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Ianto had been a sickly child until well into adolescence. He’d caught everything that came his way: strep throat, flu, colds, and of course, that perennial childhood favorite, chickenpox. He was the only person he knew to have had it twice. He’d carried an inhaler and been forbidden from running too far or too fast, lest he have to use it, and he’d had a host of allergies that he’d mostly outgrown (except for nuts and cat dander). But his immune system was still on the wonky side, and so when he woke up feeling like death three days after the Doctor came down with his first ever flu, he was not at all surprised.
He groaned quietly, so as not to disturb either of his partners, and took a mental inventory of all the ways he felt like absolute hell: headache, sore throat, muscle aches - check, check, and check. It helped not at all that he was currently trapped between two human furnaces. The Doctor slept like the dead to Ianto’s right; Ianto didn’t want to wake him, since his fever had only just broken the night before. Jack, on the other hand, he had no qualms about.
Ianto poked Jack. “Jack,” he rasped. Jack twitched. Ianto poked harder. “Jack. Let me out.”
Jack woke with an undignified snort and a half-swallowed mumble about geckos, or possibly chickens. If Ianto hadn’t felt so awful, he probably would have laughed. “What?”
“Switch places with me, I’m boiling alive.”
Jack craned his neck to look at the nightstand. “Just about time for one of us to get up, anyway.” He frowned down at Ianto. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” Ianto said with a glare, “except for having caught the Doctor’s flu. I’m burning up. Either get out of bed or switch places with me.”
Jack sat up, which let Ianto shove the covers back. He was covered in sweat, and in an hour he’d be a miserable ball of chills. On his other side, the Doctor stirred, probably because Ianto had pulled the covers off of him, too, in his haste. “Wha’s going on?” he asked muzzily.
“Ianto’s ill,” Jack reported.
“Oh.” The Doctor blinked at him myopically. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ianto said, though he supposed it technically was.
Jack reached over and brushed the back of his hand across the Doctor’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” the Doctor said, though he still sounded rough. “Not my usual 110%, but better.”
“Great,” Ianto sighed. “That means I only have three days of misery to look forward to.”
The Doctor stroked his arm. “We’ll look after you.”
Ianto winced inwardly. Quite truthfully, all he really wanted was a dark, quiet room where he could lie still until his fever went away. It was the only thing that actually worked, as years of being fussed at by his mother and Rhi had taught him. “Thanks,” he said, “but I really just want to go home.”
He could feel the Doctor and Jack exchanging a look over his head. “Ianto, if you feel anything like I did, you shouldn’t drive,” the Doctor said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Jack said. “Just stay here. It’ll be easier.”
“On whom?” Ianto grumbled. “I want my bed, Jack. I want a room where I can crack a window open. I want my books and my TV and the food in my cupboards. I’ve just spent three days down here taking care of the Doctor, and I’m completely over living in a dank hole in the ground. I am going home.” He sat up, ignored a minor dizzy spell, and pushed past Jack to get to his feet. The minor dizzy spell promptly became a major one.
The next thing Ianto knew, he was lying on his back with his head in the Doctor’s lap. “Um,” he said.
“You just blacked out,” Jack informed him.
Ianto squeezed his eyes shut. He felt chilled now, and rather sick to his stomach. “Please,” he said, hating how weak he sounded. “I just want my own bed.”
The Doctor stroked his hair. “All right. But I’m going to drive you and stay with you.”
“Fine,” Ianto huffed. He didn’t have energy to spare on exercises in futility.
Matters did not improve from there. The ladder became the bane of Ianto’s existence for the time it took him to climb it. By the time he reached his car in the garage, he was shaky and shivering and forced to admit, if only to himself, that driving himself home would have been a terrible idea indeed. The Doctor slid into the driver’s seat, while Jack leaned in to kiss Ianto. “I’ll come by this afternoon if the Rift cooperates,” he said. “Can I pick you up anything on the way?”
“Lucozade,” Ianto said.
Jack wrinkled his nose. “Really?”
“Don’t judge,” Ianto told him crossly. It’d always been plain porridge and soft-boiled eggs when he’d got ill as a kid, but at least he’d had Lucozade to look forward to. It never tasted quite like he remembered, but at the moment he didn’t care.
“I’m not,” Jack assured him hastily. “Lucozade it is. Feel better.” He kissed him once more, this time on the forehead, and stepped back to shut the door.
Ianto and the Doctor were both silent as they pulled out of the car park. Then Ianto glanced sideways at the Doctor and said, with as little reluctance as he could manage, “Thanks.”
The Doctor smiled as he pulled to a stop at a red light and reached over to brush Ianto’s fringe out of his face. “No more than you did for me.”
Ianto sighed and pulled his head away from the Doctor’s hand. “Don’t fuss. I just need to sleep in my own bed.”
There was a brief silence. “Mind if I join you?” the Doctor finally asked. “I’m on the mend, but I’m still a bit -”
“It’s fine,” Ianto interrupted shortly. “Just don’t hog the covers. And don’t talk incessantly about nothing. I don’t need a lecture on the chemical make-up of paracetamol.”
The Doctor was very quiet for the rest of the drive. Ianto knew he’d hurt his feelings but was too tired to do anything about it. He was being ridiculous, he told himself; the Doctor had certainly looked after him before. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that this time was different. This wasn’t Torchwood-related, it was just flu. It irritated Ianto to be reminded that no matter how strong or competent he was, he could still be flattened by something so mundane.
None of this, Ianto knew, was the Doctor’s fault. He planned on apologizing once they were home, but the stairs to his first-floor flat left him winded and almost wheezing, like the asthmatic kid he’d once been, and he found himself too annoyed to say anything at all. He slunk off to have a bath, hoping the steam would help him breathe, and ignored the sounds of the Doctor making tea and changing the sheets on his bed. It was, as the Doctor had said, nothing more than Ianto had done for him, not four days ago, but it still grated.
He stayed in the bath until the water started to cool and the noises in the bedroom had finally ceased. Then he gritted his teeth, wrapped himself in a towel, and padded into the bedroom.
There he paused, blinking. The duvet had been folded back neatly and Ianto’s TV and DVD player were set up on the desk facing the bed. Stacked on the bedside table were copies of The Color of Magic, Snowcrash, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as all three extended-edition Lord of the Rings box sets. Next to them were a mug of tea, a bottle of chilled water, and a small array of over the counter medications: throat lozenges, paracetamol, ibuprofen, and aspirin. A pair of clean pajamas lay folded neatly on the pillow. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, but Ianto could hear the clickety-clack of his laptop keyboard in the next room.
Ianto immediately felt like an enormous arse. He changed into the pajamas and swallowed two ibuprofen with cold water, then went and leaned in the threshold to the lounge. “Hi,” he said.
The Doctor glanced up and straightened. “Hey. Everything all right? Do you need anything?”
Ianto sighed. “I was mean to you before. You didn’t deserve that. Come to bed?”
The Doctor hesitated. “Are you sure?” Ianto nodded. The Doctor ducked his head and closed the laptop. “Thanks,” he said, mostly to the coffee table.
Ianto crawled into bed whilst the Doctor changed into his own pajamas. “Start at the beginning?” Ianto asked, holding up Fellowship of the Ring.
“It’s my favorite anyway,” the Doctor said, taking it from him to slip the disc into the DVD player. He slid in beside Ianto, and they arranged themselves comfortably with a minimum of fuss. Ianto ended up with his head resting against the Doctor’s chest, the reassuring lub-dub of his lover’s heartbeat in one ear and the familiar opening monologue in the other.
“I really am sorry,” he murmured, turning his face to press a kiss to the Doctor’s chest.
“Hush,” the Doctor said, running his fingers through Ianto’s hair. “I’ve already forgotten it.”
Ianto was asleep before Bilbo even left Bag’s End.
He woke hours later to afternoon sun filtering through his curtains. He blinked, a little bewildered at the empty bed and the brighter-than-usual light; he rarely saw his flat in the middle of the day, even on weekends. He sighed and sagged back into the pillows, rubbing a hand over his eyes. The ibuprofen had worn off. He fumbled around on the bedside table and took two more with the now tepid water, then lay still, listening. He heard the faint sound of laughter from the kitchen, followed by the crash of something falling to the floor and muffled swearing in Jack’s voice.
God help him, it sounded like they were cooking.
This was sufficiently alarming that Ianto wallowed his way upright and out of bed. He wrapped his chilled body in his dressing gown and shuffled into the kitchen, where he found the Doctor poking at onions sizzling in a pan and Jack mopping up spilled olive oil from the counter, the cupboards, and the floor. “What the hell,” Ianto said, in as dangerous a tone as he could manage with a raspy voice, “is going on?”
The two of them turned to look at him with identical expressions of innocence. “Soup!” Jack said, and then turned to rummage in a paper sack before thrusting something at Ianto with a hopeful smile. “Lucozade?”
Ianto accepted the Lucozade but frowned at Jack. “Complete sentences, please.”
“We’re making chicken soup,” the Doctor said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Ianto sighed, sinking down at his kitchen table. He laid his head on his arms. “Look, I’ve got some tinned soup in the cupboard. Just heat it up, it’ll be fine.”
The Doctor sniffed. “Tinned soup is terrible for you.”
“It’s the same overpriced organic stuff we fed you not two days ago,” Ianto replied with a scowl. “It’s fine, and it’s certainly better than the two of you blowing up my kitchen.”
The Doctor looked wounded. “We’re not going to blow up your kitchen.”
“No,” Ianto said, lifting his head, “you’re not. Out.”
“No,” Jack said. “No,” he repeated, when Ianto glared. “Don’t give me that look. You don’t scare me.”
“Oh really?” Ianto said, raising an eyebrow. “Two words: Instant. Coffee.”
“An empty threat,” Jack declared, arms crossed over his chest. “I am going to make you Captain Jack Harkness’s Galaxy Famous Chicken Soup, and you are going to eat it, and you are going to like it. Now: sofa or bed?”
Ianto glared, but Jack just looked back, implacable. “Bed,” he growled at last. “And I can get myself there, thank you,” he added, when Jack looked like he might help him up - or, heaven forfend, carry him there. He gathered the shreds of his dignity along with his Lucozade and stood, shuffling out of the kitchen, through the lounge, and into his bedroom, where he collapsed face first onto the mattress and pulled his pillow over his head.
This was not going to end well. The flat was too small for all three of them at once, particularly with Ianto in this sort of mood. Usually, he thought, he just didn’t notice; usually, they went straight to the bedroom, and if they ate, it was cold takeaway out of the carton, whilst sitting on the floor of the lounge. None of them cooked, especially on a random Thursday afternoon. Was poor Gwen stuck watching the Hub by herself?
He was so wrapped up in his own annoyance that he didn’t notice the Doctor approaching until he knelt on the mattress and put his hands on Ianto’s shoulders. He paused, clearly awaiting permission. Ianto sighed. “You don’t have to,” he said into the pillow. “I know I’m being a complete pain in the arse.”
“Consider it returning the favor,” the Doctor said, squeezing his shoulders lightly. “May I?”
Ianto removed the pillow from his head. “Yes, fine,” he said, more curtly than he’d intended.
The Doctor’s hands went still before finally falling away altogether. “Ianto, be honest. Do you want us to leave?”
Ianto sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I feel awful, and being fussed at makes me feel weaker. But I know you mean well.” His mother had always meant well, too, and there were times when he’d genuinely needed to be taken care of. But this was nothing but a touch of flu; he could damn well take care of himself.
“You didn’t answer my question,” the Doctor pointed out quietly.
“No,” Ianto said, equally quiet. “I guess I didn’t.” He didn’t want to tell them to leave. They were trying so hard, and he knew exactly how ungracious he was acting. But the flat was too fucking small and they wouldn’t stop fussing.
The Doctor slid off the bed. “I’ll take care of Jack. Do you need anything before we go?”
Ianto rolled over onto his back. “Doctor. Please don’t take this -”
“I’m not,” the Doctor said, with a very small smile. “Not everyone wants the same thing when they’re ill. It’s not personal. Do you need anything?”
Ianto shook his head. “No. Thanks.” The Doctor was lying, Ianto knew. It was personal to him. He was the Doctor: he liked making people feel better. “I’ll call you.”
The Doctor nodded. He pressed his lips to Ianto’s forehead, slid off the bed, and left, closing the door softly behind him. Ianto crawled beneath the covers and promptly fell asleep.
It was dark by the time he woke again, this time to an utterly silent flat. It felt strange to know he was the only one there. He and the Doctor had been sharing the flat for months now; Ianto thought it might be the first time in half a year that he’d been home by himself.
Not for the first time, he thought that it would be nice to have a place that was all three of theirs, a real home where they each had their own spaces to retreat to when it all got to be too much. Where the Doctor had a place to tinker, and Jack had a place to brood, and Ianto had . . . well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted, actually, aside from a state-of-the-art espresso machine. A garden, maybe. It might be nice to have a garden.
But a garden required a house, and a house required a commitment, of time and money and domesticity. Ianto had thought about it with Lisa - it wouldn’t have been a house, not in London, but a flat, anyway. He could have afforded a house in Cardiff, but it wouldn’t have been a home without someone to share it with. And that was what he wanted - somewhere all three of them could call home. Somewhere he wouldn’t stretch his arms out and hit the walls. Or bump into one of his partners every time he turned around.
He sighed and dragged himself upright. He ached all over.
He made tea - slowly - and ran himself another bath. He set his mug and mobile on the tub and didn’t bother turning the lights on before sinking into the hot water. He could see well enough by the streetlight that filtered in through the window, and he found bathing in the dark to be soothing even when he wasn’t ill.
He let himself soak peacefully for a few minutes. Then he dried his hands on a towel and called Jack. “Hi,” he said, when Jack answered.
There was a brief silence. “Hi,” Jack said. “How are you feeling?”
“A little better. Sorry about earlier. I was -”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. We came on too strong.”
Ianto bit his lip. “Was the Doctor very upset?”
“No. Not very.”
“But a little.”
“Yeah,” Jack admitted. “A little. It’s just . . . who he is. If you’re up for it - and only then - he’d probably really like it if you let him come over and finish the soup I started. I don’t have to come at all,” he added hastily.
“It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” Ianto said with a sigh. He let his head loll back against the towel he’d used to pad the rim of the tub. “Soup sounds nice,” he said at last, lamely.
“Soup for two or three?” Jack asked, very carefully.
“Three,” Ianto said, even though it made him cringe a little. “But quietly.”
“As church mice, I promise,” Jack said. Ianto could hear him smiling. “I’ve got a few things to finish up here, but I’ll send the Doctor along pretty soon. He’s been drooping over his keyboard for awhile now.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later, then.” Ianto hung up and exchanged his phone for the mug of tea, which he cradled against his chest. This, he decided, was as close to being comfortable as he’d come all day.
He was in danger of falling asleep in the bath when he heard the Doctor’s key in the lock. He kept his eyes shut as he listened to him toe his shoes off and drop something heavy - probably a stack of files - on the coffee table.
He opened his eyes when the Doctor knocked on the bathroom door. “Come in,” Ianto said, lifting his chin clear of the water.
The Doctor came in - shuffled in, rather, Ianto thought critically - and dropped down to sit on the lid of the toilet. “Hi. How’re you feeling?”
“A bit better,” Ianto said, frowning. “How are you? You look tired.”
The Doctor sighed and loosened his tie, which was already rather loose to begin with. “I had a long day. A very long day.” He pulled at his temples.
He looked utterly miserable. Did Jack really expect him to cook? Ianto certainly didn’t. “The paracetamol is still on my nightstand. Take two, get undressed, and come join me in here.”
The Doctor looked up. “Yeah?”
Ianto nodded. “If you want.”
“I want,” the Doctor sighed, dragging himself to his feet. “You’ve no idea how much I want.”
Whilst the Doctor followed directions, Ianto ran more hot water in the tub. Then he lay back to wait for the Doctor, and considered that any house they might theoretically purchase must have a tub big enough for all three of them. He and the Doctor would fit in this one all right, but adding Jack would be impossible.
It was a tight squeeze for the two of them in any case. Finally they settled, the Doctor’s back to Ianto’s chest, his head resting on Ianto’s shoulder. Ianto wrapped his arms around the Doctor and wiped him down with a flannel. The Doctor felt a little too warm, as though he were running a low-grade fever. He relaxed into Ianto by degrees, his hand stroking the inside of Ianto’s knee under the water. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” the Doctor noted drowsily.
“I’m all right,” Ianto said, and kissed the back of the Doctor’s neck. “I spent all day sleeping. What did you do?”
“Mm. Spent time with the mainframe, mostly. She feels neglected,” the Doctor said with a sigh. “I never knew AI could be so needy.”
Ianto laughed softly. “That’s what you get for having such a way with her. She’d get finicky if Tosh didn’t come in for a few days, too.”
“Mmm,” the Doctor said, and fell silent - dozing, Ianto realized after a minute. He winced, recalling that in the original plan the Doctor was to have spent a quiet day at home with him. Ianto tightened his arms around the Doctor in silent apology. The Doctor made a rather adorable snuffling noise and relaxed yet further, head resting comfortably in the crook of Ianto’s neck.
Jack, Ianto reflected, could really be quite clever.
He let the Doctor relax as long as he could but nudged him awake once the water started to cool. They patted each other down with Ianto’s big fluffy towels before padding naked into the bedroom. The Doctor pulled on the pajama bottoms Ianto handed him and collapsed backward across Ianto’s bed. “How long are these things supposed to last?” he asked with a weary sigh.
“I hear they go away faster if you don’t go back to work before you’re ready,” Ianto said, pulling on his own pajamas. He slipped the second Lord of the Rings film in and sat down heavily beside the Doctor. “This is just hearsay, mind you. Move over.” The Doctor moved over and slid beneath the covers at the same time; Ianto slid in beside him and turned the television on with the remote.
This time it was his turn to stay awake and watch the film. The Doctor dropped off almost at once, his head resting against Ianto’s side. Ianto eyed him a little worriedly, but he seemed comfortable enough. Probably just exhausted, he finally decided.
The first half of the film had finished, and Ianto was trying to find the motivation to get up and change the DVD, when he heard Jack let himself into the flat. Very carefully, Ianto eased out of bed, pausing when the Doctor murmured in protest. He stroked the Doctor’s hair and watched him settle again with a faint sigh.
Jack was unpacking a bag of groceries in the kitchen. “Hey,” Ianto said.
Jack turned and smiled. “Hey there.” Ianto let himself be pulled in for a kiss, and didn’t even grumble when Jack completely failed to mask a temperature-check by kissing him on the forehead. He made a satisfied noise, which Ianto supposed meant he’d passed inspection. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better. It’s amazing what ten hours of sleep will do,” Ianto said, leaning against him. “Speaking of which, the Doctor is basically comatose right now. I can’t believe you let him work this afternoon.”
Jack grimaced. “There wasn’t really any letting involved, if you know what I mean. At least it was a fairly quiet day - we only got called out once, and he stayed behind without much argument.” He frowned. “You don’t think he’s getting sick again, do you?”
Ianto shook his head. “No, he’s just exhausted. That was very sneaky, by the way.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Sneaky? Me?”
“Yes. Not subtle, mind you, but definitely sneaky.” Jack gave him a look of innocent puzzlement. Ianto rolled his eyes and poked him. “Don’t give me that look. You know what I’m talking about.” Being taken care of made Ianto want to climb the walls; taking care of others was something that came as easily as breathing. And in taking care of the Doctor - or allowing Jack to care for him - Ianto would also take care of himself.
Very sneaky. And yet a far more effective method than Ianto’s mother had ever found.
“Oh, yeah. That was a bit sneaky, wasn’t it?” Jack said, with an unapologetic smile. “But it seems to have worked. Now, out. I’ll let you know when the soup is ready.”
Ianto considered arguing. But really, if Jack wanted to make homemade chicken soup, what was the point in resisting? Jack was extraordinarily good at almost everything he did (except making coffee); there was no reason to believe it would be anything short of delicious. And probably come with a suitably lascivious story about where he got the recipe.
Plus, in a way it was only fair, seeing as Jack never seemed to get ill.
He shrugged. “Sounds good.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes.” Ianto kissed him lightly and turned away. But in the threshold to the kitchen, he hesitated, half-turning back to look at him. “Jack?”
“Hmm?” Jack looked up from the carrots he was slicing.
Ianto bit his lip. Have you ever thought about buying a house? sounded a little . . . abrupt. Especially for Jack. He knew Jack loved them, and that, in his way, Jack was committed to them. But Jack also had an allergy to anything that hinted at that commitment in any sort of formalized way.
One freak-out per day was all they could handle, Ianto decided with a tired sigh, especially with two of them not up to par. And he’d already filled their quota. “Never mind,” he said. “Not too heavy on the garlic, all right?”
Jack waved his knife vaguely in acknowledgement.
The soup wasn’t ready until well after midnight. By then Ianto had given in to his growling stomach and made toast, but he had a mug anyway, curled up in bed with the Doctor. He had to admit that it was vastly superior to anything out of a tin, even if his saying so made Jack look unbearably smug. Ianto was glad to see that the Doctor didn’t require much coaxing to eat his share; his pallor had begun to worry Ianto, but the soup put color back in his cheeks and a bit of spark back in his eyes. Ianto and Jack exchanged a relieved look over the Doctor’s head.
The Doctor dropped off again whilst Jack was doing the washing up. Ianto dozed lightly, waiting for Jack to come to bed, but when he woke, it was to Jack placing a note on the nightstand. He blinked blearily at Jack and frowned. “Where’re you going?”
“Back to the Hub,” Jack replied, looking regretful. “Tosh’s program said a spike was likely tonight.”
“Oh,” Ianto said, a little disappointed despite himself. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
Jack nodded, smoothing Ianto’s hair back from his forehead with one hand. “At some point. Not at the Hub, though,” he added pointedly. “And if you have to pretend to feel worse than you actually do to get the Doctor to stay home, I give you full permission.”
Jack kissed him and left. Distraction-free for the first time in hours, Ianto discovered that his head throbbed, his muscles ached, and he felt feverish again. He took two more paracetamol, sank down beneath the covers, and closed his eyes. He wondered if they could build a skeleton version of the Rift monitor at the new house - something more complex than the portable monitor, but not as complicated as the one at the Hub. Something that would let them all leave every night and on the weekends, even if a spike was scheduled. They could have an entire room dedicated to Torchwood, he decided, if it meant they all got to leave on a regular basis.
A room for Torchwood, he thought drowsily. A garden for me. Rooftop access with a view for Jack. A lab for the Doctor. A library, a bathtub big enough for three, a pleasant kitchen. Jack had clearly been holding out on them, if the soup was anything to go by, and Ianto was determined not to give him any excuse to do so in the new place. An adequate water heater. Windows. Lots of windows. If Ianto never slept another night in a windowless, airless room again, it would be too soon.
The Doctor rolled over, jostling Ianto. He blinked his eyes open and realized that he’d more or less dreamed their house up in his head, before either of his partners had ever agreed to it. Chances were very high that one of them wouldn’t, and it was silly to get attached to a house that would probably never exist. But he wanted this, damn it. He sighed.
“Ianto?” the Doctor murmured. “All right?”
“Yeah,” Ianto said, feeling guilty for waking him. “My head just hurts. I think my fever’s back up.”
“Oh.” Groggily, the Doctor pushed himself up on one arm and felt Ianto’s forehead. “Yeah. Hang on.”
“You don’t have to -” But it was too late. The Doctor was already out of bed, padding into the bathroom. Ianto leaned his head back and listened to the water running.
He returned with a flannel, which he used to wipe down Ianto’s face and neck, before draping it across his forehead. “Did you take anything?” he asked, sliding back into bed.
“Yes,” Ianto said, feeling, once again, like a bit of an arse. He hesitated, the apology he’d meant to make that morning on the tip of his tongue. The Doctor would never say anything, Ianto knew; he needn’t say a word if he didn’t want to. But for that reason, if no other, he should say something. He drew a deep breath. “Doctor, I’m sorry. About earlier.”
The Doctor rolled onto his side and looked at him. “What for?”
“You were trying to help. I didn’t let you. It’s just . . .” He looked away. “It’s hard for me.”
“I know,” the Doctor said quietly. “I wasn’t angry.”
“I know you weren’t.” Ianto reached out and gently stroked the Doctor’s face. “But you were hurt. And I’m sorry for that.”
The Doctor shook his head. “You don’t have to apologize.” Ianto was silent, thumb moving gently back and forth across the Doctor’s cheek. The Doctor’s eyes dropped away from Ianto’s. His lips pressed together in a thin line. “It wasn’t easy for me, either, you know,” he muttered. “These bodies of yours - ours,” he corrected himself, “they’re not what I’m used to. Having you and Jack see me like that - I didn’t like it. But that’s what you do, I thought, with your partners.” He looked up, a worried little line between his brows.
“It is,” Ianto assured him quickly, cupping the side of the Doctor’s face in his palm. “It is. You didn’t do anything wrong. Not one thing. I handled it badly, and I’m sorry.” He was sorry, too, that the Doctor had somehow felt this meant he had to run himself into the ground pretending to be well when he wasn’t, but he bloody well wasn’t going to say that bit out loud. “I was ill a lot as a child, and my mam - she worried so much about me, I just ended up feeling smothered. It’s not your fault, it’s just me.”
The Doctor nodded, a little jerkily. “Okay.”
“Good,” Ianto said, relieved. He leaned in and kissed the Doctor. He kissed back, but Ianto could feel exactly how exhausted he was. He pulled away. “Do you need anything?” The Doctor shook his head. “Bedtime, then,” Ianto declared, and reached over to turn out the light. He rolled over so his back was to the Doctor’s chest, and pulled the Doctor’s arm over himself, so that his hand was pressed against Ianto’s chest. The Doctor gave a soft sigh and tucked his face into the back of Ianto’s neck.
Ianto opened his eyes. He wondered if he dared. “Doctor?” he whispered.
“Mmm?” the Doctor said, but he was clearly more than half asleep.
Ianto hesitated. “Never mind.” He squeezed the Doctor’s hand, pressing it to his chest just over his heartbeat. “Good night.” The Doctor’s reply was unintelligible.
Twice tonight, Ianto reflected, he had nearly asked. Twice he had decided against it. Now was not the time, with two of them under the weather. And the truth was . . . he didn’t really want to hear their answers. Not yet. He needed time to marshal his arguments, to meet with an estate agent and figure out what was realistic and reasonable. He needed time to plan, so that when he inevitably met with resistance, he had some defense beyond because I want to.
Soon, he promised himself. For now, he fell asleep thinking of a bedroom big enough for three, sun-dappled with watery Welsh light, and the smell of rain through an open window.
Fin.