miss winterhill: The Lighthouse and the Dark (R)
Title: The Lighthouse and the Dark

Author: Miss Winterhill

Challenge: Fear

Rating: R

Warnings: Explicit sex, self-harm, power games and mild bdsm, bad language

Spoilers: Set after EW and JE but no specific spoilers for either. The lens is too tightly around our boys.

Characters: Janto, Martha, Gwen is mentioned.

Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort, romance, dark fluff (is dark fluff a genre?), songfic, plotless

Word to learn: Serendipity: a fortuitous accident; when something bad inadvertently causes something good.

Cultural allusion: Jack quotes from Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Precis: Jack hates the dark. Ianto hates it when Jack dies. Jack gets injured on a mission and they have to confront their fears. Very dark in a few spots. It really boils down to need. It's also the most explicit I've ever got in writing sex in this fandom. Songfic for The Lighthouse Song by Josh Pyke (which you can currently hear at his website at that link - don't know how long it'll be up for) but I haven't included the lyrics in any great lumps, just as an epigraph.

Notes: These characters don't belong to me. I make no money from them and I do not intend to make money from them.

I have split this into theory and practical by section, because I wanted it to be sort of like the theory informs the practical work and makes it better (like in art or music or dance or drama). There is a disconnect between the styles of theory and practical, too. I assume that Jack and Ianto are living together in this fic.



So we are moving to a lighthouse, you and I
While seas drown sailors we’ll be locked up safe and dry
And though our doors may knock and rattle in the wind
I’ll just hold you tight and will not let those fuckers in.

Josh Pyke, The Lighthouse Song
___________________

Theory

___________________

The bedside clock was nearly enough to keep Ianto awake. It was on Jack’s side of the bed. Ianto would bury his face in Jack’s neck, holding him close and using Jack to shield himself from the glowing green digital display that helped him to mark the time during insomniac nights.

“I can’t sleep without it there,” said Jack, the night Ianto asked him to put something over it.

They’d both been twisting for hours like sails without moorings, tied up in knotted sheets and the inability to soothe each other’s troubled minds.

“If it’s dark on a ship, then the worst has happened,” said Jack, reaching for Ianto. “If there’s no lights, then there’s no power.”

Ianto had kissed him and they’d made love, the green display watching them and winking past the minutes. There’d been no more talk about removing the clock, even if occasionally Ianto lay against Jack’s shoulder, looking at its smug face as he counted another hour less sleep until morning.

One night the power failed in a storm and left them in sudden pitch black, unable to see their hands in front of their faces. Jack had hunted for a torch, barking orders at Ianto, telling him to find it, hurry up, just fucking find something. Something to break the darkness, something that was still working in this dump of a house, in this shitty little century. Ianto had lit a candle and then held Jack, shaking.

“I love you,” Jack had murmured, as the lightning broke across the sky and leaves scuttered past the window. “I love you.”

The lights had returned with an electric hum, the clock winking 00:00 and the refrigerator humming protest at having to regain its core temperature. Ianto had woken in Jack’s arms, the candle still burning but unneeded, a tiny fragment of heat under an electric glare.

“Poor candle. It’s useless now,” Ianto had said. “Like a lantern in the sun.”

“It’s still important,” Jack had replied, stroking Ianto’s hair. “Even though we have the sun, sometimes I need a candle more than anything.”

They’d blown it out and Ianto stored it in the kitchen drawer, wondering if he’d anthropomorphised it because he was still half-asleep or because he empathised with its eventual fate. Jack laughed when he found it and asked Ianto to explain.

Ianto explained. He always explained.

“You’re not a candle,” said Jack, kissing him. “You’re a lighthouse.”

Lighthouse became their safe word. Jack bought Ianto a toy lighthouse to put up on his desk, commenting slyly on the phallic symbolism before kissing him under the CCTV camera, just to put the wind up the others.

It was dark when Ianto used the word for the first and only time.

It was dark; the only light coming through the windows was from a distant moon, a cut sliver of glass in the sky. Jack was on edge when it was dark. He did things without thinking. Ianto was growing not to like the dark, either. On the nights when the moon was dark, Jack died, died on the claws of a Weevil, on the wrong end of a gun, running across the road to chase something.

Ianto hated it when Jack died.

“I’ve bled to death before,” said Jack, knife in his hand. “It’s not that bad.”

“Jack, don’t,” Ianto moaned, hoping he’d relent from harming himself further.

“I want you to see what you do to me when you’re in danger. When I’m powerless to help.”

“Jack...” Ianto sobbed, struggling against the handcuffs. “This isn’t fair.”

“So much of everything I am isn’t fair, but you still stay,” said Jack. “I deserve to die tonight, Ianto.”

“You don’t,” Ianto rasped. “You don’t. Can’t you see that you’re hurting me?”

“I let them down,” said Jack. “You nearly died.”

His hands were shaking from the blood loss. Ianto pulled against the cuffs so hard that he nearly dislocated his shoulder again. He said the only thing that he thought would stop Jack.

“Lighthouse,” Ianto wept. “Lighthouse, Jack.”

Jack dropped the knife. It landed with a bright clang of metal against floorboards.

“This isn’t about sex,” said Jack, his tone changing. “Ianto... Ianto...”

“Let me go,” Ianto said. “Please let me go.”

Jack moved swiftly to him, unlocked the cuffs.

“Ianto,” he murmured. “It’s okay. It’s okay, haalfeld.”

“I hate it when you’re hurt. It rips me apart every time,” wept Ianto. “Don’t do this to me. Please. You scare me so much.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” whispered Jack. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, Jack’s cuts knitting together as Ianto ran his hands over them, as they both promised promises of not getting hurt, of not meaning to hurt the other, of wanting to be together forever. Ianto said he’d sleep with the light on and Jack said he’d never cuff Ianto again. Not even playing. He kissed the raw places where the cuffs had left marks.

They fucked slowly in the dark, Jack pressing Ianto into the mattress, his weight and heat comforting.

“I love you,” said Ianto. “I love you.”

He only just remembered to turn the light on when they’d finished, Jack cooing to him in a language that had never been heard on the planet before, rocking him gently to sleep.

___________________

Practical

___________________

Jack woke in darkness. Breathed in. The air was still good. How long until he ran out of oxygen and lay there in a dead vessel, unable to die but unable to move?

“As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean,” he quoted, feeling for the edge of his pod.

It was surprisingly soft. It felt like a bed. Where the hell was he?

“Hello?” he called out. “Anyone alive?”

He got up, feeling his way for the door. The darkness inside a stricken ship was always absolute in deep space. There was no sense of any light at all, no sense of rescue. He felt his way around the door, surprised at how in control he was right up until he fell on the slight step down, sprawling ungainly in the corridor, head ringing like a gong.

“Jack,” said Ianto, slipping arms around him. “It’s okay.”

“That hurt. So much,” grunted Jack. “Why is it so dark?”

“Your eyes...” said Ianto. “It’s your eyes.”

“My eyes aren’t working?” asked Jack, feeling his head. “No bandages.”

“We didn’t want anything to get... stuck...as they healed,” Ianto said. “We don’t know how long that will be.”

“We?”

“Martha.”

“Why..?”

“Who else could I call?” asked Ianto, stroking Jack’s hair.

“Why is he out of bed?”

Jack tried to locate Martha by sound.

“Nature called and he woke up while I was gone,” said Ianto. Jack detected a hint of pain in his tone. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“It’s okay,” said Martha, meaning it. “Jack, can you see at all?”

“Why didn’t I just die?” asked Jack, bemused.

“You did,” said Martha. “But you lost half your head. I think it’s going to take a while to grow back.”

“I what?”

“It was a messy wound, Jack,” said Ianto. “It was... I don’t know. I thought you were gone for good.”

Jack reached out to Ianto, brushing a hand over his cheek. Ianto had been crying.

“How messy?” asked Jack. “Am I still going to be cute?”

“Messy. And probably,” said Martha.

End of conversation.

“Now, are you going to sit down so that I can examine you?”

Ianto led Jack back to where he could sit.

“I’ll get you a drink,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Jack heard Ianto’s footsteps as Martha poked and prodded.

“You’re damn lucky, Jack,” she said. “I thought we’d lost you too.”

“I only remember... the jaws of that thing...”

“It crushed your skull,” she said. “You died three times last night. Each time the damage didn’t heal properly; you’re still blind and there’s a dent in the back of your head the size of a very large tooth.”

“It’s so dark,” said Jack, reaching for her hand. “I hate the dark. Where’s Ianto?”

“Probably sobbing with relief somewhere,” said Martha. “He was so scared the first few times you came back. We eventually worked out that we had to operate and put pieces in the general vicinity of where they should be.”

“Yuk,” said Jack, squeezing her hand. “That’s disgusting.”

“You’re not the one who had bits of brain under his fingernails from trying to hold your head back together for long enough that help could come,” said Martha.

Jack knew that if he could concentrate just long enough he’d see what she was really saying under that facade of calm. It slipped from his grasp. Ianto, something about Ianto.

“Is Ianto okay?” asked Jack.

“He was bloody terrified that if we didn’t get every atom of brain you’d be... damaged.”

“I had half my skull blown away once,” said Jack. “It takes a while, but it comes back.”

“Perhaps you should tell him that,” said Martha, kissing his cheek. “I’m happy you’re conscious.”

Footfalls in the doorway. Ianto.

“Ianto,” said Jack, hoarse. “Come here.”

Ianto came to him, pressed a glass of water into his hand.

“Hell of a headache,” said Jack.

“Take these,” Ianto prompted, pressing tablets into his palm. “You’ll feel better.”

Jack took the tablets.

“It’s dark,” he said, reaching out for Ianto.

“Yep,” Ianto replied, reaching back.

They met and held tight.

“Ianto, I want you to try and get some sleep now,” said Martha. “Jack’s okay. He’ll be okay. You need to relax or you’ll be useless and we can’t afford useless.”

“But I...” Ianto began. “I need to...”

Jack pulled him down onto the bed.

“I don’t care,” said Jack, holding Ianto to his chest. “I don’t care what you think you’re doing. You’re staying here with me now.”

“Get some sleep, you two,” said Martha, gently. “Jack, keep him here. Ianto, look after Jack. I’m going upstairs to lie to UNIT and tell them that you lot want me here for a few more days.”

“We do want you here for a few more days,” said Jack.

“Yeah, but you don’t want me to tell them why,” replied Martha. “Goodnight.”

“No,” said Ianto, abruptly. “Leave the light on.”

“Ianto?” asked Martha.

“Please,” Ianto said. “Leave it on.”

“Sleep,” Jack said, once her steps had died away into the background noises of the Hub.

“I will,” said Ianto and Jack heard “I love you” in his voice.

Jack stroked Ianto’s hair, finding matted patches that spoke of untended injuries, which was unlike Martha. Ianto whimpered a little when Jack’s hold tightened.

“How badly hurt are you?” asked Jack.

“Not that badly.”

“Why hasn’t Martha done anything about it?”

“Because I didn’t tell her... wouldn’t let her too close...”

“You’ll tell her, next time she comes down here,” said Jack. “I can’t have my lighthouse going dark.”

___________________

Theory

___________________


Ianto watched the clock and breathed in Jack. It was too late to be night and too early to be morning and they were finally at home again, Jack blundering into objects if Ianto wasn’t there to gently steer him past the couch, past the table, through the doorways. Submerged rocks and reefs in their own home.

“You’re not asleep,” said Jack. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“How did you know?”

“I’m getting better at this,” said Jack. “I’m getting better at knowing what you’re thinking by the hitch of your breath and the way you touch me.”

“You know me,” said Ianto, comfortably.

“I hate being in the dark like this,” Jack said. “I have to hear you breathing. Then I know everything is okay.”

“Fuck me,” said Ianto impulsively, kissing him. “Let me surround you. Let me show you.”

“Let me be in control,” Jack said, catching Ianto’s hands in one of his own.

Ianto whimpered, the wine-dark bruises from the handcuffs still fading.

“Please. Close your eyes. Don’t open them,” said Jack. “I’ll blindfold you.”

He fumbled for something to use, making his way awkwardly from landmark to landfall in their bedroom, navigating by feel and memory. Ianto didn’t move.

“Trust me.”

Jack needed control and Ianto was willing to give. He let Jack tie his wrists, never the handcuffs again, tied where Ianto couldn’t direct him with needy fingers. Silk across his eyes as he kept them closed.

“Now we’re both in the dark,” hummed Jack, his breath hot puffs against Ianto’s neck.

“You light me up,” sighed Ianto.

Jack memorised the planes of Ianto’s body, his safe harbour. Mapped it with his fingers and lips as Ianto shifted and breathed passion under him. The skin of his hands, rough. The skin of his chest, firm. The skin of his penis, soft and yielding, making the hardness beneath inviting. No wonder they described each other as cocky.

Ianto flinched, at first, when the coolness of slick slipped against him. Jack shifted up his body to lick at his neck, murmur in his ear.

“You’re mine... mine...”

He slipped a finger inside. Ianto never would get used to that feeling, never get used to the strangeness of the sensations next day; not pain, but the sense of movement still inside him.

“I’m yours,” said Ianto. “I’m yours.”

The size of Jack’s cock had frightened him at first. Now it was familiar, familiar, almost part of himself. Jack gripped him tightly as he thrust in and Ianto gasped with delight.

“Tell me you love me,” Jack instructed.

“I love you.”

“Tell me you’ll stay with me forever.”

“I’ll stay...” Ianto gasped, the bed knocking the wall with the force of Jack’s passion. “...forever.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes,” Ianto replied, the darkness filled up with Jack. “I want to be with you forever.”

“I want you to be mine forever,” Jack echoed.

Ianto cried out as the pressure started to build.

“I want you to surround me in the dark,” Jack hissed. “I want to know that I have no need to ever fear. I want to be able to return to you and have you guide me safe to port.”

“I’ll be here,” Ianto managed, his voice breaking under the strain of lust and need and possession. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Yes,” gasped Jack. “I love you.”

Ianto broke into incoherence as Jack increased the rhythm, one hand wrapped around Ianto’s cock, the other hand pressed against his heart. Jack broke into whining moans as Ianto came, following quickly. He untied Ianto, covering over the wet patch, curling Ianto in his arms, cooing in the language that Ianto didn’t understand, soothing them both to sleep.

Next day, Jack returned to the Hub excited, catching Ianto around the waist. He’d taken Martha with him to the shops, Martha, not Ianto. Ianto had growled complaint around the office all morning until he felt Jack’s hands on his waist.

“What was so important that I couldn’t come with you?” asked Ianto, taking his hands.

“I want you to wear this,” said Jack, slipping a ring into Ianto’s palm. “I can’t leave a paper trail in the public records, much as I wish I could. But I expect you to amend the Torchwood records accordingly.”

“Jack,” Ianto breathed. “Of course I will.”

___________________

Practical

___________________

“I can do this,” said Jack, determined. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to. You’re just stubborn,” said Ianto, fondly.

“If I have to put up with this for some time to come, I am bloody going to be independent,” said Jack. “Give me the stick.”

Martha had done all she could. She’d done more than she was obliged to. Ianto was grateful, so grateful. She was in New York, saving the world on her own.

Ianto waited outside while Jack got their lunch, navigating awkwardly across the sandwich shop, tipping and tapping at the edges of chairs and tables. He ordered from memory and paid and carried his spoils out to Ianto, bitterly proud.

“Hold this. It’s awkward with a stick,” said Jack, gently.

Bright afternoon sunlight warmed Ianto through his suit jacket. The touch of Jack’s fingers against his own as he passed over the paper bags with their sandwiches made him even warmer.

“Where to?” asked Ianto.

Jack gesticulated with the stick.

“That way. I can smell the sea.”

They walked in comfortable silence down to the shore.

“It’s nice when the Rift gives us a day off,” said Ianto, eventually. “I like spending my days with you as well as my nights in your arms.”

“You spend every day with me,” said Jack.

“But not in a personal capacity. Not doing things that make us happy,” said Ianto. “Aside from the warm and fuzzy feeling in the cockles of my heart from saving the world every now and again.”

“It’s sunny, isn’t it?” asked Jack.

“It is indeed.”

“Have you found us somewhere to sit?”

“Yep,” said Ianto, taking Jack’s hand to lead him to the picnic table.

The gulls were loud above them and the wash of the shore was gentle in the sunlight and seabreeze. Ianto resisted the urge to unwrap Jack’s sandwich.

“I think I’m almost over my fear of the dark,” said Jack, picking at the wrapping, turning the sandwich over in an attempt to discern where the edge of the wrapper was, trying to avoid tearing it open.

“I think I’m almost over my fear of losing you,” Ianto replied, sliding his feet so that their ankles met, so that they were just touching a little. “Never completely.”

“Fears never go completely,” agreed Jack, the ring on his finger soft gold in the sunlight. “But I’ll try not to die quite so often.”

Ianto threw the crusts of his sandwich to the birds. Jack ate his, pulling Ianto closer for a kiss in the afternoon light.

“We should go before it gets dark,” said Ianto. “We should check on the Hub.”

“Gwen can take care of the Hub. We should get a room and not bother going home ever,” Jack replied. “We should just surrender for a lifetime.”

“You’ll never surrender,” Ianto said, with a little grin that Jack heard in his voice, all the way to his guts and heart and soul.

“It’s nice to pretend, though,” whispered Jack.

They walked back to the car in silence, neither wishing to break the spell. Ianto reached for Jack’s hand and Jack took him up on the offer, carelessly carrying in the cane in one hand.

“Step down,” Ianto instructed. “That’s a gutter.”

“Yes, dear.” Jack stifled a laugh. Ianto let go of his hand, playing.

“All right, cross the crossing on your own...” he said, stepping backward away from Jack.

Jack heard the car and shoved forwards, catching Ianto off-balance, catching himself on the front of the car in the frightened squeal of brakes and the shocked sounds of onlookers. Ianto looked up, bruised and afraid. Jack was crumpled in front of the car and he didn’t move as Ianto crawled to him.

“He’s dead,” said a bystander.

Ianto wished that people wouldn’t say things like that.

“He’s got a very tough head,” said Ianto. “He’ll be okay.”

He knelt beside Jack, closing Jack’s open eyes,

“You’ll be okay. Come on. Come out of the dark.”

“You both just came out of nowhere...” said the woman, ready to cry. “Oh my god.”

“Jack,” said Ianto, as Jack woke. “Come out of the dark. Come to me.”

“Oh my god. It’s so light,” Jack said. “Oh my god.”

“Jack,” Ianto repeated, holding him tightly.

“It’s a miracle!” hollered Jack, playing the clown again. “I was blind, now I can see!”

He pulled free of Ianto, blustering to his feet. Ianto chuckled as he got up and followed Jack, who was swapping insurance details with the woman who had hit him, apparently entirely unconcerned that the accident wasn’t his fault.

“Do you know what serendipity means?” Jack asked, when Ianto joined them.

“Yes,” said Ianto.

“I love you, Ianto fucking Jones,” said Jack. “Don’t you ever walk out in front of a car again. I heard you. I heard it coming for you.”

“I love you too, you prat,” said Ianto, turning to the driver. “Come and have a coffee with us, Miss. You’re looking a bit shocked.”

Ianto helped her move her car from the road, deliberately ignoring the impressive Jack-shaped dent in the bonnet. Jack got them a table and some sweet tea.

“So what do you do, Mr Harkness?” asked the woman.

The safest place to start a conversation, unless you work for Torchwood.

“I’m a lighthouse keeper,” said Jack, sipping his tea.

“I thought that lighthouses were redundant?” she asked.

“Not necessarily,” said Jack. “Sometimes they’re the only thing that stands between a successful landing and certain destruction.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” she asked. “Or is it all automatic?”

“Nothing truly important is automatic,” said Jack, reaching for Ianto’s hand. “And it doesn’t get lonely. There’s nowhere I like more.”

“It must be interesting,” she said, her hands not shaking anymore. “Do you ever have visitors? Guided tours? That sort of thing?”

“Never,” said Ianto and Jack in unison.

“It’s my lighthouse,” said Jack. “I’m very protective of what I love.”

“I can see that,” said the woman. “I’m so glad I didn’t hurt you.”

“So am I,” said Ianto.

“Serendipity,” said Jack, with a wave of his hand. “Serendipity.”

Ianto knew that when they returned home that night there’d be phone calls from Gwen asking why Jack was charging someone’s insurance to the Torchwood account and the Rift would rattle and shake. There’d be pterosaurs and weevils and aliens and enemies. There’d be ex-lovers and workmates and friends and the concerned few.

And Ianto would happily shut the doors to them all, every single one.