Because there was a time, in the Agency, a long time, when he'd been a goddamn border prince. Regents and seneschals would bow or get out of his way. Oh, he was higher than a kite, keener than a knife...
And every day, every moment he paused to know what he was doing, every instant he thought instead of letting inertia carry him, there was a disgust so deep it became a palpable hurt.
he learned to twist it. He learned to convince his experiencing mind that it was the ache of a sore muscle, or the sort of nostalgia people hit when they thought about their own mortality, or a natural apprehension about passing beyond so many rules and lines. He can feel that now, coiling at his diaphragm; the old torturer techniques, the old torturer sickness.
He crouches down in front of the bed edge, drawing Ianto down into a closer embrace. Stay here. It's a comforting gesture, with the added benefit of bringing Ianto solidly into his sphere of control. He can read every tremor of muscle or irregularity of breath. And he can keep Ianto here.
Let the panic run its course, is his instinct. Either the urge to get lost in this will break, like a fever, or it'll take root and push Ianto into a backslide – and if it's the latter, Ianto wouldn't have been a soft break, anyway.
So he holds on, hoping for the moment when something has to give – when it's clear to Ianto's animal hindbrain that either this feeling itself is the enemy, or Jack is.
no subject
Because there was a time, in the Agency, a long time, when he'd been a goddamn border prince. Regents and seneschals would bow or get out of his way. Oh, he was higher than a kite, keener than a knife...
And every day, every moment he paused to know what he was doing, every instant he thought instead of letting inertia carry him, there was a disgust so deep it became a palpable hurt.
he learned to twist it. He learned to convince his experiencing mind that it was the ache of a sore muscle, or the sort of nostalgia people hit when they thought about their own mortality, or a natural apprehension about passing beyond so many rules and lines. He can feel that now, coiling at his diaphragm; the old torturer techniques, the old torturer sickness.
He crouches down in front of the bed edge, drawing Ianto down into a closer embrace. Stay here. It's a comforting gesture, with the added benefit of bringing Ianto solidly into his sphere of control. He can read every tremor of muscle or irregularity of breath. And he can keep Ianto here.
Let the panic run its course, is his instinct. Either the urge to get lost in this will break, like a fever, or it'll take root and push Ianto into a backslide – and if it's the latter, Ianto wouldn't have been a soft break, anyway.
So he holds on, hoping for the moment when something has to give – when it's clear to Ianto's animal hindbrain that either this feeling itself is the enemy, or Jack is.