mclachland

untitled

mclachlan
jack/ianto
post-season 2
written in twenty-four minutes

i. fire

he smells like burnt rubber, the stench clinging to his skin like a lover, and your nose doesn't wrinkle when he presses against you and you don't recoil from him. you don't demand to know what he had been thinking, how a mission that should have been so simple got so cocked-up. instead, you wrap him up in your arms and hold him tightly until you feel as though you've risen from the ashes with him.

he's the flame on trick birthday candles, snuffed out for a moment before bouncing back, brilliant as ever. each time is new and terrifying, because trick candles don't burn forever, and you're always left wondering if this time will be the last. you don't voice your fears, your doubts, your abject terror at the thought of being left behind. again.

he will always leave you. a blaze can't be contained by any means.

ii. wind

there are moments where you close your eyes and let his presence wash over you. he brings sunlight and new beginnings wherever he goes, and just as easily blows away, taking all his bountiful wonders with him, leaving you cold, bereft, and waiting for seeds to be carried so that they may grow, or for the tornado to be quick.

you watch from a few feet away as he twirls a tiny treasure between his thumb and forefinger, wondering at the childlike awe on his face. he brings it to his lips and lets loose a gust so soft that it barely sets all of the dandelion clocks into flight, but somehow manages to blow you over.

he watches them float away, carried by his will alone for destinations that you will never see. he will follow them someday, see where they settled and grew, and you will still be here, rooted to the ground, wings clipped.

"Ianto, I promised you a date! Let's get a move on!"

you float after him, just another dandelion clock.

iii. water

he moves with you, in you, so graceful and fluid that you think the myths were wrong and that it was Jack Harkness who rose from the sea.

his fingers fluctuate over your skin, sliding back and forth, ebbing, rolling back in, and you gasp, lifting your hips, each wave that breaks over you strong and relentless. he leaves you trembling, washed out of your cold comfort zone, the uncharted sandy bottom, and onto the shore where you're graceless and out of place.

"Ianto…" his breath tastes of salt, pouring ageless tides into your mouth, onto your tongue, until you're choking on it and laughing with it, dragged back out and forced under. your lungs are straining for air, your legs useless with envy for solid ground, and he smiles against your lips, breathing into you.

he slows, rocking, and you drift, carried out to the horizon.

iv. earth

he isn't the earth. as much as he is the things that make it, he isn't actually the finished product. he is fire, he is wind, he is water, but he is not this planet.

he is the everything that stretches around the earth. on the nights when you're alone, you pretend that he was cultivated from the terrain, stone and soil and root and tree, and that he is somehow tethered here by that first connection. but you open your eyes and the fantasy ends.

he is the stars, the dust, the color, the possibilities, all of the things that lend to make a cocoon around the earth. he encircles you, fills your surroundings with stories and laughter and gravity and galaxies, held far far away but still visible, fractured into billions of glittering shards for your viewing pleasure.

you cannot touch him, but he is there.

he tells you of the places where you can see the stars best, but you look only at him.