madbottoms | Opportunities/One door closes...and a window opens (10/22)

Title: Opportunities/One door closes...and a window opens (10/22)

Rating: PG – I think. There is talk of sex and some ‘adult’ moments but nothing explicit.

Genre: AU! No aliens but some familiar names may still be used

Characters: Jack, Ianto, Estelle, Tosh, OMC

Summary: The holiday season is coming up and Ianto Jones is stuck without a job, with very little money and not too many prospects. So when he is offered a job for two weeks, he readily accepts. But this new job may become complicated when he realises that the man who broke his heart years before is the grandson of his new employer.

A/N: Posting a day early because you've all been so great. In this chapter, Ianto has a laugh at Jack’s expense and we travel back in time for a moment in Ianto’s mind spurred on by an intimate moment. We also meet James.

This one's for evalentine99

*~*

Chapter Ten

Ianto put down the boxes and moved further into the living room as Tosh smiled and moved to meet him halfway. Meeting in the middle the two old friends hugged and greeted each other warmly.

‘Oh, Ianto, it’s so good to see you,’ Tosh said. ‘It’s been so long.’

‘It’s good to see you, too.’ Ianto let her go and smiled. ‘How is life in London? Still making a killing with your IT programs?’

‘London’s good, although I miss Cardiff. How about you?’

Ianto’s smile faltered a little but was back quicker than it left. ‘I’m okay,’ he said and then looked around at the tight face of Mary Harper, the intrigued face of Estelle and a look of confusion on Jack’s. Nothing could stop the delight he felt at the look on Jack’s face as he looked at Tosh.

It was all he could do not to get himself out of the room before he broke out in laughter completely. ‘It’s awfully warm in here. Tell you what, Tosh. Let me go hang up my coat and we can catch up.’ And he barely made it out of the room before he laughed out loud almost doubling over.

Jack had made such a mighty effort to avoid being matched up with Mary’s little friend—and then Tosh turns out to be his friend and very much not Jack’s type. No wonder Mary had made it sound more like she was promising a little boy a playmate!

Ianto only hoped his laughter wasn’t too loud and the crackle of the fire blocked out any sound he made from the guest’s ears.

Jack was only a few steps behind him to get rid of his own coat. ‘What in the—?’

‘If you could see yourself,’ Ianto said through his subsiding laughter. He slid out of his coat and draped it over the banister.

‘This isn’t funny,’ Jack said. ‘And you know her?’

‘Yes, I know her from university. And while it might not be funny from your perspective, it’s pretty hilarious from where I’m sitting.’ And to suit the words to his actions, he sat on the lowest step. ‘All the effort you used trying to avoid all this was unnecessary.’ He tried to gulp back another laugh, but the effort went wrong and he began to cough instead.

Jack dropped down beside him and slapped him lightly between the shoulders.

Ianto pulled away. ‘Hey, you don’t have to beat on me.’

‘I’m trying to keep you from choking to death now so I can have the joy of strangling you with my own hands later.’ But he stopped patting his back.

‘You can’t possibly blame me for this.’ Ianto argued. ‘I’m not the one with such a tremendous ego that I jumped to conclusions. You really should get over yourself, Jack. The very idea that men are standing in line to be noticed, scheming to be introduced—’

Jack heaved a sigh and leaned back, elbows propped on a stair. ‘Oh do enjoy yourself.’

‘Oh, I will. It never even occurred to you that Tosh might be a woman. And she’s actually a very nice one, too.’

‘I’m sure she is. But I don’t recall you expressing your doubts on the subject, either.’

‘I had my doubts. The name sounded familiar but I was just waiting to see if my assumptions were correct. It was worth it just to see the look on your face when you saw her.’ This time Ianto didn’t even try to swallow the peal of laughter which rumbled inside him.

Before it could quite reach the surface, however, Jack’s arm closed around his shoulders and pulled him off balance toward him. Suddenly, before Ianto realised what he intended, Jack’s lips brushed his lightly and then settled into a firm kiss which, along with robbing him of any desire to laugh, took away the little breath control he still had.

Jack’s touched burned through his jumper, scorching his skin as easily as if he were wearing nothing at all. Jack’s mouth against his was neither gentle nor soft. It was uncompromising, almost challenging—though not harsh.

For an instant, time seemed to fold in on itself, and Ianto was back in Jack’s room at university. He was curled up on his bed because there was no other place big enough to spread out textbook, notebooks, calculator, and all the tools they needed for tutoring. He was shifting around to get comfortable, trying to find a position that would support his back and still keep the books at an angle where both of them could see. Finally, Jack draped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him up next to him, propped against the pillows at the head of the narrow bed. He’d tensed at the idea of being so close to him, half-lying together on the single bed, and Jack had joked about how rigid his muscles felt and then turned back to the problem he’d been demonstrating. Jack had been so casual about it that he hadn’t seemed to notice that his arm was still around him. And it hadn’t occurred to Ianto that he might have other plans...

Not until midway through his explanation, when he’d realised that Jack wasn’t looking at the notebook any longer but at him. As he’d stumbled to halt, Jack had kissed him, and then, eyes narrowing, said that it was clearly his first kiss and he’d be happy to give a few pointers. And he’d kissed him again, very slowly and sensually, just to demonstrate step by step how it was done.

He’d been wrong and right, all at the same time. It had not been Ianto’s first kiss, but it had been the first one that had mattered. The first one that had warmed him, made his insides go funny. The first one he hadn’t wanted to end...

This time the kiss was different—not tentative, not exploratory. But it evoked the same rush of emotion in him, the same intensity that had made him want, on that long ago night, to learn just as much as Jack could teach him.

Get a grip, Ianto. Just because last time it ended up a whole lot more than a kiss doesn’t mean you want to this time, not after last time.

Still, it took more effort than he liked to admit to protest. Fighting off attraction, he had to admit, took just as much attention as did wallowing in it. But first he had to get control of his body—how had he ending up lying sprawled across the stairs, anyway? He planted his hands firmly on Jack’s chest and pushed, but touching him seemed to be the completely wrong thing to do because things stirred even more deeply within.

Which simply proved, he told himself, that he had the normal range of male hormones. It surely didn’t have anything to do with Jack himself, because he’d learned that lesson long ago.

‘Knock it off, Harkness.’ Despite his best efforts he sounded breathless. ‘I thought I made myself quite clear that—’

From a few steps above them, a sarcastic male voice said, ‘I do so hate to interrupt such a touching scene, but if you’d excuse me so I could get through...’

Ianto’s head snapped back sharply and a few steps above them was a strikingly handsome, dark-haired man. There hadn’t been anyone in the hall or on the stairs when he’d come out of the living room. Even though Ianto had been caught up in his own amusement he remembered looking around to be certain it was safe to laugh. So how had this man managed to come down without him hearing anything?

Stupid question. You were just a little preoccupied just now.

Ianto slid to one side of the stairs and Jack stood up. ‘Sorry to be in your way—Mr?’

‘Oh, I understand. Seizing the moment and all.’ The man bounded down the last few stairs and held out a hand to Jack. ‘James Harper. Nice to meet you. I suppose you’ll be coming back to join the party sometime, so I’ll go in and join my aunty and the others.’ Without a glance at Ianto, he drifted off into the living room.

‘James Harper?’ Jack said slowly.

‘Mary’s nephew?’

‘The precise relationship makes no difference. I will now accept your apology.’

Ianto was aghast. ‘For what?’

‘For not taking all this seriously, for starters.’

‘Oh come on, Jack. Like you can’t avoid unwanted attention. If there are really so many men after you, why haven’t one of them nailed you yet?’

‘And for assuming I was wrong about Tosh—’

‘You were wrong about Tosh!’

‘I erred in details, not in substance.’

‘Gender’s a bit more than detail. Stop trying to change the subject. Whatever you were trying to prove with that kiss, give it up. You’re not going to get anywhere with it.’

Jack sat back down beside him again. ‘Really? I thought I’d gotten quite a long way.’ His gaze roved over him with a look that made Ianto want to punch him. ‘I certainly proved that it would be no great hardship for you to play along and pretend. But if it makes you uncomfortable...’

Something warned him not to agree.

‘So then I’d have to wonder why,’ Jack said.

‘Because you don’t need protection.’

Jack shot a look toward the living room, as if he could see James through the wall.

‘You’re doing it again, Jack—acting as if there couldn’t possibly be a man in the world that is indifferent to you.’

‘James doesn’t fall into that category.’

‘I suppose your psychic powers tell you that? Well, I’m not going to indulge you.’ He pushed himself up from the step. ‘Now, I’m going back into the party and not playing the part of your boyfriend and I’m going to catch up with my friend.’

*~*

Ianto really did want to get reacquainted with his friend, but he also wanted to get away from Jack. The way the kiss had affected him had scared him. But it had been no ordinary kiss, it had brought back memories he’d tried to hide for six years, of the kiss that had changed his life.

It had not been Ianto’s first kiss, but it had been the first one that had mattered. The first one that had warmed him, made his insides go funny. The first one he hadn’t wanted to end...

So of course it hadn’t ended. Ianto took full responsibility for that fact, because he could have stopped him if he wanted to, he could have punched him and walked out.

Instead, he had let the kiss go on, deeper and deeper, long past enjoyment and into hunger. Hunger that he thought—if he’d been thinking at all by then—was shared. He’d let himself believe that it was as important to Jack as it had been to him.

Ultimately, a long time later, he’d come back to his senses. He’d been embarrassed to find himself wrapped around Jack, clinging, almost begging. Mortified at the idea of being naked and exposed where Jack’s roommate might walk in any moment. Ashamed by the depth of passion he’d never suspected he possessed. Abashed to remember everything he’d done and everything he’d let Jack do to him. Unsettled to realise that the thing he wanted most just then was to do it all over again. And horrified by the stunned expression on Jack’s face.

It had taken him a while to realise that Jack was just as dazed as he was, but for entirely different reasons, unknown to him. Like an idiot, he’d asked what Jack was thinking—and when he’d said something about him being a whole lot different than he’d expected, the shock in his voice had brought him back to earth with a bang.

It had become apparent that Jack, too, had gotten much more than he’d bargained for—but in a whole different way. He was, Ianto had thought, clearly afraid of something...

‘I guess I’d better get going,’ Ianto had said, and when Jack hadn’t argued the point he’d pulled himself together and made his escape. He remembered being quite proud of the fact that his voice hadn’t even trembled as he’d stood in the doorway of the room and said he’d see him later.

He’d gone to class the next day, still sensitive about how much of himself he’d revealed to Jack, braced to greet him with cool civility, as if none of it had happened. If it hadn’t been important to Jack, then he’d make sure he understood that it hadn’t been important to him, either.

But before he’d even made it to the lecture hall the whispers had started, and the truth had quickly become clear. Jack had placed a bet on him...and it appeared that his bet had paid off. So, when Jack had tried to talk to him at the classroom door at the end of the lesson, he’d cut him off dead and walked away.

It had hurt for a while. Quite a while, if he was honest. But in the end he’d chalked it up to experience. But it was long over. Not important anymore.

And now—well, now he’d positively enjoy watching Jack get caught in the same kind of manipulation he’d created for him.

*~*

The naivety of Ianto, Jack fumed, not to see with a glance what James Harper was. Or perhaps Ianto had seen the man quite clearly and was simply looking forward to the show.

Jack swore under his breath and reached for Ianto’s coat, still draped across the banister, to hang it up. The wide oak boards at the foot of the stairs where their feet had rested were wet with the half-melted snow they’d tracked in. No—snow that he’d tracked in. Ianto had kicked off his shoes the instant they’d come in the door; Jack remembered thinking that he was acting as if he felt right at home in his grandmother’s house.

At any rate, he’d better mop it up before Emma saw it, or there would be hell to pay. He took o his own shoes, hung up the coats, and went to the kitchen for the paper towels.

Emma was rolling out pastry, muttering under her breath. ‘’Just make a few snacks for the guest’, she says. If I’d known she was going to have a party I’d have laid in supplies. I’m the one who’ll look bad if I can’t come up with something fancy.’

‘Don’t try. Put out stale pretzels and maybe they’ll go home early and give us all a break.’ He pulled a wad of paper towels off the roll.

Emma glowered. ‘Live Christmas trees, spur-of-the-moment decorating parties... Mrs Cole never did this sort of thing before that man came. She’s bewitched, your grandmother is—that’s what’s going on here. She’s not acting herself at all.’

Bewitched...

Not that he was completely crazy where Ianto was concerned. A mild flirtation, the occasional longing look, perhaps a meaningful clasp of the hands—that would be enough to ward off the approaches by the James’s of the world. Ianto could do it, he just had to convince him. But he’d balked at the idea, laughed at him—a laugh nevertheless which sound musical to him and was infectious even when he’d been practically choking himself to hold it in—and Jack had lost all sense of, well everything. He’d certainly never intended to do anything like what had actually happened in the front hall just now. Stretching him out on the stairs as if it were a bed...as if he were still a randy teenager at university with a boy in his room and tie around the doorknob...

Emma was looking at him keenly. ‘What’s he been doing to you?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Jack said airily.

You’re a liar, his conscience whispered. Ever since you saw him again, you’ve been wondering whether he really did kiss like an angel all those years ago. And now that you know, what are you going to do about it? Start trying to find out if he’ll still make love that way, too? Because if he was honest, that was what he wanted.

‘Well, you had better keep your head about you, or you’ll wake up one morning and not know what hit you. I’m talking about things like lawyers.’

The change of direction was so unexpected that Jack started to laugh. ‘How did lawyers get into this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Emma said primly. ‘I just heard that man suggest to your grandmother that the next step she needed to take was talk to her lawyer.’

Well, he’d always suspected Emma listened at keyholes. Nevertheless, the whole idea sobered him. What the hell did his grandmother need to discuss with a lawyer, anyway? And even if she did, why would Ianto be the one suggesting it? He was studying finance, not law.

Emma slapped the pastry down on a baking sheet and waved at him. ‘You’re between me and the oven.’

Jack left Emma to her angry baking and wiped up the puddle at the foot of the stairs, tossed the paper towels in the nearest wastebasket, and headed for the living room.

Though he was walking as he did when in the woods—trying not to make a sound because it startled the animals—it was apparent that James had been watching him. The instant he saw his face, the man was already smiling in his direction. Jack wondered if he’d been watching the whole time he was away, just waiting for the moment he came back into the room. And as far as that went, how could he possibly have thought the way Ianto looked at him that night at the cloakroom had been predatory. Here was the real thing, and there was no comparison.

James was on one side of the tree, holding up a glossy ornament and looking past it toward him. He was probably checking out his own reflection from the corner of his eye. He was definitely good looking, Jack admitted and the man obviously knew it, yet he simply wasn’t interested.

But it was the scene on the other side of the tree which captured his attention. Ianto and Tosh seemed to be contemplating the red bricks they held in each hand. They were totally at ease with each other, speaking in low tones. Jack sensed there was a history between them, perhaps. And it made him oddly jealous. He tried to shake that feeling off.

‘They’re for the stockings, dear,’ his grandmother was saying.

‘Bricks?’ Ianto sounded doubtful. ‘I thought that was coal.’

‘Not to put in the stockings. The bricks are to weigh the tops on the mantel, so the stockings won’t come tumbling down when Santa fills them.’

Ianto looked thoughtful, as if the idea of a stocking packed so full that gravity might have an impact was something he’d never contemplated before.

Was that shadow in Ianto’s eyes just a trick of light, or did he really look sad? Jack wondered if he ever owned a Christmas stocking. If, in fact, he’d ever had a stocking...

Don’t even start thinking of that pathetic little tree and how woebegone it looked, he told himself. You’ll only get yourself in deeper trouble.

Current Mood: accomplished
Crossposts: http://madbottoms.livejournal.com/63265.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Posted by

reddevilpoes

Oh wonderful..."angry baking" Now that sounds like a hobby that would suit me..
Do you have "wild knitting" (loosely translated from the Dutch ...wildbreien) where you live? Groups of people knitting colourful stuff to put on lampposts, around trees or everywhere in the great outdoors...Hah I googled and found yarnbombing as the English word...

Still adore this story!!!

Posted by

madbottoms

Ha ha. Sounds like something my Nan would do!

Glad you are still enjoying it.

Posted by

sandysan2013.livejournal.com

Kisses like an angel? Oh yeah, I want some of that! Jack better figure this out soon 'cause Ianto's obviously clueless won' do what's in his best interest without some help.

Posted by

Opportunities/One door closes...and a window opens (10/22)

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