Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 2, Chapter 11

[amuly]

Title: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 2, Chapter 11
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 4,024
Rating: R
Summary: When a seven-year-old boy falls through the Rift, Ianto and Jack decide to adopt him. This is the story of his life at Torchwood.
Chapter Summary: The blowup.
Warnings: aaaannnngggsssssttt
A/N: Here it is. What you've all been waiting for. And yes: we will find out Owen's reasons for all his arsey-ness. It's scheduled for Chapter 302 (some of you have totally already guessed it ~.^). Also: only 2 more chapters scheduled for Year 2. The amount of Chapters per Year is constructed in descending primes – 17, 13, 11, 7, 5 – and it'll bottom out at 5 and stay there through the last Year (math nerd says what?).

 

Previous Chapters:

               Prologue          |          The First Year:          |          The Second Year:
                                                  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10         1, 1.PWP, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
                       11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17           8, 9, 10
 

 

 

Ianto listened to the door from the Hub to the Tourist Office open behind him, and tried his best to pretend like he hadn't been watching Gwil's trip home – walking from the school, to the fake house, through the portal, and then up through the Hub to his office – for the past thirty minutes. He stepped out from the back room of the office, holding out his arms to scoop up Gwil in an after-school greeting. “How was school?”

Gwil shucked his rucksack on the floor behind the desk and loosened his tie, but made no other move to disassemble his school uniform as he got comfortable. “Good. I have maths homework tonight, and a spelling test at the end of the week.”

As if on cue, Gwil's stomach growled. He looked plaintively up at Ianto, who smiled back. His “feed me” expression was starting to take on an all-too-familiar cast, one that reminded Ianto of late nights spent at the Hub, pouring over documents with Jack until the older man finally convinced Ianto to go on a midnight chip run.

Ianto had finally managed to settled into some semblance of an easy routine, these past weeks with the extra help at Torchwood allowing him – most days – to get Gwil to school in the morning, pack lunches, and have snacks ready for him when he came home. It certainly wasn't always perfect, being Torchwood, and more than once Gwil had peeked his head out of their rooms after school, only to duck back down and wait as crises swirled above him.

But today the Rift had been relatively quiet, with only routine, easy-to-handle issues popping up. This meant that Ianto had time to prepare Gwil's after-school snack with care, which he went to retrieve as Gwil climbed up onto the desk: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, crusts cut off, with apple slices and a glass of milk.

Gwil dug in vigorously, crunching the apple slices in a mouth spotty with teeth and holes where teeth once were. Ianto stood at the desk, filling out forms on the computer there and closing out case files where he could. A quick glance to the clock on the computer, born from habit, told him he had a good half hour before the team needed more coffee and biscuits. As part of his new attempt at routine, Ianto had slightly adjusted his coffee distribution schedule straddling the time Gwil got home: one round of coffee and biscuits a half hour before school let out, which gave Ianto time to pass out the coffee and still watch Gwil's every step home, and one round an hour to an hour and a half after school left out, which gave Ianto some time alone with Gwil before he had to get back to work.

While Ianto had been focused on closing out a week-old investigation at a local hospital – as it turned out, particular alien plagues were apparently quite beneficial for human women's pain management during childbirth – Gwil had finished up his snack and scooted himself along the desk, silently watching Ianto work.

“Tad?”

Ianto finished filling in the box on the form he was on, then turned his attention to Gwil. “Hm?”

Gwil cocked his head to the side, eyes focused on Ianto's hands. Ianto waited patiently. Gwil had a way of trying to sort questions out in his head for a long time before actually asking them, and Ianto tried to respect that little flicker of independence – much like he pretended to respect Gwil's insistence to walk to and from school unattended.

Finally, Gwil pointed to Ianto's left hand. “That's your left hand, right? It's backwards, because I'm facing you?”

Ianto nodded, trying not to jump ahead and figure out what Gwil was going for. He'd reveal his thoughts soon enough.

Tiny fingers plucked at Ianto's left hand, lifting it and pulling it close to Gwil's face. He appeared to be examining each finger, rubbing them each carefully between thumb and middle finger in some sort of eliminative system. Slowly, blue eyes narrowed in thought, Gwil asked another question. “Are you and Dad married?”

Oh. As gently as he could, Ianto extracted his hand from Gwil's grip. His ring finger on that hand felt like it was on fire. Unsure of how exactly to handle this – especially without Jack present – Ianto settled for the simple answer: “No.”

Gwil seemed to take this into careful consideration, brain sorting through the information. “Can two boys get married now? You said some kids have two tads or two mams, or one each like normal, but you never said if two boys or two girls can get married.”

Again, Ianto hesitated before settling on the simplest answer: “Yes, two men or two women can get married if they want to.”

“Then why don't you and Dad get married?” Ianto cringed. Gwil's face was all honest innocence, blue eyes searching his tad's face like it held all the answers in the universe. Ianto sighed scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Mrs. Denise said that when two adults are in love they get married and maybe have kids. She said you get a ring that shows you're married. I'd never seen a ring on your finger, but...” Ianto's entire body tensed as he saw where Gwil's logic was heading. “You and Dad are in love, and have me, so then why aren't you married?”

There it was. In love. Ianto looked away, over to the secret Hub entrance. Down there, somewhere tens of meters below the Plass, Jack worked. Barking orders, joking around, filling in forms, fiddling with gadgets. And Jack would keep doing that, exactly that, for long after both Ianto and Gwil had died. Then he might move on, do something else, but he would still be alive, working and laughing and living. Forever.

“Your dad and I love you very much, Gwil.” Ianto slid his eyes slowly away from the Hub entrance, forcing a small smile onto his face. He knew it didn't reach his eyes. “That's all that matters.”

Gwil's eyes narrowed. “Loving me's not the same as loving each other. Why don't you love Dad?”

“I didn't-”

“But... you have sex with him! I thought you were only suppos'd-”

Ianto felt a bubble of panic rise in his throat. Shit. This conversation was quickly spiraling out of his control. This is why he never talked about Santa or the Tooth Fairy when he was around Mischa or David: he had absolutely no ability to lie to children.

“Just...” Ianto made a soft noise of exasperation in the back of his throat, before touching Gwil gently on the arm. “We love you. And we really care about each other. It's not exactly the same sort of family like your friends might have, but we already talked about how things are different in our home, right?”

Gwil's nod was a touch more sullen than Ianto might have liked, but he put it out of his mind. As Gwil polished off the last of his milk and Ianto finished up the form, he allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. Crises averted. “Come on.” Ianto helped Gwil down from the desk, rubbing his back affectionately once he was on the ground. “Let's go pass out the coffee and biscuits, okay? Then you can do your maths homework at Auntie Tosh's desk.”

**

By some small miracle of fate, or the Rift, Jack, Ianto, and Gwil actually managed to sit down to dinner together. The meal wasn't home cooked, more like take-away from a grocers down the street, but it included vegetables and a salad and meats, so Ianto considered the evening meal an all-around success.

“Tad says he doesn't love you.”

Ianto choked on his beer, sending the fizzy liquid up his nose and back of his throat, burning his sinuses. Jack's look was sharp, but not immediately accusatory. Ianto gave thanks for small miracles.

“What do you mean, champ?”

Gwil continued, eyes narrowed at Ianto as he speared his potato viciously. “I asked Tad if you were married, and he said no, and that you weren't going to be.” Before either adult could get a word in edgeways, Gwil continued, picking up steam. “And I said if you love each other you'd get married, and he said you love me, and he loves me, but he wouldn't say that he loved you!”

Ianto winced. In child-logic it sounded so cruel. So simple. Setting down his fork carefully, Ianto turned toward Jack, about to explain.

Jack's eyes were accusatory now. “We could get married...” he said slowly. His tone said the words were directed toward Gwil, but his eyes stayed focused on Ianto.

“Jack...” Ianto warned.

“Well? Why not? Owen's always calling us 'husbands', and we-”

“Oh, that's a great reason to do something,” Ianto snapped, “because Owen says so. I'm swooning with romantic intent.”

Jack continued as if he hadn't heard Ianto, but the muscle twitching in his jaw told otherwise. “-we have a son together. There's no reason not-”

“You know The Reason not to,” Ianto hissed.

The table fell silent for a long, tense minute. Ianto stared coldly at Jack, who stared just as viciously back. In truth, Ianto was terrified: of what Jack would say, of what he wouldn't – couldn't – say. And terrified of the reasons Jack would be willing to get married to him: pity, convention, because he knew it wasn't forever, because even if Jack hated him and Gwil, it was just a blink of an eye for him, and it'd be over...

Ianto steeled his eyes more firmly as he stared at Jack, hoping his fears and insecurities weren't bleeding through them like they always did when he was around Jack. He needed to be able to stand firm on this issue, because it didn't seem like Jack was going to. Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see Gwil's tiny face flickering back and forth between his parents.

Finally opting to be the bigger man and stand down, Ianto dropped his gaze, muttering: “We can talk about this later.”

Jack's eyes stayed on Ianto, burning into the top of his head, for a long, long time after Ianto had lowered his to his plate.

**

After dinner, Ianto ushered Gwil off to his playroom, while he stayed behind and cleaned up. Jack was still sitting at the table, leveling looks in Ianto's direction, which he steadfastly refused to acknowledge as he cleaned up the dishes and silverware. Finally, without lifting his head from the sink, Ianto muttered “We're not doing this out here, where Gwil can hear. I'll be in the bedroom in a moment.”

Without a word Jack stood, his chair screeching against the floor as he pushed away from the table. As his heavy boot steps faded away to their bedroom, Ianto turned off the tap, pressing his hands to the counter edge. “Fuck,” he breathed.

He took a few long minutes to steel himself for the inevitable confrontation. Jack was furious: it didn't take any familiarity with him to recognize that. But, because Ianto was so familiar with Jack, he knew that beneath that fury was a more basic feeling of hurt. Jack was hurt by Ianto's assumption that he wouldn't want to get married. The only trouble was, Ianto couldn't figure out why. After all, it was Jack who hated the word “couple”. Jack who threw a fit every time Owen referred to them as spouses. Jack who couldn't even say... well.

Swallowing thickly, Ianto straightened up from the counter, tugging uselessly at his wrinkled shirt and unbuttoned waistcoat. This wasn't his fault. This wasn't his issue.

As soon as he stepped into the bedroom and let the door click shut behind him, Ianto knew this was going to be a blow-up. Jack was slouching in his armchair in the corner of the room, fiddling with a model airplane Gwil had given him for his last “birthday”. He resolutely kept his head down as Ianto walked slowly across the room, not looking up until Ianto stopped a meter or two away.

His eyes slid over Ianto's figure slowly, starting at his feet and moving up until they were making eye-contact. “You don't want to marry me.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Ianto grumbled.

“Ridiculous?” Ianto realized too late how it had sounded, but Jack was continuing before he could reword what he had said. “Well excuse me for thinking you might have some feelings for the man you've been fucking for four years – the man you're raising a child with.” Jack broke their eye-contact, gaze drifting back down to the model airplane still in his hands. “Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.

“I meant,” Ianto stared, struggling to keep his voice relatively calm, “Of course I'd marry you-” Jack's head snapped up, “if you hadn't made it so clear that you didn't want to marry me.”

Jack huffed, finally setting the airplane aside and standing. “What do you mean I don't want to marry you? Why-”

Ianto started ticking the points off on his fingers. “You hate the word couple, you've only been married once in all the time you've been alive, you won't even admit we're exclusive, you throw a fit every time Owen even implies that we're spouses-”

“I don't throw fits.” Jack sounded ridiculously petulant.

“And you don't even love me!”

The air in the room was heavy with silence as Ianto's last, shouted words reverberated through both men's minds.

Jack's voice was pleading when he spoke next. “Of course I... I do. Ianto, how could you-”

“There, see:” Ianto waved a hand at Jack, ignoring the tears that started to threaten, “you won't even say it. How do you expect me to believe you want to marry me if you won't even-”

“I love you, Ianto! Okay? You're the one that won't, that doesn't...” Ianto realized abruptly that Jack was fishing, eyes pleading.

“Do you want to hear that I love you, Jack? Are you so dense to believe that I don't?”

Jack was wringing his hands – actually wringing his hands, and Ianto thought he wanted to end the conversation right there, just so Jack wouldn't seem so small and nervous. He moved toward Ianto, hand reaching out, then pulling back, eyes gone all soft and sad even as tears threatened. “No, Ianto... but you shouldn't. You shouldn't love me, not when-”

Jack might have appeared about to cry, but Ianto was still too angry. Angry at Torchwood, angry at the Doctor, angry at himself, for falling in love with some impossible man, a man that could never actually be his, who had to ask Ianto not to love him.

Ianto threw an arm out as he shouted. “What, so you're allowed to love me but I'm not allowed to return the favor?” Jack's entire body cringed, and Ianto turned his body away, so he wouldn't have to face the hurt he was causing the other man. “You order me around a lot, Captain Jack Harkness – fill out these forms for me, make me coffee, dispose of this weevil corpse, bend over-” Jack's mouth snapped open, his eyes angry and hurt by the last implication, but Ianto steamrolled right over him, “-but you do not get to order me not to love you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see that Jack was shaking, hands trembling violently as they reached out and pulled back, torn over what course of action would be best to take. “D- do-” Ianto watched as Jack took a steadying breath, sucking air into his lungs with a sort of vicious determination. “Do you? How can you? After... after Lisa, and leaving you. All the flirting and carrying on...”

Ianto gasped, shaking his head as tears started to fall. It was too much, now. He couldn't hold onto that white-hot anger he felt for Jack: not when the other man looked as wrecked as he did, all wide, terrified eyes seeking acknowledgement, a return of feelings. “What, you don't think I love you, Jack?” Ianto ran a shaky hand through his hair, pressing his hands on his hips as if that simple gesture might help him retain what little composure he had left. “You've known, Jack. You know how I am, you know how much I...” For all his efforts, a sob still escaped his lips. “I gave you everything of me, Jack, so long ago, long before I even should have. But I know you can't-” Ianto's voice broke on the word “can't”. He struggled for a moment to go on, to continue speaking, to keep being angry. But he couldn't, because his heart felt like it was ripping out of his chest. He gasped, sobbing, as he slid down to the floor.

Strong arms encircled him, and right then Ianto didn't care that they belonged to Jack, and that he was mad at Jack. He let himself be pulled into the embrace, tucking his face into Jack's chest. “If anything happened to you – permanently – I wouldn't be able to live,” Ianto finally managed to croak. “I'd just... I'd stop. And I'd ghost through life, doing things, surviving, but never living again until I died. And you...” Ianto felt, more than heard, that Jack was crying with him, now. “You have to keep going after I die. And after Gwil. And you've got lots of practice, so I know you can-”

“Practice?” Ianto found himself being pushed away, pulled and manhandled until Jack was staring him in the eyes, hands vice-like on his shoulders. “Practice? You think having the ones I love die around me, all the time, gets any easier? That I can handle it better each time?”

“You might not like it,” Ianto felt he was being rather reasonable, considering the flood of tears pouring down his face and the way his breath hitched every other word, “but it does. You get numb, and the pain dulls each time...”

Jack shook Ianto viciously. “Do you really think anything about how I feel for you is dull? Is numb?” Jack made a weird noise: half barking-laugh, half sob. “I tried not to, Ianto. I tried so hard not to love you, and it worked, it really did, for a while, but you just wormed your way in, with your coffee and your wry little smile and dry wit and ability to take care of me even when I didn't realize I needed to be.” Jack took a steadying breath before continuing. “And you're right: I will have to go on after you and Gwil die. But you're wrong if you think I'll just get over it. I'm going to 'ghost through life' for a long, long time after you're gone, Ianto Jones. And even when I stop ghosting, it's never, never going to be the same. Do you understand?”

Ianto tried to choke back a sob, found he couldn't, and ended up hiccuping rather unattractively. “Did we just get engaged?”

Jack's crooked grin just made Ianto cry more, feeling like a complete idiot even as he did. “It's a pretty shite proposal. Sorry.” Jack's hand reached up and caressed Ianto's cheek. “We can make up a better story for the team.”

Jack leaned forward to kiss Ianto, but he pulled away, still smiling through the tears. “Wait, wait.” He placed a hand on Jack's chest, rubbing his thumb gently over the cotton shirt. “Then why have you been so upset with Owen? Every time he says the word 'couple' or 'married' or 'spouse', I get ready to pull you off of him, think it's going to come to blows.”

Jack's thumb rubbed circles on Ianto's jaw as he smiled sheepishly. “I thought I was defending you. I thought you never wanted to get married to me, that you shouldn't feel pressured into staying with me, and that all those comments from Owen were just forcing you to stick around.” Jack's voice dropped, eyes falling from Ianto's face. “And I was scared. I never wanted you to love me. Because if you did, then it wasn't just me pining after you. Then this would be something real, something that would rip my heart out of my chest, something that I'd never, ever be healed of. And you'd be in love with me, when you could have done so much better.”

Ianto snorted. “Now's not the time for false humility, Captain.”

“But it's true!” Jack's eyes flicked up and met Ianto's once again, all earnestness dominating his expression. “You loving me is an absolutely terrible decision! You could have found someone normal and settled down with him or her. You could have had a normal life, with gorgeous kids, and none of this...” Jack waved his hand around, “bullshit.” Ianto laughed, hiccuping again. “I'm the worst person to love. If you're in love with me, then you end up with all these problems: the doubts, the insecurities, the knowledge that one day you're going to leave, and that I'm going to have to continue on. And you don't deserve all that, Ianto. You deserve so much more.”

“Unfortunately,” Ianto croaked, “love isn't a decision. At least in my experience. And this just... happened.” Ianto let Jack kiss him then, smiling through the taste of salty tears and desperation. When they pulled back, Ianto let Jack gather him in his arms, resting his head on Jack's shoulder. Jack's hand came up and stroked the back of his head as Ianto let his eyes drift closed. “No more laying into Owen, then?”

“Promise,” Jack murmured.

“Could we hold off on telling the team? For a bit?”

Jack's jaw brushed against Ianto's head as he nodded. “Yeah. Let's sort all this out ourselves, first. Rings, CP license, we're going to have to fake some records for me- oh!”

Ianto found himself being manhandled again, as Jack pushed them apart so they could see each other's faces. He clasped Ianto's hands in his own, expression as serious as Ianto had ever seen it.

“Ianto Jones,” he intoned, “would you make our little family complete, and marry me?”

With his hands trapped in Jack's, Ianto couldn't wipe away the tears that dripped down his face. He nodded, yanking Jack in for a kiss. “Yes,” he whispered against Jack's lips. “Yes, yes. Of course yes.”

The two men fell backwards together against the floor, clothes falling away with a quiet sort of reverence as they explored each other's bodies afresh. Later, as they lay in the middle of scattered clothes and let the sweat cool on their bodies, Ianto took Jack's left hand in his, stroking at his ring finger. “Do you really want to get rings?”

“I want anything you want,” Jack murmured, already on his way to sleep with eyes half-closed and foot rubbing gently against Ianto's ankle. “And I want you to want what you want, not what you think I want.”

Ianto snorted, but released Jack's hand and curled up into him, letting his head rest on Jack's chest. “Assuming I understood that properly, I'll do my best.”

“Good.”

The most fleeting thought of moving the two of them to their comfy, king-sized bed – only meters away from where they were – passed through Ianto's mind. But then he was asleep, using Jack's chest as a pillow and his warmth as his blanket.


Continue on to Chapter 12.