Dance With Me

[nothing_rhymes_with_ianto]

Title: Dance With Me
Author: qafkinnetic
Rating(s): PG
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Warning(s): Spoilers for Something Borrowed
Summary: Owen observes the dance between Jack and Ianto in Something Borrowed

Toshiko is rather tipsy by the time Owen joins her at the bar. He smiles at her and buys her another drink, leaning against the wall to watch the dance floor as she waits for it. He watches Gwen and Jack dancing close, almost too close. If an outsider was viewing this dance, they’d think they were the ones who’d been married, not Gwen and Rhys.

He’s surprised when Ianto shuffles up beside them, leaning awkwardly into the conversation. It takes a moment for the pair to notice him, and they part quickly when they do. Owen almost laughs aloud when Gwen assumes Ianto wants to dance with her, and her mistake results in a rather awkward but forward rejection as Ianto steps past her to Jack.

It’s then that Tosh turns around, following his line of sight to the pair. They watch Jack take Ianto in his arms, still staring after Gwen’s receding back as she returns to her husband, looking almost reluctant to turn back to his own lover. Owen wants to slap the captain. He remembers Ianto’s pain while Jack was gone, how he’d often come in to find that the Welshman had slept in Jack’s bunker, or not gone to sleep at all and was staring listlessly up at the glass-enclosed office.

But then Rhys pulls Gwen in for a long kiss, and Jack blinks and turns away. He sighs deeply, his shoulders sinking, and pulls Ianto in closer, a small smile on his face. Suddenly he seems more relaxed, calmer, and Owen wonders if he’s just let go of some almost-hope he didn’t even know he had.

Jack wraps his arm further around Ianto, nuzzling his cheek, and Owen can see his lips brushing against the pale skin as the captain speaks quietly into his lover’s ear. Ianto’s face is buried in Jack’s neck, and Owen watches the younger man’s shoulders rise and fall slowly, breathing in Jack’s scent.

Owen’s not sure what’s said, but there’s a moment when the two of them pause in their dancing, a tableau of intimacy; Ianto with his face pressed against Jack’s neck, Jack with one hand on Ianto’s mid-back, keeping him close, the other holding the Welshman’s slender hand in his own, placed over his heart.

Then Ianto’s hand turn’s in Jack’s to press his palm flat against his heart, and he moves back to look into Jack’s eyes. The captain’s hand slides higher on Ianto’s back, up enough that he’s nearly cupping the back of Ianto’s neck now. Then Ianto is moving forward, and Jack’s meeting him in the middle, and Owen can see as the Welshman visibly relaxes into Jack’s kiss, eyes closed, expression soft, his lean lines even more fluid and graceful than usual.

Owen has seen Ianto’s face as he stares at Jack when he thinks no one’s looking, and he wonders if Jack knows just how deeply he’s set in Ianto’s heart. But then he sees Jack watching Ianto as the young man folds a table cloth and he wonders if Jack’s aware of how far Ianto has managed to burrow and bury himself into Jack’s own high-walled heart, and if they’ll manage to figure it out before they miss the chances they could’ve had.

Comments

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Who knew Owen was paying so much attention? Although that scene, and the spin you've put on it, is so bittersweet it'd be hard NOT to.

Well-done. :)