m_findlow

Title: Defences down
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 527 - Raw at slashthedrabble
Summary: Tonight they both have to lay bare the raw emotions that have been struggling to break free for so long.

To say the kiss caught Jack off guard was an understatement. Ianto Jones. Who knew he fancied Jack? Sure, Jack had flirted and toyed with him pretty much from the very first day he'd started working for Torchwood, but he'd done it in the knowledge that Ianto was about as straight as they came, even if he dressed and fussed about his appearance in a way that would make any gay man proud.

Perhaps he was overthinking it too much. Ianto had been through hell, and everything had come to a head tonight down in that cellar. Ianto had finally gotten the revenge he'd wanted to exact on Jack for killing Lisa. Jack couldn't deny it was probably justified. Hell was too good, even for him. If he could have gone back to that day and done things differently, maybe he would have. The only way to get it across to Ianto that he was dealing with a monster had been to become a monster himself, so that Ianto could see what one looked like when he came face to face with it. It was the kind of hard lesson Jack wouldn't wish on anyone.

The kiss was just a reaction to the grief. That's what Jack tried to tell himself. Ianto's emotions were all over the place, and they were misplaced in thinking he wanted to start up something with Jack. He needed a physical outlet for everything inside him.

When Jack pulled into the underground carpark beneath the block of flats, he cast a glance at the young man, expecting him to turn around and say he'd made a mistake asking Jack to come back here with him. Instead what Jack saw stopped his breath dead in his chest. There was so much raw emotion in that one look that Jack didn't know where to begin. There was pain and loss and hurt, but there was also something tender. Jack hadn't seen anyone look at him in that way for a long time. He knew that look all too well, though. It was the look of someone who had fallen for him, hard. He swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. It scared him seeing that look on Ianto's face. He couldn't deny he wanted it. You always wanted the one thing you knew you could never have. A hundred and forty years of love and loss and he still couldn't stop those basic emotions.

'Are you sure?' He didn't think he could manage any more words than that. This was Ianto's last chance to back out. If he didn't, Jack knew he wouldn't hold back, couldn't hold back.

'I've never been surer about anything.' The conviction with which he said it left no doubt in Jack's mind that it was true. For all the pain and hurt he'd caused Ianto, perhaps tonight could begin to help heal some of it. That, or it might just be the beginning of a different kind of pain.