Late Night Loss Chapter 22

[galadriel1010]

Ianto sat on the bed and looked around the small room they’d shared for their two nights on the Heart of Gold. He hadn’t done this hopping from place to place for a long time, not since he’d fled to London when he was seventeen and had bounced from one friend’s flat to another, staying in a different place every night to avoid the university authorities. His friendship group had always been older than he was and when they’d all buggered off to uni, quite a lot of them in London, he’d been left behind. He dropped out of sixth form after only a term when one of his friends had offered him a lift to London with her when she went back. He spent a week in her bed until someone found out and pointed out, quite forcefully, that she wasn’t allowed visitors for more than two nights a week. From there he went to one of her friends across campus but at the same uni, then to another of his friends across town. When his friends went back to Cardiff he struggled, but managed to get accommodation in student bedsits that were empty for the summer on his wages from the two jobs he was struggling to hold down. The next year he’d shared a flat with his friends and hopped from job to job, doing pretty much anything he could for money. Then, when he was working at Tesco at Canary Wharf (not his proudest moment) he’d started meeting the Torchwood personnel, among them Lisa… Two months after he met her his friends went back to Cardiff, they gave up the lease on the flat and he’d moved in with Lisa, wonderful Lisa. When he lost his job at Tesco for shop lifting (a prank by a co-worker that went further than it should have because his mind was full of thoughts of going home) she’d got him in at Torchwood…

And he’d been there ever since. After so long hopping from flat to flat and job to job, his first true happiness had been found in stability; he’d come to associate having roots with having happiness, but was coming to realise that it wasn’t the stability, it was who you shared it with.

Right on cue, Jack breezed through the door and jumped on him, pushing him back onto the bed. Ianto laughed and tried to escape but Jack had him pinned down and started to tickle him mercilessly whilst kissing his way down his neck. “You randy git.” Ianto gave up on trying to push him away and pulled him closer instead, tilting his head to suck gently on Jack’s earlobe

The older man chuckled and pulled back to kiss him full on the lips and watch him, “It’s something about you Jones, Ianto Jones, you make me horny.”

“You know, I think I prefer you sentimental.” He tried to reach up to capture Jack’s mouth again but the immortal dodged him with a laugh, “What has got into you?”

“You soon I hope.” Jack replied with a lascivious smirk and ran his eyes up and down his young lover’s body

“Jack, we have to go.” There was no mistaking the disappointed tone in his voice or his reaction to Jack’s actions, not with the evidence pressing into Jack’s thigh like that

Still, the immortal sighed and sat up, pulling Ianto up with him and pressing a kiss against his temple before he got up to pack the last of their stuff away; they’d collected quite a lot of trinkets on their travels and he was quite grateful of the technology, borrowed from Science Fiction of course, that meant he could put as much stuff in his bag as he wanted and still have it come easily to hand. “Yeah, Jazz will kick our arses if we don’t get home reasonably on time.”

Ianto considered this statement for a while before putting his head on one side and grinning, “That’s a lie and you know it. This is the same Jazz, remember, who threatened to suspend us if we didn’t plan a proper honeymoon.”

“Hah, yeah, good old Zee.” He chuckled, “You know it’s just because she likes being in charge in Cardiff. And she gets to boss the Doctor around as well this time.”

“The Doctor? You didn’t mention that earlier.” Ianto was only mildly surprised really; the Doctor had popped round a couple of times since their trip to Switzerland but never stopped long.

“Yeah, our righteous and noble leader called him in.” He packed the last few bits away in the bag and turned back to Ianto on the bed, “I suspect she might be regretting it.”

“You didn’t think he’d come, did you?”

“Can you blame me?” Jack never tried to hide the pain from his partner, Ianto would always see through him if he tried. “We don’t exactly have a fantastic track record in that department.”

“And he came straight away?”

“Erm…” The older man ran a hand through his hair in embarrassment, “Yeah, he did.”

“There you go then.” Ianto stood up and put his hands on Jack’s waist, leaning in to kiss him gently, “And did he bring the case breaker?”

“Nope, that was Rhys.” Jack chuckled, “Rhys and his Da.”

“Good old Rhys.” He took Jack’s hand and picked up the bag, “Come on, adventures to be had before we get home.”

Their footsteps were muffled by the deep, plush carpet and Ianto looked everywhere around him in amazement as Jack led the way through the library. The whole scale was mind-boggling, even to someone who worked for Torchwood. Space is a huge place, so huge that you can only think about it by cutting it up into smaller chunks, by reducing the distances and populations to mere numbers and statistics; Torchwood’s work was so huge that you had to think of it in terms of case numbers, locations on the archive shelves. The library was in some ways bigger. You couldn’t really break it down, couldn’t cut it into more manageable chunks easily, it just was and it just was enormous; and it was all inside their heads, sort of.

“Jack.” He tugged on his lover’s hand and the older man stopped, turning to him with a smile, “It’s…”

“Mind-boggling, isn’t it?” He stroked Ianto’s cheek and kissed him briefly and chastely before gesturing around them, “And amazing and brilliant. All these books, even I could never live long enough to read every book in existence.”

Ianto smiled up at him, eyes alight, “It’s brilliant.”

“Yup. Fifty three floors.” He repeated what Mrs Bradshaw had told him whilst they’d been waiting for Thursday and the Commander to return, “Twenty six floors of published works, organised in alphabetical order by author’s surname on the shelves but by genre within the books. It’s all a bit… metaphysical. The top floor’s got a lot of administration as well as authors beginning with Z, because there’s plenty of room. In the basement there’s twenty-six floors of unpublished works, works in progress… It’s dangerous down there, probably much like the part of Cardiff we inhabit, the same but darker.”

“Want to explore?” Ianto grinned, knowing the answer

“Yeah. But not just yet. I need to find Thursday, or the Cat, or anyone really…” He looked around as they reached the stairs and looked down the shaft, watching tiny figures moving up and down the stairs, “Cat?” He called out, “Anyone around?”

“Well lovely to see you again Jack.” The voice came from behind him, from a grin which was definitely detached from the tail swishing idly behind it, a pair of amused eyes also blinked at them, extremely disconcerting in their intelligence and the fact that they weren’t in a face. “And this must be the cause of your adventures, Mr Ianto Jones.”

“It’s good to be back Cat.”

“And a pleasure to meet you.” Ianto added

“Good to see you back safe and sound.” Cat told him, “Are you heading home then?”

“As soon as we’ve said good-bye.” Jack affirmed, “I wanted to see Thursday and Commander and Mrs Bradshaw before we left.”

“Well then I would recommend Jane Austin, Sense and Sensibility. There will be a Jurisfiction meeting soon at Norwood Park, Thursday and the Commander will both be there.”

“Sounds like a plan Stan.” Jack nodded, “Will we see you there too?”

“Oh, I suspect so.” The grin disappeared leaving only the tail, which soon followed.

“Down we go then.” Jack tugged at Ianto’s hand and was tempted to try sliding down the banisters, but those ornamental lions would probably be a pain in the arse, and not the good kind, “Long walk, only 23 floors to go. Why are we on the W floor?”

“Pass, maybe Arthur was thinking W?” Ianto shrugged, “Can’t you jump down there?”

“Erm…”

“Book jump I mean.”

“God no, it’s all a bit of guess work.” He smiled slightly, “Walking it is, unless you have a tea-tray.”

“Are you suggesting that we sledge down the stairs on tea-trays?”

Jack gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence, “No, of course not, would I?”

“Yes, yes you would.”

“Weeeell…”

“No Jack, no. That would be silly. Where would we find a tea-tray here?” He grinned and took the lead down the stairs, blushing when he nearly tripped over a tea-tray and Jack had to catch him in an embarrassingly clichéd moment, “OK, there. But it’s dangerous, see?”

“So I see.” Jack’s grin really should be illegal, Ianto decided, but as long as it was directed at him he found he couldn’t care less. If Jack wanted to undress him with his eyes whenever he looked at him then he wasn’t going to complain. “It would give me the opportunity to save you now and again though.”

“You always save me.” He rolled his eyes and leaned back in Jack’s arms, putting the back of his hand to his forehead dramatically, “You’re my night in shining armour Captain.” He put on a girly voice and batted his eyelashes, “I’m starting to see Arthur’s point.”

“Starting?”

“Point.” He straightened up again and kissed Jack gently, “Now I think I can get down the stairs without falling down them again.”

“Really?”

“Hope so. Come on.”

They’d got to G floor before anything untoward happened; it was never going to last, was it?