everything, you said.”

“Yes.  I knew from your personnel file that your mother was dead, but I never imagined…  I’m so sorry, Ianto.”

Ianto ignored the sentiment, much as he had since discovering at too early an age that it was the only way for him to cope.  Instead, he indicated the frame, the pictures.

“Thank you for this.  I never had the courage to sort something out.”

“It was my pleasure.”  Jack brushed a fingertip over Ianto’s image.  “Cute kid.”

“Not that you’re biased.”

“Cuter man.”

“Did you send the cards?” Ianto suddenly shot off on a tangent.  “They were ready to post: the Christmas cards.  There are a couple of cousins; I never see them, but I wouldn’t want them to worry.  The other way around, I’d worry.”

“I mailed them…”

“Thank you.”

“…and everything you received is in the drawer.”

Ianto took a sharp, deep breath.

“That five months is suddenly starting to feel real.  I’m not sure I want to think about it.  Talk to me.”

“I kept the card you gave me on my desk.  If I wanted to piss Owen off when he was being obnoxious I’d let the tune play: drove him crazy, drove everyone crazy.  The battery went flat by February, and that’s probably the only thing that prevented me being murdered by my own people.”

Ianto’s attention had already returned to the photographs.

“I keep thinking I’ve forgotten my mum.  More than that: panicking over it.  I’m frightened I’ll forget her face.”

“You can see her every day now, that will help.  And I want you to tell me all about her.”  Ianto seemed about to say something more, but changed his mind.  Jack allowed him that, shuffling closer and slipping an arm around his back.  “You take that picture of your grandmother?”

Ianto nodded.

“She was lovely, my gran.  Too old to take on a kid, really, she was well into her thirties when she had my mum.  After…well, what happened, I pleaded to go with her.  She probably should have said no, enjoyed her old age in peace and quiet.  But she took me on without a fuss, and only asked for two things: I had to promise to study hard, and to be a tidy boy.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Not much of a price for getting away from him.  So I studied hard, and was a tidy boy.  She told me I never disappointed her,” Ianto smiled sadly.  “I absolutely adored her.  She died when I was twenty.  Peacefully.”

“From everything I read, she must have been a remarkable woman.”

“Yes, she was, truly.  They both were.”  Tears filled Ianto’s eyes and he furiously blinked them away.  “Thank you for this,” Ianto repeated.

Equally as tearful, Jack pulled Ianto to him, holding his lover as tightly as Ianto clutched the frame.

“I’m nothing like your father,” Jack promised.

“I know.”

“But I understand how his actions…”

“No, that’s just me.  The need for fidelity is inbuilt, it’s not learnt.”

“You’re telling me it’s a coincidence?  His behaviour, what it lead to, and that particular characteristic in you?”

“I’m my mum’s boy, my gran’s boy.  ‘A real Jones’ my gran used to call me, and all the Joneses have a streak of loyalty a mile wide.  They expect nothing less from the people closest to them.  I’m no different.”

“I appreciate that.”

“My mum was…unlucky.”

“But not you.  You are lucky.  I’m never going to let you down.”

“I don’t want to…”

“I can be completely faithful to you, just tell me that’s what you need.”

“It should be your choice.”

“It is.  I swear it is, but…tell me.  I have to hear that you want me that much.”

Ianto remembered the conclusion he’d come to about Jack’s insecurities, that Jack didn’t believe anyone ever loved him enough to ask him to stay faithful.  Surely it was ridiculous to respect Jack to the point of making him feeling unwanted?  A glance at Jack’s expectant face and Ianto took a deep breath, choosing his words very carefully as he sought an acceptable compromise.

“Jack…  I love you too much to share you.”

The tears were back in Jack’s eyes.

“Then you won’t.  Ever.”

Ianto gave in to the laughter that bubbled up at that statement.  Jack grinned too, kissing and hugging him.

“Is it really as simple as that?” Ianto asked.

“It seems to be.”

“Did you figure out why you need me to sound like some over-possessive twentieth-century throwback?”

Jack gave a brisk nod.

“It’s ingrained.  Instinctive.  Imagine a time and place where, unless you state exactly what you want, you get nothing.”

“I suppose,” Ianto said thoughtfully, “that could work.  In principle.  No misunderstandings, and…”

“No commitment unless it’s demanded.  Nothing is taken for granted.  It’s…personal freedom gone mad.”

“That time and place would be…?”

“Where I come from.”

“Where you come from,” Ianto said quietly, thinking of his recent experiences.  “I suppose you still won’t tell me about it.”

“Yes, I will,” Jack smiled softly at his own bittersweet memories of the future, his past.  “Anything and everything you want to know.  My life is…yours.”

Ianto stared into Jack’s eyes and finally accepted.

“You’ve changed.”

“I have.  And you can trust me.”

Yes, and somehow…that felt pretty obvious.

“I do.”

Prising the frame from Ianto’s grip, Jack carefully set it aside before knocking Ianto backwards and following him down to the floor, kissing him passionately as his hands wormed their way under clothing, humping Ianto’s thigh with swiftly growing arousal.  Ianto responded enthusiastically until a particular wriggle led to a yelp that had Jack jumping away in surprise.

“What did I do?”

Ianto reached underneath himself and groped around, face like thunder as he produced a long dead pine needle.

“This little bugger stabbed me…you don’t need to know where.”  Jack began to giggle but it was short-lived.  “I have to go to work,” Ianto said with steely determination as he scrambled to his feet and examined the carpet for any further needles.  “The furnace and I have an appointment with a tree.”

“Ianto…”

“You’re welcome to come along if you don’t want to let me out of your sight.”

“Ianto?”  Ianto looked to where Jack was still laying on the floor, propped up his elbows, sexy, gorgeous, inviting, and certainly not shy about the stiff cock that was tenting his trousers.  Ianto was weakening, Jack saw that, and he smiled alluringly.  “The tree will still be there in an hour.”

Unfortunately for Jack, Ianto took that as a challenge rather than a dismissal.

“You’re right, it bloody-well will be if I don’t do anything about it.  I’ll just get a few things to take with me, I don’t know what our stores are like at work, does anyone bother to re-stock the cleaning supplies or…”

Jack switched off Ianto’s voice in his head and sighed to himself.  His Ianto.  Very typically his Ianto.  Resigned to the Hub, Jack stood and crossed to the laptop, clicking for the option to shut down.

“If you want to be turned off,” purred his own voice from the speaker, “you’re asking the wrong guy.”

Jack couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cringe, but Ianto had heard and was sniggering as he came back into the room.  An arm looped around Jack’s waist as Ianto pressed against his back, lips brushing tantalisingly soft kisses over the nape of Jack’s neck.

“Sometimes,” Ianto nonchalantly explained, “the furnace room gets so hot I have to strip completely naked to work in there.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack grinned, winding his fingers with Ianto’s.

“Very, very hot,” Ianto whispered into Jack’s ear, lips caressing the helix and sending a shiver through Jack, head to toe.  “Just thought I’d mention it, no secrets and all that.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

“Have you decided yet, if you’re…”

“Yes, I think I can safely say I’ll be coming with you.”

Jack swivelled and, in one smooth move, swept Ianto across to a convenient wall where he could trap him, grabbing his wrists and pinning his hands above his head.

“Me or a tree, and you pick a tree?” Jack questioned Ianto’s sanity.  “A dead tree?”

The amusement in Ianto’s eyes was too provocative for words and Jack groaned and leaned in, crushing Ianto’s body against the wall with his own, grinding his uncomfortably trapped erection into Ianto’s groin and feeling a rapid response.

“You shouldn’t take it personally,” Ianto told Jack with unbelievable calmness.  Unbelievable indeed: Jack separated their bodies by several inches and that pretence of calmness was betrayed by the sudden and urgent thrust of Ianto’s hips as he pursued lost contact.  “Jack.”

“You shouldn’t take it personally,” Jack grinned, letting the hottest gaze slide down Ianto’s body to where his cock was distorting the denim that confined it.  With a slow precision that made Ianto feel quite mad with desire, Jack lined their erections up and leant back in before performing a leisurely roll of his hips.  As Ianto groaned something quite indiscernible, Jack’s mouth settled upon his neck, bestowing rough, toothy kisses that brought about a rush of gasps and expletives.  Another roll of Jack’s hips and Ianto had had enough teasing; he easily slid his right hand free of Jack’s grasp and wriggled it between their bodies to grab Jack’s erection, massaging the rigid flesh through increasingly damp material.

“Want to fuck me, Jack?” Ianto offered, squeezing and pulling so determinedly that Jack was left near speechless.  “Want to fuck me?”

One nod from Jack was all the motivation Ianto needed: Jack found himself being bundled out of the living room and up the stairs, Ianto shoving him along until they tumbled onto the bed.  Several frantic kisses later, Ianto was back on his feet, practically ripping off their clothes, grabbing the lube from the bedside cabinet and, ignoring Jack’s outstretched hand, pumping some onto his own fingers.  He knelt on the bed, straddling Jack’s legs just out of easy reach, and prepared himself.  Jack’s groan of sheer lust as he watched Ianto’s slicked fingers sink into his own body was almost his undoing; Ianto gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, concentrating on readying his body to accept Jack, refusing to hear the whisper of hand on flesh as Jack took the edge off his frustration.

“Want me, Jack?” Ianto demanded again as his eyes snapped open and one look froze Jack’s hand in place.

“Please,” came the whispered reply.  “Please.”

Ianto gave Jack a devilish smile and repositioned himself, smacking Jack’s hands away and wiping the last of the lube onto Jack’s cock before guiding the glans to his opening.  Indulging Jack’s love of contact, Ianto locked eyes with his partner as he accepted Jack’s cock into his body, grunting with a mixture of effort and pleasure as he hurried the joining.  Jack’s hands scrabbled for purchase, fingers digging into the muscles of Ianto’s thighs as he sought to slow everything down.  Ianto paused in his descent.

“Too much?” he asked.

“I am so—  You’ve got to remember, it’s been five months.”

“This morning…”

“Doesn’t make up for five months.”

Ianto nodded his understanding and fell forward, catching himself on his arms and lowering to kiss Jack, feeling the grip on his thighs relax as Jack began to slowly, gently, fuck him from beneath.  It wasn’t long, though, before he felt the need to sit back, be full, and he shivered with delight as he settled comfortably in the cradle of Jack’s hips.

“I need to be fucked,” he admitted.

“I can tell.”

“Hard and fast.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to fuck me blind.”

Now it was Jack catching Ianto by surprise, a fast roll and he was already thrusting into Ianto before they’d stopped turning, their kisses fevered until Ianto tore his mouth away so he could suck in breaths that hitched and caught with each of Jack’s strokes.

“This is it,” Jack panted into Ianto’s ear.  “I love you and this is it.  You don’t get rid of me, ever.”

The delivery sounded more threat than promise but Ianto was laughing as Jack’s hand slid between them and grasped his cock; one hard jerk and the laughter merged into a cry of release, Ianto bucking against Jack and ensuring this orgasm became frantic and mutual.

In the afterglow they seemed to melt into one another, unmoving and contented.  But Jack sensed when Ianto started to think, to review.

“Ever,” Ianto murmured into the stillness.

“Ever,” Jack confirmed as quietly.

There was a brief pause for further thought.

“Mean it,” from Ianto: not a question.

“I mean it.”

Ianto shuffled about, meeting Jack’s eyes and giving him a soft, satisfied smile.

“I think we can be very happy.”

“I know we can.”

Accepting that, Ianto snuggled and relaxed, looking forward to a nice doze and…

“Shit.”

Jack didn’t even have to ask what.

“Tree,” he sighed.

Within seconds Ianto was up and resuming his preparations to go into work and introduce what remained of the Christmas tree to their furnace.  Jack observed him with wry amusement, this hard-working, tidy boy.

“I love you,” he called as Ianto disappeared down the stairs.

“I love you too,” Ianto reciprocated.  “Now get off your arse and start thinking hacksaw.  Hacksaw and bin bags.  Actually, I’m sure there was a rubble sack…”

Jack chuckled as he dragged himself up to sit on the edge of Ianto’s—  The edge of their bed.  Hacksaw and bin bags, he considered.

“Ianto Jones.”

He wouldn’t have him any other way.

Attrition 36       Alternate Ending       Attrition Index       Attrition Notes

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