Title: A Folded Lie
By: subduction
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1,904 words.
Note: Big ups to babel for beta radness and my man Wystan Hugh for the title. There's probably more where this came from.

***

The first time Jack Harkness fucks you he keeps his clothes on.

You are on his desk, on your back, and you are clutching his red braces as he shoves his dick into you, and he is saying your name over and over: "Ianto, Ianto, Ianto." A benediction in broad American vowels - or an incantation. Certainly you feel bewitched.

To your embarrassment, you have turned out to be a bit of a slut. It's been a long dance, a long time coming, but in the end it's been so terribly easy for him to have you. You came to him, as you both knew you would. He stripped you methodically, distracting you with his clever tongue as he unbuttoned your shirt and shoved your trousers down. He distracted you, and you pretended to need the distraction; this is the sort of game you play.

And then you were naked and he wasn't, and he was using that clever tongue to back you up against the desk. One arm slid tight around your waist, pulled you close. When he lifted you up to sit on the desk it was with his entire body, and your weight rested against him for three helpless, perfect seconds as he moved you. And then he had you on the desk. You were gasping, and he was between your legs and taking your hand. He looked you in the eyes and put your hand on the front of his trousers, and you hated him, oh, you hated him for making you do it. For making it your fault.

(When you finally fumbled his cock free he grinned that twinkling grin at you and said "Thanks, Ianto" like you'd just brought him a cup of coffee. You thought about hitting him. Kissed him instead.)

He held your hand. As he put himself inside you, he held your hand: left hand on his cock, nudging you open; right hand in yours. Fingers laced, folded over your heart. Always touching, he is. Always soothing, always affectionate. Always making you feel he cares, and this is at least half of the secret, half of how Jack Harkness always gets what he wants. He's fucking you roughly and too hard, and in the morning you'll be sore in expected and unexpected places, but he makes you yearn for it in such a gentle way that you only want him to go harder. Such a simple trick, and so effective - and though you know how he does what he does, you can't help falling harder by the second.

At first he was standing up, but now he's bent over you; he's let go your hand, bracing his by your shoulders for leverage. He can thrust deeper from this angle, and he does. Bends one of your knees up toward your chest to drive deeper still. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, so that if you turned your head to the side you could see the tense corded muscles of his forearms - but to turn your head to the side you would have to look away from Jack, and that will not do. Instead you watch the line of his throat, the triangle of white t-shirt revealed by two undone buttons. Your hands, half-clutched, half-splayed against his broad chest. Red braces, blue shirt. Periodically he leans down far enough for you to catch his lips with yours.

It is possible that you are crying.

(You aren't sure who you hate more: him for being able to take you apart so completely, or yourself for gasping his name into his mouth as he does it.)

-

This is how it started: you didn't want to be alone, so you were tidying.

It was three weeks after Lisa. The alien hordes were taking a well-deserved night off from menacing the population of Earth, and Torchwood Three was enjoying the Jubilee special with extra pepperoni. Gwen was teasing Owen about his new haircut (it did enhance certain of his more amphibian qualities, not that you'd mention it), Jack was trying not to snicker at something Tosh insisted wasn't funny, and you were tidying things which didn't need tidying so that you could stay in the Hub with their laughter.

Jack has a way of pretending not to be paying attention, but you know that he is always alert, always aware of everything around him. He was sitting backward on a swivelling computer chair, one arm rested atop the back and the other dangling down by his side with that artless grace he has; eyes and smile gave his full attention to the story Gwen was telling about Rhys' mum. The third time you walked behind him that dangling hand caught your wrist. He kept looking and smiling at Gwen, laughing at the right points in the story, and you couldn't do anything but stand there as his thumb and middle finger gently manipulated all the little bones of your wrist, stroked circles on your skin. You were still thinking of a flip remark when he dropped it, casual as anything else. You dusted Tosh's workstation for a second time, distractedly, and left the Hub without anyone glancing your way. Sat at your terminal, though there wasn't any real work to do. Took advantage of Torchwood's unlimited bandwidth to download the new Anja Garbarek. Browsed Craigslist. Thought about ordering new drapes for the flat you keep decorating and redecorating, as though some elusive item will finally effect the transformation into your home instead of the place where Lisa doesn't live.

Kept the main Hub CCTV feed live in the lower left corner of your screen. Not to watch. Just in case.

Later they left, still laughing, Owen's arms slung around both girls: unusual, for him to be on good terms with more than one person at a time. Tosh said "Good night, Ianto," which prompted the others to recall your existence and echo the sentiment. The reflexive smile, the appropriate response, is an important skill in your line of work. Half the time you are a galaxy away when you speak to someone, and usually it doesn't matter, because they are paying even less attention to the conversation than you yourself are. Auto-pilot. Still, politeness counts.

Jack didn't leave with the rest of them, of course. Just walked them to the door, leaned there for a moment watching them go; turned back around with that perpetual half-smile, thumbs under his braces and chin up slightly. An appraising look. Pushed off the wall a breath later and laid a hand on your shoulder for the briefest of moments as he went back downstairs. That was all.

Really, it wasn't much of a proposition. But then, everything is, with Jack: the only difference this time was you.

-

No, this is how it started: three weeks ago, with a gun in your hand and terrible, terrified love in your heart. You hated Jack then - hated him the way you can only hate someone you love, and that in itself was terrifying, the depth of your hatred for him and what it meant. You hated everything and everyone, that night. Jack for being Torchwood; Torchwood for taking Lisa from you; Lisa for leaving you alone. Yourself, for reasons too simple and complex to name.

Or perhaps it had started the week before that, when a Weevil got cheeky and left Jack with a concussion and three nasty gashes across the chest. Owen had bandaged him up, left you to play nursemaid. You'd put the kettle on and procured a chessboard from somewhere, but in the end it was Jack who drew you into conversation, rather than the other way around.

"You're not very good at this," he'd said; and "I can think of better ways for you to keep me up all night."

"I'm sure you can, sir," you'd replied. The dryness of your voice carefully calibrated, as always, but concealing a note of relief. He'd been slurring his words a bit, earlier, but he couldn't be too badly damaged if his capacity to flirt remained intact.

"Let's play a different game," he'd said, at length. "Do you kids still play Truth or Dare these days, or is that one of those silly American habits?"

"No, we play it. Sir." Slowly, but with a smile. Easy to see where this was going.

"I dare you to kiss me," he'd said. Predictable. You rolled your eyes and leaned in. No big deal. His lips, warm and dry. You thought about Chapstick. He stuck his tongue in your mouth.

Cheater. But, again, predictable. And you hadn't pulled away.

"Your turn," he'd murmured against your lips, eventually. Rocked back with a smirk that seemed to add, "I know something you don't."

Jack never chose truth, of course.

Or it could have started the week before that, when Nina Simone came on the radio and he danced you around his office, feather duster still dangling from your fingers. His hand had been hard at the small of your back and you'd hurried to the toilets, after; jerked once, twice and came all over the tiles. Tidied it up and went back to work. Didn't think about his hands all afternoon. Didn't think at all.

Or the week before that, or the week before that. It doesn't really matter.

-

The past is another country, or another galaxy, or some other platitudinous locale. The past is a place you don't live anymore. What matters is right now, and right now Jack Harkness is fucking you on his desk. Important papers are crumpling beneath your tossing head, the stapler is digging into your shoulder, and half-frantic laughter is bubbling up within you as you realize the urge to tidy is twitching in you even now.

He pauses, periodically; looks down at the place where your bodies are joined, then back up at you as he spits liberally on his fingers. Pulls out to put them inside you: twisting, drawing forth desperate sluttish sounds you didn't know you could make. Then in again, slicker and faster than before. One hand on your hip now, hard enough to bruise.

Even his rough wordless grunts have a melody about them. You wonder if he can sing. You know a lot about Jack Harkness - probably more than anybody else - but it's still nothing next to the things you don't know.

He finishes hard, gasping and grinning like he's just run a marathon. You suppose he has, after a fashion. He kisses you, equally hard, but you can feel him trembling. Slides down your body to where you are still wretchedly hard and sucks you off with an expertise that smacks of years - centuries - of practice.

You don't finish until he slides two fingers back inside of you. It's easy, now: you're wide open and slippery, ashamed enough to blush when he does it but not enough not to want it. And when he pulls back to show you his mouthful, you think you might come again just from the sight of it.

-

In your more fatalistic moods you suppose it probably started the day he hired you. The day you met him. Before that, even: sometimes you feel you have been waiting all your life for Jack Harkness to happen to you.

The problem, of course, is what to do now that he has.

***