Cursed

“I’m right here, Love.  I’m not going anywhere.  Time will help you trust me, but…”

“I trust you,” Ianto’s protest was muffled by Jack’s collarbone.

“No, I don’t think you do, just yet,” Jack gently countered.  “Or maybe you trust me, but not this.  Us.  You still think I’ll get bored and move on, but Kitty, surely you’ve noticed that I’ve not been bored yet, and this is the least active I’ve been since my last furlough from the Time Agency.”  That period of inactivity had been due to a bout of pregnancy, but that was a conversation that could wait for another time.

“You’re going to get tired of watching me sleep,” Ianto sniffed.

“Ianto, after the Year, I’ve needed this rest almost as much as you have,” he replied, and Ianto leaned back to look at him, an expression of concern and startled realization on his face.  “I would have been fine, eventually,” he reassured.  “I would have healed from the exhaustion and trauma, but it would have taken a long time, if I’d have had to do it in my spare time while still working for Torchwood.  But this break has given me the chance to heal, too.”

“I didn’t even think,” Ianto said, and Jack stopped his words with a kiss, not wanting Ianto to feel like he had neglected Jack’s needs, in any way.

“It wasn’t something I even realized myself, so none of that, my Love.”  He leaned forward and kissed Ianto, who was now resting back on Jack’s thighs.  “And as for getting tired of watching you sleep,” he paused, then grinned before kissing the tip of Ianto’s nose.  “Do you ever get tired of watching me?”

“No,” Ianto looked down, blushing.  “But you’re… you.”

“And you’re you,” Jack rejoined with a chuckle.  “I hope you can at least trust the bond to tell you I’m not pretending to enjoy this.”

“I do, Jack,” Ianto looked at Jack, his expression pained.  “And I’m trying to trust it; it’s just all so new.  And so completely different from before.  I’m sorry,” he sniffed, trying to rein in the spiral he was caught in, the first in a couple of weeks.

Jack quickly pointed this out, knowing it was just another opportunity for Ianto to heal.  “And don’t be sorry,” he reassured.  “I understand, I promise.  I know it will take time for you to build that trust, but it’ll be so worth it.  I just wish these moments of doubt didn’t rob you of the happiness you’re beginning to let yourself feel.” 

Slowly, he leaned in.  Slowly enough that Ianto could retreat if he didn’t wish for the contact, in this moment.  Slowly enough that he could feel his lover’s breath hitch in that familiar way that always thrilled him and made him ache with love and desire.  “Let yourself be happy, Ianto,” he whispered against his lover’s lips.  He brushed their lips together, feather-light.  “Let yourself have this, my Love.”

He wanted to swear that he would protect Ianto, but he had done so much to hurt the younger man.  Granted, that had been due to the curses, but he knew it was too soon for Ianto to trust that they were completely gone from him, so it was definitely too soon for him to trust that Jack wouldn’t hurt him again.

“Let myself fall,” Ianto’s lips brushed Jacks as they formed the words.  “I’ve been falling for a long time, Jack.”

“I’ll catch you,” Jack replied, and frowned as Ianto sat back.

“What about you?” he asked, looking thoughtful.

Jack felt a thrill run down his spine.  How many times had they done this dance, these past few weeks?  It wasn’t time yet, but he could give another assurance.

“Me?  Oh, I fell a long time ago, Love” Jack said, his voice low, trying to coax Ianto nearer, once more.  “A pterosaur dropped me, remember?  And I fell hard.”  He smiled as Ianto’s eyes widened.  “But you caught me, and I was done for.  I tried to fight it, but there was no looking back.”

“Jack,” Ianto sighed, leaning in and kissing Jack with a tender passion that had them both dizzy when they came up for air.

The lounge chair flattened into a soft, sturdy bed as clothes were shed and Ianto rolled onto his back, pulling Jack on top of him.  “Show me,” he whispered, wrapping his legs around the older man.

Jack made love to Ianto then, slowly, reverently, with a sweet, intense ardor that he had not allowed himself to show, before.  There was no teasing; no raw, wild need.  This was a mutual declaration.  A display.  A demonstration of a love that was neither fleeting nor finite, and though it had been shown in almost every way, still they left it unnamed, the words needing their own moment, which had not yet arrived.

Jack moved, slow and deep, allowing the bond to take them higher and higher.  Ianto came with a cry that was the sweetest sound Jack had ever heard; his own climax had him gasping his lover’s name.  Love and joy flooded the bond, making both men gasp and jolt as their bodies responded with a final, shared spasm. 

They lay entwined together, covered in a fine sheen of sweat that the afternoon breeze was cooling almost too quickly.  Ianto shivered and conjured another blanket rather than try to extricate the one that was tangled somewhere around and beneath them.  They held one another close, safe and warm in the open air and drifted in a quiet drowse until the growling of their stomachs called them back to their rooms.

Jack summoned Mitzy, a house elf who had taken a shine to the muggle captain.  Ianto rolled his eyes, resigned to the fact that watching other beings fall for Jack was just going to be a fact of life.  Jack loved the attention, and he loved making others feel good about themselves, so he always flirted and played, but Ianto was beginning to recognize that their bond would help him to keep his jealousy in check.

He did worry that someday the bond might show him something he might not want to see (or feel), but in time he would come to trust that Jack’s heart was true to him.  Unbeknownst to both men, the last few weeks had sown the seeds of a devotion between them that nothing would be able to assail, and it was their bond that would hold them steady through their long life together.

But in the meantime, Jack was flirting with a house elf like he meant to carry her off in the dead of night.  She giggled and swatted at him, clearly enjoying the game, but also quite obviously recognizing that’s all it was.  Ianto decided it was the perfect example of a thing done right. 

That, sadly, reminded him of the thing done wrong, and he could only hope Jack would read future flirtations as well as with Mitzy, not as poorly as with Gwen.  As Jack bantered with the house elf and told her what they would like for their tea, Ianto stared at his phone, knowing he should return Rhys’ call from earlier in the day. 

It hadn’t even been two hours, and Ianto had only just seen the missed call, but he felt guilty for not answering, and he felt even more guilty for not really wanting to call back.  Not today, when it had felt like a battle to get out each word he’d uttered.  Rhys had not left a message, but it was telling that he had even called. 

Ianto sighed.  He had made the offer; it would be wrong not to follow through.  He hit ‘Send’ and let the sight of Jack’s smile (even if it was for Mitzy, at the moment) ground him as the call connected.

“’lo?”  The answer was a slurred, wet sound.

“Rhys?  It’s Ianto.”

“Telmee ‘gain,” the drunken Welshman demanded.

Ianto sighed.  He hadn’t had this, during his suspension.  Someone to call, who could tell him it would get better.  The only thing he’d had was Jack doing a strange sort of makeshift suicide watch that he only later recognized and appreciated as exceptionally kind and deeply caring. 

But in his darkest moments, that had not offered any hope.  All Ianto had been able to do was walk down to the bay and sit by the water until Jack found him and escorted him, half frozen, back home.  But somehow that had been enough to help him keep going.

At the time, Ianto had wondered why Jack had bothered, but he hadn’t dared ask.  By the time he could have contrived to ask, he no longer needed to.  But on one of those nights, it all changed.  As Ianto resolved to mix the potions a fourth time and to finally, actually drink them, Jack sat beside him on the bench – one of the coldest, most exposed places to be found along the bay – and started talking.

He’d spoken of abandonment and lost loves and the loneliness of waiting for their return.  He spoke of the fear that they wouldn’t come, as well as the conviction that if they could, they would.  He spoke of allowing the barest sliver of hope to outweigh the despair, and in so doing he had provided that sliver to Ianto in the form of the assurance that their friendship, though damaged, could recover.

Ianto had not mixed the potions that night.  Jack’s forgiveness had given him something to hold onto.  Could he do the same for Rhys? 

“You’re going to get through this, Rhys.”

“I don’t know…  I don’t know if I can…”

“You can.  I know it feels like you’re just going through the motions, just ticking boxes, but that’s part of the process.  You just fly on autopilot until you’re ready to take the controls back.  It’s like…  It’s like muscle memory, letting you get by.  But you have to keep going.”

“Why?  What’s the bloody point?”

“Because it’s what Gwen would have wanted,” Ianto said, hating himself even as he said it.  He had resented the hell out of any and everyone who told him Lisa would have wanted him to keep going.  As true as it might have been, it hadn’t been what he’d wanted to hear when he was so deep in his pain.  Instead, he’d desperately wanted permission to end the pain. 

Of course, his circumstances had been different.  His penance had been to live with his guilt and remorse.  He had accepted that, and it had actually made things a bit easier, because it had given meaning to his suffering.  Jack would hate to hear that now, but Ianto had no intention of sharing that part of what was done and behind them.

“Tha’s a bloody low blow, mate,” Rhys growled into the phone.

“But it’s why you called me,” Ianto reminded him.  “You want to know how to keep going?  This is how.  You wake up.  You get up.  You show up.  And until you can do it for yourself, you do it for her.  In her memory.  In her honor.  For her.  And someday, it will be for yourself, as well.  And it won’t be just going through the motions.  You’ll live again.  And sometimes you’ll bloody hate yourself for it, but most days, you’ll be glad you stuck it out.”

“Stuck it…” Rhys sounded baffled, and Ianto wondered if he’d said something wrong.  “You mean you almost… didn’t?” he asked it as though such a thing had never occurred to him, and Ianto cursed himself for putting the idea in the other man’s head.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.  But you were asking what was the point, and I was worried…”

“No, mate, don’t be sorry.  I was spouting nonsense.  Too much to drink after packing up her stuff and giving a bunch of it to her parents.”  Rhys sounded almost sober, now.  “I’m not…  I wasn’t thinking about topping myself.”

“Good,” Ianto nodded.

“But you did?”

“That’s not important.”

“The hell it isn’t!”

Ianto sighed.  “I had a lot more going on, remember.  Losing Lisa, on top of surviving Canary Wharf…  I had PTSD and survivor’s guilt and a shedload of other things.  But that’s what I’ve been saying to you.  I got past it, despite all of that.  And so can you.”

“How?” Rhys’ voice was small.

“Just keep going.  People like to talk about how brave those left behind are, but it’s not bravery.  You just have no other choice, really, once you’ve chosen to keep breathing.”  He hesitated.  “You have, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, mate,” Rhys breathed.  “Yeah.  I’ll be honest, it seems kind of pointless, but I won’t quit.”

“You ring me or one of your friends before you decide otherwise, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Gonna need you to swear to that,” Ianto said.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Swear it, Rhys.  On Gwen’s memory.”

“Fucking hell, Ianto.  Alright, I swear it.”

“Say it properly.”

“I swear it on Gwen’s memory.  I’ll find you or Daf or Banana Boat before I choose otherwise.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Ianto smiled.  Rhys might not know it, but he’d just turned a corner.  If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be quite so pissed at Ianto, at the moment.  “Ring me if you want to talk.”

“Yeah, I will,” Rhys said, and something in his voice sounded relieved to have made a choice. 

Ianto knew Rhys would need to make that choice over and over until the grief began to subside, but it was a win, for now.

“Goodnight, Rhys.”

“G’night, Ianto.”

***