Title: Unbottled
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length:1,411 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 443 - Cry
Summary: Jack has been holding on to his grief for a long time and finally now he can let go of it.


Ianto awoke to find the sun streaming in through the large bank of windows that overlooked the London skyscape. He checked the clock and realised he'd slept a lot later than he usually would, it being Saturday and his alarm clock not having woken him as it usually would. He rolled over in the bed and was alarmed to find Jack not there in the bed next to him. He gave it a sixty second wait, trying to convince himself that Jack had probably just nipped to the bathroom and that it was probably him getting out of bed that had woken Ianto in the first place. Sixty seconds became two minutes and then three. Ianto began to panic. Had Jack done the unthinkable and finally decided that he was in fact going to leave Earth forever? Ianto wouldn't have put it past him to leave without saying goodbye. Jack didn't do goodbyes. There was too much pain to add any further to it.

Ianto sank back into the pillows, feeling a despair welling up inside him when he heard a noise. He strained his ears for the small sound and there it was again. A kind of snuffling, faint, but there. He threw back the covers and immediately followed the sound of it out of the room. Down the hall opened out into a huge living area, where windows curved from one end of the generous space to the other, expanding on the view that Ianto's bedroom shared, sun slowly rising over one of the busiest cities in the world, albeit it on a day when millions like him didn't have to rush to work.

Ianto almost sobbed in relief when he spotted the messy tufts of brown hair poking up from over the back of the sleek white leather sofa. Jack hadn't left him after all. He couldn't have felt happier if he'd tried in that moment. Though he'd gone months separated from Jack by his own choice, he knew now that it had been a mistake, even if it was a necessary one. He didn't want this to be the end of them. They'd have to work at it, each learning how to properly trust one another and stop holding back parts of themselves, but Ianto was determined to make the effort if there was any small chance of salvaging their relationship.

He padded closer, coming up from behind Jack's position. Jack was sitting there, sniffing and snuffling loudly, knees pulled to his chest, curled into the smallest shape he could manage. His arms were wrapped so tightly around his body that Ianto thought he might be attempting to squeeze himself into nothing.
He rounded the end of the sofa and saw Jack’s face for the first time in profile, cheeks wet with tears and nose running down his face. He didn't have so much as a box of tissues next to him. As he got closer he could see the way the morning sunlight emphasised the redness of Jack's eyes which continued to spill heavy tear drops.

‘Jack?’ He gently lowered himself onto the sofa next to Jack, one leg tucked under him so that he could be turned toward his lover. The supple leather didn't even make a sound as he sank down onto it, enveloping him instead. He extended a hand and rested it lightly on Jack's biceps, feeling the way the muscle was rock hard with the amount of tension it expended in squeezing around his knees and torso. ‘What's wrong?’

Jack was still staring out the windows into space before he turned to look at Ianto, eyes bloodshot from his tears and long wet streaks running down his cheeks and under his nose before he locked onto Ianto. Then his lip quivered and the tears became even thicker and heavier, spilling from the depths of agonised blue eyes.

Unsure what was causing Jack's anguish, Ianto simply pulled him close, hugging him to his chest and burying his face in Jack's bed-tousled hair. His thin pyjama top was instantly soaked through with Jack’s salty tears and snot, but rather than easing Jack's crying, it only got louder. Deep sobs racked his body as he poured out every kind of grief into Ianto’s shoulder. Ianto gripped him tighter, trying to reassure him, but Jack’s choking sobs continued unabated for a long while. Ianto rubbed his back, placed kisses in his hair and made soothing sounds to try and calm Jack's frayed emotions.

Jack eventually pulled back, still trembling, and tears still falling, though in smaller quantities. Ianto reached for his face and rubbed the wetness away, brushing a hand back through his hair without words. ‘I never cried,’ came Jack’s mumbled words, clogged with a running nose and a throat full of tears.

Ianto’s frown must have given away his confusion. He’d seen Jack cry before, albeit not to this extent. The work they’d done at Torchwood was oftentimes difficult and fraught with terrible decisions about life and death. More than once Ianto had been there to console Jack – just as Jack had been there for him.
‘When I killed Steven I couldn’t stop the tears,’ Jack confessed. ‘And when I had to say goodbye to Gwen. And when we lost Tosh and Owen…’

Ianto remembered. In their darkest hour, losing Tosh and Owen, they’d cried together for what felt like an eternity, as if crying alone could bring them back. Months went by and just when they thought they’d finally moved on, something would trigger a memory and the tears would prick in their eyes and as soon as one began the other soon followed. It felt like there was never going to be a time when they didn’t feel bereft at the loss of their friends. Crying had become a daily part of their lives.

‘It's okay,’ Ianto told him, assuring Jack that it was okay to feel that way. He’d cried himself to sleep many nights since moving to London, here all alone without a friend in the world until Jack had reappeared in his life.

Jack shook his head. ‘I never cried when I lost you. You died in my arms and I couldn't even grieve for you. There was nothing. I should have loved you enough to cry.’

Ianto pulled Jack back close to him. That’s what this was; a delayed reaction to the grief he’d felt and never expressed. How could anyone be expected to go through what Jack had experienced? The whole world was collapsing around them and Jack had just lost the person he loved most, yet the world didn't care about that. There was still so much at stake and no time to mourn the loss of one life, when hundreds had died and billions more might. How did you grieve someone who months later turned out to not be dead at all, yet who in a short space of time realised that there was a new gulf between them that made being together impossible? How could he ever blame Jack for having bottled everything for such a long time, only to have it come spilling out in the dead of night, unable to be restrained a moment longer?

‘Shh…’ Ianto nuzzled in against Jack's face, stroking his hair in soothing motions. ‘I’m here now. Alive and whole.’ He felt hot pinpricks behind his own eyes as the weight of what was most important to both of them became clear. ‘I’m right where I'm meant to be, here with you.’

Jack’s arms wrapped tightly around him and his face buried itself deeper against Ianto. ‘I can't lose you twice.’

Ianto's tears spilled down his cheeks at the thought of having caused Jack so much pain, and the potential pain that might yet be to come. He still didn’t know if his survival was luck or something else, or whether he had indeed been dead and come back from death. If it was the latter, what did that mean for him now? Was he just the same as he’d always been, or was he now like Jack? There was no way to know for sure without taking a risk that proved he was wrong. He squeezed Jack as tight as he could. ‘I'm not going anywhere,’ he promised. He planned on living as long as he possibly could if it meant having Jack there by his side. All the tears shed in between would be worth it.