Another Path Chapter 5
Dec. 13th, 2012 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galadriel1010Title: Another Path
Chapter Title: Chapter 5
Challenge/Fest: LongLiveIanto Bingo
Prompt: First House
Rating: T
Dedication:
Summary: One decision, two possible outcomes. Taking the wrong path leads Ianto down a life he thought he'd lost.
Characters: Jack/Ianto, team, others.
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
“Jack, over here!” Hetty waved over Ianto’s head, and he turned quickly to see who she was waving at. Sure enough, Jack was picking his way between the other tables, ignoring the glares he was getting, and he dropped into the seat next to Ianto. He raised his eyebrows at Hetty, who gestured to him with her pen. “Guys, this is Ianto’s boyfriend, Jack. Elliot and Tom are our teammates on the finance assignment.”
“Nice to meet you.” He smiled and rested his hand lightly on Ianto’s leg. “How’s it going?”
“Don’t ask,” Elliot dismissed it and eyed Jack up. “You a very mature student, then?”
Hetty hissed at him, but Jack just laughed. “Hardly. Very immature government researcher.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Don’t bother,” Hetty warned him. “Jack’s a secret agent.”
He choked with laughter. “Hardly.”
“You’re a government agent who can’t tell us what you’re working on. Ergo secret agent.” She gestured at the text books. “Still on the Cold War?”
“Until the end of time, at this rate.” He sighed and rested his elbows on the table. “Long story short, I’m trying to find any evidence of an explosion that happened in Siberia during the Cold War, but the only evidence we have of it isn’t the sort of thing we can wave at the Russian government.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t want another Cold War.” He groaned and rubbed at his face. “So I get to read through anything that could possibly refer to research in the area, in the hope of finding an experiment that might have got put out by it, which we can then use as evidence to ask them for details of.”
Tom nodded. “You need a physicist.”
Jack shrugged. “I am a physicist, sort of. But all the specialists are trying to recreate the experiment, and I’m the first one down the ladder who isn’t needed for it.” He sighed. “Anyway, is your budget still fighting back?”
“Sure is,” Ianto said. He looked down at his notes and shifted them around. “Too much information, not enough money.”
“Always the problem with balancing a budget.” Jack hesitated, then held his hand out. “Let me have a look?”
Ianto passed his file over and Hetty frowned. “Are you about to tell us you have a secret life as an accountant?”
“I used to lead a team,” he muttered distractedly as he pored over the information pack. “I did quarterly budgets for years. It’s everyone’s least favourite part of the job...” He glanced up at Ianto. “First rule of budget balancing, find yourself a boyfriend who will do it for you.”
Ianto laughed. “Well, if you’re offering, we’re not going to turn it down. It’s the presentations, spreadsheets and report that are the killer, anyway.”
He grunted. “You’re on your own there. I should get back to conspiracy theories.” Turning the paper around to Ianto, he drew stars next to three sections and dashes next to four others. “Those three are your priorities; those four are optional and really shouldn’t take as much as they’re asking for. You can actually combine them and allocate what one of them is asking, and still get the job done. The rest don’t need as much as it’s predicted, but you’ll need to go through each one in detail.”
Hetty leaned over to see. “Are you sure?”
“First rule of budget balancing, the larger the department the more they overestimate what they’re worth.”
“I thought that was ‘find yourself a boyfriend’?” Tom pointed out.
Jack grinned at him. “First rule of budgeting, everyone thinks they come first.”
Ianto picked up the paper and sighed. “We should get on with this, then.”
They put their heads down and started working through it, following Jack’s advice, and Jack sat with them and kept reading, putting in a comment whenever he had one. His leg pressed against Ianto’s, and Ianto dropped his hand to Jack’s knee and kept it there.
They worked for over an hour, until Hetty flipped her file shut and pointed out that they should already have left for the seminar. Ianto squeezed Jack’s leg whilst everyone else packed their stuff up and smiled shyly. “So... are you doing anything tonight?”
“Your homework,” Jack guessed innocently.
He chuckled and leaned forwards to kiss him. “Want to come over to mine?”
“I’d love to.” Jack kissed him once more and then pushed him away. “You need to get to your seminar. I might be late back, if they need me back in the office.”
“I’m always up late.” He shoved his things into his bag and wrapped his hand around the back of Jack’s neck for one more fierce kiss. “See you later, then.”
The seminar was dull and long, made duller and longer by the knowledge that he’d be seeing Jack again that night. He went back to the library when they got out, but Jack was already gone, so he collected a few books for his economics paper and trudged home in the rain.
He was sprawled on the sofa later that evening, skimming through one of the textbooks he’d brought, when the bell rang. It was still pissing it down outside, so he put the book away hurriedly and bounded down to let him in out of the wet, because the overhang over the step still leaked, and had never overhung enough anyway. Jack was dripping wet, and he left pools of water on the concrete as he followed Ianto upstairs to his flat. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said on the way. “They needed me back in the office, and one thing leads to another. You know how it goes.”
“It’s not a problem,” Ianto assured him, letting them back into his flat. “Are you hungry?”
“Always.”
“Now there’s the truth.” He shoved Jack up against the door to kiss him again, then looked down with distaste. “And now I’m wet.”
Jack laughed and pushed him away. “I’ll go and dump this in the bath,” he said, pulling his heavy greatcoat off.
“I don’t know why you wear this all the time,” Ianto said, rolling his eyes as he went to help him get it off. “It’s heavy enough when it’s dry, but in this weather it’s completely impractical. You do look good in it, though,” he conceded before Jack could comment.
“I just like it,” Jack told him, collecting the coat from him and taking it through to the bathroom. His voice echoed out, “What’s for dinner, then?”
Ianto crouched down to tidy away his files so they had more space, as he wasn’t planning on doing any more that evening, now Jack was home. “Curry from a jar, I’m afraid.”
“That’s fine.” He returned to the living room and collapsed onto the sofa, draping his arm over his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just... Frustrated.”
“I know you are. I’m just glad you could come over.”
Jack lifted his arm and reached out to Ianto with it. He went willingly, settling on the edge of the sofa with his back against Jack’s stomach, and played with Jack’s hair. “I prefer coming back to yours. Mine seems so empty by comparison.”
“So does this when you’re not here.” He rubbed his fingers through Jack’s hair, breaking apart the stiff-gelled spikes. “I was looking at property prices in the area, actually.”
“Oh? When was this?”
“In my seminar.” He shrugged at the scolding look Jack gave him. “I’ve never pretended that finance was interesting. Do you want to know what I found out, or not?”
“Sorry, go on.”
Ianto got up off him and wandered through to the kitchen. “It looks like I could probably get a hundred grand for this place; if I tidy it up a bit. It needs repainting and I need to re-grout the bathroom, but I could get that done over Easter...”
“I’m starting to worry about what you’ve got in mind.”
“Well...” He put the kettle on and opened the freezer for the frozen chicken pieces. “I won’t get a mortgage, because I’m not working, but I could still get something decent. And bigger.”
Jack leaned in the doorway with his arms folded. “I’d get a mortgage, and I’ve got savings as well.” He met Ianto’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Or am I assuming too much?”
“No, no. You’re... assuming just right.” He looked away and started pouring the chicken into the hot oil, feigning a complete lack of concern. “So, I know it’s a bit soon, but how do you feel about finding a new house? With me?”
“I’d like that a lot.” He stayed where he was in the doorway, but his posture relaxed into something more open and less defensive. “I was worried I was pushing you too fast. I mean, four months isn’t that long.”
“It’s not, I know. But I feel like waiting would just be wasting that time, because I already know where I want to be.” Jack approached him at last, and Ianto dropped the spoon onto the counter to wind both arms around his neck. “I’m good at knowing what I want, I promise.”
“I know you are. I know what I want too.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow, teasing him. “Is it me?”
“Well...” Jack feigned thought. “How much trouble am I going to be in if I say ‘coffee’?”
He narrowed his eyes. “A lot.”
“Alright, it’s you,” Jack relented. “More to the point, I want to live with you. Yes.”
# # #
Ianto’s flat sold easily, by some combination of luck, pricing and paint, and with three deadlines looming over him he’d found himself moving into Jack’s terraced cottage in Butetown. Everything was still in its boxes, packed and taped up so that they could just be moved again, when the right property turned up for them.
The cottage was small and a bit grubby outside, but it had been ‘tastefully’ redecorated by Jack’s landlord. Theoretically it had three bedrooms, which relegated the bathroom to the extension on the ground floor, beyond the kitchen; Jack used one bedroom as an office, locked up for reasons of national security, and the largest bedroom was nearly filled with a king sized bed that Ianto had been more than happy to move into. The last bedroom was now full of Ianto’s boxes, and a fair few boxes of Jack’s things already packed up.
He got off the bus at the Plass, stopped in at Tesco for a jar of jam and a bag of potatoes, and trailed through the back streets of the nineteen sixties council estates to where the Victorian terraces began again. Jack’s house was ten minutes’ walk from Mermaid Quay, close enough for him to walk there from the bus stop in good weather, even with a kilo of potatoes. There was a light breeze blowing and the day was overcast, but summer was settling in and it was still comfortably warm. Ianto lingered by the waterside on his way, not expecting Jack to be at home, but when he let himself in he could hear clattering from the kitchen.
“Jack?” he called out, heading down the hall into the dining room. “I hope that’s you.”
“Nope, I’m a very polite burglar,” Jack answered. “How was uni?”
He sighed and dumped his bags on the dining table. “I’m looking forward to the end of term, put it that way. Got my essay in, though.”
“Glad to hear it. One left to go?” He emerged from the kitchen and leaned on the back of a chair. “And did you get potatoes?”
“Yeah, got them. Deadline next Friday and then I’ll be done.” When Jack made for the potatoes he growled and lifted one arm. “Come here.”
Jack got the message and welcomed him properly, leaving them both slightly breathless, and kept his hands on Ianto’s hips when he pulled back. “I got you a present.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Is it edible?”
“No! Well...” he shook his head and released Ianto to dart back into the kitchen, returning with a thick folder. “Paper’s edible, but not very tasty.”
“Dope.” He flipped through the folder and found it full of brochures from estate agents. Some were out of their price range, some were too small, some were frankly ridiculous, but there were a couple that looked possible even at a first glance. He took the folder through to the kitchen and started making coffee for them without bothering to ask - Jack practically lived on it, and Ianto’s misspent youth in Starbucks served him better than Jack’s hit-and-miss approach and refusal to read the instructions on his clunky coffee machine, wherever they were. “You seem to have missed the point on some of them,” he commented, scanning over the top brochure, for a five bedroom house out in Penarth. As stunning as the view over the channel was, it wasn’t exactly affordable.
Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto from behind and grinned at him in their reflections in the window. “I can dream, can’t I? We had a... thing, at work, and I left early. I was in town, so I went and picked us up a few brochures.”
Ianto finished the coffees and they took them and the brochures through to the dining room, where they could spread them out on the table. He sorted them into wishful thinking, suitable and not quite right piles, and shoved all but the suitable houses out of the way, much to Jack’s feigned dismay. They flicked through them together, arguing over the tiniest details companionably: Jack wanted a garden or balcony, Ianto insisted that it had to be wheelchair accessible, Jack didn’t want anything built in concrete and Ianto didn’t want anything that needed a lot of work on it. By the time they were ready for dinner they’d sorted it down to an apartment and a house. The house was centrally located and adapted for wheelchair access, but the garden had been half-finished and abandoned and would need more work than Jack really had time to give it.
The apartment, though, looked just about perfect. It was in Llandaff, which was too far away but an area they both loved, was on the ground floor of a brick-built apartment block and had French windows that opened onto a communal garden. The kitchen was spacious and classic, perfect to Jack’s tastes, and it had three bedrooms. Ianto smiled up at Jack and passed him the phone.” You know my lecture hours and when you’re working. I’ll make a start on dinner, and you make the arrangements.”
He left Jack in the dining room and hurried into the kitchen to do as he’d said, grinning from ear to ear and feeling like he might burst with happiness and excitement. He could hear Jack’s half of the conversation, and before long he was back in the kitchen, wrapped around Ianto in his usual position. “Ten on Monday out in Llandaff. This could be the one.”
“It does look like it.” He looked up at Jack’s reflection and felt the same. His heart skipped and he leaned back against him. “Ten will need an early start, though.”
“Well, then we’ll just have to get an early night.” Jack kissed the side of his neck and released him slowly, almost reluctantly. “I don’t think we’ll need to see the second place, though.”
“No,” Ianto agreed. “One of those things, you see it and you know; no point hanging around in case there’s better when it’s staring you in the face.”
Jack missed the subtext, because he was already halfway to sticking his head in the fridge to find whatever they were having for dinner. It wasn’t really for his benefit anyway, so Ianto hurried up with peeling the potatoes and cleared out of his way.
# # #
They made an offer on the flat as soon as they saw it, and a fortnight later they were ready to move. Jack had a month’s notice on his tenancy left but they weren’t going to hang about there. Another month would have put Ianto too close to going back to university, and would have wasted the summer. Jack took a few days off work to do the move, and early on a Saturday morning at the end of June they were ready, and waiting for Hetty and Mark to arrive with the campervan and for two of Jack’s friends to arrive with a van.
The doorbell rang, and Ianto poked Jack to go and get it whilst he finished taping up the last boxes of clothes. He took one downstairs with him to add to the stack now gathered in the sitting room, and found Jack’s friends, a tall, bulky guy and a petite Asian woman, hovering uncertainly in the corridor. “Hi,” he greeted them, stopping halfway down stairs because there was nowhere for him to go. “Can I get past you?”
“Oh, of course.” They moved down to the dining room, where Jack was looking contrite, and the Asian woman stared at him. “You’re... sorry, you’re younger than I expected.”
“I thought I might be.” Once he’d dropped the box on a teetering pile he had his hands free, and he offered one to her. “I’m Ianto, and you must be Tosh?”
“Yes.” She shook his hand and avoided his eyes. “And this is Rhys.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ianto told him. “Jack’s lousy at introductions.”
“I’m normally better than this,” he insisted. The doorbell rang again and he nodded past Ianto at it. “That’ll be Hetty and Mark. Shall I put the kettle on?”
“You’d probably better.” He went to get the door and bent down to hug Hetty. “Thanks for coming, guys. This is Tosh and Rhys, Jack’s friends - and this is Hetty and Mark.”
They all exchanged awkward greetings and Ianto tried to move them out of the cramped hall. “Come on through to the dining room,” he encouraged them. “Have a seat whilst I rescue Jack from the coffee machine.”
Tosh looked up sharply. “You always make the coffee?”
He shrugged, confused. “Not always. He just doesn’t like the machine very much. I keep telling him we should get a new one, but you know what he’s like.”
She murmured agreement and he fled into the kitchen, where Jack was watching the machine like it was his nemesis. Ianto kissed him softly and started measuring out the coffee grounds whilst the water boiled. “We’ll need to go to Tesco tonight,” he pointed out. “Fill the cupboards.”
“Just what we always wanted.” Jack said with an exaggerated sigh. “But it’s a Saturday, so it’ll be closing early...”
“At midnight, sure.” He put the coffee pot in place and poked his head back into the dining room. “Tea or coffee, and how do you take it?”
Rhys asked for builders’ tea, but Tosh gave him her half-startled look from under her fringe. “Coffee, please. Just white, thanks.”
He frowned as he returned to the kitchen, but didn’t mention it to Jack, just in case. Before long they emerged into the dining room with a tray full of mugs, and he let Jack claim the last chair, leaning on the sideboard himself. “There’s actually not a lot to shift,” he told them. “Most of it is piled in the sitting room already, but getting the bed downstairs is going to be the bitch.”
“It won’t be that hard,” Jack tried to insist, but he shrugged at Ianto’s withering look. “We’ll just push the mattress out of the window or something.”
“Mattresses get downstairs fairly easily,” Rhys interjected. “Gravity does most of the work for you.”
Ianto conceded the point and started thinking through his list. “I think the mattress and bed frame will have to go in your van, Rhys. It’s in bits already, so that’s done. Most of the furniture is staying here, though, so it really won’t be a big trip... He says,” he added, laughing.
In the end he was right. Getting the bed downstairs wasn’t easy, but once that was in Rhys’s van everything else got out into the two vans and Jack’s car very easily. Jack took Hetty and the contents of the fridge in his car, and Ianto went with Mark in the campervan, leaving Rhys and Tosh bringing up the rear. Traffic broke up their convoy, but they reconvened at Tesco on the ringroad so that Jack could lead the way for the last stretch. The electric gates opened for them, and they grabbed a box each to go straight up to the flat.
Hetty wheeled herself straight to their living room window to look out over the garden and the view beyond. “Wow, guys. This is even better than the photos.”
“Isn’t it?” Ianto joined her, leaning on the back of her chair. “You can just see the cathedral tower in the bottom of the valley, through the archway.”
Behind them, Mark and Jack had made a neat stack of all the boxes they’d brought up, and Tosh was hovering for a lack of chairs. The room was already full of boxes of flat pack furniture that they’d had delivered the day before, but had no chance to start work on. “I’d tell you to have a seat,” Jack commented, “but that’s a bit tricky at the moment.”
Tosh laughed and cast around her. “We could start work on them?”
“I’ll help,” Hetty told her. “And you lot can go and fight with that mattress.”
She smiled sweetly up at him, and Ianto groaned. The mattress wasn’t going to be fun, even without having to handle stairs, but she was right. They left her and Tosh putting together the flat pack chairs and the table for the dining room and dragged the mattress in, then sent Jack into the kitchen to make lunch and got on with fetching the rest of the boxes.
# # #
By the time they’d got everything in and stacked out of the way around the flat lunch was a fond but distant memory, and they still didn’t have anything in to eat, even with Jack’s inventive cooking. Instead of dragging someone to Tesco, they all trooped up the street to the Maltsters, where Jack and Ianto had had their first date, six months before.
They took a booth in the upper bar, and Ianto took the seat right in the corner, with Jack next to him and their legs pressed together. Jack ordered a bottle of wine to celebrate, and Mark stared at him when Ianto accepted a glass. “Only one,” he pointed out. He looked at Jack and smiled softly. “We’ve got something to celebrate, after all.”
Rhys looked up at him curiously. “Do you not drink, then?”
“I’m a recovering alcoholic.” He watched Jack pouring the wine and an awkward silence descended, which he felt the need to break. “So how do you two know Jack?”
Tosh glanced over at Jack, biting her lip, and played with a knife. “I work with him.”
“And my wife did too,” Rhys added. “She died in the terror attack last year.”
“I’m sorry,” Ianto said, meaning it. He knew that Jack had been in the middle of it with his job, and that he’d lost friends. Only chance had saved Ianto from getting caught up in it, as he’d booked a last minute holiday deal and spent a week exploring the quiet side of Ibiza, returning to a city of smoke and ruins. He knew how it felt, though, and said so. “I lost my girlfriend in the terror attacks on Canary Wharf.”
Rhys looked up sharply, studying Ianto’s face, and suspicion about the attacks on Cardiff dawned, not for the first time. He stuffed his suspicions back and cleared his throat, reaching for the glass Jack put in front of him. Jack’s hand covered his, and they smiled at each other. “I’m so glad I met you,” he said quietly.
Jack raised his glass, and everyone followed suit. “To those who aren’t with us, and to those who are.” He looked at Ianto and smiled. “And especially to you.”
They drank the toast, and Ianto leaned across to kiss him. He tasted of the tart white wine, and his lips were soft and warm, and Ianto got completely distracted until someone kicked him under the table and they surfaced to realise that a waitress was waiting for their order. He ignored Hetty’s bark of laughter and glanced down at the menu before placing his order, and then settled down again with his arm around Jack’s waist.
Mark had the smug look of someone who had just kicked someone else under the table, but avoided mentioning it. He had already finished his wine, and set the empty glass down next to the bottle as an unsubtle hint. “It’s really weird being back at work all the time,” he said, changing the subject entirely. “It’s alright for you two, getting a summer holiday. I’ve got two weeks at Butlins with the kids.”
“Butlins is awesome,” Hetty protested. “Is Terri going to be with you?”
“No.”
“Even better, then.” She folded her arms on the table and sighed. “I have fuck all to do until term restarts. I’ll probably have to pester Ianto constantly.”
“No such luck, sorry.” He knew he didn’t sounds very apologetic, but he didn’t care. “You know that vacancy in the library? Part time research assistant position, fifteen hours a week helping out with a project in the history faculty,” he added for Rhys and Tosh. “I’ve been working in the library for eight hours a week all year, and they asked me to apply for it.”
“Oh yeah?”
He grinned. “So I did, and I got it. I’ve got a month long placement with the museum working on putting together the project plan, and then I spend next year working with their researchers in the library. It’s a local history project on myths and legends.”
“Well congratulations,” Tosh said. She tucked her hair behind her ear and considered him over her glasses. “Is that what you want to do, then?”
“No idea, but it sounds good.” He pushed his glass away to stop him playing with it and tangled his fingers with Jack’s in his lap. “I suffered massive memory loss because of the drinking, lost two years. I...” woke up one morning thinking that the planet had been invaded by Daleks and Cybermen who killed everyone I knew the day before, and it turned out to be two years before. Torchwood was gone, and there was nothing to go back to. But that wasn’t something he could say, so instead he said, “I don’t seem to have done a very good job of putting down roots for those two years, so I’m rebuilding from scratch. I don’t know what I want to do, so I’m taking any opportunity that comes my way.”
“Jack was lucky to meet you,” she commented. “I mean, you could have gone anywhere, but you chose to stay in Cardiff...”
He couldn’t decipher her tone, but he didn’t like it very much. Feeling suddenly defensive, he looked out of the window at the street, where dusk was just starting to fall. “I thought about it, considered Australia; it would have been the right time to go,” he agreed eventually. “But if one of us was lucky that I stayed, I think it was me. I could be anywhere in the world, but I’d be there alone.”
“You don’t know that,” Jack pointed out. “You would have met other people, made different friends.”
“Maybe, but they wouldn’t be you.” He looked back at him, ignoring everyone around them. “I wouldn’t change this for a date with the Duchess of Cambridge.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Yes you would.”
“Well... not one date.” He kissed Jack hard and released him at last, as the first plates were delivered. “Three dates and you might have to worry.”
“I’ll be sure to warn her off,” Jack said, in all apparent seriousness. “I spotted you first.”
# # #
They left the pub fairly late, when Rhys had to get the van back to the yard for a delivery, and wandered through the sleepy lanes back to the apartment block. There was a dampness in the air, but it was warm and sweet, and Ianto held Jack’s hand loosely as they walked side by side. Mark and Hetty offered Tosh a lift home, saving Rhys another trip around in the van, and Ianto went up to the flat with her to collect their things.
She repacked her bag in the dining room, on the newly constructed dining table, and didn’t look up at him. “I’m glad Jack met you. He’s happy with you.”
“I’m happy with him,” he told her, not sure of how to take her announcement. “You’re not having doubts about the age gap... or something?”
“No. Well, you know Jack,” she smiled and shrugged. “If it’s mental age that counts, he’s too young for you.”
He laughed and stood up. “Yeah, that’s about right.” He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at the window that overlooked the car park, where he could see Jack leaning on the campervan and chatting with Mark and Hetty. “Look, Tosh, I was wondering... he lost someone, didn’t he? A boyfriend, recently.”
Tosh sighed and sat on a box of LPs. “Yes, he did. It was over a year ago. I honestly didn’t think I’d see him happy again.”
“Not in the bombings, then.” He smiled at Jack, who waved at him to hurry up, and looked back at her. “I don’t want to think of him being hurt like that.”
“You understand how it feels, and that’s important,” she pointed out. “He’ll talk to you when he’s ready.”
“Yeah, I know.” He picked up Hetty and Mark’s things to look busy and looked around for anything else they’d left. “I’ve not talked to him about Lisa properly. It still feels too...”
“Lisa?” She looked surprised. “That was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, why?”
Tosh blinked and blushed. “Sorry, I forgot she was your girlfriend. You’re bi not gay.” She waved it away. “Just my mind playing tricks on me.”
He nodded, still unsure, but the others were outside and they’d taken long enough over it already. Tosh preceded him out to the van, where Hetty was already settled in the middle passenger seat with her chair in the back. She patted the seat next to her and beckoned to Ianto. “Hugs boy, before we go.”
Doing as he was told, he squeezed her tight. “Thanks for coming, Hetty. You’ll have to come around more now I’m accessible.”
“You’re still on the far side of town,” she pointed out. “I will, though. Now shift out of Tosh’s way.”
He laughed and stepped back to let Tosh take the other passenger seat, leaving Mark to drive. “It was nice to meet you, Tosh. And Mark... bugger off.”
They opened the gates for them again, and Ianto wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist whilst they pulled out, waving with his free hand until they were out of sight around the bend. The flat was still full of boxes, the bed needed to be made up, they had no bookcases yet and they still hadn’t agreed on a suite for the living room. But the night was warm and not yet raining and the garden beckoned. He took Jack’s hand and led him out through the gate at the end of the car park to wander down to the lawn, where they could sit and admire the view and bask in the atmosphere.
Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto and nuzzled against his neck. The peace and quiet enveloped them and set them adrift from the world, in their own little bubble. Wind drifted through the trees, and the walls were high enough to block out the streetlights beyond so that they could see a scattering of stars above. “Tosh was right,” he murmured at last. “I could have gone anywhere. Cardiff was the last place I wanted to be, but something made me drag my feet. If I hadn’t started volunteering at the library and then gone to university, and started working in the library there - it’s not like I need to, after all, I’ve got enough saved on top of the student loans - and if you’d not had to use our library...”
“Where would we be now?” Jack wondered with him. He pressed one hand against Ianto’s chest, drumming his fingers absently. “I nearly left Cardiff. I only stayed because I’d met you, did I tell you that?” Ianto shook his head and Jack carried on. “I’ve been here for years, but I never intended to stay. It was just a temporary stop that got longer and longer... and now I think it’s permanent.”
Ianto leaned away so that he could see him. “But if I do decide to go to Australia, you’ll come with me?”
“Ianto, I would follow you to the ends of the earth.” He pulled Ianto against him again and kissed him softly, and then let Ianto pull him to his feet and drag him back into their flat, to finish rebuilding the bed - for starters, at least.
Chapter Title: Chapter 5
Challenge/Fest: LongLiveIanto Bingo
Prompt: First House
Rating: T
Dedication:
Summary: One decision, two possible outcomes. Taking the wrong path leads Ianto down a life he thought he'd lost.
Characters: Jack/Ianto, team, others.
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
“Jack, over here!” Hetty waved over Ianto’s head, and he turned quickly to see who she was waving at. Sure enough, Jack was picking his way between the other tables, ignoring the glares he was getting, and he dropped into the seat next to Ianto. He raised his eyebrows at Hetty, who gestured to him with her pen. “Guys, this is Ianto’s boyfriend, Jack. Elliot and Tom are our teammates on the finance assignment.”
“Nice to meet you.” He smiled and rested his hand lightly on Ianto’s leg. “How’s it going?”
“Don’t ask,” Elliot dismissed it and eyed Jack up. “You a very mature student, then?”
Hetty hissed at him, but Jack just laughed. “Hardly. Very immature government researcher.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Don’t bother,” Hetty warned him. “Jack’s a secret agent.”
He choked with laughter. “Hardly.”
“You’re a government agent who can’t tell us what you’re working on. Ergo secret agent.” She gestured at the text books. “Still on the Cold War?”
“Until the end of time, at this rate.” He sighed and rested his elbows on the table. “Long story short, I’m trying to find any evidence of an explosion that happened in Siberia during the Cold War, but the only evidence we have of it isn’t the sort of thing we can wave at the Russian government.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t want another Cold War.” He groaned and rubbed at his face. “So I get to read through anything that could possibly refer to research in the area, in the hope of finding an experiment that might have got put out by it, which we can then use as evidence to ask them for details of.”
Tom nodded. “You need a physicist.”
Jack shrugged. “I am a physicist, sort of. But all the specialists are trying to recreate the experiment, and I’m the first one down the ladder who isn’t needed for it.” He sighed. “Anyway, is your budget still fighting back?”
“Sure is,” Ianto said. He looked down at his notes and shifted them around. “Too much information, not enough money.”
“Always the problem with balancing a budget.” Jack hesitated, then held his hand out. “Let me have a look?”
Ianto passed his file over and Hetty frowned. “Are you about to tell us you have a secret life as an accountant?”
“I used to lead a team,” he muttered distractedly as he pored over the information pack. “I did quarterly budgets for years. It’s everyone’s least favourite part of the job...” He glanced up at Ianto. “First rule of budget balancing, find yourself a boyfriend who will do it for you.”
Ianto laughed. “Well, if you’re offering, we’re not going to turn it down. It’s the presentations, spreadsheets and report that are the killer, anyway.”
He grunted. “You’re on your own there. I should get back to conspiracy theories.” Turning the paper around to Ianto, he drew stars next to three sections and dashes next to four others. “Those three are your priorities; those four are optional and really shouldn’t take as much as they’re asking for. You can actually combine them and allocate what one of them is asking, and still get the job done. The rest don’t need as much as it’s predicted, but you’ll need to go through each one in detail.”
Hetty leaned over to see. “Are you sure?”
“First rule of budget balancing, the larger the department the more they overestimate what they’re worth.”
“I thought that was ‘find yourself a boyfriend’?” Tom pointed out.
Jack grinned at him. “First rule of budgeting, everyone thinks they come first.”
Ianto picked up the paper and sighed. “We should get on with this, then.”
They put their heads down and started working through it, following Jack’s advice, and Jack sat with them and kept reading, putting in a comment whenever he had one. His leg pressed against Ianto’s, and Ianto dropped his hand to Jack’s knee and kept it there.
They worked for over an hour, until Hetty flipped her file shut and pointed out that they should already have left for the seminar. Ianto squeezed Jack’s leg whilst everyone else packed their stuff up and smiled shyly. “So... are you doing anything tonight?”
“Your homework,” Jack guessed innocently.
He chuckled and leaned forwards to kiss him. “Want to come over to mine?”
“I’d love to.” Jack kissed him once more and then pushed him away. “You need to get to your seminar. I might be late back, if they need me back in the office.”
“I’m always up late.” He shoved his things into his bag and wrapped his hand around the back of Jack’s neck for one more fierce kiss. “See you later, then.”
The seminar was dull and long, made duller and longer by the knowledge that he’d be seeing Jack again that night. He went back to the library when they got out, but Jack was already gone, so he collected a few books for his economics paper and trudged home in the rain.
He was sprawled on the sofa later that evening, skimming through one of the textbooks he’d brought, when the bell rang. It was still pissing it down outside, so he put the book away hurriedly and bounded down to let him in out of the wet, because the overhang over the step still leaked, and had never overhung enough anyway. Jack was dripping wet, and he left pools of water on the concrete as he followed Ianto upstairs to his flat. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said on the way. “They needed me back in the office, and one thing leads to another. You know how it goes.”
“It’s not a problem,” Ianto assured him, letting them back into his flat. “Are you hungry?”
“Always.”
“Now there’s the truth.” He shoved Jack up against the door to kiss him again, then looked down with distaste. “And now I’m wet.”
Jack laughed and pushed him away. “I’ll go and dump this in the bath,” he said, pulling his heavy greatcoat off.
“I don’t know why you wear this all the time,” Ianto said, rolling his eyes as he went to help him get it off. “It’s heavy enough when it’s dry, but in this weather it’s completely impractical. You do look good in it, though,” he conceded before Jack could comment.
“I just like it,” Jack told him, collecting the coat from him and taking it through to the bathroom. His voice echoed out, “What’s for dinner, then?”
Ianto crouched down to tidy away his files so they had more space, as he wasn’t planning on doing any more that evening, now Jack was home. “Curry from a jar, I’m afraid.”
“That’s fine.” He returned to the living room and collapsed onto the sofa, draping his arm over his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just... Frustrated.”
“I know you are. I’m just glad you could come over.”
Jack lifted his arm and reached out to Ianto with it. He went willingly, settling on the edge of the sofa with his back against Jack’s stomach, and played with Jack’s hair. “I prefer coming back to yours. Mine seems so empty by comparison.”
“So does this when you’re not here.” He rubbed his fingers through Jack’s hair, breaking apart the stiff-gelled spikes. “I was looking at property prices in the area, actually.”
“Oh? When was this?”
“In my seminar.” He shrugged at the scolding look Jack gave him. “I’ve never pretended that finance was interesting. Do you want to know what I found out, or not?”
“Sorry, go on.”
Ianto got up off him and wandered through to the kitchen. “It looks like I could probably get a hundred grand for this place; if I tidy it up a bit. It needs repainting and I need to re-grout the bathroom, but I could get that done over Easter...”
“I’m starting to worry about what you’ve got in mind.”
“Well...” He put the kettle on and opened the freezer for the frozen chicken pieces. “I won’t get a mortgage, because I’m not working, but I could still get something decent. And bigger.”
Jack leaned in the doorway with his arms folded. “I’d get a mortgage, and I’ve got savings as well.” He met Ianto’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Or am I assuming too much?”
“No, no. You’re... assuming just right.” He looked away and started pouring the chicken into the hot oil, feigning a complete lack of concern. “So, I know it’s a bit soon, but how do you feel about finding a new house? With me?”
“I’d like that a lot.” He stayed where he was in the doorway, but his posture relaxed into something more open and less defensive. “I was worried I was pushing you too fast. I mean, four months isn’t that long.”
“It’s not, I know. But I feel like waiting would just be wasting that time, because I already know where I want to be.” Jack approached him at last, and Ianto dropped the spoon onto the counter to wind both arms around his neck. “I’m good at knowing what I want, I promise.”
“I know you are. I know what I want too.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow, teasing him. “Is it me?”
“Well...” Jack feigned thought. “How much trouble am I going to be in if I say ‘coffee’?”
He narrowed his eyes. “A lot.”
“Alright, it’s you,” Jack relented. “More to the point, I want to live with you. Yes.”
# # #
Ianto’s flat sold easily, by some combination of luck, pricing and paint, and with three deadlines looming over him he’d found himself moving into Jack’s terraced cottage in Butetown. Everything was still in its boxes, packed and taped up so that they could just be moved again, when the right property turned up for them.
The cottage was small and a bit grubby outside, but it had been ‘tastefully’ redecorated by Jack’s landlord. Theoretically it had three bedrooms, which relegated the bathroom to the extension on the ground floor, beyond the kitchen; Jack used one bedroom as an office, locked up for reasons of national security, and the largest bedroom was nearly filled with a king sized bed that Ianto had been more than happy to move into. The last bedroom was now full of Ianto’s boxes, and a fair few boxes of Jack’s things already packed up.
He got off the bus at the Plass, stopped in at Tesco for a jar of jam and a bag of potatoes, and trailed through the back streets of the nineteen sixties council estates to where the Victorian terraces began again. Jack’s house was ten minutes’ walk from Mermaid Quay, close enough for him to walk there from the bus stop in good weather, even with a kilo of potatoes. There was a light breeze blowing and the day was overcast, but summer was settling in and it was still comfortably warm. Ianto lingered by the waterside on his way, not expecting Jack to be at home, but when he let himself in he could hear clattering from the kitchen.
“Jack?” he called out, heading down the hall into the dining room. “I hope that’s you.”
“Nope, I’m a very polite burglar,” Jack answered. “How was uni?”
He sighed and dumped his bags on the dining table. “I’m looking forward to the end of term, put it that way. Got my essay in, though.”
“Glad to hear it. One left to go?” He emerged from the kitchen and leaned on the back of a chair. “And did you get potatoes?”
“Yeah, got them. Deadline next Friday and then I’ll be done.” When Jack made for the potatoes he growled and lifted one arm. “Come here.”
Jack got the message and welcomed him properly, leaving them both slightly breathless, and kept his hands on Ianto’s hips when he pulled back. “I got you a present.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Is it edible?”
“No! Well...” he shook his head and released Ianto to dart back into the kitchen, returning with a thick folder. “Paper’s edible, but not very tasty.”
“Dope.” He flipped through the folder and found it full of brochures from estate agents. Some were out of their price range, some were too small, some were frankly ridiculous, but there were a couple that looked possible even at a first glance. He took the folder through to the kitchen and started making coffee for them without bothering to ask - Jack practically lived on it, and Ianto’s misspent youth in Starbucks served him better than Jack’s hit-and-miss approach and refusal to read the instructions on his clunky coffee machine, wherever they were. “You seem to have missed the point on some of them,” he commented, scanning over the top brochure, for a five bedroom house out in Penarth. As stunning as the view over the channel was, it wasn’t exactly affordable.
Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto from behind and grinned at him in their reflections in the window. “I can dream, can’t I? We had a... thing, at work, and I left early. I was in town, so I went and picked us up a few brochures.”
Ianto finished the coffees and they took them and the brochures through to the dining room, where they could spread them out on the table. He sorted them into wishful thinking, suitable and not quite right piles, and shoved all but the suitable houses out of the way, much to Jack’s feigned dismay. They flicked through them together, arguing over the tiniest details companionably: Jack wanted a garden or balcony, Ianto insisted that it had to be wheelchair accessible, Jack didn’t want anything built in concrete and Ianto didn’t want anything that needed a lot of work on it. By the time they were ready for dinner they’d sorted it down to an apartment and a house. The house was centrally located and adapted for wheelchair access, but the garden had been half-finished and abandoned and would need more work than Jack really had time to give it.
The apartment, though, looked just about perfect. It was in Llandaff, which was too far away but an area they both loved, was on the ground floor of a brick-built apartment block and had French windows that opened onto a communal garden. The kitchen was spacious and classic, perfect to Jack’s tastes, and it had three bedrooms. Ianto smiled up at Jack and passed him the phone.” You know my lecture hours and when you’re working. I’ll make a start on dinner, and you make the arrangements.”
He left Jack in the dining room and hurried into the kitchen to do as he’d said, grinning from ear to ear and feeling like he might burst with happiness and excitement. He could hear Jack’s half of the conversation, and before long he was back in the kitchen, wrapped around Ianto in his usual position. “Ten on Monday out in Llandaff. This could be the one.”
“It does look like it.” He looked up at Jack’s reflection and felt the same. His heart skipped and he leaned back against him. “Ten will need an early start, though.”
“Well, then we’ll just have to get an early night.” Jack kissed the side of his neck and released him slowly, almost reluctantly. “I don’t think we’ll need to see the second place, though.”
“No,” Ianto agreed. “One of those things, you see it and you know; no point hanging around in case there’s better when it’s staring you in the face.”
Jack missed the subtext, because he was already halfway to sticking his head in the fridge to find whatever they were having for dinner. It wasn’t really for his benefit anyway, so Ianto hurried up with peeling the potatoes and cleared out of his way.
# # #
They made an offer on the flat as soon as they saw it, and a fortnight later they were ready to move. Jack had a month’s notice on his tenancy left but they weren’t going to hang about there. Another month would have put Ianto too close to going back to university, and would have wasted the summer. Jack took a few days off work to do the move, and early on a Saturday morning at the end of June they were ready, and waiting for Hetty and Mark to arrive with the campervan and for two of Jack’s friends to arrive with a van.
The doorbell rang, and Ianto poked Jack to go and get it whilst he finished taping up the last boxes of clothes. He took one downstairs with him to add to the stack now gathered in the sitting room, and found Jack’s friends, a tall, bulky guy and a petite Asian woman, hovering uncertainly in the corridor. “Hi,” he greeted them, stopping halfway down stairs because there was nowhere for him to go. “Can I get past you?”
“Oh, of course.” They moved down to the dining room, where Jack was looking contrite, and the Asian woman stared at him. “You’re... sorry, you’re younger than I expected.”
“I thought I might be.” Once he’d dropped the box on a teetering pile he had his hands free, and he offered one to her. “I’m Ianto, and you must be Tosh?”
“Yes.” She shook his hand and avoided his eyes. “And this is Rhys.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ianto told him. “Jack’s lousy at introductions.”
“I’m normally better than this,” he insisted. The doorbell rang again and he nodded past Ianto at it. “That’ll be Hetty and Mark. Shall I put the kettle on?”
“You’d probably better.” He went to get the door and bent down to hug Hetty. “Thanks for coming, guys. This is Tosh and Rhys, Jack’s friends - and this is Hetty and Mark.”
They all exchanged awkward greetings and Ianto tried to move them out of the cramped hall. “Come on through to the dining room,” he encouraged them. “Have a seat whilst I rescue Jack from the coffee machine.”
Tosh looked up sharply. “You always make the coffee?”
He shrugged, confused. “Not always. He just doesn’t like the machine very much. I keep telling him we should get a new one, but you know what he’s like.”
She murmured agreement and he fled into the kitchen, where Jack was watching the machine like it was his nemesis. Ianto kissed him softly and started measuring out the coffee grounds whilst the water boiled. “We’ll need to go to Tesco tonight,” he pointed out. “Fill the cupboards.”
“Just what we always wanted.” Jack said with an exaggerated sigh. “But it’s a Saturday, so it’ll be closing early...”
“At midnight, sure.” He put the coffee pot in place and poked his head back into the dining room. “Tea or coffee, and how do you take it?”
Rhys asked for builders’ tea, but Tosh gave him her half-startled look from under her fringe. “Coffee, please. Just white, thanks.”
He frowned as he returned to the kitchen, but didn’t mention it to Jack, just in case. Before long they emerged into the dining room with a tray full of mugs, and he let Jack claim the last chair, leaning on the sideboard himself. “There’s actually not a lot to shift,” he told them. “Most of it is piled in the sitting room already, but getting the bed downstairs is going to be the bitch.”
“It won’t be that hard,” Jack tried to insist, but he shrugged at Ianto’s withering look. “We’ll just push the mattress out of the window or something.”
“Mattresses get downstairs fairly easily,” Rhys interjected. “Gravity does most of the work for you.”
Ianto conceded the point and started thinking through his list. “I think the mattress and bed frame will have to go in your van, Rhys. It’s in bits already, so that’s done. Most of the furniture is staying here, though, so it really won’t be a big trip... He says,” he added, laughing.
In the end he was right. Getting the bed downstairs wasn’t easy, but once that was in Rhys’s van everything else got out into the two vans and Jack’s car very easily. Jack took Hetty and the contents of the fridge in his car, and Ianto went with Mark in the campervan, leaving Rhys and Tosh bringing up the rear. Traffic broke up their convoy, but they reconvened at Tesco on the ringroad so that Jack could lead the way for the last stretch. The electric gates opened for them, and they grabbed a box each to go straight up to the flat.
Hetty wheeled herself straight to their living room window to look out over the garden and the view beyond. “Wow, guys. This is even better than the photos.”
“Isn’t it?” Ianto joined her, leaning on the back of her chair. “You can just see the cathedral tower in the bottom of the valley, through the archway.”
Behind them, Mark and Jack had made a neat stack of all the boxes they’d brought up, and Tosh was hovering for a lack of chairs. The room was already full of boxes of flat pack furniture that they’d had delivered the day before, but had no chance to start work on. “I’d tell you to have a seat,” Jack commented, “but that’s a bit tricky at the moment.”
Tosh laughed and cast around her. “We could start work on them?”
“I’ll help,” Hetty told her. “And you lot can go and fight with that mattress.”
She smiled sweetly up at him, and Ianto groaned. The mattress wasn’t going to be fun, even without having to handle stairs, but she was right. They left her and Tosh putting together the flat pack chairs and the table for the dining room and dragged the mattress in, then sent Jack into the kitchen to make lunch and got on with fetching the rest of the boxes.
# # #
By the time they’d got everything in and stacked out of the way around the flat lunch was a fond but distant memory, and they still didn’t have anything in to eat, even with Jack’s inventive cooking. Instead of dragging someone to Tesco, they all trooped up the street to the Maltsters, where Jack and Ianto had had their first date, six months before.
They took a booth in the upper bar, and Ianto took the seat right in the corner, with Jack next to him and their legs pressed together. Jack ordered a bottle of wine to celebrate, and Mark stared at him when Ianto accepted a glass. “Only one,” he pointed out. He looked at Jack and smiled softly. “We’ve got something to celebrate, after all.”
Rhys looked up at him curiously. “Do you not drink, then?”
“I’m a recovering alcoholic.” He watched Jack pouring the wine and an awkward silence descended, which he felt the need to break. “So how do you two know Jack?”
Tosh glanced over at Jack, biting her lip, and played with a knife. “I work with him.”
“And my wife did too,” Rhys added. “She died in the terror attack last year.”
“I’m sorry,” Ianto said, meaning it. He knew that Jack had been in the middle of it with his job, and that he’d lost friends. Only chance had saved Ianto from getting caught up in it, as he’d booked a last minute holiday deal and spent a week exploring the quiet side of Ibiza, returning to a city of smoke and ruins. He knew how it felt, though, and said so. “I lost my girlfriend in the terror attacks on Canary Wharf.”
Rhys looked up sharply, studying Ianto’s face, and suspicion about the attacks on Cardiff dawned, not for the first time. He stuffed his suspicions back and cleared his throat, reaching for the glass Jack put in front of him. Jack’s hand covered his, and they smiled at each other. “I’m so glad I met you,” he said quietly.
Jack raised his glass, and everyone followed suit. “To those who aren’t with us, and to those who are.” He looked at Ianto and smiled. “And especially to you.”
They drank the toast, and Ianto leaned across to kiss him. He tasted of the tart white wine, and his lips were soft and warm, and Ianto got completely distracted until someone kicked him under the table and they surfaced to realise that a waitress was waiting for their order. He ignored Hetty’s bark of laughter and glanced down at the menu before placing his order, and then settled down again with his arm around Jack’s waist.
Mark had the smug look of someone who had just kicked someone else under the table, but avoided mentioning it. He had already finished his wine, and set the empty glass down next to the bottle as an unsubtle hint. “It’s really weird being back at work all the time,” he said, changing the subject entirely. “It’s alright for you two, getting a summer holiday. I’ve got two weeks at Butlins with the kids.”
“Butlins is awesome,” Hetty protested. “Is Terri going to be with you?”
“No.”
“Even better, then.” She folded her arms on the table and sighed. “I have fuck all to do until term restarts. I’ll probably have to pester Ianto constantly.”
“No such luck, sorry.” He knew he didn’t sounds very apologetic, but he didn’t care. “You know that vacancy in the library? Part time research assistant position, fifteen hours a week helping out with a project in the history faculty,” he added for Rhys and Tosh. “I’ve been working in the library for eight hours a week all year, and they asked me to apply for it.”
“Oh yeah?”
He grinned. “So I did, and I got it. I’ve got a month long placement with the museum working on putting together the project plan, and then I spend next year working with their researchers in the library. It’s a local history project on myths and legends.”
“Well congratulations,” Tosh said. She tucked her hair behind her ear and considered him over her glasses. “Is that what you want to do, then?”
“No idea, but it sounds good.” He pushed his glass away to stop him playing with it and tangled his fingers with Jack’s in his lap. “I suffered massive memory loss because of the drinking, lost two years. I...” woke up one morning thinking that the planet had been invaded by Daleks and Cybermen who killed everyone I knew the day before, and it turned out to be two years before. Torchwood was gone, and there was nothing to go back to. But that wasn’t something he could say, so instead he said, “I don’t seem to have done a very good job of putting down roots for those two years, so I’m rebuilding from scratch. I don’t know what I want to do, so I’m taking any opportunity that comes my way.”
“Jack was lucky to meet you,” she commented. “I mean, you could have gone anywhere, but you chose to stay in Cardiff...”
He couldn’t decipher her tone, but he didn’t like it very much. Feeling suddenly defensive, he looked out of the window at the street, where dusk was just starting to fall. “I thought about it, considered Australia; it would have been the right time to go,” he agreed eventually. “But if one of us was lucky that I stayed, I think it was me. I could be anywhere in the world, but I’d be there alone.”
“You don’t know that,” Jack pointed out. “You would have met other people, made different friends.”
“Maybe, but they wouldn’t be you.” He looked back at him, ignoring everyone around them. “I wouldn’t change this for a date with the Duchess of Cambridge.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Yes you would.”
“Well... not one date.” He kissed Jack hard and released him at last, as the first plates were delivered. “Three dates and you might have to worry.”
“I’ll be sure to warn her off,” Jack said, in all apparent seriousness. “I spotted you first.”
# # #
They left the pub fairly late, when Rhys had to get the van back to the yard for a delivery, and wandered through the sleepy lanes back to the apartment block. There was a dampness in the air, but it was warm and sweet, and Ianto held Jack’s hand loosely as they walked side by side. Mark and Hetty offered Tosh a lift home, saving Rhys another trip around in the van, and Ianto went up to the flat with her to collect their things.
She repacked her bag in the dining room, on the newly constructed dining table, and didn’t look up at him. “I’m glad Jack met you. He’s happy with you.”
“I’m happy with him,” he told her, not sure of how to take her announcement. “You’re not having doubts about the age gap... or something?”
“No. Well, you know Jack,” she smiled and shrugged. “If it’s mental age that counts, he’s too young for you.”
He laughed and stood up. “Yeah, that’s about right.” He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at the window that overlooked the car park, where he could see Jack leaning on the campervan and chatting with Mark and Hetty. “Look, Tosh, I was wondering... he lost someone, didn’t he? A boyfriend, recently.”
Tosh sighed and sat on a box of LPs. “Yes, he did. It was over a year ago. I honestly didn’t think I’d see him happy again.”
“Not in the bombings, then.” He smiled at Jack, who waved at him to hurry up, and looked back at her. “I don’t want to think of him being hurt like that.”
“You understand how it feels, and that’s important,” she pointed out. “He’ll talk to you when he’s ready.”
“Yeah, I know.” He picked up Hetty and Mark’s things to look busy and looked around for anything else they’d left. “I’ve not talked to him about Lisa properly. It still feels too...”
“Lisa?” She looked surprised. “That was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, why?”
Tosh blinked and blushed. “Sorry, I forgot she was your girlfriend. You’re bi not gay.” She waved it away. “Just my mind playing tricks on me.”
He nodded, still unsure, but the others were outside and they’d taken long enough over it already. Tosh preceded him out to the van, where Hetty was already settled in the middle passenger seat with her chair in the back. She patted the seat next to her and beckoned to Ianto. “Hugs boy, before we go.”
Doing as he was told, he squeezed her tight. “Thanks for coming, Hetty. You’ll have to come around more now I’m accessible.”
“You’re still on the far side of town,” she pointed out. “I will, though. Now shift out of Tosh’s way.”
He laughed and stepped back to let Tosh take the other passenger seat, leaving Mark to drive. “It was nice to meet you, Tosh. And Mark... bugger off.”
They opened the gates for them again, and Ianto wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist whilst they pulled out, waving with his free hand until they were out of sight around the bend. The flat was still full of boxes, the bed needed to be made up, they had no bookcases yet and they still hadn’t agreed on a suite for the living room. But the night was warm and not yet raining and the garden beckoned. He took Jack’s hand and led him out through the gate at the end of the car park to wander down to the lawn, where they could sit and admire the view and bask in the atmosphere.
Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto and nuzzled against his neck. The peace and quiet enveloped them and set them adrift from the world, in their own little bubble. Wind drifted through the trees, and the walls were high enough to block out the streetlights beyond so that they could see a scattering of stars above. “Tosh was right,” he murmured at last. “I could have gone anywhere. Cardiff was the last place I wanted to be, but something made me drag my feet. If I hadn’t started volunteering at the library and then gone to university, and started working in the library there - it’s not like I need to, after all, I’ve got enough saved on top of the student loans - and if you’d not had to use our library...”
“Where would we be now?” Jack wondered with him. He pressed one hand against Ianto’s chest, drumming his fingers absently. “I nearly left Cardiff. I only stayed because I’d met you, did I tell you that?” Ianto shook his head and Jack carried on. “I’ve been here for years, but I never intended to stay. It was just a temporary stop that got longer and longer... and now I think it’s permanent.”
Ianto leaned away so that he could see him. “But if I do decide to go to Australia, you’ll come with me?”
“Ianto, I would follow you to the ends of the earth.” He pulled Ianto against him again and kissed him softly, and then let Ianto pull him to his feet and drag him back into their flat, to finish rebuilding the bed - for starters, at least.
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Date: 2012-12-14 12:01 am (UTC)