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He and Jack had never shared a bed for the night. They’d slept together, sure, but they hadn’t actually slept together, one of them always making an excuse and slipping off after they’d worn each other out. They were stuck in this odd in-between place, not at the point where Ianto would expect to be welcome for the night—he didn’t think Jack would ever want him that way—but certainly not just coworkers anymore. The looks were too lingering for that, the touches too tender.
Sometimes, when Jack holds him, Ianto pretends it’s about more than just the sex. That somewhere deep down in his heart, Jack loves him back.
But that’s not true. That can never be true. And it’s selfish of him to want it, really. Even in the situation that Jack loves him, that Jack wants him in the way he needs him to, it would never work. Ianto Jones is doomed to die before he ever reaches an age where settling down is an option, like all Torchwood agents do, and Jack is—Jack is Jack. Wonderfully, horribly impossible, and out of his reach in every way.
So when Jack falls asleep with his face in the crook of Ianto’s neck and an arm around his waist it sends his head spinning. Because sex is one thing, and he can tell himself that it’s just blowing off steam, that Ianto was just present and willing and easy, but this is different. This is soft and domestic, and when Jack shifts in his sleep and curls around Ianto it makes his stomach flutter in a way it hasn’t since—well, since Lisa.
Part of him knows he should get up—make some excuse or just get dressed and go, and Jack won’t mention it in the morning and it’ll never happen again because surely it must have been an accident.
But it’s warm under the covers and the night air is cold, and nothing will change if Ianto just spends one night in Jack’s bed, so he pulls the duvet over his shoulders and relaxes into the arms holding him.
It’s the best night’s sleep he’s had since Canary Wharf.
After that, it becomes more common. When Jack offers to drive him home in the evenings there’s a silent request there, one that Ianto knows he could deny and Jack would accept it unquestioningly. But he never does.
They spend nights together, and when a miracle (or Jack’s biased shift planning) allows their days off to coincide, slow mornings breathing gently into each other’s mouths and making toast and tea. Jack makes fun of Ianto for the state of his cupboards, stocked with three bags of coffee beans, a stack of soup cans, and an expired loaf of bread that is basically a biohazard, but he goes out the next morning and comes back with two shopping bags. All long-life products, tins of tuna (which Ianto hates, but doesn’t mention) and frozen packets of vegetables that won’t go off before he gets around to using them.
Jack would do that for any of the team, though. It doesn’t mean Ianto’s special. It definitely doesn’t mean he likes him.
Every time he wakes up with Jack still in his bed, he believes that a little less.
They slip into a routine, until the only times Jack sleeps in his own bed is when it's his turn on Rift duty—and even then, Ianto joins him more often than not. Jack’s clothes slowly move from his bedroom in the Hub to the spare drawer in Ianto’s dresser. His coat lives on the stand by Ianto’s front door. The teams gets used to only calling one of them for late night emergencies.
It happens so gradually that Ianto doesn’t notice Jack has moved in until one night, when they’re in the living room and he’s drifting off on Jack’s shoulder while he surfs channels.
This is nice, he thinks.
And then, just before he falls asleep, probably should’ve told Rhiannon about him by now.