Title: Moving Forward
By: nancy
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Jack and Ianto take a step forward after the Cyberwoman debacle.
Rating: R

***

It didn’t take much to get Gwen to vent about what had happened. A simple question and she was cursing Jack’s actions up one side and down the other. Ianto was appalled. Not by Jack’s actions, but by her reaction to them. She went on and on about how cold he’d been, how cruel, how utterly unrepentant, which certainly didn’t track with the silent, hurting man Ianto had seen enter the hub.

When she took a breath, pausing to glare over at Jack’s office to where the man had retreated the moment the team had returned, Ianto asked, “And what, precisely, would you have had him do?”

The glare turned on him and she demanded, “What?”

“What else could he have done?” Ianto pressed politely, but earnestly. “The girl was already theirs, probably had been before we came on the scene. Give her up or have the world destroyed. The choice doesn’t seem very difficult to me.”

Her mouth opened a little in shock. “She was a little girl, Ianto! She didn’t know what she was doing. We should have found a way.”

Ianto shook his head and countered, “Against beings that powerful, I fail to understand how you think Jack’s actions were anything but the only ones possible.”

“Ianto, you don’t understand…”

Coolly, he interrupted, “I understand that you’re crucifying Jack for something that could have had no other outcome. I thought better of you, Miss. Good evening.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing her go to Jack’s office later that evening on her way out and the two of them sharing hesitant smiles. It probably wouldn’t have seemed like much to anyone else. To Ianto, who still counted himself lucky to be allowed to remain near Jack after his colossal lapse in judgment, it was a great relief. Despite their recent…understanding…Ianto felt discretion to be the better part of valor and approached Jack with caution still. The touch to his back that first night of the investigation of the faery had been a shock, but a highly welcome one. That warm, firm touch hovered like a phantom even days later.

It wasn’t until the others left the hub, once again, that Ianto gathered his courage to approach Jack. Tapping on the door before he poked his head in, Ianto asked softly, “May I get you something, Sir?”

Jack offered a tired smile and shook his head. “Thanks, Ianto, I’m good.”

Stepping inside, Ianto replied, “If I may say, Sir, you don’t look fine.”

Jack’s lips twisted into a wry almost-smile and he questioned with a kind of morbid curiosity, “How do I look?”

“Tired. A bit lost, perhaps. Like sleeping for a week would do you a world of good,” Ianto answered honestly.

“Don’t hold back now, no beating around the bush, Ianto.”

Ianto half-smiled and reminded, “No more lies between us, Sir.”

“No, no of course not,” Jack agreed, giving Ianto a considering look. “Tell me, Ianto, did I do the right thing?”

Ianto thought a moment before telling him, “You did the only thing you could, Sir. Whether or not that was right, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t feel that I can judge. I believe you had no choice and that it was what you should have done, if that helps.”

Something seemed to ease in the other man and Jack’s smile was slightly less bitter as he stood and said, “It does, thank you.”

As Jack approached him, Ianto stayed perfectly still. Much like a wild thing, Jack could react far too quickly and with a randomness that drove Ianto mad sometimes. And not in a good way. Jack cupped his face again, much like in weeks past, and brought him in for a slow, deep kiss. Ianto sighed into it, opening his mouth with a longing that surprised him. Jack made a noise in his throat at that and deepened the kiss further. The press of his tongue into Ianto’s mouth tickled a bit along his palate, the taste of coffee spreading slowly over his own tongue as they tangled.

Ianto’s body reacted slowly to the intimacy. His hands gripped Jack’s hips right away, steadying himself, but otherwise it was only his heart pounding in emotion. The heat rose slowly, his body languid as Jack pressed him against the wall when he hadn’t even realized they’d moved. The kiss went on and on with only snatched breaths to break it up. Ianto couldn’t remember a snogging session that ever lasted so long before.

Jack kissed him with an intensity that scared him a bit, even as he responded to it at long last. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, under his dress shirt. His cock stirred under neatly pressed pants and boxer shorts. Aside from their mouths, the only other point of contact was Jack’s hand on Ianto’s face and he felt that lack as an ache in his gut.

He knew with a certainty that was breathtaking on its own that this man was the only thing he needed, despite the fact that he had no desire for any other man and never had. He moaned with it, opening his mouth in further invitation, though his jaw began to ache in a mildly unpleasant fashion. Jack took the invitation, though, and teeth clicked against teeth as he seemingly devoured Ianto. Panting into the other’s mouth, Ianto moaned with loss when the kissing stopped.

“Ianto.”

Jack’s guttural groan of his name popped open Ianto’s eyes, when he hadn’t even known that they’d closed. Those pale eyes, so icy in the recent past, were filled with a blue fire that burned and sent a shiver of pure sensation through him.

Licking his lips in an altogether predatory way, Jack then leaned forward and trailed his tongue oh-so-slowly up the side of Ianto’s throat. He didn’t stop until reaching Ianto’s ear, whereupon he gently took the fleshy lobe between his teeth and bit sharply enough to sting. Ianto gasped in shock, fingers spasming closed into fists.

“It’s not time yet,” Jack murmured into Ianto’s ear, voice hot and breath moist. “Not quite yet.”

Ianto groaned, unable to stand the thought that they would go no further. Words spilled out unchecked…desperate… “Please, please Jack, I need you.”

Jack’s chuckle was warm, low, and pure evil before his hand slid in a torturously slow descent to stop directly over Ianto’s erection. His hips jerked instinctively and Ianto was horrified when an actual whimper escaped him.

“Not yet, but soon,” Jack promised, staring into his eyes. “Soon, Ianto. We’re moving forward, but not there quite yet. Do you trust me?”

Ianto nodded instantly, even as his groin throbbed angrily with thwarted desire. “Explicitly.”

Jack nuzzled at his throat, biting lightly on the curve of Ianto’s neck, causing him to shudder violently. “So responsive. I can’t wait to see you when you come.”

A flush of embarrassment seethed over Ianto’s face at those words and he couldn’t keep looking Jack in the eye.

“Tell me, Ianto, what do you want to do? What do you want me to do to you? Do you want me to fuck you until you’re too sore to move? Ride you hard and put you away wet? Filled with my come, my seed, deep in your gut? Marking you as mine? Or maybe make you suck me off first? I could use your throat until it was raw, until you couldn’t speak, and then shoot my load right down so you had to swallow.”

The crude words sent another shudder through Ianto and he moaned as he came in his pants like an undisciplined boy, crying out softly as his body demanded its due in far too long. Panting and shaky, Ianto gratefully sank into Jack’s arms when the bigger man pulled him in close. Hiding his face against the warmth of his odd, almost-lover’s throat, Ianto struggled to pull himself back together.

One of Jack’s hands stroked up and down his back in a soothing gesture and he murmured, “You need a lot more than that, but now’s not the time. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up and then you can go home for the night.”

Ianto wanted to protest, but followed Jack’s lead without saying a word. This was, after all, something to which the handsome man was accustomed. Ianto, on the other hand, could count on one hand the number of romantic encounters he’d had and still have fingers leftover. They reached the lavatory in short order and that was where Ianto reluctantly stood on his own two feet again.

Jack smiled at him and took another kiss before saying, “Get some sleep, Ianto. I’ll need you fresh when you come to work.”

Answering the smile with a shy one of his own, Ianto nodded and managed to say in a relatively normal voice, “Yes, Sir, thank you. And…thank you for, for earlier.”

Jack cupped his face again, briefly caressing his cheek, and then winked before leaving him standing there.

Ianto grimaced at the cooling mess in his pants and opened the door to the lavatory as he thought, Perhaps I’d best bring an extra set of clothes to work if Jack’s going to get me all messy like this in the future. The man delights in chaos, I swear.

For some reason, the thought made him smile.