Title: What I Meant To Say
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 3, letter100
Prompt: 93, Art
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones, the Tenth Doctor, or Jack Harkness. Please do not sue.

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Dear Doctor,

Writing letters is hard for me. You know that. I'm always better at saying what I have to say to someone face to fact, getting it out in words and trying to smooth over any hurt feelings those words might cause. I've never been good at expressing myself in writing.

But you've been sending me all of these little letters since I've been back on the Tardis with you, so I thought that I kind of owed it to you to start doing that myself. I know how good it makes me feel to read one of those letters, so I figured you'd want to feel the same way.

Before I started writing this, I kind of wondered what I'd have to talk about. But then it struck me that I've got a lot of things I could say. All of them would just be repeats of what I say to you when we're in bed together, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I don't think I could ever get tired of telling you how beautiful you are, and how much I love you. I spent so much time on Earth looking out at the stars and wondering which one of them you were on, wishing that I could say those words to your face.

Now that I can, I'm sitting here writing them in a letter. But I know that you'll read this, and that gorgeous smile will make your lips curve and then spread over your face until you're beaming. And that makes my heart melt and my pulse race, whenever I see that smile.

I'm looking over at you now while I'm writing this, sleeping in our bed. I almost want to forget about this letter and get up, go over to you, and pull the covers down so I can look at that beautiful body stretched out naked in front of my eyes.

It's a temptation that's almost too much to resist. The way the sheet is barely resting on the curve of your hip, so that if you move just the slightest little bit it's going to slip down to below your thigh and give me a good look at your family jewels .... that's almost too much to resist.

But I'm going to resist moving over there to the bed and turning you over on your back and making love to you, or giving you a blow job. I'm going to just sit here and keep writing, and keep looking at you and thinking what a beautiful work of art you are.

You might not agree with that, Doc, but you are. You're the most gorgeous man I've ever seen. I thought you were good-looking in the last body you were in, when we first met and I first fell in love with you. But now? You're not just a hot guy, you're the most beautiful man ever.

Okay, maybe that's only true in my eyes. But your kind of looks aren't something I see on the street every day. I used to go walking in Cardiff, just wandering around the streets of the city, wondering if I'd manage to find a man who I thought looked as good as you do.

I never did. I'd see guys who were attractive, but none of them ever appealed to me. I never gave my heart to any of them -- or even though about it. Yeah, I had my share of one-night stands when we were apart. I'm not going to deny it. But I never cared about any of them.

You're the most gorgeous work of art ever created. More so than any painting in the Louvre, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, any of the great works of art that are acknowledged by the human race or any other race. To me, you're the most beautiful creation there ever could be.

That sounds kind of poetic coming from me, doesn't it? I've never been one to use those kinds of words, not to anybody. But you're not like anybody I've ever known. Just looking at you lying there, sleeping so peacefully in our bed, takes my breath away.

I wouldn't have thought anybody could look so beautiful to me. But there you are, making me feel that I'm in the wrong place by being here at the desk when you're lying there, ready and waiting, warm and willing. But no, I'm going to finish writing this before I go to you.

What else was I going to say? I've kind of forgotten it now, because I've been sitting here staring at you and waiting for that sheet to move down. It hasn't yet, but I know the laws of gravity apply, even when we're here on the Tardis. I'll get the view I'm waiting for.

But it's not just sex between you and me. That's not the only reason I want to be with you -- or the only reason I think you're beautiful. You're not just a work of art on the outside, Doc. You're just as gorgeous on the inside. Maybe even more so.

I've never met anybody who's as noble and self-sacrificing as you are. You really would give you life to save others. I've known a lot of other people in the past who claimed they would do that, but very few who ever followed through on those words, or really meant them.

You're different. You always have been. I know that there have been a lot of times in your life when you might not have thought that being different was a good thing -- but it's another reason I love you. Because you're not like anybody else who's ever been in my life.

That sheet keeps slipping further down your body, and every time I look up, I catch my breath. I can't believe that a naked man under a sheet can be such a gorgeous work of art that I never want to take my eyes away from. It's hard to look back down at the paper.

How am I supposed to keep writing when you look like that? It's hard enough to concentrate on what I'm doing when I know you're there in bed, just waiting for me to wake you up with a kiss, like some kind of interstellar Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

I keep telling myself that I have to keep writing, that I've got more to say to you about how much I love you and how beautiful you are and all these other things that are in my head that I never seem to get out in words. But I keep getting sidetracked.

There are so many words all jumbled up in my head that I'm having a hard time putting down on paper. You know I feel them, and I know you like hearing them. I'm going to keep writing them, and saying them out loud, until you know without any doubts just how I feel.

What I meant to say is that I love you. I say that so much, don't I? Especially when we're in bed. I feel like I never said it enough when we were together before, and now I have to say it all the time to make up for that. I know you won't ever get tired of hearing those words.

I want to write them, too, over and over again. I just keep looking over at the bed and feeling my mind -- and my body -- start focusing on, well, other things I could be doing. I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to understand exactly what I'm feeling right now.

To hell with writing. There'll be time enough for that later. I'm going to end this letter, come over there and slide under those sheets next to you, and do all the things to that gorgeous body of yours that I've wanted to do ever since the first time I laid eyes on you.

Always yours,

Jack

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