Title: Up, Up and Away
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Ianto Jones/Tenth Doctor
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating: R
Table: 4, 50episodes
Prompt: 22, Flying
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own Ianto Jones or the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

***

"What does sex with me make you feel?" Ianto asked the Doctor as the two of them lay back in bed, each savoring the afterglow of their lovemaking. "I mean, other than the obvious physical feelings," he hastened to add with a soft laugh.

"Do you mean how it makes me feel in an emotional sense?" the Doctor asked, turning over onto his side and snuggling up against Ianto, sliding one arm around the young man's waist. "That's hard to describe. Making love with you makes me feel so many things."

"All of them are good things, I hope," Ianto laughed, reaching out to stroke back a few errant strands of damp hair from the Time Lord's face. "I'd hate to think that I was giving you any negative or uncomfortable feelings when we make love."

"Oh no, not at all." The Doctor almost looked shocked; Ianto wanted to laugh, but held the sound back. He was sure that his lovemaking only aroused pleasurable emotions in the Doctor, but for some reason, he wanted to hear from his lover's lips just what those feelings were.

"You make me feel ...." The Doctor paused, as though he was trying to think of the proper way to phrase what he wanted to say. "You make me feel as though I'm wrapped in love and desire and safety -- that nothing can possibly touch me as long as I'm in your arms."

"That's true, you know," Ianto said softly, touched by the other man's words. He hadn't thought that the Doctor could feel safe when they were making love -- it always seemed to him as though they were taking a risk, throwing themselves into a heavy volcano of passion.

"But it's not only safety," the Doctor continued, his words coming out faster now. "I know that loving isn't safe -- it never will be, not for us, not for anyone. But with you, I know that no matter how much of a risk I'm taking, you'll always be there to catch me if I should fall."

"Of course I will," Ianto whispered, a lump forming in his throat. No one else had ever told him that he gave them such a sense of security; he'd always thought that anyone who he'd made love with had considered loving him a dangerous proposition.

But then, the Doctor wasn't like anyone else he'd ever been involved with. This man had given him so much; he'd learned from the Doctor. not only about his physical passions, but about the sort of person he wanted to be, the person who would be worthy of this man's love.

"And what does sex with me make you feel?" the Doctor asked, his tone curious. "I've told you, now it's your turn." He looked up at Ianto, giving him an encouraging smile. "Go on, love. I promise that I won't be hurt, no matter what you say."

"I don't have anything bad to say!" Ianto laughed again, hugging the Doctor closer against him. "Making love with you is the most incredible feeling I could ever imagine. It's one of those cases where the real thing is better than any fantasy I could possibly have."

"So tell me what it's like," the Doctor demanded, propping himself up on one elbow. "I want to hear, in your own words, exactly what it's like to make love to me. No one's ever told me anything like that before, you know. I'd like to hear."

"It's ...." Ianto's voice trailed off for a moment as he marshaled his thoughts. "I don't think there's any crystal-clear description of those feelings, really. They're not always the same. It's so many feelings and emotions, all rolled up together at one time."

"That's not fair!" the Doctor pouted, making a fist and hitting Ianto's arm playfully. "I told you how you've made me feel when we make love. Now you have to tell me! That's only fair." He sat up, crossing his arms over his chest, his lower lip jutting out in an imitation of a pout.

Ianto couldn't help laughing at the expression on his lover's face. "Come here, you," he murmured, wrapping both arms around the Doctor's waist and pulling the other man close against him again. "You didn't think I wasn't going to tell, did you?"

"Well, I thought you might have gotten cold feet," the Doctor admitted, the pout disappearing as he snuggled into Ianto's embrace. "You don't really have to tell me if you don't want to, Ianto. I know you wouldn't say anything hurtful."

"There's nothing bad to say," Ianto told him, stroking a hand down the Doctor's bare arm. "Making love with you is like .... well, like flying. It's this marvelous feeling of freedom -- but at the same time, I'm wrapped in this warmth and love that's almost unimaginable."

"You know, I feel that way, too," the Doctor mused, sounding thoughtful. "It's as though making love with you gives me a freedom that I've never had with anyone else. I think it's because you and I were meant for each other -- because of the bond we share."

"I have to agree with that." Ianto nodded, his words spilling out. "I've never been that way with anyone before, Doctor. Not Lisa, not Jack, not anyone. No one has ever given me that feeling that I was free to be myself, that I didn't have to conform, that I could be loved for .... just me."

"Different lovers will bring out different sides of love," the Doctor murmured, resting his head on Ianto's shoulder and laying his palm flat on the young man's chest. "It's not that you loved them any less -- but it's quite obvious that they weren't meant to be your soul mate."

"They never made me feel like I was flying -- like I could conquer the world just because I had someone who loved me by my side," Ianto whispered, his voice soft and husky. "I loved them, but not in the way that I love you. Not even close."

"I know this will sound like a cliché, but I've never loved anyone the way I love you either," the Doctor murmured, taking Ianto's hand in his and kissing his boyfriend's palm, then his fingertips. "Not in over nine hundred years."

"That's because you've never met anyone before who can make you feel the way I do," Ianto told him, laughing in spite of himself. "But all joking aside, I do agree with you, Doctor. We belong together. I couldn't possibly find anyone else I wanted to be with."

"If that were to happen -- I mean, if you had to find someone else -- would you rather try to do that, or be alone?" the Doctor asked, his voice very soft. Ianto could hear the hesitation in his voice; he was sure that the Time Lord was apprehensive about his answer.

But he had no reason to be. "I would much rather be alone," Ianto said firmly, shaking his head. "There isn't anyone else for me, Doctor. No one else could ever make me feel the way you do -- emotionally or physically. Once you've found true love, you don't ever love again."

"How many people have ever said that -- and then changed their minds?" The Time Lord's brow furrowed, then cleared. "That doesn't matter. We aren't 'other people.' No one else has a relationship like ours -- at least, I wouldn't think anyone does."

"I know they don't," Ianto murmured, running a hand through the Doctor's soft hair. "No one else is lucky enough to be with a Time Lord. No one could have the sort of relationship that we do, because there's no one like you anywhere else in the universe."

The Doctor forbore to tell his young lover that the Master was out there somewhere; it wasn't a point that he particularly wanted to bring up at the moment. Besides, he told himself firmly, the Master wasn't anything like him. Not at all.

Their likenesses stopped with the fact that they were both Gallifreyans and both Time Lords. They had physical similarities -- but he was nothing like the Master in any other way. He never would be. He kept that dark side of himself at bay, guarding it carefully.

"No one else will ever know what it's like to feel as though you're being taken up, up and away when you're making love, hmmm?" he asked, lifting his head from Ianto's shoulder to smile at his lover. "Though I'd say that there are probably other lovers who would say that they feel the same way."

"'m sure there are," Ianto replied, tousling the Time Lord's hair. "But they're missing an important part of what I feel." He wrapped both arms around the Doctor, pulling the other man close against his body, one hand moving down cup one firm ass cheek. "They aren't making love with you."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, you know," the Doctor whispered, closing his eyes as Ianto rolled him over onto his back and leaned down to kiss him. When their lips met, he knew exactly what Ianto meant about feeling that he was flying, as his lover's kiss lifted him to the skies and beyond.

***