Title: Symbiosis
Author: Clarity
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Note: Originally entitled "Heat and Lust"... but that was a bit too Mills & Boon I thought!
Summary: Alien spores have triggered a lockdown and the base is heating up in order to kill off the threat. Jack and Ianto are trapped in the hub together; hot, bored, sexually frustrated and rapidly losing clothes to the heat, so why doesn't Ianto seem to be interested in Jack?

***

Jack sat back in his chair, exhaling his breath slowly and staring into nothing. So that was it. They were in full lockdown and there was no way out. Not until the alien spores had been killed off.

He had been tempted to really yell Toshiko for knocking over and smashing that sample vial in storage, but then he'd heard Owen in the background and knew, just knew, that somehow it had been his fault; for distracting her, or insulting her, or groping her, or any combination of the three.

The internal air monitoring systems almost immediately recognised and categorised the threat, which was a heartening in a cock-eyed sort of way he supposed, since it proved at least that safety measure was working okay. It locked down the entire base automatically. So that meant that Owen and Tosh were stuck together in the second level storage facility, he was stuck in the main Hub decks, Gwen was stuck outside and Ianto could be stuck anywhere.

And it was going to get hot. Very hot. The system needed to destroy the threat before it would risk letting any of them out. Since it was on record as being a heat sensitive strain, the automated solution was to crank up the heating. The spores released should be essentially harmless to them according to the computer readouts on it. But there was no telling what they could do if released into the local ecosystem or atmosphere, especially in cold, overcast Wales. That meant there was nothing to be done about it; nobody was getting in and nobody was getting out. They were probably holed up for the night.

Jack just hoped that no alien invasion fleets picked that evening to pop by. If they did, well, that could be somewhat of a problem. For now they'd have to trust their luck for that not to happen. That thought gave him a bitter chuckle. The notion of them having any kind of luck at all at Torchwood Three was just plain funny in itself.

The possibility of an alien attack was by no means the end of their problems either. They were now completely blind too as Toshiko had insisted that all of the computers be shut down to prevent any of them from overheating and blowing up. That just left the phones...

For some reason Ianto wasn't answering his mobile. That, amongst his many worries, was first and foremost on his mind as Jack leaned back in his chair, mulling over the situation. If it weren't for Ianto disappearing things would be pretty much fine.

Sure, it they were going to be locked in for an untold number of hours and the base was going to turn into a giant sauna, but they still had the phones. If the worst really came to the worst, the Prime Minister could pass on the master override code, so it wasn't an absolutely hopeless situation. He'd called Gwen to warn her to stay away and she was now actually spending time with her long-suffering boyfriend, like he kept telling her to, rather than making an appearance every five minutes looking for adventure. Owen and Toshiko had about a fifty fifty chance of not killing each other, which wasn't as bad as it sounded really; with almost anyone else it would have been a much higher ratio. Generally things were okay. They would get through this.

If Ianto would just pick up his damned phone. Or get in touch somehow. Jack had a horrible, nervous feeling in his stomach he didn't like one bit. He kept wondering if perhaps something had happened to Ianto before they went into lockdown, or perhaps because of it. He could be hurt or injured, knocked out perhaps, and nobody would be able to get to him.

The heat was beginning to rise. He could feel the first signs of it prickling over his skin like a steadily growing rash. A small sheen had broken out on his brow already and they were only ten or twenty minutes in, though equally that could have something to do with the gin he was knocking back like water to steady his nerves he supposed.

Jack sighed, deep in his chest, and put the canister back in the drawer. It wouldn't do to finish off his supplies in one hour when there would be many more to get through sitting there alone, with only a few books and some hidden chocolate bars to keep him company.

The office was going to get too hot all too soon by virtue of its size alone. So he removed his shirt and hung it over the back of his chair, careful not to crease it because Ianto was rubbing off on him — albeit not in the way he'd really like him to — and let his braces hang down by his sides. He grabbed the book he'd been thumbing through every now and then in less fraught times and headed out into the main hub. It was eerily silent with all the computers offline. Just the gentle splutter of water running down the tower and a distant whirring made by the heating systems as they pressed ahead into overdrive. The lights were dimmed, casting the place in more of a blueish glow than usual since only about half of them were still on. The rest had been on the same fuse as the computer systems so they'd had to go off too.

He settled uncomfortably in Toshiko's chair and picked up the paper she'd left on her desk. She was halfway through the crossword. Jack decided to finish it off, grinning to himself like a naughty child. Toshiko would be pissed off as hell, and that was half of the point. He knew on some level that it was a petty game to play. He also knew he was bored and twitchy. And of everyone there, Toshiko was the most fun to argue with because she did it in such a cute way; all big eyes and shaking fists. Like a cartoon character.

Jack kicked back for a little, feet up on the desk, working his way through the puzzle. When it was done, he put it very deliberately on display on top of her keyboard. Since she had asked him not to finish her crosswords twice before already, he felt certain a third time would cause some fireworks.

After all, wasn't it the business of the gods to make mischief for mortals? Okay he wasn't a god per se but he was immortal at least. That was about as much as the Greek gods could claim and they had loved to make trouble. Jack was not only an immortal, but a bored, hot, sexually frustrated one. He had a right to piss people off just for the thrill of having an argument, damn it.

His eyes fell next on Owen's desk. Jack wondered if he should bother finding something he could interfere with on that front but thought better of it. Owen's drawers were only place on the base not even Ianto dared go near even to clean.

And then he was back to thinking about Ianto again. The dull fear sprung up once more in the pit of his stomach and Jack tried Ianto's mobile again, only to get nothing. He cursed him through gritted teeth and retracted it without taking so much as a breath in between.

That was when he started to hear banging; a muffled thudding din, coming through from somewhere which couldn't be too far away. His first thought was of enormous rats. Then of weevils. Then he pulled himself together and went to track it down.

It sounded like it was coming from behind the walls on the far left side of the hub room. Jack approached with caution and pressed his ear to the wall.

There was definitely something banging around nearby. It ended with a clanging clash, followed by some scuffling, scraping sounds. He near leapt out of his skin as the ventilation panel directly above him, near the ceiling, thudded loudly.

Jack reached for his gun and stepped back, ready to take aim, waiting for the panel to burst through. Six or seven more hits saw it removed from its hinges on one side and swung aside. A pair of feet appeared and some shins appeared at the entrance and dangled out. He heard coughing.

Somehow those legs looked familiar. 'Ianto?'

'Jack?'

He holstered his gun and reached up to help Ianto out of the shaft, using all his strength to make his landing smooth. Ianto coughed again and half collapsed in his arms, gasping for breath. Immediately Jack gently lowered him to the floor and help onto him to keep him comfortable. 'Where the hell did you come from?' he asked, not sure whether to feel relieved or bemused.

'We've gone into lockdown,' he gasped.

'I know. Toshiko and Owen smashed some vial full of alien spores. We're going into automatic defences.'

'Oh.' He coughed again and wiped the smears of dust on his face onto his shirt sleeve. 'One of the internal circuitry boards blew out. I was just fixing it when suddenly the door to the vents locked down behind me. Ended up crawling through to find another exit but I had to kick through a few panels. No idea how I ended up here actually,' he said, looking around at the hub with something akin to surprise.

'I've been trying to call you.' Jack helped him to his feet and used the pretence of brushing the dust from his clothes for a quick mood-lifting grope.

'Well I wasn't expecting to get sealed in. My phone was in my jacket pocket.'

'Which you removed before you got in the vent.' Naturally.

Ianto nodded and accepted Jack's assistance over to the couch. He sat down next to him, watching him fuss over his dust-covered trousers with a fond smile on his face. Ianto quickly grew suspicious and frowned in return. 'What?'

'Nothing,' Jack replied. He was not about to tell Ianto that he had been imagining the inevitable moment when they would have to start losing clothes in order to deal with the heat. Since he'd been unable to get Ianto out of his suit under any other pretext, the prospect was more than a little exciting. 'Just glad to have some company.'

He didn't fail to notice the way Ianto shuffled along a little, apparently eager to break all contact and put some distance between them.

That was the first sign that it might just be a long night for Jack.

*

'I can't take this anymore. Look, I'm sorry, but I'm taking these off too.' Jack stripped away his underwear and dropped the sweat-drenched boxers down on the floor. He stood with his legs apart, enjoying the rush of coolness on his intimates. 'Nnghhh, that's better. God that's good.'

Ianto gave him a quick glance, frowned and then went back to flipping through the novel Jack had brought down with him. He was still more or less completely dressed. Only the tie, the socks and the shoes were gone.

'Like the book?' Jack didn't even try to hide the irritation in his voice at his obvious disinterest in Jack's well proportioned private parts.

'It reads well. The title seems somewhat apt for this situation too. Heat and Dust.' He smiled. 'I had no idea you're into literature.'

'It was a gift.' He stalked over and grabbed it, making a big show of lying down across the cough and making himself comfortable with it on his stomach, ready to read. 'Actually, I've been meaning to catch up with it lately.'

'Uh, okay. Though I was just getting to a good part.'

Jack shrugged and made an even bigger show of reading it. He was pissed off and there was no way to hide that. Not that he even wanted to try. Here he was stark bollock naked, practically offering himself on a plate with the innuendo flying thick and fast, and Ianto was acting about as sexually aware as a eunuch.

It wasn't fair.

Not this, and not him trying to seduce him several months before and being flatly turned down either. He knew he had been acting like a petulant child ever since but it was really just the culmination of all lot of frustration, sexual and otherwise, that had occurred as a result of that. Rejection was not something he was used to. And to be turned down by someone he actually liked and had wanted for a long time, now that really was a new experience.

Yes there was that business with Lisa. But they were over that. At least, he had thought they were. Ianto had said she was not recognisable as the woman he had known and that he understood why Jack did it. Peace was negotiated. They had got on with their lives.

But when Jack had reached out to him, after their working relationship had seemed to go back to what it had always been before, the reaction was cold. It was nothing short of a brush off in fact. Ianto had politely informed him that he had no interest whatsoever in him and had gone and made some coffee. Just like that. It was as if nothing had been said between them at all.

He was still doing it and portraying himself as entirely disinterested. Jack had never met anyone who hadn't fallen into his arms on demand. He hadn't missed how Gwen's eyes lit up every time he came towards her, or how Owen went out of his way to try and make him smile, or how Toshiko craved the moments when he would press up close, pat her on the shoulder and tell her job well done. Ianto had always flirted right back whenever he chose to cast a comment in his direction, and still did on occasion, yet still he point blank refused to go any further. It wasn't right. It didn't make sense.

And it had made the desire to have him worse.

'I think the temperature just went up a few notches again,' Ianto cut into his thoughts, loosening his top few buttons a little.

Jack chose to ignore him, still staring into the pages of the book he wasn't reading, sulking with all his might.

Ianto observed him for a moment and then turned around on his heel and went over towards the water tower. As he reached the side of the pool, he unbuttoned his top and let it slide from his shoulders. His trousers fell next and finally he removed his vest. He was left in just his briefs.

Of course Jack was watching now. Couldn't tear his eyes away. He looked on as Ianto stepped down into the pool, paddled over to the water tower and pressed himself against it, letting the water fall over him in a cascade. His white underpants slowly grew see-through, exposing two pert, shapely buttocks, the fabric stretched across them oh so lightly and delicately like silk. Ianto raised his arms, worshipping the water, and then turned around, leaning back against the silver panels and arching his body out almost orgasmically.

The front of his briefs no longer left much to the imagination either and Jack felt his mouth go dry as the dust. Ianto was beautiful; more so than he even imagined, built tall and smooth and lean like a swimmer. Under the dim lights and gently cascading water, he was nothing short of breathtaking, as Jack learned when he tried to breathe and found that he couldn't.

'Mmm, much better,' Ianto purred, and Jack started to wish he hadn't have been so quick to get naked after all.

*

'Right, so there I am, lying there with not a stitch on me looking at this thing that's suddenly coming out of her head, and I'm saying, “heeeeey where did that come from and what the heck do you intend to do with it?” and she's just staring at me, all vacant, letting this tentacle thing coming out. At this point I'm thinking it probably wasn't such a good idea to let her lose with the handcuffs, you know! Anyway, it's coming out, it's coming out, it's coming out, and I look and see teeth on the end of it. So now obviously I'm getting really nervous...'

'Jack,' Ianto interrupted him, shaking his head a little, 'honestly, are these stories true?'

'True? Of course they are!' He gave him a little mock-irritated splash of the water they were lying in, both having now taken refuge actually inside the pool in order to get a little relief from the constant heat.

'You have a story for every occasion. Every sexual escapade in the book.' He frowned, looking conflicted. 'Don't you ever...?'

'What?'

'Nothing. Forget it.' He put whatever he was going to say aside and continued to stare down into the water, a sad little smile stuck on his face.

It puzzled Jack immensely. 'No really, what? I'm interested.'

Ianto looked up at him, the usual softness in his gaze turning to steel. 'Where's the emotion, Jack? Where's the feeling? The love? Do you never... Is that never part of your repertoire?

For some reason that rendered him speechless.

'You tell us all these stories. Story after story. But there's never anything in them. You fuck around and then it's all meaningless. Are we supposed to be impressed? Amazed? Shocked? What? What is it? I don't understand. Sex... it means something. Or at least, it does for me.' Subconsciously Ianto pulled away again, arms wrapping around his stomach as a barrier.

Something clicked into place in Jack's mind. Finally all the pieces of the puzzle fit together and he sighed, sliding down a little into the pool and staring upwards towards the ceiling high above them. 'Love... no I don't talk about that because it hurts to remember. Maybe you're right, maybe I should. It's easier to tell the fun anecdotes about tentacles and sonic sex machines than to tell the boring simple story of how it is to be in love and how hard it is to lose it.'

Ianto was staring at him, hard, eyes looking impossibly dark in the dim lights casting shadows around them.

'I'm no different to anybody else. I've been in love. Of course I have. I know what it means. I know the difference. But nobody wants to hear the tale of how I was married once, how I squandered our time together looking for adventures, and how I found her dead a long time later and all I wanted to do was go with her, even if only to apologise.'

A gentle hand came to rest on his face and Ianto's thumb wiped away the tear he hadn't realised he'd shed for Estelle.

'I did.' Ianto gave him a different sort of smile, more genuine and open, before pulling away and lying back down in the water, eyes sliding closed.

Jack knew then that something had happened between them in that moment. A corner had been turned; one he hadn't even realised they needed to reach.

Yes there was a difference between sex for love and sex for the sake of having it, but he hadn't thought about the former for want of the latter for a very long time now. The latter was so much easier to find after all.

Looking over at Ianto, he finally understood why he'd turned him down with such ease. And more than that, he found that he was actually glad that he had.

*

'You are some kind of saint, I swear,' Jack gushed as he was handed a tray of ice.

Ianto lay back down in the shallow pool beside him with his own tray of ice in hand. 'We're lucky the freezer still had enough oomph. Shame the icecube makers are the small kind.' He knocked out a few cubes into his hand and pressed them to his neck, hissing as he did. 'Ohhhh yes.'

Jack knew exactly how he felt when he pressed some cubes to his chest and felt the heat positively surge out of him. Gratefully, he ran them all over his check, stomach and neck and then did his best to cool down his face.

When he noticed the porn movie in motion beside him, he slowed and watched, letting the sensation of desire wash over him and leave him tingling. He watched Ianto slide the ice all over his body, nails occasionally leaving tiny red lines that would disappear in seconds, face rested and euphoric. Almost without thinking, Jack reached over and pressed his own ice to Ianto's chest, which obviously surprised him but not enough for him to pull away from the contact this time.

With one hand he spread the ice across him, taking care to peak each delicate pink nipple equally, and after changing position slightly, with the other he took possession of Ianto's ice-filled hand and slowly moved it down, pushing under the elastic of his underwear and down still further.

'Jack!' Ianto gasped, arching his back and throwing his head back, hips pushing up involuntarily, bucking into their entwined fingers.

His eyes fixed onto the Adam's apple and the long clean line of Ianto's neck and Jack could do nothing to stop himself from leaning over and fixing his mouth over it, longing to taste him, to feel the hint of roughness of his skin there, and to delicately touch the racing pulse beyond. It was wonderfully erotic.

'No. No Jack, don't...' came the gasp and shook him out of his needful trance.

Immediately Jack found the strength to release him and he slid his hand out of Ianto's briefs. 'I'm sorry. You're just so... so...' He swallowed hard and then rolled away, making a grab for his last few blocks of ice and making no secret of the fact that there was only one place he needed them to go now. Jack squeezed his eyes tight and applied them to his balls with a growl and a hiss.

Just as they were beginning to burn, Ianto's hand slid down over his and pulled it away. The next thing he knew, a long leg had been placed over him and Ianto was half sitting, half crouching on his thighs. 'You stopped,' he said, and lightly brushed his lips against Jack's jaw.

'You told me to.'

'And you stopped.' He was smiling. 'This is what I was talking about, Jack. I'm not asking for romance. Or big teary-eyed hearts and kisses love. I just want a little care. I wanted to know that you care for me. I suppose I wanted to know if I'd just end up as some amusing side story for you to tell. Like all the others.'

'Is that what you really think of me?' Jack was caught some way between feeling offended and feeling pleased to finally understand what was going on in Ianto's head at last.

'You haven't given me much else to go on.'

'Ianto, you're... you're not like any of them.' That was the truth, as strange as it felt to say it out loud. 'Some days you're a complete enigma to me, others you're the only one I feel like I know. If you want me to say it's got nothing to do with your physical attributes then I'm sorry, I can't say that, and if you ever looked in the mirror you'd know why. That doesn't mean that's all there is to it.'

'Then tell me. What is this? Come on, explain it to me. What do you want from me?'

'I want... honestly, I don't know what I want from you.' He sighed and shrugged, genuinely unable to answer. Despite all his age and all of his experience, this all felt strangely new and Jack really wasn't sure what to do.

Ianto gave him sweet little smile and shuffled backwards to end up kneeling at his feet. 'Alright. Then let me show you what I want. Close your eyes and lie back. Don't move. Just relax for me.'

A deep breath he hadn't realised he was holding departed from Jack as he did as he was told, letting the water around him soothe and draw the merciless heat from his body.

Gently, very gently, Ianto lifted one of Jack's feet and held it up while he ran his finger under the sole and up along the back of his leg. 'I want to know every inch of you.' Jack jerked a little when he reached the sensitive area in the pit of his knee. 'Every point of your skin which makes you tremble.' He carefully parted both of Jack's legs wide and then his finger continued its journey running up his inner thigh. 'And beg. And need.' As the finger strayed onto Jack's perineum and delicately stroked upwards, over his balls and up the shaft of his straining dick, Jack gasped, his whole body jerking in tiny spasms. 'I don't want to be just some nameless conquest you tell stories about. I want to be the one haunting your dreams. The one you crave. I want you to look at me and stop breathing for want. Even at the thought of just one... finger... moving... upwards...'

'Please...' Jack begged as Ianto ran his finger right over the head, applying a little bit of extra pressure at the slit, making his whole body shudder.

'Symbiosis, Jack. It's about letting someone in so far you can become a part of them. I can do that for you. I want to do that for you. But I won't do it if you feel nothing for me.' He ran his finger lightly up Jack's stomach towards his chest. 'You need to see me as more than just a means to a release. Or a pretty face. You want to know why?' Now he was kneeling right over him, finger stroking up along his jaw.

Jack opened his eyes and stared up into him. Ianto had such a quiet wisdom and dignity in his face that simply didn't seem to match his years. He was the Ianto he knew and yet something more was there as well. He really wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. 'Why?' he asked, at an awed whisper.

'Because that's not how I see you.'

Their lips met in a fiery burst of heat and wetness. Ianto was molten lava on his skin, burning and sliding over him, and it felt nothing short of intoxicating. Fingernails ran down his chest, slow and rough.

Jack broke away to hiss as nails scraped over sensitized nipples. 'How do you see me, Ianto?'

'Flawed. In ways you don't like others to see. Ways which make you feel you have to hide behind stories. And oh...' Fingers raked down his thighs, '...so...' they moved under them to tilt his hips up, '...perfect for that.'

The same finger which had been driving him insane breached him and made Jack gasp. It didn't hurt though. He was already long since past feeling anything but hunger for Ianto's touch, any way he could get it. 'You've lost me,' he admitted.

'We're all flawed somehow. That's why we need others to heal the cracks and make us whole. And that's what I want to do for you.' He continued to work his fingers in and out of Jack, not taking as much care as the soft tones in his voice implied. 'You know, I came when you sucked my neck and pressed my hand against my dick,' he whispered, with a chuckle. 'The ice surprised me.'

'You hid that well.'

'I thought so. That's what I'm pressing inside you now, Jack. Making you slick and open for me.'

'I had no idea you were so kinky.'

'You make me want to do kinky things.' At the grin this produced in Jack, Ianto blushed a little. 'Alright, confession time,' he said, and gave him an especially impish smile. 'I have been drawn to you for a long time, despite what I've said and how I've acted. With every difficult decision you've taken as our leader, I wanted to do this. I wanted to care for you and heal all those cracks. But I didn't want... I didn't want...'

'You didn't want it to mean nothing to me, because it would mean something to you?' Jack finished his sentence off for him.

Ianto nodded and Jack grabbed his hands, clumsily pulled him close and kissed him deeply. 'It does. I promise you, it means more than you know. Actually, more than I expected. Now,' he growled, 'fuck me already would you?'

'You're not...'

'Trust me, I am ready. Never been so ready.'

Another kiss, and Ianto moved back and stood up, leaving Jack flailing. 'Not here, we'll get too hot,' he said, and nodded over towards the water tower.

'You don't mean...?'

'The water is coldest running down there.' He offered his hand and helped Jack to his feet. Then he lost the briefs, finally.

'I'm never going to be able to look at this tower the same way again,' Jack commented almost to himself as he was pressed up against it, the hands guiding his running them up the smooth metal to cause patterned cascades in the tumbling water. He grunted as Ianto bluntly pushed inside him and thrust. 'We'll all be sitting around here, getting on with work and fighting the bad guys and... and this'll be standing here, always reminding me.'

'Shhhh, don't think about it. Don't talk. Just feel this,' Ianto commanded. 'Feel the water and my weight pressing you down, anchoring you. Nothing else. Just surrender to it.'

A throaty moan escaped his chest as Ianto rolled his hips and started to hit every sweet spot he had in his body. His dick was crushed between the searing heat of his belly and the slick coolness of the steel, generating sensations he couldn't have even imagined. Jack clung onto the tower and let it and the pulsing vibrations inside consume him.

A hand snaked around his jaw and drew his neck back to rest his head on Ianto's shoulder, fingers running over his jaw. Soft lips kissed his ear and teeth brushed across the tip. Warm gusts of breath, steadily growing faster in time with his own followed next. He heard his name being spoken but it was distant to him. Everything was. He was reduced to sensation alone; the strange pleasure spiking inside, the rub of skin against the caress of metal and water; Ianto reaching inside him and doing everything he promised; seeking out all the cracks and imperfections that haunted him and filling them with his weight of adoration and care. Even his own voice, panting and crying out as he reached a plateau was nothing. All he could hear was Ianto's breath and Ianto's voice echoing in and out of his mind. All he could feel was Ianto's body lifting him up and finally, an explosion in his chest.

The next thing he knew he was on his back, being cradled in Ianto's arms. 'Hello,' Ianto said, looking down at him with what could only be described as affection in his eyes.

'Hello.' His voice felt scratchy and sore.

'I think you passed out for a second there.'

Jack looked around and realised they were still in the pool at the foot of the tower. 'Or I had a coronary,' he said, and realised with a jolt that he might not be far wrong; after all, he couldn't entirely be certain that he hadn't since it wouldn't have killed him anyway. It had been one mighty impressive fuck, that was for sure.

'Perhaps the heat finally got to you.'

'More like a hot receptionist. God Ianto... where did you learn that? That was... that was...' He shook his head, unable to describe it.

'Honestly?' A guilty shadow passed over his features and his tone grew quiet and conspiratorial. 'After hours at Torchwood One actually. All personnel were subject to psychic training. I found a certain flair in one or two areas. Limited psychic symbiosis with others is really the main one for me. Not that they ever found that out, mind. They had a tendency to make people with any sort of psychic ability disappear so I kept it under my hat.'

'Wait a minute. Ianto, are you saying you're psychic?'

'Not really. It's a trained response. I just find it tends to trigger in sexual situations, you know, when I'm with someone I care for... and who cares for me. Forms a kind of a bond and takes it higher. That's why I'm careful who I sleep with. Wouldn't want it to go wrong.'

Jack frowned, trying to take that in through the post-coital haze fuzzing up his brain. 'Is that how you always know when I want my coat?'

'Your coat?'

'Yeah. You always have it in your hands a few seconds before I leave, or ask you for it, or want you to go outside with me.'

Ianto grinned. 'No, I just know you really well.'

'Oh. Okay.' Jack sat up and rubbed his forehead, dazed. 'You could have warned me.'

'I wasn't actually intending to share that.' He looked down into the water, frowning a little.

'Why did you then?'

'Not sure. Maybe because I'd like to do this again sometime?'

Jack pouted in consideration and then nodded his head. 'I could go for that.' He looked at Ianto, a smile growing on his lips as he considered the flushed, gorgeous face before him. The swell of affection he felt in response was a little disconcerting but pleasant nonetheless. 'Did you say this symbiosis thing causes some sort of bond?'

'Uh, long term? No, not at all. Unless you're psychic too and you're reaching back.'

A pause. 'Oh.'

Ianto looked surprised and then mortified at the slightly guilty expression Jack was making. 'Hold on, are you saying...?'

'I was once trained in that area too, actually. Mainly to recognise and block psychic attacks though. Really I'm just surprised I didn't pick this up.'

'Your mind was probably on other things,' Ianto said and leaned forwards, offering his lips.

Of course Jack accepted the generous offer and felt sparks shoot up from his stomach to his brain so fast it made him giddy. He broke off, gasping for sanity as much as for air.

'Mmmm,' Ianto hummed into his mouth. 'This has definite possibilities.'

Jack nodded, a little dumbfounded. Then he placed his hands on Ianto's shoulders and held him fast, staring into his eyes deeply.

After a few seconds Ianto frowned and pulled back a little. 'What?'

'I was trying to make you go get more ice.'

Ianto rolled his eyes and got to his feet, presenting Jack with a very nice view as he walked away, still stark naked.

He raised his eyebrow and licked his lips, very much liking what he saw on display.

'I saw that Jack,' Ianto said, without even turning around until he'd reached the steps. 'Psychic, remember?' He gave Jack a wink and a smile.

'Only when it comes to sex though, right?' He just wanted to be clear on that point.

Ianto paused midway up the steps and considered that for a moment. 'Only when it comes to caring for someone enough to want to connect with them that way.'

Jack started to ask what he meant by that but Ianto had already scurried off out of sight. 'I love you too,' he muttered, at first in jest, and then again with some sense of realisation that perhaps, just perhaps, this one wasn't going end in bravado stories told years down the line. This one might just come to be something more. He liked that thought.

That was when the sound of doors unlocking and the sweet whirring of an air conditioning system coming back to life changed the atmosphere in the base entirely. The phone started to ring, so Jack struggled lazily to his feet and padded over to it. It was a very breathless Toshiko, asking for confirmation that lockdown was over. He gave it and put the phone down, wondering why he could hear Owen panting as well in the background. With the absence of an explanation he just decided to assume the obvious. And long overdue it was too in his opinion.

The completed crossword puzzle he'd left on Tosh's keyboard caught his eye. He picked up her pen and scribbled an apology and an offer to take her out to lunch in compensation. After all, there was only one way to prevent bored immortals from making mischief; extremely good sex, had often, with a favoured mortal well on the way to stealing their heart.

That was the last time Toshiko ever found one of her crosswords finished for her, coincidently.

***