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Title: Lost in the moment
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,325 words
Content notes: none
Author notes:  Written for Challenge 159 - Amnesty - Challenge 1 - The lost hour
Summary: Getting lost is easy, finding your way back is much harder.

Ianto hadn't heard Jack enter the tiny space in the archives he now called an office, until he was almost standing in front of the makeshift desk.

He was about to ask the question, "Can I help you, sir?" when he looked up and caught the look on Jack's face. He'd only been here a few months, but already he knew what that look had come to mean. Ianto had only himself to blame. He'd instigated things practically from day one and now it had become a regular feature in his working week. As he stood and approached to stand in front of Jack, he caught the dim light playing across his face and saw the fully blown pupils and lustful look in those sharp blue eyes. Jack wanted him. Now.

Jack took Ianto's hand and lead him across the archives. The touch sent a wave of electricity jolting up his arm, which seemed silly since he didn't fancy Jack in that way. He loved Lisa. But Jack was like that, tactile. A hand on the small of your back, your shoulder, your knee, it didn't matter who you were, it was all part of who Jack was. He couldn't help but touch.

He had no idea where Jack was leading him, or even if Jack himself knew, but eventually they were in a darkened corner, out of the range of any CCTV that might seek to monitor their actions and pass judgement on their deeds. Ianto's touch had yet to alleviate the accumulated mess in this part of the archives, mainly earth based junk and paraphernalia. There amongst the detritus was a roll out mattress, looking thin and threadbare, hardly three inches in thickness and stained with age. He didn't get a chance to contemplate it further before Jack had thrown his own body back up against the end of a row of shelves, gripping Ianto's lapels and pulling him forward, sandwiching himself between Ianto's body and the wall, and kissing him fiercely.

Ianto gave in to the kiss immediately. It was what Jack wanted, and perhaps also what he wanted. There was nothing emotional about it. They'd done this dozens of times now. Neither one of them thought that the other had anyone else, and they both had physical needs. That Jack was unperturbed in tending to his own needs as much as Ianto's didn't bother him. In this job, there wasn't exactly time for relationships, and even tending to ones own needs required a luxury of time that they were rarely afforded. This was uncomplicated. Jack got whatever it was he was after, and Ianto got the keep up the pretense of dutiful employee. In ten minutes from now they'd both have sated whatever carnal desires they needed, and it would be back to business as usual. Sometimes it was a hand job, sometimes merely rutting against one another,and occasionally a blow job. They'd never gone as far as proper full blown sex. It seemed today that might all be about to change.

As Jack's lips and tongue furiously penetrated Ianto's mouth, he realised he didn't even mind the kissing. He'd always associated it with romance, but discovered that the physicality of it was just as fulfilling as the rest of it. If anything, it was satisfying a need to be physically close to another person and to feel needed. Lisa needed him, but in her current state, their relationship was bereft of any sort of real touch, and though he was loathe to admit it, Ianto craved the feeling of hands on his body, reminding him that he was still human himself.

As Jack began tugging on the buttons of his shirt, he knew what was coming next, and he cut off the rational part of his brain and gave in to the pleasurable sensations from warm hands and soft lips.

His eyes slowly slid open and confusion clouded his mind for a few moments. He was lying on top of a naked dozing Jack on the camp mattress, his toned musculature firm and warm underneath him. He vaguely remembered falling on top of him in the post coital buzz that followed their inaugural lovemaking. He hadn't realised he was falling asleep until it was too late. He'd just been so tired, long days working at Torchwood, and even longer nights caring for Lisa in the deepest bowels of the hub. It was a wonder he didn't fall asleep on his feet or  at his desk most days.

He caught sight of the time on his watch, the only thing that he hadn't divested himself of in the battle of shedding clothes. Good God, they'd been down here over an hour. In the middle of the afternoon. Someone was surely going to miss them and come looking for them. If they found them down here together it would be disastrous. Then again, Jack often disappeared on business unknown, and the others never questioned him. They'd learned not to. Even if they did ask, there was no way of knowing for sure if Jack was ever telling the truth. So many of his stories were outlandish and unbelievable, he could have told them anything and they'd still not be certain if it were accurate.

As for himself, had it not been for the regular demands for coffee, the others wouldn't even notice him even if he'd been gone for days. Well, perhaps Tosh might notice, but Owen and Gwen certainly didn't seem to spare him much attention, and Gwen was meant to be the friendly, people person of their team now that Suzie was gone. Perhaps it was better this way. If they didn't pay him any mind, they had no reason to uncover he what he'd been up to, and once he managed to free Lisa from her metal prison, they wouldn't care to come after him when they made their escape far from here, never to be found again.

And yet despite it all, Jack was still here. They'd never spent so much time together and here they were now, embraced on the floor like lovers. When Ianto had fallen asleep, he should have just left him there. He'd gotten what he'd wanted, so what was the point in lingering? Instead, he'd lost an hour wrapped up in the arms of an almost complete stranger, and one that was bound to betray him, though he didn't know it yet.

His hand twitched from where it had rested on Ianto's bare hip bone and he stirred from the light slumber he'd been enveloped in. The spot where Jack's hand had been moments earlier now seemed cold and unloved. He shouldn't have felt upset about it.

Jack moved to stroke Ianto’s cheek with a finger. Regaining his senses, he recoiled from the approaching hand and Jack curled his fingers and moved it back away, understanding somehow that he'd been about to cross the invisible line of too much, too soon. Instead he got up off the thin mattress and began redressing, as if what they'd just done was perfectly normal. Ianto hoped that Jack hadn't seem him shudder slightly at the departure. Somehow in the space of an hour he could barely remember, everything seemed to have changed. He should have been able to replay every moment through his eidetic memory, yet his mind seemed to have shut down completely, his body desperate for what Jack could give him. Any thoughts of Lisa, and why he was doing this in the first place, had disappeared in a jumble of other emotions vying for prominence.

'You should take tomorrow off and get some proper rest,' Jack said, fixing his braces back in place. 'You work too hard.'

'Thank you, sir.'

Ianto lay there a few minutes longer, curled away from Jack's body, and listening to the sound of footsteps fading away, unsure if he hadn't just crossed an invisible line of his own.