tampered | Log: Complete

Log: Complete

When; Late Sunday Night
Rating; R
Characters; Ianto Jones

king_coffee and Captain Jack Harkness

handsomejack
Summary; Ianto is Jack's confidant.
Log;

It was late, well okay actually it was early depending upon where you felt 3am really rested.

Jack had enjoyed an exciting evening of not being a mouse with Ianto and he'd even managed to catch a half hour light sleep once the younger man had drifted off. Waking, Jack had laid quietly with Ianto in his arms for almost 2 hours after that before his thoughts spurred him to movement.

Carefully replacing the warmth of his body with the warmth of his pillow in a genuine effort not to wake his sleeping lover, Jack got out of the bed. He stood for almost ten minutes, simply looking down at Ianto's peaceful features before leaning over and kissing him softly on the forehead. Then Jack moved over to the window. Sitting down on the floor, he leaned broad shoulders against the wall, unconcerned by his own nudity as he stared up out at the night sky, watching the stars spin overhead.

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Generally, if he was moved while sleeping, Ianto woke up straight away. It was how he'd always been, but somehow Jack had managed to find the one way to move him without even rousing him a little. Which was a good thing, as it had probably saved Ianto from many a sleepless night.

Sometimes, anyway.

He shifted a little, curling his arm tighter over Jack's pillow and turning his face half into his own, kicking the covers until they rested at his waist, rather than about his shoulders. Give it a little longer, and they'd probably end up on the floor.

He didn't dream much, never did when he'd spent a night with Jack, but something woke him all the same, and he half pushed himself up, gazing blearily about the room before his eyes caught a dark figure sitting against the wall, staring out of the window.

"S'there?" he asked, words more than a little slurred with sleep.

Turning to look over at the sleepy figure on the bed, Jack felt a genuine stab of regret that Ianto had been disturbed and he smiled softly.

"Yes," he whispered. "It's just me, go back to sleep, m' cara."

Another problem with the way Ianto slept was that once he woke up, he was staying awake. Unless something happened that tired him out again...

He stayed like that for a few seconds, half raised on his arms as he woke up fully, and then rolled over so he could sit up in the bed. "Not an option, now," he said, before he paused with a jaw-cracking yawn.

Yup, he was awake, now. "Something interesting out there?"

"Always," Jack said softly, shifting stiff shoulders against the wall as his eyes turned back to the night sky.

He fell silent for awhile then, though as if he realized it really wasn't fair to wake a man and then just leave him without any sort of response, Jack took a deep breath and turned dark eyes back towards Ianto.

"I'm feeling restless, Ianto." He admitted, which was actually a big step in their relationship because Jack rarely talked about how he was feeling.

"On Earth, I had the defense of the planet to focus on, I had my team and a purpose. It made being in one location bearable but without it, I keep feeling the pull of those stars, of Time and Space."

Ianto wasn't surprised.

He'd always thought that Jack was somehow a man that belonged to the stars, a traveller who wasn't really supposed to stay in one place for very long. In the early days, he;d often wondered why the older man had stuck around, but as time passed, it had become clear.

But then, even after going with the Doctor, Jack had come back to them, and despite everything Ianto hadn't cared to wonder after that.

"Do you feel trapped, here in the City?"

"Yes," Jack said honestly. "But it's more than that, I feel useless and that I should be somewhere I can be doing some good. As if I'm shirking my duties."

Sighing Jack rested his chin on his knees, the stars reflected in his blue eyes.

"There's so much out there, Ianto." He whispered. "So many races, so many threats and so much wonder."

Turning slightly he gave the other man an apologetic look.

"It's not that I'm not happy here with you," but the unspoken truth was, Ianto's lifespan was but a second in the thousands of centuries Jack was looking towards and in the end, his only companions would be the very stars that filled the night sky, calling to him.

It was something that they'd always known, that Ianto was going to die and that Jack wasn't. Not ever.

"I know it's not that," he said, "but I've always been a little sad that we only ever see the bad things come out of the rift. There's obviously so many better things out there."

After a minute, Ianto attempted to climb out of the bed, only getting a little frustrated with his legs tangling in the sheets. Usually he was quite graceful, but Ianto of the recently awoken was a somewhat clumsy creature.

He made it, though, without falling over and stood up.

Jack watched with his blue eyes carefully half hooded by his eyelashes so that Ianto wouldn't see the soft look of gentle amusement at the struggle with the bedsheets. Jack loved it when Ianto was still sleepy and not at his most coordinated because there was a softness a vulnerability to the independent young man that the immortal enjoyed getting to witness.

Holding his arm out, he invited Ianto over to his side to sit with him. As warm as the other man kept the room, he was perfectly comfortable being unclothed.

"It is sad," he agreed. "Because there is a lot of beauty out there, Ianto. Planets where snow lays like a soft white blanket across the entire surface but the sun shines warm from above, making the ice crystals dance with color."

And Ianto obliged, almost tripping only once as he made his way across the room, settling down next to Jack under his arm, no more ashamed of being naked than the older man was.

He might not want to appear so in a calendar for the girls, true, but of course Jack was a lot different.

"Sounds wonderful," he said, listening as Jack described the beauty of the planet, trying to imagine what it looked like although he knew he never really could without seeing it.

Wrapping his arm around Ianto, Jack held him close and believe it or not, he wasn't being inappropriately sexual.

Instead, he rested his head against Ianto and began to tell stories of other planets. Not the stories the Doctor told him, not of the wonder of Gallifrey, that was the Doctor's story to tell but of other wonderful places. Planets that had waterfalls that reflected the light of a hundred moons and two suns, places where there were nothing but books, a library that held all the literature of the stars, across wide galaxies.

Jack told stories of lands where celebrations like Madi Gras lasted for a year, where peoples that seemed humanoid could sing like birds and a water world where whale like creatures were some of the most brilliant linguists of the universe.

"I'm sorry I can't take you to such places," Jack said and he swallowed a little tightly at a lump in his throat. "I'm so sorry, Ianto that you, Tosh and Gwen only get to experience the bad."

Ianto listened the whole time, never speaking, but it was obvious he was listening to Jack's every word, drinking up everything he said, imagining that just maybe, he could one day see things like that for himself. Incredibly doubtful, of course, but he could dream.

He shifted a little closer to the older man as his final words, settling against him more comfortably. "It's not your fault. Someone has to do it, so everyone else doesn't have to, I don't mind. And I'm sure the others don't either."

"Still," Jack said, his arms tightening around Ianto.

It wasn't good to dwell on that which you couldn't change and in the end, Jack wasn't the Doctor. It wasn't for him to whisk people up in the TARDIS and travel across time and space to all those wonderful places, fight for all those wonderful species.

No, their job was to defend the Earth. To hold the line and protect the human race against the threats who would destroy it.

Kissing the top of Ianto's head, Jack went back to looking up at the stars.

"I'm sorry, m' cara. I guess I'm just not sure what to be doing with myself."

Much like back in the 1900s when Torchwood had first found him, a drunken sot, blabbing to any Tom, Dick or Harry about the Doctor, a danger to himself and the very planet he now helped to protect.

It was probably a good thing that Ianto had never known Jack like that.

He wound his arm about the other man just as tightly back, comfortable to sit there with Jack, the heat up high enough that they didn't get cold.

Ianto knew there wasn't much he could do to help Jack in an active sense, but he could still stay and be the other man's confidant, listen to him when he needed to be listened to, and offer the advice he thought would help.

"Everyone feels like that sometimes, and it's not surprising that you would more than most."

Jack sat there for awhile longer, watching the stars, longing for them in a way or perhaps longing for the puzzles they dropped through the Rift for he and his team. As close as they were, Ianto no doubt felt the flexing and forced relaxation of his body as he struggled with unspoken anger against the inactivity he was being forced into.

Eventually, Jack sighed and lowered his head.

"Come on," he whispered gently, again kissing Ianto's temple. "Let's get back into the bed, let you get some more sleep."

And he could, feel Jack moving and pushing his body to relax in a way that seemed a little unnatural, but considering their circumstances, it would have to do for now. He rubbed the older man's back, though, partly just to touch, and partly to show Jack that Ianto was there for him.

He turned his head after Jack kissed him, kissing the man's jaw in return.

"You know what I'm like," he said, shifting a little, "sleeping more might not happen. But then again, it might."

It meant a lot to Jack, that Ianto was there for him. After all they had been through, after all that he had been through ... he needed Ianto, he truly did.

"How about if I rub your back the way you like, would that help?"

"Hmm." Ianto appeared to muse on the situation.

"We'll never know until you try."

"Hedonist," Jack said affectionately as he crawled back up on the bed and patted the area beside him for Ianto to join him.

Once he had, Jack tried to coax the younger man to stretch out on his stomach as he shifted the sheet to cover them both up to their waists. Laying down on his side against Ianto, Jack reached over and began to softly rub soothing circles along the soft skin of his lover's back.

It didn't take very much coaxing to get Ianto to do so, as he was more than willing to let the other man manipulate him gently down onto the bed so he could have his back rub.

Ianto liked his back rubs.

He faced Jack, content to lay there as he didn't seem to be realising his eyes were getting heavier and heavier every time he blinked.

Jack couldn't help smiling to himself as he watched Ianto's beautiful blue eyes become more and more unfocused as the minutes rolled on.

He wasn't much for playing fair and when he thought the younger man was right at the edge, Jack gave him a little nudge in the form of softly starting to sing. Suo-Gan his old standby.

"Mn, cheater," Ianto managed, but he obviously didn't mind very much.

It wasn't long before he'd fallen asleep again, lulled by the older man's hands and voice.

Smiling around the words of the lullaby, Jack continued to stroke and sing until he was certain Ianto was back out. Then he settled in close to the younger man, curling is arm protectively over Ianto's lower back and resting his face against soft black hair.

Eyes closed, he let himself relax for a bit and rest in a heavy doze against his lover's warm, comforting body.

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Log: Complete

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