Slashthedrabble Challenge 437 - Unchanging

[m_findlow]

Title: Unchanging
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 437 - Predictable at slashthedrabble
Summary: You can always count on Jack for consistency

On the face of it, he might not look it, but Jack was about the most predictable person Ianto had ever met.

As much as he was a show pony, and loved being surrounded by other people, there were still times when the job, life itself, or the prospect of living forever became just too much, and he needed to be alone. He'd always come back, maybe a little sobered, but otherwise okay. But always in his own time. Sometimes when things were particularly bad, he might take some coaxing or even some company to bring him out of his reverie, but he'd never ask for it. It had to be given freely, and somehow Ianto had come to learn when those moments were, and where he'd find Jack when the time was right. Cardiff's many rooftops gave him a range of options.

There were roofs for sulking, roofs for mourning, roofs for simply enjoying a job well done, admiring the city he protected. Each had its own purpose, and Jack was nothing if not consistent.    

Perhaps that's what happened when you lived as long as he had, hankering for the familiar and the path of least resistance. When everything around you was constantly changing, you held dear to the things you could, and learned to adapt to the rest.  

Everything about him was unchanging, a set pattern of ways and preferences. From his choice of wardrobe to his choice of weapons, tastes in music and taste in food. He always ordered the same thing off the menu, arguing that if you liked something, why deviate and take the risk of ordering something you might not like?

That was Jack all over. If it wasn't broken, it didn't need fixing, and even if it was broken, couldn't we get one exactly like it? Well, maybe Ianto was in part to blame on that front. Jack's phone never changed because Ianto kept buying him the same one. It was just easier than having to learn where all the features were all over again. In a crisis, that might be the difference between getting a mayday call out or not, or so he liked to tell himself. He had a whole box full of new handsets, identical, for the eventual next time Jack would break one.

And Jack was happy that nothing ever changed. He liked things just they way they were. Sometimes Ianto wondered just how far that set of immutable laws stretched. Was he perhaps just one in a long line of Ianto Joneses; a string of quiet, unassuming lovers that were prepared to give Jack anything he wanted, and everything, without ever asking anything in return?

Perhaps at the end of the day it didn't matter. Jack wasn't going to change, not for him, not for anyone, not in any life altering ways. But then again, Ianto loved Jack just the way he was, and in all honesty, if he lived another thousand years, he wouldn't change a thing.