has 100 watchers! So to mark the occasion, I’ve updated the layout, and I want to play a game.
So, let’s play 28 flavors of Jack Harkness.
The rules:
You claim one prompt, I write a ficlet. Feel free to specify a pairing (canon or crossover!) you’d like to see, and I’ll do the best I can to fulfill it. (I love crack!crossovers, by the way.)
- Prompt: naughty. For . Jack/no one. At his desk, masturbating.
It was Ianto’s fault.
It was unusually warm, even nine levels underground, so Ianto brought in ice pops when he went to fetch lunch; and while watching the girls suck on the pops was pretty amusing (Gwen, Jack had suspected for a while, gave pretty good head and it was nice to see it confirmed; Tosh’s apparent skills at it, though, made Jack’s mouth fall open for a moment), watching the purple length of pop appear and disappear between Ianto’s lips was far too much.
After lunch Ianto disappeared into one of the lower archives with a file box and a determined expression, which told Jack that being redirected into his office was a bad idea. The icy look Ianto was sure to give him would have the same effect as a blowjob, but wouldn’t be half as fun.
Jack sat behind his desk, trying to concentrate on paperwork—but he kept getting distracted by the memory of Ianto’s lips, red and a little swollen from the ice, the pink dart of his tongue when he licked a drop of grape-flavored sugar water from the pad of his hand; and memories of those very lips, that very tongue, moving over Jack’s own skin.
Jack was certain Ianto had done this on purpose. Some sort of new twist to their constant seduction.
Jack threw down his pen. Leaned back in his chair a moment. Ianto was in the archives, Owen was in the autopsy bay, Gwen was on the phone and Tosh was typing—no one was paying attention to him.
He tilted back his head and closed his eyes, unzipped his trousers and pushed them down low enough to free his cock. He teased himself a moment, fingertips brushing his low belly, and then spat onto his palm and wrapped his fingers around his prick. Nothing he imagined was as good as memory: Ianto’s hand, for instance, with its narrow palm and long slender fingers, doing this very thing, and the way Ianto kissed him while he jerked him off, the way Ianto would tease his lips with that wicked tongue.
He groaned quietly, lost in memory, his hand pumping fast. Mouths, skin, fingertips . . . that thing Ianto did with his tongue that always made Jack shudder . . .
His earpiece beeped. “Captain?”
Ianto. Jack thought about it for a nanosecond and clicked the earpiece on, trying to keep his voice steady as he spoke. “Ianto.”
“I’m trying to find the record for the Marlexian migration of 1974 and they’re not filed under M or 1974. Do you know where they might be?”
“Um—” His face screwed up and his teeth dug into his lip.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Yeah—of course—try, um—” He hissed in a breath.
“I’ve also tried the archive for the Horsehead nebula and the PX-1498588 files,” Ianto said, still sounding concerned. “I can’t think of anything else they might be filed under but I might be missing a nuance.”
“Ianto. Do me a favor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me Jack.”
“Right now?” There was a creeping edge of suspicion to his voice now. “You want me to call you Jack,” and now a little amusement in his tone, too, “in the middle of a work day?”
“Yes!” Jack hissed and his legs trembled.
“Jack,” Ianto said; drew out the name, lowered his voice, made Jack’s name sound like a proposition in the way only he could. “Jack.”
“Ianto,” Jack answered and his body arched and his hand stilled. “Mmm. Ianto and his lovely vowels . . .”
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Ianto said.
- happy claimed
- childlike claimed
- Prompt: smudged and somewhat rumpled . For . Jack reacting to finding Ianto “smudged and somewhat rumpled”.
The first three buttons of his shirt are ndone and his tie is pulled almost open, his hair is askew (if it were longer it would be falling in his face, and don’t think it’s never crossed Jack’s mind to ask Ianto to grow it longer), and there is dust on his forehead and across his cheek.
“Did you have a fall?” Jack asks, putting a hand on Ianto’s shoulder.
“No.” Ianto looks embaressed. “I had a tussle with some file boxes. Jack,” he begins in protest as Jack licks a thumb and rubs it across the streak on his cheek.
“Just hold still. I promise it’ll be painless.” He smiles as Ianto rolls his eyes and looks away. “Let me look after you once in a while,” Jack says softly, and at that Ianto relaxes under his hand.
- angsty claimed
- horny claimed
- Prompt: impetuous. For . Jack/Doctor.
Rose is showing Mickey the village, and Jack is listening to the Doctor murmur to himself as he jiggery-pokes the TARDIS. There’s a buzz and some sparks, and the Doctor quietly swears to himself in what is probably ancient Sumerian.
It only takes Jack a moment to make up his mind. He drops his tools, gets to his feet, and holds out a hand to the Doctor. “Come on. We need a break. I’m buying you dinner.”
“What?” The Doctor peers at him.
“I’m buying you dinner,” Jack says again, more slowly. “We need to get out of here for a while. Come on.”
The Doctor chuckles as if in disbelief, but puts his tools neatly away and tucks the sonic screwdriver in his jacket. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you.”
***
The village isn’t wealthy but there’s a decent inn on the outskirts, a short walk from the river where the TARDIS landed. The hostess fusses over them, settling them in at a table near the fireplace in the center of the great room. The furniture is low to the ground, meant for kneeling rather than sitting, so both the Doctor and Jack tuck up their legs and try to get comfortable on the soft dirt floor.
“You know,” Jack remarks, “when I imagined this I always included table cloths.”
“This is fine, Jack. I haven’t lived this long without learning to be adaptable.” He smiles up at the hostess, wide and cheerful. “Just the house special for both of us, please,” he says, and the hostess scurries off.
“What’s the house special?”
“I have no idea. Doesn’t matter—it’ll be good.” He glances around. There are a few other diners, and more people gathered at their equivalent of the bar. “I don’t think they have dancing here.”
“You want to dance with me, Doctor?”
The Doctor laughs. “I’ve not been opposed to the idea.”
“What’s been holding you back?” Jack leans his elbows on the table, hands folded under his chin. The Doctor spreads out his hands as if to say, What do you think? and Jack laughs. “I didn’t think you meant it literally.”
“Now you know better.” He smiles up at the hostess again as she places steaming bowls of stew, thick with dumplings and vegetables, in front of them. “Though you should also know I don’t require tablecloths.”
- excited claimed
- Prompt: book-reading. For . With 10.
“Glasses, Jack?” said the Doctor, dropping into the chair beside him. “Since when do you need reading glasses?”
“I told you I keep getting older.” Jack put his fingers in the book to hold his place, and leaned over to point out a patch on his temple. “See? Grey hair.”
“Did you? Oh, right, right. Atrophy of the optic nerve . . .” The Doctor put on his own glasses and peered at the book in Jack’s hand. “Dickens . . . always a good choice. Lovely bloke, too.” He looked at Jack, who was smiling at him indulgently, and said, “Okay. How long has it been?”
“Three thousand years or so. You were blonde last time.” And yet he hadn’t changed a bit.
“Who? And what did we talk about?”
Jack smiled and shut the book. “First we talked about Dickens . . . and then we didn’t talk much at all.”
The Doctor laughed—and laughed more when Jack reached over and slowly puled off his glasses.
- Prompt: dancing. For . With Ianto.
“I’ve got moves you’ve never seen,” Jack says merrily and shimmies his hips, holding out one hand to Ianto. “C’mon.”
“You know, they invented the word ‘incorrigible’ to describe you,” Ianto says but puts his hand in Jack’s nonetheless and allows Jack to pull him into his arms. He’s smiling as Jack begins dancing him across the office, following his lead after only a few uncertain steps, and his hand rests lightly on Jack’s waist.
“They invented ‘sexy’ and ‘handsome’ for me, too,” Jack says smugly.
“Right. No one was handsome before you.”
“Nope.” Jack shakes his head. “They were just passably good-looking.”
“Vain thing,” Ianto says and rests his head on Jack’s shoulder. Jack slows down their dancing to a gentle sway, still holding Ianto’s hand; his other hand is at the small of Ianto’s back, guiding him with a light touch. “What are we dancing to?”
“Does it matter?” Jack says, and Ianto smiles because no, it doesn’t.
- Prompt: jealous. For . With Lorne.
When Lorne comes out of the shower, he can hear pans rattling in the kitchen. “Babe?” he calls as he pads down the hall, rubbing his hair dry—and then hastily wraps the towel around his waist when he sees the person is not Ianto but rather Jack, who puts down the pans he’d taken from the cupboard and smiles at him disarmingly.
“Hi! Sorry. I didn’t know Ianto had company.”
“Yeah,” Lorne says. “I got in last night. Do you do this a lot—break in to make Ianto breakfast?”
“Yes,” Jack says cheerfully. “Good thing I didn’t sneak into the shower to surprise him, isn’t it? Where is he?”
“Getting coffee,” Lorne says, not entirely comfortable with being mostly-naked in Ianto’s kitchen with Ianto’s . . . other lover, is the best way he can put it. “He’s out, and you know how he gets.”
“Yeah, I do. How do you like your eggs?”
“Um,” Lorne says.
“I can do fried, scrambled and omlettes if you don’t mind that they’re not too fancy.”
“Um,” Lorne says again. “I’m kind of undressed.”
“We could both be naked, if that would make you more comfortable,” Jack offers and pulls off his braces.
“No, it really wouldn’t.” He crosses his arms.
Jack sighs and pulls up his braces again, and picks up his coat. “You’d like me to scram.”
“Kind of, yeah. I mean, c’mon, I’m only here for 48 hours. You’ve got him the rest of the year.”
“Yeah,” Jack says and his smile looks a little forced. “I’ve got him, all right.” He pulls on his coat and says, “Take care of each other, okay?”
“Of course,” Lorne says and lets him out.
- Prompt:c aptured. For . Thinking of Ianto and lyrics of Finger Eleven’s “One Thing”.
His wrists hurt.
This was not unusual. This was almost commonplace now. The skin was chaffed from his manacles and there was a constant ache between his shoulders from having his arms spread.
Restless tonight
The sounds of the Valiant carried on around him. The engines pulsed. Sometimes he heard the whine and roar of weapons firing, and he hated those days particularly because Tish would have damp, red eyes when she came to feed him.
The Master couldn’t have found more thorough punishment for him. To be locked away from contact, completely untouched.
I drew a really thin line
He missed touching. He missed being touched.
He missed Ianto. Ianto had been very good at touching. He’d craved it, was why, he’d gone untouched for so long too and when Jack came along, when Jack showed him how gentle he could be, Ianto didn’t want to stop.
If I gave it all away for one thing
Jack could be very, very gentle.
Ianto could, too.
Just for one thing
His team, his little team, his family, his partner—he missed them all so much, almost as much as he missed being touched. For the first five months or so Jack thought of every bargaining chip he could, every offer he could make to the Master just to know—he didn’t even have to let Jack go, he just wanted to know—
Not that the Master was interested in anything Jack had to offer. This was the other part of his punishment. No touch. No contact. No one but Tish bringing him food, and she was forbidden to speak to him.
If I knew all about this one thing
Jack considered his life to be pretty irony-free—it was what it was, nothing more, nothing less—but it was rather ironic he’d only realized how much Ianto meant to him when he was gone forever.
Probably gone forever. Lost in the Himalyas, dead from the Toclafane, just . . . gone.
He hated knowing Ianto would never know what happened to him, why he’d gone, that he’d meant to come back. That had been the plan. Get his answers, get a cure, come home. Come home to Ianto and . . . figure things out from there.
Wouldn’t that be something
“I miss you,” he whispered sometimes to the memory. “I miss you so much.”
I just hate how it sounds
- Prompt: tied-up. For . Jack/Ianto.
When Jack came to he was tied up, and Ianto was sitting in front of him, legs crossed, hands folded. He looked calm.
That was what scared Jack.
“Ianto,” he began.
“So, here we are,” Ianto said. “You and I. Alone at last. The only way I’ve found to get you to actually sit still.”
“I’m losing circulation in my hands.”
“Do you think I’m going to be sympathetic?” Ianto said, and his tone was worringly serious. “Do you think my heart is going to melt, Jack?”
“. . . I’d hoped.”
“It’s not,” Ianto said, and Jack could see the veneer of calm beginning to crack. “My heart is stone, Jack, and you should know. You made it that way.”
“Ianto, whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to work.”
“Oh, yes it is. I’ve been waiting for htis day a very, very long time and I know exactly what I’m doing. You are going to sit there,” his voice dropped to nearly a whisper, “and I am going to watch you suffer.”
- kidnapped claimed
- caring claimed
- Prompt: on his knees. For . Ianto of course (sorry!) making him beg…
“Now is not the time, Jack,” Ianto said, still typing, and Jack huffed and looked away a moment. Getting angry wouldn’t help, of course: when he got blustery and pushy Ianto would only get calmer and more remote.
So perhaps the other direction was the way to go.
He bent over Ianto’s shoulder and said softly, “Please? Please, Ianto?”
Ianto’s fingers paused for a moment, but he said, “I’m busy. Go . . .do some work or something.”
“Please,” Jack wheedled in a near-whisper. He slid down the chair until he was kneeling on the floor and said, “Please,” again, slipping a finger through the back beltloop of Ianto’s trousers.
“Stop it,” Ianto said.
“Mm,” Jack said. From this angle and this level he could see the muscles in Ianto’s forearms as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He leaned his cheek against Ianto’s arm and Ianto absently reached back to pat his cheek.
“Get up,” he said. “Go to work. We can go home in a few hours—and then you can do whatever you like with me.”
Jack glanced at him. Oh yes. There was that smile, the one you’d only see if you knew to look for it, and gone from Ianto’s lips as quickly as it had come.
Jack sighed dramatically and left slipped an arm around Ianto’s waist, but he couldn’t stay kneeling long: the concrete floor was too uncomfortable. “You promise? You won’t keep me waiting long?”
Ianto stopped typing again and looked at him. “Do I ever?”
Jack knelt up and kissed him, got to his feet and squeezed Ianto’s shoulder. “I’m going to get some work done.”
“Good idea, sir.” Slight pause. “It’ll help pass the time.”
- Prompt: obedient. For . Jack/Ianto— or Jack and Ianto.
When Ianto whispers, “Kiss me,” Jack kisses him slowly, framing his face in both hands.
When Ianto says, “I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep tonight, Jack,” Jack lies beside him all night, watching over him.
When Ianto lets his hand brush against Jack’s, Jack clasps it loosely and gives him a reassuring wink.
When Ianto said quietly, head on Jack’s shoulder, “Stay with me,” Jack said, “All right.”
- Prompt: losing his cherry. For . With anybody!
“No, don’t tell me,” Ianto says, and Jack smiles as he sips his water. “He was dashing, charming, devastatingly handsome—”
“No,” Jack says, shaking his head. “First of it, it was a she.”
“Oh, really?” Ianto leans back, looking interested.
“Yup. She was very beautiful, though.”
“Of course,” Ianto interjects and Jack shrugs and leans his chin on his hands.
“She was very beautiful,” he begins, in story-telling mode now, “and very pale. She wore all black, and she was kind . . . which is what I needed more than charm at the time.” He pauses and picks up his water glass again, and Ianto says nothing, his expression going from amused to concerned. “I’d just watched my best friend die,” Jack says quietly and smiles to himself at Ianto’s soft sound of shock and sympathy. “I thought I was going to die, too. I scared, Ianto. I was so scared.
“I’m not even sure where she came from, but out of nowhere she was with me, and she said it wasn’t my time and I shouldn’t be afraid. She said she loved me and would stay with me a while, if I wanted her to. Which I did, of course, and . . . well, one thing led to another.” He sips his water again. “I was young, and she was very beautiful.
“In the morning she was gone.”
“Wow,” Ianto says. “Did you even get her name?”
“Yup,” says Jack. “Her name was Death.”
“Death.”
“Death.”
“And I thought the names parents give their children now are strange.”
Jack sips again, knowing that Ianto wouldn’t understand and not sure what more he could explain. She had been beautiful and right and she’d patted his cheek when she thought he was asleep, and all through his very long life he’d never forgotten what she said.
You’ll never see me again. But I’ll see you.
- shagged out claimed
- Prompt: shocked. For . And let Ianto be the one who shocks him (preferably not with electricity or Lisa).
After all the flirting, after all the remarks about harassment, after all the not-so-accidental brushes and wordless, loaded gazes. . .
“Oh, that’s it,” Ianto said and when Jack opened his mouth to retort he found his words muffled by Ianto’s mouth, Ianto’s fists knotted into his shirt.
It wasn’t until Ianto relaxed, unclenched his hands and pressed his palms to Jack’s chest, that Jack recovered enough to respond—until he could lift his hands to place them Ianto’s waist, until he could flick his tongue against Ianto’s and breathe in the scent of his skin.
When Ianto finally pulled away, out of breath and his eyes wide, he said, “It’s good to know I can still surprise you.”
“Ianto,” Jack said, “you’re always surprising me.”
And then kissed him back.
- Prompt: drunken. For . Jack/Ianto.
Jack’s head lolled on Ianto’s shoulder and he said, words slurring together just a little bit, “You know, Ianto, I really love you.”Ianto looked at him, then patted his cheek. “How many have you had, sir?”
“This many.” He held up three fingers, then changed it to four. “Does that look right to you?” He folded and unfolded each of his fingers one at a time, puzzling at them. “I think it was this many,” he said at last, holding up his hand, palm out.
Ianto wrapped his hand around Jack’s fingers and lowered his hand. “However many it was, it was enough and it’s time to go home.”
“I don’t want to go home. I like it here. They bring me drinks. And your shoulder is comfortable.”
“Well,” Ianto said and squeezed Jack’s fingers. “I suppose we can stay a bit longer.”
- daring claimed
- Prompt: exploring . For . With Ianto.
“Oh my god,” Ianto said and Jack laughed. He’d figured bringing Ianto would like this place. “How many documents do they have here?”
“Legend has it they got to thirty billion and then stopped counting, and that was centuries ago. It’s probably double that now, if not more.”
“And what are they? Histories, you said?”
“Official histories, oral histories, folk histories—thousands of planets, millions of civilizations.” Ianto’s delight in the place in contagious: Jack can’t help smiling too. “What do you think?”
“I think I know what I want to do for the rest of my life.” He laughed. “Can we look around?”
“Of course.” He grabbed Ianto’s hands and they started down the main staircase, stopping every few floors so Ianto could marvel at the size again. They passed scholars of many species and archive employees wearing red sashes over their ordinary clothes. On one floor there was a large video screen, and gathered in the small chairs set before it is a group of small creatures in identical clothing—school children in their uniforms, Jack thought, watching a video of an oral history of their people.
He took Ianto to the bottom level. An archivist helped them set up one of the reading machines and got the records Jack wanted, and Ianto’s eyes got wide when he saw the maps and annotations displayed before him.
“This is where I grew up,” Jack said, pointing to a peninsula. “My grandparents were some of the first settlers. Zoom,” he told the machine, and the map zoomed in from a basic topographic map to a more detailed view of small city. “We lived—north by two degrees, please—we lived here.”
Ianto leaned forward, studying the satellite pictures. “I don’t see anything. Were these taken before your home was built?”
“No. After.” Ianto looked at him, then placed his hand over Jack’s and lightly squeezed it. “There’s a video record about the war, if you want to see it.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.” He looked at the map a moment more, then said, “Off,” and stood. “Let’s look around some more.”
“All right. Is there anything about Earth?”
Jack laughed. “Oh, yes. A lot of stories, and some of them are even true.”
- swimming in the buff claimed
- Prompt: bath time. For . With Ianto.
It was the flinching. Ianto didn’t flinch—Ianto was the epitome of calm, the picture of self-control. Except . . . he was flinching. He was flinching at the oddest things, and when Ianto wasn’t his calm, even-tempered self, everything else in Jack’s world went off-kilter.
He placed his hands on Ianto’s shoulders—easing up their weight just a bit at Ianto’s cringe—and said, “You know what you need?”
“More hours in the day,” Ianto said, not looking up from his filing.
“Nope,” Jack said and turned him around—pausing only a moment at the annoyed, weary expression on Ianto’s face. He kissd the tip of Ianto’s nose. “A bath.”
“A bath,” Ianto repeated, skeptical. “I had a shower earlier.”
“No,” Jack said, “I mean, a bath. Come one: we have somewhere else to be.”
***
That somewhere else is a hotel, a nice but not extravagant one. Jack’s only requirement was that the bathtub is large (and that they have room service. He loved room service. It was right up there with camping as one of Earth’s better inventions.)
Ianto took off his clothes as the tub was filling, saying nothing as Jack poured in oil under the running tap. His body was lean and pale, and as always Jack had to pause and appreciate its smooth, long lines. Dressed, Ianto looks boyishly slim; undressed, Jack can see the echoes of his warrior ancestors, men who wenched and warred across this cold country; he can easily imagine Ianto in a tunic made from bear skins, his hair and beard long, a spear in his hand.
“What?” Ianto said, holding Jack’s shoulder to steady himself as he stepped into the tub. “What are you looking at?”
“Just you.” He smiled and nodded to the water. “Get in.”
Ianto eased into the water, wincing slightly at its heat, and then leaned back and slowly exhaled. His eyes closed, and Jack kissed his forehead before leaning down to untie his boots.
“What’s got you so indulgent?” Ianto murmured, tone sleepy with relaxation.
“I worry.” Jack pulled off his boots and socks, braces, shirt, trousers, underclothes, aware that Ianto was watching him through his eyelashes. He got into the tub, and there was a little jostling and sloshing as they tried to get into positions they both found comfortable. They finally settled on face to face, legs entangled, close enough for Jack to soap up a wash cloth and begin to drag suds across Ianto’s shoulders and down his chest. He could feel Ianto relaxing under his ministrations, could see him let go of the tensions of the day.
He said soothingly, “No arguments here. No one asking you to do things for them. No pressures, no . . . no nothing. Just you and me. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect,” Ianto said and leaned back again, utterly relaxed.
“Absolutely perfect,” Jack agreed and put the washcloth down to fit himself against Ianto’s side.
- Prompt: heterosexual. For , with pretty much anyone.
He likes her best like this, her face scrubbed and skin fresh, naked and round at his side. He appreciates curves. He shows his appreciation with his tongue and his fingertips, and Rose stretches out beneath him, purring with pleasure.
She touches his hair when he lays his head on her stomach. They’re gentle with each other, tender. Friends who make love, lovers who are foremost friends. He likes to lie at her feet and massage her toes while she watches him with sleepy eyes, smiling.
Sometimes they sleep like honeymooners, wrapped in each other. Sometimes they lie side-by-side, holding hands, and he tells stories, his gestures big, her laughter free.
He loves her so simply.
He holds her and sings to her, “‘There’s one Rose sweeter than any that grows, and that’s my Rosie, I’m so glad she chose me . . .'” She shakes with laughter and he doesn’t care.
- Prompt: doing his best for interspecies relations. For . Jack meets the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” Jack said soothingly. “I work for an organization that can help you get home, or at least help make you more comfortable here. Do you remember the name of your home world?”
The four man-size reptiles exchanged looks. “Uh . . .” said one. “New York City?”
“Oh! New new new new new new new new new new new new new new New York?” Jack said hopefully, because he knew where that was.
Again, the Looks.
“No,” another said slowly. “Just the regular one. You know, with Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty and—”
“And Panucchi’s Pizza!” piped up another, and there were a few minutes of whooping and shoving.
Jack crossed his arms, puzzled. If they lived in New York . . . if they knew pizza . . . “You’re not aliens, are you,” he said at last.
“No, dude! We’re tourists.”
- 28. Prompt:injured . For .
“You’re bleeding again,” Ianto says gently and holds a handkerchief to Jack’s lip. Jack’s lips curve and Ianto tsks at him. “Stop smiling. It reopens the wound.”
“You wanna heal me?” Jack presses Ianto’s hand against his face.
“Stop that.” He does not, of course, try to move his hand away. “We need to get some ice on your eye at the very least.”
“We’ll just ask the guards for some, then?” He smiles lazily at Ianto. “Maybe they’ll include a martini and a snack, too.”
“Three olives,” Ianto says solemnly. “For the nutritional value.” He removes his hand from Jack’s face and presses the handkerchief to his mouth again. “Does it hurt to breathe? I don’t like that rasp.”
“You worry too much.” He shifts closer to Ianto, fitting himself against the young man’s body, head resting in the crook of his neck. Ianto is so warm, even in this cold place, and that’s all Jack really needs: contact, skin.
Ianto’s hand hesitates a moment, then begins stroking the back of Jack’s head. “You’re going to be fine,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. “You’re going to be okay.”
Jack has no doubt about this: he’s always fine, eventually. But if Ianto needs the reassurance Jack is not going to tell him to stop.